I searched his face. Had he really said that? He fixed his gaze back on the road, but I’d heard it. If I didn’t have you.
I reached for his hand, resting on the seat.
“Don’t say that, Pietrik. It’s a mortal sin, and—”
He pulled his hand away.
“Never mind,” he said, two hands back on the wheel. He drove on, lost in thought. “Forget I said it.”
It was good to see a bit of Pietrik’s old self. But like the sun coming out on a cloudy day, it disappeared just as fast as it had emerged.
—
I DIDN’T HONOR PIETRIK’S request not to go to the memorial service at Lublin Castle. It was held to honor the lives of the forced laborers murdered there by the Nazis before they withdrew, including Pietrik’s mother. I had loved Mrs. Bakoski and needed to mourn with the others. All of Lublin would be there. And besides, I knew many of the families with mothers, sisters, and husbands who’d died that day. Everyone knew someone impacted by that mass murder.
I started the day in the castle chapel, once Matka’s favorite place, kneeling high above the gathering crowds below. The chapel had become my special place to steal away to as well. To pray and talk with my mother and stay warm. The beautiful Byzantine frescoes had not yet been completely uncovered then, but I could see bits of them along the high ceilings between the Gothic arches. I prayed for my usual list: Papa. Zuzanna. Pietrik. For the souls of the dead and missing. Nadia. Matka.
From the chapel window I considered the gathering crowd below, scattered down the grassy slope outside the great wall of the castle. People had come from all over Poland to pay respects. The church choir sang as people, old and young, clustered there in groups, jockeying for the choicest front spots with the best views of the service. Collections of black-frocked priests. A gaggle of Dominican nuns, their white headpieces like giant swans. Lublin families. Papa and Marthe in there somewhere. Zuzanna would be listening to it all from an open window at the hospital.
I descended the spiral staircase slowly, for my bad leg and slippery stone stairs were a scary combination, and emerged out in the stone courtyard where we’d all once been rounded up to be transported to Ravensbrück. Had I been standing there with Matka, Luiza, and Zuzanna just five years before?
I made my way down the grassy slope and pushed through the crowd. Though it had been a warm fall, it was cold that day. People in the crowd carried bouquets. Mostly globeflowers, scarlet corn poppies, and other wildflowers. I held some fall daisies I’d found growing in an empty lot. I’d wrapped them in a wet dishrag, and the cold water burned my hand even through the glove I wore.
I blew on my free hand as I scanned the crowd for Pietrik. What I wouldn’t give for two gloves! I had split a pair with Zuzanna after a dying woman had gifted it to her at the hospital. I had the right one; Zuzanna the left.
It was hard to imagine more than three hundred people buried there under that slope in the shadow of the great fortress. Family members stood along the base of the castle grounds where townspeople had hastily buried the murdered in that mass grave. Someone had pounded a great wooden cross into the heart of the hill, and six priests stood below it.
The priests blessed the grave site, and I made my way through the crowd looking for Pietrik. Would he be angry I came? Should I just give up on him? A girl could only take so much rejection.
I approached a group of nuns clustered at one end, prayer candles and cards in their hands, a few of them with wreaths draped over their arms. I spotted Pietrik off to the side of them. He stood alone, back straight, hands deep in his glassworks canvas coat pockets, eyes on the service. He was near the edge of a great pile of flowers that mourners had assembled there, a growing mound of reds and pinks and yellows. I inched down the slope to him, pain stabbing my leg with each step.
I shimmied through the group of nuns, lingering briefly in their warmth, swishing through the sea of black habits, rosary beads long at their waists. I emerged and walked toward Pietrik. If he saw me approach, he gave no sign of it. As I drew closer, I saw his face was splotched red about the eyes. I made my way to him and stood nearby. I fisted my naked hand and blew hot breath on it.
Pietrik turned to look at me, his eyelashes spiky with tears. I stepped to the mound of flowers and set my daisies atop it, then turned and walked back to him.
Should I stay? I’d left my flowers, had done what I’d come to do, paid my respects. He’d asked me not to come, after all.
Receiving no gesture from Pietrik, I turned to go and just then felt his hand on my arm. I almost could not believe it as I watched his fingers make their way around my wrist. He pulled me to him to stand by his side.
“Proud” is a word that is too commonly used, but that is how I felt there that day, listening to the choir sing to heaven. Such pride that Pietrik wanted me to share it all with him. The good and the bad.
He reached for my bare hand and held it, his warm fingers around mine, brought it to his lips to kiss, and tucked it in his pocket, the flannel warm inside.
1946
The army arrived from all directions. Not since Hitler’s blitzkrieg had there been such an organized onslaught. In flowered dresses and sensible shoes, they came, hauling pots and dishes, some still steaming, fresh from the oven. General Marthe coordinated the effort at the postal center, resulting in enough pierogies and beet soup and hunter’s stew to feed six wedding parties.
You think a postal center an odd place for a wedding party? Maybe, but it served well for our purposes. It is a big, open space with a high ceiling, and you can kill two pheasants with one stone there: pick up your mail and dance with the bride. Not that the bride could dance, but guests pinned money to my dress anyway. I wore a pale pink dress, not my choice, for Marthe had surprised me with a product of her own sewing machine. I’d wanted white, but it was impossible to turn down this dress, for I was trying to be civil, for Papa. I just wanted it all to be over so I could be alone with Pietrik.
It had been a difficult morning for two reasons. One was that the Riskas had phoned to say Felka had died the day before. They’d found her on their front stoop one last time. We buried Felka in our back garden. Zuzanna and Papa came by and watched as Pietrik dug his spade into the earth, and I wrapped Felka in Nadia’s blanket I’d brought her home in so many years ago. We all cried saying goodbye to our old girl, Papa harder than any of us.
I couldn’t help think that Felka had been a loyal friend to Nadia, waiting for her till the end, unlike me, who’d moved on with my life, planning my wedding with barely a thought that Nadia would not be there. Some friend I was.