"We've got to get out of here before he comes after us," Grete said.
"Where are we going?" Monika asked sleepily.
Grete said nothing.
All day they wandered through the forest, but they weren't alone. Ragged people with sunken faces skulked about the woods.
It was dark again when they came to a campfire. Grete took Monika's hand.
"We stop here."
Somebody stood up from the campfire. Monika recognized his big teeth. He walked toward them. They ran through the woods, crashing into branches, stumbling over roots. Monika heard his voice behind them.
At last they ducked into a hollow below a fallen tree trunk. They saw him stumble past them and disappear into the woods. Monika found Grete's hand in the darkness.
She woke up to the sound of a scuffle next to her. He had pinned Grete down. Monika picked up a stick and swung it at his head. When it hit, he arched up. Grete moved her hand to her waist. Monika knew she kept the knife there. The blade flashed. Grete pushed it into his belly. He groaned and fell forward. Grete rolled away quickly. Together they pushed him over on his back. Grete pulled the knife out of his belly and cleaned off the blood with oak leaves.
"We won't make that mistake again," she told Monika. What mistake, Monika wondered. But she was afraid to ask.
At last the woods opened up onto a meadow. It was a farmer's field. All the haystacks were covered with canvas. At the edge of the woods sat some men dressed in pajamas. They looked frightened. Monika couldn't understand why. Afraid herself, she hugged her bear. "Just kids," one of them said in German, and they seemed to relax. Grete helped them start a fire. Monika looked for twigs. Suddenly shouts came from below the meadow.
Yid. Yid.
"Villagers—they hate Jews," one of the men in pajamas said.
"What are Jews?" Monika asked.
"Quiet," Grete hissed. The voices of the villagers grew louder. Grete and Monika followed the pajama people to the nearest haystack. They buried themselves under it. There was room for all five of them with Monika in the middle, farthest from the edge of stack. The villagers were shouting and laughing. Something hard thrust its way into the earth.
"Pitchforks," Grete whispered.
One of the pajama men screamed. The pitchfork people cheered. Monika heard them running around the haystack. They must be playing a game. More screams. A pitchfork prong stabbed the earth next to Monika. Grete groaned. Finally the pitchfork people stopped playing. Everything was quiet, but Monika was afraid to move.
She placed her cheek against Grete's, but it was cold. All day she lay under the haystack, holding her bear. Maybe if she lay there long enough Grete would come back to life—or even one of the pajama men. But they didn't. When she was sure it was night, she dug her way out from under the haystack. She went back into the woods and sat down against the trunk of a tree. She remembered the big man's map, but she still didn't know where she was.
A Dirty Old Thing
Monika looked up and saw a woman with a broad face. Her head was covered with a red kerchief.
"I am Piroschka." She spoke like the men Grete called partisans. "What's your name?"
"My name is Monika."
"Quick, before they come back," Piroschka said, picking Monika up in her large arms.
She carried her through the edge of the woods until they came out on the other side. She put Monika down, and they walked a dirt path. At its end, Monika could see a wooden house with chickens in the front yard.
"Hurry, hurry. Nobody must see you."
Inside, the house was so dark Monika could barely see Piroschka bending over the stove, heating water. The woman gave her a cup of tea.
"You can stay in my root cellar," she said.
A wooden ladder led to a storage area with a dirt floor.
"Later, when this is over, you'll come upstairs and stay in my boys' room. They're gone—"
All day, Monika felt like a prisoner in the root cellar. In the evening Piroschka let her out, took her onto her lap and stroked her hair. She told her the story of her brave boys who resisted the Germans back in 1939.
"They swung swords at them, didn't stand a chance."
The woman quivered silently for a moment. "But little Monika, you have come into my life. You will be mine."
Monika wanted to stand up, go outside, and breathe fresh air. But Piroschka said no. Finally Piroschka made her a bed from old blankets. She crawled between them with her bear and thought about Grete. Was she still under the haystack? Piroschka began to teach Monika Polish, read to her from books about bears who wore clothes and had office jobs.
"My boys loved these stories."
Monika imitated the way Piroschka said the words. Soon Monika began to forget the German words for things. But sometimes she thought in German, and then she remembered what she thought she'd forgotten. One day she asked Piroschka in Polish, "How can I find my mother?"
"Your parents are dead. You're the only one alive."
This made Monika cry. She had thought it might be true, and now Piroschka had made it real. She hated Piroschka for telling her.
Piroschka took her in her arms and rocked her until she stopped crying.
"Do you know the story of King Kasimir the Great? He lived in a castle nearby, in Krakau."
Monika rubbed her eyes, held the bear to her chest.
"One day King Kasimir was out hunting near Opoczno. A bear came running towards him. King Kasimir called to the bear. It stood up on its hind legs. The king ran towards the bear and speared it. As the bear fell to its death, it swung its paw at the king, ripping his fur coat with his claws. The king went to Meilech, the Jewish furrier in Opoczno, and asked him to repair his fur so that it was seamless again.
"As King Kasimir sat on a bench waiting for Meilech to sew up his fur, the door to a back room opened, and in walked a beautiful young woman with pearls wound into her black hair, Esterka, Meilech's daughter.
"The king fell in love with her on the spot. But Esterka refused to go with him unless he promised to marry her and to let her raise their girl children as Jews. He loved her so much that he agreed. So they were married, and Esterka made the king very happy. King Kasimir was always good to the Jews because of Esterka's advice to him. Even though he never crowned her queen, she was really the queen of Poland."
"I like that story," Monika said.
"Tomorrow I will make you a dress of purple, and I will call you Esterka."
The next day, Monika lay on her mattress all day in the root cellar, hugging her bear, while Nazi soldiers clomped on the floors above.
"Slaughter the pig and the chickens," a German voice said.
And she heard Piroschka's familiar footsteps move across the floor to the door. Laughter. Shrieks. Soon she couldn't tell the difference.
Monika thought it must be morning—she'd been asleep. Somebody was descending the ladder into the cellar. Her heart beat fast.
"Esterka."
They hugged one another and lay together in the darkness for a long time.
***
For the rest of the war, Piroschka and Esterka lived on fried flour and grain cakes. Sometimes they ate carrots and turnips from Piroschka's garden.
Esterka begged Piroschka to let her go outside.
"Maybe at night."
Piroschka brought her into an enclosed garden where they sat on the steps. She whispered to her the names of flowers and vegetables that grew in rows.
"You must say them in perfect Polish, or you won't be safe here."
Sometimes Esterka had a vision of her mother. She looked very pretty walking in a garden, cutting irises and daffodils. One night she asked about her mother.
"Where is she?"
Piroschka frowned. "Who?"
"My mother?"
The hugging began. Piroschka's body felt like bread dough just before you put it in the oven.
"Poor little Esterka. Your mother's dead. Everyone's dead in Germany."
Her voic
e had a trill at the end that made Esterka uneasy. Piroschka led her back inside.
"The neighbors will be waking up."
Sometimes when Esterka thought about her mother, she wondered about her real name. When she was alone, she lay on her mattress saying names to herself. If only somebody would tell her all the names in the world, then when she heard her name, she could say, "That's it. That's my name."
Sometimes Piroschka sat on the mattress with Esterka holding a flashlight over a Polish children's book, pointing to pictures and naming things. Piroschka often wore a purple silk robe. She made a blouse for Esterka from the same fabric.
"Like mother and daughter," she said in a giggly voice, fluffing up the sleeves.
One day the Russian soldiers marched in. They were very noisy. Piroschka didn't come to the root cellar the first night after they came. Esterka stayed awake, listening to the noises upstairs. Screams. Laughter. Singing. The boots on the floorboards made her think of horses' hooves. All next day, Piroschka didn't come to her, and Esterka began to think she was dead. She cried, then laid her hot cheek against the cold dirt wall.
At last, she heard Piroschka's heavy step on the ladder. When she put her arms around Esterka, she smelled different. And she wasn't wearing the same old housedress.
"You must stay hidden," she said. "They do terrible things to women, even to little girls, things you can't imagine, my little Esterka." Esterka thought of Grete lying in the woods like an upside down wheelbarrow. Piroschka hugged her, and Esterka felt the rough edge of a bandage against her cheek.
Suddenly, Piroschka was busy all day. In the evening she came to the root cellar wearing a dirty housedress and carrying a rag.
"Your room—it's ready."
Esterka followed her up the ladder into the kitchen, then up some broad steps. The closet was full of shirts and pants. Esterka had nothing but the purple blouse and the ragged clothes she'd worn in the woods. The room had a nice chest of drawers, full of clean socks and underwear, and sweaters and long pants that Piroschka's boys had worn. Esterka placed her bear on top of the chest of drawers.
"That old bear. Throw it away. I'll get you a new one," Piroschka said.
"No."
Esterka reached for the bear and put it under the pillow and covered it with the blanket and sheet. Piroschka backed away, looking hurt. After that, Esterka always slept with the bear. She decided she didn't like everything about Piroschka. One night, she woke up in the night. She needed to go to the bathroom, but the door was locked. She became frantic. She'd had a bathroom accident in the convent once, and everyone had laughed at her for weeks.
"Piroschka," she screamed, banging on the door.
At last the key turned in the lock. "I'm sorry, little Esterka," Piroschka said, but she looked strange. Esterka rushed past her to the bathroom. After that, Piroschka did not lock the door again. But every evening before she went to bed, Esterka checked the door. In the summer, Esterka helped Piroschka in the garden. She took a pair of pants and a shirt from the closet and rolled them up. Piroschka grew tomatoes, cucumbers, turnips, carrots and potatoes. And every Saturday Esterka went with her to the market place in Krakau. They set up a stall next to St. Adalbert Church. The same group of children always played in front of the Marien Church. They climbed the steps at the foot of the Mickiewicz statue and hid from one another. Esterka watched them. One day, when customers crowded around Piroschka asking for sweet, ripe tomatoes, Esterka ran and joined the children. She met Hanne, a girl with short black hair and a thin pointed nose who lived in their village. Hanne sometimes sat with Esterka at the foot of the statue and told her things.
"Some funny people came back the other day. Egg woman told my mother."
Funny? Clowns? Dancing dogs?
"Said the house belonged to them. They wanted it back. Egg woman's husband threw the funny people out."
"Who? Juggler? Fat lady?"
"Jews—kept saying egg woman took their house. We thought they were all dead in those fireplaces at Ośvięcim."
Piroschka had told her about the Jews, the people who were mostly dead. Piroschka thought Esterka might be one. Why else would she be on a train going through Poland? But Esterka didn't tell Hanne about that.
There were so many things she wanted to know. One day she and Piroschka were picking bugs off the potato leaves. "What happened during the war?" Esterka asked.
"They killed all the Jews—all but you Esterka because I saved you." Piroschka didn't let Esterka go to school that first year. "I can teach you," she said.
So Esterka learned letters and numbers from Piroschka, but she was lonely. She thought about the children who played at the foot of the statue in the Krakau market place. One day she walked with Piroschka to the big store. Hanne was there with some girls buying hard candies to suck on.
"I want to go to school," Esterka said on the way home.
She hated it when Piroschka dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. At last she looked at Esterka with wet eyes.
"Yes, you'll go to school."
Piroschka brought her to the gate and picked her up at the end of each day. But sometimes Esterka went home with Hanne. Then she always asked Hanne about the war.
A Choking Feeling
After Esterka finished the basic school, Piroschka got her an apprenticeship with a furrier in town. Even then she walked with her and stood crying on the platform when Esterka waved to her from the window of the moving tram.
Erik, the furrier's son, wanted to know everything about her.
"You aren't that woman's daughter."
He said it with a certainty that made Esterka feel that she must look odd.
"How can you tell?" she asked, patting her head. Were horns growing out of it?
"The way you talk. And you don't look like her."
But did it make any difference? she wondered.
"You're one of the 'lost people,'" he said triumphantly.
She'd known that for a long time. But now she wasn't sure that she wanted to be found.
"'Lost people' go to the Red Cross or something like that— some displaced person's organization. Just tell them 'I'm lost.'"
He found this funny and threw back his head and laughed. He was handsome as a Cossack in Piroschka's children's books.
"I think I'm one of the lost people," she told Piroschka that evening.
"They're all dead," Piroschka said, and Esterka didn't dare mention it again.
Erik stayed late every evening to teach Esterka how to stitch together the skins of tiny animals so the coat would appear seamless.
"The women of Warsaw will elbow their way to our store if you learn to stitch the skins," Erik said. She liked his friendly manner.
They sat close together on the bench, sewing skins for many nights before he dared kiss her. His last name was Kasmierski. It sounded nice when she said it out loud. She couldn't remember ever having a last name. Sometimes she stroked his back when he kissed her. Afterwards she chanted the beautiful name. Kasmierski. Kasmierski. When they married, Erik's father gave them the cottage behind the fur plant. She liked introducing herself to customers, extending a hand. Hello, I am Esterka Kasmierski.
Once when Piroschka was visiting she saw the ragged old bear sitting on the chest of drawers in Erik and Esterka's bedroom. "I'll get you a new one," she said.
"No," Esterka said quickly.
When Esterka gave birth to a daughter she named her after her foster mother. Little Piroschka was three years old when Erik made her a dollhouse. Together Esterka and the child made dolls from big Piroschka's empty spools. Esterka glued together matchsticks and matchboxes for furniture. Erik brought home fur scraps, and Esterka turned them into carpets, quilts, and fur coats for the dolls. Her foster mother crocheted tablecloths and dresses and found pretty pictures in magazines that Esterka cut out and pasted on the walls— family portraits.
The doll family was awaiting the birth of another baby. Esterka and little Piroschka talked endlessly about what
to name it. But soon the name talk began to disturb Esterka's sleep.
It was after midnight, and Esterka lay wide-eyed in the darkness listening to Erik's snoring. At last she turned to Erik, stroked his back and ran her hands over his shoulders.
Finally he turned to her.
"What?"
He sounded so drowsy that she felt ashamed. But she couldn't stop now.
"Give me a new name," she said.
"Why?"
Seal Woman Page 23