If You Are There Page 2

  The boy was still talking to her, although she hadn’t been listening to a word. He had put a dirty teapot and teacup in front of her, along with a plate with a half-eaten pastry. “Don’t look at anybody,” he said in a whisper. He kept his eye on a waiter across the way, who was serving borscht to a Russian couple.

  When she realized he was trying to help her, she gave him a grateful smile and thanked him. He looked a little like her cousin Czeslaw, the one who was always trying to kiss her, surely a sign from Saint Christopher that the saint was protecting her.

  Then she remembered.

  She had left everything on the bench: the book, the broken thunder candle, her precious bundles—all her things, including her money and her ticket.

  On the last school day before Christmas, Lucia walked alone looking for signs from God. Lucia often looked for signs from God. Babusia had taught her it was just a matter of keeping your eyes open and your mind alert. Babusia always said that his signs were everywhere, and in this way he made his presence known.

  On this particular morning she watched a rook linger over a smashed winter squash in the roadway. She wouldn’t have taken this as a sign. Babusia taught her to be particular and not think every ray of sunshine filtering through the trees was the word of God. But this rook cocked his head and leveled his yellow eye so it looked directly into hers. It was as if he were saying: Listen to me. I have a message for you.

  She was late that morning because she had stayed with Babusia in Praga. She was just coming over the bridge when she passed an old woman standing beside a fire burning in a rusty drum. A grate over the opening held a layer of roasting nuts, which the old lady stirred from time to time so they wouldn’t burn. “Kasztany, gorące kasztany . . .” the crone called out in a reedy voice. She didn’t put much into her call—some of the other peddlers were full throated and sounded like opera singers—but then she didn’t have to. The smell alone was her best advertisement.

  “Kasztany,” she called out to the crowd, holding out a steamy paper cone of nuts. Behind her the Vistula River flowed under a thick layer of blue-green ice. Along the western bank stood the slums of Dobra Street where rows of shacks seemed to be dissolving back into the snow-covered embankment.

  “Hey, little swallow. You want to buy?”

  And there it was. Another sign. Little swallow. She could have called Lucia a hundred endearments: little frog, sunshine, kitty, but instead she called her mała jaskółka. It fit with the rook. Maybe God was trying to tell her something about birds.

  Later that day, just before school let out, Mademoiselle clapped her hands to get their attention. “Lucyna Rutkowska! Come up to my desk this instant.” Mademoiselle was the only one in the world who called her Lucyna. Lucia rose with anticipation, flushing with pride even though she knew pride was a sin.

  The class had been meeting for the last several months in the back room of Pani corset maker Alicja Jaworska’s. She took the risk because her daughter went to the school. So far no one had given them away, and they had set up quite a nice place among the bolts of fabric, shelves of whalebone, and sewing supplies. They hardly noticed the clatter of the sewing machines up front or the little bell that announced the arrival of a customer.

  After Mademoiselle presented Lucia with a dictionary, cookies were passed around along with glasses of milk. Of course the Polish children had to give their milk to the Jewish children on account of Advent, but nobody held that against Mademoiselle; she was a Jew and didn’t know about the rules of Advent. In fact that’s how Lucia got her final sign. For along with the usual Christmas cookies there were also butter cookies with blue icing in the shape of bluebirds. Bluebird, now who could ignore that sign? Everyone knew it was the bird of happiness and prosperity. Sitting in the back of the corset shop, biting the head off her first bluebird, she saw with surprising clarity that something was about to take flight.

  On the way home Lucia held her dictionary under her coat so it wouldn’t get wet and told Ania about the signs from God. It had just begun to snow, careless feathers floating out of a dull sky. Already she could hear the ligawke blowing from the different quarters of the city—the great wooden horns announcing evening Mass during Advent.

  “Maybe it wasn’t about flying away,” Ania remarked as she pulled up the strap of her satchel. “Maybe he was trying to tell you that Mademoiselle was about to give you the dictionary and that you should celebrate tonight by cooking a bird.”

  Ania’s mind worked in peculiar ways. Her mother was odd too, in her own way. It was a known fact that she didn’t like to wear shoes, even though she owned a perfectly good pair. She preferred to go barefoot, even around horses, even in cold weather, but not in the snow, of course. She was peculiar, not insane.

  Even though Ania’s idea was a little absurd, it did get Lucia thinking. By the time she got home, she had all but decided to buy a duck for supper. It would be an extravagance, but she would tell Tata she had saved for it out of the food money. That was a lie of course, and she would have to go to confession, but it might be worth it, considering they all loved duck.

  Lucia cooked all the meals in the house because Tata and Irina both worked in the mill. Since Irina rarely left enough to feed the six of them, Lucia was in the habit of taking a grosz or two from the tobacco tin hidden under the floorboards. She took only what she needed and replaced it the next day. Babusia always gave it to her, despite the fact that she didn’t have much, only her husband’s pension and a bit in savings. Still she didn’t want to see her grandchildren go hungry, even though Babusia wasn’t allowed to come to their rooms anymore, not even on feast days, not since Irina had come to live with them.

  Lucia knew that their flat was the best in the building, not because it was finer than the others, but because it was on the first floor right behind the tap. Everyone else had to haul their water up the stairs. They had two bedrooms instead of the usual one and their front room was a little larger than the others, but it was still just as threadbare.

  When Lucia got home, she found the kitchen nearly as cold as the courtyard outside. The porridge still sat in the pot left over from breakfast, only now it was covered with a thin crust of ice. Lacy ice patterns clung to the inside of the windows, and the washrag that hung on a hook next to the sink was stiff with frost.

  “Emila!” She cried out for her younger sister, who took care of the baby. “You let the fire go.” The baby was Irina’s, their half brother, although they loved him all the same.

  Lucia stood at the window in the front room looking for her sister in the courtyard. It wasn’t as if the girl had so much to do that she couldn’t find time to clean the house and keep the fire going. She would say she was only eleven and did the best she could. Lucia would say by eleven Bede was already at the mill, so she had no excuse. Bede was their brother, their whole brother. He was a roving boy and had to carry heavy cans from the carding room to the drawing room. It was hard work for any man, and Bede was only thirteen. But at least it was a safe job. Pani Kowalska’s son got his fingers chopped off in the lapping house feeding cotton into the hopper of one of those big open feeders.

  Emila was nowhere to be seen among the children playing hoops along the black-and-white fence that fronted their courtyard. Across the road was a chocolate-colored house with a sagging porch that had come off its supports. Up the lane were other houses: yellow, green, and orange shacks with peeling paint, broken windows stuffed with newspapers, and mossy roofs half buried under snow.

  Since Emila wasn’t home, Lucia took the opportunity to help herself to a little more from the tin. She took the money down to the market square, which was nearly empty this late in the afternoon. The sellers were packing up their crates, hurrying to bury their vegetables in straw before it began to snow again. She walked down an aisle littered with cabbage leaves until she came to the poultry stall. She kept an eye on the poultry man as she examined the ducks hanging on hooks, limp and lifeless. She waited until he was busy with anothe
r customer before calling his boy over. The boy had been waiting for her, had been watching her. She knew this about him, which is why she always dealt with him and not his father. It wasn’t only because he gave her a better price. She liked him. He was different from the other boys: shy, searching, and greedy. Her eyes settled on him and she gave him a half smile that he could have taken any number of ways. It was the kind of inviting look she imagined the poor but deserving governesses gave to the handsome noblemen in the illustrated weeklies.

  It was dark by the time she got home and still she had to pluck the bird out in the courtyard. She sat on a crate struggling to see by the stray light coming from the nearby windows. She pulled out a handful of feathers and let the wind carry them off to the corners of the yard. She had to work fast to keep her fingers from freezing. Snow drifted out of a black sky and mixed with the feathers until it was impossible to tell them apart.

  That evening Bede bounded in first, wearing a long mill apron and two coats to keep warm. His hair fell in a greasy thicket about his face and his hands were red and chapped. He took after Tata with his long, thoughtful face and deep-set black eyes. His arms had been sticks a year ago and now they were thick and ropy from hauling the cans around all day. “What is that smell?” he asked in wonder.

  “We’re celebrating,” Emila said, without looking up. She was on the floor changing Lucjan. The baby was on a blanket staring up at a ceiling mottled with mold. He had just been given his supper and now he was sleepy and relaxed. “She won a dictionary at school. And she got a cookie too, in the shape of a bluebird.” Lately Emila had been asking to go to school. No one took her seriously, however, since she was needed at home and an education was a waste anyway, especially for girls. The only reason Lucia got to go was because Babusia paid for it.

  Bede ran a finger along the greasy wall of the pan and licked it. “We’re eating duck for that? For a dictionary?”

  Just then they heard Tata and Irina in the courtyard and a moment later their wooden clogs on the stairs. When their father pushed open the door he was still wearing his long apron and work pants and came inside without bothering to take off his visor cap, which was lightly dusted with snow. He muttered something about the smell and clomped over to the stove to take a look. His clogs were so loud on the wooden planks that they woke up Lucjan, who wailed in protest. Tata ignored his crying son because he could. He was the man, the head of the household, the głowa rodziny, and he didn’t need to concern himself with a crying baby.

  Irina slipped off her shawl at the door and stepped out of her muddy clogs. She picked up the baby and ambled over to the stove. “Is that a duck?”

  Lucia didn’t respond at first. Instead she poured the boiled potatoes into the colander to let them drain. There were a few green ones, but no one would mind. “I saved for it,” she said. Lucia liked to think of herself as an honest person, one who didn’t lie easily and always went to confession afterward. But God must realize that lying to Irina hardly counted.

  Irina stood in the kitchen and followed Lucia with her eyes, back and forth from stove to table. Lucia could see that Irina’s mind was working and that could prove troublesome. Finally she said: “You didn’t save for it, did you? The old woman gave it to you.” She always called Babusia the old woman.

  Lucia dismissed the idea with annoyance. “I told you, I bought it with the food money.”

  “What food money?” Irina asked, her eyes narrowing in disbelief. Her lips brushed the top of Lucjan’s head as she absently gave him several kisses.

  When Tata married Irina and brought her home to live, he told his children that she would be like a mother to them. She was only a few years older than Lucia and certainly no mother to her, although she had been a friend once when she first arrived. In those days she braided Lucia’s hair and helped her with the sewing. Sometimes they would go to the market and Irina would buy her a sweet or a ribbon. She taught Lucia how to fix her hair so she looked older.

  Then when Lucjan was born everything changed. Now, sometimes late at night, Lucia could hear Irina talking to Tata in their room. She would often complain that she wanted to stay home and be a proper mother to Lucjan. She would say that she didn’t want to go to the mill anymore, that it was time for Lucia to take her place.

  “If you do not want to eat it, then don’t eat it,” Lucia said testily. “No one is forcing you.”

  Everyone was used to their sparring. At best their exchanges were short and prickly. Tata usually abdicated his role as referee, choosing to ignore the tension in the room. If forced to take a side, he always took his wife’s, still believing, or at least wanting to believe, that she deserved respect and obedience.

  Tata tore off a piece of bread and slathered it with lard. “That’s enough, Lucia. Irina is right. If it came from the old woman, then I do not want it either. I don’t even want it in the house. So if it belongs to her, then you will have to take it back.”

  “It belongs to us, Tata. It’s our duck.” This was mostly true, so it didn’t count as a lie. But she did blame Irina for making trouble and putting her in a position where a real lie might crop up at any moment.

  “She saved for it,” Emila said with some urgency. “She saved for a long time. Look Tata, here is the dictionary she won.” She put it on the table in front of him. Perhaps Emila thought that if he held the dictionary, he might forget about the bird or at least the source of it and let it stay. By now all the other smells in the tenement had given way to it and the idea that it might go away, that it might be sent away, would have broken Emila’s heart. At eleven, her heart was often getting broken.

  Before the argument could escalate, Lucia scooped the potatoes into a bowl and set them down on the table. She surrounded the bird on the platter with roasted beets and turnips still in their skins. If she had had a bit of greenery or a piece of fruit, she would have put that on the platter as well to make it look more festive.

  Tata took most of the crispy breast for himself and piled on the vegetables. Then, gripping the fork as if it were a knife, he began to shovel the food into his mouth. They had stopped saying grace shortly after Lucia’s mother died. Once, all the feast days had been observed, Mass had been regularly attended, there was always a grosz or two for candles both at home and at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She died shortly after giving birth to Emila, after taking her last breath in a bed soaked in sweat and blood. At the end she was delirious with fever calling out for Babusia, who was there by her side, holding her hand. After the funeral he never went to church again, preferring instead to take his grief down the road to the tavern. For all the days that followed he would ask nothing of God.

  After dinner they were all a little reluctant to leave the table even though the plates were bare. The duck had been so unexpected, such a benediction, that, like mourners at a grave, they were unwilling to let it go.

  Lucia rose and gathered up the bones for soup, dumping them into the pail along with the onion peelings and beet tops. Tata rolled a cigarette and gave it to Bede. Then Tata rolled one for himself, making a neat trough with the paper and filling it with tobacco. He lit it and breathed in the smoke, holding it in his lungs before letting it out in a cloud. For a brief moment he closed his eyes in relief and then opened them again.

  “Lucia, come over here. I have something to tell you.”

  “I have to help Emila with the dishes.”

  “Leave them.”

  Lucia took a seat but did not like this development. Ordinarily, Tata did not have much to say, so when he made a special effort to do so, it was often a sign of trouble. Across the table, he sucked on his cigarette and it flared momentarily. Irina had taken Lucjan and gone into the bedroom. Another bad sign.

  “So now you have two dictionaries and school is on holiday,” he said, tapping the ash into his cupped palm. His voice sounded thick with fatigue. “Tomorrow I want you to tell your babka that you will no longer be going to school. You are done with all that.”
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br />   Lucia’s stomach lurched. “But I’m not finished yet. I’ve barely started.”

  “You know how to read and write. What more do you need?”

  She felt dizzy. “But I want to be a teacher like Mademoiselle.”

  “And end up in Siberia? No, it is time you went into the mill.”

  “The mill,” she said desperately.

  “You are old enough now. It is time.”

  Lucia started to protest but thought better of it. Instead, she sat there for a moment collecting her thoughts, fingering the thick granules of salt on the oilcloth, while she struggled to control her feelings. Above all, she did not want to cry. She knew that tears only made Tata frantic. He didn’t know what to do with them. He grew impatient, then frustrated, and finally angry, and she did not want him to get angry. Anything could happen if he lost his temper.

  “Maybe I could do something else, Tata?” she asked hopefully. “I could work in a shop or be a clerk in an office. I could make more money that way. Just a few more years of schooling. And then I could go to work and bring home every grosz.”

  Tata dismissed her idea with a wave. “You will get used to it.” Here his voice softened a bit. “I know you are disappointed, but there is nothing for it. Sooner or later we all go. This is what we do. All of us. Even you, Lucia.”

  Just this little bit of sympathy brought on the tears. Somehow she had to make him understand that a mistake was being made. She was trying to sound reasonable, like an adult, but her voice thinned, became desperate and rushed. She tried to explain about what school meant to her, about all the things she was learning, but Tata only looked away, embarrassed by her tears.

  It seemed that Bede too was uncomfortable, for he got up and moved off into the front room to smoke his cigarette in peace.

  Without looking at her, Tata went on: “You will start out in carding. Maybe as a scavenger or a piecer. Maybe a doffer, but I doubt it, you being a girl and all.” He said this more to himself than to her. “It’ll be hard at first, no doubt, but in time you will know what to do.”