The Lullaby of Polish Girls Read online

  Despite her father’s tales of dollar stores, central air, and the beautiful Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church (Built in the 1800s by our people, Kamilka!) Kamila decided to stay behind and finish college in Kielce. “Just send me some postcards now and again, Włodziu,” she told him, half-joking. Włodek did send his only daughter postcards, one every week for the last five years, postcards boasting sepia-toned vignettes of the quaint, historic downtown of his adopted city. Every month he sent her ten twenty-dollar bills neatly folded in half and held in place by a single rubber band. And life was good that way, it was fine and dandy, until the day Kamila needed to escape, far away, and somehow nowhere seemed farther from Kielce, Poland, than Wyandotte, Michigan.

  Kamila Marchewska-Ludek has done everything in her power to recoup this past month. You need to de-stress the situation, you need to cleanse your palate. Fuck him! her best friend, Natalia, wrote in an email a few weeks ago. “Fuck him.” Was Natalia being funny, or did the irony go sailing past her? Kamila had done nothing but try to fuck him for the entire length of their nine-year relationship, but Emil had always denied her. Let’s wait. Let’s be old-fashioned. And she believed his excuses, masturbating once a week to visions of his alabaster body pressed on hers. Later on, he proposed and they married, but nothing changed.

  Kamila has escaped, as much as one can escape in a cyber world, where everything is connected, but feels disjointed nonetheless. Though her appointment at the Polish embassy was preplanned, the actual departure was hasty—a last-minute call to the travel agency, a haphazardly packed suitcase—and now, four weeks later, she’s still not sure how she made it out.

  Her father met her at the Detroit airport, bouncing on his heels.

  “Kamilka! Oh, Kamilka! What did you do to your hair?”

  Kamila stepped back from her father, who had aged considerably in five years, whose frame was now as thin as ever, but enhanced by a surprisingly corpulent gut. She touched her black bangs self-consciously.

  “I dyed it. You didn’t notice in the pictures?”

  “Oh, but it’s not what I expected in real life, córeczko. And your nose … it looks nice, Kamilka. But I expected my little girl, with that great big orange mop and those white strappy sandals on your feet.”

  “I was ten when you bought me those shoes, Tato. I wasn’t ten when you left. Now, quit crying, please, and take me home.” Włodek obliged, glancing sideways at his prodigal daughter every few seconds. Back in his fold for less than ten minutes, and Kamila was already growing irritated.

  Somehow, she settled in quickly. Her parents had cleaned out the sewing room and bought a blow-up mattress for their daughter to sleep on. “For weeks or forever, Kamilka, it’s up to you,” her father said, his gray eyes glistening. She had a desk, a closet, and a phone, and that’s all she needed. They hadn’t asked yet why her husband, who looked so dapper in the wedding album the newlyweds had mailed them five years ago, had not come with her.

  The Polish enclave of Wyandotte was seven square miles small and made Kielce seem like a metropolis, but its size didn’t matter to Kamila. She hadn’t come to America to sightsee. Her plan was to distance herself from recent events and to make money so that she could go back to Poland clad in Ann Taylor and Banana Republic from head to toe, showing off the fabulous look that American women have perfected—chic nonchalance. To earn money she took on babysitting and a cashier shift at a local masarnia—a deli that paid under the table. The dollars accumulated quickly, fistfuls of crumpled Andrew Jacksons that she stuffed in her dresser, but, despite the money, Kamila was wilting.

  Today was a snow day and the streets were full of suburban teens. The most formidable nation in the world closed up shop when it snowed. Solemn news reporters urged residents to stock up on canned soup and bottled water. It was so pathetic. And on the streets, hooligans flew past, outfitted in ridiculous coats that brought to mind blowfish, throwing snowballs and shouting mindless obscenities.

  Now, Kamila sits upstairs at her desk, hands folded, staring down at her old typewriter, the one she lugged through three airports because she’d been afraid to check it in Warsaw. The one her grandmother bought her when Kamila was thirteen and confessed her dream of becoming a famous writer. Kamila could leave her job at the pharmacy, she could leave her husband, but there was no way in hell she was leaving her typewriter.

  She hasn’t written a letter in a long time, not like this, not one that wasn’t sent via email. But her parents, for all their newfangled American ways, have opted out of getting a computer. “There’s no art to it, Kamilka,” her father explained. “I’d rather read letters from home and watch the nightly news, in the good old-fashioned way.” So Kamila walks into town and sits for hours at an Internet café on Biddle Avenue anytime she wants to check her inbox and scan silly sites about American celebrities until her brain goes numb. The Internet café, however, isn’t an option for the deed at hand. No way was Kamila going to write what she had to write in a public place; there were roaming eyes everywhere, especially in this community, where the Poles rubbed their noses in everyone’s business as if gossip were a vocation.

  Emil Ludek is far away. He is seven hours and seven thousand three hundred and twenty-two kilometers out of her reach, and she thanks God for it. It is two in the afternoon in Kielce, and he is probably still lounging in their bed—probably with his lover. She can picture the two men, one of them her husband, snuggling under her lavender duvet. In Wyandotte, Kamila’s hand shakes as she finally begins tapping the keys on her Remington. Dear Emil, Why? Why didn’t you tell me you were g—Kamila’s fingers freeze. She can’t do it. Just then the door to her room cracks open and her father, her mousy little father, pops his head in.

  “Kamilka? I just got a call from Poland. Some bad news.”

  Kamila’s heart thumps loudly in her chest. “From who?” She told Emil never to call her again.

  “From Pani Kazia.”

  “Pani Kazia?”

  “Yes, Kamila, remember? Justyna Strawicz’s grandmother. Weren’t you two good friends?”

  Kamila swallows audibly. Slowly, she pulls the unfinished letter from her typewriter.

  “We were.”

  Justyna

  Kielce, Poland

  The last twenty-four hours have brought a bloodbath upon the Strawicz home. They have brought the inevitable, but Justyna can’t see that now. All she can see is that overnight, she has become someone who will be whispered about. From now on, people will whisper that she’s too sad, or not sad enough. They’ll whisper accusations and apologies. And surely they’ll whisper if she ever finds another man, but who the fuck in this town will want to date an unemployed widow with a kid, anyway?

  On the way back from the police station, walking up Witosa Road, Justyna saw her neighbors staring out their windows and clustered on the sidewalk, stealing glances in her direction. She walked past, enjoying a smoke, trying to elicit eye contact so she could wave and make them fucking squirm, but no one bit. She was ambling through a nightmare, through a haze, and nothing seemed real.

  The kitchen sink is full of dishes. Rambo, her mother’s dog, has left two piss puddles in the hallway that no one has bothered to clean up. Her son, Damian, is getting antsy on her lap and asks if he can go outside to play. It’s cold and snowing, but Justyna pushes him off her. And don’t come back, she thinks, as he runs out of the kitchen.

  From the foyer, he yells, “Will Tato be back when I come home?” Justyna shrugs her shoulders.

  “We’ll see!” she shouts back.

  She lights another cigarette. Upstairs she hears her sister, Elwira, crying again. She hasn’t stopped crying and Justyna can’t blame her. Last night, Elwira’s boyfriend killed Paweł, killed him in the upstairs bathroom, cold-blooded, out of the blue, just like that.

  Celina, Elwira’s daughter, wanders into the kitchen, a naked Barbie dangling from her skinny hand. “Ciociu, the dog pee-peed by the stairs.” Justyna says nothing. “Ciociu! It stinks!” Jus
tyna looks at her niece, at her big blue eyes, ratty hair like tangled straw, her pretty oval face.

  She hands Celina a dish towel. “If it stinks, then clean it up.”

  On the table, Justyna moves her ashtray around in a circle. She can still see Paweł’s body in her head, twisted and puffy, splayed on the coroner’s table. Had his last word been an angry “kurwa!” or a cry for her, a frantic “Justynka!”? No one gives a shit and Justyna doesn’t blame them. Her husband was just a carcass; she could see that in the way the examiners had poked at him. Paweł would never be someone who used to be; to them he had never existed in the first place. He was a corpse. Justyna had stared at his gashes, as if she too had no point of reference anymore, as if she was gazing at some unfortunate stranger and not at Paweł at all.

  Later, at the police station, Justyna smoked one L&M Light after the next. She stared at the puke-green walls and talked, while a middle-aged cop scribbled everything down. The cop, whose nameplate read Kurka, rubbed his eyes every once in a while, stifling yawns.

  “Elwira’s boyfriend beat up on her. Not just a slap here and there, ’cause God knows, she deserved that from time to time. I’m talking a black eye, cigarette burns, that kind of thing. I never did anything to stop him. Neither did you guys. But my husband …” Justyna faltered. “My husband tried to stop him. He—”

  Kurka had stopped scribbling after “she deserved” and sat there stiffly with his lips pursed.

  “Mrs. Strawicz, we need information pertaining to last night. Just last night.” Justyna tapped a cigarette on the table. How could she explain to this dimwit that the last twenty-five years of her life pertained to Paweł’s death? That somewhere in the far-flung past, there was a kernel of an answer to what the fuck had happened a few hours ago.

  “At about midnight, Filip came home drunk, started picking on Elwira. Told her to cook him food, or something. So she goes, ‘Fuck off’ and he—”

  “Elwira Zator, your younger sister?”

  Justyna nods her head. They knew exactly who Elwira Zator was; at that very moment her sister was in another room down the hall, getting interrogated by another drab officer.

  “Anyway, he smacked her and her nose started bleeding. Paweł was, like, enough of this shit. So, you know, he punched him, punched Filip, just once but it was enough.” Justyna smiled recalling the force of her husband’s gallantry. “Then Filip went upstairs. Fell asleep, I guess.” Justyna was aware of her repeated use of the term guess. She sighed audibly; there was no point to the interrogation and she wished Officer Kurka would just let her go.

  Filip had lugged himself up the stairs, blood sprayed on his face, drunk as a skunk. He was roaring obscenities and Justyna was afraid the kids would wake up, but they were used to slumbering through fights. At one point Filip lost his footing and fell backward, on his ass, grabbing the railing at the last minute to keep from tumbling downstairs. Justyna wondered where they would all be now had Filip lost his grip completely, had he tumbled backward, perhaps twisted his neck.

  “We all went to bed. Around one-thirty A.M. I guess. Ah, goddamnit, you sure you wanna hear it? I mean, nothing I got here—nothing!—is, whattaya call it, conclusive.”

  Kurka nodded impatiently.

  “Okay, then, I guess Filip woke up and went down to the kitchen to get a knife. Elwira was sleeping on the couch. She heard him but thought he was just parched, sobering up, and she went back to sleep. Aren’t you guys getting all this from Elwira? I mean she was the one who saw—”

  “Just go on, Mrs. Strawicz. We need to hear every single witness account.”

  Witness implied awareness, it implied action, but Justyna felt like a passerby at best. She exhaled loudly, her head spinning.

  “Elwira heard the scream. I can sleep through anything. Obviously.” Justyna sighed and smiled dryly. “By the time I found Paweł in the bathroom, he was facedown on the floor, there was blood everywhere and, um, I dunno, sir, just a lot of fucking blood. I just stood there. Like I … like I couldn’t fucking move.”

  “Shock, Mrs. Strawicz.”

  “No shit, sir.”

  Kurka pursed his mouth again. She could tell her constant cursing was irritating the fuck out of him.

  “Then Elwira ran up, her throat bloody, from where Filip, uh, grabbed her, I guess. She was crying and she managed to tell me that Filip had run out the back, but not before he found her on the couch and told her if she said anything she’d be fucking next. She didn’t know what he was talking about, naturally. Not then, anyway.”

  “Well, try to get some rest. Kielce is a relatively small city, Mrs. Strawicz, and we’ll do our best.”

  Two young cops drove her home. They were nice enough and the one with the mustache was kind of cute. They told a joke about a prostitute and a blind gypsy and Justyna laughed along. She asked to be dropped off a few blocks from her house. The neighbors, she explained, rolling her eyes. They smiled back at her kindly and for a moment, Justyna thought that all this—her husband’s death, her kid, her mother’s cancer, her whole fantastic fucked-up life—that all of it was a dream, and any moment she’d wake up.

  Anna

  Kielce, Poland

  In the backseat of the Volkswagen, Anna wakes up with a start. She wipes some drool from her mouth and stares out the window. The sun is rising quickly. It is enormous but shapeless, as if God has taken a knife to it and is spreading it across the sky. The American sun blanches in comparison.

  “Are we there yet?”

  “Almost. Crossed the border while you were napping.”

  “So we’re in Poland now?”

  “Tak. Welcome back, Ania.” Wujek Adam keeps his eyes on the road when he speaks to her. Her uncle is so cute, with his thick black hair and lopsided grin, like a Polish Tom Cruise.

  “Excited?”

  When they left Berlin at four A.M. it had still been dark. Uncle Adam said it would take about nine hours to drive to Kielce. Anna glances at her wristwatch, does the math, and squeals in the backseat, immediately regretting it. In the rearview mirror she sees Adam shake his head.

  “I guess so.” He smiles and lights a cigarette.

  The road is narrow and bumpy, making it difficult to navigate. The other drivers swerve their cars maniacally, passing each other whenever there is a lapse in oncoming traffic, and from time to time Uncle Adam does the same. But Anna isn’t afraid of this kind of driving; whatever brings her to Kielce faster is fine by her. They are surrounded by fields full of roaming cows, actual cows! Vast patchwork hillocks just like she’s seen in Irish movies pass by endlessly. Once in a while, she spies old men on rickety bikes or old women by the side of the road with handmade signs offering jagody or truskawki, fresh berries sold in glass jars. When she rolls down the window, Anna is taken aback. She didn’t know she would remember the air here. It smells like burning haystacks and fresh laundry, like sunshine and sausage, piquant and fresh at the same time. There are layers of scents in this old air; it is aged to perfection.

  “Wujku, nobody in Kielce knows, right? Tato didn’t ruin it?”

  “Nothing’s ruined. I just hope your babcia doesn’t have a heart attack.” Anna squeals again, this time unrepentant. She sticks her face out the window, like a puppy, and everything swishes past her—a ribbon of countryside zooming by.

  Last time she was in Poland, Anna was a scrawny little seven-year-old. Now she’s almost thirteen, tall and curvy, with plump lips, big blue eyes, and newly permed blond hair. The tank top she’s wearing shows off both an impressive bust and an adolescent paunch. Will her family even recognize her? Will she look foreign to them? Will she look American?

  Six and a half years ago, when the Barans landed at JFK airport, armed only with two suitcases, standing in the line at customs and immigration felt like the end of something. They had no money, no knowledge of English, and no relations or acquaintances in New York. Their sense of loss was so huge it felt like the three of them were suddenly nothing but driftwood. A Polish
woman named Aleksandra from the AFL-CIO greeted them at arrivals and escorted them to a refugee hotel on the Lower East Side, where they stayed for three weeks. At first, the city was too much for Anna and her parents to bear. There was too much noise and too much movement. For the first few days, they cosseted themselves in the hotel room and just stared at the color TV. At night Anna and her mother often woke up to the sound of Radosław stomping on roaches.

  After that, the AFL-CIO helped them rent public housing in downtown Brooklyn. Anna vaguely remembers how her parents struggled. Their furniture was scavenged at night, while Anna slept. Her parents combed the streets, stunned at what people in New York City deemed garbage. They couldn’t help Anna with her homework, not even the first-grade stuff. Paulina started cleaning houses to earn pocket money. Anna doesn’t remember what Radosław did. She doesn’t remember what it felt like not to understand a language and maybe that’s why Anna has only fragments: a Pac-Man machine in the lobby of the Breslin Hotel, commercials for CATS! The Musical, the marvel of rubbing shoulders with black people, Chinese people, and Hasidim.

  Soon, Anna was giving her father English lessons, earning a dime for every word he misspelled during their nightly dictation sessions. She was the one calling the bank, and translating the notes Paulina’s employers left regarding laundry. Anna excelled in her ESL classes, and her parents, having neither the time nor money for English school, relied on both Anna and the television as teacher. They never quite caught up.

  The years passed, each one quicker than the last. This September Anna will attend eighth grade at a Catholic school in Brooklyn. Her girlfriends are all Italian and prefer to have get-togethers at their houses; nobody wants to come to the projects to sit in Anna’s room and stare at her posters of Elvis, New Kids on the Block, and the lone map of her homeland.

  Anna tries to be all that her parents demand—studious, proud, and courageous. But she has a hard time looking people in the eye. She’s in constant turmoil about her overbite and the glasses she was prescribed at age eight. When Anna laughs, she cups her hand to shield her mouth, like a geisha. She has crushes on boys but doesn’t do anything about them. She’s in a constant state of pining, for what and for whom she doesn’t know. When Radosław yells at her for not wearing a hat in the winter she doesn’t protest or raise her middle finger when he turns his back. Instead, Anna runs to her room, shuts the door politely, and quietly weeps. Radosław says crying is for pussies, but Anna can’t help it.