When I got home, the house was empty, so I propped the photograph from Mrs. Segal against a vase of flowers on the table. From the bedroom I got Mr. Segal’s portrait of my parents’ wedding and set it beside the new photograph. Now my whole family was together again, if only in pictures.
That older photograph showed Tato and Mama standing side by side in their finery, him towering over her in his dark wool suit and her looking up at him with love. Her fitted white wedding dress went down to her calves and she held a bouquet of calla lilies. There was so much promise, so much love and hope on both of their faces. What did they think their future would hold?
In the newer picture Mama had a smile on her lips, but her eyes were sad. And what would Tato think of his daughters, with their threadbare skirts and calloused hands? Had he lived, Mama’s eyes would still sparkle. I missed the feel of Tato’s bristly cheek when he kissed me as he tucked me in at bedtime. I missed his familiar scent of linseed oil and beeswax.
I held the wedding photo to my lips and kissed the image of Tato, and then that long-ago carefree Mama. How I wished there were something I could do to bring that hope back to her eyes.
I took a deep breath and looked at the picture of Tato one more time. He was dead, that was true, but parts of him lived on in me. He wasn’t here to take the worry off Mama’s face, but I was. Maria was a big help to Mama too, always stepping in to take on the tedious tasks that could wear Mama down. But Maria was afraid of every little thing, and I was the oldest. I had never really thought of it before, but now I knew. “No matter what the future has in store for us,” I whispered, “I will be brave for Mama. That is my promise to you, dear Tato.”
I swirled a wooden spoon through Auntie Iryna’s simmering pot of blackberries and tried to judge how much longer they needed to cook before the mixture would be thick enough. On the back burner, a full kettle of water was warming up for the laundry. I didn’t want to appear impatient, but it was all taking longer than I’d expected, and there wasn’t much bravery in making jam.
“The fire needs to be hotter than that,” said Auntie Iryna, coming in from the back room. She wrapped her apron around her fingers, gingerly opened the side door of the stove to prod the wood with an iron rod, then took the spoon from my hand, breathing in the vapors. “That smells so good,” she said.
A banging at the door made us both jump. Dolik stood there, out of breath and eyes wide.
“What’s happened?” Auntie Iryna asked.
“Mami got a phone call from a friend in Velicky Selo,” he said. “They’ve found corpses in the prison.”
Auntie Iryna’s body swayed. “Josip … Borys … Please God, tell me it isn’t them.”
“Mami says they’re bringing the bodies out and they need to be identified.”
“I have to get there,” said Auntie Iryna. She was so unsteady on her feet that I was afraid she would fall.
Velicky Selo was on the way to Lviv, about ten kilometers from Viteretz. Auntie could not walk there on her own in her current state. “I’ll go with you,” I said.
But she’d put a kerchief over her hair and was out the door and marching down the street before she finished tying the knot under her chin.
Dolik ran after her. “I’ll find a wagon.”
At first I wondered why Dolik was looking for a wagon, but all at once I winced. If my cousins were dead, we’d need to bring their bodies back for burial.
I watched him rushing down the street, looking for someone with a wagon to borrow. I was grateful for Dolik being so helpful—he’d been the same when Uncle Roman was killed—but I felt a surge of jealousy too. How I wished I were him, with both a mother and father, plenty of food to eat, and even a telephone. Dolik didn’t have a care in the world.
But even as those thoughts crowded my mind, they shamed me. Dolik was trying to help, and Auntie Iryna was on her way to Velicky Selo without me. And what was I doing? Moping around, feeling sorry for myself. So much for being brave!
I dashed back into the house, set the steaming pot of berries onto the kitchen table and covered it with a cloth, then closed up the vents on the stove to starve the fire.
As I ran out the door, I nearly plowed into Maria, who was lugging a pail of water for the garden.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Krystia,” she said.
I told her about the corpses at Velicky Selo and her eyes filled with tears. “I should go with Auntie,” she said. “It’s not fair that you have to do the hard things all the time.”
“But you carry all those buckets of water every day and hoe and weed two gardens,” I said. “We each have our strengths, Maria. I’ll go with Auntie.”
She hugged me, then held me at arm’s length to look me in the eye. “One day I hope to be as brave as you.”
I brushed away a piece of hair that had fallen in front of her face. “One day, Sister, I hope to be as strong as you.”
Maria smiled at that. “Hurry,” she said. “Look how far Auntie has already gone without you.”
I started down the street, then turned back. “When you’re done your chores, could you go help Mama at the Commandant’s? She was expecting me.”
“I’ll try,” called Maria.
I caught up with Auntie Iryna—Dolik was nowhere to be seen—and together we walked in grim silence. We were a kilometer out of town when the sound of truck tires crunched on the road behind us. The driver was the same soldier who had ladled out soup to us. He opened the window and stuck out his head.
“A boy told me that you’re going to Velicky Selo.”
Auntie Iryna looked at him blankly and nodded.
“I need to be there as well,” he said. “So why don’t I take you? There’s not enough room in the front for three, but you can ride in the back.”
The offer surprised me. Dolik must not have been able to track down the dogcatcher or Mr. Bilinski, the two people in our neighborhood with wagons. I didn’t relish getting into a truck with a soldier, and I was certain that Auntie felt the same, but we didn’t have the time to be choosy.
“Thank you,” said Auntie Iryna.
I scrambled in first, then held Auntie’s hand as she climbed up.
We gripped on to the truck’s side as the soldier sped toward Velicky Selo, careening left and right to avoid potholes. In less than half an hour the truck reached the main square of town. Dozens of women crowded in front of the municipal building where the prison was housed.
My nose crinkled at the sickly whiff of decay. Lumpy gray tarps were lined up on the grass not far from the women.
“When the Soviets fled, they left these corpses to rot in the basement of that building,” said the soldier as he undid the tailgate and motioned for us to get out. “The locals have been viewing the bodies, but there are quite a few that they can’t identify, so they’re not from Velicky Selo. We’ve got to clear them out or there will be an outbreak of disease.”
Auntie slid out of the truck bed and strode down the street. I followed her, my feet feeling like lead.
She knelt beside the first mound and pulled back the tarp, revealing the mottled face of a young stranger, his hair darkened and stiff with blood. She crawled to the next body and I did the same.
The odor of decay wafted up and I held my breath. I stood a meter or so from where Auntie knelt. I wished I could have helped her more with this awful job, but it took all my willpower not to break down and weep. Why had the Soviets killed these men?
I helped Auntie back to her feet after she had pulled the cloth over the last corpse in the line.
Just then Commandant Hermann stepped out through the double doors of the building. Pairs of soldiers came out behind him, carrying more bodies covered with tarps. These were lined up beside the ones we had just checked. A stronger wave of stench wafted over to us.
As Auntie Iryna and the other women rushed to the new row of corpses, I was nearly knocked to the ground. A wail rose up and a woman cried, “My son!”
One by
one, many of the dead were claimed. And as the crowd thinned, I found Auntie on her knees, cradling a corpse so mutilated that the face was unrecognizable. I knelt down beside her.
“Josip, dear Josip,” she murmured.
I was about to ask her how she knew, but then I noticed his crooked baby finger.
The shock of recognition was like a punch in the gut. If it hadn’t been for his crooked baby finger, Josip’s body could have been left unclaimed. I took a few gasping breaths to calm myself, then got up and left Auntie Iryna so she could grieve her son. There were still more bodies to look at, and one more family member I dreaded finding, but it had to be done.
Auntie Iryna and I were the last to leave. We did not find Borys and I was grateful for that. The soldier who had driven helped us load Josip into his truck, and we made the sad journey home.
When we arrived at Auntie’s house, I was enveloped in the steamy scent of cooked blackberries. The pot was still cooling on the kitchen table, the preserve jars all lined up, ready to be filled. It seemed a lifetime ago that we had been busy with the mundane chore of making jam. Had that really just been this morning? I lifted the pot off the table and set it back onto the stove, then cleared away the jars. The soldier laid Josip’s broken body onto the table and walked out the door.
Auntie Iryna wrapped her arms around her son and wept.
I stood there helplessly, wishing that there was something I could do to help. The lingering aroma of blackberries comforted me, to think that Josip’s body was now wrapped in the scent of home, rather than the stench of that prison.
I took the cloth off the pot and dipped in a wooden spoon. The jam had thickened while we were gone. I lined up the jars again and filled them one by one.
“Go, Krystia,” said Auntie Iryna once I had finished. “Get your mother. She and I will prepare Josip’s body together.”
I ran to the Tarnowsky house, the largest residence in our main square. I felt out of place as I stood in front of it, barefoot and smelling of death. I rapped loudly on the door. It cracked open and Mama stared out at me. She pulled me quickly inside. “Krystia, come in, but from now on, use the servants’ entrance at the back.”
The place seemed huge on the inside. Before it had been ravaged by the Soviets, it must have looked elegant as well. A gilded chain hung from the ceiling overhead—it had probably held a chandelier. The central hallway opened up to a curved wooden staircase that looked as if it had once been covered in carpet that had been pulled off, leaving rows of bent nails and scratched wood. Pale rectangular patches covered the walls. One was the size of that old painting of Princess Tarnowska, the portrait that had been carted away by the Bronseks. The whole place had a musty, rotting smell, and bits of wood and broken china were scattered all over the floor.
Mama leaned toward me and sniffed, then covered her mouth with one hand. “Maria told me where you were going. I’m almost afraid to ask if you were able to identify any bodies.”
“We found Josip.”
She gasped and hugged me and we both wept. She took a deep shuddering breath, then said, “You didn’t find Borys?”
“No, thank God. We can only hope that he’s still alive.”
“I’ll go to Iryna right away,” said Mama, untying her apron and handing it to me. She looked around at the house with panic in her eyes.
“Don’t worry. I’ll stay here with Maria,” I said. “We’ll continue to clean.”
It is a terrible thing, to break the earth still fresh from death and to bury a son beside his father. I don’t know how Auntie Iryna gathered the strength to greet all the people who came out for the evening Panikheda at the church. Auntie Polina had made the trek from her blue-roofed house in the country.
After the simple wooden casket was carried outside the next morning and we stood at Josip’s open grave, I scanned the faces of people crowded round. Through a haze of tears, I thought I saw Borys, but when I blinked, he was gone.
Auntie Iryna received a steady stream of visitors to her house after the funeral. Mama, Maria, and I stayed to lend our support, but also to make sure Auntie didn’t wear herself out. Had she even slept since Josip’s body was found? And her mind must be filled with worry about Borys.
Auntie Polina lingered for an hour after the last person left, sitting with Auntie Iryna and reminiscing about happier times. “When we were children, we had a cow race,” she said. “Do you remember that?”
Auntie Iryna tried to smile. “How could I forget?”
Auntie Polina looked from me to Maria and said, “I got up on the back of our black cow, and your aunt rode our neighbors’ dappled cow.”
“I can’t imagine cows running,” said Maria.
“They didn’t,” said Auntie Polina, grinning.
Auntie Iryna’s smile became wider. “We sat on those stupid cows for about fifteen minutes.”
“Do you remember the bonfire?” asked Auntie Polina.
Auntie Iryna leaned back into her chair with her eyes closed. “That’s when I met Roman. I’ll never forget the bonfire.”
It was good to see Auntie Iryna’s sadness lifted for a short while by the happy memories. When Auntie Polina got up to leave, I followed her out the door. “Let me know if I can help in any way,” she said, giving me a hug.
Mama made Auntie Iryna a cup of linden tea, and we were about to leave when a shadow filled the door.
It was Commandant Hermann.
Auntie Iryna stumbled to her feet to greet him.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he said, but his face didn’t look as if he meant it, and his eyes didn’t focus on my aunt’s face. Instead, his gaze assessed her house. “Your blacksmith shop is now vacant; this house is too big for one person. You cannot stay here,” he said. “A German family will have this house.”
Auntie’s lower lip trembled. “But where will I go?”
“Your family can take you in,” he said, glancing from Mama to me and Maria.
“I have just buried my husband, and now my son, and you are forcing me to leave my house?”
“You were scheduled for removal this morning,” said the Commandant. “It was in sympathy for your loss that we waited for the funeral to be over. Now, good day. Pack up your clothing and some food, but everything else is to remain in the house.”
With that, he was gone.
“That man is vile,” I said. “And of all days to throw you out.”
“What will become of me now?” said Auntie Iryna, collapsing back into her chair. She cradled her head on the table and wept.
“We’re happy to have you,” said Mama. But what she didn’t say was that it would be difficult to feed all of us, especially come winter. The loss of Auntie’s house also meant losing her vegetable garden and patch of wheat, yet we would be gaining a mouth to feed. But one advantage of being poor is that it doesn’t take long to pack. We bundled Auntie’s meager selection of clothing around jars of preserves.
“What the Commandant doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” said Mama, hastily opening and closing drawers and removing everything she could find. She packed up Auntie’s linens and cutlery and plates. “We’ll store these extra things in Krasa’s loft, beside the items from Auntie Stefa. Now, what about your cow and chickens?”
“I assumed Lysa and the chickens would come with me.” Auntie Iryna paused from her packing. “He didn’t specifically say to leave the cow and chickens.”
“The cow and chickens are not in the house,” I added. “He told you to leave everything in the house.”
“But if the Commandant finds two cows in our shed, then what?” asked Maria. “He’ll think we’ve stolen one of them.”
This conversation was making me very angry. “All I know is that right now Lysa needs to go to the pasture,” I said. “And so does Krasa. You can tell me what you decide about the cow when I get back.”
“You’re right, Krystia,” said Auntie Iryna. “Take the cows to the pasture.”
Maria pulled our milk cart
piled with Auntie’s meager belongings, and I walked close behind her, leading Lysa. Mama and Auntie Iryna walked a few steps in front of us, each cradling a canvas bag with a trembling chicken inside.
As we passed our blacksmith shop, I remembered what Uncle Roman had been working on before he was killed. “Maria,” I said, “hold Lysa’s rope. There’s something I need to get.” I took a towel from the cart and filled it with the small hacksaws.
Once we got to our house, I untethered Krasa and made the sad journey to our pasture with both cows. The incoming traffic was so heavy it was hard to keep the cows out of the way. Mostly the traffic was wide military trucks, but there were also ragged refugees pushing wheelbarrows loaded with their belongings—and others coming with nothing.
I watched an exhausted woman and a girl my age as they approached. The mother leaned heavily on a wooden staff and her shoes were held together with rags. On the girl’s back was a small knapsack. When we were nearly face-to-face, I greeted them both with a smile. “Good day,” I said in German.
The woman surprised me by answering in Ukrainian, “Good day.” Then she asked, “Could you spare some milk for my daughter?”
“You need it more than I do, Mutter,” said the girl, wrapping her arm around her mother’s waist.
Who were these people? The other soldiers and the civilians who had recently come to Viteretz didn’t understand Ukrainian at all.
“I can spare some milk for both of you,” I said. “Follow me.”
I led the cows down a quiet laneway. The mother sat on a pile of rubble, stretching her feet out in front of her. The daughter knelt on the ground beside her.
Krasa nudged the daughter’s cheek. The girl patted Krasa’s nose. “We had a beautiful spotted cow like yours back home,” the girl said.
“Where was home?”
“Bukovyna,” said the girl.
“So you’re Ukrainian?”
“We’re German,” said the mother.
“Germans, but from the South?” I asked. It didn’t make sense.
“Most people in Bukovyna are Slavs,” said the mother. “Like you, Ukrainian. Or Romanian. But there were German communities in Bukovyna too.”
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