The War Widows by Leah Fleming Read Free Book Online Page B

ordered, opening the door into the dark narrow street. The boy staggered out into the alley, defenceless but alive, soon swallowed up into the night.
    Ana slammed the door, pulled away the sheet and dragged the bodies to fill his gap, appalled at what she had just done. I have betrayed my country, God help me! She crossed herself. No one must ever know of this treachery or her family would be dishonoured for ever.
    Feeling sick, exhausted and defiant at her action, she struggled to justify what she had just done. Surely the boy would be felled before he left the winding alleys of the Venetian port? He was an easy target, even for a child. Ana shuddered. Her duty lay with the living, not the dead.
    ‘Ana! Ana! Where are you? Have you been asleep?’
    Perhaps it was a dream, just a nightmare, and tomorrow she’d find it had been all a figment of her imagination.
    But when the sun rose like a ball in the east, nothing had changed. She had met the enemy and his name was Otto. His face haunted her dreams. For that one act of mercy, she’d been punished over and over, but now there was no time to dwell on such horrors.
    The two women sat together on the bench, moving closer as if to gain courage from one another. Thedaughters on their knees reached out to one another. A tall woman walked past them, staring. Someone brought them a cup of tea and they sipped it politely. Ana did not know what to say to introduce herself to the oriental girl, even though her English was better than most.
    ‘You wait also for soldier boy to come?’ she asked, looking again at the clock on the wall. ‘It is late.’
    ‘Mr Stan will not forget. I wrote many times,’ smiled the young woman, sipping the tea, her back straight. Her voice was clipped but the English was good.
    ‘My man is at camp, maybe come. Maybe he send someone,’ Ana nodded. ‘Where you stay, in Manchester?’
    ‘No, it is a town called Grimbleton. I will live with his family when he is a soldier. I sent a telegram. He will come soon…This is not tea.’ She grimaced, trying to swallow the terrible taste, and Ana laughed. She would never get used to this dishwater either.
    ‘We go Grimbleton also,’ Ana nodded, wishing this drink was hot strong Greek coffee with
glyka–
lots of sugar-but she had not tasted real grains for years. ‘My man has a house there for us to stay, my fiancé.’ She paused. She wanted to be thought respectable, even to a stranger.
    ‘We shall see each other in the village then?’ answered the other mother.
    Ana nodded at the tiny woman, who was sitting so pert, her glossy, black hair in a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Her face was heart-shaped. With those wide eyes and dusky skin, she looked delicate, like a china doll. ‘Where you come from?’ Ana asked.
    ‘London…it has been a long way, a long story to tell,’ the other woman replied, her eyes lowered as if she did not want to be reminded of her past. ‘And you?’
    ‘I come from Athens…Greece.’ Ana did not want to give her true identity. ‘It is a long story how I come to Manchester with my Dina.’ They smiled politely and fell silent.
    ‘Your child has hair like gold,’ sighed the oriental girl. ‘My soldier has hair like a sunset too. It is not a colour we see often in hair. Somewhere I have a picture. Would you like to see my intended?’ She was rummaging through her straw holdall but stopped suddenly to inspect a man as he hurried over to the desk looking in their direction.
    He was tall and lanky, dressed in a black suit with hair flattened down into a centre parting, on his face a thin moustache. The officer looked at them both, gathered up his papers and strode across towards them.
    ‘No one’s come for you yet? Are you sure you’re in the right place? This is Manchester. You can’t stay here much longer.’
    Ana looked at her neighbour and promptly put her cup down. ‘I go nowhere. I wait here. They will come.’ She had been in too many displaced persons’