The Polish Girl Read online

  The Polish Girl

  Malka Adler

  Translated by

  Noel Canin

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

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  Copyright © Malka Adler 2022

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  Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022

  Cover photographs © Stephen Mulcahey/Trevillion Images (background) and Shutterstock.com (all other images)

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  Malka Adler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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  This is a work of fiction based on personal memories. Every reasonable attempt to verify the facts against available documentation has been made.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008525286

  Ebook Edition © June 2022 ISBN: 9780008525279

  Version: 2022-02-08

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Author Q&A

  Acknowledgments

  Reading Group Questions

  Thank you for reading…

  About the Author

  Also by Malka Adler

  Credits

  Subscribe to the OMC Newsletter

  About the Publisher

  This book is dedicated to my husband, Dror,

  who is always there for me.

  Prologue

  Hardest of all was when the Russians entered Kraków.

  It happened to us at the end of the war, after Dr. Helmutt Sopp left the house. He went to live where he worked, at the hospital in Kraków. Mama said it was in the professor’s best interests, and that the Nazis’ good old days were over, just like a bad movie. Mama made Helmutt Sopp a professor, but according to his degree he was only a doctor. A psychiatrist and a Nazi officer in Hitler’s army, but not a professor. I saw it on the letters he sent Mama after the war, when we were living in Haifa. On the envelopes he sent was written:

  Dr. med. Helmutt Sopp

  Apart from that, I heard people calling him “Herr Doktor” when we were still living with him. For us he was the great savior. He was the director and responsible for Mama in Kraków. For me, he was tall, handsome, and a good man.

  Mama was housekeeper to the Sopp family for two years. They hired her with special papers organized by Lydia, her big sister. Mama kept the name Anna, only changing her family name to Kwiatkowski, a Polish name that could save Jews from death. Thanks to Lydia’s papers and Mama’s working for the Sopp family, we were given a small room where we could live without fear of the cruel fate that could befall us every day, every hour, year after year.

  When we learned that the Russians really were approaching Kraków, new instructions began arriving at the Sopp family’s home in the city. Toni, Helmutt’s wife, and their sons, Peter and Ammon, left for Germany as instructed. We remained in the house with Helmutt Sopp for another week or two and then, because of the new situation, as Mama said, Helmutt also left the house and went to live at the hospital.

  We were left alone in the large, luxurious house, without the usual parties and without the protection of Helmutt and Toni Sopp, and then it was announced over the radio that the war was over.

  One day—it was the month of February—the Polish landlords arrived. It happened after liberation, when the Russians were already in the streets of Kraków, lying there drunk, or wildly dancing the kazachok like crazy people. The landlords told Mama it was their house, and there were papers. They allowed us to stay until Mama could make arrangements. Mama thanked them and signaled to us with her eyes to go into the room and be quiet. The new landlords, a man, his wife, and a daughter who was older than me, immediately went into the landlords’ wing. Mama, me, and my brother, who was a year and a bit younger than me, we disappeared into the servants’ room adjoining the kitchen.

  I was eight, the height of the door handle, tall and thin. Yashu was about seven, and Mama was forty and as beautiful as ever.

  One day I heard the Polish girl ask her father: “How do you write German, with a capital letter or a small letter?”

  “We write the names of all the nations with a capital letter, my daughter,” he said, “except for the Jews. Jew is written with a small letter.”

  “Thank you, Father,” said the girl politely and continued to write in her notebook.

  I remember realizing at that very moment that all nations, all of them, were my enemies, and it didn’t matter that the war was over, as they were saying everywhere. I said to myself, well, Danusha, you’re worthless once again.

  I also realized there was a world of many nations, and I was on the other side, having to hide on my side. And most of all, I understood that my mama and I were written with a small letter, that we didn’t count.

  I felt bad about it. This time I felt unworthy on a universal level, and it stuffed up my nose and burned my throat. Not even the mirror I loved helped me feel better. I was a very quiet, polite child with blue eyes and bronze colored hair; how lovely, people would say appreciatively. I still felt bad next to the new girl in the house and it didn’t help that at six, I could already read in two languages, and it didn’t help that Frau von Dorf, the piano teacher in Bad Pyrmont, said I was very musical.

  As I remember, everything began in our small family. Only Papa was glad when I was born, but he disappeared after I turned five and if Mama decided that a girl didn’t count, then that’s what mattered to us.

  A good mother dreams of a son for her first-born, not a daughter. She believed she’d have a first-born son who’d look like a privileged Polish officer, like her family before the war. She told her sisters that her first-born son would be very tall and good-looking, not a Hassid, a scholar, like her grandfather. Mama wanted a son who rode a noble horse, like the one she’d seen in her dream, the one she whispered about with her four sisters in the living room. Aharon, their younger brother, disappeared in the war. But who was the stronger sex in those days, who? The men hid or disappeared into the smoke or the wind, and the women survived. Who defeated my mama? Nobody, and not her four sisters either, who were as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar.

  I was th
e first-born of a father who was a merchant from East Galicia, not an advocate from Lodz like my Aunt Franca had married, and granddaughter to Grandma Rosa, who was far happier with the advocate from Lodz. Grandma Rosa wasn’t really happy with me. That’s how I felt when I visited her in Kraków and played with my cousins. I felt that they, the children of the advocate from Lodz, were the really successful ones.

  When the Polish landlord told his daughter that only żyd was written with a small letter, and all the other nations received a beautiful capital letter, I immediately understood that for me the war wouldn’t end when the Russians entered Kraków.

  And that’s what happened.

  Not everything was bad in the war.

  Maybe it was because I was small, just two, when everything started.

  When I was three, and four, and five, and later on too, there were sweet moments. Mama used to sing arias and parts of operas from early morning, and I’d beg, please, more, more. I didn’t want her to stop the melodies. We had trips from one town to another, we met good people, and there was also a Tyrolean garden drawn on the sofas in the middle of the living room of that monster, Josef Wirth.

  There was the good-looking Helmutt Sopp, amusing Toni, clean dresses to wear with matching ribbons in my hair. In the Sopp family’s large house there was good food, the smell of spices in the kitchen, and “Frau Anna, es schmeckt gut—it tastes good”. There were the friendly boys, Peter and Ammon, and a record player in the drawing room, and a pile of records; there were fresh rolls, wonderful tort, and ice-cream just like the movies. There was the newspaper, Die Zeitung. I learned to read on my own and there were beautiful books and important guests at elegant tables. There were drinks and delicacies and a lot of laughter. There was also an unusual liqueur, Mama’s specialty, and marvelous singing by the men, Oh, Wisła, Wisła. Mama’s cheeks were red. “Did you know that the name Kwiatkowski means flowers in German?” they’d say, and she was proud of the new name.

  In the small room adjacent to the kitchen was a window overlooking the courtyard and there was a lilac tree there with heavily flowering branches, and the scent would keep me at the window for a long time.

  Chapter One

  My first memory is more or less from the age of two, maybe three. I’m sitting on a bed and standing opposite me is a young woman, her mouth half-open with large, protruding teeth. The woman is tying my bow and teaching me to say words in Russian.

  “Boot Gatob,” she commands, her fat fingers tapping my face.

  I looked at the nail near my eyes and saw that it was small, swollen, and red all around. Another glance and I saw that all her fingers were the same, and she commanded me to say Vsegda Gatob. V-se-gda G-at-ob. Vse. Vse. Danusha. Vse. Gda. Gaaa-tob. Got it?

  It was hard for me to repeat the words in Russian, but she didn’t give up. She kept me there on the bed until we were both tired, me and the dog barking outside. The woman got up, saying, “A break now,” and a few minutes later she lifted me off the bed and sat me down on the kitchen table.

  “Don’t move,” she said and fetched a large loaf of bread. She ripped off a piece, dipped it into a pot of milk she had there, cut a large piece, and began to chew. Some of it inside and some of it outside her mouth. I’d never seen Mama eat like that. And then the woman said, “Nu, again, say Vse. Vse. Gda. Gaaa-tob.”

  Finally, I managed to say her words and she clapped her hands, turning to the older woman with holes in her face who sat on one side. The old woman took several dresses from a full sack standing beside her, shook them out, and placed them on her knees, and was pleased. She smiled such a broad smile that her eyes closed. The thin man standing beside her opening carton boxes remained serious.

  Mama stood near the wall holding the new baby.

  “This is your brother.” She’d tried again and again to explain the wonder to me, and I wanted to stick my fingers in his eyes to stop them moving from side to side.

  Mama pushed me away, “You mustn’t,” she scolded me.

  “Hee, hee,” the old lady shrieked joyfully as she pulled a thick, colorful sweater out of the sack, waving it back and forth in Mama’s direction. Mama looked straight at me, her face silent, then she looked at Papa who was standing near the door and he slightly shook his head. I saw Papa’s eyes shifting to me and he made a small, barely visible wave goodbye with his hand, and left our house.

  “Come on,” said the young woman, and gathering me up from the kitchen table, she took me into the large room.

  I immediately felt the start of a celebration. Strangers were already seated at the table and dipping their hands into large bowls with food and a smell that wasn’t familiar to me. Every time they raised their glasses high, they belched and spoke to each other in words I didn’t understand. From their faces, I knew they were happy.

  And then the young woman sat down, put me on her lap, and said: “Shhhh. Shhhh.”

  All at once there was silence. A woman with large brown eyes approached me, touched my face with her finger, and cried: “Boot Gatob!”

  And in a flash, I sat up and shouted: “Vsegda Gatob,” and all the people laughed and laughed and made lots of noise. They pinched my cheeks, and gave me a candy when I held my cheeks so they wouldn’t hurt. Even the large woman with the holes in her face was laughing at the noise.

  This woman sometimes said things to my mama and Mama would immediately look down at the floor as if darkness was coming. But after I shouted the words in Russian the woman gave me a candy and laughed. I held it very tight, and from that day on I began to say Vsegda Gatob in the morning, Vsegda Gatob in the afternoon and Vsegda Gatob in the evening, and many other similar Vsegda Gatobs, especially when I saw the old woman with the holes in her face approaching Mama’s ear and Mama not moving.

  When I was twelve or maybe thirteen, I first heard Mama telling neighbors and admirers who’d gathered in our living room in Haifa about the old Russian woman from Tarnopol. At once I realized she was talking about the large woman with the holes in her face.

  Mama spoke about her on many occasions, for many years, and in several languages. She spoke in Yiddish, German, Polish, and Hebrew and she went from one language to another depending on the people in the living room and how she was feeling. Apart from all these languages, she’d add words in French and English. And all that time, I’d sit to one side, gazing at Mama.

  Erect in her chair, she’d sit with folded hands, speaking like an important actress. Her hair was tied back, and she had a high forehead, blue eyes, and a perfect, straight nose. She wore a long blue gown that matched her eyes, and she was as beautiful as a painting. Mr. Bogusławski, a neighbor on our floor and an engineer with connections at the Municipality, was an important monarch in our living room. He said Mama was as beautiful as Marlene Dietrich. Our friend, Bernard Cohen, from the building next door, who worked for the Egged Cooperative, would say, Nonsense, she’s as beautiful as Audrey Hepburn, and then Mama would ask for quiet, We’re starting.

  The only argument in the living room in Haifa was who was Mama as beautiful as, who? Apart from that no one really interrupted her stories. Not one of the neighbors or acquaintances Mama invited to the living room missed an invitation to visit. They’d gaze at her, swallowing every word that came out of her mouth—even if she took a break to blow her nose, they didn’t lower their eyes to the refreshments table, but I did.

  In our living room, places were usually fixed and mainly men came. Three of the men were regulars: Mr. Bogusławski, whose wife didn’t come because she had a migraine problem, Bernard Cohen, and Yozek Meltzer, a rather young bachelor who admired Mama. He had black hair combed back and long fingers. “Like a pianist’s, definitely a Bohemian appearance,” said Mama, but I knew he didn’t stand a chance because he was her height.

  My fixed place was a wooden chair to one side near the hall and kitchen. My brother Yashu’s place was outside with his friends or at their homes. Sometimes I’d sit on the floor for a change, and it never bothered me
to hear the same story over and over. There were times Mama would tell a story at least twice because one of the guests had gone away to rest at a Histadrut Sanatorium, which happened with Bertha Ketzelboim and her husband Jacob, a former athlete. They talked about her, saying she had a problem with her nerves, that they’d suddenly get bad and she’d need rest. There were some who were ill and needed a bed in hospital, and Mama didn’t give up, everyone heard the story again and again—me, too, since I wasn’t invited out by my classmates. Yashu’s friends invited him almost every day. Mama received invitations at least twice a week, as far as I know, but I’m sure she received more and didn’t talk about it.

  “Valya taught our Danusha to say ‘Vsegda Gatob’,” said Mama and she told the story about the Russian woman from Tarnopol whose family had taken our home.

  “Valya was eighteen years old and as far as beauty went… so-so,” she said. At the time the neighbors didn’t know that Mama came from a family where beauty was a serious, often decisive affair.