Mother and Me

by Julian Padowicz

  “You have to defend me,” Mother was saying, and I was dueling with an invader to protect Miss Bronia, who stood behind me in a flowing blue gown.

  “I’m the only mother you’ll ever have, and I will never have any other children,” Mother said. I wondered whether Fredek was also being elevated to master-of-the-house status by his mother at the same time.

  Then Mother said, “But that has to be our secret. You mustn’t tell anybody until it happens. Can I count on you to keep our secret?”

  That caught my attention, and I realized that I must have missed something after her never having any more children. But I assured Mother that, yes, I knew how to keep the secret, since that was what she obviously wanted to hear, and particularly because I had no idea what her secret was.

  Then my mother took me to visit Mr. and Mrs. Rokief. He was the man Mother had pretended to mistake for Judge Starecki and lied to about Uncle Pavew. I wondered if this would be for the purpose of proclaiming my new status to her friends. I didn’t like Mr. Rokief and his un-Christian ways, but whatever it was that was about to take place intrigued me.

  Mr. and Mrs. Rokief lived in one room in some lady’s apartment, and their two daughters, who weren’t home, lived in another. Mrs. Rokief was almost as small and thin as Mother—since our first days at the farm, I had begun to see my mother as quite small—only with a slightly older face and totally white hair in soft curls all over her head. She seemed very happy to see us. She quickly apologized for having nothing but tea to offer us and for the fact that her two daughters weren’t home to meet me.

  “We drink a lot of tea to keep warm,” she explained to me with a little make-believe shiver to illustrate her point. I decided that I liked her.

  It was cold in the room. Mr. and Mrs. Rokief had on matching ski sweaters, blue with white reindeer. Mr. Rokief was even wearing gloves, but the fingers of the right hand had been cut off. He held the little gold pencil I had seen before and had, apparently, been writing. Mrs. Rokief quickly poured us some tea from a large teapot and invited us to sit down at the little table.

  There were also two beds, pushed together, in the room, a bureau, a clothes cupboard, four chairs around the table, a wicker armchair in which Mr. Rokief was sitting, a rug on the floor and a little round stove. The beds were neatly made and, unlike our place, this room was neat and tidy. Only it was full of cigarette smoke.

  “Something is wrong, Basia,” Mrs. Rokief said. “I can see it in your face.”

  “Oh, Helenka,” mother answered, her voice very sad, “you are so observant and always so caring.”

  “So what’s the trouble? Is it Edna and Paula again?”

  “You’re so observant, my dear Helenka,” Mother said again. But this time it was in that little-girl voice of hers.

  Mr. Rokief put his cigarette out in an ashtray on the arm of his wicker chair. “You poor thing,” he said. “Have some tea and tell your friends all about it.”

  I didn’t believe that Mr. Rokief really cared as much as his wife did.

  “You really are my friends, Roman and Helenka, aren’t you,” Mother said in that same little-girl voice. “You and Helenka are my dearest friends in the world. It’s so sad, isn’t it. I used to have so many friends in Warsaw, and now I have only the two of you. But you are wonderful to me.”

  “So you’ve been causing trouble for them again?” Mr. Rokief said laughing

  “Yes, I have,” Mother said. She said it half-proud and half-afraid of what she had done. We had sat down at the table now, except for Mr. Rokief who was still in his wicker armchair.

  “We had two Russian officers to our apartment. We drank vodka, we sang, and we danced. And they left us ham, eggs, bread, vodka…. And now my two relatives think it was awful, even though they ate, drank, and danced as much as I did. When I went out yesterday morning, Paula was in bed with a hangover.

  “But now they’re telling me that having Russian officers to our apartment once in a while and asking them to bring food, is bad. They’d rather stand in line for their food and let their children go hungry. Now they won’t even talk to me. Only Yulian talks to me. He’s my one friend in the whole world, my knight in shining armor.” There it came.

  “We’re your friends, Basia,” Mr. and Mrs. Rokief said almost in unison.

  “Yes, I know. You are my very dear friends. I know that. That’s why I came here today.”

  “And it’s well that you did,” Mr. Rokief said.

  Mrs. Rokief pulled her chair next to Mother and put her arms around her. “We all do what we have to to survive and to provide for our children,” she said

  “For the most part, the Bolsheviks aren’t bad people,” Mr. Rokief said. “And they’re not all stupid, either. You can do business with them. And that’s exactly what you’re trying to do. Your in-laws, or whatever they are, are fools. You are the best hope they have, and they don’t appreciate you.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad that you say that,” Mother said. “They make me feel like I’m doing something awful.” She was almost crying as she said it.

  “You wouldn’t do something awful,” Mrs. Rokief said. “Remember that, Basia. You have imagination and courage, and they just don’t appreciate that.”

  Then the door opened and two girls, Sonya’s age, came in.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Rokief said. “Yulian, this is Zosia and Renia. You girls know Mrs. Padovich. This is her big son, Yulian. Why don’t you take Yulian to your room and show him your picture album. Maybe Zosia can tell him a story.”

  Zosia’s and Renia’s room wasn’t at all as neat as their parents’. There were clothes on the beds and on the table, and, as we walked in, I saw Zosia, the taller one, kick something under the bed. They cleared a spot on one of the beds for me to sit and then, standing in front of me, Renia asked, “Do you prefer stories or looking at pictures?”

  I didn’t know what to answer, but I knew I had to. “I don’t know,” I finally said.

  Zosia came to my rescue. “Of course he doesn’t know,” she said. “What kind of question is that? It depends on the story and the pictures, doesn’t it?”

  It took me a moment to realize that I was expected to respond. I nodded my head.

  “Well, then, we’re going to tell you a story.” Renia said. “It won’t be one of those kiddy stories—I bet you’re tired of those, aren’t you? You’ve been a kid how long?”

  “Seven years,” I said.

  “Maybe he would prefer just a children’s story,” Zosia interrupted.

  “Would you?” Renia said. “Would you prefer just a children’s story?”

  I could tell that she wanted to tell me the grown-up story so I shook my head. I was hoping it wasn’t the kind of grown-up story I had heard Lolek tell Kiki once about a curtain blowing open and somebody being seen naked on the beach. Kiki had pretended to laugh and I pretended I didn’t hear it.

  “All right.” Renia said. “Let’s do Mrs. Dr. Korevich,” she said to her sister.

  “Are you sure that’s what you’d like to hear?” Zosia asked.

  “How can he know that before he’s heard it?” Renia said.

  “All right,” Zosia said. I liked her better than her sister. Now she went over to the other bed, rummaged around in the clothes lying on it, and pulled out a kerchief, which she put on her head. Renia, in the meantime, had put on a beret.

  Now they faced each other in the middle of the room. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Sobinski,” Renia said to her sister in a deep voice. “How nice to see you today.”

  “Ah, Dr. Korevich,” Zosia answered, “imagine bumping into you on the street like this. And how is Mrs. Dr. Korevich?”

  “Well, she had a bit of an accident yesterday,” Renia said.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.” And then they went into a conversation that I could not follow with something about a lawyer, and train conductor, and an actor. Then Renia pulled her beret from over her left ear to over her right and became the lawyer or the actor or someth
ing and Zosia took off the kerchief and became the doctor’s cook. Several times they stopped and I suspected that I was supposed to laugh, but I wasn’t sure, so I smiled. Finally, they held hands and bowed to me, so I knew it was over and applauded.

  “Do you do anything … like sing or dance?” Renia asked.

  “I know some poems,” I said. I was hoping that they would ask me to recite one.

  “That’s terrific,” Zosia said. “So now you go on the stage and we will be your audience.”

  We changed places and I recited the poem about not being afraid of anything and even standing up to a tiger. I made all the gestures that Kiki had taught me with my fist in the air at one point and on my hip at another.

  When I finished they both applauded. “That’s wonderful!” Renia said. “You did that like a real actor, didn’t he?”

  Zosia agreed.

  “For a moment I thought I really was among soldiers, didn’t you?” Renia went on. Her sister agreed to this as well.

  “You know any other poems?” Renia asked. Now I thought that I liked Renia better. She seemed to be more fun.

  Yes, I did know other poems, but I had an idea. I reached my hand into my pocket where my steel washer always rested and palmed the washer.

  “Oh, what do you have in your ear?” I said, approaching Renia. I reached my hand to her ear and with a twist of my wrist produced the washer.

  “Oh, my gosh! Have I been carrying that around in my ear all this time?” Renia said.

  “That was like a real magician!” Zosia said.

  “Yes,” Renia said. “It was just like that magician we saw in the hotel in Prague.”

  I waved my hand and the washer disappeared.

  “Oh, my gosh!” Renia said. “You really are a magician.”

  I couldn’t think of a happier moment in my life. Unfortunately, I had no other tricks.

  “Would you like to see pictures of our house in a Krakow?” Renia asked. “Father says it may not be there anymore. But we’ll build an even bigger one when we go back.”

  We spent some time looking through an album of family photographs, and I pretended to be very interested. Then Mother and Mrs. Rokief came in and we had to say goodbye. “We had such a good time, Mrs. Padovich,” Zosia said to my mother. “Could Missus please bring Yulek with her again the next time she comes?”

  Walking home, I felt positively five feet tall!

  The others had gone out when we got home, and when they got back late in the afternoon, Mother and the Aunties weren’t talking to each other again. Fredek, it seemed, had acquired a block of wood cut into the shape of a sedan with windows and tires painted on it, and Sonya was displaying a surprising degree of interest in pushing the thing back and forth between them at the table while we waited for Miss Bronia’s stew to the heat up. I wanted a closer look at the new toy, but I was afraid that if I showed an interest, they would move into the other room or something. Instead, I practiced with my washer.

  Of course they had been told to play with each other but not with me, and this was because they were angry at Mother. Mr. Rokief had said that Mother was right and that they just didn’t appreciate her courage. But I didn’t like Mr. Rokief, though I could see how it took courage to dance with Captain Boris. But the others had all danced with him as well. Somehow, Mother had again instigated a problem.

  She made me eat supper sitting on her pallet with her while everyone else ate at the table in the other room. I spilled some sauce on her blanket and heard her say, “Oh, my God!” under her breath, but she didn’t scold me. Instead she said, “Yulian, you’re my knight, aren’t you?” As though she weren’t as sure of it as before. I gave her pretty much of a noncommittal smile and, fortunately, she didn’t press me any further for an answer.

  Later that evening Fredek and I had been put to bed, each personally by his own mother. This was not the way it was usually done, but, instead of being directed to go to bed, Fredek was led in by the hand from the outer room by Auntie Edna. She had then stood over him at the washbasin while he brushed his teeth with salt and baking soda, undressed him, put his nightshirt on him, and tucked him into our pallet without acknowledging Mother’s and my presence. She had kissed him, and Fredek had put his arms around his mother and hugged her. Only when she was about to leave had Auntie Edna turned to Mother and me, sitting still on Mother’s pallet, and said, “I’m going to turn the light off now.” If that’s all right with you, was implicit in her tone. Mother said yes, then, when Auntie Edna had gone out, she had stood up and informed me that it was time for me to retire as well. She took my hand for the walk across the room to the washbasin, undressed me, put my nightshirt on, and kissed me. I felt no urge to hug my mother. Then with her deck of cards in her hand, she had tiptoed out into the other room.

  “My mother and Auntie Paula hate your mother,” Fredek whispered in my ear. “They want to kill her.”

  I knew this was an exaggeration, but suddenly I felt the urge to tell Fredek about my own angry feelings towards my mother. In my fantasy I could hear myself telling how bad she was and feeling that wonderful sensation of unburdening, except that I could not hear the words that my fantasy self was using. The things she did, like cutting ahead of people in line, lying to Mr. Rokief about mistaking him for Judge Staretski and about Uncle Pavew living in Krakow, or being friendly to Russian soldiers who were our enemies, did not sound anywhere near bad enough in words to justify my anger.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Fredek went on.

  I didn’t know what to answer, but I didn’t want him thinking that I wasn’t speaking to him. “That’s all right,” I finally said. “I knew it was like that.”

  “My mother says …” he began, but he was interrupted by a knock on the front door and we both began listing intently. We watched Miss Bronia pass across the archway to answer the door and then the unmistakable gravel voice of the objectionable Capt. Boris. “Basia!” followed by a loud Russian greeting.

  Mother, apparently, must have been at that end of the room already, away from the others at the table, because we didn’t see her walk across. We heard her greet him, but not with the same enthusiasm. Then there was a shuffling of feet and some talk I couldn’t quite hear, some masculine laughter, and finally a run of chords from an accordion. Capt. Boris bounced past the archway to where Auntie Edna and Auntie Paula must have been sitting. He was carrying the same basket from the previous visit.

  The accordion, now playing a melody I didn’t recognize, drowned out any of the dialogue, but in a moment, Capt. Boris was followed by three other officers. One carried a long sausage, one a paper bag, and the third bottle of vodka. The accordion player, apparently, stayed on the front-door side of the room, because I never saw him.

  “They’re going to have a party,” Fredek whispered, though there was no need to whisper now. “Mother and Auntie Paula didn’t want them to come back—they’re the enemy. But your mother invited them for the food. She’s a traitor and they’ll hang her.”

  That my mother did unpatriotic things, was, of course, something of which I had accused her all along. But to hear Fredek articulate the word, traitor, suddenly upset me. From the tone of Mother’s voice, I had formed the impression that she really was as surprised by Capt. Boris’s appearance as anyone. But even if she had not actually invited the captain, she had been talking about having Russian officers come to visit. Then, on a sudden inspiration, I whispered to Fredek, “She’s not a traitor—she’s a spy. She’s trying to find out their secrets.”

  This seemed to give Fredek food for a moment’s thought. I turned away from him and closed my eyes. Pretending to be asleep would be the best way to give finality to my statement. I was delighted with my cleverness.

  “Who does she pass the information on to?” My pallet mate finally asked. I could not resist answering this one. I turned back to face him. “There is a man who lives on the other side of the church. His name is Rokief. She reports to him, and whom he passe
s it on to is a military secret.”

  There was another long pause. “What does he looks like?” The question finally came.

  “He’s tall with dark hair and a little mustache,” I said. “He dresses in a suit like the people in Warsaw.”

  “If I see him, I’ll pretend I don’t know anything about him.” Fredek seemed to be reassuring me.

  “That’s a good idea.”

  Suddenly the light from the other room dimmed and we saw that two men were standing on chairs to hang our flowered tablecloth over the archway. Then the light got dimmer still when someone turned off the overhead light. They had lit flickering candles on the table. The music continued.

  “Look, they’re dancing again!” Fredek exclaimed. On the flowered tablecloth in front of us there were now silhouettes of couples dancing to a fast tune.

  “Yes,” I said, displaying, I hoped, total lack of interest.

  The next morning there was a smell of stale cigarette smoke and it was Auntie Edna and Auntie Paula who were arguing with each other. Auntie Edna was saying that she believed my mother when she said that she didn’t know the Russians were coming over and Auntie Paula didn’t actually say she didn’t believe that, but she was just being angry.

  “Of course,” Mother was saying, “they can’t just pop in when they feel like it!” She put down the knife, with which she had been slicing the bread a little too hard. It tumbled to the floor.

  “Yes, the food is a big help,” Auntie Paula said, stooping to pick up the knife that had landed at her feet, “but I don’t want to have to dance for it!”

  “They really are quite well behaved,” Auntie Edna said.

  From what I could tell, nobody was disagreeing with anyone, but everyone was angry. On the other hand, our table and the tin box that Miss Bronia had rigged outside the window for refrigeration, were again well-stocked with food.

  It was decided that Mother should go see Capt. Vrushin, who was a more cultured man than Capt. Boris, and ask him to explain to his friend that bursting in unannounced with three friends and an accordion player was not cultured behavior.