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Gulag Teenager (8)

    My mum felt unwell. Because of the strenuous work she got rupture and a lowered stomach. She couldn´t work at the factory building site any longer. Such was the doctor´s opinion.

    She got a job guarding the bakshes of the Soviet soldiers´ families. Although the crops were still ripening it was necessary to protect them. It happen that the thieves would dig out newly planted potatoes.

    It was necessary to build a shed. Mum dug out quite a deep hole, wide enough for two beds and a passage. There was nothing to make a roof out of. We needed boards, branches and hay. After returning from work, when it was getting darker I would go with Jozek Ramotowski (he was three years younger than me) to search for building materials. We couldn´t find any in the town. But one that searches, finds. Being afraid of both the dead and those alive, we pulled a few boards from the cemetery fence. We also broke off a few branches there. Mum got the hay. She picked last year´s grass and fresh weed and used this to cover the roof.

    The shed was ready. Mum and Jozek would look after the plots which now were covered with sand. That year the spring hell was the longest I think. The worst at that time was that the sand would get into the eyes.

    I would get to the shed very tired. Jozek would go to sleep at his house. At night I often couldn´t sleep. In the morning I would get up quickly, take a bit of bread into my hand and eat it while walking the two kilometres distance to the truck depot. Then I had to go into the field. Later the field work was stopped. Then we wouldn´t get meals. The meals were only given when working in the field.

    The worst for me was that the girls would stay to clean the truck depot, whereas I alone was sent to pasture the pigs outside the town. Why was I always the black sheep? The sight of a shepherdess must have been a strange one - a girl driving a herd of pigs across the town. There were a dozen or so animals.

    Pavlodar was a town that resembled a long checker board. Five kilometres long and three kilometres wide. There was sand almost up to the knees during the drought and after rain it was a swamp. It was difficult to drive a car. The streets - almost empty, only in the town centre people would appear. They would go to the market or the Lenpark, that is Lenin´s park. There was a cinema-theatre "Udarnik" and a philharmonic hall.

    I pastured the pigs for a few weeks and I realised that they are very nice and intelligent, completely different from the calves.

    Once, when I was driving the pigs I meet an acquaintance, Mrs Pastuszkowa. She looked at me surprised and said "So Jadzia, you pasture the pigs? But it is such a degrading job. I would never do such a job, even if they were to lock me up in prison. Are you not ashamed?"

    "I am ashamed" I answered.

    But pasturing the pigs was only a joke, compared to what happen once in the truck depot. Petrol had to be poured from a big barrel into smaller ones. It was to be done with a bucket. My grandma would say "A job or what." The barrel was quite tall and had a small hole, so I was standing on a stool to draw the petrol with a bucket. I would then pass it to the girls. The gaffer was standing next to me and hurrying me up. "Quickly, quickly!" he would shout. The smell of petrol made me feel sick and I felt like I was going to faint. I thought that even in hell things couldn´t be worse. There was less and less petrol so now I had to bend and put my head into the hole. Everything turned dark and I remember I groaned. When I was conscious again I was laying on the ground wet all over. They were pouring buckets of cold water onto me. Then they drove me in the cart to my mum´s, to the shed that is, as I didn´t have strength to walk there.

    My God, at that time my mum had a malaria fit. She was lying on one bed and I was on the other. At night mum was shouting "Drink, drink!" she had high temperature. There was no water. At night the well was shut with a padlock. At daytime the water was sold. One had to wait in a long queue and pay two rubbles a bucket. My poor mum was so thirsty she had to drink her own urine.

    In the morning things got better. Because I fainted I had a day off. Mum went to guard the bakshes and I went to fetch water. When I returned my mum wasn´t in the shed, but there were two boys sitting there instead. I thought it was Jozek with a younger friend. They were skinny, dirty, rugged and barefooted. I hardly recognised them - it was Mitka and Szurka. It was very strange they were here. They came from Pavlodar to visit their mother. She was in prison. She was caught steeling half a pood of wheat and was given a two year sentence. The boys were to see her at midday so they came to visit us first. They asked for a little food. I gave them the bread I was to have for dinner.

    A few years back Mrs Szorowatowa was rich, she had her own cow on the farm and was a much praised watering maid - a stakhanovka. She used to help us so now it was necessary to share the last bite of bread with her sons. When I was giving them the bread I noticed that they were covered with large, fat louse. There were as many as if ants in an ant hill. I felt sorry for them but also disgusted. I asked them to go outside the shed as it was summer, the louse will go everywhere and we will not manage. They did as they were told. My mum came and begun to cry over their fate. I cooked a potato soup and gave some to them. I never met them again. When Tatiana was released from prison she spent the night at our place. She taught me how to knit.

    Time passed by quickly. Watermelons, cucumbers and pumpkins grew big. There was food as the plot owners usually paid with vegetables. And some things grew on our plot too. Once they gave us free tickets at the truck depot, these were for the zoo. It was such good fun and we didn´t go to work till the afternoon.

    One evening my sister, Zosia appeared in the shed. She was dressed only in a shirt, she was staggering as if drunk and cried loudly. When she had some food and rest she begun to tell us about things she went through.

    On the haymaking they too lived and slept in sheds. Because the area was damp there were mosquitoes everywhere, flying in through the open door and wouldn´t let one sleep. In each shed there was a little fire. One night the shed caught fire. Zosia and Wladzia NiedŸwiecka were sleeping there. They just about managed to save their life but their clothes and bedclothes got burned.

    Zosia went to her place although they still wouldn´t give her the passport. She was weeping when she told us how she walked to Pavlodar for three days, or rather nights, as at daytime she was resting in the grass, afraid of her own shadow. Where did she get the energy to walk for forty viorst without food, water, shoes and clothes? It must have been the Guardian Angel that was leading her and God from heaven above that was looking after her, as she has found two watermelons which someone have lost. Thanks to this she managed to get to our place. She had to hide, so she would sit in the shed for the whole day and only in the evening she could get out. Hope was making me carry on, as there was to be a Polish school in Pavlodar. I was already signed up.

    Harvest begun at the truck depot. Ripe millet grit had to be pulled from the ground with bare hands and arranged into heaps. When it was dried it was threshed with a katok. It was a concrete cylinder pulled by an ox, like a horse-gear thresher. Wheat was treated in the same way.

    Vegetables were collected and all employees of the truck depot helped. Potato digging also begun. Each bush was levered with a spade and the bulbs collected. Lunches were now better as the grit was cooked with pumpkins or potatoes.

    Mum and Zosia were happy too as in front of our shed there was plenty of vegetables and potatoes. People would pay in nature without complaints. We were all happy we had food for the whole of winter. Some could even be sold. Now we had to find a flat and take all the stocks there.

    Mum went to Pavlodar to look for a flat. She found one where the pay was with potatoes and she spent the night there right away. When Zosia and I walked out of our shed the next morning we couldn´t believe that all our vegetables, potatoes and kiziaks were gone. We started to shout and cry "Thieves, thieves took our things!"

    The only things left were the cart rut and the ox´s footprints. I left for work earlier than usual as I didn´t know what to do with myself. On my way I met mum who was returning from the town and with tears I told her what happen. "You are alive and healthy it is most important. Material goods one can acquire" she said. We had to come in terms with the loss. There were still many people who didn´t pay and it was still two weeks till the end of harvest. It was to end by the 10th of September. And there were still things we didn´t collect from our plot. All this we will gather together and somehow we will survive.

    I now gave up the job at the truck depot and was getting ready for school. There were only a few days left till the new school year. From an old skirt that belonged to grandma I sawn myself a school bag. I was sowing together cut newspapers to make note books. I bought a pen holder with a still pen and ink. Zosia made me a dress from an old sack and dyed it navy blue. Mum bought me shoes as it wasn´t proper to go to school barefooted. One can pasture the calves, pigs or walk in the fields without shoes, but it is necessary to have shoes when going to school. My shoes were man´s brown gaiters. They were probably someone´s who died - I thought. There were gossips going round the town that the grave diggers would dig out the coffins and take the clothes and shoes and then sell them on the market. I was told even worse things that the same grave diggers sold chops from human meat.

    Mum also bought me a blue fur hat. It had a pretty shape and I looked well in it. And then a surprise: from a hiding place mum draw a coat. But what a coat it was! I didn´t know anything about it. It was navy blue, well made from a quality fabric. It was a present from Mrs Lempicka, or rather a pay for the fire fuel. It was Maryla´s coat before the war, she was a landlady from the village Koniecki - Duże.

    The school was in a two storey building at the town outskirts. It was four kilometres away from our new flat which we have partly moved into already. I was full of optimism and hope - at last I was to study and it was to be in a Polish school. On a fine September morning I went through the town to school. The sun was shining for me and for me a herd of camels were marching by my side. A sound was coming from their snouts as if a moan or a cry. I found it funny.

    I begun to study in the sixth grade, but I was to catch up on all the fifth year assignments. When I left Poland I was in the fifth grade. Here the books were in Russian. We would read in Russian and then translate into Polish.

    We were taught by pre-war Polish teachers. They taught us patriotism and love for our country, for the homeland as it was before the war. "Now there was a different Poland" they would say "A Polish People´s Republic" but they didn´t know what it was like.

    At home incredible and bad things begun to happen. A Kazakh in whose house we lived got interested in Zosia. She was a grown up, so why was she not working? He reported this to the police. We didn´t have to wait long. Zosia was called to a police station and asked to show her documents. They didn´t want to hear any of her explanations. She not only didn´t have any documents but also was lacking a certificate from her former work place. The chief of the police announced that she will not be imprisoned but immediately he was sending her to forced labour in a coal mine in Karaganda.

    It was a sentence which equalled with death. Karaganda was what all the exiles feared the most. She was given two days to get ready for the journey. How many tears and how much sadness was then in our family.

    After coming home from school I went with Zosia to grain the wheat in a hard mill. For this they would pay with grain. I was turning the mill and Zosia was pouring the corn. We couldn´t speak to each other because we were so sad. Mum was baking batry from flour so that Zosia could have them for the journey. When the day of parting came I said goodbye to Zosia and crying loudly I went to school. I always walked in a marching pace but on that day I walked slowly with my head down. Suddenly I met a Polish acquaintance. "What happen Jadzia, why are you crying?" she asked. "My sister Zosia is leaving today for Karaganda" I answered.

    "And she allows this? Today you can not go to school. Go back home quickly and tell Zosia to hide at a friend´s house. She can not go to Karaganda. She will die there." she said.

    I took the Polish lady´s advice and went back. Zosia in an instant left our house and went to our good friend who lived quite far at Carl Marx Street. Police came to our house in the evening. Mum said that Zosia left the house and went where she was to report to leave for Karaganda. "If there is no daughter we will take the mother" they said.

    And they took mum away and locked her in a room where she stayed without any food for a day. They would ask from time to time where the daughter was. Then they let mum out as she was not fit to go to Karaganda. After her return from the police station mum, without a moments hesitation took the food she prepared for Zosia´s journey and went to look for her. When she walked into Mrs Goldowska´s flat she was relieved. Zosia was sitting on the floor and eating raw cabbage leaves. Apart from Zosia there was no other grown up in the flat. Mrs Goldowska went to the market, her son Gienek was working at the elevator and her other son Franek was at school. There was only the five year old Rysio left. It was lucky no Kazakhs or Russians were living there. Mum spoke to Zosia for a moment, left her the food and quickly returned to the house so that there was no chance for suspicion. Now she was worried for Zosia and herself, as she had no job. So she went to look for a new work and a new flat. We couldn´t stay here any longer as the Kazakh who gave Zosia in said he didn´t need such lodgers - "Enemies of the Soviet Union." Worried I would go to school. Even during the lessons I was thinking about mum, perhaps today she will not come home.

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