Lilac Girls

  I took a step back. “She’s staying? Here? We knew nothing of this.”

  Mother went to the stretcher. “Anise asked if we could help this Polish friend of hers,” she said to me. “She’s unconscious, Anise?”

  Anise laid her hand on the woman’s blanketed leg. “Heavily sedated. Just flew her from Warsaw.”

  “She needs a hospital, Mme Vinay,” I said.

  “Her name is Janina Grabowski. I knew her at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Operated on by Nazi doctors.” Anise felt the woman’s forehead. “We need to handle this privately. She was brought out of Poland, well…without the knowledge of the authorities.”

  We were to take in a sick Polish fugitive?

  “Could she get no help in Warsaw?”

  “Most of Warsaw has been reduced to rubble, Miss Ferriday. Their healthcare system is a mess. Antibiotics in short supply.” Anise threw back the blanket to show us the woman’s leg. Under the gauze, an angry infection raged.

  “Take her to my room right away,” Mother said. “I’ll cut some fresh bandages.” At last, Mother could relive the nursing days of the Woolseys on the Civil War battlefield. “We’ll call our personal doctor for her.”

  I held one hand to the stretcher. “Wait. I listened to the trial on the BBC. The Germans are supposed to be providing reparations—”

  “None, Miss Ferriday. Germany decided they do not recognize Communist Poland as a country. They consider it part of Russia.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Janina is a charming person who once gave me the medicine she could have used to save herself, allowing me to stand here now. She has suffered more this morning than you will in your lifetime and could quite possibly be dying as we speak.”

  I waved the men along. “We are happy to have her,” I said.

  “Good. Thank you, Mademoiselle.”

  I walked to the window. “Put her in my bed. First door on the left.”

  The men carried the stretcher down the hall to my bedroom and Mother followed. As they passed, I saw that blood from Janina’s leg had seeped through the blanket. What had we gotten ourselves into?

  “We are at your service, Mme Vinay,” I said.

  Anise walked to the door. “Your mother told me you’d help.” She turned and almost smiled. “That’s good. Because there are sixty-two more where she came from.”

  1957

  I picked Halina up from daycare one night after my last nursing shift. The facility was housed in one of many government-controlled childcare centers. In Lublin at the time, any child with two working parents was assigned to a childcare facility where school-aged children spent their days learning basic math, reading, and Communist Party rhetoric. I walked toward ours, which was situated in a drab former housing complex requisitioned by the Party, a beige, humorless place that smelled of cooked potatoes and cabbage, a smell I still could not tolerate twelve years after Ravensbrück. At least the government paid for it.

  As I waited for the class to be released, I leaned against the wall to take the pressure off my bad leg and considered my new bracelet, the result of a plan Father Skala and I had worked out. Father, Papa’s dear friend, was our former parish priest, now retired. At Zuzanna’s urging, I approached him for advice about my being overwhelmed as a mother. With trying to juggle work, caring for a young daughter, and being a wife, I was often worn to a frazzle and lost my temper more and more. Father Skala suggested that, in addition to prayer, I might also wear a rubber band on my wrist and snap it every time I felt my temper getting the better of me. I wore the dull red band on my wrist and did a good deal of band-snapping each day. By week’s end, my wrist was raw from snaps.

  “No running,” Comrade Jinda, Halina’s unit leader, called out as the children made their way to their parents.

  It was easy to spot my daughter in the crowd. She had Matka’s golden hair and was a hand taller than most of the other children. At ten years old, Halina was a year behind the children her age, for she had been held back for not knowing her multiplication tables. How lovely it was to see her—my reward, the prize God had given me for all I’d been through. The children walked up to meet their parents and exchanged the accepted greeting. Halina shook my hand and gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. She had a lovely scent all her own, of soap and fresh air, even after being in that dreary place.

  “Good evening, Matka,” Halina said.

  Comrade Jinda noted with a smile that all children were accounted for and turned to assemble the next group.

  “A real kiss for your mummy, Halina?” I said.

  She reached her small hand to mine. “You know it’s not allowed.”

  We headed for the door. What a serious little thing she’d become!

  “So how is the most wonderful daughter today?”

  “Not more wonderful than any other,” Halina said.

  “Was rest time better today?” At daycare, the children were taught to eat and rest and even use the toilet on cue.

  “I just pretended to rest,” Halina said

  By the 1950s, the Polish United Worker’s Party, or PZPR, Moscow’s thinly disguised Polish proxy, was in complete control. Though Stalin was dead by then, his policies lived on. He had promised the Allies at Yalta that he would provide free elections in Eastern European countries and allow them to operate as democracies, but instead installed a Communist Party government in each country, Poland being no exception. We ended up with rigged elections, no independent political parties, and no criticism of the Party allowed. All policy was based on the collective needs of the people. I was reassigned to be a trauma nurse at the new state hospital and Pietrik to factory work just outside Lublin, where he was bused daily.

  “I’ll talk to your teacher,” I said. “She must make sure you are getting a good sleep.” With morning drop-off at 5:00 A.M. and pickup at 7:00 P.M., a child needed a rest during the day.

  “No, Matka. I’m not a baby. Besides, Comrade Jinda would just put me at the end of the lunch line again if you complain. Plus, it’s fine. It let me think about what I would paint this weekend.”

  My leg burned as I hurried her past a breadline.

  “We have no paints, Halina.”

  “We have your mother’s brushes.”

  “How was math class?”

  “Comrade Jinda made flash cards. I may be in baby math until I am as old as you. I hate times tables.”

  “I use math every day as a nurse.”

  “Marthe said she would buy me paints for my name day.”

  “When is the placement examination?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Halina said. She picked up a stick from the road and dragged it, drawing lines in the dirt along the side of the road.

  “Did Comrade Jinda let you be on the blue team?”

  “Yes,” Halina said.

  “Without any trouble?”

  “Yes. Once I told her there was no proof Jesus rose from the dead, she let me do anything I wanted.”

  I stopped short, sending a ripple of pain up my calf.

  “Who told you that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug.

  I tucked that shocking bit away to discuss with Comrade Jinda. Religion was supposed to be off-limits at school. It was bad enough we had to sneak around to go to mass. Every trip to church meant a black mark on one’s record, and there were people paid by the authorities to note such things.

  The childcare facility was a twenty-minute walk from our apartment. My leg ached from standing most of the day caring for patients, but I was luckier than most, since I lived within walking distance of childcare. Many of the other nurses were assigned to housing outside the city and only visited their children on weekends.

  We were also lucky that Papa, somehow still working in his postal center job, managed to keep us all in our apartment. Pietrik, Halina, and I lived in my old bedroom; Zuzanna slept in her old closet room which only fit her bed; and though I tried not to think about i
t, Papa and Marthe slept in the room he and Matka once shared.

  The smell of buttery pastry met us at the door. Marthe had been baking Halina’s favorite kolaczki again.

  Halina ran to Marthe. “Babcia!”

  “My little ciastko,” Marthe said as she turned from the stove and gathered Halina in her arms.

  “Did you buy me paints?” Halina asked.

  “Halina,” I said. “That’s not polite.”

  “It’s fine,” Marthe said, sitting Halina at the table with a plate of apricot kolaczki. “She is just a girl.”

  “She knows better,” I said.

  I walked down the short hallway to my room, feeling as if a hot poker were stabbing my calf with every step. My old bed was pushed to one side, and a small bed for Halina stood along the other wall, the bed I shared with her most nights. When had Pietrik and I started sleeping separately? Pietrik sat reading a book, still in his gray coveralls from the factory. He’d been assigned to the Lubgal Ladies Garment Factory in the new suburb of Helenów on the edge of the city. It had its own training school and on-site residences for which we’d put our name on the waiting list.

  It may sound strange, but I loved those coveralls. They fit him well in all the right places—his broad shoulders and long legs.

  “What are you reading?” I asked. My leg ached, and I wanted more than anything to stretch out on the bed.

  Pietrik did not answer. His book wore a brown paper cover, but it was Doctor Zhivago, one of many books on the banned list. His friend Aleksander had been sent away for reading Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience,” so Pietrik was smart about where he read.

  I tossed my bag onto the bed. “How was work?”

  “They took Symbanski today. Right from his bench. Didn’t make quota. He gave them a bottle of vodka, but they still took him.”

  “We need to make the best of it—”

  “We need a third world war.”

  I stepped out of my uniform so that I was only wearing my slip, the one he’d once said made me look like Myrna Loy. “Halina needs to study for the math exam. Can you help?”

  Pietrik kept his gaze on his book. “Does it matter how she places? She will end up on the assembly line next to me.”

  “If she can get on the medical track—”

  “Let her be.” Pietrik dog-eared a page. “And stop badgering her teacher.”

  The room closed in on me. I snapped my rubber band. It smarted the inside of my wrist, but it did little to stop my mounting temper.

  “I don’t badger anyone,” I said.

  “They’ll have you on some list before you know it. Your father won’t be able to get you off it no matter how cozy he is with the Kremlin.”

  I reached for Pietrik’s arm. “You understand—I need some say in my child’s life. Let’s find time to talk about it, alone—”

  “Keep your voice down, Kasia.” Pietrik tossed his book on the bed and walked to the door. “Marthe knows enough of our business.”

  He left and shut the door behind him. He enjoyed his little rebellions. The rubber band wasn’t helping me, so I filled my lungs with air to combat the anger.

  Once I heard Zuzanna return from work, I hurried to change. I came out from my bedroom to see her kiss the top of Halina’s head and steal some kolaczki from her plate.

  “Did you eat today?” I asked Zuzanna.

  “Some greet their sisters with hello,” she said with a crooked smile. She had a dark smudge beneath each eye.

  “How was the hospital?” Marthe asked.

  “Good,” said Zuzanna. “We may be getting ten new beds.”

  “That’s a good thing?” I asked.

  “More work for the same pay,” Pietrik said.

  I noticed the tin box of paints near Halina’s plate. A fancy British brand.

  “Where did the paints come from?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. Certainly not from a store. There were no more private shopkeepers at that point, and government shops did not sell foreign brands. These were black market paints.

  “A friend got them for me,” Marthe said. “An early name day gift—”

  “I told her no paints,” I said.

  “Let it go,” Pietrik said under his breath.

  I closed my eyes and took a lungful of air. “Give me the paints, Halina.”

  “Kasia,” said Zuzanna, her hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off. That was when I noticed the brush, the sable-hair tip of it under Halina’s plate. Matka’s Kolinsky watercolor brush, the gleam of its nickel throat in the shadow of the plate.

  “Where did you get that?” I said, short of breath.

  “Marthe gave it to me,” Halina said.

  Marthe stepped toward me. “She has such a talent—”

  “Give me the brush, Halina,” I said, my arm outstretched, palm up.

  Halina curled her hand around the paints and brush and put them in her lap.

  “Give them to me,” I said, stepping closer.

  “Let it go,” said Pietrik.

  The blood rushed in my ears, heart thumping against my chest. Halina stood and ran to Marthe, paints and paintbrush in hand.

  “Give them to me,” I said, following.

  “It is my fault,” Marthe said, one arm around my daughter.

  I grabbed for the paintbrush.

  “No,” Halina said, pulling back.

  “I am your mother. You must listen to me. Not to Comrade Jinda. Not to Marthe. To me.”

  Halina stood her ground, clutching the paints and brush to her chest.

  “No,” Halina said.

  “She is—” Marthe began.

  “Stay out of this. Would you once allow me to speak to my own child?” I stretched out my arm. “Give me the paints, Halina.”

  “Never,” Halina said in a matter-of-fact way, looking me straight in the eye.

  It couldn’t have been my hand that placed the slap there, for it happened before I could even think about it, yet I slapped her hard across the face. As soon as my hand left her face, I wished I could take it back, but nothing could fix that.

  “Kasia,” Pietrik said, his tone not so much accusatory as—worse—disappointed.

  Halina did not even cry, just dropped the paintbrush and paints on the floor next to her. I picked up the black-lacquered brush and, one hand on either end, cracked it over the back of a kitchen chair, which resulted in a satisfying snap, leaving the two shattered ends like cat’s whiskers.

  I retreated to my bedroom, vibrating with shame, and stood in the tiny room looking at the bed Halina and I shared. Her stuffed bear sat upright against the pillow. I lay on the bed and held the bear to my own chest. It smelled of Halina. Of sweetness and honesty. What kind of a mother had I become?

  Before long the bedroom door opened, and Marthe stepped in. I sat up with a groan.

  Marthe shut the door. “I may be the last person you want to see, but no one else would come in.”

  “Please, Marthe…this isn’t—”

  “I’ve watched you for twelve years now, Kasia. I understand a lot more than you may think.”

  “I’m not feeling well. My leg—”

  “I understand that your mother favored you. That you lost her, and that is a terrible thing, but it’s time to move on. Time for some honesty.”

  “Honestly, you get in my way. I’m the only one who disciplines my daughter. You just cook and give her things.”

  “Your daughter needs love.”

  “Don’t lecture me. Of course I love her.”

  “You have to rise above all this and show her.” Marthe sat beside me on the bed. “And you can’t force Halina to be something she’s not.”

  “Nothing good comes of art.”

  “What happened to your mother was tragic, but let’s move on.”

  “I’d like to rest now.”

  “And your husband? He needs help, Kasia. It’s your life, but your mother would want Halina to be cherished. Your papa and I are going to stay with friends
tonight. Pietrik and Halina will take our room so you have some time to think. You have a choice. To wallow in the unfairness of it all or rise above it. Fix it. Let other people in.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don’t feel the heavy load of it all. You’re not even a mother.”

  Marthe stepped to the door. “And neither are you right now, dear girl.”

  She left, and for the first night in so long, I had a room to myself. A quiet space to think and work things out. I looked at my rubber band limp on my wrist. From now on, I would use my own resourcefulness and intuition.

  By the time I fell asleep, I had a plan. I would make things better. I would look for help, let other people in. Make sure I spent more time with Halina. Pietrik and I would find time to be alone together. I’d survived Ravensbrück. How could ordinary life be harder than that?

  1957–1958

  Mother and I traveled half the globe once we finally left Paris after the war. India and Italy. A cruise up the British coast to Scotland.

  The first thing I did when Mother and I landed back in New York for good was help organize that year’s April in Paris Ball. It was an elaborate fundraiser that supported any number of charities, French and American, including my new Ravensbrück Rabbits Committee. It had been over a decade since Anise Postel-Vinay had introduced me to the cause, and Mother and I had grown terribly attached, corresponding regularly with the Polish women. Wallis Simpson, formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, the American divorcée who’d married England’s former King Edward VIII, would be attending the ball, and I planned to ask for her support.

  The Waldorf ballroom had never looked better. The cavalcade of Hollywood glitterati and Washington VIPs went through endless rounds of how-do-you-dos, highballs in hand. But one woman was stealing the show. Man or woman, it made no difference—all eyes were on Marilyn Monroe.

  Betty and I were worker bees on a committee that turned the ballroom into a Manhattan matron’s idea of a French wonderland. A massive dance floor anchored the center of the room, flanked by long dining tables. We festooned tricolor bunting above the stage and helped drag an enormous golden statue of General Lafayette on horseback center stage, where he reared up out of a sea of white lilies. The decorating committee was well funded, for this was a group with assets to spare. Men wore tuxedoes and ladies wore red, white, or blue. Marilyn Monroe wore a midnight-blue sequin gown that did a marvelous job of showing off her own assets.