Alicia, p.15
Alicia, page 15
With my hair braided and bandanna I looked like a typical peasant girl, Polish or Ukrainian. I tried to imitate the free, swaying walk of the village girls and was able to do so because my feet had become callused enough to step freely on the hard earth. Each day I tried a new field, which seemed like a safe thing to do. I had to be careful approaching the farmers to ask for work; what if I addressed one in Ukrainian and he turned out to be Polish? He would certainly turn me away, and then I would have lost the chance to work and get a piece of bread for my mother. On the other hand, if I spoke Polish to a Ukrainian, something even worse could happen—the man might come after me with his shovel. So the first moment that I approached the farmers was always crucial. On my way across the field I always tried to swing close to other workers and listen to their conversation to find out which language to use. If I had no choice and had to approach the farmer directly, I mumbled my greeting and waited to find out in what language he would answer.
By now I had prepared a number of stories. The evil-stepmother story had not seemed to do well, so I modified it. I said that our family was so poor that I, being the oldest child, had been sent out to fend for myself. Another good story, but only with Poles, was that my village had been burned down by the Banderovcy, and I was one of a handful of survivors.
As I have said, this was a big area, and every day before going to find work I would explore it a little more. One day to the south, another to the east, another to the west—the fields stretched on and on. One morning I headed northwest looking for work, near Wujciechovka, crossing ground that was slightly uphill. There was no one around, only wheat fields. Suddenly I spied a puff of smoke; there had to be a house somewhere around. I headed toward the smoke, crawling low through the wheat. I came to the edge of the wheat and peeked beyond it.
In front of me was a small clearing in which stood a little house. Actually it was more like one of those hay and tool shacks. It was similar to the one I had hidden in, only larger; a room had been added. I couldn’t see any windows from where I stood; they were probably on the other side of the house. Next to the house was a small garden: I recognized onion and potato stalks pushing up through the soil. There was smoke trailing from the chimney but no other sign of life around the place. As I came closer, I could hear a familiar hum; it grew louder as I passed the side of the house and turned the corner. In front of the house, not twenty feet from the doorway, were five beehives, each with a little cloud of bees buzzing happily around. I had never seen man-made wooden beehives from close up before, but I was not frightened. I respected and appreciated bees, and hoped that if I did not disturb them, they would not sting me.
My attention had been so drawn to the beehives that I had let my guard down. Suddenly I jerked back to awareness and realized there was a body lying facedown on the ground between the house and the hives. I approached cautiously. There was a man on the ground. Was he dead? If he was dead, then why the smoke coming from the chimney? Was someone else in the house? I could not see anyone. I stepped carefully around the body and looked in the front door of the house. I called out, but there was no answer. I went back to the body. It was an old man dressed in an odd fashion. His shirt was of a military style, very aristocratic, yet the pants were typical peasant garb. He was barefooted. I reached out and touched the man’s hand. It was warm and soft, not cold like death. Very gently I rolled him over onto his back. I put my ear to his chest. He was breathing.
“Hey, mister,” I said in Polish, shaking him gently. “Wake up. Are you all right?”
The man opened his eyes, and was startled to find me leaning over him. He scowled darkly, his thick brows furrowing.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Does that matter?” I replied quickly. “It should only matter that I found you, and that you are not dead.”
He struggled to reach a sitting position but waved me off as I tried to help him. He put one hand on his head and the other on the ground to brace himself, resting for a moment in that position. He looked in a strange way like a sort of nobleman, with his white mustache sweeping upward, clipped in the fashion of the late emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph. His eyes were pale blue, a sharp contrast to his sun-reddened scalp and face. The Polish he spoke was that of an educated man.
“Who are you, anyway?” he said. “And what are you doing here?”
“I am an orphan looking for work. I saw the smoke and thought there might be a house up here.”
“Well, there is no work for you here.” He looked at me with an expression that was rapidly becoming one of amusement.
“Where are you from, then? Certainly not from here.”
I stiffened a little. “How do you know that?”
This man seemed to look right through me, and yet he appeared to offer no real threat, although I couldn’t be sure.
He nodded toward the hives. “Aren’t you afraid of the bees?”
“No,” I replied. “Why, should I be?”
“Everyone else is. You are the first visitor I have had in”—he tried to remember—“a very long time.”
“You seem friendly enough,” I said. His face suddenly lit up with a most beautiful smile, and he laughed.
I felt I was winning him over.
“You are a very smart girl. What is your name, miss.”
I curtsied and was about to say Alicia but changed my mind.
“Helka; I am called Helka,” I said, trying to sound convincing.
“And you are how old?”
“Thirteen.”
“I see. And you are not afraid of me?”
“What is so bad about you?”
He laughed again. “An old man with fits?”
“You have fits?” I was intrigued. “Is that why you were …”
“Yes, my dear, that’s the reason. I have fits. They come on without warning. I can’t predict them and I can’t prevent them.” He looked at me again, a long, searching look.
“Something tells me you are not a village girl.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The villagers are all afraid of me.”
“But why?”
“Ah, you see?” he said, shaking a finger at me cunningly. “If you were a village girl, you would know the answer. They say I am possessed by demons.”
I looked at him blankly. Was this some aspect of the Catholic religion I had missed? I knew they believed in saints and the devil, but did they think that demons inhabited this old man?
The old man watched my bewilderment with an amused smile.
“So,” he said. “Knowing what you now know, aren’t you even going to cross yourself?”
“Perhaps I had better.” I lifted my right hand and slowly made the sign of the cross, touching first my forehead with three fingers, then my heart, my left shoulder and the right. This was something I would have to remember to do, and do frequently, if I wanted to move among the village people. The old man had tripped me up. Now I understood; a village girl would have left the man lying in the dirt and hurried away as quickly as her legs could carry her. So he knew, at least, who I wasn’t, and he was still smiling. I decided not to run, not yet.
I straightened my shoulders and said, “Did you ever consider that maybe people don’t come to see you because you are not a very good host?”
At this the man laughed outright. If you can make someone laugh, I have always felt, you can win them over.
“Well,” he said, “I do seem to have forgotten my manners. May I offer you a cup of tea?”
“That would be very nice. Thank you very much.”
I followed the man into his house. The front door opened onto a small hall leading into a tiny kitchen. It was sparsely furnished, only a brick stove with an iron plate on top, a small table, and one chair. But it was amazingly clean. For an old man, he kept a very neat house. There was a door leading to a second room, where he kept his foodstuffs and the straw which he used for sleeping.
The old man put a pot of water on the stove.
“How about a slice of bread and some honey?” he offered.
“I would like that very much,” I replied. I couldn’t remember when I had last tasted honey. This man was so lucky to be able to have it all the time.
“So you own this land, then?” I asked.
“Oh, no. This land is owned by the Sobiesky family.”
I was sitting on his only chair and felt uncomfortable, but knowing how important it can be to be a good host, I just continued sitting while he stood. He continued to talk.
“Yes, they let me live here in exchange for the honey from the hives, and for not putting any curses on them.” He winked mischievously. “I don’t encourage them to think I’m possessed, but as long as they do already …” I smiled.
“And no one ever comes to visit you?” He shook his head.
I felt such compassion for this man, to be cast out this way because of ignorance and superstition.
“Do you ever leave your home?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, I take honey into the village now and then, and a few times during the year I beg a ride into our nearest city, Buczacz, for the market day.”
“Buczacz?”
“Yes, it’s down to the south of here and not too far. A nice place, really, if you like cities.”
I felt a wave of pain shoot through me at the mention of Buczacz. My hand holding the cup started to tremble, so I put it down quickly.
“I hate to leave,” I said. “But I really must be going. I have work to do.”
He bowed slightly, another indication that he wasn’t a peasant.
“And I must say I have greatly enjoyed your visit.” Somehow I managed to swallow the lump in my throat. How long had it been since I heard such kind words. I felt like crying. Stop it, Alicia! Stop it this minute, I said to myself.
“May I come back again and look in on you?” I asked, hoping he did not detect the tremor in my voice.
“And have some more honey?” I stiffened somewhat at this suggestion. He thought I valued him only for his honey. I had to admit that at least partly he was right. I valued not only the honey, but his kindness to me and, most of all, the privacy his home could offer. A place to hide.
I thanked him for the tea, bade him farewell, and started out of the house. As I turned the corner leading toward the path to the right of the house, I was struck by a wonderful sight. Directly ahead down the sloping hill was the village of Wujciechovka, about a kilometer away. When I had visited the farmer at night I couldn’t see very much of its beauty. But now I was so carried away with admiration of the village that I must have called out, because the old man was suddenly beside me.
“What a wonderful view of the village you have!”
For the rest of the day as I worked I could think of nothing but the old man and his house. At the end of the day it was difficult not to run straight to the field where my mother was hiding. But I had to start out in one direction until I could no longer see the field I worked in, then reverse my steps and dart across another field, through the ravine, across another field, and finally to my mother’s side.
Mother did not share my excited enthusiasm for adopting the old man, even though this might assure us a place to stay in the winter.
“Are you sure it is safe?”
“Are you sure he is not a Jew-hater?”
“Did he say anything at all about Jews?”
“Did he say anything at all about wanting company?”
“Are you sure?”
Suddenly, in the face of my mother’s fears, I came to doubt, as she did, the safety of the old man’s house.
In the meantime I was worried about Mama. The sores on her scalp were not healing, even though we made compresses of babka leaves for them, and even though she spent hours under the sun. Her hair, which she last cut in Kopechince, was beginning to grow back in. This was bad because her scalp needed to be exposed to the sun’s rays and we had no means of cutting it. The sour milk, pieces of bread, and an occasional boiled potato I brought her kept Mother from starving but not from going hungry, and they certainly did not give her the nutrients she needed to help heal her sores. Both of us, we knew, were suffering from malnutrition. But to be both alive and healthy was too much to ask for; for the time being we would be thankful to be living.
One day I was weeding yet another potato field, when I overheard the owner’s wife talking with someone.
“I don’t know what I am going to do,” this woman was saying. “With my husband, Jan, so ill, and the children too young to be of much help, I don’t know how I can keep up with all the work. If only I could find someone to help me.”
I felt sympathy for the poor woman, but at the same time my survival antenna was vibrating. I waited until the woman was standing alone and said, “Please forgive me for eavesdropping, but I heard about your poor husband. I would like to work for you and help you.”
“Really?” Her eyes showed both relief and doubt. “But what can you do?”
“Oh, I can do everything,” I said. “I am very experienced at farming. I can milk, tend horses, feed chickens, and help with children, and I only ask for my meals and a place to stay. Your barn would be fine for me. I also know a little about nursing; my mother taught me.”
She hesitated at first, then gave me directions. Her farm was almost ten kilometers away. When the workday was over, I hurried to the ravine to tell my mother. All thoughts of the old man and the bees faded in the face of this new opportunity—to work safely away from prying eyes and to have my mother hiding close by at all times.
Mama, too, was excited about the possibilities, and after eating we decided to start out right away for our new place.
We reached the woman’s house in not quite five hours despite my mother’s weakened health. We were motivated, to be sure. The night was the only time we could walk freely on the main road. But we had much to do: We had to find the farm, and find a hiding place for my mother, all before dawn.
We had no trouble finding the house. Mama stayed some distance away while I went ahead to learn the farm’s layout—and where the dogs were. Farmers almost always had dogs at their homes in the village. The house looked prosperous, with a sheet-metal roof, and some thirty meters behind it was a barn. I saw no dog, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one there.
As my eyes became used to the dark I looked around the barn. It was a nice barn, of a good size. A ladder was leading to the hayloft. This would be a wonderful place for my mother. Two cows were lying on the straw at one end, and a horse was tied to a pole at the other end. There was no sign that anyone was disturbed by my presence. I was very careful not to stumble over the buckets and various tools scattered around. I climbed up the ladder to see the hayloft. It was nearly full of hay and straw. Somehow I would have to arrange a way to handle the straw and hay so that the owner’s wife would never have a reason to go into the hayloft herself. Then my mother could hide there safely. For the time being, I decided not to tell the woman about my mother. It might confirm her suspicions about who I was. When I knew her a little better, I would tell her.
I settled my mother comfortably into the hay. For myself, I found straw downstairs in the barn, curled up, and dozed off. I was a very light sleeper, and if I knew in advance what time to get up, that was the time my eyes would open. I was also always quick to start at any sound. A footstep outside a door would bring me to full alert. I hadn’t been asleep for very long, when a noise awoke me. I saw a light and realized that the farmer’s wife had come in and was walking in my direction.
I called out. “Panie, Panie,” I said. “It is I, Helka, from the field. Don’t be afraid.”
She was understandably startled. “My God! How did you get here so fast?”
“I knew you needed help urgently, and I know how busy it must be for you, especially in the morning.
“I will do a lot of work; you will see,” I said in a pleading voice. I was so afraid she might have changed her mind and would send me away. With Mother in the hayloft, I would have had to wait until nightfall to get her away. Luckily she could hear our conversation. My thoughts were racing. Finally the woman spoke again.
“Well, now that you are here, let’s begin with the milking.”
Wiping her hands on her apron, she took two pails from the floor and handed one to me. I swallowed hard. I had never milked a cow before. I had been hoping to get a little experience before I had to milk in front of anyone.
She introduced the cows. “This is Sosia, our blondy,” she said, patting the back of the cow nearest her. “And that is Rosa. Her red and white color suits her. She is quite something, that cow,” she said, smiling. “Well, shall we begin?”
We washed our hands in a wooden keg filled with well water and wiped them on her apron.
I copied the woman’s every move, getting the stool and setting the pail in place. I watched her for a minute as she milked Sosia, while talking softly to the cow.
As I set up my stool, Rosa turned and looked at me warily, all the time chewing her cud. “There, Rosa,” I said softly. “There’s a nice cow. We are going to be quite good friends, you and me.” I reached down and felt along the udder for the teats. I was good at handling horses but not cows. I had watched others milk, but had never touched a cow’s udder myself. Rosa was quick to realize it, too, and she shifted her weight from side to side.
I pulled the stool closer, placed the pail between my knees, where I expected the milk would land, gently put my hands on Rosa’s front teats, and began to pull. I could hear the soft zsh, zsh as Sosia’s milk hit the bucket, but from Rosa came nothing. “Come on now, Rosa,” I coaxed. “Please?”
Somehow, miraculously, I felt milk begin to stream in spurts into the pail. I relaxed. This wasn’t too hard after all. As soon as the milk flow slackened from the front teats, I moved my hands to the back teats.
Swat! Suddenly I felt myself flying backward, my face wet and stinging. That devil cow, darling Rosa, had slapped me with her tail, which was muddy and matted with burrs. As I went over, I could see the pail flying right toward me, milk splashing everywhere. Rosa, not content to brush me off like a fly, kicked me as well. There I sat, my face hurting badly, as was my thigh where Rosa kicked me. The milk had all soaked into the straw with only a slight foam remaining. And there was Rosa, turning her head casually to see where I had landed. I began to laugh hysterically, pressing my hand to my painful cheek and casting a furtive lode in the direction of the woman. To my great relief, I realized that she was laughing too. Tears were actually streaming down her cheeks, she was laughing so hard.
