The Silence of Trees

by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

  "‘Wie gehts?’ I asked him if he was all right.

  "‘Gut,’ he replied, I’m fine, but the German words seemed to catch in his throat as he struggled with them. He continued, ‘Ironic. We can only speak in German. Even after defeating them, they still hold a certain power.’

  "He looked around toward the camp. ‘It’s the only language most of the people here have in common, the only language that allows us to communicate. Hitler must be laughing in hell.’

  "I couldn’t find the words. Now that I was sitting in front of him, I just wanted to run away. Then I saw that the young soldier was not so very young. His shaking hands belied the rest of his strong body. His haunted eyes betrayed his bare cheeks. He had the look of a young dog that had been beaten and left for dead—angry and afraid and hungry. It was a look I had seen on many others during the war, but somehow I had expected the Americans to be invincible.

  "‘Are you all right?’ I asked again.

  "He shook his head, then rested his face in his hands and said, ‘I have seen so many monsters this last year that I am afraid I will never sleep soundly again.’

  "I stayed quiet, afraid that any interruption would silence him.

  "I have seen ovens with human bones in them, and so many dead waiting to be burned, the smell of their decaying bodies thick on the air. I have seen thousands of corpses not yet dead and watched hundreds of people deny their involvement. I am angry. So angry. And sickened.’

  "After a few minutes of silence, he looked up at me, eyes red and wet, ‘This war has bred so many monsters. But I’m sure that you have seen your share. My name is David Goodman. Thank you for coming over. What is your story?’

  "‘My name is Nadya Palyvoda,’ I responded, ‘and I’m just another DP who is afraid to go home.’

  "‘Where is home?’ he asked.

  "Without thinking, I answered, ‘A little village outside of Lviv.’

  "He looked at his watch and gathered up his things, ‘Me? I can’t wait to get home. To scrub this death off my skin, kiss my parents and little sister, hug my girl, and try to sleep without dreams.’"

  "Was this another admirer, Baba?" Lesya asked.

  "No," I said, smiling. "We were just strangers who shared the same grove for a time. After that day, whenever we saw each other, we would say hello and goodbye, sometimes just nodding, I think, to avoid the German words. It took many more weeks before we struck up another conversation, and it was our last one. After that he disappeared; transferred to somewhere else."

  "So he saw a concentration camp? Which one?" she asked, writing notes in her notebook.

  "He was one of the soldiers who liberated Buchenwald, and the things he told me are still clear in my mind. The last time I saw him, he had just pulled out the three books from his bag when he called me over,

  "‘Nadya Palyvoda, come sit with me. I am leaving tomorrow.’

  "‘Your oak will miss you,’ I told him, sitting down across from him. I did not tell him that I would also miss seeing him. ‘May I ask you a question?’ I felt bolder, knowing I would never see him again.

  "‘Of course.’

  "‘What are those three books? I’ve watched you with them, and I’m curious.’

  "He smiled wryly and told me his story:

  "‘My squad was stationed in a castle, Saxe-Colburg. It had remained untouched by the occupying Germans because it was allied with the House of Windsor. I had never been in such a palace, surrounded by such wealth. The contrast with the war was painful, like staring into the sun after having lived in darkness.

  "‘In the castle there was this library. I have always loved books, and so it was my favorite room. It was enormous, with bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling, and a ladder that slid along the top. The wood was dark and polished, and the floor was covered with expensive Oriental rugs.

  "‘We were instructed not to touch anything while we were there, to leave everything in perfect order because of the British connection. But I had to take something with me. I couldn’t leave that place with nothing. I figured that they couldn’t possibly miss a few books. So when we were leaving, I went back to the library and grabbed three books off the lower shelves and threw them into my bag. I have carried them with me ever since. I have kept them safe, and I will take them home.’

  "‘What books are they?’ I asked.

  "‘That is the great irony,’ he answered. ‘One is by Goethe. Do you know that Goethe spent a lot of time in Weimar, the village just outside of Buchenwald? That’s where he died. Inside the camp there was actually a tree called the Goethe Oak. It was destroyed in a bombing, but the stump is carefully preserved.

  "‘The second is Nathan der Weise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. It is a play on the theme of religious tolerance. And the last book was a religious text, a book of Christian prayers. So you know my secret. These are my three companions. I have never told anyone.’

  "‘At home, will you tell them what you have seen?’ I asked.

  "‘I don’t know. Not yet.’ he answered."

  "And I understood, Lesya. It is so hard for us to speak of that time. I know you cannot understand," I said looking at her.

  "Here in the safety of this house in America, you want to know everything. You want to learn everything, but there was a time and place when knowledge meant death."

  "I am so happy that none of my grandchildren have had to be in a war," I said, looking at her. Looking toward the wall in my kitchen adorned with photographs of my children and their children.

  "My life has been a life of soldiers. My grandfather Mykola. My father Ivan. My childhood friends . . ." I stopped. I was treading too close to the truth. "My sons."

  "So many times I wished that I were a man, Lesya, so I could bring them all to justice. Men have revenge as an option. We have only silence."

  "Baba," Lesya said gently, walking over to give me a hug, "Silence is not your only option."

  For a minute she sounded like Ana.

  Suddenly Lesya looked down at her watch.

  "Shoot," she said, closing her notebook. "I’ve got to run. I have a . . . an appointment."

  There was something she was not saying. She avoided my eyes when she talked to me.

  "You lie to your Baba now?" I asked her.

  "I didn’t want to get into a fight, Baba. I have a date. It’s Luke’s birthday."

  "So that’s his name, the German boyfriend? Luke?" I tried to stay calm. Deep breaths, Katya told me. Something she learned in her Yoga classes. So I took deep breaths.

  "Lukas actually. Lukas Neumann."

  I needed to come up with a new strategy. I needed to think about it some more.

  "Fine. Go on your date. We’ll talk again later." I stood up and started to gather the dishes for the sink.

  Lesya walked over to me and kissed my cheek.

  "I love you, Baba. Thank you."

  Then she left, and I watched her through the window.

  I ran the water so it got hot in the sink, hot enough to kill the germs. Baba always used to say that cool water soothes, but hot water can wash away everything, from dirt to heartaches. Well, Baba wasn’t always right. I remembered after I lost my baby in the camp. I felt dirty for months. So many months of scrubbing myself, always feeling as though blood were staining my hands and thighs. Pavlo never knew about the baby lost to him.

  A few weeks after I buried the baby in Stephan’s overcoat under that grove of trees, Mama Paraska left with Andriy. Sonny left soon after. I was feeling alone again and trapped. Pavlo tried to mend his ways, but between us there was so much pain and regret that it seemed like nothing could bridge the gap. The wounds only started to heal after Katya was born. That was when something in Pavlo softened. She was his angel, his redemption. When the nurse put her into Pavlo’s arms, he stared at little Katya and said in a faraway voice, "The only things that can save our souls in these times are children."

  The hot water felt good on my hands, but I would have to put cream on them later. Th
ey got so dry as the weather began to get cooler.

  So Lesya’s love was Lukas. At least it wasn’t Adolf or Fritz or Hans. I didn’t know what to do with my granddaughter. She was a good girl. How could I make her understand? What could I tell her?

  "You better be careful."

  I turned to see my daughter, Katya, standing in the doorway.

  "What?" I asked her.

  "You better be careful with that mug," she said walking over to give me a hug. "That’s the antique I brought you back from England. It’s fragile and can’t handle extreme temperatures for long. And I know how you like to wash your dishes with super-hot water. So where’s Tato?"

  "He went for a walk. He should be back soon. He probably stopped by Marko Somovych’s house," I smiled at my daughter. "Did you come to see your tato? What about your mama? What brings you to the neighborhood on a Wednesday night? Maybe you have a date later?"

  She was so pretty, I didn’t understand why she hadn’t married. "You know, Katya, Yuri has been a widower now for three years. He’s a kind man with a good head of hair."

  "Mama, I’m happy without a husband, okay? Now, do I need an excuse to visit my own mother?"

  "Well, I usually only see you for Sunday lunch. This is a treat for me. So what brings you here?"

  "I came over because I had an odd dream last night, really vivid, and I wanted to share it with you. Tell me what you think."

  My children always came to me with their dreams for interpretation. They used to do it much more when they were younger. I wondered: Had they had stopped dreaming?

  I turned off the water, wiped my hands and walked over to the icebox.

  "Okay, but only if you let me fix you something to eat."

  "I ate, Mama. I ate before I came."

  "Coffee then."

  "Okay, coffee." She sat down at the table.

  Preparing the coffee, I asked her, "Well, then, what is this dream?"

  "It was a dream about Mykola. He was in the war, but not in Vietnam—in Germany. I was in this house, and I could hear bullets and bombs exploding all around me. I was waiting for Mykola to come home. I was sitting in a rocking chair, embroidering a black shirt for him with brown thread.

  "All of a sudden I heard shouting, so I ran outside. There was a terrible rainstorm with thunder and lightening. I could make out that the cries were Kolya’s, and I followed them to a forest where I found him buried to the waist in mud. He was so thin, and he kept asking me for water, saying that he was dying from thirst. I realized that although it was raining, it was not raining on him. I looked up to see why, and I saw you sitting in the trees, although you were much younger, and you were holding an umbrella over his head. And you were crying, Mama. Your tears were mingling with the rain. When I looked back toward the house, I saw a wolf slowly walking toward us. Then I woke up."

  It was an omen dream. My Baba taught me that when you hear about a dream and it made the hair on your neck prickle and an icy breath run down your spine, then that was an omen dream. Like the dream that Uncle Vasyl had about the screeching owl sitting on a stack of books that forewarned us about my teacher Danylo being taken away.

  "How did you feel during this dream, Katya?"

  "In the beginning, I felt hopeful. Then, when I saw Mykola, I felt terrible sadness, and when I saw you, Mama, I was angry. And also sad. I hated to see you cry."

  She had not often seen me cry.

  "Your dream is telling you many things. You believe I am preventing you from achieving something important to you, something dear to your heart. There is something about an obstruction—"

  The phone rang, and Katya went to answer it. I watched her face grow pale. Something was wrong. She hung up and walked over to me.

  "Tato had a heart attack at Slavko’s Bar. They’ve taken him to the hospital."

  My chest felt tight. "What does that mean? Is he all right? We have to go."

  I didn’t want to be left all alone.

  "I’ll call everyone from the car as we drive to the hospital," Katya said. "Let’s go, Mama."

  I couldn’t move. I stared at the black and white picture on my kitchen wall. It was my favorite portrait of my children, taken at Mykola’s First Holy Communion. In the back stood Taras and Mark, heads shaved by Pavlo that morning. Mark was pouting, his lower lips jutting out. He held Ivanka, who refused to sit still on the floor. Taras was smiling with all of his teeth showing. In front of them, sitting on chairs, Katya and Zirka held hands, their hair pulled back in neat little braids. And standing in the very front, between the girls, Mykola held a candle in his right hand and a prayer book in his left. All of them were dressed in Ukrainian embroidered shirts and blouses that I had made for them.

  After Mykola died, both Mark and Taras felt such guilt for surviving, for not being able to do anything to help their brother. My two oldest sons were always close, but Mykola’s death brought them even closer. They were lucky to have each other. It was easier in this life if you had someone to lean on. What would I do without Pavlo?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Pavlo was in surgery; we could do nothing but wait. The full moon was visible outside the window of the waiting room. It would probably have been bright enough without the overhead lamps. I wished we could have turned them off, those horrible lights that bounced off the terrible white walls. In the middle of the night, who wanted bright lights? I decided to turn them off soon. It would have been better to have candles. Candles were a soft, hopeful light. Besides, candles carried prayers up to heaven. The waiting room was heavy with prayers; it would have been good for some of them to go directly to heaven.

  I couldn’t think about Pavlo this way, could not imagine him with his chest cut open. I had to think about other things. The waiting room was filled with family—my children. Mark and Christina sat with their daughters on the couch. The girls were watching television and Mark’s eyes were red. Taras had been calling the nurse’s station in the ICU every fifteen minutes to find out his father’s status, while Anna stood next to him, her arm on his elbow. Zirka leafed through a fashion magazine, and Katya sat next to her staring at the pages. Even Ivanka was here.

  Tragedy has a way of bringing people together, making them forget their petty differences. I hadn’t seen Zirka and Katya sit next to each other without fighting since they were kids. And there was Ivanka. Ivanka had pulled away from the family, preferring the icy, polite company of her extremely formal in-laws to the intense, fiery tempers of her brothers and sisters. Ivanka chose to keep everything inside, instead of arguing like the rest of us. Growing up, she was almost invisible—speaking quietly, stepping softly.

  Her sisters were much older and had their own interests. Katya and Zirka had made little time for their baby sister. Ivanka and Mykola were closest in age; when they were kids, she would follow him around the house, worshipping his every move. They used to play "Pretend Church." Mykola would be the priest, and Ivanka would be the person coming for communion. Sometimes I would bake special little loaves for their games.

  When Mykola and Ivanka were older, Pavlo was able to spend more time at home. While I was sleeping or at work, the three of them went to the park or did some work around the house. Pavlo was closer to Mykola and Ivanka than to the others. He had to work so many odd jobs when the older kids were growing up that he never really had a chance to spend time with them. So Pavlo made an effort to be there for the two youngest, teaching them how to carve wood and fix things around the house. Eventually Mykola started spending more time with his brothers, and Ivanka alone helped Pavlo with his projects. Even then she liked to build things. Now she was an architect, building huge office buildings and hospitals. She had dreamed of building houses.

  "I’m going to build a castle someday," she told me as a teenager. "It will be my dream house. And I’ll build you a dream house too."

  I would have been happy just to see her more often.

  After Mykola’s death, Pavlo became distant, and I think Ivanka felt betrayed.
She needed her father to be there for her, but he was lost in his own grieving. That’s when she moved out of the house and distanced herself from the family.

  Even as an adult, Ivanka kept it all carefully hidden: her happiness and her sadness. I couldn’t read her emotions; my youngest living child had such defenses. It used to bother me. I would try to reach out, to break down her walls. Instead, she pulled farther away. At least Roman was a good husband.

  I tried to catch her eye, but she avoided my gaze and stared instead at the muted television, her hands tightly gripping her tea. She and Roman had brought pastries and fancy coffees for everyone. I tried my first cappuccino and liked it.

  I know Pavlo missed his little Ivanka. I hoped he knew that she was here, that we were all here waiting for him, praying for him.

  An hour before, a doctor came out to give us an update. He looked far too young to be operating on my husband, but Taras assured me that he was only one of a team of surgeons. The doctors had to take veins from Pavlo’s legs and arm, and also repair his leaking mitral valve. The surgery was amazing, that they could get his heart beating again and fix it so this problem wouldn’t recur. I just wished they didn’t have to crack open his ribs. He was an old man—not frail, but old nevertheless. I kept imagining his ribs cracking and being pulled apart. It was a terrible sound and image.

  I looked at my two sons standing by the telephone. Taras had his arm around Mark’s shoulders. They were always close, and I was glad they had each other to lean on. I didn’t think I could help anyone. I felt faint. As I watched my boys, I thought about how they were as children. In high school, the boys decided to form a Ukrainian motorcycle gang. It was Taras’ idea, but Mark was his biggest supporter.

  In the early 60s, many of the area’s teenage boys belonged to a variety of neighborhood "clubs." The motorcycle gang seemed to be the toughest type, so my boys were determined to start their own.