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The mould-covered concrete walls of the apartment building at 9 Mirowski Square hid a happy household inside.The Kostanski home was on the ground floor and opened out onto a courtyard behind and onto a square in front that looked out over the market.The four of them had lived there together since German bombing had forced them out of their home in a housing estate on Krochmalna Street.
Jan raced along the footpath in front of the building, then banged on the door for one of his sisters to let him in.Jadzia, his nine-year-old sister, opened the door with a frown.
“Why all the noise?Use your key for heaven’s sakes, Jan.”She liked to act as though she was his mother, which irritated and amused him depending on his mood.
“I left it at home,” he replied, barging through the door and past her into the dark, cramped space.
The scent of freshly baked bread filled the kitchen, and his stomach growled.He headed for the source of the smell and reached out a hand to take a bread roll cooling on the bench.Jadzia slapped it away.
“Hey,” he exclaimed.“I’m hungry.”
“It’s still hot,” she said with a tutting noise.“You’ll burn your tongue.”
“I don’t care,” he pouted.“My stomach is caving in.And it smells so good.”
She smiled then and her face lit up.Her neatly curled brown hair fell to her shoulders and her blue eyes were large and piercing, just like his own, though his hair was blonder than hers and she often moaned that it wasn’t fair because he didn’t care either way and she’d always wanted straight, blonde hair just like his.
“Fine.Burn yourself for all I care,” she said.
With a grin, he grabbed the bread and shoved it into his mouth.He took a gigantic bite before searching the ice box for some butter to slather over the dark, grainy roll.
“Why are you home early?”asked Danuta, his youngest sister, coming in the back door with a basket full of neatly folded clothing tucked beneath one arm.At seven years old, she had a slight build with dark hair and eyes.Her pale skin made her eyes seem black in her narrow face.
Jan chewed with loud smacking sounds designed to irritate his sisters.“Mama sent me home.The German soldiers shot the priests.”He intended his words to shock, but the look of horror on his sisters’ faces sobered him momentarily.
“The priests?”Jadzia gaped.
Danuta’s eyes filled with tears.She sniffled.“I wish Mama would come home.”
“She’s fine.She’s at the market with Antoni.She told me she’d come home soon.Why don’t we go across the courtyard to the Wierzbickas’ until then?They won’t mind, and I’ll bet they have something we can eat.”
“All you think about is food,” spat Jadzia, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
Danuta set the clothes basket on the floor and raised her chin.“I want to see Babcia and Papa.”
“They’re not our grandparents,” replied Jadzia, bending over to meet Danuta’s gaze and tugging her cardigan more tightly around her thin shoulders.
“Yes, they are,” she objected with a sniffle.“Aren’t they, Jan?”
He shrugged.“The only ones we’ve got now.Come on, wrap up and we’ll go.It’s getting cold in here.”
The girls wrapped themselves in woollen shawls and tugged boots over their thick socks.Jan pulled on his overcoat and the three of them shut the back door behind them, then trudged through the small courtyard that joined two rows of apartments.
The shrubbery in the courtyard was dry and bedraggled.Weeds slouched along the base of the building’s walls.A bicycle rested on the wall next to the front door opposite the Kostanskis’ house.The sky was grey and overcast.It would be hard to tell when the sun set, since the gloaming cast such a dull light over the neighbourhood.
The two families had chosen apartments connected by a courtyard so they could spend time together.If they couldn’t live together, they wanted to be as close to one another as they could.Antoni Wierzbicka was a widower.His wife had died years earlier and left him with two children to raise.He lived with his children, Nathan and Nacha, his elderly parents, his brother Berek, along with Berek’s wife, Berkowa, and their two children, Fela and Jakob.
Waltrina Kostanska, Jan’s mother, was a divorcee.She'd met Antoni years earlier when she was coming to terms with her newly single life and they became close, their families knit together more tightly through the adversity of German assault on their city, and subsequent occupation.
Jan and his sisters burst through the back door of the Wierzbicka house and into the living room.Nacha and Nathan sat cross-legged on the floor with a small box between them housing a stack of cards piled up like a multi-story building.
Nathan threw up an arm as if to protect the structure.“Watch it!”
Laughing, Jan thundered past them into the kitchen, where he found Babcia standing over a pile of steaming hotcebularz, a wheat bun topped with onion.He stopped at the bench, eyes wide, staring at the treats.
Babcia chuckled.“Go on, take one.You need fattening up.”She smiled, the creases around her eyes deepening.She wore a dark wraparound dress with a fur trim.Her dark hair was laced with grey, but her brown eyes sparkled with mischief.
