Mother and Me (47 page)

“There was nobody on that train. Where is it going empty like that?”

“That was the last train until tomorrow!”

“That wasn't our train.” This last wasn't a shout, but the quiet voice of a man standing behind Mother.

“Oh, Max,” I heard Mother say. “Thank God you're here. I was afraid you weren't coming.”

“I was in the station master's office. I expected something like this,” the man said. He had a wide face and horn-rimmed glasses. A fur hat seemed to sit on top of his broad head with black hair showing on either side. “Our train is back there,” he whispered now, “but they have no idea when the track will clear for it to leave.” I saw the man take Mother's elbow, and we began to back out of the crowd. I saw he too seemed to be dressed as a peasant in a sheepskin jacket fastened by a wide leather belt.

Free of the crowd, we walked quickly toward another train. Actually, I had to run to keep up with the adults' long strides.

Soon we were all seated in an empty compartment of the new train. “He says the Bolsheviks have screwed up the rail switching system and they can't keep track of what train is where,” the man was saying. “They're worse than idiots.”

“Max,” Mother said, “this is my son Yulian, who is a very grown up young man. Yul, this is Mr. Koppleman. He is going with us.”

Seated across from us and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Mr. Koppleman nodded at me. “They've arrested everybody who knows how to run anything,” he continued, “and their own systems are all different.” He had unbuttoned his sheepskin jacket, and underneath he had on a white dress shirt without its collar. I noticed that he hadn't shaved. His pants, tucked into peasant boots, were neatly creased. When he took off his fur hat, I saw that his black hair was parted in the middle and held in place by hair dressing. He took out a pocket comb and combed it back.

While Mr. Koppleman's unexpected appearance in our lives was no longer a surprise to me, I did feel it to be an intrusion. I wondered if this, once more, meant the end of our “partnership.” I watched him take a packet of cigarette papers out of his jacket pocket, separate one square, shape it into a trough with one hand, and proceed to pour tobacco into it from a little cloth drawstring pouch.

“They've got me rolling my own cigarettes like a peasant,” he was saying to Mother. He licked the end of the paper and sealed it. “Look how good I've gotten,” he said holding up the cigarette. But the statement did not imply pride, but more like disgust. He offered the perfectly-rolled cigarette to Mother.

“I'll take the next one and let me lick it myself,” Mother said.

Mr. Koppleman suddenly looked flustered. “Of course, of course, Basia. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.” Then he put the first cigarette between his lips and began to roll a second one. But the smooth action of his fingers was no longer there, and I could
see that this second cigarette wasn't going to be as perfect as the first. “I'm sorry, Basia,” he said again, “I'll start over.”

“No, that's all right,” Mother said, taking the unfinished cigarette from his hand just as he was about to pour the tobacco back into his pouch. She licked it with the tip of her tongue and sealed it. I saw Mr. Koppleman pull his jaw to one side and run his fingers over the stubble on his fleshy cheek. Then he lit both their cigarettes with a silver cigarette lighter.

“A Bolshevik officer offered me two hundred rubles for it,” he said, indicating the lighter. “Not that I couldn't have used the money, but my mother—may she rest in peace—gave it to me on my birthday this last summer, and they'd have to get it off my dead body.”

Then the compartment door slid open and a man in a long coat and fedora started to enter.

“You can't come in,” Mr. Koppleman said, waving his hand. “The child is sick. It's contagious.”

The man backed out of the compartment, sliding the door shut quickly. Mother laughed. I noticed that Mr. Koppleman had made no effort to speak like a peasant.

“You have to be firm with them,” Mr. Koppleman said, very seriously. I wondered whom he meant by them, since the other man didn't look like a Russian.

Mr. Koppleman was now pacing back and forth in the little space of our compartment. “The first thing I'm going to do,” he said, “is have a long hot bath in the privacy of my own bathroom, then I'll find the best English tailor in Budapest and order some suits and silk shirts.” He nodded toward me. “Does he know?” he asked under his breath.

Mother clenched her lips and gave her head a barely discernable shake.

“After the war, that is,” Mr. Koppleman said aloud, and I could tell from his tone that this was for my benefit. “After the war I'm going to take a train to Budapest, which is in Hungary, where they have very good tailors.”

I knew that Budapest was in Hungary—it was the capital, for heaven's sakes. And now I also knew what our destination in this adventure was, though we wouldn't be going all the way there by train.

“Mr. Koppleman was a friend of your father's,” Mother said quickly. “We ran into each other by accident in Lvow, and we've talked a lot about what we want to do when the war is over, and we were just…”

Suddenly she stopped. “I think we should tell him, Max,” she said.

I saw Mr. Koppleman's round face tense. “All right, all right,” he said. “Let me tell him. Yulian, your mother and I are going—and you too, of course—we're all going to a little village in the mountains where it's easier to get food than in the city, and the air is healthier, and you can play in the snow. Have you ever built a snowman? I build the best snowmen in the world, and I'll show you how. Would you like that?”

I nodded my head, thinking it the best thing to do, though I knew he was lying through his teeth. For a moment I worried that this Mr. Koppleman was supposed to be our guide over the mountains, but that concern was quickly quieted when I remembered that a guide had to be a real peasant who lived in the area.

“There, now you know,” Mr. Koppleman said. “We're not keeping any more secrets from you.” I looked at my mother. She was looking down at her hands. Mr. Koppleman ran his fingers over his stubbly cheek again.

Two more people tried to enter our compartment and were waved off by Mr. Koppleman. Then a gray-haired woman, a wicker basket over her arm, pushed her way in, felt my forehead, and plopped herself down on the seat beside me. Mr. Koppleman shrugged his shoulders, waved his arms, and sat down on the other side of Mother. With the stub of a cigarette still between his lips, he began rolling another one.

“You shouldn't be smoking those cigarettes in front of a sick child,” the woman said. Mr. Koppleman rolled his eyes and poured the tobacco back into its pouch. He began running his fingers over his cheek again. I saw a little smile on Mother's face.

Then, just before the train began to move at around midday, two Russian soldiers joined our group. They sat down across from us, their rifles between their knees.

“What part of the Soviet Union are you from, Comrades?” Mother asked as soon as the train was moving. I held Meesh up so he could look out of the window at the passing panorama. In our silent language, I explained that the fields and houses weren't really moving, but just seemed to be, because we were.

Meesh wanted to know where we were going, and I told him without hesitation that we were going to Budapest in Hungary, though we were first going to a little village where we would build a snowman.

It was almost dark and snowing as we stood on the platform that seemed like just a bump in the thick blanket of snow that covered everything I could see in the dim light. We three were the only people who had gotten off, and our footprints were the only recent ones, except for those of a dog who must have walked the length of the platform shortly before we arrived.

For a moment we had stood between two strings of lights, until the one behind us began to move as the train pulled out of the station. Its departure had made me think of watching Auntie Paula or Kiki rip a row of stitches out of her knitting. And now we were left with only the single strand, the kerosene lamp glow of windows in the low houses. The street that separated the tracks from the houses with their thick, steep-pitched
snow-covered roofs, was pressed into the snow by a succession of sleigh runners. A dark mound, steaming in the slick street, indicated the recent passage of a horse. In the distance, I could see the silhouette of mountains.

“Where is everybody?” Mother asked.

“They're sitting home by the fire,” Mr. Koppleman answered. But his answer didn't quell the anxiety I had heard in Mother's voice and felt in my own chest. I recalled the set on the stage of Warsaw's marionette theater after the curtain went up but before the children and the witch appear, while you prepare to enter another reality. I gripped Mother's hand as I had Kiki's. I knew that her other hand was holding Mr. Koppleman's arm. I looked in both directions along the street for the sleigh that would take us to our hotel.

“Let's go—I'm freezing,” Mother said. I could hear a bit of her little-girl whine coming into Mother's tone.

“I'll go with you till you're inside,” Mr. Koppleman said, as we stepped down into the street. The idea of entering one of these houses made me apprehensive. I found myself longing for the coziness of the room we had left in Lvow.

“You're not staying with us?” Mother asked.

“They only have one bed. I'm two houses further.”

“I wish you were staying with us,” Mother said. “You could sleep on the floor.”

Mr. Koppleman laughed. “I don't think so,” he said. That was a relief.

We were walking down the middle of the empty street now, the way Fredek and I had used to walk on the farm.

“I don't like it being so dark,” Mother said.

“No electricity,” Mr. Koppleman said with a little laugh.

“We didn't have electricity on the farm, but I don't remember it being this dark.”

“You're just nervous.”

“I'd better say something to Yulian,” Mother said.

“How much does he know?”

Mother didn't answer him. “Yulek,” she said to me. I could only see her in silhouette now. “I don't want you to be frightened by anything you see here. These are very simple country people, and they're very old.”

“Tell him the man is a rabbi,” Mr. Koppleman said.

“I don't think he knows what a rabbi is. Yulek, do you know what a rabbi is?”

I said that I didn't.

“He's like a Jewish priest,” Mother said.

“Where does he know about priests from?” Mr. Koppleman asked.

“He had a Catholic governess in Warsaw. She used to take him to Mass.”

The idea of a Jewish priest surprised and frightened me, though I did know that Jews had a kind of church that they went to once or twice a year, because that's what Lolek used to do. Now, remembering the Jews from the Warsaw trolleys, I envisioned a bearded figure in black gabardine vestments coming at me out of a forest of candelabras, with a wafer and a chalice. Suddenly I found myself squatted down on the packed snow. “No, I don't want to!” I cried. I didn't want to go into that house.

“What does he want?” Mr. Koppleman asked.

“I don't know,” Mother said. “Yulian, what are you doing?”

That was a question I might have asked myself. I realized how stupid I must look. I also realized that I had no choice over the matter. On the other hand, there was nothing really bad that was going to happen to me.

I stood up, embarrassed. “I had a stone in my shoe,” I said, though I knew that I was fooling no one. But the soldier-like thing to do, I knew, was to face whatever was there inside the house. I started to say a silent Our Father, but realized immediately that I would feel more comfortable in the hands of the Holy Mother and switched to a Hail Mary. Then, as we stood
at the door, waiting for someone to answer Mr. Koppleman's loud knock, I completed the unfinished Our Father.

“You can speak here,” Mother said to me, I think in an effort to reassure me. “They know we're not really peasants.” I was not greatly reassured.

It was a long and, for me, anxious wait. I told myself that the rabbi would certainly not be answering the door in a vestment, since Catholic priests didn't wear them except for Mass. He would probably just be wearing a long black robe with a white turned-around collar.

Of course, there was another scenario, one that I knew could not possibly be true, but which I could not keep out of my mind. That was one in which Mother and Mr. Koppleman meant to leave me to the rabbi as payment for assistance in their escape over the mountains. I knew that Mother would not do that and that this Jewish priest probably had no need for little boys. But the fantasy continued. Knowing that it couldn't be true gave it a bittersweet taste that I found surprisingly enjoyable.