Please write to me soon, because without you I have no hope. You are my future. All my love, your little zaba. x x x (Little Frog – his nickname for me)
I kissed the three kisses at the bottom of the page, and slipped the letter into the envelope. Let’s hope a brown bear doesn’t gobble up Alina Zadarnowska before she manages to post this, I thought.
Clenching my teeth, I scratched my head with tar-covered fingers until my skull ached. It had crusted over, and we hadn’t even been here a week. I would soon be bald at this rate.
‘Look at my fingers, Mama,’ I held up both hands the next day. They were becoming more stained with every needle-full of twine I used. ‘I should be at the Banya getting clean; not here.’
‘Then go, kohanie; you don’t have to push yourself like this.’
‘How can I when I see Tatta wrap his feet in rags and stuff them into wet boots? I’ve got to get them finished!’ Everything about this place irritated me. Being trapped in this room was like a prison within a prison; I wanted to be out in fields minding my cows. The boots needed completing by tomorrow – it was Tatta’s day off, and he wanted to work on the soles. Then I’m done with it, I vowed. These are the first and last batch of valenki I shall ever make.
‘Give them a good scrub, and they’ll soon look like a baby’s bottom,’ Mother sat beside the window, darning socks, straining to see to get the wool through the eye of the needle. Lodzia had gone to collect the food rations hours ago and left Ella with us.
She returned distraughtly. ‘Mama, I’ve just heard that Sasha’s little boy died yesterday.’
Mother set down her darning. ‘Dear God, is it Mieczyslaw? Why didn’t someone come and tell us? The poor girl – I must go to her.’
Lodzia left the food on the table, scooped up Ella, hugged and kissed her, swaying back and forth.
Mother reached for her shawls, mumbling, ‘The poor mite, his little life snuffed out.’ Louder now, ‘He might be the first, but he won’t be the last. You mark my words: The Angel of Death is hovering over this camp.’
‘Wait! I’ll come with you,’ Lodzia set Ella down.
I felt Sasha’s anguish, her helplessness, as she must have watched her son die – as I had watched my Bookiet die. I jabbed the needle angrily into the matted wool and pulled the thread through the other side. Unexpected tears flooded my eyes and brimmed over my cheeks.
Not long after, Mother and Lodzia returned grim-faced.
I wiped my hands on a rag. ‘How was she?’
‘I can’t imagine. Her brother has buried him at the side of the shack beneath a heap of snow for the time being. He promised to dig a deeper grave in summer when the ground is softer.’
‘Yes, but won’t the bears or wolves sniff him out and dig him up?’
‘If they do, they do. What can anybody do in this backward place? At least she still has Jan, but he doesn’t look long for this world either.’
Six hours later, my father and brothers trudged in exhausted from work.
This death had affected me so severely, I could contain myself no longer, ‘Tatta, Sasha’s little boy has died. It was Mieczyslaw.’ I needed his reassurance this wasn’t about to happen to any of us – that it wouldn’t happen to me.
It seemed reassurances were not his to give. He placed his hand on my head and drew me gently to his chest. ‘The poor little chap.’
Hearing this, I felt even more vulnerable.
Gerhard went to his room to change, and Father and Karol tossed their wages on the table.
Tatta said, ‘I’m sorry, Anna, this is all there is. It doesn’t make any difference how hard we work; the equipment’s always breaking down.’
‘They expect us to work in razor-sharp gales to meet their lousy norms,’ Karol added. ‘If you ask me, Mieczyslaw’s better off out of it.’
I noticed he wasn’t his confident, chirpy self. He changed out of his wet clothes, ate his bread and soup, sat down in front of the stove with his accordion, and started playing, Hey Sokolyi – Hey Falcon. He always turned to music when he was feeling unhappy, and played until a more pleasant mood returned, but tonight he played and played until Tatta told him to stop; it was time to sleep.
‘Aren’t you seeing Natasha tonight?’ I asked. ‘Have you two fallen out?’
‘No, we haven’t. Mind your own business.’ He put away his accordion, climbed onto his slats and pulled his eiderdown over his ears.
It was snowing hard on Sunday morning, obscuring the window and further dimming the room.
Tatta turned up the lamp and inspected my handiwork. ‘You’ve done well, Marishu,’ he clipped me fondly under the chin. ‘This stitching is nice and straight – and close together.’
I smiled. I was desperate for a good wash, but there was no point venturing out to the banya in this weather. Instead, I sat and watched what he did next. I had come this far in my shoe-making career, I thought I might as well learn how he made the soles and insoles using tree bark, cushioning them with cut up pieces from one of my mother’s woollen shawls.
‘At last,’ he said, ‘they’re finished.’ He gave a pair each to Gerhard and Karol and took the last one for himself. ‘Now we can step out like kings to chop down their lousy trees.’
I almost cried. As tired as he was, Tatta still managed a stab at humour. I looked down at my ruined hands and decided it had been worth it. Then I picked up the scissors and hacked off my plait. I was sick of bugs nesting in it. I was sick of everything. Sick of all four of us being cooped up in this small room. I was used to my own bedroom, to our big kitchen, to wide open spaces; not being corralled in this cell.
Gerhard and Lodzia joined us later, and Mother threw up her hands in despair, ‘See what she’s done to herself?’
I wondered now if I had been too hasty. No one said I looked either more beautiful, or better, but the plait lay on the table like a severed limb – evidence of my recklessness. ‘What’s the matter with everyone? It will grow again.’
Karol laughed. ‘You look like a tomboy. Oh, and try using the Banya more often; you stink.’
Three weeks passed and still no reply from Jusio. I didn’t know what to think.
We sat eating our dry bread and Karol said, ‘Bit grim at the Krasny Ugolok last night. Someone told us a girl called Dorota Malinska had died.’
When no one spoke, I said, ‘We didn’t know the family, did we?’
‘No. The place was dead anyway. Natasha and I only go there because there’s nowhere else to get out of the cold. Wish we hadn’t bothered. Morbid.’
They must have made it up again, but I didn’t pry. ‘Did they say what she died of?’
Karol got up from the table. ‘She starved to death.’ He looked down at Gerhard and our father, ‘Come on, let’s go. Another day in bondage beckons.’
I watched them leave. All three were wearing their new boots, and I felt a quiver of satisfaction.
With the boots completed, there was no longer any need to stay indoors and I left with Lodzia to collect the bread and soup, but nothing had changed.
‘Are we to spend the rest of our lives queuing for food?’ she said. ‘I still can’t believe they have reduced us to this.’
Dire news coming up the line cut short her moaning: Oleszkiewicz’s son died last night. There was more – his mother was six months pregnant.
‘Oh no, poor woman. What’s the point of bringing another child into this world? Into this misery?’ Lodzia said, agreeing with the woman in front.
I tried to agree with her, tried to feel sorry for them, but with each subsequent death, I seemed to grow shorter on compassion.
When we returned to the shack, Mother was throwing wet washing over the rope above the stove. ‘I suppose you’ve heard then?’
‘Oleszkiewicz’s boy? Everyone’s talking about it.’
‘Didn’t I tell you the Angel of Death was hovering over this place?’