My Mother's Secret (3 page)

W
hen the Russians first arrive, they want to assimilate their communist culture and begin arresting Polish officers, intellectuals, large-estate owners, and former civil servants.

The Polish community is shaken, as anyone deemed a threat to communist thinking is either executed or sent to labor camps.

Neighbors turn on one another.

Anyone with a grudge can make an accusation that will result in an arrest.

No one feels safe under these circumstances, and the tension is high.

Being unimportant and poor turns out to be a good thing, as my mother and I are left alone.

Damian is considered an essential laborer, so he is safe as well.

Casmir is well connected and untouchable in a different way.

This is a world where to be insignificant, necessary, or connected is the best way to survive.

W
ar gives you a sense of urgency about your life because there is so much death waiting for a chance. Maybe that's why it's possible to feel love in the midst of so much chaos.

One day Ferda and I are alone in the lunchroom, and she says to me, “Who do you think you are?”

“What do you mean, Ferda?” I ask innocently, even though I suspect she means my relationship with Casmir.

She says, “You're a peasant girl with no father and no money. Do you really think you're suitable for Mr. Kowalski?”

I say, “We have a very professional relationship but happen to enjoy each other's company.”

She says, “I never liked you, but I'm going to do you a favor and tell you a secret. Mr. Kowalski is engaged to a girl in Germany, and that's why he's always going there. His father knows the girl's family, and, unlike you, she's well educated and comes from a respectable German family.”

I feel sick.

I don't know where I had thought my relationship with Casmir would eventually lead, but this news shatters me. Casmir going to Germany to be with his fiancée? Were my gifts leftovers from what he had bought her?

He doesn't owe me anything and I know that, but I can't help feeling overwhelmed by this news. I keep my composure with Ferda and then excuse myself after lunch. I go to the bathroom and throw up what little I have managed to swallow. For the rest of the day, I try to focus on my work but am mindless in my motions.

I am lying in bed, hugging my pillow and crying, when my mother finds me.

She sits next to me and softly caresses my hair. “What's wrong, Helena?”

I shake my head. How do you tell your mother that if you weren't her daughter but that of some wealthy family, it would solve the problem? No, that isn't it. I feel sad and hollow and can't explain my feelings.

My mother doesn't press further. She just sits with me until I fall asleep.

Later that night, I tell her that Casmir is engaged to a girl in Germany.

She says, “How do you know?”

“Ferda told me,” I answer.

“Is Ferda your friend?”

She knows the answer to this question from what I have told her before, but she wants me to come to my own conclusion.

“Do you trust Casmir?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, and I do.

“Well then, why don't you ask him yourself and see what he says?” my mother suggests.

“I'm too embarrassed,” I say sheepishly.

“Do you want to know the truth?” She pursues this further. “I thought you told me that what you liked most about him was that you could talk about anything.”

She is right.

I need to speak to him.

•   •   •

C
ASMIR IS AWAY IN
G
ERMANY
and will be coming back later in the week. We had planned to have dinner at the restaurant that has become our regular place.

I decide that will be a good time to be up-front about the situation.

Right away when Casmir sees me, he knows something's off.

That happens when you're close to someone.

He waits until we're at the restaurant to ask me what is on my mind.

I choose my words and speak slowly. “Ferda tells me that you're engaged to a girl in Germany. It surprised me.” I can't look at him when I say this.

He has been watching me seriously, but then quite unexpectedly he changes his expression completely and lets out a chuckle. Quickly he adds, “I am not making light of this, Helena. It's just funny that Ferda knows that I'm engaged before I do. Is there a date for the wedding too?”

I look at his boyish grin and then burst out laughing. It feels like old times.

Casmir explains that his father wanted him to meet the daughter of a good friend of his, and so he did. But he had no intention of pursuing it further than that.

“She's not as pretty or as smart as you, Helena.” How does he know exactly what to say? Am I that transparent? Regardless, transparent or not, I am too happy to care.

•   •   •

T
HE NEXT DAY,
Ferda is fired.

I didn't know Casmir was that angry.

I
n J
une 1941, Hitler breaks his pact with Stalin and the Germans move to our side of the river. It seems like we have gone from bad to worse. The Nazis start persecuting the Jews just as the Russians did to the Poles, but they don't discriminate. They treat all Jews, rich and poor, equally badly.

We notice how the Germans start by denying Jews their ability to work and shop. It then moves to their loss of freedom, when all the Jews in town are imprisoned in the ghetto.

At random, Jews are selected to be executed, and this creates terror among their population.

I wish I could wipe out the images of children crying as they are pulled from their fathers' arms, of old men struggling as they are made to dance with shots fired at their feet, of soldiers laughing as they take what they want from stores without paying.

I don't want to see the cruelty of men, but it is impossible not to witness such brutal acts on a daily basis.

How can people do this to each other?

C
asmi
r is the light that brightens my world, which is becoming darker by the day.

If he is ever afraid, no one would know.

People gravitate to him, to his charm and his lightness, so rare in these times.

Casmir finds out that the local German commander is recently married and has a wife in Germany. Cleverly, he arranges for a car to pick her up and drive her to Sokal for a visit. Casmir's father owns the hotel in town. In her room, there are flowers, chocolates, and wine to make sure she is happy when she sees her husband.

The commander is elated to see his wife and ever so grateful to Casmir.

From there, it is effortless for Casmir to become good friends with the man who is the most feared in Sokal.

I
t has
been four years since I have been seeing Casmir, but it feels like I have known him all my life. He has a way of making me feel safe and happy—something I have never known before.

When I am with him, everything else fades away. The world is a good place, and there is no war to think about. There is nothing except the face of the man I love.

One day, we are at our regular restaurant and have just finished dinner when he says, “My father is ill, Helena. He needs me in Germany. I have to move back.”

Every part of my body is shouting, “No, don't go!” but I sit there in silence.

I start crying, and I hate that.

He says, “Come with me, Helena.”

He thinks that should make me stop crying, but now I really lose control.

I'm not pretty when I cry this hard, because my face gets all squished up. My nose is red and my eyes swell up, but I can't help any of it.

I want to go with him more than anything, but I can't.

I can't stop crying because there's so much to say and none of it can be said.

In our small house and shed, my mother and I are hiding two Jewish families!

She needs me to help buy the food, so it isn't obvious that we are feeding many people. I can't imagine leaving her with such a large responsibility.

At times I resent that she has hidden these families. There are nights when I wake up sweating with nightmares of German soldiers breaking down our door. I cannot be truthful with Casmir, and that is very hard.

Whenever I feel this way, I think of the day we heard it—unbelievable sounds from the ghetto where they were keeping all the Jews from Sokal. There were gunshots, screaming, and explosions.

It makes me shiver. I know why we had to do what we did, but that didn't make it any easier.

I dare not tell Casmir about my internal conflicts.

I say, “I love you more than anything, and I would go if I could.”

“I don't understand,” he says.

I say, “I can't leave my mother.”

He replies with relief. “Is that all? My father has a big apartment for me, and she can have her own room with us.”

Not workable
, I think, and I scramble to make something up. “She feels safe in that house and doesn't want to leave.”

The thing with a lie is that soon more become necessary to cover up the ones before it. And so I continue with, “After my brother is married, she will live with him.”

It's hard to think clearly when you're this upset, so I don't even know if anything I am saying makes sense.

In any case, Casmir is just as upset as I am, so he doesn't question it.

“When do you have to leave?” I ask.

“By the end of the month,” he replies.

“So soon?” It was the response that I would have had, no matter what the answer was.

He says, “I will come back to see you when I can.”

All of a sudden, the realization of what I've done hits me.

I feel myself panicking.

I want to say, “Take me with you, forget what I've just said,” but I know I can't. The thought of being away from him is unbearable and I start to sob uncontrollably.

What he says next catches me completely by surprise. ”Helena, let's get engaged.”

Did he plan on asking me all along, or is he reacting to the distraught girl in front of him?

“Really?” I say, my voice cracking as I try to suppress a sniffle.

“Really is not an answer,” he says.

Even now, he is the Casmir that makes everything better.

“What will your father say?” I ask timidly.

“It doesn't matter,” he says in a dismissive manner. “He's old and tired now. He won't make me repeat his mistake.”

“What mistake?” I ask.

Casmir says, “I never told you that my mother committed suicide, Helena.”

I am taken aback by this.

“When his wife found out about my mother, she threatened to divorce him if he kept seeing her.

“So he told my mother that he had to end the relationship. After she died, he never forgave himself. In a letter she left for him, she made him promise to take care of me and told him that she would always love him. It was then that I was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland.”

“Oh, Casmir,” I say, and now the tears are for him. “It must have been horrible for you.”

He says, “I didn't know how to think of my father for the longest time. He loved me but kept me distant from his family. He visited me at school, but I never went home on holidays like the other boys. Now that he thinks his time may be limited, he wants me near him. When I see him, all he wants to talk about is my mother. He tells me that she was the one who really loved him. My father doesn't care that his wife hears him when he says, ‘Not like this one. All she wants is the money.'”

Casmir tells me that his father wants him to have his business in Germany.

I didn't know that Casmir had suffered such loss as a child. He hid it well.

I need to make him understand even more than ever now.

I say, “Please wait for me, Casmir. I know how much your mother must have loved your father because that is how I feel about you.”

We leave the restaurant, and he walks me home with his arm over my shoulder. I love that feeling.

Casmir hires someone to replace him at work, but everyone knows that we are engaged so I am treated very well.

Sometimes I think of Ferda and what she would think of this.

Almost every day, I wish for the war to be over.

O
ne day,
my mother says, “Casmir is good friends with the German commander, right?”

I reply, “Yes, I told you this.”

She says, “Well, then, let's invite them both over for dinner before he leaves.”

I look at my mother as if she has lost her mind. I don't have to say that we have a Jewish family underneath the table where we are sitting and another one in the shed.

She says, “Wouldn't it be a great idea to let our neighbors think that we have friends in high places?”

I am educated, but my mother is smarter.

So I invite Casmir and his friend over for a home-cooked German dinner.

The neighbors look out their windows and doors as the black, polished car carrying the commander and two guards arrive at our house.

There will be lots of gossip tonight.

Our neighbors think that my mother is a
Volksdeutsche
, which is an ethnic German, and so she is regarded as someone of higher status. She isn't but acts as if she is.

We buy more food than we need, but who would know that some of that food is intended to feed the families we are hiding? We have sausages, sauerkraut, potatoes, cake, and beer. Casmir has slipped me extra money to make it a special meal.

Incredibly, everyone has a wonderful time, and I temporarily forget that we are putting our lives in harm's way.

Could these possibly be the same soldiers who were shooting the people in the ghetto? It seems unreal.

After that night and even with Casmir gone, we make dinner with the commander a regular event. My mother is a very good cook, and in the warmth of our small home, the war is far away for everyone who is tired of it.

We don't have many friends because it's too dangerous.

Seen to be friends with the Nazis, people with whom we would want to be friends don't want to be friends with us. And people who want to be our friends, we don't want.