Read Online Magda's Daughter by Catrin Collier - Free Book Online

she had learned of her mother’s death. ‘I’ll telephone the church now, and ask him to call here in the morning.’
    â€˜You’d better telephone Ned, too,’ Alma suggested, ‘and tell him that I am staying here with you tonight. ‘
    If Helena heard her, as she made her way to the hallway, she didn’t reply. Alma picked up the grainy black-and-white wedding photograph. It was one of the few possessions Magda had owned when they’d first met.
    â€˜You weren’t supposed to die young, Magda,’ Alma reproached. ‘Not when your daughter still needs you. I’ll try to look after her for you. But it’s going to be quite a task. I think the last thing you would have wanted Helena to do was postpone her wedding and go haring off to Poland with your ashes.’
    Alma stared at the photograph for a few more seconds. Was it her imagination, or had a chill draught cut through the warm, still air of the living room?
    â€˜It’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard.’ Andrew paced to the window before turning. Alma, Father O’Brien and Bethan were watching him intently, but his attention remained riveted on Ned and Helena. ‘Forgive me for stating the obvious, but Poland is a Communist country!’
    â€˜We know, Dad.’ Unlike his father, Ned had spent all morning listening to Helena, and had come to terms with her stubborn resolve to return her mother’s remains to Poland so they could be interred in the grave of the father she had never known. He, Alma, his mother, and the priest had already wasted over an hour trying to persuade Helena that it would be foolhardy to attempt the trip, before his father had returned home from morning surgery.
    Father O’Brien had concurred with Alma. He had told Helena point-blank that, given the political climate and Arctic state of the Cold War between Eastern and Western Europe, it could take years for her to obtain permission to transport Magdalena Janek’s body to Poland; that was if she ultimately succeeded. But she might, just might, with help from him and the Catholic Church, be able to take her mother’s ashes to Poland, unless an officious bureaucrat or customs officer took it into his head to search her suitcase or ask questions that would land her in trouble – or jail.
    To Ned and Alma’s relief, Helena had listened to the priest. But now his father was threatening to destroy what little headway they had made.
    Ned searched for something positive he could say in favour of the proposed journey. ‘A couple of friends of mine from university drove across Europe last summer in their old van, Dad. They crossed from West Germany into East, and went on to Poland and Russia. They reached Minsk before they turned back. They said it was comparatively simple. All they had to do was pay for the relevant visas for the countries they intended to visit behind the Iron Curtain, and buy enough local currency to cover the cost of their food and lodging for the length of their stay. The authorities fixed the amount. They did say that the youth hostels and restaurants weren’t up to much, but apart from the grim state of the roads and the low quality of the food, they enjoyed the experience. Everyone they met was friendly and very helpful.’ Ned realised from the expression on his father’s face that Andrew remained unconvinced.
    â€˜Obviously your friends survived because they returned to tell the tale,’ Andrew allowed grudgingly. ‘But that doesn’t mean Helena should emulate them. No young girl should contemplate travelling alone to police states that are renowned for their hostility to Westerners. And that’s without bringing the “friendly” locals into it. You know as well as I do that Western students have been murdered in the Eastern bloc for their jeans.’
    â€˜The papers exaggerate –’ Ned began.
    â€˜They’d have a job