The Lullaby of Polish Girls (11 page)

The word
pipki
does wonders, more than Justyna’s backhanded apology.
Pipki
: small vaginas. It’s crude and comical, and vintage Justyna. Fighting smiles, Anna and Kamila nod their heads and pack up their gear, leaving the French fries, and Patryk with his aspirin, behind.

The girls walk through the woods that surround the
zalew
, and halfway, when they pass the corrugated shed that serves as a bus stop, Anna reaches for both their hands. Neither friend fights it. They end up walking hand in hand the rest of the way.

After a cool shower, which is not really a shower but a squat in the tub and a dunk of the head under running water, and after a plate of
Babcia
’s fried
schabowy
and sweet cabbage, Anna nestles onto the sofa with some crosswords, listening to the sound of
Babcia
washing dishes and singing those Russian ballads she loves, the vibrations of the TV in the next room, the passing cars on the street below, and the slow billowy dance of the lace curtains by the open balcony.
Perfection
, Anna thinks. This is her very own personal Jesus.

Anna puts the puzzle book down onto her chest and closes her eyes. Soon, she’ll meet up with Justyna and Kamila again, and they’ll go meet the
chłopaki
. She’ll bring her cassette deck. The boys will pass
around a bottle of wine and listen to “Words” over and over again, and Lolek will beg Anna to translate the lyrics one last time.

Babcia
waddles into the living room, a muumuu-clad penguin, with a little green rag perched on her shoulder. “Need some help,
córeczko
?”

Anna smiles and opens her eyes. She pats the lumpy fold-out
wersalka
in invitation. No one has beds here; there’s simply no room for them in cramped Polish apartments, and even that thought fills her with affection.
Babcia
sits down next to her. Even though with every passing summer Anna is less inclined to hang out with family, she always makes time for
Babcia
, who calls her
little daughter
. They eat breakfast together every morning while
Babcia
recaps Anna’s youth in exquisite detail, bringing up memories Anna’s mother has seemingly forgotten. “You used to steal my sewing scissors and cut up all my plants, Aniusia.” Sometimes
Babcia
gets out a shoebox full of ancient black-and-white photos, and they rifle through them gleefully. “
Babcia
, you looked just like Vivien Leigh.” Anna sighs staring at the picture of her grandmother standing on a cobblestone street, wispy and gorgeous, her dark, wavy hair falling over one eye.

Anna loves
Babcia
Helenka’s soft glistening skin, pampered every morning and night with a healthy dollop of Nivea cream. She loves
Babcia
’s dainty fingers, her moon-shaped fingernails, unpolished but perfectly trimmed. She loves the way
Babcia
stands in front of the mirror, brushing her silvery hair, which she refuses to dye. She loves the array of
podomki Babcia
wears every day (braless), with the deep pockets in the front that she sews in herself. Anna adores the way she kneads dough for homemade
makaron;
the way she takes off her shoes and slips into her
trepki
the minute she walks into the apartment, one hand leaning on the foyer dresser, the other clutching a grocery bag; the fact that she always has a covered plate of
kromeczki
waiting for Anna at night: rye bread smeared with butter and thin slices of gouda cheese and smoked ham.

“Five letters, starting with
s
. ‘Handy holes in the kitchen’?”

“Sitko.”

“Oh my god,
sitko
! How did I not know that?”

“I’m the same way,
córeczko
, simple words will just fly out of my head, but I hunt them down in time. Patience is key. How do you say it in English?”

“Colander.”

“
O, Jezus!
Karender? Kawendol?”

Anna laughs and laughs.

Later, on her walk to meet Justyna, who was spending the night at her
Babcia
Kazia’s in Szydłówek, Anna thinks about the camping trip they are planning. She knows that Sielpia Lake was where she was conceived; her parents went
pod namioty
, camping, for two whole weeks, by themselves, after her dad left the army. Wouldn’t it be serendipitous if she made love for the first time under the same stars that shone down on her parents sixteen years ago?

The stars in Poland are bright and sharp, as if torn from a connect-the-dots coloring book. They baffle Anna and remind her of religion and faith. In New York, the neon signs and tall buildings disturb the heavens, and all Anna can make out, aside from the moon, is the lone North Star. But not here—here the grass looks and smells like grass, rampant and overgrown among the cracked stones that pave the sidewalks—it’s not pretty, and it’s a far cry from the well-maniucured lawns in Brooklyn, but it’s real. Even downtown you can sometimes inexplicably catch a whiff of cow manure and wheat. Here, nature forces its way into every corner, in its purest form, and the stars take over at night, illuminating everything the way God intended. It’s all as if from a fairy tale: the blackbird’s call at seven in the morning, the magpies’ flight at dusk, the century-old wooden huts nestled next to the brightly painted seventies-era Communist apartment housing. Everyone smokes and laughs, but nobody smiles unless they really fucking mean it. And at the heart of everything is the one thing that unites everyone:
przetrwanie
—survival.

Anna knocks on Justyna’s door and Justyna answers, wrapped in a towel. “I’m not ready.” She glances at Anna. “And you’re giving me that tank top. My
babcia
made tea. Get the fuck in! The guy across the hall is a total
pedofil
.” And then she quickly undoes her towel, flashes her boobs for a second, and then sticks up her middle finger.

“You’re crazy!” Anna cackles. Justyna pulls her inside and loudly shuts the door behind them.

Kamila Kielce, Poland

The bathroom sink fills up quickly. The water is so hot that Kamila can feel her pores opening up as the steam rises. She submerges her hands slowly. The water scalds, but it’s the only thing that eases the itch. None of the eczema creams help one bit, not the fancy cortisone prescriptions that Doctor Poniatek scribbles, not the natural aromatherapy salves, and not the tubes of black tar that her friend Lidka Frenczyk swears by. The only thing that temporarily alleviates the pain is when Kamila dips her hands into a torrid stream and rubs her palms vigorously. Above the din of the running faucet, she can hear her parents in the kitchen, still going at it.

“There is no way, my beloved God—that—she—is—going! Running around with a bunch of boys, in the middle of the woods? Over my dead body!” screeches Zofia.

“What’s another dead body in this family?” Kamila can’t believe her father actually said it, but he did. Then there is a small pause before Kamila hears a loud whack and then glass shattering. Włodek lets loose a howl and then he is at the bathroom door. His knocks are gentle and few, like he simply needs to pee.

“Kamila? Can you let me in please,
córeczko
? I’m bleeding.”

When Kamila lifts her hands out of the water, they look stippled and bloated. Włodek knocks again. “Sweetheart, she threw a glass at me. I need to get the shards out.
Proszę cię
, Kamilka.” Kamila opens the door and regards her father with a mixture of disdain and pity. “Why do you let her do that to you?” Her father is holding his hands to his temple, and there is a stream of blood trickling through his fingers, down his cheek.

“Can you just help me clean up,
córciu
?” Kamila shakes her head and holds up her ruined hands.

“I can’t.” She walks past him and goes straight into her room. Her overnight bag is on her bed and she zips it quickly, making a mad dash for the door, her mother’s strangled “Kamilaaaa!” echoing in the stairwell after her.

The bus headed for Sielpia doesn’t leave till tomorrow morning but, thank God, Emil Ludek lives only two buildings down. It’s raining and she doesn’t have the energy for a long walk. When she buzzes Emil’s intercom, he answers immediately.

Emil makes
herbata
for her right away, sweetened with raspberry syrup, just the way she likes it. The honey-based balm he rubs on her hands feels good. She wonders briefly if her eczema is stress-related, like Doctor Poniatek suggested.

“They look terrible, Kamila. The worst yet. Are you taking your vitamins?”

“Yes,
Panie Doktorze
, I am. Nothing helps. Especially not the damn humidity. I’m ravaged by it!” Kamila pretends to faint, eyes rolling back in her head.

Emil laughs, but there is sympathy in his eyes. He’s the only person she will let comfort her so openly. Long ago, it was the other way around. Kamila was the bully to all his bullies. When the other boys in third grade snickered at the tights he wore in the winter, Kamila stood up for him. When girls called him
laluś
and pulled on his golden locks and gave him Indian burns, Kamila swatted them away. But now, Emil doesn’t need a bodyguard, and he has to fend off the girls for other reasons. At sixteen he is tall and very handsome, like a young Laurence Olivier. His eyes are gooseberry gray and piercing, and his blond hair is always slicked back with pomade, high off his forehead, like Rick Astley’s. Kamila would do anything to be his.

“She hit him again.”

“Well, better him than you.”

“But that’s the thing, Emil. I wish it were me, because I’d teach her a lesson real fast.”

Emil smiles gently. “Your dad might seem cowardly to you, Kamila, but he’s doing the right thing. It’s so easy to strike back. The hard part is to turn the other cheek.”

He’s almost biblical in his quiet martyrdom. Emil knows what he’s
talking about. He hasn’t only endured beatings after school when the upper-class thugs cornered him at the bus stop. Emil’s own father used to whale on him, until last year, when he fully gave over to the vodka, and became a mere shell of a man. Right now, he’s probably passed out in front of some liquor store, his pants stained with day-old urine tracks.

Emil’s mother moved out last year. Someone had to keep the old man from starving, and being his only child, Emil felt it was his duty. Kamila often thinks that she has it bad—drowned brother, feeble father, ravaged hands, countless unreciprocated feelings … but Emil takes the cake when it comes to shitty luck and somehow, he never complains.

“You sure you don’t wanna come with us tomorrow?” Kamila asks, her eyes pleading.

“I’m sure, Kamila. I have work, and if I leave for more than three days, I’d come home to find Franciszek choking on his own vomit.”

Kamila nods and finishes her tea.

“Your hands will get stronger when you get stronger, Kamilka. It’s all in the mind. Trust me.” She does trust him. She more than trusts him, she adores, pines for, dreams about, and waits for him.

That night, Kamila and Emil sleep dressed in their clothes, on top of his sheets. Emil wraps his brawny arms around her torso, but his hands don’t travel up or down or anywhere she longs for them to. There has been only one kiss between them, last summer, but it was sloppy and drunken and all but forgotten on Emil’s part. Kamila, however, remembers every second of it.

At seven-thirty the next morning, she slips from his warm clutch and grabs her bag. In the living room, Franciszek is passed out in his clothes, his legs shuddering.

When Kamila joins the group at the bus stop she is battling many things—anxiety, guilt, and platform shoes that are one size too small. She sits quietly next to Anna, who is constantly turning around and kneeling on the seat to gossip with Justyna, who is seated behind them.

The bus is a dinosaur—a piece of shit on wheels, treading slowly and stopping and starting till it finally breaks down thirty kilometers from the campgrounds. The passengers waste four grueling hours standing
around while Kamila’s friends get drunk on what’s supposed to be a week’s supply of beer and wine. When the repaired bus finally rolls into the depot, it’s dark and cold outside. As they stumble into the woods, Lolek heaves all over himself. Kamila and Anna have to hold him up the rest of the way, slowing everyone down because the girls are no match for his two-hundred-pound frame. On top of everything else, it starts to rain.

They throw their stuff down under the wooden gazebo at the site’s entrance. The rain comes down with no signs of stopping, the kind of relentless downpour typical of early spring or late fall but that has no business ruining a perfectly good summer night. The boys sleep like bums on the floor, while the girls sit up on the wooden benches, taking turns keeping resentful watch over their belongings. Kamila wishes she were back in Kielce, under her afghan, reading a book.

“Why didn’t we stop them from drinking all that beer when the bus broke down?” she whispers, worried about waking the other innocent campers, not her slovenly, fucked-up friends.