Mother and Me (14 page)

“We have blankets,” Auntie Edna said.

“There are two men with us,” Auntie Paula said, “The driver and another man. They can sleep in the truck.”

“They can sleep in the kitchen,” the man said. Suddenly people were bringing things in from the truck.

“There are eggs,” the man said, “we have chickens. And there's ham and potatoes.” This was very different from what his wife had told us. “Our cook has gone home,” he added.

My mother and the Aunties all looked at each other. “I can fry eggs,” Auntie Edna said.

“I'll do it, Mrs. Tishman,” Miss Bronia said.

“You have such beautiful children, Mr. Halpin,” I heard my mother say. “They resemble you more than your wife.”

“She's very upset,” he explained. “Her father was killed by the Germans in the last war, and now her brother is at the front. I'm not in the army because of my liver, but she's afraid that if things get bad enough, I will have to go too.”

“I know just how she feels,” Mother said. “Our husbands are all at the front. There is nothing left of our apartments in Warsaw.”

Then, Miss Bronia, Mr. Dembovski, Mr. Lupicki, Fredek, and I ate at the long kitchen table with its thick, bare wood top. My mother, my Aunties, Sonya, and Mr. Halpin were in the dining room. I could hear their voices, and sometimes they would all laugh.

In the kitchen, Mr. Lupicki entertained us with magic tricks. He made little balls out of bread and made them disappear and appear out of Fredek's ear. He borrowed Miss Bronia's ring and made it appear under my arm and pulled a long, colored handkerchief out of Miss Bronia's hair, and all of it without saying a word. We sat and watched and laughed, and at some point I must have fallen asleep.

In the morning, Miss Bronia woke me up to give me a bath. I discovered that Fredek and I had been put to bed under the dining room table. Fredek was still asleep, curled up on his side. Miss Bronia had put a washtub on the kitchen table, and I had to take my clothes off, climb up on the table and into the tub. I was embarrassed to undress in front of Miss Bronia, but knew it had to be. I kept myself turned away as I climbed up and in so that she would see only my behind.

Her hands were gentle with the strange-smelling soap. “Here, wash yourself while I go get a towel,” she said, handing me the soap and washcloth. The moment she stepped out of the room, I got up onto my knees and washed my privates. I was seated again when she returned, and the water had grown opaque.

Fredek came into the kitchen bragging that he had had his bath the night before when I had fallen asleep. I hoped he would leave the kitchen before I had to get out of the tub.

Then a woman I hadn't seen before came in with a broom and a dustpan full of sweepings which she poured into the flames in the stove along with some additional sticks of wood from a cubbyhole in the wall. She was stout, with white hair pulled into a bun and, like Marta our cook, didn't wear makeup. She wore a gray dress and man's shoes.

“All right, you big fish,” Miss Bronia sang out. “It's time to get out.”

The woman was stirring a pot on the stove with her back to me, but she might turn around at any moment. I shook my head. “Hey, slippery fish, we have to get going,” Miss Bronia said cheerfully. I found myself clutching the edges of the tub as I shook my head again. Miss Bronia held up the towel as a screen between me and the cook. I stood up a little, and Miss Bronia immediately had the towel wrapped around me. She had her own head turned to the side, but I didn't really mind her seeing my birdie. Wrapped inside the big towel, it felt wonderfully soft and warm.

Fredek, Sonya, and I ate some sort of oatmeal and bread with honey at one end of the dining room table while Miss Bronia packed suitcases and folded blankets. Sonya had coffee with her breakfast. Mother and my Aunties sat at the other end talking in low voices. Then I saw the cook come in with a cup of tea for Mother. “Thank you so much, Helga,” Mother said to her. “Now, would you be a dear and toast this bread a little for me.”

“Certainly, Missus,” the cook answered with a little curtsey. Auntie Edna and Auntie Paula exchanged looks. Mrs. Halpin, her cousin, and the two children were nowhere in sight.

When we went out to get back into our truck, I saw that it had been painted a bright yellow. Fredek, who was already outside looking at it when I came out, explained that it was so German airplanes wouldn't mistake us for army and attack us again. I, of course, could figure that out on my own and ignored him.

“It was the only paint we could get, Missus, and it's still a little wet, but the wind will dry it,” Mr. Dembovski explained to Mother. He was carrying suitcases out of the house.

“I think Lupicki stole it,” Auntie Paula confided to Miss Bronia.

“What did he steal, Auntie?” Fredek wanted to know.

“Nothing,” Auntie Paula said.

“I told you he was a crook,” Fredek said to me. Mr. Halpin had come out to say goodbye, and I saw Mother hand him a fold of money. “Oh, I couldn't,” I heard him say.

“It's wartime,” my mother told him. “We must all carry our own weight when we can.” She pressed the money into his hand. “Please thank your wife for us, and may God watch over you all.” Mother's reference to God surprised me.

Suddenly I heard Fredek cry out in pain. “Look what you've done!” his mother was shouting. She had Fredek by the ear with her one good hand. “Those pants came from Vienna!”

“Ow!” Fredek was crying while Auntie Edna looked as though she were trying to lift him off the ground by that ear.

“Look at that,” Auntie Edna was saying to the group, turning Fredek around by his ear. On the seat of his gray shorts there was a smear of yellow paint. “We brought these pants back from Vienna last winter, and we've waited all this time for him to grow into them. Now look what he's done.”

“Let it go, Edna,” Auntie Paula said. “It isn't important.”

“Do you know what Morris paid for those pants?” Auntie Edna said.

“It isn't important,” Auntie Paula repeated. “You're hurting him.”

“Ow! Ow!” Fredek repeated. I saw his face was red and he was in tears. Auntie Edna let him go. Fredek rubbed his ear and continued crying.

“He makes me so mad,” Auntie Edna said. “Always tormenting me with his guns, his spies, his … his I-don't-know-what's.”

“He's a boy, Edna,” Auntie Paula said.

“Look how well-behaved Yulek is. He sits quietly, and answers politely, doesn't make trouble, obeys….” Auntie Edna was saying.

Suddenly I felt very embarrassed—embarrassed and pleased at the same time. I knew immediately that I should feel sorry for Fredek, but I was pleased instead.

“In front of the children!” Auntie Paula admonished her.

“I know, I'm a terrible mother.”

“Edna!”

Auntie Edna was crying as she stepped on a box to get into the truck, and I felt sorry for her. We all followed in silence.

“Basia has a new conquest,” Auntie Paula said, laughing, as soon as we pulled out into the street.

“That anti-Semitic bitch,” Mother said.

“Anti-Semitic?” Auntie Paula repeated.

“That's why she didn't want us in the house,” Mother said.

“Really, Basia,” Auntie Paula said.

“This isn't Warsaw, you know. Small town people aren't like the people you know in Warsaw.”

“I've never seen …”

“No, Paula, you don't see it, first because you don't travel, and second because you don't look Jewish. Edna is a beautiful woman, but she's a beautiful Jewish woman. Look at her nose. With that nose and her black hair, she could be the queen of Palestine. I have a nose, too, but I dye my hair.” That was news
to me. “In America they do operations now where they change your nose,” my mother went on. “Everybody has it done. Lolek and I were going to go to New York next summer. Now I don't know what's going to happen.”

“Paula, look what's happening in Germany.” Auntie Edna spoke up for the first time.

“But this is Poland,” Auntie Paula said.

“You think it's that different in Poland?” Mother said. “Because we have money, we're accepted. We can go to fine restaurants and hotels. But have you ever tried to get a table at Bolecki's? ‘I'm sorry, Mrs. Herbstein, but we have no tables this evening.' Try to enroll Frederick Tishman or Sonya Herbstein in the Kormanevich school.”

“That's right,” Auntie Edna said. “Basia's right. You and Felix don't look Jewish. Only your name gives you away, but you don't travel.”

“What do you mean we don't travel? We came back from Paris just last month.”

“That's not the kind of travel Basia is talking about. First of all, people who travel don't go to Paris in August, and second of all…”

“Felix had to go there on business.”

“All right, on business. And where did you stay, at the Plaza?”

“Isn't that where you and Morris stay?”

Auntie Edna began to laugh. “From now on, we all hide behind Paula,” she said. “And Bronia,” she added.

“Why don't you dye your hair like Auntie Barbara?” Fredek asked his mother. The three mothers all burst out laughing.

Miss Bronia quickly reached into her purse and brought out the knotted string we had played with the day before. “Let's do cat's cradle,” she suggested.

“I want to do cat's cradle with Fredek,” Sonya suddenly announced.

“We'll all take turns,” Miss Bronia said.

I didn't want to play cat's cradle, and I exercised my newly-discovered right to voice it. Something far more important was forming in my mind. How could I best love and help Mother, as I knew I was supposed to at this difficult time? The answer was simple—by converting her to Catholicism. Then her Immortal Soul could go to Heaven for the rest of eternity, and that would be a much more valuable thing than anything else I could ever do for her. Suddenly I was very excited. How I would go about doing this, I had no idea. But if I had faith in God, He would show me. Hadn't He already shown me signs of His approval?

That day was mostly uneventful. There were no people on foot on this road, and only an occasional farmer's wagon passed by. Once some cars and trucks carrying soldiers zoomed past us, going the other way.

But there were thoughts rushing through my head. I could see myself going to mass with Kiki and Mother after the war. I was the tallest of the three, and I would prompt Mother on her prayers. Kiki would be so proud of me and would hold my arm tightly. I was on a mission now. God had sent me on this adventure with these five Jews and Miss Bronia for a purpose.

Did that mean that I was supposed to convert all of them? God would tell me. If I had faith, God would tell me His intentions in His own time.

The three mothers talked little and slept a lot. Fredek and Sonya huddled in one corner whispering and laughing. Mr. Dembovski had tied both doors wide open and there was plenty of light now. Miss Bronia would ask me occasionally if I wanted her to tell me a story or something. But there was too much in the way of stories going on in my head to warrant troubling her. I realized by now that God was not really an old man with a long white beard and sandals, but lacking a more
current image, I envisioned His bearded presence praising me for my missionary work.

We stopped at a farmer's house and Auntie Paula went to the door and bought bread, cheese, and milk for our lunch. We made some bathroom stops, one by a stream where we washed our hands and faces. Mr. Lupicki made us laugh by pulling a stone out of my ear and then doing funny things with his hands by bending his fingers in ways that nobody else could. I noticed that he had taken off his jacket and even his hair was a little messy.

Turning to the mothers, Mr. Lupicki pulled a well-worn deck of cards out of his back pocket and proceeded to do some card tricks that I couldn't follow, where he guessed what cards they were thinking of. He finished by fanning the entire deck out and then making them all fly through the air in some way that landed them neatly stacked in his hand.

“What clever hands Mister has, Mr. Lupicki,” my mother said to him. “Such supple fingers. Let me see them.” She held her hand out, palm up.

Mr. Lupicki carefully laid one of his hands in Mother's. He was a small man, and his hand wasn't much larger than hers. “You can tell so much about a man by looking at his hand,” Mother said, turning his hand over. “I don't tell fortunes, but I see courage and great cleverness in that hand.” Mr. Lupicki blushed. “When this is over,” Mother went on, “Mister should look into something more ambitious than selling shoes in someone else's store. Maybe Mister should come to see us in Warsaw.”

“Thank you, Missus.” Mr. Lupicki withdrew his hand as carefully as he had placed it.

“Why are you turning poor Lupicki's head?” Auntie Paula asked when we were back in the truck, rolling down our empty road again.