Mother and Me

by Julian Padowicz

  Mother and Auntie Paula stopped speaking. Mother took a second cigarette out of the pack and lit it from the first one, which she now dropped into the stove. Then she walked back across the room and sat down next to Auntie Paula. “You’re jealous of me,” she said. She said it quietly, so that I could barely hear at the other end of the table.

  “You’ve always been jealous of me—my looks, my house, the kind of people who come to my house, my friends…. You’re jealous that the men don’t pay attention to you the way they do to me or to Edna.”

  “Your friends, Basia?” Auntie Paula answered in the same, quiet voice. “Your friends. Warsaw is wiped out, people are killed, and your friends sit in cafes and laugh at their funny skirts and boots.”

  “Oh, poor Paula. That’s why men never pay attention to you. You have absolutely no sense of humor. You don’t understand that these people are laughing because they’re alive. They’re laughing because even with all their homes and their businesses destroyed, they’re still alive.”

  I didn’t like Auntie Paula much, but she did talk more sense than Mother. Laughing when other people were killed and you weren’t, was cruel. It was like laughing when somebody fell down and skinned her knee. It was certainly un-Christian.

  I tried to visualize Lvow. Mother had said it was like a carnival. I knew about carnivals—Kiki and I had read a whole book about a carnival in America, with pictures. There were tents with stripes on them, but the people weren’t dressed funny, except for the performers, and they didn’t laugh inappropriately. Mother hadn’t mentioned anything about tents.

  What Mother’s description of the laughing people and Russian soldiers with wristwatches all up their arms did sound like, though, was the pictures Kiki had shown me, in a book of hers, of one of the two Polish cities that God had destroyed and turned the people into pillars of salt because they were wicked.

  It was in the days before they wore pants and jackets, and in the pictures men and women, instead of obeying God, were all chasing and grabbing at each other. And some were even laughing at others lying dead on the ground. The women were wearing very red lipstick with heavy rouge on their cheeks and all sorts of makeup around their eyes, sometimes, like those friends of Mother and Lolek’s that Kiki and Marta called painted women. I wondered if Lvow was something like that and what God might have in mind for its future.

  By the time I was sent to bed, Miss Bronia and Auntie Edna had hung a blanket on a line next to Fredek’s bed so that if he coughed during the night, he would not spread his germs over the rest of us. As the next-to-youngest and, supposedly, most vulnerable family member, I was assigned to the corner pallet, diagonally across the room from the sickbed, with Sonya beside me.

  “You sleep on your side, facing the wall!” Sonya had commanded me, even though she herself wasn’t coming to bed till later. That was fine with me.

  When I had settled down and all was quiet in the room, I could hear Fredek’s labored breathing. I wondered if it was asthma. Auntie Edna, I presumed, was sitting on the side of his bed, behind the blanket, probably holding his hand. I wondered if Fredek was in danger of dying.

  I began to pray for God to spare Fredek, even though he was Jewish. Kiki had told me the trick of praying to Mary and asking Her to talk to God. God was more likely to listen to Her than to me. I realized I was doing something very grownup and very Catholic.

  Then, in the middle of my sixth Hail Mary—I kept count on my fingers—it suddenly struck me like a ton. If Mother and I were to go to Lvow and Auntie Paula and Sonya were to stay in Durnoval, then Miss Bronia would certainly stay with them. Suddenly, the bottom had fallen out of my life, and I actually heard myself gasp. I knew that I must not interrupt my communion with the Blessed Mother and bit my lower lip to keep from crying. Apologizing for my gasp, I proceeded to complete the twenty Hail Marys I had declared at the beginning, plus one to replace the interrupted sixth.

  Now I was convinced that Lvow was indeed a wicked city, attractive to my mother because of her own vileness. I thought with irony of my naïve intentions to save her immortal soul through conversion. I knew there was nothing I could do to influence events. Mother and I would go, and Miss Bronia, if that was her intention, would stay, no matter what I might do.

  On the other hand, I could pray that Mr. Lupicki wouldn’t stop for us. There could be a snowstorm so that he couldn’t see us standing by the side of the road. Or what if the colonel were to find out? He definitely didn’t want her to go. Was there a way I could tell him? Would he believe me?

  With those two possibilities, the ache in my heart was mitigated, which was doubly welcome since I was not comfortable with the idea of the Holy Mother seeing that my own distress was more painful to me than Fredek’s mortal peril. Thus assuaged, I fell asleep.

  In the morning, it took a moment before my grief of last night descended on me again. Then the prospect of parting from Miss Bronia hit me full force again.

  On the other hand, Fredek was visibly and audibly much improved. His breathing had returned to normal, and he wanted to sit up, which his mother wouldn’t allow.

  “It’s God’s miracle,” Auntie Paula said of his dramatic recovery. I knew she was just using an expression, but that was because she wasn’t aware of my involvement in the matter. As for me, I was thrilled to see the power that my prayers had had. And then I immediately set about purging my mind of any sense of pride that the Mother of God might perceive.

  On the other hand, I had seen proof of Kiki’s representation that the Holy Mother was a conduit to God. I wondered how many other people were aware of this device and I knew intuitively that its use had to be limited to issues of appropriate worthiness and decorum.

  The idea of applying this protocol to my most urgent issue grew slowly in my mind, like the wick of the lamps we had on the farm that begins with a little glow and grows into a bright, light-spreading flame. Kneeling on my pallet, as though I was cleaning a spot on the wall, I put my problem in Mary’s most holy hands, proposing the two solutions I had thought of the night before, namely either Mr. Lupicki missing us in a snowstorm or the colonel discovering Mother’s plans. Of the two, I favored the latter since it did not involve making our way back on foot in a snowstorm, but I left it up to the Blessed Mother to present the matter in whatever way She thought most effective. Or it could be up to God Himself to fit it most conveniently into His agenda. On the other hand, if God had a third alternative for thwarting Mother’s plans, I was certainly open to it and would be eternally grateful.

  While this was undeniably a less selfless request than last night’s, I explained, I cited the wickedness prevalent in Lvow and the righteousness of leading us not into temptation. Then I promised forty Hail Marys to be offered that night and another forty upon delivery. I could not help but be aware of the power I now had to influence events.

  When, later that same day, I heard Auntie Edna appeal to Mother to overlook her emotionalism and Auntie Paula’s nasty words, and to change her mind about putting herself and her little son at risk, I thought that God was already at work on my case. There were tears and hugs and professions of eternal friendship and love, but Mother seemed to remain resolute.

  A day or two later, Auntie Paula herself apologized to Mother for saying bad things about her, though they didn’t hug or kiss, and this didn’t change anything, either. But that same day, Miss Bronia said that she had heard that they were going to institute a system of ration cards so that everyone could buy the food and firewood and clothes that they needed, and living conditions in Durnoval would, surely, become much better. This didn’t have any effect on Mother’s decision either. It did, however, lead me to speculate that maybe God didn’t have any direct or real power over Jews and could only manipulate circumstances to influence them towards a certain course of action. Of course, neither Col. Bawatchov nor Mr. Lupicki were Jewish.

  Mother decided that we would leave the following Wednesday. That would be the day after Col. Bawatchov had bee
n here for his French lesson, giving us a full week until he returned and found us gone. Miss Bronia made arrangements with the man with the wagon to drive us to our “rendezvous” point.

  Hearing these arrangements was like watching my own scaffold being built. I knew that maintaining faith in God’s ability to deliver was an important element of the protocol, and I tried hard to dispel my fears. I had debated repeating my supplications to the Blessed Mother, but decided that that would show a lack of confidence in Her. I did, though, make sure that my regular evening prayers were particularly heartfelt.

  On Monday, Fredek was well enough to attend school, and he and Sonya accompanied their mothers the three blocks to the school. The sign, carved in cement, said gimnazium, which meant high school, but, at the moment, it housed all school grades.

  All the previous day, Fredek had talked about teaching the other boys to march and shoot guns, while Miss Bronia did her best with needle and thread to allay Sonya’s concern that she had nothing to wear. For my part, recalling my previous school year’s experience, I was relieved not to be going with them, though I knew this to be only a temporary reprieve.

  When Fredek and Sonya came home that afternoon, they brought back books that were all in Russian. They would learn the Russian language, Russian history, and Russian literature, which Sonya had been told in her class was the greatest literature in the world. Their homework was learning some of the Russian alphabet, and Fredek said that he had already memorized half of it. Sonya couldn’t understand how the Russians could call themselves part of modern Europe if they didn’t even use the same alphabet. Nothing in either of their curricula pertained to anything Polish.

  “This is what you want your son to learn?” Mother said to Auntie Edna, pointing to the pictures of Stalin that adorned each of their books.

  Auntie Edna didn’t answer, but Auntie Paula said, “They’ll have plenty for both of you to learn in Siberia.”

  “I would rather we were both …” Mother began, but stopped in mid sentence.

  “Yulek, Fredek, come in the other room and help me move Fredek’s bed,” Miss Bronia said. Though he was now recovered, it had been decided that Fredek would continue sleeping in the bed to prevent his asthma from returning. We didn’t move the bed far, only swung it away from the wall a bit, and Miss Bronia could easily have done it without us.

  The next day was Tuesday, and Col. Bawatchov would be coming for his second French lesson. I was curious to see how God might deal with this situation—if He, indeed, wanted to honor my preference of solutions. But before his scheduled arrival, Miss Bronia said, “Put your coat on, Yulian. We’re going for a walk.” From the tone of her voice and her use of my full name, I understood that she meant this to be a kind of goodbye for us. Unaware of my commerce with the Divine, Miss Bronia would, of course, have no idea that heavenly intervention was at work on the situation. I took her hand the moment we were out on the sidewalk.

  We came across a queue outside a pork butcher’s store, but walked right by it. We continued on to the little park. “Let’s sit on this bench for a bit,” Miss Bronia said. “If we get cold, we can get up and walk around.” I consented to the plan.

  “You know, Yulian, tomorrow you and your mother will be setting out on a great, exciting adventure. I’m going to miss you very much, but I’ll just be thinking of the excitement you’re experiencing, and I’ll be happy for you.”

  It pained me to hear poor Miss Bronia saying these things, when I knew that none of that was going to happen. I wanted to tell her how much more I would have missed her, but she need not worry because the matter was being taken care of. Except that I didn’t know whether telling someone about a prayer would automatically cancel it the way it would a wish.

  Miss Bronia went on to tell me about how brave my mother was and how much she loved me and how co-operative and supportive and loving I had to be, but I knew she was just trying to prompt me for a trip that wasn’t going to take place. Besides which, my mother was a wicked person who wanted to go live in that sinful city and take me away from her, and there was no way that I could love Mother.

  Miss Bronia also said something about how she and I would never really be apart as long as we were in each other’s thoughts and hearts. This, of course, really made me feel terrible, while I couldn’t tell her that there was nothing to worry about.

  Of course, when this was over, I could tell Miss Bronia how I had entreated the Holy Mother to speak on Miss Bronia’s and my behalf to God, who had arranged things to come out the way they did. And, as a matter of fact, we might see a resolution when we returned right after the colonel’s French lesson.

  When we did return to the apartment, neither Mother nor the colonel was there, so I didn’t know if God was taking that route—unless Col. Bawatchov had arrested Mother. I had been entertaining the fantasy that we would return to find Mother crying because the commissar had learned of her plot and was going, somehow, to prevent her from leaving. This would have enabled me to tell Miss Bronia that we would not be parting after all and to explain how it had all come about.

  Neither one of my Aunties seemed to know where Mother had gone, though I didn’t dare spill the beans by asking. Actually, nobody seemed surprised by her absence.

  Mother came back while I was sleeping, and I awoke to a flurry of packing. The Aunties were helping Mother fit our things into three suitcases, thanking her for the clothes she gave them, and lamenting that most of her things would fit no one except Fredek.

  When Miss Bronia’s friend pulled up in front of our house with his wagon, we said hasty good-byes on the sidewalk. “Yulek, kiss Auntie Edna and Auntie Paula,” Mother said, and, with much experience in that kind of thing, I did. Fredek and I shook hands awkwardly, and I mumbled something unintelligible—even to me—to Sonya.

  Miss Bronia hugged me tight, whispering, “Don’t forget what I told you,” which I acknowledged, though unsure of exactly what she referred to. I felt one of her warm tears on my cheek, and, “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right,” came out of my mouth automatically. I realized that it would be understood as referring to her admonition, rather than the fact that it was beginning to snow.

  Miss Bronia’s friend with the wagon was a man of indeterminable age with a thick, graying beard. The wagon was similar to the one that had brought us to Durnoval from the farm. There was a bed of straw where our three suitcases bounced gently as we rode over the cobblestone streets. I sat between Mother and Miss Bronia’s friend up on the seat, our legs covered by a thick fur blanket. Before we left the house, Miss Bronia had tied her own brown wool scarf over my head and ears.

  I was very much aware that in the past I would have objected to the scarf, just as I would have been hoping that Miss Bronia’s friend would let me drive the horse. But these were circumstances in which such childish things did not matter. As I watched the snow fall on the rump of the dark brown horse, shaggy in his dull, winter coat, I wondered whether I had actually outgrown such concerns.

  The ride must have lasted about an hour, but seemed much, much longer. It didn’t take long to get outside town, but then we rode for miles between snow-covered fields. Twice we pulled to the side of the road when we saw army trucks approach. There would have been room for them to pass, but the driver said, “They drive like crazy people.” I tried to figure out if the snow was increasing. Where a certain road crossed the Lvow road that we were on, with a post and painted sign identifying the road, our wagon stopped.

  “Will you wait with us till the autobus comes?” Mother asked the driver, but he said he had to get back.

  “I’ll pay you extra,” she said, but he shook his head.

  “You’re going to leave a woman and child out here alone?” she asked. “What if the autobus doesn’t come, or it doesn’t stop for us?”

  This time I was with Mother, but the man shrugged his shoulders.

  “Then I won’t pay you,” Mother said, and I cringed.

  The man shrugged his should
ers again and clucked his horse into motion. He turned the wagon around and headed back toward the city. As he passed us, Mother handed him something. Then Mother and I stood at the side of the road with our suitcases watching for a gray autobus with Lvow written on the front.

  The wind blew across the white fields, raising clouds of snow that mixed with what fell from the sky. But it didn’t yet seem to be enough to make us invisible.

  “Stamp your feet to stay warm,” Mother said after the wagon had left. I wasn’t cold. Mother had on the gray wool dress into which she had sewn all her jewelry over the last few days. The buttons, gems wrapped in layers of cloth, were of irregular size and lumpy. She had a silk scarf over her head. Her mink jacket, too bulky to pack, didn’t cover much of her below the waist, and she was probably cold. Her overcoat was in one of the suitcases.

  Mother tried to light a cigarette, but the wind wouldn’t let her. “Mr. Lupicki will be along any minute,” she said.

  I watched the snow increasing intensity. It swirled around our feet, and wind was beginning to cut through my clothes. I didn’t relish the walk back with our three suitcases. But I kept in mind that I’d be walking back to Miss Bronia. I could even picture the surprise and delight on her face as we walked in the door.

  “You remember, Yulian, don’t you,” Mother was saying behind me, “that you are my protecting knight. You’re a strong, courageous man, and all you and I have now is each other. We are partners.”

  This was talk I had heard before. I remembered thinking at the time that it meant something important was going to be different. But it had turned out to be nothing but talk.

  “Stop doing that!” Mother was suddenly yelling at me. I hadn’t even been aware that I had hooked my left hand around the signpost and was going around and around it with my other arm extended.

  “I’m telling you how much we depend on each other now,” Mother was saying angrily, “and you’re playing airplane with the signpost!”