“Oh, we thought the Colonel could have done better than that. Well, his tastes will change after a few hours in Peĉs,” the first soldier said.
“I think all she needs is a bath and some clean clothes. She might even start to look human,” another added.
“Nah, none of these foreigners resemble real humans.”
I stood there feeling so ashamed, wondering how long I would have to stand there listening to the insults.
“Hey, Sergeant, is she supposed to ride on top with us or up front with the driver?”
“I guess with the driver.”
“Too bad. We could have had some fun if she was riding back here,” the first soldier added, as they all began to laugh.
I suddenly lost patience, took two steps back, and hurled my pillowcase at the jeering faces on the truck.
“I wish it was filled with bombs. That would really be fun,” I said through tears. The sound of a response in German always embarrassed them. The pillowcase hit one of the leering soldiers in the face, who turned beet red and spat in my direction.
“You dirty little swine! How dare you hit a German soldier!”
“I wish it had torn your stupid, ugly face to shreds,” I shouted, choking back the tears as I ran from the truck, with the pillowcase flying after me. I grabbed the pillowcase and sat on the ground crying bitterly. I was exhausted, angry, humiliated, and so completely alone and lost.
“Come on, Miss Popova, I’ll take you to Peĉs. I know where the Colonel wants you to stay,” the Lieutenant said as he picked up my pillowcase. I got up, drying my eyes, and followed him toward the waiting staff car. “I have to drop off the Colonel and another officer in Peĉs, and then I can drive you there.”
SIXTEEN
Maria and Rosa
The car pulled to a stop in the village. The Colonel and the other officer got out, waved, and turned to enter a building as we drove away.
“Where are we going?” I asked the Lieutenant.
“Just a few kilometers from the town. I understand it’s an old estate of some kind, supposed to be in the middle of the forest, with a natural hot spring that supplies a swimming pool.”
“Are you and the Colonel going to stay there?”
“I don’t know. Personnel arriving from Belgrade are designated to stay in Peĉs. My orders are simply to bring you and deliver a note from the Colonel to the General. The facility in town is a military billet with no place for females.”
We were driving through a thick pine forest, and as the road ended, I thought I had reached the one place on earth that knew no wars, no death. The Lieutenant stopped the car on a circular drive and ran up the steps to enter a large building.
I stepped out of the car and looked around. White marble steps formed a gentle curve as they surrounded the building, and flower gardens followed the curve of the steps. To the left, in front of the building, more marble steps led down between flower beds to a swimming pool, barely visible as steam rose above it. Small green cabins, apparently dressing rooms, stood on the far side of the pool, and just beyond the cabins, dense forest began again. To the left of the pool were a tennis court, riding stables, and a garage. The air smelled of fresh pine mixed with the mineral smell of the natural hot spring.
It was perfectly peaceful. The only sound was the soft creak and whisper of the pines as they swayed in the wind. I turned back to look at the building and its gardens, to see a peacock, its tail feathers vibrating in full spread with the sun highlighting the greens and blues, as two female peacocks followed sedately. I hadn’t seen peacocks since my last summer at Hopova, what seemed a lifetime ago.
An elderly woman appeared at the door, motioning for me to come in, and I walked slowly up the marble steps. The woman at the door spoke very poor German. I could not make out what she was saying, and she broke into Hungarian as she motioned again for me to come in. I entered a huge entry hall with walls covered with silk damask wallpaper and a heavy chandelier reflected in a highly polished parquet floor.
The room was round, with a wide free-standing central stairway that imitated the same curve of the walls and rose to a balcony. A huge picture of Hitler occupied one section of wall, below a large flag displaying the Nazi swastika. Faded, empty rectangles flanked the display where other paintings once hung. On the opposite side of the room, large portraits of older men and women in formal attire hung facing the Nazi display, and I wondered if they liked their present company.
I could almost hear the clicking of Nazi heels and picture German officers entering the room, pausing with an arm stiffly raised in salute to the Fuehrer. I looked away from the piercing eyes in the picture and followed the curve of the wall, noticing four doors and wondering what was behind each of them. As I looked around the curve of the room, my eyes suddenly met those of the elderly woman who had called me inside. She had waited patiently as I looked around. She had a beautiful face and gentle eyes, and she held herself erect with great poise as she began to speak in Hungarian.
“I’m sorry,” I said in German, “but I don’t speak Hungarian. Do you speak French, Russian, Serbian, or perhaps English?”
“No French, Russian, English, or any other barbaric language will be tolerated within these walls,” said a stern voice behind me.
I turned to see an elderly German general striding briskly toward us. “I understand that you, young lady, served as a translator in Belgrade.”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Now then, do you speak fluent Hungarian?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You don’t! Then what the devil are you doing here?”
“Sir,” the Lieutenant said quickly. “My orders are to bring the young lady here. She was employed as a translator in Belgrade, and the Colonel gave his word to her father that he would see her safely to Vienna. I am charged with seeing to her safety.”
“Well, Lieutenant, this is not a stopover for civilians. I am in charge here, not your Colonel, who is simply being extended some courtesy since he lost his command in Belgrade.” The General turned sharply and strode back in the direction he came from, his shiny boots reflected in the polished floors.
The Lieutenant shrugged helplessly and followed the General, as the elderly woman bent to whisper in my ear in English, “Don’t worry. If they won’t let you stay here, it will be all right. This is my home, although I now have only two small rooms. My sister lives in Peĉs, and she would love to put you up.” Her English was perfect, much better than her German.
“But I don’t have any money,” I said forlornly, pointing to my pillowcase. “Only a few trinkets Mama let me have in case I got in trouble.”
“We don’t need any money. You’re too young to be in this house anyway.”
“Who lives here?”
“General von Stoiber and his staff.”
“And you?”
“Yes. After all, it is my home. I talked them into letting me stay. They have treated us pretty decently, and I have no complaints. But you are too young and too pretty to be left alone.”
I blushed when she said “pretty,” knowing that I hadn’t looked in a mirror or had a bath in weeks and that the dress and light jacket I was wearing were wrinkled and dirty and didn’t even fit well.
“Oh, I must look terrible. My hair hasn’t been washed or combed, and my shoes are falling off my feet. These clothes aren’t mine. A kind woman gave them to me because they were her daughter’s, and her daughter had been killed.”
The elderly lady placed her hand softly on my head, looking gently into my eyes.
“Hush, there’s nothing to worry about, poor child. We’ll take care of everything,” she said, as she left me standing in the middle of the huge entry hall and entered the same door through which the old General had disappeared.
I stood there looking around at the large portraits that hung on the wall, trying to avoid looking at the picture of Hitler with his piercing eyes. Suddenly I felt Hitler and the people in the portraits staring and comin
g closer and closer. I ran outside, feeling so stupid at being unnerved by the portraits.
I sat on the top marble step and just let the peaceful beauty of the setting unfold before me: the steam rising from the pool, the flowers, and the peacocks, the stillness of the forest, and the gentle swaying and whisper of the pines. I sat on that step and wondered just what I was doing there, in a strange country where I didn’t know anyone, didn’t even know the language. I wondered what was going to happen next and how I would ever get to Vienna to meet my parents. The trip had been so difficult and dangerous that I began to wonder if Mother had purposely sent me on the train just to get rid of me, just to let me get lost in the confusion of the war.
Torturous thoughts filled my head, questions again without answers. Even worse, I had no one I could talk to about everything. Chills went down my spine, and I felt cold and tired. I rose from the step, picked up my pillowcase, and walked down toward the steaming pool, the warmed air filling my lungs. The sight of the warm water was so inviting. I sat on the first step that led into the pool, and, oh, how I wished that I could shed my dirty clothes and torn shoes and just immerse myself in the water. “But no,” I told myself, “I couldn’t do that. Well, maybe just my feet?”
I looked all around, as though expecting to see a giant eye staring at me. I hesitated and then untied my shoes. As I looked at them, tears filled my eyes as I realized how terrible I must look. Dirty, torn clothes, shoes in shreds, braids like shaggy, long rattails. How I longed for the wardrobe left behind in Dedinye. I had always had beautiful clothes hand-tailored by Mrs. Ivanovich. Each day a different dress for school, shoes . . . pretty ribbons for my braids . . .
I lowered my head on my knees and felt so sorry for myself. I knew that I was not unattractive, remembering the glances I received at school dances and at events at Russkii Dom. But I just felt so ashamed of the way I looked right then that I wished I could jump into the pool and drown. What does the Lieutenant think of me? I wondered. He is so nice and gentlemanly. He must pity me. Surely he couldn’t see anything pretty about me. Not the way I’ve looked since we met.
I slowly eased one foot into the water, and then the other. I looked around again, but the place was as deserted as when we first arrived. I slowly eased to the next step, and then the third. The water was then above my knees, and I took the last step down into the pool, raising my dress as the water rose to the top of my thighs, just below my panties.
The hot spring water felt wonderful. No, I cannot get my panties and dress wet, I thought. What if that grouchy old general should come out and find me in the pool? He would probably put me in front of a firing squad for stepping into a pool reserved for “superior Aryans.” No, surely he wouldn’t do that. Or would he? I turned to look toward the house, horrified to see the General standing at the entry. I bent low, hoping the heavy steam would cover me, and walked slowly out of the pool.
“Where in the name of Heaven is she?” he thundered, his voice echoing across the yard and down to the pool.
I quickly picked up my pillowcase, shoes, and socks and ran toward the house, water still dripping from my legs, the dress clinging to my wet thighs. I stood erect, head held high, as though awaiting his command for the execution.
“What the devil were you doing?” he demanded, looking down at me.
“Bathing my feet,” I answered, looking directly into his eyes.
“You bathed your feet in my personal pool?” he thundered.
“There was no other place, and the pool looked so warm and inviting.”
He cleared his throat a couple of times and then continued, more gently.
“Well, you could at least have taken a bath in the house first, put on a bathing suit, and then gone into the pool.”
“I don’t have a bathing suit.”
“Do you at least have some clean clothes to put on? And look at those raggedy shoes. For heaven’s sake, how long has it been since you changed into clean clothes?”
“I don’t have any other clothes or any other shoes. The few things I have in my pillowcase are not mine. They were given to me.”
“Don’t you have anything besides that dirty pillowcase?”
“No, not since you took it all away from me.”
“I took something from you?”
“Not you personally. The German army took everything when our home was ‘requisitioned.’”
“How is it that you speak such wonderful German? I must say, it is almost too good.”
“Despite what you may think,” I answered, chin slightly raised as I remembered Mother doing, “we are educated and intelligent. Many of us speak several languages quite fluently.”
“Hmm, too bad you don’t speak Hungarian. Which brings me to what I came out here to tell you. I have talked to the Colonel, and neither he nor I can use you in our headquarters now. We are in the process of moving to our new post in Vienna, so that leaves you out. We will not require your services any longer.”
“But how am I going to get to Vienna? How am I going to live, and where?” I asked, choking back tears. “I can’t walk that far, not in these,” I added, holding up my raggedy shoes.
“Well,” he harrumphed, clearing his throat and coughing slightly, “why don’t you come in, and Frau Maria will help you out. She’ll figure out something . . . I guess. I don’t know why it should be my responsibility. I certainly have enough other problems to be concerned with.”
I padded behind him back into the hall, leaving wet footprints on the highly polished parquet. I looked behind me in horror, thinking what Mother would say if I had done this in our home: “Ladies do not ever walk barefooted.” I looked back again and smiled, delighted to see that the prints were still there, and then wondered if I was somehow “getting even” with Mama in some strange way.
The elderly lady was just coming out of one of the doors.
“Come, dear,” she said. “I have spoken to my sister, and the young officer is going to take you to her home in Peĉs. I am sure you will find her very charming.”
She put her arm around my waist to lead me upstairs. “Now,” she began, “we are going to get you cleaned up. Give me your pillowcase. The first thing to do is get rid of it. It’s coming apart at the seams. I have a small suitcase that I have not used since my husband passed away. And then we’re going to wash you and your dresses and iron them up.”
She turned the pillowcase upside down on the bed to empty it, and out tumbled everything I had in the world—a dress, a wool jacket, two pairs of panties, a comb, a little box containing a brooch with a large aquamarine stone in the middle, a gold Orthodox cross, the gold watch and rings, and the camera from that wounded German boy.
“Is this all you have?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t have any more underwear? No shoes or other clothes? Why, you don’t even have soap or a toothbrush.”
“We lost everything. All of this was given to me by a lady whose daughter had been killed,” I said, embarrassed. “Mother gave me the few jewels to trade for food if it became necessary.”
“Well, come along,” she said, leading me to the bathroom. “I’ll take your dresses to Bianca. Bianca is my maid—or rather she’s the German maid now. But she has been in my home for the past fifteen years. She’ll wash and fix your dresses, and while she is doing that, you can take a bath. There is plenty of soap, and I’ll try to find a toothbrush.”
I walked into the bathroom. How wonderful it felt just to be inside a real, clean bathroom. The tub was built below floor level. Water constantly flowing from the same mineral spring that supplied the pool kept the tub filled with clean hot water, the mineral odor mixing with the smell of perfumed soap.
Steam rose slowly from the water, and I shed my dirty clothes and slowly stepped down into the tub in anticipation of how good it was going to feel. I just froze, not daring to sit down, afraid it was going to feel too good to be true. I was convinced that no one had ever felt about a bath the wa
y I felt at that moment. I put my arms around myself, lifted one foot above the other, closed my eyes, put my foot back into the water, and slowly lowered myself into the tub. The door opened slightly as Frau Maria took my dirty clothes.
I soaped myself until my skin glowed, then let the warm spring water soak in soothingly. I decided to wash my hair with the same soap that left my skin now feeling radiant, the aroma of the soap filling the pores. I untied my braids and lowered my head into the water. I soaped my head until the hair squeaked, remembering Kristina’s smile as she said, “When the hair sings, it’s a sign that it’s clean.” I leaned back and let my hair float around me, forming a circle, luxuriating, wishing I never had to get out of the tub. I was startled by a gentle knock.
“Yes? Who is it?”
Frau Maria’s voice came through the door. “May I come in?”
“Just a minute,” I answered, drawing my knees up and wrapping my arms around them, trying to cover myself.
“Here are your clothes, dear,” she said, laying them across a chair, “and I have found a toothbrush you may have. There is a problem, however. I didn’t see any socks or stockings anywhere. Don’t you have any more?”
I was so embarrassed. I had several pairs of socks when I left Belgrade, but I had been forced to dispose of them for hygiene purposes. There was no place to buy luxuries like that, and nature didn’t wait to be accommodated. Besides, I had no money, and the train hadn’t stopped anyplace except forests or fields during the air attacks.
“No, I don’t. I don’t have any more socks,” I said, feeling a blush spreading on my cheeks.
“Have you ever worn silk stockings?”
“Oh, no, Mama would never allow it.”
“If you wish, I could let you have some of mine. But it’s up to you if you think you should obey Mama’s orders.”
I thought about it for just an instant, wanting to feel the silk stockings on my clean smooth legs, but knew I couldn’t dare.
“No, thank you, it will be all right. It’s not so cold outside.”
Ancient Furies Page 26