‘I have
been entrusted with a tale that came to me in the strangest of ways..’
‘Yes, the
very strangest of ways.’
The old
monk scraped his hefty chair nearer his desk in the dim attic room. Pulling his hood and robe tight at the
wind’s whine through sly cracks in the narrow window, he ran his finger over the
yellowing page of the giant tome before him. From a wooden, gold-rimmed casket by his side, gently he
lifted a heap of crumpled pages, smoothing them, the candlelight flickering
over the fading ink as he strained to see the words scrawled hastily in a
foreign hand. No matter. He would stay true to every one.
‘And that I
must do, for this is a tale not mine alone - but the secrets of three hearts I
must tell..’ he whispered to no one.
No one.
He flinched at the sudden ache of emptiness, then shook his head. ‘No. I will think of you, reader, as a friend. Cara – that is what I will call
you. In a tounge of old it means
friend and that is what you are, for it is only a friend to which I would trust
my truth.’
He dipped his pen in ink, the scratching
of the nib the only sound in the silence seeping through the high stone walls
around him.
‘I am Kaskia..’
He squinted at the girlish hand, then wrote on, mouthing: ‘I come to
you reluctantly, bound by pact, neither of my own free will or
accord. I come tortured. Hounded. Yes, hounded as though I were being chased through every
hall of hell…’
Kratlow, Poland. December 1940.
I am Kaskia.
I come to you reluctantly, bound by pact, neither of my own free will or
accord. I come tortured. Hounded. Yes, hounded as though I were being chased through every
hall of hell, for I come to you far, far from my home. In writing this, my hand has been
forced. I have no desire to tell
my story, but tell you I must, for I have been told that in baring my soul, in
giving witness to what has gone before and through confession I might find my
path home and freedom from this torment.
Torment I brought upon myself, it is true. This is in part my story. But it is the story of my life entwined with another’s. And it is the part I played in that
soul’s story on which I must shine a light. As I knew it and as she told it to me that night.
That long night.
She was bones by the time they let me see her. A skeleton, a sunken face with wild,
wide eyes in a famished frame. The
stench in the holding cell was suffocating. Slow condensation dripped from murky, green walls and from
dark corners came the muffled sobs of women, pitiful whining of children and
consumptive coughs of fathers shuffling in what little space they could
find. She was there amongst them,
crouched, her head resting on a stone slab. Alone there, not a body by her side.
They let me see her before they took her away. Why they granted me this favour you
will come to understand. For now,
know that she was alone and she grasped my hand as if I were her only friend in
the world. And her last. The last she would see. She gripped my arm tightly, her dirty
nails so long they dug into my flesh.
‘Kaskia!
They have let you come!’
She sunk further onto her knees, feverishly kissing
my hand, burying her head in my lap, beginning to weep. Long, racking sobs, so fierce her ribs
heaved through her flimsy dress and I feared she would stop breathing. I covered her head with my hands,
cursing myself. Guilt came
flooding – but what would a confession be without truth. Hatred
too. Yes, hatred still. Blame. And recrimination.
‘I know, Kaskia, I know..’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘What do you mean?” I asked, uneasily.
‘I saw.
I saw...’
I shifted on the slimy stone slab, lifting her face
to look into those frightened, wild eyes.
‘What did you see? Tell me.’
She shook her head, her eyes unfocused, as if trying
to make sense of what I was saying.
I could see that the hunger had driven her half-mad.
‘No, no,’ she rasped. ‘First, Sasha.
Tell me – what has become of Sasha?’
I bristled at the name.
‘Sasha is safe.’ The words stuck in my throat, my eyes and head aching
unmercifully. She would never
know the truth of that boy. I wanted to leave this hell, this
hole. But I had been bid come and
I must stay.
‘Dzięki Bogu!
Thank God,’ she mumbled, her head hanging limp. She lifted it.
‘And my mother?
She is safe?’
The door whined behind us. I looked up to see Klaus in his cold, stark uniform
shadowing the light in the doorway.
He stared at us, a twitch at his jaw, a flicker in his pale grey
eyes. Of what? Pain? I looked back to Etain.
‘The deal stands.’
‘One day she will find Tata again,’ she
whispered. ‘They will be happy.’
Always of others. She thought always of others. Saintly, saintly Etain. I hated her again. Did she not realise she was about to
die? That these were her last
moments on earth? Had she no
thought or fear for herself?
‘I am so afraid, Kaskia,’ she murmured through
half-closed eyes, her body beginning to tremble, fatigue and hunger overcoming
her.
I looked at the lumbering, dark iron door up
ahead. I knew it would open soon
enough. That she would walk
through that door never to return.
And it was I that had brought her to this fate.
‘Why, Kaskia?’ she whimpered as if half asleep, her
eyes closing. ‘Why was I shown,
only to lose?’
‘Tell me,’ I said, reluctantly turning her face to
mine - for I knew this was my penance, the price I must pay. ‘Tell me.’
