Dear Canada: Hoping for Home
Page 10
I know that we don’t have money for what my parents call “frills.” Not just yet, that is. Papa is studying English and promises to get a good job next year. It doesn’t seem to matter here that he was a doctor in Poland. He has to pass medical exams all over again. In the meantime I know he does his best as a part-time helper at a local clinic, while Mama works for a friend in a small boutique.
I hate having to babysit Georgie after school — a very boring occupation. Days seem bland with nothing much to look forward to. But miracles do happen, like finding this diary.
I enjoy being able to say things here that I couldn’t otherwise talk about. Like my personal stuff … Besides, Mama and Papa frown at some of my ideas, like my wanting to look older than thirteen. If only Katya were here.
Maybe I could write to her in my diary? I would tell her everything and it would be safe because I can lock the diary. Besides, it seems silly to just write in a blank book without a living soul reading or hearing what I have to say. Yet I wouldn’t want others to know my innermost feelings, especially Mama and Papa — they wouldn’t understand.
I shouldn’t be so mean. After all, they made a special supper for me and invited Debbie and then sang “Sto Lat” to wish that I live a hundred years. After we devoured that delicious chocolate cake, I started talking about the war. Papa told me to keep quiet and never to mention that subject again. To forget Polish, the war, the Holocaust and everything I remember about my country, and to start living a Canadian life, in English. Then they went back to their English grammar books while I played with Georgie and later cried myself to sleep. I didn’t — I don’t — want to forget all those things and I never will. Never. And that is a part of my big secret. The other part I can’t even think about now.
Here in my diary I can remember whatever I want to, in whatever language I wish.
Later
I should give my diary a name, as if I were speaking to someone with a name. But not just any name.
After much mulling over I have decided to call the diary Kati, and talk to you, my precious sister. Of course the word Sis doesn’t make sense in Polish, but in English everything is abbreviated anyhow. And I have to start somewhere in this difficult language.
June 11th, 1947
Dear Kati,
I just had the most horrible dream. There was a sound of marching feet, banging on the door, then …
No … It’s too unbearable to write about now!
June 15th, 1947
Dear Kati,
Maybe if I tell my dream to you, I can manage to put it all down:
I hear a sound of feet marching down the hall. Someone bangs on the door. The knob turns and a man in the black uniform of Hitler’s SS police force stomps in. He comes closer. I can only see his eye. The soldiers are mean and they are coming closer and closer to my face till I can’t breathe. I am so scared. I know he is going to hurt me. I want to scream but no sound comes from my throat.
The night of the dream, I woke up all sweaty. I couldn’t even write most of the dream. But now that I’ve told you, I feel a little better.
Nightmares like this have happened before too.
This is why I cannot forget, Kati:
I feel as if I have an album of pictures in my head that opens every so often and I can see photographs of the war, the soldiers, guns, people running … Our poor granny, who got left behind in Poland all alone … Papa saying we couldn’t take her along because we only had visas for the four of us … Grandpa getting beaten by a Nazi soldier on a ghetto street … And I still remember afterwards how he lay in his bed, very ill, in that dark and shabby room, smelling of mold and garlic, with yellow teeth swimming in a big dirty glass … Papa coming home with tears in his eyes and telling us that Grandpa was gone — that Nazis had no use for the old folk.
I don’t remember crying, Kati. When I think back, I realize that I was in shock, and still am.
I also have in my mind-album (that is what I call it) pictures of all our aunts, uncles and cousins who died in the concentration camp. How they were sent to the horrible Umschlagplatz in the ghetto to be loaded onto the waiting cattle cars and on to that camp called Treblinka, never to be heard from again. But I will always remember them. Alla, who drew portraits of people, was the oldest of us all. Remember how she would often stand in front of the mirror, looking at herself, fixing her hair for hours because she wanted to look nice for the boy down the hall? It was hard, she said, when she only owned one soiled polka-dot dress. And Irena, who wrote beautiful poems and wanted to be just like her older sister and also look nice for the same boy.
And remember our two boy cousins, one wanting to be a doctor and the other an inventor? Adam would put unlikely things together to create other unlikely things. They were so serious for their years and were always reading a lot. And our three aunts simply vanishing one day. Remember how they were all musical and good-looking with their dark hair and eyes? Now here we are with only the four of us left, plus Uncle Bronek, out of our whole big family.
I also have a photograph of you, Kati. A beautiful young girl with dark wavy hair and big brown eyes that were full of tears the day you escaped the ghetto to the other side of the wall. I cried and cried after you left to live with that family in the village. You never knew that I went later to another place, and I survived. But you got lost, Mama said.
I always feel guilty when Mama looks at me with her sad blue eyes, as if I were supposed to be you. That is when I want to run away or shrink into myself and never come out.
Bye for now, my Kati.
Love, Miriam
June 30th, 1947
Dear Kati,
I wish these were letters I could send you so you could answer back, but I don’t know where you are. I will read each one out loud and imagine that wherever you may be, you can hear me.
Since the day you disappeared from our lives, our family has not been the same. Mama and Papa changed so much around that time. Of course, many people’s lives were broken by the war, parts of which I can still remember. Like the day in Warsaw when I was supposed to help you pack for your escape from the ghetto, but instead I went to play in the courtyard with the little boy next door. When I came back inside, you were gone and I have never seen you since. That little boy got typhus and died the very next week. Then the Germans invaded our quarter and we were sent to the deportation depot. Father had a friend who was able to get us into the hospital there and through the back door into a truck that got us back into the ghetto. As we drove out in the covered truck, I peered through the little opening and saw German soldiers pointing their guns at our truck while there we sat behind the tarpaulin. I thought they’d kill us any minute, but they didn’t shoot.
You don’t know any of this, Kati. You don’t know how I eventually got out of the ghetto. It was scary, as the Germans were ordered to shoot anyone who tried to escape. I was taken out by a Christian lady who did these things to help save Jewish children. She pretended I was her niece and took me out through the courthouse. Of course you had to be blond with green eyes, as I was, and have false papers saying you were a Catholic. Dark-haired people were stereotyped as Jews and had to hide. With your dark hair and dark eyes, I shudder to think what might have happened to you on the Aryan side. The Aryan side — that’s what they called the non-Jewish side of Warsaw, on the other side of the big wall that enclosed us Jews. The worst part was saying goodbye to Mama and Papa. I became someone else that day — a Catholic child whose name was Zosia Bielska. I am not sure that I am Miriam again even now.
I keep on asking Mama why we left without knowing what happened to you. But all she does is shake her head and cry, saying, “We couldn’t help it” or “I don’t know.” This makes me mad. If it were up to me I would have never left without knowing where you were. Someday, Kati, when I am older, I vow to return to Poland to look for you.
You will see that I can keep my word.
Love, Miriam
August 5th, 1947
&n
bsp; Dear Kati,
Where have I been? I have not written for so long because many things have happened. I was lost between English and Polish in a non-language world. I hated English words, with so many words having double or triple meanings, and fought it with all my might, hanging onto my native language. Before school’s end, the teacher noticed my struggle and said that when two beasts fight over their prey, the third gets it.
I am finally living and writing in English — well, almost. As a result, Deborah and I have grown closer. I got some money for babysitting Georgie and was able to buy that red purse I wanted. A secret, Kati: In it I kept a pink lipstick, which I put on at school and took off before I got home. One day I forgot to wipe it off and I was called into our living room for a family conference.
I sat there, in front of them (my parental judges) while they were angrily asking me questions about the lipstick. I told them Deborah put it on me in school. In the meantime Georgie dragged off my purse and smeared the lipstick all over the dresser mirror in my room, squealing with delight. Mama and Papa stampeded into my room, and Papa hit me for lying. Parents shouldn’t frighten their children into lying. I was simply too scared to tell them the truth. Now whose fault is that?
Of course, they have been under a terrible strain, and Papa has been very upset, and lately it seems to be even worse. He never hit either of us before, do you agree? He later told me that he was sorry, and his hand shook when he stroked the place he hit me.
Despite Papa’s apology, sometimes I dislike our parents. How can I ever forgive Papa for this?
Love, Miriam
August 10th, 1947
Dear Kati,
The other part of my secret, besides the mind-album and the lipstick, is the boy I met at a school dance. His name is Abe — short for Abraham, like the father of our ancestors. Did you know? It’s in the Old Testament and I learned about it from Deborah, because she heard various stories from her father, so she knows the history of our people. You must have known that during the war, we had to hide our Jewishness when outside the ghetto. But here it is all over the place. It’s in the delis, in the barrels of pickles and containers of chopped herring. In the Star of David (King of the Jews) painted on the shop windows, and men in black coats, hats and locks hanging beneath.
The last time I saw a Jewish star was in the ghetto, when adults had to wear arm bands with Stars of David to identify them as Jews. Here you don’t need any of that and all the Jewish people proudly strut the main street as if it belonged to them — and you know what? It does. It is different here, freer and more peaceful. The only siren comes from a fire engine, not an air raid. Abe really helped me to feel that I belong too, though I don’t as yet. And so did Deb. She made me a gift of my first bra, which mother said I didn’t need, and Abe kissed me in a school hallway when no one was looking. Papa would kill me if he knew.
I really like Abe, but Papa would have a fit if he knew about this boy and that I liked it when he kissed me.
Here is another thing. Having a fit can mean becoming very angry, or having an epileptic fit, which means a very bad thing for your health, and it can also mean to fit well into your clothes. The English language can be so complicated. Anyway Papa did have a fit — the angry kind.
Love, Miriam
September 4th, 1947
Dear Kati,
I hardly see our parents. All I do is slave over English and French, and babysit Georgie. He is a little monster to look after. One day I invited Abe to babysit with me, and for some reason that day Papa came home earlier than usual. You should have seen what happened. I want to disappear when I think of it.
Papa’s face went green when he saw Abe. He rushed up towards him with hateful eyes and asked in a rasping voice, “Who are you, sir?” I almost thought if he had a weapon, he would have killed him.
Abe stood tall and motionless. Papa jumped up at him with two clenched fists aimed at Abe’s jaw. When Abe ducked and Papa fell over the dining-room table, I wanted to laugh and to cry. Part of me thought, Good for Abe. The other thought, Poor Papa — as he scrambled off the table and told Abe to get out.
Abe said goodbye to me and quietly left.
Papa pushed me onto a dining-room chair and shouted questions without even giving me a chance to answer. When I weakly replied that Abe was simply helping me to look after Georgie — which was the holy truth — Papa went green again and slapped my face on both sides till I thought I’d go deaf. I did see stars before my eyes, Kati. Just then Georgie started to shriek and Papa turned towards me, his face all contorted as if he were in pain, and said in a muffled tone of voice, “I am so sorry, Miri. I didn’t mean to hit you. I am only trying to protect you.” Then he turned towards the window.
I accepted his apology matter-of-factly, but I am honestly not sure what Papa was protecting me from. In the meantime I really started to appreciate Georgie. After all, his scream helped bring Papa back to himself.
When Mama came home she didn’t seem to care about what had happened, and I felt very lonely. As you yourself know, in Poland a girl my age could not be seen walking along with a boy. Papa was being protective of me. But don’t you think he overdid it this time?
Deborah has a boyfriend. His name is Jacob and her parents don’t seem to mind if they chum around. But they are Canadians. It’s more progressive here. After all, kids our age only go out in groups to movies, or school dances that are chaperoned.
As for more excitement, today a mysterious letter arrived from Poland.
I found it when I came home from school. It was addressed to Papa, and the return address was from a Mr. Gertner, a lawyer friend of Papa’s.
It was in an airmail envelope, well-sealed, and I daren’t have opened it. Someone said that if you wave it in front of a steaming kettle it will unseal the envelope, but I daren’t. This is the first letter from Poland since we left.
Love, Miriam
September 10th, 1947
Dear Kati,
Something has happened. Last night I heard Mama and Papa talking in whispers and I thought I heard someone crying. When I tried to walk into the kitchen they told me to go to my room. Papa was holding the letter I mentioned. I still wonder what’s in it.
September 11th, 1947
I couldn’t sleep. They talked all night long. This morning Mama had red eyes and Papa looked miserable. I didn’t know if this was about me, or something else. I felt as if I had done something wrong.
School today seemed endless and I felt blah. Even Abe couldn’t make me feel better, though he bought me an ice cream cone at recess from a little white truck with music. Deborah asked what was wrong, but all I could do was say I didn’t know. How lucky I am to have such good and caring friends.
In the afternoon I went home, burning to find out what was going on.
Until later,
Love, Miriam
September 12th, 1947
There is still the problem of that letter. I tried to sneak into their bedroom and I looked for it everywhere, but it was nowhere to be found. Our parents never talk to me anymore, Kati. They have become strangers even more. This made me realize that I really don’t know them anymore as my parents.
After the Warsaw ghetto they struggled so hard to survive, running from one barn to another, and afterwards hiding in cold wintry forests so Nazis wouldn’t catch them. Of course I didn’t see them for several years — just as you did not — and then when they came back and told me that you were missing, they were already changed. They looked tired, worn and shabby. I can still see the tears in their eyes. Our father, who had always been well-dressed, and our mother, who had a beautiful face and figure and wore the most stylish clothes before the war (from what little I can remember of those times) — those parents were no more. They looked afraid, more like beggars on the poorer streets of Warsaw. And they were hungry. The old woman in the house where I lived wouldn’t even let me hug them when they came to visit me, because the neighbours might notice and think I was their
daughter. We could not risk the truth.
When I saw what they looked like, I felt afraid to ask them questions. And there was so much I wanted to know about what happened to you. That day, and on other days and nights, I sensed danger all around me. The old woman told me that if I were found out to be a Jewish child, I would be killed.
Here in Montreal, Mama hasn’t really spoken to me much, except to say do this and do that. And Papa is always busy and frowning. When I say something, he simply ignores me, save to remind me to do my homework, and shout when I do one little thing that is more Canadian than Polish — and yet they want me to become a Canadian quickly.
Often, I feel like running away. Deborah said I could stay with her. Abe said I should try to tell our parents that I would like them to treat me the way they used to when they loved me. How do I do that? I feel they don’t love me anymore and only need me for babysitting Georgie, which has become a chore, with me always wishing he were you, Kati.
I try to forget these awful things now, but this mysterious letter has me curious and afraid. I feel I must find it, to help me understand our parents’ strange behaviour.