Mother and Me (55 page)

“Does Mister still have his cavalry sword?”

“I do, indeed. Someday it will be my son's. Of course, they won't be wearing swords when he's in the army.”

“Of course,” Mother said. “I am interested because when we arrive in America, I will write a book about all this, the
Bolsheviks and the Nazis. I have stories about both the Bolshevik and the Nazi zones that the world needs to know about. And Mister will certainly be in it for his kindness.”

“Indeed,” the man said.

The old man sat down on one of the chairs against the side wall, two chairs from mine on my right, crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes. I started to sip some of my tea.

“We had nothing to give the children to eat except carrots,” I heard Mother saying. “It was heartbreaking to look at their poor hungry faces.”

Then I felt myself being watched. Looking up from under my eyebrows, I could see that the old man had turned his face partly to me and had opened just his left eye. The mischievous look was on his face again. I grinned back at him. Unable to close just one eye, I covered my left eye with my hand.

The old man now closed his left eye and opened the right. I covered my right eye and looked at him with the left. Now the man opened both eyes and placed his left index finger on his left eyebrow and his thumb on his cheekbone. Bringing the fingers closer together, he now forced the eye shut. I copied him and found that I could now actually close one eye. And when I took my hand away, I could actually keep the one eye closed, though with considerable effort. The man's gap-toothed face registered mock surprise.

I heard Mother and Mr. Vostokos laugh, and I first thought they were laughing at us, but I saw that they weren't looking in our direction. I held Meesh up for the old man to see and covered one of his eyes with his own hand. The old man must have mistaken it for a salute, because he saluted back. I returned the salute.

“Mister must surely be joking!” Mother suddenly said.

“I deeply wish that I were,” the man answered, “but our government has an agreement with the Soviet government to return all….”

“The Soviet government?”

“Both the Soviet and the German governments.”

“But they are invaders. They are not legitimate authorities. Surely the Hungarian government and the rest of Europe are aware …”

“I am truly sorry, Missus, but…”

“I demand to see the Polish consul! I know both him and the ambassador.”

“Ah, Missus, I regret that I cannot accommodate that request either. There is a train to Lvow at five twenty-three that Missus and her son will be on. It is quite a comfortable train, and we have no accommodations here for….”

“But we will be shot,” Mother said. “The Soviets will take us off the train and shoot us.”

“Ah, no, Missus. The Soviet authorities….”

Mother stood up. “My son and I did not walk eleven hours to exhaustion through the snow to be put on a train back into Soviet hands!”

“There is nothing I can do. We have our orders.”

Now Mother was shouting. “Mister has been giving me cigarettes here and coffee and pumping me for information, knowing all along that he was sending us to our death!”

“It is only a routine report that I have to file …”

“Routine report? My son and I are not one of your routine border incidents. We have walked eleven hours through the snow, risking bullets, risking wolves …”

“There are no more wolves in these woods—the peasants have….”

“Can Mister even look at me when I speak to him?”

Mr. Vostokos was looking down at something he was writing on his desk. He looked up at Mother now. “I am sorry—there is nothing that I can do. Missus must not be hysterical. The Soviet government does not shoot civilians.”

“Not be hysterical? I have lived five months with the Bolsheviks and …”

“I must ask Missus to sit down now.”

“Mister is not inhuman,” Mother said in a suddenly quieter tone. “He has beautiful children of his own …”

“I am sorry, but I must ask Missus to sit down.”

“I have money …”

Mr. Vostokos held up his hand to stop her. “If Missus does not sit down, I will have the constable put her in the cell,” he said, looking down at the papers again.

Suddenly Mother reached her two hands under the papers on his desk and flung them into the air.

The policeman jumped down from his platform and grabbed Mother's arm.

“The cell has no stove,” Mr. Vostokos said.

Mother sat down. She was breathing hard.

“Missus must go sit with her son now,” Mr. Vostokos said. He was gathering his papers, and he pointed blindly in my direction.

The policeman put his hand on Mother's arm again. She stood up and let him lead her to the chair next to mine. Suddenly she looked very tired and much older. As she sat down next to me, I saw tears flowing down her face.

Instinctively, I put my arms around her. “It's all right,” I assured her. “Don't cry. Everything will be all right.”

“He's secret police,” Mother said under her breath.

“What?”

“He's trying to make me tell him things. I have nothing to tell him. Do your rosary.”

“My rosary?”

“Your rosary—hurry, do your rosary.”

“Are the Russians going to shoot us?” I asked. Until a moment ago, I would have been sure the answer would have to be no. Soldiers and spies were stood up in front of brick walls with a blindfold and a cigarette—Fredek had even made me stand with him in front of a brick wall on the farm, close our eyes and hold our hands behind our backs while he spat defiant words at the Nazi firing squad—but none of this was any
part of my mother's and my reality. Except that her mention of the secret police had just crashed into that reality.

“Of course not. Now do your rosary,” Mother said.

I could tell now from Mother's tone that piety was not the motive behind her order. Mother had a plan. On the other hand, Mother's plans did not fill me with confidence. I pulled the rosary out of my pocket and began with the crucifix. Mother had her rosary in her hands as well. She was mumbling the Hail Mary where it should have been the Our Father and with a few la-la's in the middle. I raised the volume of my praying, prompting Mother with the correct words, but seemed to have no corrective effect. In fact there were la-la's now where the right words had been earlier. Mother's mind, I understood, was elsewhere.

I looked at the old man. He seemed to be asleep, his arms folded over his chest. I watched the policeman step to the stove to put in more wood. The round stove with its door open looked like Mr. Vostokos with his ear.

After a while Mr. Vostokos stood up. “I am going home to dinner now,” he said. “I will be back. Yoosef will bring Missus some dinner. We have a toilet through here.” He indicated a door in the back wall, then put on his leather coat and green hat. The old man stood up as well.

Suddenly Mother had stood up too and crossed to meet him just outside his railing. She said something that I couldn't hear.

“Missus will sit down with her son or she will wait in the cell!” he said angrily.

Mother sat down again.

I saw the old man purse his lips and shake his head in imitation of Mr. Vostokos, following him to the door. I suppressed my laugh.

“Pederast,” Mother said after they had left the building.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

I had heard her all right. It was just that I had not heard that word before. Now I understood it to be an expletive I should commit to memory.

Through the window I saw the two men get into the sleigh and, with the old man at the reins and Mr. Vostokos in back with the robe over his lap, drive away.

Mother leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, the rosary limp in her hands. I understood it to be no longer necessary to continue saying mine. With all that was going on, my heart had not been in it anyway. At the big desk, the policeman continued writing, but I noticed that, with Mr. Vostokos gone, he had unbuttoned the top two buttons of his tunic. He had on a green flannel undershirt underneath.

“Does Mr. Policeman speak Polish?” Mother asked across the room. Her voice was very friendly now. The policeman shook his head. Like Mr. Vostokos, he kept his eyes down on the paper. Mother tried Russian, German, and French with the same results. “Oh come, this close to the border, Mister must certainly understand a little Polish,” she coaxed. The policeman wiggled his hand indicating that he understood a little.

“Is Mister from this village?”

The policeman nodded his head.

“Is Mister married?”

He nodded again.

“Does Mister have children?”

He held up three fingers. Then he put his index finger to his lips signifying silence. I wondered why his children should be kept secret, then realized he was telling Mother to be quiet.

“But why?” Mother asked. “Nobody will know if we speak. And I'm only asking about your children.”

The policeman reached back and tapped the wall behind him where the cell must have been. Mother closed her eyes again.

I wondered if I could manage to close one eye now without using my hand. I squeezed my left cheek up against my eye and closed it. I found that the other eye closed as well. But I could
then force my right eye open a little, while still keeping the left eye squeezed shut with the help of the rest of the left side of my face. I realized how twisted my face must be, but it was a wink, and when the old man came back, I would surprise him.

It wasn't long before I saw the old man drive his sleigh back into the space outside the window. He was alone now. He covered the horse again and hung a feed bag over his nose. Then he lifted an iron pot out of the sleigh. As he passed my window, he looked in and winked at me.

I began to wink back, but he was already past the window before I got my eye closed. But that was all right—I would wait till he was inside and sitting down.

The man stamped his feet outside and brought the pot into the police station. He walked to the other end of the room and through the door into the back room. The policeman followed him.

“We could run away now,” I whispered to Mother. I said it out of a sense of loyalty, but certain that this was not a practical plan.

“Hush,” Mother said. I decided to practice my wink one more time.

Then the old man came back in, carrying a tray with two steaming bowls and some sliced bread. I realized that if I showed him my wink now, he would be unable to respond the same way that he could later, when he wasn't doing anything. Of course if he did not sit down near me again …

“Do you speak Polish?” I heard Mother ask the old man, as he handed her a bowl. He smiled and nodded his head.

“Do you live in this village?”

He nodded again, handing the other bowl to me. He put the tray with the bread on the chair next to mine and returned to the policeman's desk. The policeman had set two bowls on the desk.

“The old fool doesn't understand a word I said,” Mother said.

Our lunch was a meat stew, and it was delicious. Mother didn't want hers and offered it to me, but I was too full. The two men talked in low tones as they ate, seated at the big desk across the room. Mother leaned her head back against the wall. I thought she might be asleep, but then I saw that her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling.

Now I began to explain to Meesh that I had taught myself to wink and would surprise the old man with it at the first opportunity, but I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, Mr. Vostokos was walking across the room to his desk in his leather overcoat. He had a newspaper under his arm.

“I trust Missus's dinner was satisfactory,” he said with his back to us as he hung his coat on its coat hanger.

At first, Mother didn't answer him. “It was very good, thank you,” she finally said, even though her bowl was still on the chair next to mine, untouched.

“The constable's wife is an excellent cook,” Mr. Vostokos said. He was seated sideways at his desk now and he leaned down. I realized he was brushing his shoes.

Through the window, I could see the old man unhitching the horse from the sleigh and then leading him somewhere out of my line of sight. I hoped he was coming back into the building. I also hoped that when he did come, he would again sit near me. Mr. Vostokos was now sitting back up in his chair, reading the newspaper he had brought. “I would give Missus a newspaper to read,” he said across the room, “but they're in Hungarian.” Mother didn't answer him.

Then the old man came back past my window and winked at me again. This time, I didn't even try to wink back, waiting for a more opportune time and crossing my fingers in hope.

Coming back into the building, the old man sat down where he had sat before and, like before, he crossed his arms, yawned, and then closed his eyes. I waited for him to open the one eye and look at me. But he didn't. Time went by, and the old man
seemed to be asleep. I wondered if he really was or whether he was teasing me.

Then, suddenly, the eye popped open. This, I knew was an opportunity I could not let slip—there might not be another. As he watched me, I forced my left cheek up, closing both eyes, then carefully let the right eye open as far as possible without opening the left. The old man opened his mouth wide and put his hands to his face in exaggerated surprise. I mimed a laugh, opening my mouth wide and wagging my head left and right. I didn't know whether we really needed to hide our game from Mr. Vostokos, but, somehow, it made it more fun.

Then I remembered the steel washer in my pocket. I drew it out, held it up for the old man to see, then pretending to throw it at him, I palmed it instead. The old man first raised his hands in pretend fear, then rolled onto his side away from me, covering his head with his arms. Then he turned to look at me over his shoulder. I made the washer reappear out of my ear. The old man gripped his head in make-believe amazement.