Mother and Me

by Julian Padowicz

  “The police knew right away that we were here,” Mother said. I assumed she was speaking to the woman.

  “Police,” the woman said, nodding her head. “Hungary police.”

  “Mr. Vostokos speaks excellent Polish. He must have lived in Poland at some time.”

  The woman said something in her language.

  Mother asked in Russian if the woman spoke that language.

  “No Ruski—Hungarian police,” the woman said.

  Mother asked if she spoke German.

  “No German,” the woman said emphatically.

  “Thank you.” I could tell that Mother had given up on verbal communication and now turned her attention back to me. “You slept well,” she said in a jolly tone, and she seemed especially eager to talk. “There is a train station here,” she said with some excitement. “Very soon we will be in Budapest, and there we’ll stay at a big hotel where it’s warm and one can order anything one wants to eat. Here, put these on.” She had taken a change of underwear from my backpack, along with a toothbrush. “We just have to stop at the police station to register, and Mr. Vostokos couldn’t believe that we escaped from the Bolsheviks the way we did.”

  I saw the woman bring the wooden spoon to her mouth and taste what was in the pot. I hoped that was breakfast because I was suddenly starving. I ducked under my quilt to change clothes. Meesh was under the quilt with me, and I told him that I would explain to him all about where we were and what we were doing after breakfast. I really didn’t feel like talking to him at the moment, and felt a little guilty about it. But I wanted my breakfast and to get on to Budapest.

  Dressed again, I dangled my legs off the end of the stove and dropped to the floor. This had been a mistake, I realized, as a sharp pain hit both my feet as well as my ankles on impact, and I fell to my knees with a cry.

  Mother and the woman rushed to my side, the woman arriving first and directing a stream of foreign language at me. Then she and Mother raised me by my elbows, while I carefully tried putting my weight on my feet. Done very gradually while they held me up, it worked with only a tingling. I walked carefully to the table, where a steaming bowl awaited me.

  My breakfast turned out to be a highly sweetened lumpy oatmeal of some sort with more of the cheesy milk to drink. I ate two bowls of the oatmeal, accompanied by another stream of the new language from our pleased hostess.

  Then we gathered up our belongings, stuffing my extra layers of clothes into the backpack, and prepared to leave for the police station. As our hostess wiped her hands on her apron, I saw Mother put some money into one of her hands. The woman pocketed it without interrupting the flow of advice or whatever it was that she was giving us.

  Suddenly, Mother put her arms around the woman. “It’s thanks to you and your husband that we are alive,” she said. “You have saved our lives.” The little woman allowed herself to be hugged, but not interrupted. The verbal flow continued as she stroked my cheek. She was still speaking in the doorway as we waved from the middle of the street.

  “I know she didn’t understand a word I said,” Mother said, laughing, as we walked down the middle of the snow-covered street, Meesh once more in the crook of my arm. “But you know how, sometimes, you just need to talk to someone.” I noticed that Mother was walking with less of a limp today. My own feet felt pretty good by then. “Would you believe that after all that, I couldn’t get to sleep last night?” she said.

  I was very much aware that Mother was speaking differently to me now than she or anyone had talked to me before. She was actually speaking more to herself than to me, the way I had sometimes heard adults talking among themselves.

  “And you know what I’m going to do when we get to America? I’m going to write a book. I thought of it as I was lying there trying to sleep, and of course there was no chance of my sleeping after that.”

  This was the first mention I had heard of our going to America. America was where they made Mickey Mouse cartoons and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was a place where you could buy watches at a pharmacy for a dollar—a friend of Mother’s had one—its capital was New York with skyscrapers, and they gave out prizes for having the most freckles. This was exciting news.

  As we made our way along the snowy street, a piece of song came into my mind. It was a song I could not remember ever having heard before, and certainly not one Kiki or Miss Bronia would have sung. But there it was, in my mind, and I wondered where I had heard it. It was something about grabbing yourself a woman and God blessing you for it.

  The police station was a little white frame house on a street that crossed the one we had been on. Among the big-roofed clay and sod cottages that were like rows of giant mushrooms growing beside the road, it looked like something from a bigger town recently dropped into the village. Electrical wires ran overhead as far as the little house and terminated there.

  Mother stopped outside the door and with her fingers smoothed the hair that showed under her kerchief. Seeing me look at her, she laughed. “I know, I look terrible.”

  She was right. Without her makeup, Mother had dark rings under her eyes that I had never seen before. Her skin was pale, with freckles that I had never known she had, and her eyelashes were so light they were hard to see at all. “No, no, you look very good,” I said. Mother gave her neckline a little tug, as she had done going into the commissar’s office. Realizing what she was doing, she laughed at herself again. “Yulek, we’re going to be famous!” she said “Both of us!” Then she reached for the door handle.

  The police station seemed to be mostly one large room. A low platform against the middle of the far wall held a large desk, behind which sat the policeman I had seen before. He reminded me of my schoolteacher and her platform desk. In the far corner to our left, at a much smaller desk on floor level, but behind a little railing, sat Mr. Vostokos. He stood up when we came in and immediately began to button his jacket with little chubby fingers. The leather coat was now on a coat hanger on the wall behind him. “I thank Missus for coming,” he said in excellent, though accented, Polish. He came out from behind his desk and held open a little gate in the railing.

  His suit was a well-pressed double-breasted dark blue pinstripe with a white shirt and a green tie. His gray hair was parted in the middle and held in place with pomade. I saw that on the pinkie of his right hand there was a gold ring with a large black stone.

  “Sit there,” Mother said to me, indicating one of the several chairs by the entrance door. There were chairs around three walls of the room. Then she stepped through the little gate, which swung closed on a spring behind her. “I am so happy to be back in Hungary,” she said to Mr. Vostokos, who now held the chair for her. “I have visited your beautiful Budapest a hundred times with my husband.”

  I saw Mother’s fingers instinctively pluck at her skirt to uncover her knee, before encountering the heavy wool of the ankle-length garment. “I don’t have a visa, but my passport is in order and if you call the Polish consul in Budapest, he can arrange for one. He is an old friend of mine, you know, as is the ambassador.”

  “That will not be necessary,” he said with a dismissive motion of his hand. Then he went on. “We are all truly amazed at Missus’s accomplishment. Missus must be very tired. The constable can make Turkish coffee.”

  I saw Mother’s eyebrows flick up at the mention of the coffee. The man said something in Hungarian, and the policeman stepped down from his platform and disappeared through a door in back.

  “The amazing thing is that I am not one bit tired,” Mother said. “I am sure it’s the excitement, and I will soon collapse,” she laughed. “But now I’m just grateful for the chance to talk to an intelligent person. We’ve been through so much, and that poor peasant woman speaks nothing but… well, I’m not sure what language she spoke. It didn’t really sound like the Hungarian one hears in Budapest.”

  “Yes, one often has a great need to talk after an experience like the one Missus has just had,” Mr. Vostokos said,
pulling a silver cigarette case out of an inside jacket pocket. “This region was made a part of the new Czechoslovakia after the Big War,” he said, “but now it’s Hungarian again.”

  Mother arched her back and leaned forward as the man held his lighter to her cigarette. “Two weeks ago, we had three men come across the border,” he continued, “but never a woman. The guides, you know, all bring them within sight of the village, then they disappear back into the woods. That undoubtedly is Missus’s experience.”

  “Not exactly. Our guide never even got out of the sleigh.”

  “The sleigh?”

  “He brought us by sleigh within sight of the border. He had bribed the guards, you know, and then he was supposed to carry my son, but he just drove off and left us there.”

  “Unbelievable. There in the snow?”

  “Right there in the snow.”

  “And Missus and her son came all this way by themselves? Incredible!”

  Mother nodded her head.

  “A woman and a child …” the man said.

  Mother tilted her head back and blew a long train of smoke at the ceiling.

  “How did Missus ever find her way?”

  “The guide had told us to follow the stream.”

  “But there is no stream here.”

  “We followed a stream as far as we could. It ended in a frozen pond. Then we just stumbled around blind. If we hadn’t stumbled on this village, purely by chance, we would still be walking—or, more likely, frozen in the snow. God must have been looking out for us. When we got to this village, I didn’t know whether we weren’t back in Poland.”

  “Amazing. Just where did Missus cross the border?”

  Mother named the village where we had spent the night before. “Somewhere near there,” she said. I saw Mr. Vostokos write something down.

  Now Mother took the scarf off her head. “I must look awful,” she said laughing and patting her hair with her hand.

  “Missus has been through an ordeal.”

  “I thank Mr. Inspector—or is it Mr. Colonel, perhaps?—for his understanding and congratulate him on his excellent Polish,” she said. “He must have lived some years among us.”

  “I attended university in Warsaw,” he said.

  “Ah, our beautiful Warsaw—our once beautiful Warsaw.”

  “Ah yes, what sadness. And I’m afraid it’s only Mister. I am just a poor civil servant in the service of his country.”

  “Mister is being modest. He wears his rank like an impeccably tailored English suit.”

  “Missus is too kind. But the guide who abandoned Missus so shamefully in the snow after taking her money should be punished—does Missus happen to remember his name?”

  “I believe it was Michael,” Mother said. She lied.

  “In case we see him here, I will personally see to his punishment. Does Missus remember his last name?”

  “They don’t use last names.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I wondered why Mother had lied about Yanek’s name. He certainly deserved punishing.

  “Does Mr. Minister?…” Mother began. “I mean Mister—does Mister happen to be related to General Sir Aubrey Hague?”

  “General Hague? I’m afraid I do not know of him. English?”

  “Yes, English. And Mister reminds me very much of the general—younger, of course. I met the general at a reception in the Polish embassy in London last summer. He is not a tall man, but there is no question that he is in command.”

  “Perhaps I have some English relations that I did not know about.” He laughed.

  I now envisioned Mr. Vostokos in a chubby little braided uniform, a cocktail in his hand, and his left ear sticking out the side of his head.

  “Mister Min…. Mister has such an air of command,” Mother said.

  “I did serve in the cavalry in the last war,” Mr. Vostokos admitted.

  “I knew it would be the cavalry. I love the Hungarian cavalry uniforms.”

  “I was a little thinner then.”

  “And Mister has such beautiful children.”

  Mr. Vostokos glanced at the photograph on his desk. “My wife is Austrian.”

  “She is beautiful.”

  “She is a skiing champion. She was on the Austrian national ski team.”

  “Really?”

  “Does Missus, or is it Mrs. Baroness, perhaps… ?” I heard him saying.

  Mother laughed. “Just Missus.”

  “Well, Missus …” he began, but was interrupted by the policeman carrying a copper tray. “Ah, the coffee.”

  On the tray were two cups, a plate of sugar cubes, and a little brass kettle with a straight wooden handle sticking, horizontally, out from the left side, just like the man’s ear. In a moment, I could smell the rich coffee aroma across the room.

  Then the policeman presented me with a little tray as well. There was a cup of tea, sugar cubes, milk, and even the option of a lemon slice.

  The tea was too hot for me to drink, but I realized that I had been ignoring Meesh, and I now proceeded to explain to him that Hungary was a different country from Poland, which meant that they spoke a different language. I also explained that there were no Russians in Hungary, so there was no shortage of food, as there had been in Lvow. From now on we would have plenty to eat. Austria, where the man said his wife came from, I explained, was on the other side of the world where it was summer when we had winter.

  “We traveled three days and nights closed up in the back of my husband’s truck,” I heard Mother saying. “My son, my sister-in-law and her little son, and her sister-in-law with her daughter—three pampered society ladies and three small children without their governesses.” She didn’t even mention Miss Bronia. I recalled Mother’s stories about Grandfather being a general and my father a senator.

  “Now I must tell Missus …” Mr. Vostokos began, but Mother was going on. “None of us knew how to cook or even to give her child a proper bath. And, of course, how was anyone to know what clothes to pack?”

  “And to think that Missus would have to go through an ordeal like this,” Mr. Vostokos said. “How did Missus ever find such a guide?”

  “Oh, Mister knows, one meets someone at a café or, standing in a queue perhaps, who knows someone who knows someone.”

  Then my eye was caught by a movement outside the window to my right. I saw that a sleigh, much like the one we had ridden in yesterday, had pulled into the yard under the window. It had stopped alongside a wagon sleigh with straw in it but without a horse, that had been there since our arrival. A bearded old man in peasant clothes covered the horse with a blanket, then saw me looking at him through he window. He came close to the window and suddenly broke into a big smile that displayed even more teeth missing than the woman this morning.

  I heard him stomp his feet outside the door, and he came in. Passing my chair, by the door, he suddenly reached down and snatched Meesh from my lap and continued with long strides to the back of the room.

  “Hey!” I cried in surprise.

  The old man turned. I saw the mischievous look on his face and realized he was playing with me. Appreciating the attention, I mimed mock surprise. Mother and Mr. Vostokos both looked at me. I laughed to show that everything was all right. Mr. Vostokos said something nasty-sounding to the old man, who immediately returned Meesh to me. As he handed me my bear, he gave a big wink. I wished that I was able to wink back, but it was a skill, along with whistling, that I hadn’t yet acquired.

  “They were like a comic opera,” Mother was saying. “Soviet helmets over their hats and red armbands. And, of course, guns. Their leader was even wearing a sword.” They both laughed at this.

  “Does Mister still have his cavalry sword?”

  “I do, indeed. Someday it will be my son’s. Of course, they won’t be wearing swords when he’s in the army.”

  “Of course,” Mother said. “I am interested because when we arrive in America, I will write a book about all this, the Bolshevik
s and the Nazis. I have stories about both the Bolshevik and the Nazi zones that the world needs to know about. And Mister will certainly be in it for his kindness.”

  “Indeed,” the man said.

  The old man sat down on one of the chairs against the side wall, two chairs from mine on my right, crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes. I started to sip some of my tea.

  “We had nothing to give the children to eat except carrots,” I heard Mother saying. “It was heartbreaking to look at their poor hungry faces.”

  Then I felt myself being watched. Looking up from under my eyebrows, I could see that the old man had turned his face partly to me and had opened just his left eye. The mischievous look was on his face again. I grinned back at him. Unable to close just one eye, I covered my left eye with my hand.

  The old man now closed his left eye and opened the right. I covered my right eye and looked at him with the left. Now the man opened both eyes and placed his left index finger on his left eyebrow and his thumb on his cheekbone. Bringing the fingers closer together, he now forced the eye shut. I copied him and found that I could now actually close one eye. And when I took my hand away, I could actually keep the one eye closed, though with considerable effort. The man’s gap-toothed face registered mock surprise.

  I heard Mother and Mr. Vostokos laugh, and I first thought they were laughing at us, but I saw that they weren’t looking in our direction. I held Meesh up for the old man to see and covered one of his eyes with his own hand. The old man must have mistaken it for a salute, because he saluted back. I returned the salute.

  “Mister must surely be joking!” Mother suddenly said.

  “I deeply wish that I were,” the man answered, “but our government has an agreement with the Soviet government to return all….”

  “The Soviet government?”

  “Both the Soviet and the German governments.”

  “But they are invaders. They are not legitimate authorities. Surely the Hungarian government and the rest of Europe are aware …”

  “I am truly sorry, Missus, but…”

  “I demand to see the Polish consul! I know both him and the ambassador.”