One Amber Bead, Chapters 1-3

Sofia’s Journey: April 5, 1912.

 

          Barely tall enough to see over the railing, Sofia Kusiakiewicz surveyed an eternity of black: black sky, almost devoid of stars, stretching far above her, black water, its gentle swells rocking the ship as if to lull it to sleep, stretching deep below her. In three years the Kronprinz Wilhelm, with its two masts and four heavy stacks, capable of reaching a speed of 22 knots, would see far different service; it was destined to sink fifteen Allied ships in 1915. But for now its mission was benevolent—bringing over 1500 immigrants to their promised land.

            Sofia felt torn between two worlds: the New, which she would not actually  encounter until the next day when the cruiser docked in New York Harbor, and the Old, which at this late hour embraced her heart. Peering eastward toward her home, she wondered what time it was in Niedzieliska, what Mama and Tata were doing, if her sister Bronislawa felt well. Was it dinner time, with the family gathered around the old cherry table and Mama bringing in a big pot of bigos? Was it daybreak, with Bronislawa dashing to the outhouse, her morning sickness overtaking her yet again?

            Mostly Sofia wondered whether she had made the right decision. True, many from her village were coming to the New World—three on this ship alone. And once Bronislawa had married and brought her new husband into the Kusiakiewicz family home, where the young couple were to begin their lives together, things had not been the same.

Bronislawa’s wifely responsibilities had left little time for the childish amusements she had earlier enjoyed with her younger sister. And Sofia had seen little in Bronislawa’s new life that would inspire her to follow her older sister’s path. Sofia yearned for something different than the life she saw ahead of her on the small family farm.

Still, here, on a large ship pitifully dwarfed by the immense ocean in which it bobbed and swayed, her desire for adventure was not nearly as compelling. Here, she was homesick. Here, she longed for her Mama and sister, whose advice would surely help her with the decision she would need to make the next morning.

 

 

Gray mist enveloped the harbor as the ship entered its wide expanse, about to complete yet another transoceanic journey. Wladyslaw Bialek, tightly holding Sofia’s hand as they stood with many others on the deck, peered through the mist for his first glimpse of the famous statue about which he had heard so much. Finally, “There, there, Zosia. To the left. You can see Berthold’s statue. Look. . . the torch!”

            “Yes, I begin to see it.” Sofia squinted hard in the direction Wladyslaw pointed but could only see a tall, narrow black shape standing out against the enveloping gray.

            “Our journey is done.” Wladyslaw grasped her hand tightly in his own. “Will you now answer the question I have asked so many times, moja droga?”

Sofia smiled up at him shyly, traces of teardrops glistening on her ruddy cheeks. “Wladyslaw, we are so young. Everything is so new.”

            “All the more reason for you to say ‘yes,’” he insisted. “A new beginning for us, in a new and wonderful country.” Emboldened by the drama of the moment, he placed his arm around her shoulder. The crown of her head, circled by heavy dark braids tied with bright red ribbons, barely reached his chest.          

            “We hardly know each other,” she answered, shuddering slightly beneath her heavy coat. She felt the rugged solidity, the suppressed energy of his body.

            “I know all I need to know of you, moja droga. I know of your beauty, your strength, your character, your kindness. I have learned much about you during this long journey.”

            “Oh look,” Sofia cried out, her cheeks reddening further at the praise. Wladyslaw looked away to where she pointed.  “The statue. There. I can see it better now.” As dawn broke through the heavy veil of mist, revealing the Stature of Liberty more clearly, others on deck exclaimed as well.    

“Yes, it is there to welcome us, my clever one. Do you wish to change the subject?”

            “No, but what of my cousins in New York? I am to be with them. My cousin Janek has already found a job for me, working with him.”

            “In a factory, Zosia. Working many hours a day, harder than you did at home. Is this why you came to America? Come with me, to Chicago.”

            “To work in a factory there. .  .”

            “Yes, maybe for a little while. But Zosia, we are now in the land of opportunity, and I am a man who takes advantage of opportunity. You, moja droga, will stay at home and raise our beautiful children.”

            “Yes,” said Sofia, “the land of opportunity.” She wondered how many children he had in mind, what kind of house. But she only smiled at Wladyslaw, who  towered  magnificently above her, his steel gray eyes peering intently into her own, his thick thatch of sandy-colored hair tossing jauntily in the breeze.

            “And I will get an education, Zosia,” Wladyslaw continued. This was something that stirred Sofia’s soul. She herself was an educated woman, having completed four years at the church school in Niedzieliska, and Wladyslaw had been a student in secondary school when the threat of conscription into the Prussian army had sealed his decision to emigrate. “There are great universities in Chicago,” he continued, obviously encouraged by the interest he discerned on her uplifted face.

            “University?” Marriage to a man who had attended university was something to which she had never dared aspire. “Anyone could go to university in this country?”

            “Yes, in America, this can happen. In America, anything can happen. I will become a doctor. Or, maybe, my little one, a professor. How would you like that? To be married to a professor? I shall grow a long beard, to show myself as a man of distinction.”

            “Oh, Wladyslaw,” Sofia laughed softly. “How you dream.”

            “This is the land of dreams. Share my dream with me. What do you say?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

 

Jadzia, Niedzieliska, Poland

 

 

 

April, 1941

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 “Ouch, too tight!”

“Well, you want to look beautiful, don’t you?” taunted Apolonya. She secured the thick chestnut-colored braid she held in her hand with a tiny scrap of satin ribbon, much faded from its original crimson. Then she lifted the heavy braids with one hand, pointing with the other toward Jadzia’s distorted reflection in the old dresser mirror in Jadzia’s grandmother’s bedroom. “Are you sure you don’t want these in a crown? They would look much more attractive.”

“Not today,” responded Jadzia, eager for release from Apolonya’s hands. Normally Apolonya, her best friend in all of Niedzieliska, was a gentle hairdresser, despite the challenges presented by the thickness and obstinate curl of Jadzia’s tresses. And most days Jadzia loved nothing more than to give herself over to Apolonya’s ministrations of brushing and combing and styling. Other holidays Jadzia would request a crown—that most elegant hairstyle, with thick braids woven into an intricate circle around the head and decorated with colorful ribbons. But this Easter, it was as if the whole country’s mood could be felt through the roughness of her friend’s hands.

“Does your family have enough for dinner?” Jadzia ventured. Few families in Niedzieliska, Jadzia knew, would experience the traditional Polish Easter of years past, with trays heaped with hams and sausages, baskets of carefully etched eggs, several types of pastries, and the traditional lamb molded of butter gracing the table. Yesterday, when the women of the village had brought their baskets of holiday food to the church for Father Jozef’s blessing, only the most meager and coarse foodstuffs were on display: a loaf of rye bread, an egg or two, a cabbage, potatoes, perhaps a small slab of bacon. But still, no one in the village was starving—at least not yet.

“Yes, we will eat.” The firm set of Apolonya’s jaw discouraged further discussion of this topic. As Apolonya turned to finish her own preparations for the day, slipping an old white muslin dress over her head, Jadzia noticed how the dress, though several inches shorter than local fashion dictated and much yellowed from many washings, still slipped easily over Apolonya’s slim shoulders and hips. Like a yearling deer’s, Apolonya’s growth had been concentrated in her extremities: her long, slim legs and arms had become willowy. With white/gold tresses now bound in a crown of braids, she looked to Jadzia like an angel, albeit one wearing a somewhat tattered and faded robe. But what was bothering her so much today?

“Have you heard anything from your brothers?” Jadzia asked.

Apolonya frowned, raising one eyebrow suspiciously. “You saw Alfons and Gienek yesterday. I haven’t heard a word about Jan or Tadeusz since I was a little girl, and I imagine that Jozef and Pawel are either in England or fighting somewhere in France.” She added through her teeth, “You do remember that I have no other brother.”

Jadzia tried to look as though she were paying serious attention to the buttons she was fastening on the bodice of her dress. “Yes, I remember. I guess I was thinking about Jozef.” Jadzia’s whole family had supported the decision of Apolonya’s mother to disown Antek, her next oldest brother, who had been recruited by the German army, and to dictate that his name never be mentioned again. As always, any thought of Antek—of his blonde hair, his tall slim body—made Jadzia’s heart skip a beat.

Still, Jadzia thought, looking at Apolonya’s downcast eyes and the set of her jaw, it must be difficult for her friend; even if she never spoke of Antek, did she no longer think of him and wonder where he was, if he was well? She could imagine no offence grevious enough to cause her parents to disown her own brothers, Marek and Stasiu, or to forbid her to speak their names ever again.

Jadzia sat on one of the family’s two remaining chairs to fasten the laces of her boots. When she had brought the chair into her grandmother’s room, she had looked with longing at the changes in the sitting room. The room had been stripped of most of what had given it distinction. Tata had had to sell Mama’s china service early in the war. The china cabinet had looked barren without its display of plates lavishly decorated in delicate pink roses, but then the china cabinet itself had been sold just two months later, along with the long cherry table and most of the chairs. Mama’s shrine to the Blessed Mother of Czestochowa still remained, but now just one candle placed on a tin plate glowed dimly before it.

Still, her family was far luckier than most. They were together, still in their home. They had enough to eat and were able to gather sufficient firewood to keep warm. They would be farming this year as always, and although the sight of German soldiers patrolling the streets in town was alarming, very little in their area had truly changed in the two months since Herr Mittenberg had commanded the residents of Niedzieliska to gather in the town square. She and Apolonya had whispered their fears about the reason for this summons during the two hours the villagers were forced to wait for Mittenberg’s arrival. They had huddled together in a sharp breeze from the north, their desire to stamp their feet against the cold thwarted by inches of mud created by an uncharacteristic February thaw. Jadzia had feared deportations or perhaps an execution: rumors about such occurrences happening more frequently in other villages had circulated for weeks before.

Her greatest fear that day had been for her babcia, who seemed to think that advanced age or her status in the village would exempt her from recriminations for speaking against the Germans. True, Babcia had only spoken to a few people, but Jadzia knew that in any foreign occupation, no one outside immediate family or dearest friends should be trusted.

And she had had other reasons for concern. Her grandmother’s comings and goings were always erratic: Babcia was the town’s midwife, and babies seldom came exactly when they were expected. But often in the past months, Babcia had been gone for hours, even overnight, at times when no baby had been born in the village or surrounding countryside. And what of the six loaves of bread that Mama had made two weeks ago? Later that evening, when Jadzia had searched for a crust for Cesar, their ancient hound, all six loaves had vanished.

Finally Herr Mittenberg, flanked by several soldiers, had strode into their midst, a vision of German military couture. His polished boots and long leather coat, fashionably cut to show just three inches of his breeches, were impeccable, despite the cold mud that spattered everyone else’s attire. His ever-present iron cross shone over the closed collar of his tunic, and a peaked visor covered what the villagers who had seen him hatless knew was a rapidly balding pate. Despite his short stature and tendency toward portliness, he carried himself with the arrogance of a man who considered himself among inferiors.

Father Jozef, the only man in the village learned enough to speak German fluently, had translated. Mittenberg harangued the crowd interminably about their shortcomings: food that had been hidden, hesitation that signaled reluctance in following orders, a general lack of respect sensed by his soldiers. He then proceeded to nail on the church door his one-page directive to the people of Neidzieliska, expounding further on its commands and warning of grave consequences to anyone who dared ignore them:

 

26 February 1941

 

To:                  Polish people of Niedzieliska

 

From:              Hans Mittenberg, Representative

                        General-Gouvernement of Galicia Province

 

These directives are to serve as a reminder to the Polish people of Niedzieliska of their duties and responsibilities to the General-Gouvernement and its representatives.

1. All citizens of Niedzieliska are in all matters under the sovereign authority of the provisional government. All orders given by Director Hans Mittenberg or any of his representatives are to be followed immediately. Failure to do so will result in immediate death.
2. All citizens over the age of 12 are to carry with them at all times proper identification, which will be produced at any time it is requested by any authority of the provisional government or the military. Failure to do so will result in immediate arrest.
3. No citizen shall have on his person or in his abode any of the following banned items: any firearm or any other item deemed to be useful as a weapon; any radio or radio equipment; any anti-German written material, or any material which was issued by or supports any supposed claims of legitimacy by any government body other than the General-Gouvernement, or any material written in any language but Polish or German. Discovery of such items will lead to immediate arrest.
4. No citizen shall assist any Jew by delivering foodstuffs or other materials to the local Jewish community or by attempting to hide Jews or assist in their illegal exportation to other countries. This behavior is considered a seriously anti-social act against the Fatherland and will result in immediate death.

 

While many villagers initially feared this directive signaled more difficult times ahead, that day was the last most of them saw Mittenberg, who melted back into the town hall where he had taken residence to wait out the end of the Polish winter. Within days even the most fearful villagers had returned to their old ways, paying little attention to their occupiers. For most of the adults, this was just one more among a series of occupations, just one more foreign government with which to contend.

“Do you need some help with that necklace?” asked Apolonya, seeing Jadzia lift a string of amber beads the color of filtered sunlight out of her grandmother’s oak jewelry box.

“Yes. Babcia said I could wear her amber beads to church today.” Jadzia held the beads up toward a sunbeam streaming through the room’s east window. The beads glowed, now lightening to the color of butter where the sunlight caught their translucence. Babcia had offered to sell them at market, but since they were her last remaining keepsake from her own mother, Jadzia’s father had refused to allow her to part with them.

As Apolonya bent to fasten the necklace, Jadzia caught the reflection of their faces in the mirror, Apolonya’s gracefully tilted above her own shoulder. At eighteen, the girls’ appearances contrasted even more than they had as children. Jadzia had the dusky coloring of Tartar invaders of centuries earlier: heavy chestnut braids framing a round face with dimples punctuating each cheek. Skin the color of weak tea with milk. Her eyes were her most outstanding feature: sable brown, and generally flashing with mischief or delight. At their corners, the skin crinkled from her almost constant smile.

Apolonya displayed the coloring of Nordic invaders of centuries earlier: braids of fine, pale yellow, the color of corn silk in late summer, crowning a narrow face with a delicately pointed chin. Skin the color of cream with pale splashes of damask rose on high cheekbones. Blue eyes that rivaled the clarity and sparkle of the water that danced in the nearby stream. Apolonya’s beauty was angelic, but Jadzia’s was no less charming in its earthy appeal.

But today dark circles shadowed Apolonya’s eyes.

“Apolonya, did you not sleep again last night?” she asked, turning to her friend and taking both slender white hands in her own. “Did you have another dream?”

“No, it was nothing,” answered Apolonya, averting her eyes from Jadzia’s.

“Tell me,” begged Jadzia, pulling at her friend’s hands. “Perhaps together we can interpret it.”

Apolonya had developed a reputation in the village for second sight. She was far from singular in that respect, as many of the women of Niedzieliska believed they could predict the future from their dreams.  But Jadzia’s mother had scoffed at these beliefs, calling them foolish old country superstitions.

“Pani Levandowska dreams of three dead crows,” Jadzia’s mother had said scornfully to her daughter, “and within a month Pan Kapusta, Pani Gontarska, and Pan Boblak are all dead. ‘Ah,’ says the village, ‘Pani Levandowska has second sight.’ No one stops to think that they are all in their 80s and that Pani Gontarska and Pan Boblak have been sick in their beds for months. No, they wish to see it as second sight—as if anyone could really tell what will happen in the future.”

But hadn’t Apolonya dreamed of water flooding a coastal shore—despite the fact that she had never seen the ocean—just days before the German invasion of Poland? Hadn’t she dreamed of the Przybyla family floating in the sky the very night before they had all tragically burned to death in a house fire? Jadzia looked more closely into her friend’s eyes, now understanding that a sleepless night was the cause of Apolonya’s peevishness.

“It’s nothing. Really nothing.” Apolonya turned away.

But Jadzia persisted, and finally her friend relented. “I saw a dove fly from a cave in a deep green mountain,” Apolonya revealed.

“Anything else?”

“It flew into a bright red sky.”

“Like a sky at sunset?”

“No. Darker. Thicker. A sky almost the color of blood.”

Jadzia shivered, but continued. “But the dove? How was it flying? Did it look like it had been startled?”

Looking up, Apolonya tilted her head as if to see the dream reappearing high on the bedroom walls. Finally, she answered, “No. It flew normally, even gently, then circled twice and flew off.”

Jadzia considered the dream for a few moments before offering her interpretation. “That sounds like a dream of good omens,” she finally responded. “The dove is always the symbol of peace. Perhaps your dream means that the war will be over soon. Now that the Americans are in the war. . .”

“Yes, yes, your wonderful Americans. Honestly, Jadzia, do you really think they can help us?” Apolonya turned to the mirror to fuss with an already perfect braid.

“But in the last letter I got from Eva. . .”

“Of course—from your cousin,” Apolonya scoffed, turning to face Jadzia. “She must have given you good counsel. I’m sure Roosevelt speaks to her at least weekly.”

Jadzia began rummaging through a dresser drawer, more to hide the tears forming in the corners of her eyes than to actually search for anything. Why, she wondered, was Apolonya always so critical whenever she mentioned Eva, her cousin in Chicago, with whom she had shared a lively correspondence since they were children.

But soon a warm, comforting arm enveloped her shoulders, drawing her close. “Jadzia, forgive me. That was mean of me. I’m probably just tired. I blame that dream I had last night. It disturbed me so much. The red in the sky—it was frightening. I could not go back to sleep.”

Jadzia quickly brushed nascent tears from her cheeks. There was nothing to forgive. Everyone in the village was on edge these days. Tilting her head in thought, she responded, “Perhaps the red stands for the Russians. That could be disturbing or promising. It all depends on who you talk to.”

If the Germans were defeated, some villagers argued that Poland’s best course would be to ally closely with the Russians, with whom they at least shared a common Slavic ancestry.  Others cherished the dream of an independent Poland, although their short adventure in independence during the time between the Great War and the invasion from Germany, fewer than twenty years, had been disastrous.

“If your dream is political, Apolonya, it probably won’t affect us at all,” Jadzia continued. “Nothing ever happens in Niedzieliska—we’re too remote. We’re in the middle of a war and we hardly even feel it—at least those of us who stay here. We’ll go on, farming our land, bringing children into the world, getting old, finally dying here.”

“You sound as if that were a bad thing.” Apolonya’s raised eyebrows showed her disagreement.

“I wouldn’t mind leaving this village—seeing what’s out in the world.”

“Two of my brothers left for America when I was just a little girl, and they never

came back.”

“Well, maybe that tells you something,” Jadzia asserted with great conviction. “Maybe your brothers found something much better out there.”

“What could be better than to be with your family and the people you grew up with?” Apolonya asked, passion creasing her forehead. “What could be better than to stay on the land your family has worked for generations? Going anywhere else, even to America, where the streets are paved with gold, is not for me. This is where I will stay. I will never leave Niedzieliska.”

“Apolonya, are you forgetting? There is a war. I don’t believe that all the talk about deportations to labor camps and conscriptions is only rumors. Sometimes people do not have a choice.”

“Jadzia, people always have a choice.”

The sound of Jadzia’s mother calling the girls to church forestalled any further interpretation of dreams. “Ah, you will be the most beautiful girls at Resurrection Mass,” Bronislawa exclaimed as they stepped out of Babcia’s bedroom into the warmth of the sitting room, where new fire, blessed by Father Josef, blazed in the fireplace. Yesterday they had all attended the Holy Saturday ceremony, praying at the site of the churchyard bonfire soaring to the heavens. Then Marek and Stasiu had hurriedly brought new fire back to the house on a flaming piece of wood, replacing the old fires in the fireplace and cook stove which had been extinguished to mark the end of another church year.

Now clad in the finest apparel they owned, Jadzia’s family and Apolonya stepped out into a beautiful spring day. Winter had been unusually harsh and long-lasting, dragging well into the first weeks of March, almost too cold and blustery for anyone to bear. But the celebration of the feast of St. Jozef on March 19^th had brought a sudden spike of temperature into the 40s, warm enough to coax the daffodils and crocuses out of the hard ground and to bring fresh, pale green buds to the lindens and willows. The oaks would bud last, but even their branches looked supple and alive, ready to meet the spring. On this 5^th day of April, nature burst with new life.

They met Apolonya’s mother and brothers by the well the two families shared and began the pleasant walk to the church. Alfons, at seventeen, and Gienek, at fifteen, had grown into handsome young men, but neither was too mature to tease Apolonya about the care their sister had obviously taken in her appearance, speculating about which young man, of the few still remaining in the village, was the most likely object of her attention.

“Ach,” answered Apolonya, tossing her head jauntily. “What young man in this village even deserves my attention? Clumsy Janek Jablonski? Foolish Marek Bednarz? Tadeusz Bidas, who cares more about his cows than about girls?” Jadzia laughed her agreement.

“I wouldn’t be so proud if I were you, Apolonya,” warned Stasiu. “Tomorrow’s  smigus dyngus, and proud girls wind up the wettest.”

“That’s a stupid custom,” complained Jadzia, who had always found silly the Easter Monday tradition of village boys waking the girls at dawn with cold spring water dashed into their faces. “It must have been invented by foolish boys.”

“But don’t forget,” reminded Apolonya. “We get to pay them back the same way Tuesday morning.”

Soon the banter stopped as the men separated themselves into one group that walked ahead, speaking of their animals and their crops, discussing when to plow, when to plant, and the women, walking more slowly behind, caught up on village events, discussing the progress of babies newly born over the winter and reminiscing about recently departed elders. Before Jadzia could believe it possible, she saw the spire of St. Adalbert’s rising above the pines and spruces that shaded the cemetery behind the church.

They entered the church respectfully, all crossing themselves with holy water from the freshly filled font in the vestibule of the church. Reaching their customary pew near the front of the church, each genuflected deeply before entering: first the girls, Jadzia and Apolonya, followed by the adults, and then finally the four boys, who took their position closest to the aisle. The heady scent of early lilacs, soon to be replaced by the more pungent scent of incense from Father Jozef’s censor, filled the church.

As the priest and his attendants solemnly marched up the aisle, the congregation’s song of praise and joy reverberated throughout the humble building, glorifying its stucco walls, its rough pine pews, its stone floor, its four simple glass windows, its pine altar covered in pure white cloths delicately embroidered by the women of the parish. 

Father Jozef’s sermon, as expected, focused on the new life promised by the Resurrection. And as also expected on a day when every parishioner who was not bedridden would attend Mass, the old priest spoke at great length, recounting familiar stories of miraculous cures and salvation from heaven. Jadzia, disappointed, had hoped he would speak of the German occupation, of what they could do to resurrect their own sense of hope for the future. She expressed her boredom by engaging Apolonya in one of the quiet finger games of their childhood, until a stern glance from her mother quickly ended that diversion.

Before long, the Mass was ended, the last “Et cum spiritu tuo” was sung, and Father Jozef, swinging his censor, began to lead the recessional out of church. Jadzia and Apolonya chatted amiably while awaiting their turn to leave.

But what was delaying the recessional at the door of the church? Why the raised voices, the prickling sense of alarm rolling from the church door back to the altar? Whose were those louder voices? And then why, suddenly, was the church deathly quiet?

Jadzia grasped Apolonya’s hand, craning to see over the heads and backs of her family and neighbors, hoping for a glimpse of what they saw beyond the sunlight streaming into the church from the open door. Slowly the recessional resumed, but more tentatively now. Parishioners looked to each other for support, parents held their children near, as the group, acting as one unit, stepped slowly forward.

It was not until Jadzia reached the door of the church that she saw the reason for the alarm. Taking up a large area of the village square were two immense, dark green trucks, their open backs facing the church door. To the left of the trucks stood Herr Mittenberg and perhaps ten of his troops. While Mittenberg postured, gesturing wildly to direct family groups toward the ends of a long line formed perpendicular to the church, Jadzia could see immediately that another man was in charge.

This man’s tightly fitted uniform was black, his iron cross and other military insignia gleaming white on his lapels and the collar of his tunic. He seemed to be speaking in confidence to Father Jozef, who looked as though he had aged twenty years in his short recessional march. The two men were surrounded by a dozen soldiers similarly attired in black, none of whom Jadzia recognized, all holding rifles or machine guns pointed at a forty-five degree angle toward the ground.

Jadzia grasped Apolonya’s hand even more tightly as they stepped into the bright sunlight of the courtyard. She turned to look at her grandmother—were all these men here to take Babcia away? Had she been caught doing something forbidden. . . those missing loaves? Then, suddenly fearful of attracting attention to the older woman, Jadzia looked away, trying to focus her gaze on an empty space in the courtyard, trying to ignore the roiling of her stomach and the quivering of her knees. 

Father Jozef coughed several times before speaking, first in a tight, raspy voice, then more steadily. “Everyone,” he said, “you must get into your family groups immediately and form a straight line along the road. Yes, yes, like this. . .” he gestured, as villagers shuffled to arrange themselves as ordered. Apolonya gave Jadzia’s hand one hard squeeze before dropping it to join her mother and brothers in a section of the line several family units away.

Once the villagers were arranged as ordered, the priest, looking carefully at the long line that spanned the whole west side of the courtyard, returned to the black-clad stranger. They began conversing quietly once more in German as almost the entire population of Niedzieliska stared silently at them.

Finally, Father Jozef spoke again. “Please, everyone, do exactly as these men say. Commander Mueller and one of his officers will step up to each of you. If he touches your shoulder, you must take two steps forward. If not, you are to remain standing where you are.” Villagers looked at each other, and some low, quiet mumbling could be heard.

“No, no,” pleaded Father Jozef. “Everyone must be quiet!” The villagers stood mute as Commander Mueller began inspecting the line from its north end, tapping the shoulders of most of the young who quietly stepped forward, but passing most of  their parents and grandparents.

All commenced efficiently until Mueller tapped the shoulder of a young boy standing two family units north of Jadzia’s family. Jadzia turned at the sudden cry, piercing in the dead quiet of the square, of Pani Oslowska, who reached out, grabbing the shoulder of her youngest son, Jan, who was obediently stepping forward.

“No, no,” she cried, “he’s young. Only ten. He’s tall. He looks older.”

Almost too quickly for anyone to see, the officer standing with Commander Mueller raised his rifle into the air, smashing Pani Oslowska’s forearm with the heavy wooden butt of the weapon. Her scream of pain was drowned by the Commander’s loud command for silence, and Jadzia looked in horror as Pan Oslowski, taking his wife’s limp, bloody arm in one hand and placing his other hand as gently as he could over her mouth, begging her to be silent, nodded acquiescence at the Commander, who continued on.

The Commander passed Jadzia’s parents, grandmother, and brother Stasiu, but tapped Marek and Jadzia, who stepped forward immediately. Jadzia could feel rather than hear the low moan leaving her mother’s body, could sense her mother’s heart reaching out to her own. She glanced only slightly to the right when Mueller reached Apolonya’s family, who stood near the end of the long line, and hated herself almost immediately for the sense of relief she felt when she saw Apolonya and Alfons step forward. At least wherever she was going, she would not be leaving her dearest friend behind.

For one quick moment she thought of what else she would be leaving behind—her family, of course, and friends. The cottage that had been her home her whole life. The barn animals, and old Cesar who, she realized with a start, she would probably never see again. The little pine box that held Eva’s letters. The box! That might yet be saved for her return to the village. She turned to tell Stasiu to hide the box, to bury it under the barn, but a stern look from the soldier standing nearest to her stopped her motion immediately. Better to do nothing that would call attention to herself and her family. 

The selection completed, Father Jozef and Commander Mueller conferred for just a minute before the priest confirmed what the villagers all suspected—that those selected were to proceed in an orderly fashion into the open trucks. Starting from the north end of the line, many of the young men and women of Niedzieliska, looking back longingly but for just one second, parted from their families and friends and from the only lives they had ever known. They were separated again into two lines and jostled up the step stools behind each of the waiting trucks into the darkness within.

“Oh, please,” prayed Jadzia silently, “please let Apolonya be in this truck with me. Please let her be going wherever I’m going,” as one of the soldiers stationed by the nearer truck grabbed her arm to escort her into the darkness within.

Her silent prayer was cut short by a sudden shout that froze movement in the whole square. “Halt, halt, Fraulein!” Mueller screamed, and all eyes turned as one to see what he glared at so intently. Jadzia too looked, and to her horror, saw the slim frame of Apolonya as she walked deliberately across the square, directly toward her home. The bright sun in a cloudless blue sky threw a shimmering frame around her white/gold hair, her long graceful neck and the white muslin dress as she walked.

“No, Apolonya!” cried Jadzia, but her voice was drowned by the Commander’s

 final order, “Fraulein, halt!”  Apolonya continued to walk, appearing to not even hear the command.

Commander Mueller nodded to the soldier standing nearest to him, who lifted his

rifle and pointed it straight at the white figure, now walking steadily just past the center of the town square. The sound of the gun’s discharge, a single shot, erased any other sound, indeed any other thought, within the square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

 

Jadzia, Niedzieliska, Poland

 

 

 

 

August, 1933

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10-go lipiec, 1933

 

Moja droga kuzynko Jadwigo!

 

Zycze Ci szczesliwych imienin. Mam nadzieje, ze dostaniesz ten list przed 18-tym sierpniem. Ty mnie nie znasz.

 

            Jadzia Czarnecka burst from a small stand of white birch, waving a pale blue envelope as she ran toward the old stone well the Zadoras shared with the Czarnecki family, their nearest neighbors. “Apolonya! Apolonya! Look what I have!”

“Jadzia, you startled me! I almost dropped the bucket. What is it? Why are you so excited?”

“A letter from my cousin in America. It came today!” Jadzia suppressed her enthusiasm long enough to help her dearest friend pull the heavy wooden bucket to the top of the well. Apolonya’s thin arms looked too frail for the task at hand, but her almost wraithlike form disguised strength comparable to that of her sturdier friend.

“Be careful then,” Apolonya warned, sloshing water over the side of the bucket as she detached it from its iron hook. “You don’t want to get your letter wet. I didn’t know you had a cousin in America.”

“Yes. Three cousins. Two boys and a girl. And Evelina, the girl, is almost exactly my age. Her mama, my mama’s sister, moved to America years before we were born. And now Evelina has written to me!”

The girls were dressed similarly in long-sleeved, simple white smocks that stopped mid-calf over worn leather boots, but otherwise they were a study in contrast: Apolonya tall, slim, and blonde, with pale, almost translucent skin; Jadzia several inches shorter but a few pounds heavier, with a dusky complexion and dark hair and eyes her maternal grandmother attributed to some ancestor from the ancient Mongol invasions. Carefully placing the bucket at her feet and wiping her hands on the hem of her skirt, Apolonya reached for the envelope, respectfully turning it to look at either side before focusing on the writing on the front. “Your cousin has a neat hand,” she complimented, “but very different from Polish writing. And such funny stamps. Shall I take it out of the envelope, Jadzia, or do you wish to read it to me?”

“Let me read it to you,” responded Jadzia, relishing the pleasure of hearing the letter’s words out loud as she shared them with her friend. “I only read it once before I came here. I was so excited to show you.” Receiving the envelope back, she positioned herself primly on the well, then removed the letter and carefully smoothed it against the skirt of her smock before reading:

10 July 1933

My dear cousin Jadwiga!

Happy Name Day. I hope this letter comes to you before 18 August. You do not know me. I am your cousin Evelina, daughter of your mother’s sister Sofia. I am nine years old like you. My mama talks of your mama all the time, and misses her very much. She says that when they were little girls, they were great friends. I thought that maybe, in letters, we could become friends as well.

 

            First, hello from Mama to Aunt Bronislawa and all your family. Mama wants you to know she thinks of all of you and prays for you every day.  Even if I never hear from you, I will from now on think of you and pray for you every day as well.

            I have two brothers. Mama says that is just like you. My older brother Henryk works at a big job in the city with my Tata, and Andrzej is just a little boy, only three years old. He is a very handsome and smart little boy, and Mama trusts me to take care of him during the day when she is busy in the kitchen or on Monday when she does laundry. I also take him to the park sometimes.

            In the fall I will be in the fifth grade, and my favorite subjects are reading and spelling. Half of every school day we study in English, so we can become good citizens of this country and help our parents with the government papers, and also to tell them all the news that is not in the Polish language paper. My teacher last year was Sister Athanasia, and she said that mathematics is very important, but I do not like that subject very much.

            I wish you a Happy Name Day for 25 August—Mama says that is your day. How wonderful that our Name Days are only one week apart! How do you celebrate your Name Day? We always have cake and flowers on my mine. And sometimes, if I have been very good, Tata will take us on an adventure. One year he took us on the Milwaukee Avenue trolley all the way to the end of the line, to have a picnic in the beautiful forest that is there. Mama says the forest reminds her of Poland.

But this year I have a special wish—to see the Century of Progress. It is a world’s fair to celebrate the 100^th birthday of Chicago. I have heard of many wonderful things there—the Enchanted Island, with many rides, especially the Sky Ride way up in the air. I think that would be very exciting. There is a Belgian Village and a temple with many wonderful things from China. There are even very brave men who wrestle with ALLIGATORS (please excuse the English word.  Mama does not know how it is said in Polish.) I myself have never seen an alligator. If we go, I will ask for a penny to buy you a picture from the fair.

            Please write to me when you can and tell me about your life in Poland. May God be with you and your family this day and always.

                                                                        Your loving cousin,

Evelina (but please call me Eva, because  we are family) Bialek

            Jadzia paused, looking toward Apolonya for some response. But Apolonya seemed lost in thought, the wonders of this letter obviously being too much for her to handle all at once. Finally she spoke. “What is an alligator?”

            “I don’t know. I hoped you would. Perhaps an animal?”

            “Maybe a man. Who would wrestle with an animal?”

            “Who knows? In America. . .  But I shall ask her when I write back to her.”

            “No, you can’t do that. What would she think of us? She might think we were fools.” Jadzia’s brow furrowed and her smile faded at her friend’s criticism. Sometimes Apolonya could be so harsh—but then, thought Jadzia, she was usually right. What if Evelina began to think of her as nothing but a foolish farm girl—then they might never become friends. 

“Your cousin sounds very pious,” Apolonya soon added, seeming to respond to the concern she saw in her friend’s downcast eyes.

            “Yes,” Jadzia responded, smiling shyly. “She goes to church school just like us.”

            “Mama says all Americans are godless,” Apolonya contested.

This was too much for Jadzia. “Perhaps your mama does not know everything,” she blurted out, immediately regretting her harsh words upon seeing the crestfallen look in Apolonya’s eyes. Feeling contrite, she changed the subject. “My cousin wishes for me to call her Eva, so I’ll ask her to call me Jadzia. That way, we’ll become friends even sooner.”

Apolonya didn’t answer. Jadzia wondered if Apolonya was jealous of her new friend. Apolonya could be so difficult to fathom at times, so easily offended and hurt. She wore her heart on her shoulder. But Jadzia was too excited today to worry overly long about her friend’s feelings.

“Think of how different Evelina’s life must be,” Jadzia finally said. “Taking a ride in the sky. Traveling with her family on a trolley. Having a brother and father with big jobs in the city.” She looked dreamily into space, her mind suddenly several thousand miles away. “It must be wonderful to be an American and to be so rich.”

“Poland has rich people too, and big cities with jobs and trolleys.”

“True. But will we ever see them?”

Before Apolonya could answer, Jadzia heard her friend’s name being called in the strident, impatient tone they both recognized so well.

“Oh, the water. Mama is making ogorki. She needed this water right away.” Apolonya quickly bent to lift the heavy bucket. Folding the letter and placing it in a pocket of her smock, Jadzia grabbed the bucket along with Apolonya, and the two, waddling duck-like in their attempt to spill as little as possible while moving as quickly as they could, followed the narrow path around a patch of black currant shrubs, soon arriving at the little clearing which was the homestead of the Zadora family.

“Ach, I should have known,” huffed Danuta Zadora at the sight of Jadzia. She stood in the narrow doorway of their split-board cabin, its mortar chipped and dingy, its thatched roof rising steeply above her. “Were you two gossiping while my ogorki are spoiling in this heat?” Jadzia and Apolonya could smell the brine—vinegar and dill—thirty feet from the cabin door. Closer, they could feel heat emanating from within.

Pani Zadora stepped back from the open door into the kitchen, sharply raising her hand as her daughter passed before her, then dropping it, either reconsidering her intended action or simply too tired to deliver the blow. Apolonya ducked from long habit, then struggled to place the bucket on the chipped wooden table next to the cast iron stove. Each grate held an immense iron pot in which dill brine bubbled furiously. “Mama, Jadzia was reading me a letter she received from her cousin, all the way from America,” she offered in explanation.

“Hurry,” said Pani Zadora, ignoring her daughter’s news, “and wash that last bushel of cucumbers. Jadwiga, since you’re here anyway, make yourself useful and fill those pots with water.”  Pani Zadora returned to her task of stuffing cucumbers into jars. Though not yet forty, her hair, thin and gray, dangled from the scarf she wore tied at the base of her neck, and her faded print housedress sagged over slumped shoulders. Apolonya was the sixth of her seven living children, her only daughter; five other children lay quietly in the graveyard of St. Adalbert’s church, along with Pan Zadora,

 

who had died in the last war. Danuta had not remarried: no bachelor or widower in the village had stepped forward to shoulder the burden of the Zadora family.

As Jadzia ladled fresh water from the bucket into the pots, she covertly glanced around the one room that comprised the Zadora household, so different from her own, meticulously kept home.  Pallets, some jumbled with dingy gray linens, haphazardly lined the walls. Old battered boots lay tossed in a corner, and the litter from the morning meal had not yet been discarded. Jadzia worked in silence, following the example set by Apolonya and her mother.

As the last of the dill and the cucumbers were stuffed into jars and Pani Zadora began to carefully ladle the brine to cover them, Apolonya quietly, almost shyly, asked, “Mama, do you know what an alligator is?”

“All-i-ga-tor?” Danuta asked, carefully sounding out the word syllable by syllable.

“Yes. In Jadzia’s letter from America, her cousin wrote of going to the fair to see some men who wrestled alligators.”

“Ach, America.” Danuta almost spit out the words. America and its wonders held little charm for her, particularly since her two oldest sons had disappeared three years earlier, leaving word with their brother that they were going to Bremen, and from there to America. No one had heard from them since.

Finally returning to her daughter’s question, Danuta answered, doing nothing to hide her disgust. “An alligator. . . it is like a bear. Foolish Americans have nothing to do but play with bears. They are a godless people, Americans. The less we have to do with them, the better.”

But as she looked at the many jars of freshly-made pickles, Danuta seemed to relax a bit, her shoulders losing their rigidity as she stuffed a loose tendril of hair back under her scarf.  “Thank you for your help, dziewczyno,” she said, a satisfied look on her face. “I would never have finished so soon without you. Would you like some kolaczki?”

“Yes, Mama,” Apolonya answered, while Jadzia nodded her assent. “But Mama, even more than that, I would like to go swimming in the river with Jadzia this afternoon. May I?”

“I don’t know. How about your chores? The chicken coop?”

“Cleaned, Mama. And the chickens are fed.”

“The vegetable patch?”

“Weeded. And I picked a full bushel of onions.”

“Gienek. . . “
            “Playing in the woods with Alfons, Mama. You know that now he is six he wants nothing to do with me.”

“I’ll need more water.”

“We’ll go right to the well. Then may I go?”

“Be careful. Remember the Pokrzyk boy drowned there.”

“We will, Mama. We will be very careful,” Apolonya promised, turning away from her mother. Jadzia tried not to smile as she observed her friend’s eyes rolling toward the ceiling. The Pokrzyk boy, who had been only three when he wandered away from his home, had died many years before she or Apolonya were born, and he had died in the spring, when their stream, a tributary of the great Vistula River, had rushed full force toward its destination. Now, in August, it lazed its way gently toward the river, pooling in shallow areas on either bank. Still, that unfortunate child yet served as an instrument of warning for every mother in Niedzieliska.

 

Hours later, winded from their time spent swimming in the stream and splashing each other in its pools, Jadzia and Apolonya lay on the bank of the stream, gazing at the late afternoon clouds, discerning shapes of animals in their billowing masses. “There, that one. A bear,” said Apolonya, pointing to the right.

“The dark one? Next to that little bit of cloud?”

“No. To the right and below. Do you see it?”

“A bear?”
            “Yes, lying on its back, with its paws up in the air. Do you see it now?”

“Well, all right, a little bit. Or maybe it’s an alligator,” offered Jadzia.

Apolonya’s sigh suggested impatience with yet another mention of the letter from

America.

“Apolonya, wouldn’t you like to go to America some day?” Jadzia persisted, confused at her friend’s lack of interest in a subject that had so captured her own imagination.

“Perhaps.” But Apolonya’s response was anything but enthusiastic.

“Think of all you could see there, and all you could do.”

“I like it here. There are things to see and do here, you know.”

“Silly, if you went to America, you could always come back to Niedzieliska.” Immediately, Jadzia wished she could take those words back, knowing the Zadora sensitivity to talk of travel to America. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean. . . “

“Don’t be. I hardly remember my brothers. I was only six when they left. And it’s not as if I don’t have more than enough brothers still here, anyway.” Jadzia knew how much Apoloyna’s older brother Antek teased her, and how much time she had to spend caring for her younger brothers. “So it’s not that my brothers somehow disappeared there. It’s just that America is so far away, and so strange. I like being here, living with everyone I know.”

Jadzia could not understand her friend’s reluctance to look beyond Niedzieliska. Apolonya had so little here, nothing but work and difficult brothers and harsh words and hard slaps from a mother who did not appreciate her. Then thoughts of Pani Zadora reminded Jadzia of the package she had sent with the girls. Swimming always made Jadzia hungry; perhaps Apolonya’s mother was not always so terrible after all. “Are you hungry for some kolaczki?” she asked, very pleased when Apolonya pulled out the package, wrapped in paper, that contained the pastry and some plums. Relenting in her internal criticism of Pani Zadora, she added, “Your mama makes the best kolaczki in Niedzieliska.”

“Thank you. And your mama, what did she say about your letter?”

“Mama was not home when Tata brought me the letter from town. She and Babcia are still at Pani Lesniak’s house,” Jadzia responded, choosing an apricot pastry from the selection Apolonya offered her.

“They left two days ago. Why so long?” questioned Apolonya, delicately biting into the prune kolaczki she had chosen for herself.

“Sometimes it takes a long time for a baby to come into the world.” Jadzia’s grandmother, Stella, was the region’s premiere midwife. Bronislawa often accompanied her mother-in-law on midwifery visits, particularly when the labor was expected to be difficult.

“Still, three days is too long. Poor Pani Lesniak,” added Apolonya, who still had nightmares about the night, six years ago, when her brother Gienek had been born. Her mother had screamed for hours. “Time to go back,” she said, brushing some powdered sugar from Jadzia’s cheek. “I need to help Mama with dinner.”

The girls got up and retrieved their smocks from the sunny hill where they had left them to dry. They loved this little alcove they had found, with its own still pool, hidden within the shade of towering pines. Here, in their hideaway, apart from other children, they could swim free as fish, lie in the sun in just their underclothing or in nothing at all, and speak of their dreams in private.

As they walked along the stream bank toward the Zadora home, they heard the ruckus before they saw what was causing it. Apolonya’s brother Antek was standing in the deepest part of the stream, holding a canvas bag high above his head, laughing. Tall and sturdy for his age, with thick blonde hair tousled in the breeze and clear slate blue eyes sparkling as brilliantly as the glints of water rushing about his hips, he shook the bag, then reached his arm backwards as though to fling it forward.

Gienek, a tow-headed miniature of his older brother, stood screaming on the bank, while Alfons was making tentative forays into the water, pulling back when the current tugged at him, then pushing forward again. The girls ran to Alfons, Apoloyna grabbing him just as he, too, was about to step into the stream.

Jadzia waded in to catch Gienek by the arm, pulling him back to the bank, while Apolonya hugged Alfons close to her. “What? What’s happening?” she asked, wiping her brother’s tear-streaked cheeks and runny nose with the hem of her smock.

Alfons fought her, trying to get back to the stream, but finally recognizing his sister’s greater strength, cried out through his tears, “Bika’s kittens! Bika’s kittens!” He pointed at his brother Antek.

Apoloyna looked out to the center of the stream, where Antek stood, still laughing. Looking more closely at the bag he held, she now saw that it was alive with squirming motion. “Antek,” she shouted. “Come here right now. Bring those kittens here!”

Antek laughed harder, plunging the bag into the stream as his brothers shrieked, holding it low in the water, then pulling it up over his head again. “Mama said to get rid of these.”

“Not like this. And I’ll talk to Mama. You come here right now, you devil!”

He only laughed harder. “Come and get me!” he challenged, drawing his upraised arm back, obviously preparing to fling the kittens into the current. The cries of the younger children pierced the air. Jadzia stood immobile, mesmerized by the scene being played out before her. Her own brothers never acted this way.

“Pan Holicki’s shed!” Apolonya suddenly shouted. Miraculously, Antek’s arm stopped mid-fling.

“What are you talking about?” he screamed back. He was not laughing now.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Pan Holicki lost his best rig in that fire.”

“So? What is it to me?” But Antek was now striding through the current toward them, the bag held firmly in his hand. Reaching the bank, he tossed it to the ground, and out wobbled four tiny kittens, two orange, two black and white. Alfons and Gienek, released from their captors, rushed to scoop up two kittens each, cradling them, crying and whispering soft words into their wet fur. “You should mind your own business,” Antek spit out to his sister.

“This is my business.”

“Keep sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, and it’ll get punched some day,” he muttered, turning his back on all of them and shuffling off into the forest.

Jadzia stood, silent, staring at the sister and brother. Apolonya: how brave she was. And Antek: how handsome.

 

 

Jadzia knew, even before stepping into her family’s cottage, that her mother and grandmother were home. Somehow the cottage, even from the outside, looked different—more beautiful, more serene—when Mama and Babcia were there. Stepping in, she found her mother busy at the stove, her grandmother carefully wrapping the midwidery instruments before placing them into the pine chest that stood on the far wall.

“Ah, you’re home.” Bronislawa, a tall, strong woman with a long, narrow face, the kind some would call handsome rather than beautiful, bent to receive her daughter’s kiss.

Jadzia then crossed the room to kiss her grandmother, whose lean frame was bent with fatigue, her normally neat bun now straggly with errant wisps of gray hair. “Pani Lesniak?” Jadzia asked, turning back to her mother.

“Doing well,” responded Bronislawa.

“And the baby?”

“A boy. Very small and weak, but I think he will be all right. He came turned around. That is why we were away so long.” Bronislawa turned to Stella, “Some tea, Mama?”

“No, I think I’ll just rest for a while before dinner.” Stella turned to go into the small room that was her own.

“Your grandmother worked miracles again today,” said Bronislawa as the bedroom door closed. “She is very, very tired.” As was the custom, Stella had moved into the home of her eldest son upon the death of her husband. She and her daughter-in-law had reacted contrary to custom, however, in that they had not begun their new living arrangement vying for power, resenting and envying, and then finally despising, each other. Rather, they had become dearest friends. For this, Stanislaw Czarnecki was the envy of all the men in the village.

By Niedzieliska standards, the Czarnecki home was almost a palace, with one large room for cooking, eating and relaxing and two tiny bedrooms for the adults. Jadzia had moved out of her parents’ bedroom just two years ago, and now set a pallet up every evening in a corner of the big room, while Marek and Stasiu slept in the storage room on the east side of the house.

The sitting room was beautifully furnished, its heavy cherry furniture crafted by Jadzia’s father and buffed to shiny perfection almost daily by her mother. The focal point of the room was an immense china cabinet her father had built which elegantly displayed her mother’s pride, the floral-patterned china service with its delicate pink roses on a cream-colored background. This was used only on very special occasions, when their everyday tinware would simply not do.

The cast iron stove was new, and Jadzia’s brothers kept both the stone fireplace and the stove well-stocked with hardwood logs they had dried in the woodshed. The long dining table had been painted white to match the much smaller table, set off to one corner, that held the family shrine. Here an intricately carved crucifix and an old, faded picture of the Blessed Mother of Czestochowa stood, and blessed candles from the village church, St. Adalbert’s, flickered at meal times and during dark evenings. Every day in the summer, a cut crystal vase held flowers freshly picked from the fields or the garden. Everything was tidy and sparkling clean, a testament to the care Jadzia’s mother and grandmother took of all things that mattered to them—so different, Jadzia thought with pride, than the Zadora home.

“Mama, a letter came for me today, while you were gone. From Evelina.”

“From your cousin in America?”

“Yes,” Jadzia trilled, reaching into the pocket of her smock to retrieve the letter.

“How wonderful! What did she have to say? Is everything all right with Sofia’s family?”

“Yes. Ciotka Sofia sends her love.”

“Read it to me while I make dinner.” Bronislawa opened a cupboard door and reached for the earthenware jar that held flour. “I think we must have babka tonight, to celebrate two safe deliveries.”

“Two deliveries?”

“Yes: of little Piotr Lesniak and of your letter.”

Jadzia laughed at her mother’s cleverness, then began to read, stopping at that strange English word to ask if her mother knew the meaning of alligator. “Is it some kind of bear?” she asked.

“No, no. It’s more like. . . well, I think we have nothing quite like it in Poland. But you know what a lizard is.”

“Yes. We see them sometimes in the woods.”

“It’s like that, only much, much bigger. Sometimes more than three meters long. And with a green skin that’s bumpy like a toad’s. And very, very large teeth.”

Jadzia shivered just thinking of such a monster. Then she said, disdainfully, “Pani Zadora said it was like a bear.”

“Well, anyone can make a mistake.”

“She could have said she didn’t know. She didn’t have to make up a lie. And she’s so mean to Apolonya sometimes.”

“You must try to understand, moya droga. Pani Zadora has had a very difficult life.”

“Father Jozef says all life is difficult, that life is a ‘vale of tears’ that we must learn to bear.”

“Perhaps. But for some people, things are much more difficult. Did you know that when Danuta and I were growing up, she was the prettiest girl in the village?” Jadzia looked skeptical. It would be hard to see Pani Zadora as anything but faded, tired and dejected. And loyalty told her that her own mother, Bronislawa, must have been the prettiest—wasn’t she now the prettiest of all the mothers in the village?

“And she was the best dancer by far,” continued Bronislawa, “and her voice was the loveliest of all in the church choir.” This seemed truly impossible to Jadzia, who could not reconcile this description to Pani Zadora’s exhausted shuffle, her strident, nagging voice.

“What happened to her?”

“Many problems. You don’t remember Apolonya’s tata, Gienek, do you? He was away so much when you were young.”

“No, but I’ve seen his picture. The one Pani Zadora keeps on her shrine.”

“He was a very handsome man. His son Antek looks just like him.” Bronislawa was too busy kneading babka dough to notice Jadzia’s sudden blush. Jadzia could see, once again, the stream, and Antek holding the bag of kittens up high in the air. She considered telling her mother, then immediately reconsidered. Mama would only tell her to stay away from Antek.

“Anyway, Gienek was a man who could not stay in one place for very long. Unlike most men in the village, who avoided joining the Prussian army whenever they could, Gienek enlisted. Often, he was home only once a year—and soon Danuta would deliver another child. Sometimes a child would come weeks before it could live, and Danuta had to deal many times with that terrible grief. When Gienek died she was left alone with many children and no husband to help her.”

“But Apolonya is so good, and yet her mother hits her and says mean things.” Jadzia felt a glow of gratitude for her own mother, who never hit her, who seldom even raised her voice.

“Much falls to Apolonya, I know. It is wrong for Danuta to take out her sorrow and worry on her daughter. But it’s very hard to have so many mouths to feed and only one daughter.”

By this point Jadzia was kneading her own little babka, adding in just a few white raisins and almonds. She loved it when her mother allowed her to make her own miniature copy of whatever pastries were being baked that day. “The boys could help in the house,” she suggested.

“And pears could grow on willow trees,” laughed Bronislawa. “Have you ever seen boys working in the kitchen in any house in the village—even in this one? It is simply not done.”

“All right,” Jadzia admitted, laughing. The idea of boys peeling potatoes or rolling out pierogi dough was pretty funny, now that she thought of it. Boys did nothing in the kitchen but eat—their work was out in the fields and the barn.

“Why does Pani Zadora hate America so much? I know about her two oldest sons who left for American and never came back. But she has four others, and they don’t seem to be doing her or Apolonya any good at all.”

Bronislawa laughed once more. “Ah, dziecko, you do not yet know what it is to be a mother. But one day you will.” She brushed a wayward strand of curly brown hair back from Jadzia’s forehead, leaving a smudge of white flour. “Every child is a precious gift from God.” Jadzia basked in the undeniable constancy of her mother’s love.

But only a moment later, another question came to mind. “Pani Zadora says Americans are godless, but even Apoloyna noticed how pious Evelina sounds from her letter. Do you think Americans are godless?”

“No, dear. I am certain that Evelina and all her family are good Catholics, just like us. But America is not like here. In Poland we are all Catholics, but in America Catholics live among people who worship God in many different ways, or not at all.”

“We have Jews here.”

“Yes, you’re right. In Poland there are many Jews as well.” Bronislawa clarified her statement. “I meant that Slavic Poles are Catholic.”

“Many of my friends don’t like Jews.”

“I know that. Many of their parents feel the same way. But that is wrong. The Jews live apart from us. They live their own lives their own way and cause us no trouble at all. I’m sure they are good people.”

“My friends say they killed Jesus.”

“Ach, do not listen to such foolishness. The Romans killed Jesus. And the Jews who wanted Him killed lived almost two thousand years ago. Would you like to be blamed for something your ancestors did? Or even for something I did, or your brothers? Of course not. Now, this babka is ready for the oven. Tata and your brothers will be back from the fields any time now. Unless you have any more questions?”

“Only one. Do you think Tata will play his concertina for us tonight?”

“I believe he can be persuaded. He had a short day in the fields, since he spent the morning in town. And we have much to celebrate—a beautiful new baby boy for the Lesniaks, and your very exciting letter from your cousin. You must share it with Tata and Babcia and your brothers tonight. Will you write back to Evelina soon?”

“Just as soon as I can. I know we are going to become good friends.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Three

 

 

 

Evie, Chicago

 

 

 

September, 1933

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15-go lipiec 1933

 

Moja droga kuzynko Ewelino!

 

Jakzie sie ucieszytam z Twojego listu. Wiele o Tobie styszatam i rowniez o Twojej rodzinie, i mam nadzieje ze bedziemy bardzo dobrymi przyjaciotkami.

 

 

            “A letter? For me?” Eva’s hazel eyes riveted on the battered onion-skin envelope. “Is it from Jadwiga? May I open it?”

            Sofia Bialek, her brow furrowed in amazement, scrutinized the envelope, turning it over and over in her work-reddened hands, now lightly dusted with flour. “Yes, moya droga,” she answered. “It’s from Jadwiga in Niedzieliska.” This was unprecedented—a letter, all the way from Poland—for her nine-year-old daughter. Had she ever believed that Jadwiga would answer the letter Eva had sent weeks earlier? Wiping her floury hands on her apron, she suggested, “Open it now. Let’s hear what Jadwiga has to say.”      

            “Oh, Mama. . .” Eva wailed. “Can I read myself first?” Eva felt guilty seeing the disappointment in her mother’s face. Of course, Mama would want to hear news from Niedzieliska—it had been so many years since she had left, and receiving a letter from Poland was so infrequent as to make its arrival a special occasion. But this was her special occasion, not her mother’s.

            “But Eva. . .” Eva did not wait for her mother to finish the sentence. With a sheepish smile she gently lifted the envelope from her mother’s fingers, then twirled toward the door and dashed to her escape.

            She turned right toward the parlor, planning to open her letter while embraced by the comfort of the old horsehair sofa. Set into a bay which took up almost the entire front wall of the parlor, the sofa offered more than deep, soft cushions. On this July day, unseasonably warm even for Chicago, the weak breeze gently fluttering the scalloped edges of the white Austrian panels that graced the open windows provided further incentive.

            Besides, the parlor offered the only area of the first-floor flat that Eva could consider formal enough for the momentous occasion of opening her first letter from Europe—indeed, the first letter she had ever received in her life. Besides for the sofa, it held her tata’s russet-colored easy chair, faded with use but still serviceable. Although Eva and her brothers fought for this chair when Tata was at work, they all knew to flee from it the moment they heard his key at the front door. Her mother’s tattered blue easy chair was another option.  Mama never objected to sharing it, or anything else for that matter, with her children.

            The parlor was also home to the aged walnut bureau and coffee table Mama polished with lemon oil every Saturday morning. On the far end of the bureau sat the family shrine to the Blessed Mother, which featured both a plaque of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, much beloved by the inhabitants of her mother’s home village of Niedzieliska, and a small plaster statue of the American Mary, dressed in a flowing blue robe, its folds draping gently over the wrists of her outstretched arms. A large vigil candle stood guard between the picture and the statue, and behind the arrangement stood a crystal vase for fresh flowers plucked from the garden: lilacs or daffodils in the spring, daisies or marigolds in the summer, chrysanthemums in the fall, pine branches in the winter.

            But the room’s crowning glory was the cut glass chandelier centered high above the coffee table. Every other month Eva assisted in cleaning it: standing on the table, she would remove each pearl-shaped droplet and hand it to her mother, who would then swirl it in a basin of vinegar water and, after buffing it gently in a piece of cheesecloth, return it to be replaced. Eva often wondered why they worked so hard on the chandelier, but in the evening, when its lights flickered on each teardrop, sparking it with diamond-like brilliance, she understood.

            Stepping into the parlor, Eva was disappointed to see that she was not alone. Andrzej sat on the rose-patterned carpet, playing with the paint-chipped wooden blocks that had been passed down to him first from Henryk and then from herself. “Eva, play blocks with me?” he pleaded, looking up, fixing her with eyes the blue of a jay’s wing. But Eva’s desire for privacy overcame the power of Andrzej’s blue eyes.

“Later, Andziu,” she promised, turning left toward the three bedrooms at the end of the long, narrow hallway. Her long, strong legs carried her swiftly through the narrow hallway to the relative privacy of her room. True, it was not hers alone: she had to share the tiny space, hardly larger than a closet, with her three-year-old brother. How unfair that her older brother, Henryk, had not had to make way in his room for Andrzej’s pallet and packet of belongings when Andrzej grew too big to share Mama and Tata’s bed. Closing the door, a privilege she was normally not granted but which seemed appropriate for this august occasion, Eva collapsed onto her narrow bed, the fascinating missive clutched tightly in her hand.

            And yet, despite her overpowering curiosity, she could not immediately open it. Turning it over from hand to hand, much as her mother had done, she examined it carefully. The handwriting was very neat and easy to read, but also unusual in some undefinable way. The address was correct, Panna Evelina Bialek, 1815 Haddon Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, USA. The stamps were beautiful, two big ones the color of steamed plums, one overlaid with marching soldiers sporting strange feathery helmets that gave the appearance of wings and spears pointed straight ahead. The other big stamp depicted the round, tired face of a kind-looking older man. Smaller stamps, of many colors, carried an image with which she was very familiar: the Polish eagle, sporting pointy feathers and outstretched claws, head turned regally to its right.

            Suddenly she could wait no longer. She tore into the letter, but not so carelessly as to damage the stamps or any tiny bit of the writing. Inside she found a single page of onionskin, densely covered in small, neat script, most of it in Polish but with one section in a language, not English, that was unfamiliar to her:

 

 

15 July 1933

 

My dear cousin Evelina!

 

How happy I was to receive your letter! I have heard so much about you and your family as well, and hope that we can become very good friends.

 

 

Blessings to you and your family from Mama and Tata. Isn’t it very strange that we both have two brothers and no sisters? Mine, Marek and Stasiu, for brothers, are not too bad. I do not miss having a sister so much because my very best friend, Apolonya Zadora, is like a dear sister to me. Do you have a good friend too?

My babcia, who is Tata’s mother, also lives with us. She is midwife for our village, and is very much respected in Niedzieliska. Mama sometimes helps her in her work, and perhaps, when I am a little bit older, I will be able to help as well.

I am starting my fourth year of school. We study mathematics (my worst subject—we are alike that way!) and history, and also Esperanto. Fari vi studi Esperanto ankaux? I am so happy you can read and write Polish, even though you were born in the USA, since no one in Niedzieliska knows English.

We live on a farm, with many chickens and two cows, not in a very big city like you. Tata has promised to some day take us to Krakow or Czestochowa, but Mama says your city is much bigger than those. I cannot even imagine what it must be like.

I hope you get to go to the World’s Fair and see the alligator. Mama told me all about it, but we have no such animal in Niedzieliska, and I can hardly even imagine it. If you can send me a postcard, I would always treasure a picture of the alligator, or of the Sky Ride. Any picture would be wonderful.

I hope you will write to me again soon, and I know that we will become good friends. Tata repairs shoes during the winter months when our fields lie fallow, and he has told me that if I polish the shoes until they shine, he will reward me by posting my letters to you. So I will be able to write often. I hope you can write often as well.  We know that Americans are very rich, but Tata says things are very hard all over the world right now.

I send a prayer for God’s blessings to you and your family, and will watch every day for a letter from you.

                                                            Your loving cousin,

Jadwiga Czarnecka, but please call me Jadzia, because, as you said, we are family

Eva breathlessly read the letter through a second time, then more slowly a third. Carefully placing it back into its frail envelope and turning it over to re-examine the stamps, she was almost overwhelmed at the knowledge that this letter had come from her cousin, Jadwiga—no, Jadzia—across the ocean, all the way from Poland. Mama had told her about leaving Poland and her beloved sister many years ago—in 1912—and now, through their letters, she and her cousin Jadzia were about to connect their families once more.

“Evelina!”  Eva could hear the irritation in her mother’s voice, muffled though it was through the closed door. “What does the letter say? Is my sister all right? Her husband? The children?”

“Yes, Mama,” Eva shouted back. “Everyone’s. . .” But in only a moment shouting was unnecessary, for the door opened quickly, revealing an increasingly impatient Sofia.

“Then come back to the kitchen and read your letter to me. Come. I need your help with the pierogi. I need for you to get the boiling pot from the top shelf.”

Sofia’s height, just under five feet tall, was one reason she often relied on her daughter for such tasks, but there were others. Although her mother’s brown eyes were as dark as in the wedding picture Eva often studied on the master bedroom dresser, the picture’s youthful, hopeful glow seldom sparkled in those eyes. And although Sofia was still a young woman, only thirty-seven, her previously dark braids were now liberally sprinkled with gray, and her cheeks, formerly plump and rosy, now revealed high cheekbones over pale hollows. Eva thought her mother looked too frail for many of the heavier kitchen tasks.

By contrast Eva, taking after her 6’2” father, had surpassed her mother’s height over a year before. Though tall and gangly, with skin that displayed the pallor of  city life, she was a strong, sturdy girl, and looked it. “I don’t know why we have to make pierogi on the hottest day of the year,” she complained as she reached up to the highest shelf in the cupboard.

“Because your tata and brother will want them when they come home from work, and once they are made, you will want them too.” Henryk, at 15, was already working full days with his father at the tannery. Eva knew that her mother hoped that in September, when the new semester started, Henryk would return to Wells High School for his sophomore year. But her brother was neither a talented nor a motivated student, and the money that a strong young man could make was very important to a family in such difficult financial times, particularly when so many, even the heads of households, could not find work.

In the kitchen, Eva filled the heavy pot with water and placed it on the back burner of the cast iron stove, adding a handful of salt to ensure that the dumplings would rise. Sofia turned back to the dough she’d been rolling before the postman arrived. “Now,” her mother said, “read your letter to me.”

“I cannot read it all. Some of it is in a funny language.”

“Let me see.” Eva pointed out the offending passage. “Oh, that’s Esperanto. It’s an invented language for all the world to learn, so we could all communicate. It is taught in many schools in Poland—maybe because it was invented by a Pole—but is not so popular in this country.”

“Can you read what the Esperanto says?”

Sofia peered closely. “I know a little. Jadwiga asks if you study Esperanto—then you could write in Esperanto, and if not, then in Polish, she says. Now, read the rest of your letter to me, dziecko.”

Eva read the letter, clearly and with the proper inflection. Her Polish was much stronger than her English, probably because she used Polish so much more than the language of her native country. In her neighborhood, Polish was the language of commerce, of gossip, of the playground. It was the only language she spoke at home: her parents’ knowledge of English, despite their many years in Chicago, was very limited. English was to her almost a foreign language, one she studied half-days at St. Casimir’s Elementary School, and a language she considered harsh-sounding and abrupt.

Although her parents demanded more studying and better grades in her English class than in any other, she could see little benefit to it. She much preferred the formal rhythms and polite patterns of the Polish she spoke at home. She especially loved the way Mama spoke—all those gentle sh-, ch-, sz- and cz- sounds pouring out like water lapping the stones in a stream bed. Everyone said Mama’s Polish was very dignified—that she spoke like an empress.

“Ah,” Sofia sighed once her daughter finished reading, expertly flipping the dough over to roll it even thinner. “Your cousin Jadwiga sounds very smart, like her mama. Bronislawa always took firsts in school when we were little girls.”

“You, too, Mama, I’ll bet.”

“Well, sometimes.” Sofia paused to wipe her brow with the cuff of her sleeve. “But the fair. Eva, I know you want to go. But things are very hard now.”

“But Tata promised!”

“I know, moya droga, but we will have to wait and see.”

Eva sighed. Mama’s “wait and see” usually took precedence over Tata’s promises. She wanted to complain about the unfairness of this, but a quick look at her mother’s face showed that Sofia was more disappointed than she herself was.

 “It must be fun to live on a farm,” she offered, to ease the moment for both of them.

“Yes, in many ways it is,” Sofia answered, perhaps a little too brightly. “But it is very hard work too. The farm where your cousin lives is the farm I grew up on. It’s been in our family for many generations.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Ah, child, I have told you this many times. Things were very hard in Poland. Always war. Never enough food.” Appearing satisfied with the flatness of her dough, Sofia reached for a tin cup, which she would use to cut out flat, thin circles, then continued, “Your tata and I came here for a better life.”

Eva considered how much better her own life would be if she could go to the fair, but responded with the safer, “Don’t you miss your family, Mama?”

“Yes, every day. . . but some things cannot be helped. So, potato and cheese pierogi for Tata? And maybe some sauerkraut for Henryk? How does that sound?”

“Good. And what kind for you, Mama?”

“Oh, you know I like them all.”

“No plum today?” Eva asked, wondering why her mother never seemed to have a preference about anything.

“I don’t know. I would need someone to go down to the cellar to get a jar of plums.” But Eva was already heading out the kitchen door toward the outside entrance to the cellar. She had a sweet tooth, and this teasing game was one she and her mother often played.

When Eva returned, she stood silently next to her mother as together they expertly filled and enclosed each packet of dough, forming a half-circle, then pressed the edges with a floured fork to hold them together, readying them for their saltwater bath. Sofia  trusted her daughter with the tricky job of retrieving the pierogi as they popped to the top. Too long a time in the boiling water and they became rubbery; too short a bath and the pierogi would fall apart as they were placed on the cooling racks.

Finally, when all the pierogi were cooling and the kitchen counter and utensils had been scoured, Eva asked for permission to go to the park. “Only if you take your brother with you,” came the reply, and although Eva scowled, it was the answer she expected and one she truly didn’t much mind. Andrzej was a sweet child, undemanding, who could amuse himself for hours playing in the sand with a cigar box and a couple of old spoons, leaving her time to reread her letter and think of the response she’d make to her cousin.

And so, less than a half hour later, Eva deposited her brother in the big wooden sandbox at Kosciusko Park, one of the dozens of small local parks that dotted the neighborhoods of Chicago. This park sported no gushing fountains or expansive flower beds like she’d seen the time Tata had taken the family on the bus to Lincoln Park. But there were a sandbox and a rickety slide, as well as two rusted swing sets, one offering three canvas swings for the older children, the other two wooden box swings for the toddlers. Every spring, maintenance workers planted a few petunias and marigolds around the cement sign at the park’s entrance, but the combination of hot Chicago summers and the stomping of many small feet did little to enhance any horticultural endeavors.

Eva pored over her letter while dreamily rocking and circling on the center swing of the big kids’ set. What to write back to her cousin, now that they were sure to become good friends? Surely more about her family’s life in the yellow brick three-flat on Haddon Avenue. She could tell her about the Tomczak family with the three little children who inhabited the third floor, or about old Pani Poniatowska, the tenant on the second floor, who relentlessly but uselessly complained to the landlord about the noise six children generated. She could tell her about their cellar, the home to whole colonies of rats, and how brave she felt when she stomped into its damp darkness on an errand for her mother, shouting her arrival above the sounds of their tiny feet skittering to shelter.

She could tell Jadzia about Americans—how they celebrated only the days of their births and not their Name Days, and she could certainly find many other examples of the exotic lives led by non-Poles in this country. She had learned a lot about American culture—actually a foreign study to her—in school.

She should mention St. Casimir’s, of course, and that, although she and Jadzia were the same age, she herself had finished the fourth grade, having been double-promoted after first grade. While Esperanto was not part of St. Casimir’s curriculum, studying English for a half day must be at least as commendable. She could tell her cousin of her success at English spelling, how she was the champion at her grade level in the school’s weekly spelling bees.

But what of a best friend? She had no one to compare to Jadzia’s friend  Apolonya Zadora, despite her many efforts to find a good friend among the young girls in her class. Perhaps it was her height—she towered over not only the girls, but also all of the boys in her class—and her height was only intensified by her gangly awkwardness, long arms and legs shooting out everywhere when she walked or inevitably sprawling into the aisle from her too-tiny child’s desk at school.

But it was most probably not her physical awkwardness, but her social awkwardness, her timidity and the blustering, stuttering way she often responded to questions, that had earned her the hated nickname of Mysz. That, combined with the drab brown color of her hair and the grayish pallor of her skin, had resulted in the unlikely nickname of “Mouse” for such a tall, gangling girl. But of course, Jadzia did not need to know any of this.

One comment in her cousin’s letter baffled her: how would she address Jadzia’s belief that she and her family were rich Americans? Her mother’s comments about the Century of Progress had made her feel anything but rich. But then, her family didn’t think of themselves as poor, either. They were no richer or poorer than any of their neighbors, after all. Eva knew she would not have to polish shoes to earn the money for stamps. Her mama would find the money for postage. So perhaps, compared to her extended family in Poland, she and her family were rich—certainly a novel thought.

“Mysz! Mysz!” The shouts jolted her out of her reverie. Looking up, she saw that  ugly boy, Mikosz Sienko, leading three of his nasty sixth-grade cohorts into the sanctuary of her beloved park. Time to go home.

“Come, Andrzej,” she exhorted, hoping that her brother’s good nature would overcome his disappointment at being torn away from the mound of sand he was carefully building.

“Don’t go, Mysz. Stay and play!” Mikosz’s band of hooligans laughed uproariously at this.

“I’m going home. This park is beginning to s-s-s-smell bad.”

“Oh, little Mysz, you don’t have to be afraid of us.”

“I am not afraid. And don’t call me M-m-mysz!” But the jeering sounds of “Mysz, Mysz, Mysz” followed Eva and Andrzej out of the park and half way down Division Street toward the relative safety of Haddon Avenue. “Andziu,” she pleaded, holding his small hand tightly in her own, walking at a speed that seriously challenged the ability of his pudgy legs, “don’t you ever grow up and be like those mean boys.”

 

 

Later that night, dinner done and cleared away and Andrzej tucked snugly into bed, Eva and her mother sat in the parlor, on the comfortable sofa covered by a pale pink chenille spread that had once been a vibrant rose. They looked more closely at the letter from Poland and talked of many things. Neither Tata nor Henryk had come home for dinner, and Sofia speculated that they “were working late at the tannery again.” Eva had smiled and nodded. Now they were carefully examining the stamps on the letter. “Who is this man?” asked Eva, pointing to the kind-looking mustachioed gentleman on one stamp.

“That is Jan Sobieski, the famous king of Poland.”

“He’s the king now?”

“No, moja droga.  From many, many years ago—in the 1600s, when the Turks were invading Europe. He stopped them and saved Poland and the rest of Europe for the Church. Otherwise you would be a little Muslim girl, wearing a turban on your head. Would you like that?”

Eva laughed, although a turban, she thought, might be a delightful thing to wear. “What of these funny soldiers, Mama? Are they King Sobieski’s soldiers?” She pointed to the feathery-helmeted marchers.

“No, that stamp celebrates the revolution of 1830, and those men are the winged Polish hussars. They fixed feathers—eagle and ostrich—to frames and wore them into battle.”

“Why did they wear feathers?” asked Eva, stifling a laugh. “It makes them look so funny.”

“Maybe funny to you, but maybe not so funny if you were an enemy across the field. Imagine how big the hussars must have looked, charging into battle on their magnificent horses. The enemy must have thought they were giants.”

“And this battle was like the American Revolution?” Eva had studied the American Revolution—Washington, Franklin, Jefferson—in history class.

“Very much like the American Revolution, but against the Tzar of Russia, Tzar Nicholas. Russia owned much of Poland then, just as England owned the American colonies before the American Revolution.”

“And did Poland win?”

“No, moya droga, Russia won. Many Poles died in the battles, and many more were sent to camps in Siberia, where it is very cold and they, too, died. It was very bad times for Polish people. Poland was divided for many years. When your tata and I came to this country, his village belonged to Prussia, and Tata knew that if he stayed in his village, he would soon have to become a soldier for Prussia.”

“Tata a soldier?” Eva speculated, trying to imagine her father in a soldier’s uniform but not succeeding in that effort.

“Well, we were both much younger then,” Sofia sighed, “although you might be surprised at how different your tata and I were long ago. I bet you do not know that at one time your tata dreamed of being a professor.”

“A professor?” To Eva, imagining her father as a teacher seemed even more preposterous than imagining him in a soldier’s uniform. “What happened?”

“Well, dziecko, sometimes things do not happen just as we wish they would. Your tata is a good man—he works very hard for us. It’s just even when one tries his very hardest. . .”

Eva saw for just a moment a familiar, far-away look darken her mother’s now tearful eyes. Eva had seen this look most often when her mother spoke of times long past. But soon Sofia abandoned her thought and recovered, asking as she pointed to one of the smaller stamps, “Evelina, do you know this bird?”

“Of course, Mama, the Polish eagle,” she answered, having seen this eagle displayed on posters and signs in many of the shops on Division Street and on many of the products imported from Poland that were for sale there. A person could not travel far in their neighborhood without encountering the strange-looking bird.

“See how he looks to the right?”

“Yes.”

“This is because Poland has always looked to the right—to the West—away from Russia, toward the countries of western Europe, especially France.” But Eva’s eyelids were beginning to droop, her body beginning to relax against her mother’s, signaling that this too long, too exciting day for a nine-year-old was about to come to a close.

“Eva, go to bed, dziecko,” Sofia said softly, hugging her daughter and placing a feathery kiss on her cheek. “Enough history for one night. We will talk more in the morning.”

In her bed, Eva listened to the steady whispering sound coming from her brother’s cot. Despite the itchiness of her eyes and the heaviness in her limbs, she could not immediately go to sleep. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping to force sleep to come, to be dreaming of something wonderful before Tata came home. But thoughts of Poland and of her cousin kept intruding.

She wrote and rewrote in her mind the next letter she would compose. There was much more to tell Jadwiga—and much to not tell her. She would tell about her home, her school, her family. She would tell about what life was like in Chicago for those who had emigrated to America. Some day, when their relationship had grown and they were truly friends, she would tell Jadzia of her dreams and aspirations, about her ideas concerning what life was all about.

She would not tell Jadwiga about some of the mean children at school, especially that horrible Mikosz Sienko, or about her unsuccessful efforts to find a good friend. She would certainly not mention her nickname, Mysz. Most of all, she would not tell her about those nights when Tata was very late coming home, and frightening sounds—low slurred shouts and rapid bursts of higher-pitched speech, sharp claps and heavy thuds—would sometimes come from the bedroom at the end of the hall. She would not tell about her mother those next mornings, about the dark circles under Mama’s eyes or about how slowly she moved about the kitchen on those days. Or about sometimes finding Mama sitting alone in the kitchen, her shoulders heaving with silent tears.

Although she had never been told this, she knew that in families there were things that were not to be discussed—certainly not outside the family, but even not between its members—and that what happened behind her parents’ closed bedroom door was one of those things. Screwing her eyes together even harder, she focused on her letter from Jadzia, finally finding her land of dreams.