by Joanna Gruda
CHAPTER 3
The Great Journey
When I was Hugo and Fruzia’s son, there was a couple who often came to visit us: Aunt Lena and Uncle Emil. They told me funny stories and brought me sweets, and Uncle Emil took me for walks in the Bielany woods where he taught me archery, how to climb trees, and how to do somersaults. He was a tiny man for an adult, and there were times when I thought he was really just a kid disguised as a grown-up.
One day Lena came without Emil. And the following time. And the time after that. I asked her why my uncle wasn’t there, why he wasn’t coming anymore, because I had to confess that even if I liked the sweets that Aunt Lena brought, I preferred playing with Uncle Emil by a long shot. She replied that he had left on a great journey, but as soon as he got back to Warsaw he would come and see me and bring me a nice present. “And he won’t be too old to climb trees?” My question made the adults laugh, but they answered no, I mustn’t worry about Emil’s age, for he would always be a child at heart. This notion puzzled me. If you were a child at heart, would that still be enough to make an adult body work, even one as small as Emil’s?
One day when I asked Lena for the umpteenth time when Uncle Emil would be coming back, and Lena once again said, “Soon, don’t worry,” I got that feeling you sometimes get when adults smile at you but their eyes aren’t smiling, and then they stroke your hair: something “not for children” was going on. I didn’t ask anything more as I could tell from her preoccupied manner that Aunt Lena wasn’t going to say any more, even though I wasn’t exactly born yesterday: I was six and a half years old. The only explanation I could come up with was that Uncle Emil must be dead, and I thought the grown-ups were being stupid to suppose I wasn’t old enough to understand reality and accept it.
Not long after the beginning of this era of conspiracy, Hugo and Fruzia announced that they had something important to tell me.
“This year, for your summer vacation, you will be going on a long holiday.”
“Where to?”
“First of all you’ll take a train.”
“A real train?”
“Yes . . . ”
“Yay!”
“You’ll be leaving next week, with Aunt Lena. You’re going to Paris.”
“I’m going to France?”
“Yes, my dear.”
“And I’m going to see the Eiffel Tower?”
“Yes, you’ll see the Eiffel Tower.”
I was ecstatic. The Eiffel Tower! I’d heard so much about it, I’d even seen pictures in a book, I knew that from the top you could see all of Paris. Most of my friends were jealous, others thought I was making it up, that I was just going to the seaside or the mountains and I’d tell them any old thing when I got back.
“If you want us to believe you, you’re going to have to bring back some proof,” said Tadeusz, the biggest boy in the playground. “And not just some little souvenir that anyone could have brought you—we’re not stupid.”
“He’ll have to show us a picture of himself in front of the Eiffel Tower.”
“But the Eiffel Tower is too big to fit on a photo!”
“What are you talking about, Alek? Haven’t you ever seen a photo of the Eiffel Tower? Where have you been all these years?”
“Well, I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower on photos, it’s just that I’ve forgotten, it was when I was little.”
“I’ll show you a photo with me on it, that way you’ll be obliged to believe me.”
And I told myself that not only would I bring back a photo, I would also try to remember everything that happened, everything I saw during the holidays. When I got back, they would beg me time and time again to tell them about my trip to Paris.
One morning in July, 1936, I took the tram to the station with Hugo and Fruzia. I had two big suitcases that Fruzia had packed and repacked several times over the last few days. While I had been on cloud nine ever since they told me about my vacation in France, Fruzia, on the other hand, seemed really put out that we were going. A few minutes before we left the house she was still rushing around and around my room, getting clothes out of the suitcase and putting others in their place. Despite my happiness, it made me sad to see her like that. I tried to reassure her: “Don’t worry, Mama, everything will be fine. I’ll be good for Lena, nothing bad will happen to me.” Which earned me a hug against Fruzia’s breast so tight I nearly died of suffocation, not to mention the fact I almost drowned in a flood of tears, too.
That was the last time I ever called her Mama.
The train journey was endless. In the beginning I ran up and down, visiting all the carriages, talking with the conductors and the other passengers. I even made a few friends, but most of them got off the train before we even left Poland. It was nighttime when we reached Germany. I was intimidated by this country, by the voices on the loudspeakers in the stations, shouting in this harsh language I couldn’t understand, and their red flags with swastikas hanging everywhere, and all the soldiers in their khaki uniforms. I knew these people were our enemies, the enemies of communists. I looked out the window of my carriage, and I was both fascinated and filled with hatred. All night long, in my berth, I was planning the revolution; I pictured myself walking through a big dusty city and setting fire to all the flags. I was riding a horse at the head of a huge crowd who followed me, shouting, “He’s our leader! He bit the policeman!” Then a young woman who could have been Aunt Karolka wiped my face with a handkerchief.
“Julek, wake up, it’s time to eat.”
It took me a few seconds to figure out what was happening. Aunt Lena was leaning over me, caressing my hair. I could still hear shouting, but it was the loudspeakers in the station where our train had stopped, spluttering information for the passengers.
While we were eating, I noticed that Lena was looking at me oddly.
“Julek, my little Julek, I’d like to talk to you. I have something very important to tell you.”
I was sure she was going to talk to me about the night before. I had the feeling I’d been shouting in my sleep, she must want to warn me about the Germans, maybe she was afraid I might bite one of them.
“You have to listen very carefully now. And if you’re not sure you understand, if anything’s not clear, don’t hesitate to tell me.”
“Okay.”
“I know you love Fruzia and Hugo very much. I do too, they’re very good people.”
I had never noticed before how strange Aunt Lena could be.
“It’s really hard to tell you this, but you must know the truth. Right. Fruzia and Hugo aren’t your real parents. They have been taking care of you ever since you were little, and they have done a very good job. But you see, your real mother . . . I’m your real mother. And Uncle Emil is your real father. We couldn’t look after you, because of the Party, because we were taking risks and we wanted to protect you. And we didn’t want to give you up for adoption to strangers. Fruzia and Hugo very kindly offered to take you in. But now, for all sorts of reasons which I’ll explain someday, you can’t go on living there. Everything all right, so far? Do you understand?”
“Uh . . . yes.”
“Good. So now we’re going to France, and you’re going to live with my sister Tobcia, who has a sweet little girl who’s three years old. She’ll be like a little sister for you. You’ll be very happy with them.”
My mind was racing. I could tell right away that what Lena was telling me was not true. And I understood perfectly what was going on: she was kidnapping me. In the book I’d been reading since the beginning of the trip (it was my first novel), a child is abducted by people who pretend to be his real parents. The child tells his kidnappers that he knows they are lying to him, and as a result he gets a thrashing. If I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me, I absolutely had to pretend to believe her cock-and-bull story. Then I’d be able to work out a strategy to escape, and ge
t back to Poland and to my real parents.
CHAPTER 4
The Eiffel Tower
In Paris, Tobcia was waiting for us at the station. All you had to do was take one look at her, with her eyes protruding behind thick glasses, to know she was in cahoots with her sister (and maybe she wasn’t even her real sister!). I smiled and said politely, “Hello, Aunt Tobcia. Yes, I had a nice trip. And you, how are you?” When I think back on it today, I am surprised that Lena didn’t find my excessive politeness suspicious, because it wasn’t my usual style.
We settled in at Tobcia’s place with her husband Beniek, and Maggie, her “sweet little three-year-old,” who of course turned out to be a real brat. A few days after our arrival we went to visit the Eiffel Tower. I was pleased but I couldn’t make the most of that moment I’d been looking forward to so much, because my mind was bubbling with excitement. This outing might be my only chance to escape. In the street, I looked at every policeman we passed, and I tried to give them the sort of desperate smile that would incite them to ask Lena if they could speak to me in private. And then there was the language barrier . . . But I’d planned everything. I was going to ask for a sheet of paper and a pencil, and draw a child with his two parents, then a mean-looking woman sitting in a train next to a weeping child. It seemed clear enough to me. And even if they didn’t get everything—I couldn’t be sure that French policemen were any more intelligent than Polish ones—they at least ought to understand that I was in a difficult situation, and they’d ask a Polish interpreter for help. But French policemen were even stupider than I had imagined: not a single one came up to speak to me, not a single one gave me a puzzled look. I would have to resort to Plan B: find a way to get in touch with my parents.
When we arrived at the Eiffel Tower, for a few minutes I forgot the drama happening in my life, because I was overwhelmed with wonder at the sight of this enormous thing standing there before me. First we stood in line, with other families and a lot of children running all over the place. They were all speaking this language I couldn’t understand. In spite of my situation, I really wanted to run and play with them. I looked at a little boy who was just behind us in the line and I made my ugliest face at him. Instead of laughing or of making an even more hideous face at me, he burst into tears and hid behind his mother’s skirt. French kids were very disappointing.
Now it was our turn to go into the big metal box known as an elevator. The doors closed. And up we went! All the kids had their noses glued to the window and watched as the ground slipped farther and farther away, and the people below us got smaller and smaller. The elevator stopped on the first floor. Tobcia and Lena asked if I wanted to get out there. Out of the question, I wanted to get to the top as quickly as we could. On the second floor, we had to leave the elevator to take another one . . . which was under repair. Lena informed me in a sorrowful tone that we couldn’t go any higher, but if we liked, we could come back another day, once the second elevator was repaired. She’s a funny one! I noticed some other kids going with their parents up some stairs to the third floor, so I rushed off toward the stairway and started to squeeze past the people who were already on the stairs so that Lena couldn’t catch me.
And then there I was, all the way at the top! I looked down below me: the people were tiny! Little ants! No, maybe not quite . . . mice? I had to find precise words for my descriptions, to be able to tell my friends everything once I got back to Warsaw. Warsaw . . . I absolutely had to make the most of these few minutes of freedom to find a way to get home.
When Lena and Tobcia, who had decided to follow me up the stairs, eventually arrived, I already had my plan. I asked for some coins so I could play this little game in a machine that consisted of trying to pick up objects or candy by manipulating a little crane. If you managed to catch something, it was yours. Lena agreed. It was a very hard game, but I was determined: my life depended on it. On the fourth try, I fished out a red cigarette lighter. Perfect!
Back at the house, after asking Tobcia for some paper and string, I shut myself in the room that I shared with my “cousin” Maggie. Maggie tried to steal the lighter from me, insisted on drawing on my sheet of paper, and generally got on my nerves. I gave her a little pinch on the shoulder and she left the room, howling. Good riddance. It took me a long time but I managed to make a package that looked very classy. As I hardly knew how to write, I resigned myself to asking Lena to help me with the letter to go with my package. I had to be very subtle so I wouldn’t arouse her suspicions. I thought for a long time, and started the message over in my head a hundred times. This was what I came up with that seemed closest to perfection, and finally I dictated it to Lena, acting nonchalant:
“Dear Papa,
“I’m in Paris now with Lena and her sister Tobcia. We have just visited the Eiffel Tower. I have a little present for you that I fished on the third floor of the tower. It’s so you can light your pipe. I think we’re going to be staying here for a long time. I really want to see you and Mama again soon.
Julek.”
I didn’t write “Aunt Lena,” although normally that’s what I called her. There was also the indication of where we were (with Tobcia) and the penultimate, and very important, sentence in the letter, which should make Hugo understand that something abnormal was going on.
Lena wrote the letter. I put it in the envelope, and she sealed it.
“You have to put the address on the envelope.”
“Of course, darling.”
“And will you mail my present soon? I’d like him to get it before his birthday.”
“Yes, of course. I have a few errands to run tomorrow, so I’ll go to the post office while I’m at it.”
But of course she didn’t go to the post office, as I would find out many years later. Why not? Wasn’t it because she had seen through my little game? Of course not, I think I’d been perfectly convincing in my role. The reason was much simpler, and it was a sad one. The Party had asked her not to have any more contact with my father’s family, including Hugo and Fruzia.
It must now be time to explain the reasons behind this “kidnapping” and my departure for France.
CHAPTER 5
What I Only Found Out Much Later
Now for the true story behind my abduction by my aunt who, I believed, was pretending to be my mother, but who in fact had carried me in her womb . . .
Emil Demke, now known as Michał Gruda, was appointed the officer for propaganda of the Polish Communist Party (KPP) in the Polish army. Through meetings, tracts, and assemblies, his job was to persuade as many soldiers as possible to join the Party. His activities meant that the police were after him. Since the Party didn’t want to lose this very devoted member, and they were afraid he would be arrested again, they sent Michał to Moscow, where there were a lot of Polish communists biding their time in the hopes of being forgotten by the Polish authorities.
No sooner had he arrived in Moscow than Michał was sent on to Kiev, where he would be in charge of propaganda for the Poles who lived in Ukraine. There he joined other Poles who were active on the town committee. He toured factories where he was sent to discuss politics with the Polish workers, the majority of whom felt they’d gotten a raw deal from the communist regime. He explained, ever so fervently, the benefits of communism, thanks to which they had the right to a decent life, even just as simple factory workers. Michał also did some casual journalism and wrote for Sierp (The Sickle), a paper published by the Polish communist party.
In 1934, once he’d imprisoned and executed the communists who opposed him, mainly Trotskyites, Joseph Stalin began to go after the communists who believed in him. And the first pro-Stalin communists to be arrested were . . . the Polish communists in Kiev. All those people who, like my father, were in the USSR because of their immense faith in the communist doctrine and their boundless admiration for Comrade Stalin. The Kiev Poles working for the organization of the Bolshevik Par
ty were all arrested for high treason. My father was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As Stalin was still eager to do things by the book, every prisoner was entitled to his or her own personalized bill of indictment. Michał Gruda was accused of being an agent in the pay of Piłsudski (the leader of Poland, at the time). What proof was there of his betrayal?
“In 1933, did Comrade Gruda not foment a strike at a cardboard factory? The strike was a failure. Is it good for our cause that a strike should end in such a way? Of course not. And who stood to gain from this failed strike? The great capitalist powers, of course. It is patently clear that Comrade Michał Gruda is working against us, that he is an enemy of the people and, therefore, an enemy of communism.”
All of this was so obvious, so clear . . . but wasn’t all.
“Is it not true that capitalists and other imperialists are determined to see the fall of the USSR, the homeland of the working class? Therefore, should we not display the greatest vigilance with regard to agents who are working for the destruction of this world of ours, where social inequalities no longer exist? It is always possible, even desirable, to increase one’s level of vigilance, is that not so? Therefore, if you, Comrade Michał Gruda, known for your great devotion to the cause, confess to being a traitor in the pay of the enemy, will that not incite other comrades to be even more vigilant? Then sign at the bottom of the bill of indictment, just there.”
My father could not refute the logic behind their reasoning, and he was not even offended by the extreme manipulation underlying it. But he refused to place his signature at the bottom of a document that was nothing but a string of lies.