The Children's War (137 page)

“None at all!”

“Now with Alex’s mother being English, his being born there, and assimilation,” Peter continued teasing Zosia, “I’d say your father is completely English, which would make the baby, hmm, three-quarters English.”

“Luckily, our family tradition is the woman names the baby since she does all the work. So, whatever your clever calculations, I get the final say.”

“You are joking, of course?” he asked humorously.

“No, I’m not,” she replied without any humor at all.

There were, he realized, the seeds for a huge argument there. His pride insisted that he have a say in the naming of his child, and now that she had made a point of rejecting it, he also felt like insisting on an English name. For a moment he felt that his personality, his independence, his culture, his pride, everything was on the line. Everything except his love for Zosia: that he took for granted, and he expected her to take it for granted as well. Hmm, now there was a thought.

Carefully he asked, “Joking aside, is this important to you?”

Zosia looked up at him from the pile of clothes. Something like surprise was in her eyes. She nodded slowly. “Yes, it is,” she said in a quiet voice as if the words were a revelation to her.

He examined his own feelings and realized that, except to spite her, the origin-of the name was not really important to him. There were lots of beautiful names in both languages. It was important to her, it was not important to him, and he said he loved her. Was that enough to convince him to give up a stranglehold on this decision? Was that enough to convince him not to fight her about it just because he wanted to make sure that she did not get her way easily? Or to teach her a lesson for not having asked him in the appropriate manner? Put that way, it seemed silly to argue, yet still, something inside him said he had to fight for his rights. If he gave up this piece of territory, it would never be regained.

What an odd way to think. They were not adversaries in a war fighting over a border, they were supposed to be partners in life. He claimed to love her, believed he would give his life for her, had seen her risk her life for him, yet this simple thing was so hard. He gave her so much that she did not appreciate, yet something that she wanted, he found difficult to concede. Indeed, that he had mentally termed it a
concession
revealed a lot.

“You’ve gone all quiet,” Zosia commented on his sudden silence.

“Oh, just thinking of the baby,” he lied. “What would you like to name it?”

“If it’s a girl, I’d like to call her Irena.”

He hesitated, then slowly, as if the words were so foreign to him that he was not sure what they would sound like, he said, “I’d like that.”

“You would?” Zosia did not hide her surprise.

“Yes. I think it’s a pretty name.”

“You mean there is nothing else that you would rather have?” she asked suspiciously.

“I don’t think it would be first on my list, but I like it, and if you want it, why should we search further?”

“No reason,” she conceded.

“What about a boy?”

Zosia bit her lips. “I always liked, before that is . . .”

“What?”

“I always wanted to call a son Karol.”

Peter took a deep breath; though Zosia had emphasized the slight difference, it was pronounced nearly identically to
Karl.
“I don’t suppose there are any other names you would like?” he asked painfully.

“You could think of it as your father’s name—Charles.”

“That wouldn’t help much.”

“Well, how about Adam?”

Peter breathed deeply. Beloved Adam. What better name to give his son? “Firstborn,” he whispered, thinking of his brother. He had always known his brother’s firstborn status had been special to his parents.

“Not my firstborn, and since I’m the one giving birth . . . ,” Zosia interrupted his thoughts.

“Of course,” he replied, snapping himself back to the present. “Yes, I suppose we could name our child Adam,” he offered quietly.

“Good! Then Adam it is!”

3

“D
O YOU THINK
M
OM
WILL FEEL BETTER
by the time we get home?” Joanna asked. The day had grown cloudy, and as they walked along the path to the cemetery and the river, a wind kicked up and Joanna had to clutch at the package of sheet music that they had bought.

“I think so, honey,” Peter answered as he scanned the tombstones, reading their inscriptions as they walked down the path. It was a German cemetery, yet some of the names leapt out at him with their obvious Polish roots.
Passing
they had called it in the American South; here the corpses were “passing” even in
death. It would be quite a hilarious farce if it had not cost so many lives and so much suffering.

They stopped at the edge of the cemetery and looked out across the river. “She has some terrible headaches with this pregnancy,” he explained, “and it was best for her to stay home and relax in the quiet.”

Zosia had woken up with the headache early in the morning and informed him that they would not be able to go into town that day. It created yet another argument. It seemed that no matter how hard they tried, they fought about everything. The planning that had gone into their trip would be wasted, it would take ages to organize another outing, and he and Joanna were both desperate to get out and about. He had promised to get her the sheet music for her piano lessons, and they had already delayed once because of weather. With these considerations in mind, he had launched into a tirade about trust. He was sick of being watched, he was sick of being treated like a second-class member of the establishment. If Zosia was too sick to go, he and Joanna would go alone.

Zosia had looked worried, but she was clearly in pain and not prone to prolong the argument, and she quickly conceded defeat. “Fine, go,” she had said wearily, “I’ll inform them of the change of plans.”

Joanna grabbed on to her father’s hand and looked up into his worried face. “Why do you and Mama fight so much?”

Peter closed his eyes with embarrassment, then he opened them to look down at his daughter. “I’m sorry, baby, we don’t mean to. It’s just that we both have strong and different opinions. We don’t do it that much, and we’re getting better, aren’t we?”

Joanna nodded noncommittally. “At Uncle Ryszard’s house, they never fought.”

“Uncle Ryszard and Aunt Kasia handle things differently than your mum and I do. And besides, maybe you never heard them fight.”

“Genia said they don’t.”

“Ah. And what did you tell Genia about us?”

“I lied,” Joanna admitted sadly. “But she knew anyway, because you and Mama fought even there.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, little one!” he moaned. “Do we embarrass you?”

Joanna remained silent, staring out at the murky waters.

He stooped down and swept her up into his arms. He held her and stroked her hair as she buried her face in his uniform jacket. “Look, sweetie, I think I’ve worked out a few things over the past month in America, and, well, I realize that a lot of the time I’m not fighting your mother, I’m fighting things from my past. I’ve told you a bit about the time before I came here, didn’t I?”

“Uh-huh,” Joanna murmured through the cloth.

“And do you remember how I said a lot of it was very difficult for me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, it’s like when you trip and fall and hurt yourself. Sometimes everything
still hurts long after you’ve gotten up and walked away. And if you’ve hurt yourself really badly, sometimes you’re afraid to even go back anywhere near where you fell. That’s sort of what happened to me, I think. And I think that sometimes I get afraid that your mother is taking me back to that place where I was hurt, so I get scared and I fight with her.”

“You get scared?” Joanna pulled her head back to ask in amazement.

He nodded. “Yes, and sometimes I do things like yell at your mother for things other people did to me.”

“That’s silly, though.”

“I know it is, and I’ll try to change. Will that make you feel better?” he asked. He wished it were that simple, he wished that he didn’t often feel as though Zosia were viciously goading him.

Joanna nodded.

“Why don’t we walk back into the center and buy your mother some of those chocolates that she loves. We can surprise her with them when we get back.”

“Oh, that would be nice,” Joanna agreed readily, not mentioning how much she loved those chocolates as well.

“And we can go to the bookstore, too. Maybe I’ll buy your mother a cookbook.”

Joanna giggled in reply.

So it was they strolled back into town, doing a last bit of window-shopping as they turned into the street with the chocolatier. They stood and looked into a large shop window, admiring the display of dolls, and he wondered if one would be appropriate for Joanna at Christmas. It was unusual to give bought gifts, but he thought that this year he might break the tradition and buy each of his family members something nice.

They turned away from the window, and Peter was unable to decide if Joanna’s interest had been genuine or just a passing attraction. The street was fairly crowded with rush-hour pedestrians and traffic, and as they passed the display windows of a large department store, Joanna strolled in front of him as there was not room to walk side by side. The flash of the first explosion— perhaps only a detonation—was visible out of the corner of his eye. He lunged at Joanna even as the other pedestrians, less trained and more complacent, walked unperturbed. He was down on the ground on top of Joanna before they even heard the noise or felt the percussion of the second, larger blast. A wall of glass and debris erupted outward, toppling the standing people like so many rag dolls. He felt the fierce wind of shrapnel buffet him, and then it was over. He rolled off Joanna, realized that he was bleeding and in pain. He glanced at himself, saw pieces of glass covered in blood embedded everywhere along his exposed back and sides. He looked at Joanna as she climbed to her feet. She looked uninjured, albeit winded.

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking down at him.

He nodded. “I think so. What about you?”

“I’m fine. You’re bleeding.” She reached toward his head.

He felt his hair; his hand came away covered in blood and splinters of glass. “I’ll be all right.” He pulled himself into a sitting position. He sat still, afraid that further movement would drive the shards that covered him deeper into his clothes and skin. He was nauseatingly dizzy and shaking violently. He tried to take in their situation, and he realized with a slow horror that the body next to them was not moving. A few yards away he saw a little girl, about Joanna’s age. Her dark curls lay in a mass about her still head, blood dripped from her ears, her mouth hung open filled with something dark and wet, her eyes stared at nothing. There was mayhem around them. Glass and bodies and people running about trying to help.

They had to get out of there. He tried to stand, but a long shard of glass lodged behind his knee prevented him from moving. He pulled it out, wincing at the pain. Joanna extended her hand and helped him to his feet. He stood there as the world whirled around him, fading in and out. They had to get out of there, he had to move. Joanna looked up at him worriedly. Her lips moved, the word “Dad?” echoed through his head. He wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t find the word. Something important. The world spun around him, he saw someone coming to help, he wanted to say something to Joanna, but the ground was hurtling upward to meet him even as the world went black.