by Bina Bernard
Harry glared. “I’m not signing any form for any procedure.”
Rattled, the doctor left. Only to be followed by a succession of other doctors, clipboard in hand, each pressing Harry to sign the consent form.
“You have to find a way to get rid of the water without cutting me open. Use your miracle pills!” Harry mocked. “Start playing doctor, instead of butcher!”
To Hannah he said, “This is a teaching hospital. To them I’m just a guinea pig.”
Harry was blaming the doctors, but Hannah felt responsible. No matter what Robert said, she could not be dissuaded from the notion that Harry’s present condition was her fault. Her mistake. The doctor she had selected to make him better had only brought him pain. During visiting hours, when the medical staff tried to enlist her help in persuading Harry to sign the consent form, Hannah refused. She couldn’t side with those she no longer trusted.
When Molly left the room briefly, Harry motioned for Hannah to move closer.
“Remember, Hannah, I don’t want to end up a vegetable attached to a machine. I won’t be anybody’s experiment. Promise me you’ll make sure of that,” he said. “I want to live, but only if I’m really alive. I agreed to all this, against my better judgment. I wanted to buy myself more time with you.” He reached for her hand. “And to give you enough time to find Lena. I must see her before I die.”
“You’re not going to die!” Hannah insisted and squeezed Harry’s hand. She wished she had some hopeful news about Lena to keep Harry fighting. Having made no headway, she felt she was failing her father on all fronts.
The medical stalemate was finally broken the evening Hannah and Molly saw Dr. Caulder leaving Harry’s room waving the consent form in the air like a victory flag.
“Your father has finally signed, and it is not a moment too soon,” Dr. Caulder said, convinced his prodding had paid off. With his pain now contained by the morphine, in his lucid moments, it was his desire to stay alive long enough to see Lena that had made Harry agree.
A combination of disbelief and relief washed over Hannah. At that moment she chose to believe the doctors would pull off her much-needed miracle. “When will you operate?” she asked.
“As soon as I get a slot in the O.R.,” Dr. Caulder said. “Probably tomorrow afternoon.”
Hannah put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. “Once this is over, Mom, you should take Dad on a real vacation.”
“I’ll be happy if he just comes home.” Molly was uncharacter-istically somber.
After they said goodnight to Harry, without thinking, Hannah said to Molly, “Come home with me.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was sorry. Being in her own apartment she could pretend her life was normal, at least for the night. She knew with Molly there that would not be possible. Hannah felt guilty for her momentary wish to be rid of her mother.
Outside the hospital, First Avenue was still busy with the tail end of rush hour traffic. On Second Avenue Hannah hailed a cab downtown. In the taxi, neither of them spoke. A grateful Molly held onto Hannah’s hand as if she were the child.
Ignoring the flickering red light on the answering machine, Hannah called Robert as soon as they entered the apartment. Hearing Hannah’s “Hello!” his agitated voice bellowed out of the receiver. “Why do you bother having an answering machine if you don’t call in to check your messages? I’ve been leaving messages since early this morning!”
“It’s been a trying day.”
“What’s going on?”
“Believe it or not he’s agreed to the surgery.”
“Want me to come in?”
“No. It’s just a procedure.” Hannah repeated what she’d heard from the doctors. But she was glad Robert had offered to come in.
Hannah went into the kitchen after she hung up. She found Molly sitting at the counter staring blankly into space. In a role reversal, Hannah cut two pieces of Molly’s homemade strudel she kept in the freezer and put them in the toaster.
“Do you want tea, coffee, or milk?” Hannah asked.
Molly shook her head.
“Eat, Mom,” Hannah said, as she placed the warmed piece of strudel in front of her mother. “It’s what you tell everybody.”
As Molly was taking her first bite, Hannah licked the jam from her fingers and headed for the shower.
When she came out of the bathroom, Hannah heard the unrelenting whistle of the teakettle and rushed to turn it off. She found her mother now sitting stone-like at the dining room table, oblivious to the piercing sound.
“Were you making tea, Mom?” Hannah asked. Molly seemed startled by the question, even though she had obviously put the water up to boil.
“No. I’ll just go to sleep,” she said.
“I left you one of my night shirts and a new toothbrush, on Christy’s bed.”
Hannah walked over and gently touched her mother’s shoulder. As soon as Molly felt Hannah’s presence, she leaned her head against her daughter’s body.
That night, tossing in her bed, Hannah was visited by a distraught Aunt Emma who announced Harry was dead. Hearing her own voice shouting, “He can’t be dead! He can’t be dead!” Hannah bolted upright in bed. The room was dark except for the light from the TV. “He can’t die, not now!”
Hannah no longer had the Black Madonna to appeal to, so she talked directly to God, “Please, please, don’t let him die!”
Now wide awake, she went in to check on her mother. She found Molly curled up in Christy’s bed, sound asleep.
Hannah reached for the still unopened box of Marlboros in her bag, but changed her mind. Instead she opted for a bowl of mint chip ice cream, and got out her LENA folder. She knew her search for her sister was the only way she had to keep her father fighting to stay alive. Hannah resolved to accelerate her efforts to find Lena.
The next morning Hannah dropped her mother off in front of the hospital.
“Tell Dad I’ll be back long before he goes to the O.R.,” Hannah called out to Molly, standing on the sidewalk. As the taxi lumbered along First Avenue, she made a mental list of all the things she hoped to accomplish before Harry’s surgery.
No time to shop for special treats, Hannah stopped at the corner deli, picked up some Drake’s crumb cakes and a coffee for herself.
“Morning, Erica. Any messages?” she asked the receptionist.
“You have a pile!” She handed her a batch of pink slips.
As soon as Hannah entered the editorial area, there was a lighter spring to her steps. Glad to be at work, she distributed the crumb cakes with an apology. “Better something, than nothing,” Hannah said sheepishly. She reached her cubicle, put the coffee container down on her desk, just as the phone rang.
“Hannah Stone,” she said in her best business-like voice.
“They’re going to operate this morning!” Molly yelled. “Please come! Your father wants to talk to you before they take him.”
She dashed out of the office without saying anything to anyone.
By the time Hannah reached the hospital, Harry was being wheeled out of his room. He’d been sedated and wasn’t making much sense. His eyes open slits, he reached for her hand as she walked alongside while the orderly steered his bed to the patients’ elevator.
“Lena, you’re here,” he whispered. “I knew my Hannah would find you.”
She didn’t correct him. Hannah held on to her father with both her hands.
CHAPTER
11
Poland, June 1976
IN A WARSAW CLINIC on a rainy Friday morning in late June, Dr. Lena Malińska stood with her arms folded in front of her elderly patient, and, in mock anger, admonished her.
“I can’t make you better unless you do your part,” the doctor said. “You have to take all the pills I give you. If you stop as soon as you feel a little better, the infection will come back. These pills may not work the next time. Understand?”
“Yes. Yes. I do understand! I will take everything just the way you told m
e to. I promise, Doctor. I bet your mother must be very, very proud of you, like I am of my lovely Ewa here,” the old woman added.
Lena nodded her head. “I’d like to think that my mother is proud of me,” she said. And that she’s still alive, Lena thought to herself.
“You can make another appointment at the desk as you go out,” Dr. Malińska told Ewa, handing her a bag with medication. “Make sure your mother does what she has promised to do.”
“I will,” Ewa assured the doctor. As she gently put her arm around her mother to steady her wobbly gait, Lena watched with envy.
Before the two women left the tiny examining room, the old woman turned, grabbed Lena’s hand, pumped it firmly with both hands. “I can see you are not only a good doctor but a fine lady. You must be a wonderful daughter,” she said.
“Thank you,” Lena said to her patient. Silently hoping she would soon have the opportunity to prove that she was.
Lena glanced into the packed waiting room, and braced herself for an exhausting day. A nurse walking toward her was holding a cup of tea in one hand and a stack of patient folders in the other.
“If you won’t take time to eat, the least I can do is make you drink,” she said and forced the cup of tea into Lena’s hand. Touched by the nurse’s concern, she took the tea. Luckily the folders were destined for another doctor. Thank God, Lena thought, and breathed a sigh of relief. She checked her watch. It was only 11:45, but her feet already ached.
She returned to her cramped office just off the examining room, and put the cup of tea that the nurse brought her down on her desk, next to a cold cup that was almost full to the brim. She looked at the stack of folders and sighed. The pile on the left represented the patients she had already seen that morning. The taller stack on the right, she had yet to see.
Reaching for her next patient’s folder, Lena knocked over the framed picture of her son and his father taken just weeks before Ryszard was killed. Lena’s eyes always welled up at the sight of five-year-old Stefan in his soccer shirt proudly standing in front of his father with one foot resting on a soccer ball. The photo served as a reminder of what she’d had, and had lost. As she restored it to its rightful spot on her desk, Lena noted the piece of paper she’d been staring at for weeks, with the phone number of the Krakow photo shop. She kept putting off making the call, afraid it might prove to be a blind alley. Lena took a deep breath. No better time than now! she thought, and dialed.
When a man’s voice answered, Lena wasn’t sure how to start. “Um . . . I’m . . . I’m Dr. Lena Malińska. I live in Warsaw,” she began. “I’m trying to locate a Z. Turowski who used to take pictures in Krakow around 1939. Are you Z. Turowski? Are you the Z. Turowski who took pictures in Krakow then?” she asked.
“The answer is ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ I am Zygmunt Turowski, but I couldn’t have taken any pictures in ’39. I wasn’t born until ’40.”
Lena slumped down into her chair.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” Lena said, after a moment of silence. She was about to hang up, when the voice on the other end said, “The person you are probably looking for is my father. Does he still have pictures you’re trying to find?”
Lena’s heart was racing. “No. I have the pictures. I’m trying to find the people.” Realizing this photographer was her only link to her real family, she asked tentatively, “Your father is alive and well?”
“He is alive, but not so well.”
“I’m sorry. But would it be possible for me to see him even for just a few minutes?”
“He doesn’t work anymore. He’s retired.”
“Does he still live in Krakow?”
“Yes. He still lives here.”
“I hope he is well enough to see me. I promise I won’t take much of his time.”
“Why do you need to see him?”
“I need him to tell me if he took the pictures and if he remembers who the people are.”
“That may be a problem. He’s pretty old and doesn’t remember things.”
Lena refused to focus on that possibility. “If he’d be willing to see me, I’ll come to Krakow on Saturday,” Lena said.
“I’m sure he’ll like the company. He doesn’t get many visitors,” Mr. Turowski said. “Come to the shop first. Maybe if I see the pictures I will know if they are his.”
For the next two days Lena could barely concentrate on her patients. Early Saturday morning, after she delivered her son to a friend’s house where he was to spend the night, Lena took the two-and-a-half-hour train ride to Krakow. Settled into her seat, her mood seesawed between fanciful optimism and total despair. The idea that in three hours she might finally find out who she really was made her spirits soar. But the thought that Zygmunt Turowski might not name the woman in the picture brought tears. Lena took out her pictures and stroked the face of the woman she believed to be her mother. Help me, Tata, just as you always have, Lena begged her deceased father.
She emerged from the Krakow train station, and was greeted by the bright noonday sun. Lena looked around hoping the mere sight of the city would evoke some childhood memories. But nothing seemed familiar. She was about to ask the woman walking toward her for directions to the photo shop, when she spotted the Tourist Information Center directly across the street. A helpful young woman behind the counter provided Lena with a map of the city and pointed her in the right direction.
It was a short walk from the station to the address Mr. Turowski had given her. Lena strolled along the cobblestone streets, looking for anything that might remind her of her early years. No images from her past materialized. She stopped in front of the store-front with large gold letters that identified it as Z. Turowski & Son. Lena tried to picture herself as a little girl walking in to be photographed. When she opened the door, a bell announced her entrance. The man behind the counter was dealing with several customers at one time.
Lena waited anxiously, fondling her two photographs. When it was her turn, the man she assumed to be Mr. Turowski walked toward her. She thought he looked older than the thirty-six years he would be if he were born in 1940, as he had told her.
“How can I help you?” he asked cheerfully.
“Mr. Turowski, I’m Lena Malińska from Warsaw. We spoke on the phone.”
He nodded. She placed her treasured photographs on the counter in front of him.
“Have you ever seen these photos?”
He studied them carefully and shook his head. “But they look like the kind of pictures my father used to take.”
“Even if he didn’t actually take them, at the very least he must have developed the film. Isn’t this his stamp?” Lena asked as she turned the photographs over. “He would still have to know the name of the people. That’s really all I need. I’d like to show him these pictures.”
“When I told him you were coming, he was very pleased. He likes company. I’m afraid I don’t have much time to spend with him. But I must warn you not to expect too much. My father’s memory is foggy these days. He doesn’t always make much sense either. I hope you didn’t make this trip for nothing.”
Zygmunt Turowski gave Lena his father’s address, and on her map of Krakow indicated the route of the tram she needed to take to Nowa Huta, the section of Krakow where his father now lived. She left the shop, and instead of rushing to the tram, Lena found herself walking almost in slow motion. On the one hand she was eager to meet the elder Zygmunt Turowski and show him her photos. But if he did not hold the key to her identity, she feared her search might be stymied by the old photographer’s lapsed memory.
From the time she boarded the #5 tram at the central train station until she got off, Lena could not control her mood swings, from hopelessness to elation and back again. Off the tram at Plac Centralny, she was shocked by how different Nowa Huta looked from the rest of Krakow. The soaring Gothic churches, medieval town square and narrow winding streets were a stark contrast to the wide boulevards and the heavy Stalinist structures that dominated Nowa Huta
. With the statue of Vladimir Lenin at the center of the Avenue of Roses, Soviet influence was hard to miss.
As she rang the buzzer to the fourth floor apartment where the senior Mr. Turowski lived, Lena cast a furtive glance skyward and crossed her fingers. An elderly woman wearing a soiled white apron opened the door a crack.
She squinted at Lena through very thick lenses. “Are you the doctor from Warsaw?” she asked.
Lena nodded.
“Maybe you can give me some medicine for my cough,” she said, as she opened the door to let her in.
“Sorry, but I don’t have any medicine with me.”
“Too bad,” the woman said, and showing no further interest in Lena, led her into a small, darkened room that smelled of mildew. “The old man’s in there,” she said. “I think he’s sleeping. You can wake him up. He’s always falling asleep.”
For a moment Lena looked around what appeared to be the parlor. She could identify no human form, asleep or awake until she realized that what she thought was a mound of pillows resting on an upholstered chair seemed to be breathing. Hoping not to frighten him, Lena gently tapped the shoulder of Mr. Zygmunt Turowski.
His eyes opened slightly, but he wasn’t sure he was really awake, or that he wished to be.
“Mr. Turowski, my name is Lena Malińska. I have come from Warsaw to talk to you. I have some pictures that I believe you took a long time ago.”
The elderly man studied Lena as he tried to reassure himself that she was real.
“I took a lot of pictures,” he said once he decided she was worthy of a conversation. “I make good pictures. People came to Krakow from all over so I could take pictures of them and their whole family.”
Lena sat down on the edge of the chair about an arm’s length from Mr. Turowski and handed him the two photographs. First the one of the two little girls, then the two girls with the blonde woman.
“Do you remember taking these pictures? Please, please try to remember.” Lena was almost begging.
He stared at the photo of the two girls for a time, then shook his head.