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Gulag Teenager (3)

    At that time I would dress very warmly, putting on anything I had. Then I would go to the road. I would cover my cheeks and mouth with a scarf, not to get frostbit. Only the eyes were turned towards the meadows, from where I expected a sledge with hay and kamysh to come. When it did, I would run up from behind and steal as much as I could from the back. The driver, all covered with a sheepskin, would never look around. Then I would collect all that I pulled out, tie it with a string and take home. That was fire fuel as there were less and less kiziaks and we had to save them. There was a long way to go till spring. It was only getting to Christmas time. The celebration was to be wonderful as we had two food parcels from Poland. When one is hungry, food is most important. When one eats to the full, especially if it is good food, then one feels blissfully.

    Our house changed its look for Christmas. There was a net curtain in the window and Polish carpets hanged on the walls over the beds. The bed was a clay platform with a mattress that was filled with hay. The beds were also given pretty bedcovers. With time these house decorations had to be exchanged.

    During Christmas Polish people would visit each other, but only in the evening, as during the day they had to work. Christmas carols were sung and people recalled the celebrations when they were back in Poland. During these days people missed their family home and homeland in an exceptional way.

    Here, in Kazakhstan, there was no Christmas tree, no Midnight Mass and no carol singers came to the door.

    After Christmas the winter got harsher. Severe frost wouldn´t go away. Despite this I would fulfil my duties. It was already 1942. During one January night the wind was blowing so hard it was like a howling herd of wolves. The frost was awful. It was a snow storm, the so called buran. The next morning, at dawn, mum and Zosia went to work as usual. At home it was still dark as the snow buried the window. Only through a small hole one could see the terrifying winter day. I wanted to go to the well to get water, but the door was buried under the snow. I pushed it as hard as I could and it opened up a little. I walked out. But I couldn´t see a thing, the snow was covering the eyes and freezing straight away. I couldn´t breathe.

    There was a large heap of snow in front of the house. I climbed it and instinctively went back. I thought that if I go to fetch water I will die. I got a bucketful of snow instead. Through the hole in the window I could see that it was already evening. The storm was still showing off and the bitch Filka was whining in the hall because her puppies froze to death. I already cooked dinner but mum and Zosia were not back. Grandma was praying for their safe return. It was almost midnight when the wind calmed down a little. Mum and Zosia got home but their knees were frostbitten. In the morning they couldn´t find their way to the calf house, they got lost. Why did nobody warn us that during a buran one should not leave home?

    It was getting warmer outside. Spring was coming. Mum and Zosia were working constantly. They would bring home a little milk and bran which I used to make cakes.

    How petrified I was when one day on the sledge instead of kamysh there was the corpse of Mr Smuktonowicz. It was a terrible sight - a huge lump of human body with enlarged and sticking out eyes. Mr Smuktonowicz was a carpenter. He went to work during the buran and got lost. He froze to death. The snow covered his corpse and so it lay until now. The sledge stopped in the middle of the farm and the dead man´s wife was called. All the Poles gathered around. Mrs Smuktonowicz, thin like a ghost, stood over the sledge lamenting and tearing her hair out "You won´t return to your homeland now my beloved husband!" Everyone was deeply shocked and cried.

    During the buran Mr Gorski, a thirty year old bachelor and an owner of an estate, got his hands frostbit. He had them amputated all the way up to the elbows.

    The spring came and the snow melted. Grandma didn´t lay in bed any more but warmed herself in the sun looking after the hazelhens which luckily survived the winter and gave eggs. There were three of them. I dreamt that our chickens could eat wheat to the full. This never happen.

    One spring evening mum told me that I was registered to do ploughing. It was to last a whole month and to take place in Dekane which was forty kilometres away from our farm. Oxen were to be used for ploughing. I will be given a daily amount of food and pay and on top of this tomorrow I will be given, without queuing, a larger ration of food, already as an employee and not an additionally fed.

    I didn´t have a choice, it was forced labour. "At least I will free myself from Urombay" I would think to cheer myself up. I was to leave in three days. I was already twelve years old and I should be all right in this job.

    I am in Dekane. There is only one house here with a few families living in it. Exiles of different nationalities. Quite many people came here to work. Kazakhs, who were to drive the ploughs, one foreman, a cook and us, Polish children who were to lead the oxen.

    There are five of us: myself, a ten year old Marysia Truszkowska, Jurek and Jarek - thirteen year old boys and Jozek who was a little younger. A milk cow was brought so there will be milk for the tea. The Kazakhs brought building materials - branches and hay and begun to build a shed. Unfortunately there wasn´t enough space for the Polish children and the cook. We were given a little hay to make sleep on. We were to sleep under the bare sky. I slept in my clothes with a scarf over my head, covered with a thin quilt that I brought with me. But it wasn´t enough to protect me from the cold. I would tremble the whole night, falling asleep and waking up a minute later. My head was most cold. It was only March. In the morning the foreman came, uncovered the quilt, pulled me strongly by one leg. In such a way he would wake everyone up each morning. He would shout "Get up it´s time to work!"

    Breakfast was already prepared. Warm water with traces of milk and a slice of bread. Then I was given a whip and ordered to drive a pair of thin oxen harnessed to a plough. The hungry oxen, which pastured with the cow on last year´s grass, were stubborn like donkeys. They didn´t want to pull the plough. Every few meters they would stop or even lie down. They didn´t have energy. I needed to come up with some good way to drive them to work because the Kazakh shouted loudly that I am no use and he would swear as mad. Here I couldn´t cry like I did in Urombay´s shop. Here I had to work.

    My first idea was to frighten the ox by surprise. I would shout in his ear as loudly as I could. First in one ear and then in the other. The second idea was to cause him great pain. To hit an animal is cruel, but I had to do it. But to hit strongly one needs a lot of strength, which I didn´t have. I would hurt him by tightly twisting his tail. In this way I was exhausting myself for two weeks. I was hungry and didn´t have enough sleep. Every day the same thing. Bread and tea for breakfast and dinner and a little soup for lunch. After a few days the bread run out. The cook would then bake batry. This is the recipe: knead a dough from flour and salt with some water and bake it on a dry frying pan covered with another one.

    It was Easter Friday. Food was brought from the farm - bread, flour and food parcels for Polish children from their families. These were for the Easter celebrations. Impatiently I opened my parcel which included a few cakes, cooked lean meat and a bag of flour. Without thinking much I ate almost the whole thing. Only flour was left. I was so hungry. I didn´t even feel guilty for eating meat on Easter Friday. Later it turned out that this meat was from a dead calf which had tuberculosis.

    On Easter Saturday it got cold. During work my hands and legs would freeze. The oxen would also tremble from the cold and didn´t want to pull the plough. On the first day of Easter the foreman didn´t come. I was covered with the quilt, but it was somehow very heavy. I felt that something is burning the skin on my stomach. I rolled up my clothes and noticed two slimy balls. I took the quilt of my head, it was white all around. Winter returned. The little balls turned out to be ticks. They had so much of my blood, that they became round. With difficulty I pulled them out.

    There wasn´t any breakfast as snow covered everything. Crying we sung an Easter hymn: "A happy day has come... On this day Christ has risen..." We couldn´t stand the cold any more being outside, so we went to the house. They didn´t throw us out. We sat on the clay floor. That night four oxen died because of the cold. Some of the meat was brought to the house. Because there was nothing to make a fire with the meat was cut and eaten raw. Even though we were hungry we didn´t eat as we were not given any. The boys brought a pot of snow and we ate snow.

    In the afternoon it brightened up and the spring sun came out. We decided to run away home, to the farm. But will we get home without food? "Don´t worry, I have a bag of flour" I said. But what will happen if they catch us? However, the decision was made. We were off. Myself, Marysia, Jurek, Jarek and Jozek. Nobody chased us. We stopped in a place with a big paddle. The boys collected some sticks and I fetched water from the paddle into a pot. When it boiled Marysia poured flour and I stirred with a spoon. Marysia was the daughter of an estate owner and had many siblings. Her oldest brother, Jurek, left Kazakhstan on his own to go to Poland. He got there, but was caught and brought back here. Tadzik also left and there was no news of him since.

    Each one of us had a bowl and a spoon. We ate a little and started walking again. It was getting dark so we stopped to sleep. We slept under the bare sky in the empty steppe, each one under one´s own covers.

    In the morning there was nothing to cook, but we had the spring sun and the singing larks to cheer us up. Boys were looking for bird nests and eating the eggs. I asked them not to do so, but they didn´t listen to me. Marysia and I collected soft grass, a little like chive, and ate it. By the evening we were on the farm. Grandma, mum and Zosia kissed and cuddled me. At home I caught up on all the lost sleep. At day time I was too afraid to go out, so that no one would notice me. I committed a crime in the end - I left my work place and could get punished for this. I now had time to play. Out of old rugs I sew a few dolls. I also made dresses for them and with a crochet hook I made them hats.

    I would put the dolls to sleep on hay and over their hats I would put scarves, so that they wouldn´t get cold in the heads. In the morning I would wake them up to go ploughing. I would pull each one by the leg like the foreman did in Dekane.

    Spring was in its full. The rivers flooded the land all the way to the farm. Mum and Zosia were told to let the calves out for a walk. I went to see how they will do on this walk.

    They have let out almost thirty three-month-old calves which never went outside before. The animals were running around like crazy, each one in a different direction. Some climbed the calf house roof and fallen down. Other run across the farm straight into water. If they drowned our whole family would have never left prison. I helped to turn them around as I could run very quickly. A group of calves run into the steppe. All but one, which run in a different direction, were turned back. It was already dark and we couldn´t see the lost one. Mum and I search for it for a few days and eventually found it lowing a few kilometres away from the farm. It was a miracle that it didn´t get eaten by the wolves.

    One day while walking past the deep silo burrows I heard squeaking. It was puppies. Somehow I climbed down and took them with me using my skirt to carry them. They were already quite big puppies. I left them by Tatiana´s window. They looked very much like her bitch Slima. Next day Tatiana said to my mum "You see Franciszka Feliksovna, how witty and wise my Slima is. I threw away her puppies and she found them all and brought them back. Well, I took them in. If they have such an unusual mother, then let them live."

    The water went back to its banks. In some holes it stayed and there were fish there. We would make it cloudy with our feet, moving the mud on the bottom. Then hundreds of tiny pikes would show their heads. We would catch them with our hands.

    By that time we were living in a three room house. Two families in each room. During the day it was about all right. Fish were cooked, grain was pestled in the churn and kiziaks collected. But nights were unbearable. Bedbugs would attack in such a way that it was impossible to sleep. There were heaps of them.

    One thing was good that spring - a warm May. Preparations were made to go pasturing. A few Polish families were to go too as some of the women were employed as milkmaids. Mum and Zosia, as the watering-maids were also to go and so grandma and I too.

    Things were packed onto the carts and on them the children and the elder were placed. Slowly the oxen pulled the carts and cows and calves were running besides. It was like a line of Gypsy wagons. There was a stop for lunch and half way a stop for the night. Cows were milked and food was cooked. At night not everyone was asleep as the animals had to be protected from the wolves. The next evening we arrived. To welcome us there were empty houses, clay huts that is. Polish families were allocated the second, single room house. There were six Polish families. There was not only no glass in the windows and no doors, but also no furniture. We would sleep on the floor and sit on the floor. When eating we had to hold the bowl on our knees.

    The cows, pasturing on fresh grass, gave plenty of milk. We could drink as much as we wished of the skimmed milk. Copying the Kazakhs, we even made preserves for the winter. A large amount of sour milk is cooked in a kettle until it turns into a thick brown mass. After it cools down it is put into a bowl. Then on the house roof a kamysh mat is laid onto which this mass is pressed, like making cakes. Kurt dries for a few days. It is bitter in taste, hard as a stone, but it is food that, stored in a dry place, keeps for a long time.

    In the same way jeremshyk is made, with the exception that it is from sweet milk. In order for the milk to turn sour one needs to add a little sour whey. Jeremshyk is sweet, gold in colour and is made of small lumps. It is dried the same way as kurt.

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