Dobryd (12 page)

“How dare you insult a Russian officer? You're lucky I don't have you arrested for trying to rob our soldiers.”

The woman muttered something, a plea perhaps, since she seemed ready to fall on her knees before him. Her submissiveness only incited him further. “That's enough. Stop whining. You don't fool me with your meekness. I know your kind. You were happy enough when we came and freed you from the Germans but already you're robbing us. All you Jews are the same. You live for money. It's no use expecting you to have honour or loyalty. You'd sell your own people if you had the chance.”

The officer's voice had carried, and now there was quite a crowd around him and the unfortunate woman. Her cheeks were as flushed as his, but her eyes were downcast, her lips pressed together. Silence remained her only defence.

Yuri walked over to the officer and put his hand on the man's shoulder. “Excuse me, captain, but you have no right to say any of the things you've been saying. You should apologize to these women.”

“Apologize? Why, you little worm, who the hell are you? What right do you have to correct my behaviour? Do you know what I can do to you for this? You've been hanging around with Jews so long you've forgotten how to behave with Russians.”

“No comrade, I have not forgotten anything. It's you who need to be reminded of certain things. This lady”—Yuri pointed to my aunt—“has given her son to fight the Germans. All these people have lost relatives to our common enemy. They've suffered enough. It's not right to abuse them any more.”

The captain was speechless for a moment. Then, suddenly aware of the crowd, which was growing larger than ever, he turned to Yuri and ordered him to follow. We all watched as they walked away briskly. Some of the children wanted to run after them, but they were quickly and decisively restrained. As soon as Yuri and the captain were out of sight, discussion broke out all around us. Some accused the woman of bringing on new troubles. Others vented their anger on the captain. My aunt was certain she would never see Yuri alive again.

In the evening, however, he showed up at our house at the usual time. He laughed and hugged my aunt as she poured out to him all the fearful situations her imagination had placed him in throughout this long day. Of course, he had been subjected to a severe tongue lashing; that was to be expected, but it really had not been very bad. The captain was hot-tempered and proud, but essentially a good man. In fact, Yuri warned my aunt, she should not be too surprised if the captain came to the market one day and apologized.

As it happened, the captain never came again to the marketplace, either to apologize or to shop. Yuri had over-estimated him. Like many of the younger soldiers, Yuri had great faith in his countrymen, in their goodness, their kindness, their great potential for perfecting the world they lived in. When my mother and my aunt explained to him how they saw the incident, as an outbreak of a disease that was at the best of times merely contained and not eradicated, Yuri would never agree with them. The captain, he insisted, was really a good fellow, if a little foolish. In no way did he speak for other Russians.

Their discussion about the captain went on for some days after the incident. It was dropped finally because they could not convince each other. But it returned in another form when we were preparing to leave Poland. Now, however, in the interest of preserving their friendship, the argument was pushed out of the way. The only reminder of the incident was the captain's aide. He shopped in the marketplace for his superior, but he always paid promptly, and without hesitation.

The next crisis went beyond mere insult. The captain may have disappeared from our lives, but Yuri's role as our protector continued. One night we were in the kitchen where we usually sat in the evenings. My mother often worked there while we kept her company. She brought her work home with her, and in order to have some light to work by she received an extra supply of kerosene. The lamp was lit and her papers were spread before it. Nearby, my aunt sat sewing, while on the floor Yuri was teaching me how to play chess.

Suddenly my mother jumped from her chair and it toppled over to our chess board. I looked up and saw that the papers were on fire. My mother was hitting the flames with her hands, but to no effect. Yuri was at her side quickly. Before my aunt or I had recovered from the shock of the fire, he had put it out. But he was too late. The papers had been destroyed.

We were terrified. My mother's employer was a capricious and irritable man who inspired fear in everyone who worked for him—soldiers and civilians alike. He was quite capable of handing out the most extreme punishment, for an act as inconvenient to him as the one that had just occurred.

Again, Yuri was the first to recover. He walked over to my mother and took both her hands in his. “Don't be afraid. I'll go with you tomorrow and explain everything.”

“You can't do that, Yuri,” argued my mother. “You've already gotten into trouble because of us. I can't allow you to get involved any further. I was responsible for those papers and I must tell the colonel what happened.”

“That's all right. You can do all the talking, but I'm coming along just in case. Your Russian is not all that good, you know. If you get excited or frightened, then the right words may not come. If I'm there, I can help you.”

My mother smiled at Yuri and I felt the tension log lessen around me. It had become a frequent source of amusement among us that although my mother was not Russian, she often had to help Yuri with his reading. The war had cut off his education when he was still in his early teens, although, like most Russians, he retained a deep reverence for learning and books. When books from Moscow began to come through to the army base in our town, Yuri launched himself into a determined effort at self-education. Eager as he was, learning was hard work for him. His hands and his mind had grown used to other kinds of tasks, and he was very impatient with his own clumsiness. My mother helped him when she could, with encouragement and direction, and he often teased her about being a harsh teacher.

His reason for going along with her now was so inadequate that it expressed his good will better than anything. My mother gave way. The next day they set out together, my mother carrying the charred, blackened papers, while Yuri held the kerosene lamp.

The colonel, impassive, listened to their story and dismissed them without a word. Yuri and my mother did not know what to expect. Then, a week later, soldiers came to our flat and connected our electrical lines. That evening, while we were still marvelling at the change in our lives, the colonel himself arrived. He looked around, touched the new light and turned to leave. With the door open behind him he turned back again to look at my mother. “A translator for the Russian army cannot live like a peasant,” he declared. Without waiting for a response he left. Ours became the first civilian dwelling in town to receive electricity.

IV

I began to have nightmares about my mother. Night after night I saw her being captured by the military police and imprisoned. Whenever I had this dream, I would wake up shouting her name, but when she came into my room I couldn't bring myself to describe the images that frightened me.

I decided to tell Yuri about my fears. I was too young to realize that my confession might put him in an awkward situation. True enough, he loved us, but he was also an ardent Communist, devoted to the Red Army. Yet I was so sure of his attachment to us that it did not occur to me to wonder how he would react to the news that my mother was stealing from that army.

We often went for long walks together. On one such occasion, when we were alone far from other people, I spilled out Elsa's story, my mother's answer, and the fear with which I now lived. Yuri heard me out with a serious face. He did not try to make me laugh about my fears. Nor did he seem surprised by what I told him. Had he known all along about my mother's trips?

We had come to a stone seat in the walls of the old fortifications. Yuri sat down and took my hands in his. Our faces were level. “You did well to speak to me, but now you must promise never to mention this to anyone else.” I promised quickly, impressed by his earnest expression and the sadness in his eyes.

“What your mother is doing is wrong, but these are very special times. Today, right and wrong are not exactly what they are in times of peace. Your mother has to care for you and your aunt. Right now the army pays her very little—it doesn't have more—so she does what she can to keep you warm and fed. In this way she is doing the right thing. Someday the state will take care of all its people and no one will have to steal. The war is not over yet, but it will be soon. Then peace and prosperity will come to all of us.”

Yuri's eyes were no longer sad. His face had changed into the familiar faraway expression that always accompanied his dreams about the future. It suddenly struck me that my aunt looked just like this when she talked of her summers as a young girl. The resemblance troubled me. What was the link between my aunt's lost past and the future Yuri promised me?

“Someday,” he went on, “everyone will be free and happy.” I wanted to believe him and soon all my doubts disappeared. My nightmares stopped. I waited, certain that Yuri would help us.

He did not fail me. Without telling us, he began to work at getting us out of Dobryd. It was, of course, the only solution. As long as my mother remained in Dobryd, there was no way he could make it unnecessary for her to travel. She had obtained her job only through Yuri's intercession. It paid very little, but there were others, as qualified as she, who would have replaced her eagerly. The war had forced everyone to steal and use the black market. There was no other way.

Somewhere else, however, where conditions were easier, we might have a chance for a more normal life. The town Yuri chose was in the newly acquired German territories. It was relatively undamaged, and it had seemed to Yuri that there were enough abandoned goods and property to assure our comfort.

He arranged to be transferred, and when he had actually received his orders he rushed to our house to tell us the good news. To his surprise, my mother and my aunt listened to him with apparent dismay. For a moment, even Yuri's enthusiasm seemed to falter.

There were hardly any valid reasons they could offer Yuri to explain their reluctance to leave Dobryd. Under its present annexation to Russia, the town had lost its national and linguistic ties to Poland. It had acquired a new Russian name, and they could no longer use their native language in the streets of the town where they were born. Each day they were forced to walk through the ruins of their own past. But none of this mattered. Their attachment to this piece of land was intense and animal-like. They could not bring themselves to leave.

V

Then something terrible happened.

My aunt's son, Alexander, had been handed over to the Germans by the Ukrainian partisans with whom he had joined forces. The Germans had executed him.

I was away when the letter arrived bringing this terrible news. I came home some time later and I heard my aunt's cries even before I reached our floor. As I approached our door the screams increased and I heard other voices moaning. Terrified, I rushed in and headed for the kitchen. I never reached it. A neighbour grabbed me up and carried me out of the apartment.

But I had already had a glimpse of my aunt transformed into a strange mad woman. Her hair, which she always kept neat and braided, even when she slept, hung loose and in disarray. Her clothing was torn, and blood trickled from her mouth; I was told later that in her first moments of grief she had knocked out one of her teeth. Hearing her screams, the neighbours had rushed in and held her arms to keep her from injuring herself further. For a long time she could not be left alone.

I stayed in a neighbour's apartment. Although everyone tried to hide my aunt's madness from me, I constructed my own picture from the gossip I overheard and from the screams that occasionally reached me. I was sad about my cousin's death, but the transformation in my aunt weighed on me much more heavily.

I had been separated from my cousin Alexander for several months. His physical presence had become distant and vague, so that his death seemed a mere continuation of our separation. In any case, I knew very little about death in general. I had always been kept away from it, deliberately, so that somehow I had lived through the war with less sophistication and morbidity than might have been expected.

My feelings about my aunt were another matter. The glimpse I had had of her as the neighbours restrained her terrified me. The notion of death seemed pale and harmless compared to my aunt's grief. Every day I asked to see her, but at the same time I felt relieved when my request was not granted. One evening my mother came for me and told me I could return to the flat. My aunt was better, she said, but she was not well. I would have to be very careful not to upset her. For a start, I must never mention Alexander's name, nor remind her of him in any way.

I saw my aunt that night and she looked calm, but very pale and thin. Still, she managed to smile at me. From then on I spent all my time with her. Everyone agreed that she revived only in my presence.

A strange pact was formed during the days I sat near my aunt's bed. My mother abdicated her control over me in favour of my aunt, as the price of my aunt's cure. My aunt, as she recovered, began to use her weakness as a form of blackmail whenever it seemed my mother was about to reclaim me. Years later my mother bitterly regretted this arrangement, but by then it was too late to alter it.

During my aunt's convalescence Yuri had finally persuaded my mother to leave Dobryd. My aunt agreed and we left as soon as she could walk.

On a cold, clear winter morning we boarded a train with hundreds of other Polish families. Most of them, because they had chosen to remain Polish citizens, were being moved by the Russians from eastern territories they had annexed to the new Polish territories seized from Germany. The train thus became a symbol of patriotism and loyalty to most of the people on it. The Russian troops who accompanied the train were jeered and insulted. They kept to themselves.