My Mother's Secret (7 page)

O
ne day, we see Helena crying under her tree and don't know why.

Later, Franciszka tells us that her son was killed.

We know that Damian was responsible for helping to feed us and, although we only met him a few times, we were grateful to him.

There is so much sorrow everywhere.

Anelie and Bryda start crying, but even then we have to be careful not to be heard.

I promise myself that if we survive this, I will never forget what Franciszka and her family have sacrificed for us.

At the beginning of the war, no one believed that the Germans, a civilized people, would enforce mass executions of the Jewish people, as they have done. We thought that hiding with Franciszka would be temporary and short, but now it's been over a year.

We live each moment not knowing if it will be our last.

We live with constant fear, but we have to fight the boredom that is each day as well. Boredom can make you careless, and I stay alert not to let this happen.

•   •   •

T
HE SITUATION BECOMES
quite alarming when German soldiers park their tanks right outside the shed. Luckily, a smelly pigsty is not inviting for most people. It doesn't bother us because we have become accustomed to the smell and don't even notice it.

Franciszka purposely does not shovel out the waste from the pigs too often, knowing that German soldiers take great pride in their shiny boots and would not likely want to walk into a dirty pigsty. You never know, though, and seeing those uniforms so close is unnerving.

We are so terrified that we don't dare peek out of the curtain.

Walter cuddles up to me, and I know he is scared like the rest of us.

M
IKOLAJ

M
y father is a doctor and the head of the hospital. People bow when they see him.

He believes that because of his position and his importance in the community, he doesn't have to worry about being Jewish.

My father is a smart man, but he is wrong.

By the time he realizes this, it's too late for us to escape.

My mother is a beautiful woman who has lived a life of privilege all her thirty years.

Like everyone else, she defers to my father, who makes all the decisions. But, for the first time, my father does not know what to do. It hits him very hard.

My mother is about eight years younger than my father. She is the daughter of his professor, and my father met her when he, along with six other students, was invited over to their home for dinner.

I have heard this story from my mother a hundred times. I think that she likes to replay it in her mind.

My mother says, “Your father showed up and I thought he was the most handsome man that I had ever seen, but I was just a young girl and quite awkward in front of him.

“After dinner, my father asked me to play the piano and sing for our guests. I was quite nervous, but I sang a traditional Polish song that most people would know. I could see your father's face transform with delight as I sang. I didn't know, but it was one of his favorite songs and one that his mother sang to him as a child.

“After I finished singing, he stood up and enthusiastically started to clap. This is unusual for your father. You know how reserved he is, and it was funny because he found himself standing all alone for a few seconds before the rest of the guests realized what had happened and stood up as well.

“After that, your father always found a reason to come by the house. Maybe it was to clarify a point in class or for some feedback on a paper he was writing.

“Your grandfather finally asked if he would like to court me, and your father's answer was that he would like that very much.

“For the next year, your father came over every Sunday. We would go for walks in the park or he would listen to me play the piano. It was all very formal and always with a chaperone.

“When your father finally graduated at the top of his class and was offered a position at the hospital in Sokal, your grandfather gave his consent for him to marry me.

“He told your grandfather that he would always look after me.

“As you can see, Mikolaj, he keeps his promises.” My mother wants to point this out to me.

“I went from having servants to look after the cooking, cleaning, and shopping at home, to having different ones to do the same thing when I married your father.”

I know that my father dotes on my mother, bringing home beautiful dresses and jewelry for no particular reason.

She tells him that she loves everything he buys her because this makes him happy.

Secretly, she gives away some of her dresses. She says to me, “They're nice, but not all of them are really my taste.”

She knows I won't tell.

One day, my father sees a young woman in town wearing the exact same dress that he had just given to my mother. When he comes home that night, he says, “Felicia, it was the same dress that I bought you, but I know that it would have looked much better on you.”

He never asks my mother if it was her dress that the young woman was wearing.

That is just my father.

M
y father's re
putation grew and, with it, his position at the hospital. He felt that he next needed a family to be complete.

Five years after they were married, they anxiously received me into the world.

The best nurses were hired to be on hand weeks ahead.

My mother, at twenty-two, was considered old for being a first-time mother.

“The day you were born was the happiest day of my life,” my mother often tells me.

Because my mother is home all day, she tells me stories. That's my favorite, her stories.

Sometimes at night, when I can't fall asleep, she asks me to close my eyes and then magically transports me to faraway places with her words. There are pirates looking for treasure, princes rescuing damsels, and dragons to be tamed.

My mother is the most beautiful of all the mothers. When we have big dinner parties, it's clear that my father is very proud of her.

Like her father, my father asks her to play the piano for everyone, but never to sing. It was her singing that made him fall in love with her, and he feels that it is private.

I feel privileged that my mother sings to me all day, when we are on our own.

E
very night after dinne
r, my father reads us a passage from his medical journal. He wants my mother and me to be well informed.

One evening, he reads that eggs are good for the mental and physical development of children.

The very next day, my mother and I make a trip to the market looking for fresh eggs. We find this old woman, who brings them in from her little farm on the edge of town.

My mother thinks that Franciszka is sweet because she doesn't mind me playing with the eggs, which makes most of the other merchants upset. People don't realize that the path to my mother's heart passes through me.

So we buy a dozen eggs from her and put them in our basket to take home.

On the way, there is an argument in the market when two vendors are fighting over a space. The shouting becomes shoving, which becomes fighting. A crowd gathers, and it pushes us forward.

My mother and I are terrified, and, standing too close, she is pushed over when one of the men falls back. All the eggs go flying out of the basket, so that both of us are dripping and covered with broken eggshells as we rush home.

When my father hears what happened, he is furious.

“You never go to the market,” he says. “That is what we have servants for.”

But my mother likes Franciszka and has told her that she would buy eggs from her the following week.

Very cleverly, my mother asks our cook to find Franciszka at the market and to bring her to our house instead.

I think my mother liked having someone new to talk to, and, as hard as it is to explain, she made a connection with Franciszka.

•   •   •

O
N ONE OF HER VISITS,
we notice that Franciszka seems a little distracted.

My mother asks, “Is there something bothering you?”

She tells us that her daughter is very beautiful and smart but there are many candidates applying for the job she is interviewing for.

Franciszka says, “I worry that they won't hire her because her clothes are not fancy enough.”

My mother says, “Well, we can solve that problem,” and she disappears into her room and comes back with two dresses.

“Do you think these will fit her?”

Franciszka looks somewhat confused at my mother. “Yes, you're both slim, so they should fit her well. I just need to take up the hem a bit since you are taller than Helena, but that's easy to fix. It's just that . . .” She pauses. “It's just that I can't really afford to buy them from you.”

My mother responds with a giggle. ”Oh no, you can have them. I have so many that I could never wear them all anyway. Besides, this vanilla dress is particularly suited for someone working in an office. When would I ever wear that at home with Mikolaj?” she says, as she ruffles my hair.

And so it must have been Franciszka's daughter that my father saw that day.

Both my mother and I knew this.

We are excited when Franciszka tells us that her daughter, Helena, got the job.

A
fter the Germans come to Pola
nd, my father still works at the hospital but is demoted from chief.

One day, a German commander comes to the hospital with an appendix that has burst.

“He could have died,” my father tells us.

The commander needs an operation immediately and demands, “Who is your best surgeon?”

“That would be Dr. Wolenski” is the response. “But he is Jewish.”

The commander says, “Get him for me now!”

My father says, “I guess when your life is on the line, you can turn your head the other way, because the commander orders me to do the operation. He also instructs his guard to shoot me if he doesn't survive.”

My mother and I gasp, but then my father says, “Don't worry. As you can see, I am here to tell you the story, so there's a happy ending. I saved him.”

My father regularly checks on his patient, and a kind of uneasy friendship develops between them.

“It's hard not to have a high regard for your father,” my mother says, and I know what she means.

A short time after this, my father is told that he can no longer work at the hospital.

His dedication, his reputation, and his leadership—none of it mattered.

The commander is not as bad as we think because after he leaves the hospital, he comes to see my father at home. He tells us to sell whatever we can and to get out. He says that within months, all the Jews in Sokal will be rounded up and kept in an enclosed area that they are mapping out. “I cannot help you any more than this,” he says.

My father thanks him, and they shake hands before he leaves.

•   •   •

M
Y PARENTS START
to sell everything—our furniture, our paintings, our clothes, and even our house. My mother complains that people are paying us a fraction of what our things are worth, but my father says, “We don't have a choice and the buyers know it.”

I hear my father telling my mother that he has false passports, but no one will take the chance to transport us because he is too well recognized. “Maybe you and Mikolaj should go without me,” he says.

My mother is torn between my safety and leaving my father. In the end, she says, “We can't go without you, Helmut,” and that is the first time I see my father cry.

“If we can't leave, then we must hide,” my father says. He starts to approach the other doctors and nurses from the hospital.

I remember that we have many friends, from all the people who came to our parties.

My mother says to me privately, “It's not easy for your father to ask for help. He's used to other people asking him for help.”

As the days pass, my father looks more discouraged. Even though they are in the profession of saving lives, none of his colleagues are willing to provide us with refuge.

By now, I am not allowed to go to school anymore, and it's just the three of us at home.

All our help have left as well.

I always thought it would be wonderful not to have to go to school and to have both my parents at home with me, but this is not how I imagined it would be.

W
hy do people hate us so much,
Mama?” I ask.

My mother says, “Do you remember what you said when you were a little boy, and you tripped on the street?”

I shook my head because I couldn't remember.

“You had fallen and were embarrassed, so you said that an ant tripped you. Do you think that an ant could have tripped you?”

“No, of course not,” I answer.

“Well, to Hitler, we're the ant. He has many people believing that Jews are the cause of their troubles, but he hasn't fooled everyone. You know Franciszka is smarter than that, right? Well, there are others too.”

My mother's words are comforting.