A Drop of Rain (17 page)

Several times I cried on and on, while Hanna sat beside me silently.

Then I talked, while Hanna listened, commenting rarely and briefly. I said that I was angry at my parents for abandoning me. She said that my anger was understandable.

I insisted that Hanna would abandon me too. She promised she would stay with me, as long as I needed her.

She also said that, when she was my age, she herself felt angry at the world. She was angry because her mother was alone, except for Hanna, and burdened by enormous problems.

To discover what emotions Hanna felt in the present, I had to be very observant, because normally her face was an impassive mask. One day, she and I were strolling through an exhibition at an art gallery. Suddenly we came upon a picture of a coffin. On Hanna's face I noticed a flash of surprised recognition.
This
is meaningful! Had I not been watching her
closely, I would have missed a valuable clue. The expression disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

The clue indicated that Hanna was still affected by her mother's suicide. Hanna was in her final year of university when her mother killed herself. Hanna came home after an absence of a few hours, and she found her mother dead.

Hanna did explain to me why her mother had ended her life, but never
how
. Her mother had been exhausted from her own illness, tuberculosis, and from the illnesses of other family members whom she was nursing. Also, she had been depressed. A psychiatrist had told Hanna that this depression was a result of the terrible experiences her mother had endured during the Second World War in Poland.

Although Hanna could explain her mother's suicide, ultimately she could not overcome its devastating effect on her psyche. Once Hanna told me that I had “freed” her. I think she meant by this that I had freed her from the bonds of guilt she felt about her mother. She still identified with her mother, however, and finally wanted to demonstrate that her mother had not been wrong to despair. Her mother was not
wrong
, she was
ill
.

So was Hanna in these last years. Yet she was also far-seeing and heroic.

Naomi brought an interesting young man home for supper. The kid could use more self-confidence, but he's got a strong, original character. He is artistic,
humorous and bright. But not keen on school. He seems to think I'm half decent—for an old guy.

There's hope! (No fool like an old fool?)

The grind continues. I think one reason I'm losing interest is because the level of psychology and sociology taught at the college is relatively elementary. Eva's technology courses seem more sophisticated. Or do I think this because I am ignorant about hard science?

I asked Eva to live with me, even marry me. I said in one household we could help each other more than we do now.

Of course, Eva said: “Wait!”

Hanna is failing rapidly. I was selfish to pressure Eva now. What's the hurry? Is the frantic “Y2K” hype getting to me?

Making conversation with Naomi's admirer, Curtis, I told him about getting a lesson on predicting weather when I was a boy in elementary school. All the other children looked at the barometer and predicted sunshine and fair weather. Only I predicted rain. And I was right! Why? Because the next day was Wednesday. My Mom always did her laundry on Wednesday, and she hung it out to dry.

Curtis actually laughed aloud at my silly story. Naomi was shocked!

Of course when I told the story to my own boys, they said: “Da-ad! That is so du-umb!”

Saturday, November 20, 1999

Today as Mary and I were finishing our shift, her chest pains got very bad, and suddenly she told me calmly, “Call emergency!”

I ran to the red telephone on the wall beside the swimming pool and lifted the receiver. That automatically calls an ambulance. The paramedics came in four minutes, put Mary on a stretcher and took her to the emergency department of the Mapleville hospital. I went with her. She didn't have to wait. She was put on a bed right away. She was constantly monitored by the nurses and doctors.

I called Mom from the hospital to tell her I wouldn't be home for dinner. Mom came to the hospital right away. She sat with me in the emergency waiting room. “Joe will stay with Hanna and give her some dinner,” she said.

“That's nice of him,” I said.

“He is nice, darling, and I hope some day you'll see
that,” said Mom. “But I remember how I hated my stepfather George, so I don't want to force anything on you.”

“You're not forcing anything on me,” I said. Then I started crying. “Everybody seems to be dying. Aunt Hanna, and now Mary.”

“Doctor Kowalska is in good physical condition,” said Mom. “And she's not very old. She'll survive.”

At about eight o'clock this evening, a nurse came and said that Mary has to stay in intensive care overnight and maybe for a few days. So Mary might not survive.

Sorry this is so short, Mrs. Henderson. I'm sure you will understand. I will now fill up more pages by printing out some interviews and other objective information from my history project and sticking them here in my journal.

What
The Breakup of the Soviet Union
by B. Harbor said about the Hungarian Revolution: “23 October 1956. Soviet tanks sent in to aid Hungarian communist government in dealing with demonstrations. Soviet troops leave, but return on 4 November when new Hungarian government declares neutrality. Hungarians rebel against Soviet army, but Soviets overwhelm resistance. 30,000 Hungarians die in uprising.”

What a Hungarian said when interviewed by Naomi at her high school where he teaches music:

I was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1948. Of course, Hungary was one of the “satellite” countries behind the so-called “Iron Curtain”. I wasn't very old when I learned what Stalinism meant. We were Jewish, although we didn't actually practice our religion. One Saturday when I was in kindergarten, my father took me to see a synagogue.

We didn't go inside. We just looked at the outside. But I was pretty excited about this experience, so I told my kindergarten teacher about it. The next day my father was picked up by the secret police and beaten severely.

Although my mother worked as a secretary for a member of the communist party, my father had always refused to become a communist. Anyway, another night in 1956, a black car with black windows took my father away. They beat him again. They kept him all night.

We left Hungary pretty soon after this. As our car drove through the streets of Budapest that night, I saw the bodies of revolutionaries hanging on telephone poles.

We boarded a train that took us near the Austrian border. When we got off the train, we ran for the border. Eventually, we got to Vienna. We stayed in a refugee camp.

Our plane landed at Gander, Newfoundland, on Christmas Eve, 1956. It was dark and, except for the runway, the airport tarmac was covered with deep snow. My father had to carry my little sister over to the terminal. We ate hotdogs and
french fries with ketchup.

My mother started crying. She didn't stop crying for about two years. She always hated Canada.

My father did not hate Canada. He was grateful for the opportunities this country had offered him and his children. For example, my sister and I could go to university. When he was a young man in Hungary, no Jew was allowed to attend university.

What a Polish lifeguard said when Naomi interviewed him at the Recreation Centre:

I'm from Wroclaw. I have been here in Canada four years. It's good here because there are so many economic opportunities. Right now I have three jobs, plus I go to university. None of the jobs pays that good, but still I can get ahead pretty quick, and in a few years I'll have a high-paying job. I want to be maybe a high school teacher or an athletics coach. At the same time, I can help my mother back in Poland. She's on pension now, but she does not have enough to live on.

What a young Polish woman said when Naomi interviewed her at her delicatessan:

I have only been in Canada eight years, but
already I have my own shop. It's not much. I'm not getting rich. With my husband's salary, we just make enough to live on. We support our baby daughter and make our mortgage payments, and already we've sent enough money so my parents can come for a visit. My husband is Polish too. He has a construction job. We came at the same time. We were teenagers still. But already we were in love.

I took English lessons for a while, but I quit. I don't need perfect English to do what I'm doing. My customers understand me. I worked in a meat shop back home, so I know about selling Polish meats and sausages. When I first came here, I worked in someone else's shop, so I know Canadian business. Yeah, Canada is a good place. Our best friends now are some English Canadians. They are our neighbours. They are Newfoundlanders. I'm glad we came.

Grandma just phoned me from Edmonton and invited me to go to Hawaii for Christmas with her and George, all expenses paid! I said I'd phone her back next weekend and let her know. I explained that my best friend was seriously ill in the hospital. I didn't tell Grandma that Mary is older than she is. She might get jealous. I also didn't tell Grandma that I was working as a cleaner. She would not approve. I just said I was really busy.