“Orderly,” she called. “Mrs. Bakoski needs an escort to her room.”
“I can make it on my own,” I said.
The doctor leaned closer to me.
“Look, Mrs. Bakoski, you’ll make no progress until you get to the bottom of that anger. And I would embrace the sympathy people give you. You need all the help you can get.”
—
CAROLINE BROUGHT US UP to her country home she called “The Hay,” north of New York City, in Bethlehem, Connecticut, for Christmas. Tears welled in her eyes when she told us her late father had named it “The Hay” after an estate his family once owned in England.
She said the air was cleaner up north, good for recuperation, and maybe that was true for I was taking short walks before long. Zuzanna and I both felt so much better being up there at Caroline’s home. Perhaps it had something to do with Caroline’s mother, Mrs. Ferriday, treating Zuzanna and me like queens. From the time she met us at the door dressed in Polish folk costume to the minute we left for California, she fussed over us as if we were her own. She’d learned many Polish phrases to make us feel at home.
How wonderful it was to be able to take steps like a normal person again! Mrs. Ferriday lent me her fur coat, and we walked, arm in arm, about their property. To a warm barn that smelled of sweet hay and horses, sun slanting in through the high windows. Out to the playhouse Caroline had used as a youngster, a child-sized version of the main house, complete with a working stove.
But even with the special treatment, I couldn’t shake the homesickness for Poland and for Pietrik and Halina. It didn’t help that Caroline favored Zuzanna and rose early each morning to take tea with her, the two of them sitting at the kitchen table, heads together to share a little story, laugh at a private joke. It was understandable, for everyone loved Zuzanna. Thankful as I was to the Ferridays, I wanted my sister back.
I tried to count my blessings. Bethlehem was a very nice place to spend Christmas. Caroline took us everywhere. To the small store across from the town green, Merrill Brothers, that sold everything one could want, even melons and green beans in the winter. To mass at the Abbey of Regina Laudis, home to cloistered nuns who sang haunting, beautiful chants. One Sunday, her chauffeur’s day off, Caroline drove us to mass in her long, green car, so big it fit all of us, including their Russian cook, Serge, with room to spare. Caroline stared straight ahead and gripped the steering wheel so tightly I thought she’d break it. Mrs. Ferriday told me later that people in town got word out to stay off the roads whenever Caroline took to that car.
But I was happiest just being at the house, for The Hay was the most beautiful one I’d ever seen, tall and white with black shutters and enough room for a family of ten. The furnishings were all quite old, but very nice, including parlor curtains Mrs. Ferriday had sewn herself, with the most intricate crewelwork. The barns out back were home to three horses, a handsome German shepherd named Lucky (whom Zuzanna and I were terrified of at first, until he proved to be a most gentle, loyal companion), many sheep and chickens, and a pig that followed Caroline everywhere. She spoke French to it.
“Come, chérie,” she said as it waddled after her. “Dépêchez-vous. Vous pouvez être beau, mais cela ne signifie pas que je vais attendre.” You may be beautiful, but that doesn’t mean I’ll wait.
That pig even followed Caroline into the house on occasion, climbing up the front stairs with great effort, and to her bedroom.
Caroline was a different person up in Connecticut. She mucked out the animals’ stalls dressed in blue jeans and a hunter’s cap, even climbed up onto the roof with her father’s old shotgun and shot at some rabbits she said had eaten her lettuce that year. Here was the solution to the mystery of why this woman was not married.
—
CHRISTMAS DAY WAS A DIFFICULT ONE with Pietrik and Halina half a world away. We wrote letters back and forth, of course, and Pietrik sent a package of my favorite sweets for Christmas and a pencil drawing of Papa and Marthe that Halina had sketched, but I still couldn’t shake the tears.
It helped to keep Zuzanna close by. Zuzanna hadn’t required a corrective surgery like mine, but suffered through a round of chemotherapy to fight her cancer. She was still weak, so Caroline arranged us side by side in their living room on Christmas Day, warm near the fireplace, me in a wheelchair and Zuzanna in Caroline’s father’s wing chair. This was my favorite room in that house, for it looked out across the garden, its great hedges and manicured boxwood paths beautiful even in winter.
We sat near the fire facing the Christmas tree in the corner, the angel atop it grazing the ceiling. There was a surprise under the tree from Caroline for each of us: a bottle of perfume Zuzanna had admired at a store called Bergdorf Goodman and a selection of books for me, including The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. I had not thought to find a gift for Caroline, but Zuzanna made a cut-paper picture for Caroline and Mrs. Ferriday featuring the house and all their animals. The horses and pig, chickens and cats. Even Lucky the dog and their African gray parrot. Zuzanna said it was from the both of us, but it was clear who’d created the work of art.
Mrs. Ferriday had Serge make the traditional twelve Polish dishes for dinner, which we all ate, stopping only for exclamations of true joy. After dinner, Mrs. Ferriday wheeled me into the big old kitchen at the back of the house. This was my second favorite room, with its black and white tile floor and white porcelain sink big enough to bathe a small adult in.
I sat at the kitchen table with Caroline and Mrs. Ferriday and watched Zuzanna and Serge wash the dishes together. My sister was still frail but insisted on washing up. Her hair was gone from the radiation, leaving her completely bald, just as so many of us at the camp once were. She’d tied one of Caroline’s French scarves around her head like a milk woman. Serge stuck close to her all night, even after dinner. I knew they had become more than friends. I’d seen her sneak back to our bedroom just before dawn from the servants’ wing. The thought of it sent tears to my eyes. How could my sister be so secretive?
Caroline poured us all coffee. How Matka would have loved being there. The coffee alone! Mrs. Ferriday opened a fresh package of my favorite cookies, Fig Newtons, and poured us each a thimble glass of orange liqueur.
“How was Zuzanna’s blood work?” she asked.
“It’s looking better,” Caroline said. “They’re optimistic.”
“It is exciting, but you may still need more treatment, Zuzanna,” Mrs. Ferriday said.
Zuzanna smiled. “Maybe then I could stay indefinitely.”
Serge smiled back at her. Only a simpleton could miss the fact that they were sweet for each other. A Russian? He was good-looking enough in that simple Russian way, but what would Papa say?
“Let’s get to California first,” I said. “I can’t wait to see the movie stars’ homes. They say Rodeo Drive is packed with stars.”
“You must get out there and smile for all those Californians,” Mrs. Ferriday said. “It is a lovely tooth, dear.”
I smiled and ran my tongue over my new canine, which had taken the place of my old decayed one. What would Pietrik think of my new smile?
I bit a Fig Newton in half and chased it down with the brandy in one shot as we did back home with vodka.
Caroline sniffed the cream and poured a bit in her coffee. “There are more interesting things to see in Los Angeles than celebrities. The La Brea Tar Pits, for one.”
“Dying beasts trapped in tar?” Mrs. Ferriday said. “Gawd-awful. Let these women have some fun, dear.”
Too bad Mrs. Ferriday wasn’t coming to California with us. She took up the brandy and started to refill my thimble glass.
Caroline took the bottle from her. “No more brandy for the girls, Mother.”
“Good gracious, Caroline. It’s Christmas.”