“You just go ahead and act like a lady,” Mrs. Kossakowska instructed her recently, “and don’t stand on ceremony. You are what you believe you are. And you consider yourself a lady, right? You are the wife of Jacob Frank, not just any old Shlomo, you understand? People like you don’t have to worry about politeness. Hold your head up high. Like this,” and saying that, Katarzyna tilted Hana’s head back and patted her on the rear.
Now Katarzyna tries to convince her to eat the Christmas Eve delicacies. When talking about her she calls her Lady Frank, but talking to her, she says, “my dear.” Hana looks at her trustingly and turns away from the pierogi, reaching for the carp. Oh yes, she serves herself a huge piece with the toasted skin attached. Kossakowska blinks in surprise, but the others are busy with their conversation—no one is watching her. Hana Frank casts a quick glance at Mrs. Kossakowska, feeling pleased with herself. For who is this woman so intent upon ordering everyone around, so imperious and so boisterous? She speaks loudly and in a deep, resounding voice, and she interrupts everyone, as if, just like land and privileges, the right to speak were hers as well. She is wearing a dark gray dress with black lace on it, and on that lace a wayward thread—Agnieszka did not see to her mistress’s toilette. That thread disgusts Hana, just like this meal. Like Mrs. Kossakowska, and her Agnieszka, and her limping, hunched-over husband.
How did she find herself in this prison of slimy courtesies, of gossip, of whispers she can’t even understand? She tries to lock those angry thoughts deep inside herself, she has a special place for them, where they can stalk back and forth like animals in a cage. And she won’t let them out, at least not yet. For now, she is dependent on Mrs. Kossakowska and maybe even likes her a little, although her touch disgusts Hana, and she is always patting her and petting her for some reason. They have separated her from everything she ever knew. All she has left are Zwierzchowska and Paw?owska. And she can only think about them now without their first names. Their first names stayed Jewish in her head. The rest of the company is still waiting in Lwów. Hana cannot fully communicate here, she’s always trying to think of words, this language brings her to despair; she’ll never learn it properly. What is going on with Jacob, why has she had no news of him? Where has Moliwda gone? If he were here, she’d feel a little more secure. Where is everyone else from their group, and why have they taken her away from them? She would rather be sitting in a smoky room in Ivanie than here on the estate of Katarzyna Kossakowska.
For dessert they serve cheesecake with marzipan and a layer cake with lemon and hazelnut filling. Avacha’s little hand removes stores from the table and stuffs sweets into the pockets of her pretty blue dress. They will eat their sweets during the night, when they are alone.
They sleep curled up together here. Avacha’s little hands hold her mother’s face when the child sees Hana crying. Hana hugs this giant-eyed child tight, clinging to her the way an insect over water holds on to a blade of grass; she holds tight to that delicate little body, and together they float through the night. She often also picks up Immanuel from his crib and breastfeeds him at will, since she still has milk, although Mrs. Kossakowska interferes even in that. She thinks that feeding should be done by wet nurses. Hana is disgusted by the wet nurse Kossakowska has found her: her white skin, her light-colored hair, her thick legs. Her great pink breasts overwhelm Immanuel; she is afraid that one day, this village girl will smother him to death.
And look, as she is thinking of it during the holiday meal, a splotch of milk slowly expands upon her dress, and Hana covers it deftly with her Turkish scarf.
Avacha and her two dolls
For little Avacha, however, this evening will be unlike any she has ever had before—as a matter of fact, every previous evening will be made null and void by tonight. All that will be left of them is a sort of streak in time, foggy, blurred.
After dinner, Kossakowska leads little Avacha into the next room and has her close her eyes. Then she leads her a little farther and has her open her eyes. Avacha sees two beautiful dolls seated before her. One is a brunette dressed in turquoise, the other a blonde in elegant aquamarine. Avacha looks at them without a word as a flush spreads over her cheeks.
“Choose whichever one you prefer,” Kossakowska whispers into her ear. “One is yours.”
Avacha shifts her weight from foot to foot. She takes in every tiny detail of each doll’s outfit, but she cannot choose. She goes to her mother for help, but her mother merely smiles, shrugging her shoulders, relaxed by wine and by the fact that she can finally light up a Turkish pipe with Mrs. Kossakowska.
This goes on for some time. The women begin to prod the girl; the women giggle. They find the child’s gravity amusing, laugh at her inability to choose. Avacha is told that dolls from Vienna are the finest crafted, that their bodies are made out of goatskin, their faces out of papier maché, and that they’re stuffed with sawdust. But Avacha still doesn’t know which one to pick.
Tears well up in her eyes and spill over. Enraged by her own indecision, she dives straight into her mother’s skirts and sobs loud, heaving sobs.
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” her mother asks her in their own language, in Turkish.
“No, no,” answers Avacha in Polish: “Nothing.” She keeps her face hidden in her mother’s dress.
She would like to hide there inside those soft folds, crouch down and wait for the worst to pass. For there is too much world, and there are too many tasks ahead of little Evunia. She has never felt this miserable before. She feels as if someone were clutching her heart, and she cries, but not like when she cries because she’s scraped her knee—it is a despair that happens deeper inside, at the very bottom of her being. Her mother pats her head, but this doesn’t bring any relief; Avacha feels that she has gotten very far from her mother somehow, and that from here it is going to be very hard to get back to her as if nothing had ever even happened.
Now she can trust only that strange man with the beard who, on Christmas morning, brings her a little puppy with curly red fur; this pup is lovelier, without a doubt, than any Viennese doll.
A doll for Salusia ?ab?cka, and Father Chmielowski’s tales of a library and a ceremonious baptism