Mother and Me

by Julian Padowicz

  “Mummy, can we stop somewhere I can take a bath?” It was Sonya’s voice. “It’s hot and sweaty in here.” I realized that I had no idea what Sonya looked like. And it was getting hot.

  “The children are not to talk,” the major’s wife repeated.

  “Sonya isn’t a child,” her mother responded. “She has breasts.”

  “She does not,” Auntie Edna said. “If she’s an adult, why does she need a governess?”

  “She does so have breasts. I bought her a bra this summer. And Bronia is not a governess, but a companion. She speaks fluent German. Sonya, dear, say something in German.”

  “Oh, Mummy!” Sonya complained.

  “Oh, go ahead,” her mother coaxed.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Sonya said, the words sounding like the German that I had heard on the radio.

  “I don’t dare imagine what she just told me,” her mother said, laughing.

  “Yulek speaks excellent French,” my mother said.

  I was prepared to say, bon jour Madame, if called upon, but Sonya’s mother said, “I think languages are so important. I wish I had learned French or German as a girl.”

  “I wonder where we are,” Miss Bronia said quickly. “Anybody got any idea?”

  Then the truck came to a sudden stop, and I almost fell off the bench. I heard somebody fall on the suitcases. “Merde!” she said. It was a French word I knew. The voice was Auntie Edna’s.

  “What happened?” Sonya’s mother asked. The major’s wife immediately shushed her. We waited to see if we would start up again.

  Then the door opened, and my eyes hurt from the sudden light. The driver was shaking his head. “The children probably shouldn’t come out,” he said.

  “What is it?” Mother and Auntie Edna asked together.

  The driver was shaking his head. “They’ve been bombed,” he said.

  Now the major was at the door too. “They’ve been strafed,” he said. At first I wasn’t sure what strafed meant, but Fredek immediately made a machine gun sound reminding me. Over the two men’s heads, behind us, I could see a wagon on its side in the road. A chestnut horse was lying and not moving on the ground.

  I had seen dead horses before. In the city occasionally a worn-out horse collapsed in its traces. More than once, Kiki and I had cringed at the sight of a driver whipping an animal trying desperately to rise, while a crowd gathered. This one lay lifeless on the pavement.

  “Look, a dead horse!” Fredek cried.

  “Haven’t you seen a dead horse before?” Sonya said. She had unwrapped the blanket from around her, and I could see her for the first time. But my attention was on the scene outside. “It isn’t nice to look,” she admonished Fredek.

  “Oh, my God!” Auntie Edna said, stepping to the open door. “They’ve been shot.”

  Suddenly Fredek had slipped out onto the ground, and Miss Bronia was following after him. “Catch him! Stop him!” Auntie Edna called. Now Mother was climbing down from the truck and Sonya’s mother after her. Then the major’s wife sat on the edge, and the major helped her down. Auntie Edna still stood at the door, motionless, and Sonya had wrapped herself back up in the blanket. Nobody seemed at all concerned with me, so I moved to the door and slid to the ground as well.

  The reason we had stopped, I realized, was that a large car stood across our path. I could see no one inside, but there were lines of what had to be bullet holes down its side. I could see no people anywhere. Further ahead on the road there was another wagon. This one was standing, but I couldn’t see the horse. He, too, may have been lying dead in front of it. It was very, very quiet.

  The major and the driver walked up to the car. They looked inside. Then they came back and talked to the women, in front of the truck. Miss Bronia stayed with Fredek and me by the back of the truck. I realized she had taken my hand. Sonya was sitting on the back of the truck, dangling her legs. It was the first time I had seen her properly. I saw she had light brown hair pinned up in some way, but a lot of it was hanging down. She had a round face with a short, up-turned nose. There were a few pimples on her face. If she had breasts, I couldn’t tell.

  Fredek was very quiet, which surprised me. “Are they dead?” he whispered to Miss Bronia, though he did not need to whisper. “Are they all dead?”

  Miss Bronia was looking at the bullet-ridden car. “I don’t know,” she said vacantly. I could tell that the sight upset her. I nestled my hand inside her warm, soft one. Her skin wasn’t dry like Kiki’s. I was reminded again of Kiki and felt proud of how grownup I was and how well I was dealing with her absence.

  Then I saw the adults walk to the car. They each looked inside first, except for Auntie Edna, then they gathered at the back to try to push it off the road. It wouldn’t move. Our driver reached inside the driver-side door and did something. Now they were able to push it into the ditch. Whether there was anyone inside, I still didn’t know.

  Everybody walked back to our truck. “Do we still need to keep the doors closed?” my mother asked. “It’s getting pretty hot, you know.”

  The major and his wife walked aside a bit to confer.

  “Why does she have to be the one telling us what to do all the time?” Auntie Edna asked, referring to the major’s wife. Nobody answered her, but I saw Mother bite her lower lip.

  “My husband says it’s all right to tie the door open,” the major’s wife said when she came back. When we had all climbed back into the truck, she and Miss Bronia tied a length of cord between the two double doors. One door was bolted in place; the other could open for the length of the cord. Then the truck started up again.

  Now I could see inside the truck. Sonya’s mother sat diagonally across from me, at the front corner on the other side. Her hair was light brown, like Sonya’s, in braids that were pinned to her head, which was something like Kiki’s, but not as long or as thick. Her face was round, like Sonya’s, with the same up-turned nose. Auntie Edna sat a little distance from her, towering over the others. My mother was next, and she, I noticed, was the smallest of the women. The major’s wife, with graying brown hair pulled back severely and the body roundness of an older woman, sat directly across from me in the back corner. They all seemed to be sitting evenly spaced apart, each with her hands in her lap, except for the major’s wife, who had her arms crossed. All seemed deep in thought. The noise of the engine and the road came in through the open door.

  “Was there anyone in the car?” Fredek asked in an uncharacteristically small voice. Nobody answered him.

  “I don’t know, Fredek,” Miss Bronia said after a while. “I didn’t look.”

  Then the loose door began to bang. It would rest at the end of the rope for a moment, then, for no apparent reason, work its way in to darken our compartment and finally crash against the other door. “Somebody’s got to do something about that damned door!” my mother yelled above the noise.

  “If somebody has something I can wedge it with, I’ll try to stop it,” Miss Bronia said.

  The women all looked at the pile of baggage in the middle of the truck.

  “Whose green canvas bag is that?” the major’s wife asked.

  “You can’t use that,” Sonya’s mother said. “That’s my knitting.”

  “It won’t hurt your knitting,” the major’s wife said.

  “It’ll bend my needles.”

  “It’s wartime,” the major’s wife said. “Miss Bronia, please wedge that bag against the door.”

  Miss Bronia looked up at Sonya’s mother. Sonya’s mother nodded her head, and Miss Bronia moved cautiously in the swaying truck to where the bag was.

  “I’m going to help you,” Fredek said.

  “No, you stay there,” Miss Bronia said.

  “You’ll fall out the door,” Auntie Edna said.

  “I will not,” Fredek argued.

  “Sit down, Frederick!” the major’s wife commanded. Fredek resettled himself on the bench.

  “Be careful of my needles,” Sonya’s mothe
r said.

  “We should have used Paula’s douche bag,” Auntie Edna said under her breath, laughing. I didn’t know who Paula was or what a douche bag was either.

  “It’s not a douche bag. It’s a hot water bottle,” Sonya’s mother said.

  Mother and Auntie Edna both laughed.

  Now I knew Sonya’s mother’s name. She was the Auntie Paula who knitted me sweaters for which I had to sweat out thank-you notes. As for the douche bag, I remembered now seeing a hot water bottle-like thing with a rubber tube coming out of the bottom, hanging on the door in my parents’ bathroom and speculated that that must be what they were referring to. Kiki had been quite vague about explaining its purpose to me, so I was sure that it had to do with female hygiene and asked no further.

  With the door wedged open, I could now see the road behind us, and suddenly I was aware of traffic moving the opposite way from us. At first there were a few carriages and wagons, but no cars. Then there was one car that sped by. It was painted green like our truck, with soldiers inside. It weaved in and around the wagons and disappeared out of my sight. The grownups, sitting on the side of the bolted door, could not see the road.

  Then the traffic was becoming heavier again. Our truck slowed down, and we could now hear the noise of feet and hooves and wheels and creaking axles, and the hum of voices.

  “What is it?” Auntie Edna asked, and then stood up to look through the door. “They’re all going the other way now,” she said. The other two mothers and the major’s wife crowded to the opening, blocking my view. I felt the truck move slower and slower.

  “Where are they all coming from?” Sonya’s mother, Auntie Paula, asked. I didn’t hear an answer. “We’re stopping,” she said. Almost at that same moment we came to a stop. “We’ve stopped,” she said. The truck moved forward a little bit and then stopped again. Somebody was shouting angrily outside. We moved ahead a little more and then stopped again. Somebody banged on the side of the truck a few times. “What are they doing?” Auntie Paula said.

  We stayed stopped for a while, and the grownups, except for Miss Bronia, got out.

  “Yulian, do you know how to do cat’s cradle?” Miss Bronia asked. She was tying a loop of string.

  “A little,” I said.

  “Come over here and let’s all do it together.”

  I did as I was told.

  “Sonya, come help us,” Miss Bronia said.

  Sonya didn’t move. “I don’t think I want to,” she said. I saw she had a nail file and was shaping her nails the way I had seen Mother do.

  “All right,” Miss Bronia said, “we’ll do it without you, won’t we.”

  I slid over on the bench, not wanting to show my surprise, but the idea of Sonya saying no to her governess was totally novel to me.

  Fredek had already erected the starting cradle on his hands with the string. “Yulian, do you know the next figure?” Miss Bronia asked. I did, and I eagerly demonstrated, moving the string structure to my own hands.

  “That’s very good, Yulian,” Miss Bronia said. But she said it as though I had done something very difficult, which I certainly hadn’t. Kiki and I knew a lot of cat’s cradle figures. “Fredek, do you know what to do next?”

  Fredek did seem to know the next figure, but I could see he wasn’t as sure of it as I was. At one point, Miss Bronia almost began to help him.

  The moment Fredek had finished, I reached quickly for the figure and began converting it. But Fredek released his too soon, and the whole structure collapsed in my hands.

  “Oh, you almost had it, Yulian,” Miss Bronia said. It sounded as though she thought it had been my fault and was trying to make light of it. “Well, let’s try it again, and this time I’ll help you a little.”

  “I don’t want to,” I heard myself saying. I don’t think that I had ever put that particular combination of words together before, and I was suddenly gripped by shame for what I had said. I quickly slid back into my corner.

  “That’s all right,” Miss Bronia said. “Is there something else you’d like to do?”

  I suddenly remembered the blue wool sailor suit that I had insisted on wearing to the park some time ago and I felt that same guilt again. I stood up and looked sightlessly through the open door.

  “I want to see,” I heard Fredek say behind me.

  “No, we’ll just play another game. What would you like to play?” Miss Bronia said.

  “How come he can look and I can’t?”

  There were tears running down my face, surprising me. I wiped them away with my sleeve and tried to concentrate on what I was seeing. The road behind and around us was full of people and animals. There were wagons and horses and cows and goats, all of them creeping along in the opposite direction from us. People on foot bent forward with sacks over their shoulder. People in wagons looked at our truck and at me as they passed by. Only, they moved so slowly that we seemed to stare at each other for ever.

  There were people with babies in their arms, and cats and dogs. There were children holding dolls and toys. A man pushed a wheelbarrow with a woman in it. I laughed at the sight. The woman looked up at me. I didn’t know if she had heard me laugh. A man was walking a bicycle. Two women struggled with a wheelchair like Grandfather’s, piled with boxes. It didn’t seem to want to go straight ahead. I wondered what had happened to the person it belonged to. Another woman led a cow along. And all seemed to stare at me and I at them as they crept past us. Our grownups stood in a little group beside the truck, smoking and talking.

  Then I saw that behind us two open-bed trucks were trying to make their way towards us, against that current. They were full of soldiers, I saw, and several soldiers were walking in front of the first truck, trying to clear a path. But the headway they were making was even slower than that of those going in the other direction. One soldier was standing on the running board of the first truck waving at the people to make way.

  Suddenly, the hum of the voices and the road noise became louder. I saw people turning away from looking at us to look over their shoulder. People started to get down from wagons and make for the ditches alongside the road. Our own grownups turned back to the truck shouting, “Out of the truck!”

  “Everybody out of the truck!”

  “Bronia, get the children out of the truck!”

  Our driver grabbed me around the waist suddenly and pulled me down from the truck. Mother grabbed my hand. “Under the truck! Under the truck!” the major was shouting. We were crawling under the truck bed.

  Now there was the roar of airplanes—not the faint hum of a plane above the clouds, but the quickly growing pounding of nearby machines. It was a sound I had never heard before, but there was no mistaking it. My mother was on top of me under the truck. I raised my head to see, but she pushed it down.

  I heard a blast of air and engines, feeling it with my whole body and sensing the truck over me swaying. “Stay down! Stay down!” the major shouted. The roar grew fainter and stopped. There was a moment’s pause when everything was silent. I could hear nothing except my own feet scratching against the ground as I tried to change my position.

  I wanted to see the planes. I had never seen an airplane up close, and these, I knew, must have passed close enough to even see the pilots.

  Then I could hear the sound again. First a hum and then it growing into the roar. Mother’s arm pushed my head down again. Now there was a new sound. Another sound I had no trouble identifying. It was machine gun fire.

  It was a terrible noise. It was nothing like the a-a-a-a-a we would emit in make-believe. It was a noise of metal tearing and rocks jumping and people crying out.

  The noise of the planes and the wind and the creaking of the truck blew over us one more time, and then, again, it was still. “Stay down. Stay down. Everybody stay down,” the major was saying.

  We lay very still, and there was the sound of crying from around us. People were crying and animals were crying.

  “Everyone all right?” the ma
jor asked, cautiously.

  “I’m all right, dear,” his wife answered

  “Yulian and I are fine,” Mother said.

  “We’re fine!” Fredek said.

  “I’m all right,” Auntie Paula said.

  “And I.” It was Miss Bronia’s voice.

  “I’m all right,” Auntie Edna said. Everyone answered except Sonya.

  “Sonya! Sonya!” Auntie Paula suddenly shouted. “Where are you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” Sonya answered from somewhere behind me. “I’m just fine.”

  “All right,” the major said. “I think they’ve gone.”

  “Next time they come, everybody immediately under the truck,” his wife said.

  I could hear people under the truck begin to move. There were strangers under our truck, and they were beginning to crawl out.

  “Oh my God!” It was Auntie Edna’s voice. “Oh, my God.”

  “Oh, heavens!” Auntie Paula said. “Sonya, don’t look.”

  “Really, Mother.”

  “Don’t look,” my mother said to me. I tried to see, what it was I wasn’t supposed to look at, but with my mother’s weight on my head, all I could see was a piece of Auntie Edna prone beside me.

  “Oh, my God, what have they done to her?” I suddenly heard Auntie Edna say. Mother raised her head, so I was able to raise mine as well. Mother quickly pushed me back down. But what I saw in that moment was a woman in a babushka, the colored kerchief Polish women frequently wore on their heads, sitting beside the truck holding a bloody glove hanging from her hand for us to see.

  “Quickly, we have to fix a tourniquet,” I heard the major say. There were the sounds of people moving rapidly from under the truck. I caught sight of Auntie Paula moving towards the woman with Fredek crawling on all fours behind her. I wanted to go too, but my mother held me down.

  “Fredek, come back!” Auntie Edna cried, then after a moment began to crawl after him, clearing my field of vision. The major, his wife, Auntie Paula, Fredek, and some other people were all crowding around the woman, hiding her from my view. Auntie Edna had stopped part way there. She was on her hands and knees and might have been throwing up.