The Lullaby of Polish Girls (20 page)

Her father looks down at his knuckles. “I never wanted your mother, or marriage, or you. I wanted to be a fighter, like my father, like his father before him. I
was
a fighter. But she made me stop. I called the wedding off three times. But she wouldn’t let me go.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re either lying or you don’t remember. No one can ‘make you’ when it comes to that.”

Her father slams the tabletop. “Goddamnit, I’m telling you—
she made me
.” His eyes brim with redness, and he squeezes them shut.

“Just leave me alone.
Zostaw mnie
.” His voice is shockingly pleading and so Anna complies.

At eight o’clock, Anna finishes packing, puts on her coat, and sets her duffel bag by the door. Paulina watches her every move.

“Tell
Babcia
I miss her. Tell her I’m going to come visit this summer, this time for real. And give her some money, Anna, please.”

“I don’t get how you’ve never been back to Poland, in all these years,
Mamo
. Money’s not an issue. Just come with me,” Anna pleads one last time. But her mother shakes her head.

“I’m afraid if I go back, Ania, that I’ll never want to leave.”

Anna smiles. This, she understands. She walks over and hands her mother a wad of cash. “This is for you, Mommy. Get a nice haircut. Not at Supercuts, okay?” Paulina takes the money and stares at it.

Before leaving, Anna cracks open the door to her father’s room. Radosław lies on the bed, propped up on his elbows, tapping ashes into a saucer which rests next to his Polish newspaper, its inky pages spread like a blanket before him.

“I’m going, Ponderosa.”

Her father’s face registers surprise at his old nickname and he raises his eyebrows. “Where you going?”

“Home.”

Outside, it’s dark and quiet. Anna hails a cab and quickly gets in.

“JFK, please.”

There is barely any traffic as they head east toward the Queensboro Bridge. In her pocket, her cell phone vibrates. In a few hours, she will be unreachable and she can’t wait. But she hasn’t spoken to Ben since running off, and she figures that everybody deserves a goodbye.

“Anna?” Ben’s voice is familiar and foreign at once. She remembers the first time they made love and how hungry she was for it, and how, when he passed out exhausted next to her afterward, Anna stared up at the ceiling, somehow still wanting more.

“Merry Christmas, Ben.
Wesoych Świąt
.”

“Anna. Oh, fucking Christ. You picked up! You finally picked up, and I’m leaving. I’m in a cab and I’m flying to Omaha. Oh, Anna.”

“I’m leaving too. On my way to JFK. You?”

“LaGuardia.”

Under the bridge, the East River shines black, tiny frozen lakes shimmering on its glossy surface. Ben is silent and for a minute Anna thinks that the call was dropped.

“Anna.” Ben sighs. He’s groping for an answer, or holding on for dear life, but isn’t that the same thing, really? “Are you going to Poland?”

“Yes.”

“Anna. Why? We have to deal with this, with us. You wrote a fucking note. After years with me, you left a note. I’m surprised you didn’t leave a twenty by the bedside while you were at it.”

“I have to go home.”

“It’s not your home, Anna. Your home is right here.”

“Well, what if I told you I’m going to see a boy? Would that make you feel better?”

Ben doesn’t answer; he just hangs up.

Anna closes her eyes and presses her fingertips over her eyelids. When she was a little girl, back in Poland, she would shut her eyes at nap time, and do the same thing, till the blinding billows of white she’d see would turn to colors, like a kaleidoscope. “You’ll damage your corneas,”
Babcia
used to say.

The inside of JFK is quiet. Footsteps echo, shadows fall; it’s like a movie set. Anna walks up to the business-class counter at LOT, and the Polish airline attendant hands Anna her ticket and doesn’t say anything.

An hour later, sweating and ready to drop, she boards a plane that is already occupied with passengers traveling from Chicago. The cabin interior smells Polish, like
krakowska
ham, cheap floral eau de toilette, and sweat. She finds her place in the third row, and plonks into it gratefully. It’s at times like these she thanks God that the world all but overlooks the existence of her country. You mention Poland to an American and they think three things:
kiełbasa
, the Pope, and Auschwitz, probably in that order. No one really gives a shit about her homeland. So why would anyone bother messing with a planeload of Polacks? Anna convinces herself that no Al Qaeda crazy would give a fuck about hijacking LOT Flight 76, direct to Warsaw, and she takes a deep breath, clutching her father’s medallion around her neck.

When the captain announces that they are ready for takeoff, and the engines rumble toward their full throttle, Anna grips her hands together. Her thighs jiggle. Her neck goes rigid. The man sitting next to her cracks a wide smile.

“Scared?” he asks in Polish.

Anna nods her head.

“Don’t be,
laleczko
. If it happens, you won’t even know.” The man is smug, openly judging her head to toe.

“Thanks,” she replies in English.
Thanks
, in a perfect American accent, because sometimes that puts these types of assholes in their place.

Miraculously, Anna falls asleep. She dreams in fits and starts, dreams of the roily
zalew
waters. When the plane touches the ground Anna’s eyes fly open, and she lifts the window shade and is greeted by the blinding white glare of snow.

“Where are we?” she asks, bewildered.

“Tahiti,” the man next to her answers. “Where do you think we are, lady? Polska.”

Anna turns back to the window. The sky is white and gray, just like the ground. Where is the sun, the green fields in the distance? Anna is
confused and then she realizes that this is Poland in winter, something she hasn’t seen in eighteen years, something she has no recollection of at all. Around her, passengers start to stir and gather their things. And yet, she is aware of only one thing: that old feeling, that old rapture, bursting in her heart.

“Polska,” she repeats to herself. “Polska.”

Kamila Kielce, Poland

“Really, Natalia, my eyes. I can’t take it …” Kamila tries to wave away the cigarette smoke that is visibly settling in gray layers in the stinky green Peugeot.

“What? The fucking window’s open!” Natalia laughs and takes another puff, turning her mouth to exhale the smoke toward the tiny crack in the driver’s side window.

“I’m trying to quit, but gimme a break. Besides, beggars can’t be choosers, Kamila. It’s either this or the 10:25
osobowy
from Warszawa to Kielce.” Kamila rolls her eyes and then closes them. She wasn’t able to sleep on the plane, terrified not of the turbulence, but at the thought of landing in one piece and having to face Emil. She was actually doing this.

Her parents had begged her to give them Christmas, their first one together in almost six years, and Kamila agreed. Two days ago, she accompanied her father to midnight mass. They walked silently in the snow and as they got closer to the Polish church, more and more people fell into step with them. The mass was long and solemn, but the carols were as beautiful as Kamila recalled them from her childhood. Her father stood beside her, mouthing all the prayers, shaking hands with acquaintances, kissing their cheeks. On their way back, Kamila glanced at Włodek, who seemed more alive and content than she had seen him her entire visit.

“You miss it, don’t you? You miss home.”

But her father just patted his heart and smiled. “I don’t miss home, Kamila. Because it’s always right here.”

Kamila didn’t know if she bought that, but she linked her arm through his and put her head on his shoulder.

“What I miss is
you, córciu
. But I’m glad you’re going back. It takes courage to go back to anything.”

Natalia flicks her cigarette out the window and rolls it up. “I think you should get a dog.”

Kamila opens her eyes and squints at Natalia through the smoky haze.

“You know, when the smoke clears. Hahaha.”

“A dog?”

“A puppy. A little yellow puppy.”

“A puppy?”

“Yeah. A fucking puppy. When my dad died last year my mother was this close to slitting her wrists. So Stas and I got her this little dog, a
miniaturka
poodle, you know, the ones that don’t grow? I swear to God, that thing saved her life.”

“My husband didn’t die, so I’m sorry to say I won’t be replacing him with a dog.”

“
Dziewczyno!
It’s called
dogoterapia
and it works in fending off major bouts of depression. Like the ones that might follow the breakup of someone’s marriage due to her husband’s closeted homosexuality.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a skeleton. I thought America fattened people up. All right, forget the puppy for now. What’s your plan of attack?”

“I thought I would stay with you and your mom for a few nights, to get my bearings.”

“Wrong. I’m dropping you off at the doorstep of your fucking apartment and you are gonna walk in and order that
głupek
to pack up and hit the road.”

Kamila sighs. How can she explain that it’s not Emil’s sexual preference that has destroyed her, but the years of shrouding, when really, he could have just told her a long time ago.

“Natalka, you’re a dear friend for chauffeuring me today but I can’t deal with it now, I just can’t. And if you won’t let me stay with you I’ll check into a hotel.”

Natalia suddenly swerves toward the roadside and pulls over. She turns to Kamila. “Marchewska, you did not fly across half the world to go cower in a hotel room. You’ll just lose momentum. And I’m sure you
have dozens of speeches prepared, so when you see him just pick one and let him have it.”

“I don’t have any speeches prepared.” But Natalia is right. She does have speeches prepared, diatribes and monologues that have been brewing for months. There’s a speechless option too, the one where she walks into the house unannounced, doesn’t even look at Emil, but just matter-of-factly starts chucking all his belongings off the balcony.

“Your life is passing you by, minute by minute. I wouldn’t be a friend if I let you hide,” Natalia insists. “And I’m not driving until you agree.”

“Then I’ll walk to Kielce. I’m tired and jet-lagged and I don’t want to see him now. I need to sleep some of this shit off.”

“You’re going to confront him today. End of story.”

“The story ended months ago, Natalia. There’s no story left.”

This time Natalia doesn’t say anything. She steers back toward Route 7. Kamila stares out the window, past the snow-capped roofs of the huts that line the roadway, each one stooped under the weight of snow. The homes break her heart and she realizes how much she’s missed Poland.

When Kamila opens her eyes, the car is parked and Natalia is gone. She glances at her wristwatch, set to Polish time because she never bothered to change it. It feels later than half past one. Natalia appears, juggling two coffees and a paper bag. She mimes for Kamila to lean over and open the door for her.

“We’re just forty kilometers out but I needed a jolt. Doesn’t help having Sleeping Beauty in the passenger seat. Here.” Natalia divvies up the goodies, a scorching coffee, fries, and a box of chicken nuggets.

“I fucking love McDonald’s,” Natalia says, stuffing a handful of
frytki
into her mouth as she turns the engine on again. “Homo, here we come!” she bellows.

“Stop it,” Kamila admonishes and turns up the radio, in time to hear the familiar strains of “Jolka Jolka.” Immediately Natalia starts singing along.

“
Z autobusem Arabów zdradziła go, nigdy nie był już sobą, o nieeee!
Can
you believe it, cheated on the poor bastard with a busload of Arabs? They don’t write songs like this anymore, eh, Kamila …”

The song gets to Kamila, haunts her, and she doesn’t care if Natalia catches her out of the corner of her eye, crying.

It’s good that Kamila’s having this moment now, instead of an hour from now, when she will be standing face-to-face with Emil. She can’t help wondering what Anna Baran would say. She’d hug Kamila and tell her it was all going to be okay, that Kamila was strong and deserved better, the very things she told Kamila time and time again, every summer since they were fourteen. Did Anna remember the anguish and the elation of those summers, the way they held hands on their way down Toporowskiego to meet Justyna by St. Józef’s Church? Did she remember the hours they spent on the steps, ogling boys, cracking up over nothing and everything?

“Good, have your cry now, Kamila,” Natalia says softly, eyes on the road.

When they drive up to her apartment building, Kamila can feel her heart thumping throughout her whole body. Even her toes are pulsating. Suddenly Kamila knows that Natalia’s right; it’s now or never.

“Take my credit card and book me a room at the Hotel Pod Różą. A suite, with a balcony, if they have it.”

“For him?” Natalia’s eyes grow incredulous.