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Gulag Teenager (7)

    All the houses were nothing more than hills of snow. If not for the smoke no one would know people lived there. And then we saw a black spot on the white snow. It looked like a round tent. It stood still for a long time and then begun to move towards a snow hill from which smoke came. It was a person, we gathered from the fact that in one hand he or she was holding a kettle and underneath the hood there was a face with slanted eyes. It was a Kazakh man who was seeing to his physiological needs. Many times before we seen such pictures, but this time it especially made us laugh.

    The second day of Christmas, long before dawn, the arranged driver came to the door. For a large sum he was to take us to Pavlodar. The sledge had one horse harnessed. Mum sat in the front with the driver and I was at the back on the bundles wrapped up and covered with the duvet. A freezing, cloudy and gloomy day came. Snow covered the road. If not for the poles nobody would get to the town. When we were going uphill, the horse could just about pull us; when downhill, it couldn´t run fast enough in front of the sledge, which would fall over together with all the stuff, including me. We had to clear off the snow, sit back on the sledge and go on.

    During the journey I was thinking how it was going to be in Pavlodar. It had to be better than in the kolhoz. Mum had a little money, as she was a very sparing person and kept the money for difficult times. Now the money will be handy as even the journey cost a lot. There were still some things for exchange. But what will happen if they will be searching for us? That thought frightened me utterly. The experienced driver fed the horse ever so often and went on. By late evening we got to the town. We spent the night at Mrs Pastuszkowska´s.

    Early morning mum went to the chief of police with an application to get us registered as residents. Without such registration there was no way to get a job or a flat. The chief checked the documents, read through the application and then with large red letters he wrote in the corner that we were to leave the town of Pavlodar within the next twenty four hours. "Why?" mum asked shyly. At that time people of Polish origin were allowed to change the place of residence. The chief of police answered "It is because you do not have a certificate from the former place of employment." It looked dodgy to him. Mum, completely devastated, went to the Polish Patriots´ Association and this is what they said: from the new year they will take on people to build a factory where powdered milk will be produced. Those who will come forward for the job will be registered as residents. Mum decided to take this job but there were still a few days to go and we had to bother Mrs Pastuszkowa.

    It was now 1944. I went with mum to the building site office. Maybe I will get a job too? Maybe then we will get a flat? The office worker took the application and said that mum will be employed from the next day. We also will be registered, but a flat was out of question. The flat we had to rent ourselves.

    We went to look for a flat. In some of the houses they didn´t even want to talk to us, in others they will not let us in or they would turn us down. Nobody wanted to take us in for money, only for fire fuel.

    We got an offer of a flat, where we would live together with the owners, in exchange for fuel. We were to live with Kazakhs on Stepowa Street. A small family, only the mother and a son, a little older than me. The father was away at war. The fuel was to be delivered before we were to move in. We were informed that somewhere at the outskirts of the town one could privately buy fire wood.

    We went there. They wanted a lot of money for the wood. Mum didn´t have so much, she bargained but they didn´t want to take the price down even a kopeck. We came back to Mrs Pastuszkowska´s. Mum took out her favourite dress. It was black and very smart. She checked if the mice or moths didn´t make holes. She said "Tomorrow I will sell it on the market. There will be enough for fuel and some money left for food. What a pity I have to sell it. If I died what will they bury me in? A dress made of a sack?"

    "Mum! Do not talk of death." I said, "We have to live and go back to our country."

    In the morning we went to the market to sell the dress. The market was a large square in the middle of the town, with a wooden fence around it. One could sell and buy everything there. There were wooden stalls all the way around the fence. The Russian housekeepers invited loudly to buy sauerkraut, razhanki (boiled soured milk), ajran (battered skimmed milk), blins (thin cakes fried on a dry pan), roasted sunflower seeds and un-sieved flour (for which a glass was the measure). Then there were all kinds of old clothes, shoes and gallantry. In warmer days they would sell potatoes.

    Mum sold the dress quickly and well. We went back to Mrs Pastuszkowska´s to cook soup and feed ourselves, as we had the trip for fire wood awaiting us. How strange! They sold us the wood for a little less than the day before. And they offered to transport it for us. They packed a few quite large logs onto a sledge. Then they harnessed a horse and took the wood and us to the given address. It was still some way to the house, when suddenly the sledge turned over and the logs fell out. Before we got up, the sledge drove off. What were we to do? We had to carry what was left. Mum and I took a few logs and carried them home. When we returned for the rest, almost half the wood the devil has taken away on its tail.2

    The new flat was quite big, divided by a stove and a cooker. Mum chopped some wood and made a fire. She cooked soup. The next day she was to go to work. The Kazakh lady which lived there had a house job, she span wool on a hand spinning wheel. She didn´t speak much as she knew only a little Russian, only some words.

    Mum went to work and I was happy that we were to get food vouchers. There were only women working at the building site. They would saw wood by hand out in the open air. They also cleared the site and straightened old bent nails. At midday they were given a free hot meal. There were two causes: a salty, watery soup with two or three bits of potatoes. The second dish was a meat one - a ram´s eye or part of an ear or tail and a spoon of millet grit. I often went to the canteen to warm myself up. Mum would give me a few spoonfuls of soup. Soon the fire wood was gone. Mum brought home a few bits of wood, hidden under the padded jerkin and some coal in her pockets. When I took the ashes out I would pick out all the little bits of unburned coal.

    Bread kept us alive. I cooked soup out of a handful of cabbage, a handful of flour and a few small potatoes. I wouldn´t throw away the peelings. From cooked peelings mixed with a pinch of flour I would bake cakes on the stove top. After a few weeks the bread vouchers proved a delusion. They expired just like it was in the kolhoz. The housekeeper was not happy with her lodgers, she constantly complained that it was cold in the house.

    When the cold outside wasn´t so bad I would go to the Polish Assistance Committee, wait a few hours in a queue and get something. But often there wasn´t enough for me as there were many people in need. On the farm I was a theft, now I was a beggar. I told mum firmly that I was not going to go again to ask for help and that was it. Mum ordered me to go to the market and sell the last thing we brought from Poland. It was a cape for the bed. I went to sell it but nobody wanted to buy it as the mice cut a hole.

    I begun to wonder how I could get a few rubbles. In my bundle I found a little coloured wool thread. I made nice flowers with it and tied them together, three in a set, something like a brooch. To my surprise I sold one for five rubbles. It was a lot of money. But nobody else wanted to buy one, not on that day or any other later. To make things worse we were thrown out of our house. We put our bundles onto our back and started to walk. We had lumps in our throats and we didn´t say a word to each other. The Siberian winter had no pity over us. Mum knew where Mrs Ramotowska lived. She was our companion in the cattle train wagon. We went there. She took us in, gave us a humble dinner and allowed us to stay for the night.

    The next day, instead of going to the canteen, at lunch mum went to the Polish Patriots´ Association. She was given help. After work she made a risk and thrown a few stumps of wood over the fence. The snow covered the footprints. There was hope for life. We found a flat on the Lassala Street. The Russian family was a mother (or rather it was a step-mother) and two children, almost grown up, Nadzia and Stiopka. The mother was named Mocia and she was a driver. I always called her auntie Mocia, as this was the custom there.

    That night we unburied the wood. I had frost bitten, swollen hands and feet. I was hungry as we had to spare on the food. But sometimes, like the sun on a cloudy day, good thoughts would come to me.

    I would recollect the happy moments of my childhood. I am ten. In our parish church there is the celebration of the feast of Transfiguration. After the prayers, in the main square, under the oak of triumph there are crowds. Over the crowd, like a colourful butterfly there is a girl standing on a table. She is dressed in a traditional dress from Krakow. She puts her hand into a bag and draws out bits of paper with numbers. It is a prize draw. Dad won a big doll. He gave it to me straight away. Now I am holding the doll in one hand and with the other I am drawing the numbers. Other children were jealous of such an honour. I was so happy, completely blissful.

    Such thoughts helped me carry on, helped me stay alive. Will I return to my homeland? Is it possible? I missed it unbearably. But I had to return to reality as it was time to make fire and to cook dinner not only for us but also for the housekeepers. They would give me a pot and rationed potatoes. I would peel them thinly and cut into cubes, rinse them, pour water onto them, add some salt and cook a soup. I didn´t add anything else as there wasn´t anything. I cooked the same for myself, but in a different pot and much less. I had to try if the potatoes were ready. When I started to taste them, that was it! I was so taken over by an appetite and a desire to eat that I couldn´t stop myself anyhow.

    When mum stayed at work longer, the whole Russian family would get on my case. The step-mother and her children would shout that I ate too much of their soup. I was scared they would beat me and throw me out into the frost. I didn´t say a word but got into bed in my clothes and pulled the duvet onto my head. I was so scared my heart was beating loudly. But it all ended with just the shouting. Since then I didn´t cook their dinner. They did it themselves.

    Spring came. Easter time was approaching, and it seemed that it was going to be a hungry one. I went out far from the town to the stubble to look for last year´s crop ears. On my way back I noticed that on the ploughed garden plots there are potato leaves here and there. There were potatoes in the ground, these were frozen but still white. I collected half a bucket. We will have proper celebration. Mum won´t go to work as tomorrow was a day off. The housekeepers will be working and we will be celebrating.

    After cooking the potatoes I grated and salted them. Later I formed them into cakes and baked them on the stove tops. We ate to our full. Then we went to visit Mrs Ramotowska, as it was Easter in the end. We came home before evening and we couldn´t believe our eyes. The door was locked with a different big padlock and our belongings were scattered in front of the house. We didn´t worry as much though as spring came and it was going to be warmer. Mrs Ramotowska allowed us to stay at her house for longer but we had to accommodate ourselves in the hall. The roof had holes so the rain would soak out bedclothes. At night rubbish would fall onto our heads and into our eyes. But a person can stand all things as long as she or he is alive, all kinds of discomforts and homeless wandering.

    Spring. The fields turned green. I took a ferry to the other bank of Irtysh. Such a pleasure cost me two rubbles. There I collected sorrel. It was big and one could gather a whole sack. I would tie it into bunches and sell it on the market the next day. Hungry and poor I would sell sorrel one rubble a bunch. I sold everything. I was happy. I bought potatoes and ajran which I drunk straight away. The potatoes were to make a soup - this time it will be a sorrel soup. And off I went again to the other side of Irtysh to gather sorrel. Once I picked a whole sack of grass for which a Russian woman gave me a litre of milk.

    Mum, being a worker at the building site, was given a plot of ploughed land - 15 are, a so called baksha. But my freedom ended. The employment office called me and sent me to work planting the potatoes. We were promised a goldmine. Such amazing food. There wasn´t even bread, only jacket potatoes. The torture lasted over two weeks and then we had to walk home. For the money I earned I bought two buckets of seeding potatoes to plant on our plot.

    I was then sent to work on a farm which belonged to a truck depot. Here it was to be heaven. But how different everything is! We are not served any breakfast and the car turned into a skinny ox harnessed to an old ramshackle cart. On top of the cart there was a wooden barrel. On the side there were lorries parked but these were for different purposes. A gaffer named Krylov came. He was a war invalid. He was short, had a bad looking face and instead of one leg he had a wooden stick, fastened with leather straps. He ordered to pour water into the barrel and then climbed onto the cart together with the cook. "You are young - you can walk" he said. I had a feeling it was a funeral cortege. The wooden barrel was the coffin and inside it was our youth.

    When I was walking I kept looking at my feet and their size surprised me greatly. They were so big. What will happen when I return to Poland? No shoes will fit me - I will be a barefooted maid.

    The cook made lunches. The shed was the place we ate. It was arranged that when we´ll see a rug attached to the end of a stick on top of the shed it was a sign that lunch was ready. Each one of us constantly turned around to look at the shed so much that the neck would ache. When the rug appeared we jumped with joy. Each one would get a wooden bowl out of her bag and give it to the cook who poured a big portion of soup into it. It was quite thick millet grit with nothing else. We would eat with wooden spoons. We could kill the hunger a little but there wasn´t a second course.

    When the ox was ill they would bring no water. The cook would then use paddle water. Then the soup was black. They would not give any other meals, whereas the work would last till sunset. As soon as the vegetable sowing was finished we had to weed the potatoes. When we didn´t weed fast enough, all the lady officials from the truck depot office would come in a car. Then it was funny. It was still hungry, but funny. The potato leaves turned black because of the wind and the frost. At that time it seemed that nothing will grow any more. After a dozen or so days the bakshes would turn into a desert. But when the weather got better then surprisingly the vegetables, which the sand has protected against the frost, would come out. The potatoes too turned green. And then it was weeding again, on and on.

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