Dobryd (7 page)

“As you see, there really was a lot to do. And since I didn't have to do any of it, the fun for me lay in starting one thing, dropping it for another, picking it up again when the hard part had been done by someone else and getting all sorts of compliments for my skills. When I got tired of that there was time for reading, long walks, picnics and visiting. The possibilities of my life seemed endless there, except that it all went so fast—much too fast for me.

“Then, when the fields were most beautiful, thick, golden and swaying, it was time for me to set out for school.

“My trunk was packed with new clothes, delicacies from our kitchen, presents for my teachers and our cousins, but I participated in none of this. It was too painful for me to prepare my own banishment. I really couldn't see it any other way. Especially since I was the first to leave. The others stayed on for another two weeks, when the young children returned to Dobryd. How I envied them. In fact, when it was time for me to leave I would have gladly changed places with anyone in the village.

“At last the day of my departure would arrive. I would wake up to the mournful looks of the servants. For them, all separations were fatal. Our finest horses, all the same height and size, of a uniform grey colour, would be brought out and harnessed. Your grandfather, knowing how sad I felt, would drive me to the train himself. I was indifferent to it all. I watched the house disappear from view. I looked at the fields which we drove through, the farmers who bowed to us as we passed, and already I missed them as if I were a long way from home.

“On the train I would eat the food that had been packed for me, feeling very sorry for myself, thinking of the others still in the house, probably having a great time, my presence among them already forgotten. During those first painful hours of separation I consoled myself with the promises I made about the future. Once I was grown up, nothing would keep me from living there whenever I wanted to. It was inconceivable to me then that anything could happen that would prevent me from keeping the promise I made to myself.

“How foolish such faith in the future seems now. But at that time I wasn't the only one to feel that way. We all did. We thought that life would always go on as we knew it. Who could have foreseen what lay ahead of us? Such horrors were without' precedent.”

My mother had given up searching my scalp. We were both listening to my aunt. My mother, growing into adolescence fifteen years later than my aunt, had had an entirely different youth. She had always been drawn to the socialist and revolutionary ideas of her time. As a result she had a more critical impression of her bourgeois childhood. As a young girl her activities had been very different from those that kept my aunt in the company of other women, delighting in the traditional tasks of a young lady. Yet the spell of my aunt's nostalgia was so powerful that she never interrupted. In any case, now that it was all gone, destroyed, there was no point in correcting my aunt's reminiscences.

Years later I remembered my mother's silence and I wondered about it. What had it really been like to grow up in that house? However, at the time my aunt actually told these stories, the question of whether they were true or not did not even enter my mind. The distance between them and our room with its kerosene lamp was the measure of my enchantment.

These stories made me see my aunt and my mother as two people who were strange and quite different from me. Of course their physical presence was as I had always known it, and it continued to be familiar and dear to me. Beyond it, however, I could now visualize a whole realm of people and their settings, which were part of them but which I would never know.

Without knowing what I was feeling, I experienced at this time the sadness that comes with the awareness of the limited knowledge we have even of those with whom we are most intimate. Just as they would never know the world that I would inhabit one day as an adult, the early part of their lives would remain to me forever a mystery. The glimpse of the past that I caught through my aunt's stories continued to intrigue me with what it concealed as well as with what it revealed.

III

Another story, another time. A different setting. It's late afternoon and my aunt is sitting with me in the kitchen. A thick, savoury soup is simmering. My aunt lets me taste it for her. Once again I feel physically disoriented. I can smell the soup, hear the voices of our neighbours, feel my hunger before the food. Yet, I sense these are false clues. My senses are betraying me. When my aunt resumes her story my confusion fades.

We are back in the pre-war world. I have only to step through our door, run down the stairs into the street, and I will find Dobryd before its destruction. I will walk through it with a sense of familiarity, its plan etched in my mind by my aunt's words.

“When I was a child we lived in the country house most of the year. I remember whenever we came to Dobryd I thought it large and splendid.

“Then, at the age of fourteen, I was sent to boarding school in Vienna. Your grandfather, who felt at home in most of the capitals of Europe, wanted his children to know something of life beyond Dobryd. It was my first time away from home, and I realized that Dobryd was, after all, only a small town.

“But it was never
just
a small town. Perhaps the fact of being near the renowned University of Lwow had something to do with it. There was also a tradition in the area that the people of Dobryd were a special breed. Wherever they might emigrate, they always distinguished themselves in some way. In any case, there was never anything sleepy or dull about the place, nor about the life that went on in your grandfather's house.

“When I first arrived at school, I remember that my teachers were surprised to find that I was as accomplished as any of the other students in the kind of knowledge that was then considered essential for a young girl. I spoke German as well as they did, my handwriting was sufficiently beautiful to hold up as an example, I had studied the violin, and I knew every variety of handiwork that was fashionable. I was also very skilful in making my own designs which the other girls copied.

“At first when I arrived no one had ever heard of Dobryd. The first year I brought two of my new friends home for the holidays. Our house was always full of young people. Your grandfather enjoyed having them. He always said that he had more in common with them than with people his own age. It was very lively and gay during the holidays. My friends were surprised to find such charming, well-informed people in a place they had never even heard about. When we were back in school, they told the others about their visit, and from then on I was no longer teased about being homesick.

“Many years later, when your uncle was wounded in Italy during World War I, I went to keep him company while he convalesced. The hospital was in Naples and as soon as he was better we did a lot of sightseeing together. One time we spent a whole day in Pompeii. I was astonished by the level of civilization people had enjoyed there before its destruction. I had no sense of foreboding then, yet somehow it reminded me of Dobryd—a small town, distant from the centre of the world, Rome in this case, yet enjoying a rich and complex culture. By comparison, the villages we had passed that morning seemed to belong to a much more primitive epoch.

“Although we lived in the country until your mother was born, most of your grandfather's family lived in Dobryd. Your grandfather was born there, and his family had lived there for as long as anyone could remember. In every generation there were always some who left. The younger ones went to study abroad, in Vienna or Lausanne. Often they would settle there. Others emigrated to New York or Montevideo, not out of choice, but because of some scandal or a sudden bankruptcy. I remember that these cousins cried when they came to say good-bye to us. How we pitied them.

“Often they became prosperous in their new homes. Some of their new wealth was spent on trips to Dobryd and lavish presents. Yet we always sympathized with them for having to live out their lives amongst strangers. Their sons and daughters, born and raised in distant cities, were also sent home on holidays to acquaint them with the rest of the family. Their parents secretly hoped that when they returned they would bring back a bride or a future husband. This was only one of the ways in which the links between Dobryd and other faraway places were constantly renewed and strengthened.

“One regular visitor from abroad was your great-uncle Louis. I don't think you ever saw him. No, of course you couldn't have. He came for the last time just before you were born and after that there was no way for him to return. He's probably still alive. After all, it's only been six years and he was a vigorous, elegant man, who seemed years younger than his age.

“He was your grandfather's younger brother, always eager to travel and to experience life beyond the family circle. He decided to emigrate to the United States. His parents wept and argued and mourned for him as if he had contracted a fatal illness. In the end when they realized he would not be swayed, they equipped him with money and letters of introduction, and he promised to return and visit them often. But in America, he was too restless to remain in one place. He kept on travelling across the country until he reached California, and after a few months he resumed his journey. I was only a child then, but I remember the excitement in our house whenever a postcard arrived from him. After everyone had read it I was allowed to save it, and your uncle got the postage stamp for his collection.

“Eventually he settled in Louisiana, probably because it was as different as could be from his native region. To everyone's surprise he became in time a very prosperous cotton mill owner. He still wrote often, and even after his parents were dead he continued to come to Dobryd once a year. During these visits he behaved like the proverbial rich uncle from America, showering everyone with extravagant presents and leaving us children with our mouths open while he told us of his adventures. We adored him of course. At the end of his stay he would always try to persuade one of us to visit with him for a while. We would have gone readily, but of course your grandmother wouldn't hear of it. To her, America was a land of savages, paupers and criminals, and she wouldn't let her children have anything to do with such people.

“In 1938 he visited Dobryd for the last time, bringing with him tickets and visas for our entire family. He was deeply worried about what the Germans might do under Hitler. Yet he couldn't convince any of us to leave. Now, of course, our attitude seems insane. But then, you see, we had our families, our involvements, friends, positions, land that we valued. Mostly, I suppose, we felt safe. After all, ours was by no means a peaceful region. There had been wars before and we had survived. We were so much a part of Poland it was impossible to imagine the kind of betrayal that was being prepared all around us.

“Uncle Louis left alone, with his useless visas, and the last letter we received from him urged us one final time to get away from Dobryd. By then it was already too late.

“Well, let's not talk about those sad times. I want to tell you about Dobryd as it was before the war.

“The one place that symbolized Dobryd for me was the Café Imperiale. Everybody went there. It was the town's most fashionable meeting place, the heart of its social life, located on the promenade that led from the public gardens to the town's main square.

“You and I have walked that street many times together, but of course nothing remains of its former splendour. Do you remember the tree stumps that we passed every ten yards or so? These were once tall chestnut trees. Beneath them children played, parents exchanged greetings with friends, young people courted and fell in love. The trees were as old as the town. The Germans cut them down to use as firewood.

“On a Sunday afternoon everyone was to be found along the promenade. People came to see and to be seen. The ladies examined each other with great care. They dressed in their best clothes and there were costumes there that would not have been out of place in Paris or Berlin. The ladies of Dobryd subscribed to fashion magazines from the big cities and as soon as they arrived, dressmakers would be set to work, copying the photographs. In another week or so these accurate and exquisitely made reproductions were being admired during the Sunday promenade.

“Sometimes during the Sunday walk, people would stop for refreshments in one of the several cafés along the way. The Café Imperiale was the most elegant and popular of these meeting places. The walls were of black marble, illuminated by bracketed candelabra. The tables were marble as well, and around them were armchairs of deep red velour. The adults usually ordered strong coffee which would arrive with a thick coating of cream. For the children there were delicate, chiffon-light pastries with cream fillings, and coloured ices. Everyone drank mineral water, which was always served with small crystal plates of fruit preserves. Dear God, just talking about it makes my mouth water.”

My aunt stops. It is getting dark, but I guess that her eyes are filled with tears. I don't press her to go on. I know that sooner or later she will return to the story on her own. She is as caught up in it as I am. We both sense it is best to break off before my mother and Yuri come home. Their disapproval spoils our pleasure and so we try to keep our pastime secret.

Sometimes, however, my mother noticed that my aunt had been crying. She would be angry and scold both of us. She would take me aside and tell me that I mustn't ask for stories constantly, that it wasn't good for my aunt to live in the past so much. But I didn't believe her. I knew how my aunt's face changed when she told her stories. How young and proud and gay she looked for the time that the story lasted. The next day, when she started where we left off, we returned to the past with the urgency and pleasure derived from forbidden pastimes.

IV

My aunt and I are seated in her kiosk. It is early in the morning and there are few customers. We have all the time in the world to continue the story of Dobryd. There is a small stove in the corner and we sit close to it for the warmth. Occasionally we fill our cups with tea from the kettle that we keep hot all day. When someone comes to visit my aunt, they will take my place next to her and I will run off to look for my friends. For the moment, however, we are alone together, separated from the rest of the marketplace by the images my aunt evokes for us.