Mother and Me (45 page)

When Mother asked why the doctor's services were needed, Bogda told us that baby Nadia was very sick. Besides which, her parents, who already owed Mrs. Potkanskova a lot of rent, didn't have money for doctors or medicine or anything. I immediately reached for Meesh and cradled him in my arms, as Mother asked if that was the reason for all the footsteps we were hearing in the hall. Bogda said that, yes, Mrs. Potkanskova had a thermometer and now was applying wet compresses to the baby's forehead.

“Eat your supper and don't come out,” Mother said to me, indicating the plate of cabbage borsch with a boiled potato in the middle. Then she stood up and left the room, followed by Bogda.

It must have been in her excitement that Bogda left the door open. I could hear whispering in the hall, though I could not make out the words. I put a spoonful of the borsch into my mouth, but I could just visualize Fredek in my situation running to the open door the moment that Mother and Bogda were out of the room. It took both my curiosity and a sense that there was something manifestly wrong in my docilely continuing to obey my confining instructions in this instant, to make me follow Fredek's example. In three quiet leaps I was at the door.

Several people stood in a cloud of cigarette smoke in the hall, speaking in whispers, still too quietly for me to understand. One man I recognized from an encounter outside the bathroom. The others, I assumed to be fellow tenants as well. Mother was not among them, and they, I presumed, didn't know about her orders, so I felt safe standing in plain sight in the doorway.

Then, suddenly, Mother came out of the sick room, followed still by Bogda, and catching me full in my guilt. I pressed tightly against the door jamb, holding my breath, but Mother brushed right past me into the room. “I want you to stay with Yulek till I get back,” she was saying to Bogda. Then she sat down on the chair and proceeded to pull on her boots.

“You do everything Bogda says,” she said to me. She didn't look at me, and I couldn't tell if that was from anger or preoccupation. “I'll be back as soon as I can.” Then she was putting on her coat as she marched out the door.

“Missus is going out to find another doctor,” Bogda said when Mother had left, but she was looking past me out into the hall.

“Are they Catholic?” I asked her. I had seen Bogda's little gold cross, so I presumed she would understand my concern.
To my surprise, she turned to me with a look of scorn. “Mrs. Potkanskova wouldn't have any Jews living here,” she said. Instinctively, my hand went up to scratch my chest, flipping the medallion outside my collar.

“Has she been christened yet?” I asked.

Bogda's eyes opened wide. “Father!” she said. “Somebody has to get Father.” With that, Bogda rushed out into the hall and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

Left by ourselves, I explained to Meesh that baby Nadia, who lived next door with her parents, was very sick and might die. Mother, I told him, had gone to find a doctor, and Bogda was fetching a priest in the event that Nadia hadn't yet been christened. Christening would get her into heaven, and he and I would be christened as well, as soon as the opportunity arose. Meesh cried about poor Nadia, though he had never actually seen her, and I made him feel better by explaining that it was wartime and a lot of people were being killed. Then I finished my soup, even though it was almost cold, because I was hungry.

In a bit, I could hear the presence of additional people in the hall and even Bogda's voice, but nobody came into our room. With the hall noises of no more interest to me, I closed the door quietly and decided to put Meesh to bed. Having tucked him under my blanket, I took off my shoes and lay down beside him to tell him a story.

As I told him about Hanzel and Gretel, however, I couldn't help remembering the way my mother had pulled on her boots and her coat when the others were just milling around in the hall, and gone out to find a doctor for Nadia. “Missus is going out to find another doctor,” Bogda had said, clearly not so much to inform me as in awe. I could visualize Mother walking down the streets of this strange city, looking for doctor signs.

Then I realized that I had been asleep, and people were whispering in our room. Someone had spread a blanket over me.

I had learned the trick of opening my eyes just a slit and looking through my lashes, pretending to be asleep, but my head
was facing the wrong way. I gave a sleepy sigh while I turned my head and made a show of resettling my shoulders, as I had watched Fredek do, before lifting my eyelids for a glimpse. Now I saw that Mother was standing right beside my bed.

“A healthy looking boy,” I heard a man's voice whisper in Russian.

“His legs are like sticks,” Mother whispered back. “Look at his little arm, Doctor.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a piece of blue army trousers. “In Warsaw we would give him tonic and oil,” Mother went on.

“He's doing fine,” the doctor reassured her. “His breathing is strong.” I was imitating the slow, deep breathing I had heard Kiki do in her sleep.

“Can you give him some kind of tonic?” Mother insisted. Then, in a less urgent tone, she added, “You were so good with the baby. You have such gentle hands for an army doctor.”

“At the university, I trained to be a blah-blah.”

“Oh, what is that?”

“That's a doctor for the lungs.”

Then, a third voice intruded. “We have to go, Dr. Bielsky,” a man, whom I couldn't see, said.

“Yes, just a minute,” the doctor said. He and Mother stepped away from my bed, and I could see them better now. The doctor was a young man with blond hair, and he was buttoning his tunic while looking at something to his left.

“That's my makeup bag,” Mother said. “Would you like to have it?”

“I could carry my instruments in it. But no, it's too valuable. It's too beautiful.”

“Well, there is no makeup to buy any more, and your instruments are much more important. It's brown, so it's perfect for a man.” I saw Mother open the little leather case and take out the few items she had in it. She handed it to him. The doctor's hands stopped in mid-air, as though he was reluctant to touch the soft leather. Now I could see the other man standing by the
door. He was in civilian dress, his black overcoat unbuttoned, a gray fedora on his head. His hands were in his coat pockets.

“Please take it, Comrade Doctor. You saved the baby's life, and we are very grateful,” Mother said.

“I hope I saved her life. I will have to see her again.”

Mother pressed the case into his hands. “It's from Vienna,” she said. “And I have other suitcases to sell in case some of your fellow officers are interested.”

“Thank you very much, Comrade.” I saw that he was already playing with the brass spring latch.

Then I heard the other man speak from where he stood beside the door. “How many suitcases do you have, Comrade?” he asked.

“Three, Comrade. Would you like to see them?”

“No, but I am curious why you would want to sell them.”

“I need the money, Comrade,” Mother said. “I am a woman alone with a little boy, and I need money to live on.”

“And you like it so much here in Lvow, Comrade, that you don't plan to travel again.” This wasn't a question.

“I like it very much in Lvow,” Mother said. “If we do travel again, Comrade, I'm afraid we will have to do it with more modest luggage.”

“And suitcases are awkward to carry through the woods, aren't they?”

“Through the woods?”

“Through the woods and across the border, Comrade.”

“You forget, Comrade,” Mother answered, “that I am just a woman with a little son, who isn't very strong. I would not dream of going through the snow on foot.”

The doctor cut in. “We should go now, Comrade,” he said.

The other man ignored him. “No, the border is quite well sealed now. But spring is beautiful in these parts. Don't do anything foolish, Comrade. When spring comes, we will be patrolling the borders so that not even a squirrel can get through.” He seemed to find this funny and gave a little laugh.

“Thank you for your warning, Comrade. But I assure you that we have no plans to escape.”

“That's good. But we will be keeping an eye on you just the same, Comrade Waisbrem.”

Suddenly, I saw Mother flinch. Then she crossed the room and held out her hand. “And I don't know your name, Comrade,” she said.

The man didn't take his hands from his pockets. “Come,” he said to the doctor. He turned and reached for the doorknob and opened the door. “Come,” he said again, stepping into the hall.

The doctor put Mother's bag under his arm and picked up his own canvas bag by the handle. With his other hand, he picked up his hat. “Goodbye, Comrade,” he said, “and thank you.” Then he followed the other into the hall.

Mother walked to the table and sat down. I saw her put her elbow on the table and rest her chin in her hand. I understood how rude the man had been to not shake her hand or even tell her his name.

Now there was a quiet knock on the door. For a moment, Mother didn't move, and I almost spoke out to tell her. Then she got up and walked slowly to the door. She opened it, holding one finger to her lips for quiet.

It was Nadia's young father who stood in the doorway. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I could tell by his face and the way he tilted his head left and right that he was thanking Mother. She whispered something back and then patted his hand. He bent over her hands and kissed them both. He looked like he was crying. Mother touched his cheek with her hand, said something, and then closed the door gently.

I realized that I felt proud of my mother now. When everyone else was standing around in the hall, she had gone out and found a doctor somehow and saved the baby's life. But Mother didn't look happy about it.

And then, all of a sudden, it all became clear. Now I suddenly understood what that other strange visitor of a few weeks ago
had been all about—the peasant who also wouldn't shake her hand. Mother must have wanted him to lead us through the forest and across the border to Hungary, and he said a woman couldn't do it on foot in the snow. She was trying to tell him how strong she was with her story about being a champion athlete, and he didn't believe her.

Auntie Paula, too, had laughed at Mother's idea of escaping and, of course, if it were possible, everyone else would be doing it. But Mother, I now realized, must have kept wanting to do it anyway until this nasty man, tonight, had guessed what she wanted to do because of the suitcases and told her that they would be watching her from now on.

I couldn't help feeling sorry for Mother's disappointment. She had sat down at the table again, and she was still sitting there when I fell asleep.

I must have had one of those dreams again that night, because I woke up with Mother holding me. I was drenched in sweat and as before I had no idea what I had dreamt, but my face was wet.

“It's only a dream,” Mother was saying. “We'll just blow it away.” She blew across my forehead. “Come on, blow with me. Help me blow it away.”

I blew to humor her.

“There, it's going away. I see it going out the window.”

“The window is closed,” I said, laughing.

“Dreams can go through closed windows. How do you think it got here?”

I couldn't help laughing again. I was laughing at Mother's joke, and I was laughing because being held felt so good.

“Do you remember what you dreamt about?” Mother asked gently.

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

“Do you remember a little piece of the dream—where you were or who else was there?”

I tried to remember, but couldn't. I saw that one lamp was still on in the room. Mother had draped a towel over the shade to give a dim light. Mother herself was still dressed—she hadn't been to bed.

Now she laid me back down on my pillow. “Would you like me to turn the light off?” she asked.

“No, that's all right,” I said. “I'll just turn to the wall.” I put my arm over Meesh. He had had a bad dream too and was asking me to tell him a story. I realized that the only story I knew that sounded appropriate for someone who had just had a bad dream, was the one Miss Bronia had told about another toy bear named Pooh. I wouldn't tell the part about getting his head stuck in the jar of honey, which Fredek and I had found funny, out of concern for Meesh's feelings.

Meesh had very keen hearing and could hear if I only mouthed the words. At some point in the story, we both fell asleep.

I am sitting on my suitcase on the great stone floor of the Warsaw train station, watching Kiki's suitcase, and our train is about to leave. But Kiki hasn't returned from the ladies' room. We have never missed a train before, and that makes the prospect of still being here at the station, when we're supposed to be on our way to Grandmother's, that much more frightening. People will no longer walk around me, but angrily kick our suitcases over because I am not supposed to be here anymore. What is keeping Kiki so long? Will she ever come back? What should I do?