Lilac Girls

  I ran the washcloth across the bridge of the nose to uncover fresh pink skin, and…

  I froze, midwipe.

  “What is it, Kasia?” Karolina asked.

  My mind registered it all, but my body was stuck. I breathed deeply through my nose and grabbed the stretcher handle for support. It would not look good to have a nurse in training faint right there in the ward.

  1945

  It couldn’t possibly be him. Pietrik. How many times had my mind played such tricks? The tooth. I pulled his upper lip up with my thumb.

  “What are you doing, Kasia?” Karolina set her basin on the floor and walked over to me.

  My God, yes. The chipped tooth, just a little off the side. That gorgeous tooth. I sat for a few moments waiting for my body to catch up with my brain. Yes, it was he. I kissed him all over his face, dirt and everything. He stayed unconscious through it all.

  “Kasia,” Karolina said, eyes wide.

  I called to the other nurses, waving—I must have looked like a castaway on a desert island—unable to get the words out. The nurses ran over, and Karolina told them I was having a mental breakdown of some sort, kissing and crying over a Russian soldier.

  “It’s him, it’s him,” was all I could say.

  “Who, Kasia?” Karolina asked. “Who is it? Calm down, now.”

  “It’s Pietrik,” I said.

  “Your Pietrik? Are you sure?”

  I could only nod yes, and the girls hugged and kissed me.

  They helped me change Pietrik out of his dirty uniform and finish his bed bath. He remained unconscious, and I sat with him holding his hand, reveling in my good fortune. I asked the nurses to go and get Zuzanna while I stayed with Pietrik, afraid he would disappear.

  Through a translator, we learned the Russian man in the next cot had fought alongside Pietrik. Once the Russians liberated Majdanek concentration camp, the Red Army had pressed Pietrik into service. He said Pietrik had been at Majdanek since he’d been arrested and had worked with the rest of the slave laborers there to finish building the camp.

  Zuzanna and Papa helped me move Pietrik home to my bedroom that evening. He had lost much of his body fat, but Zuzanna examined him and said it was possible he would recover. She had seen a lot of head trauma. Many times, once the swelling subsided, the patient regained normal brain function.

  —

  IT WAS WEEKS BEFORE Pietrik opened his eyes and even longer before he spoke, but I was grateful for every small step. I carried a matchbox in which to place a piece of sausage or a bit of ham for him whenever I had a chance, and in time he grew stronger. Zuzanna and I celebrated his first words, “Turn up the radio, please,” with our own private party while Pietrik watched from his bed with the trace of a smile on his lips. He was like a bird I’d seen once knocked unconscious after flying headfirst into our kitchen window. He came to be himself slowly. And then suddenly one day he was up and walking again.

  We didn’t press for details of his years at Majdanek, and he didn’t volunteer them. We each carried our own bag of troubles.

  Once he could walk, Pietrik made up for lost time and was hired to be the caretaker for the glassworks factory, which the owner reopened. As his body filled out, he also took a job driving ambulances for the Lublin Ambulance Corps. But for all his physical improvements, it was as if Pietrik had a piece missing. The kissing piece mostly. He sank all effort into his work, avoiding any chance of romance with me. I devised excuses for this: He was too tired. Too sad. Too happy.

  —

  ONE MORNING I WOKE to the rumble of thunder, thinking I was back at Ravensbrück, the bombs thudding in the distance. I relaxed once I saw the drops on my bedroom window, though—once I remembered I was to ride alongside Pietrik in the ambulance that day. As a nurse in training, I got to sit up front with the driver. Since he avoided being alone with me then, barely even touched me, it was nice to be so close to him all morning with nothing but the stick shift between us. The rain would keep him in the ambulance cab, windows up, all to myself.

  I arranged myself there in the front seat of the ambulance, feeling smart in my white nurse-in-training uniform and cap. Maybe he would kiss me. Could I kiss him first? That was terribly forward of course, but what did I know about such things? I’d been locked away for some of my teen years, the time you learn the rituals of romance.

  Did Pietrik even still find me attractive? The white stockings we all wore did little to camouflage my bad leg. Every so often people would stop and stare, openmouthed, a “what happened to you” look on their faces. Did he find me grotesque? What if I told him what Luiza had said? That he loved me? But I could never betray her dying wish.

  “Such traffic,” he said, downshifting. “Where is everyone getting gas in this town? We’ll take the long way to the hospital.”

  Since he’d come home, Pietrik got impatient and angry at the smallest thing. Snarled traffic. A mispronounced word. A sprinkle of rain.

  “There’s no rush,” I said. “Just delivering stretchers.”

  The rain was coming down harder now, the windshield wipers fighting a losing battle. A gully washer, Matka would have called it. Matka.

  We turned down Nadia’s street.

  “We are going to drive by her house,” I said.

  “I know, Kasia. I can see.”

  “You never told me what ‘Zegota’ meant. On the envelope I picked up.”

  “The Council to Aid Jews. Nadia’s mother knew one of the founders.”

  “Where did you hide them?”

  “I’d rather not—”

  “You can’t avoid talking about it forever.”

  He downshifted and busied himself with driving, his gaze directed at the road.

  “They lived in different safe apartments,” he said eventually. “Until they weren’t safe anymore. Z’s basement for a time. Once we were arrested…”

  Traffic slowed as we drove closer to Nadia’s old apartment, the orange door shiny with rain.

  I saw it first: the black heap of wet fur on the doorstep.

  “Stop, Pietrik. It’s Felka.”

  “Again?” Pietrik said.

  He pulled the emergency brake, turned on the flashing lights atop the vehicle, and jumped out. I scrambled out too, as best I could from the high ambulance cab, and got to the top of the stairs. There was Felka curled on the doormat, drenched with rain, but looking only a bit sheepish.

  The new residents were the Riskas, a nice teacher and his wife, who had been bombed out in Warsaw. Mrs. Riska was a cousin of Mrs. Bakoski’s, and they’d moved to Lublin, lured by the new government’s offer of free housing. The government had to make this offer since many Polish people were wary of the new government and stayed away, worried that Poland might not end up as free and independent as Stalin claimed. Even with free houses offered, so many still stayed in London or other places, waiting to see.

  The Riskas were understanding about Felka showing up on their stoop so often and called us whenever they found her there. Papa tried everything to keep her home. Locked her in the house. Tied her up. But she still managed to escape. We all knew who she was waiting for.

  Cars started lining up, blocked behind the ambulance, as we tried to lure her back to the dry cab.

  “Come, girl,” said Pietrik, sweet as could be, but Felka wouldn’t budge. “You take her front. I’ll take the rear,” he said.

  We carried Felka back to the street. Once the drivers in the cars saw the ambulance was stopped for a canine and not a human needing care, the horns started honking.

  We managed to get her into the cab of the ambulance and lay her between us, and I wrapped a terry cloth towel around her. As Pietrik pulled away from the house, Felka shivered and shook, sending water flying about the cab and onto our faces. I brushed a smear of dirt off the front of my uniform. So much for the kiss.

  “Nadia could still be out there somewhere,” I said.

  “Dry behind Felka’s ears. She likes that.”

  I b
rushed the towel over the dog’s head and under her grizzled muzzle.

  “DPs are still coming home.”

  “Don’t call her a displaced person, Kasia. Tell the truth. She was murdered by the Nazis and is gone. Just like the rest.”

  “At least your mother gets a memorial service tomorrow.”

  “It’s not just hers, Kasia. It’s for two hundred people, and it’s going to be a circus. Please don’t go.”

  “Papa said there will be NKVD agents there.”

  “What will they do to me? Kill me? As long as it’s quick, I’ll welcome it.”

  “They are looking for AK members. Any high-ranking member of the underground—”

  “I was a Red Army soldier, Kasia—”

  “Against your will…”

  “So that gets me a pass for now.”

  “Papa said—”

  “Enough ‘Papa said,’ Kasia. Don’t you think for yourself anymore?”

  I rubbed Felka’s belly with the towel, and she turned over onto her back, legs in the air.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have done your couriering for you,” I said.

  “Don’t you think I live with that every day? Not only my sister, who was barely out of braces, but your mother, who was dear to me too, Kasia, dead. And what they did to you? And here I am, healthy and fine. What kind of a man am I? Sometimes I think, if I didn’t have you…”

  He turned and looked at me.

  “…I wouldn’t want to be here.”

  I searched his face. Had he really said that? He fixed his gaze back on the road, but I’d heard it. If I didn’t have you.

  I reached for his hand, resting on the seat.

  “Don’t say that, Pietrik. It’s a mortal sin, and—”

  He pulled his hand away.

  “Never mind,” he said, two hands back on the wheel. He drove on, lost in thought. “Forget I said it.”

  It was good to see a bit of Pietrik’s old self. But like the sun coming out on a cloudy day, it disappeared just as fast as it had emerged.

  —

  I DIDN’T HONOR PIETRIK’S request not to go to the memorial service at Lublin Castle. It was held to honor the lives of the forced laborers murdered there by the Nazis before they withdrew, including Pietrik’s mother. I had loved Mrs. Bakoski and needed to mourn with the others. All of Lublin would be there. And besides, I knew many of the families with mothers, sisters, and husbands who’d died that day. Everyone knew someone impacted by that mass murder.

  I started the day in the castle chapel, once Matka’s favorite place, kneeling high above the gathering crowds below. The chapel had become my special place to steal away to as well. To pray and talk with my mother and stay warm. The beautiful Byzantine frescoes had not yet been completely uncovered then, but I could see bits of them along the high ceilings between the Gothic arches. I prayed for my usual list: Papa. Zuzanna. Pietrik. For the souls of the dead and missing. Nadia. Matka.

  From the chapel window I considered the gathering crowd below, scattered down the grassy slope outside the great wall of the castle. People had come from all over Poland to pay respects. The church choir sang as people, old and young, clustered there in groups, jockeying for the choicest front spots with the best views of the service. Collections of black-frocked priests. A gaggle of Dominican nuns, their white headpieces like giant swans. Lublin families. Papa and Marthe in there somewhere. Zuzanna would be listening to it all from an open window at the hospital.

  I descended the spiral staircase slowly, for my bad leg and slippery stone stairs were a scary combination, and emerged out in the stone courtyard where we’d all once been rounded up to be transported to Ravensbrück. Had I been standing there with Matka, Luiza, and Zuzanna just five years before?

  I made my way down the grassy slope and pushed through the crowd. Though it had been a warm fall, it was cold that day. People in the crowd carried bouquets. Mostly globeflowers, scarlet corn poppies, and other wildflowers. I held some fall daisies I’d found growing in an empty lot. I’d wrapped them in a wet dishrag, and the cold water burned my hand even through the glove I wore.

  I blew on my free hand as I scanned the crowd for Pietrik. What I wouldn’t give for two gloves! I had split a pair with Zuzanna after a dying woman had gifted it to her at the hospital. I had the right one; Zuzanna the left.

  It was hard to imagine more than three hundred people buried there under that slope in the shadow of the great fortress. Family members stood along the base of the castle grounds where townspeople had hastily buried the murdered in that mass grave. Someone had pounded a great wooden cross into the heart of the hill, and six priests stood below it.

  The priests blessed the grave site, and I made my way through the crowd looking for Pietrik. Would he be angry I came? Should I just give up on him? A girl could only take so much rejection.

  I approached a group of nuns clustered at one end, prayer candles and cards in their hands, a few of them with wreaths draped over their arms. I spotted Pietrik off to the side of them. He stood alone, back straight, hands deep in his glassworks canvas coat pockets, eyes on the service. He was near the edge of a great pile of flowers that mourners had assembled there, a growing mound of reds and pinks and yellows. I inched down the slope to him, pain stabbing my leg with each step.

  I shimmied through the group of nuns, lingering briefly in their warmth, swishing through the sea of black habits, rosary beads long at their waists. I emerged and walked toward Pietrik. If he saw me approach, he gave no sign of it. As I drew closer, I saw his face was splotched red about the eyes. I made my way to him and stood nearby. I fisted my naked hand and blew hot breath on it.

  Pietrik turned to look at me, his eyelashes spiky with tears. I stepped to the mound of flowers and set my daisies atop it, then turned and walked back to him.

  Should I stay? I’d left my flowers, had done what I’d come to do, paid my respects. He’d asked me not to come, after all.

  Receiving no gesture from Pietrik, I turned to go and just then felt his hand on my arm. I almost could not believe it as I watched his fingers make their way around my wrist. He pulled me to him to stand by his side.

  “Proud” is a word that is too commonly used, but that is how I felt there that day, listening to the choir sing to heaven. Such pride that Pietrik wanted me to share it all with him. The good and the bad.

  He reached for my bare hand and held it, his warm fingers around mine, brought it to his lips to kiss, and tucked it in his pocket, the flannel warm inside.

  1946

  The army arrived from all directions. Not since Hitler’s blitzkrieg had there been such an organized onslaught. In flowered dresses and sensible shoes, they came, hauling pots and dishes, some still steaming, fresh from the oven. General Marthe coordinated the effort at the postal center, resulting in enough pierogies and beet soup and hunter’s stew to feed six wedding parties.

  You think a postal center an odd place for a wedding party? Maybe, but it served well for our purposes. It is a big, open space with a high ceiling, and you can kill two pheasants with one stone there: pick up your mail and dance with the bride. Not that the bride could dance, but guests pinned money to my dress anyway. I wore a pale pink dress, not my choice, for Marthe had surprised me with a product of her own sewing machine. I’d wanted white, but it was impossible to turn down this dress, for I was trying to be civil, for Papa. I just wanted it all to be over so I could be alone with Pietrik.

  It had been a difficult morning for two reasons. One was that the Riskas had phoned to say Felka had died the day before. They’d found her on their front stoop one last time. We buried Felka in our back garden. Zuzanna and Papa came by and watched as Pietrik dug his spade into the earth, and I wrapped Felka in Nadia’s blanket I’d brought her home in so many years ago. We all cried saying goodbye to our old girl, Papa harder than any of us.

  I couldn’t help think that Felka had been a loyal friend to Nadia, waiting for her till the end, unlike me, who’d moved
on with my life, planning my wedding with barely a thought that Nadia would not be there. Some friend I was.

  The other difficult thing on my wedding morning was the blessing by the mother of the bride. So important is this blessing at a Polish wedding that if the bride’s mother is deceased the wedding party walks to the cemetery to visit her grave before going to the church. Of course we could not visit the lake at Ravensbrück, where Matka’s ashes had probably gone. Marthe had prepared a long blessing, but I chose Zuzanna to give the blessing instead, causing the heat to rise in Marthe’s face. Resigned as I was to making amends with Marthe, it was not always easy. Zuzanna came first in my life and always would.

  The ceremony at the church was brief. Though free elections had still not taken place and the Stalinist authorities were not in official control, Moscow’s Polish Workers’ Party was becoming more entrenched by the day. They discouraged anything that distracted workers from the collective needs of the people, including church weddings. They considered them gaudy spectacles, so people were wary of being seen at them. As a result, only three of my nurse friends braved the ceremony, though it could have cost them their jobs. The few friends Pietrik had left from the underground were still hiding out in the forest. We all were careful, since just putting flowers on a former AK member’s grave was cause for arrest.

  Guests were not shy about celebrating at the postal center, though, for it was somewhat private there. As soon as I arrived, guests surrounded me and pinned paper money to my dress, my favorite tradition of all. Where had Marthe and her friends gotten such food? Cold cuts, sausages, salads. Tree cake and delicate pastry angel wings! Maybe the food came from na lewo. The black market.

  “Come. It’s time for oczepiny,” Marthe said.

  Oczepiny is the ritual of taking off the bride’s veil and replacing it with a cap to show she is officially married. First the single women surround the bride and take her veil; then the married ones circle the bride and pin the cap.

  Marthe clapped her hands above her head, and the single girls came around. “Zuzanna, remove the veil.”