Necessary Lies(59)
Adam is standing at the door, his eyes fixed on Anna. His smooth, oval face looks serious, concentrated on what is about to happen, but he stops at the threshold, motionless, and looks back to see if his parents are behind.
“Go in,” Yan says, “She doesn’t bite.”
Anna doesn’t wait for Adam to come in. She rises from her chair and comes closer. She squats so that their eyes meet.
“Do you know who I am?” she asks.
“You are Ciocia Anna, from Canada,” Adam answers. His voice is clear and pure, like a chime. “You have sent me all these neat toys and clothes. I have your picture in my room. Tata gave me.”
Anna’s eyes mist with tears as she embraces Adam, feeling his thin arms cling to hers. Basia laughs, pleased at this display of affection. There is no sight of the old-fashioned braid. Her hair is now short, styled in waves over her cheeks. “You have to watch out,” she says to Anna, “now he won’t leave you alone.”
Anna stands up to say hello to her sister-in-law, who embraces her warmly and, from her quilted shoulder bag, takes out a small bundle. Inside a white linen cloth there is a piece of bread and a small jar of salt. “Old custom,” Basia says, “to say how glad we are you’ve returned.”
Anna takes a piece of bread, dips it in salt, and puts it in her mouth. The bread is thick and heavy, and she chews it slowly, the salt crystals dissolving in her mouth. They are all moved, fighting tears, inventing chores to cover up the emotions. “Come on, sit down, the tea is growing cold,” her mother says, and offers them more food. Adam, who has unwrapped his presents — a memory game, a truck, and a box of Lego blocks and tucked them safely inside his mother’s bag — insists that he wants to sit between his Dziadek and Ciocia Anna. His plate is moved and they all make space for him. As soon as he is settled, he begins telling Anna of his new aquarium, of the fish he bought, of the new pump and filter he still needs. He interrupts his story only to watch what food is being placed on his plate. “You know I don’t like ham,” he protests, and Anna watches his smooth face, his straight blond hair, dark eyes. “Did you know that there are vacuum fish, not really vacuum, but I call them vacuum, and they clean the floor of the aquarium for me. And I will have baby fish...”
“That’s enough, Adam,” Basia says. “Let Ciocia talk to us.”
“We will go out together,” Anna promises Adam. “Tomorrow. Then you will tell me all you want. OK?”
“What time tomorrow?” Adam asks. “I have to know,” he adds, hesitating as he watches a frown on his father’s forehead.
“Ten o’clock,” Anna says, looking straight into Adam’s serious eyes. “Just the two of us. I’ll pick you up and we’ll go for a pizza and ice cream. Will you remember?”
“I will,” Adam says, nodding, and takes hold of her hand.
Basia praises the food, asks questions. There is a pleasant warmth about her, a need to smooth what can be smoothed. She has praised the dress Mama is wearing, the flowery pattern, the softness of cotton. She has read of some home remedies for respiratory problems and has cut out the article for her parents-in-law to read.
Tata has brought out a bottle of jarzbiak, a fragrant Polish brandy and is pouring it into small narrow glasses. Adam gets a glass of juice. “Now you can get any juice you want. Apple, orange, grape,” Mama says. “So why did we have to scrounge for forty-five years?”
They all nod.
“Your health,” Tata says, and Anna drinks slowly. The brandy stings her throat but the warmth that comes releases some of the tension in her neck. The muscles let go slowly, one by one, as she leans back in her chair.
“That’s more than asthma,” Basia says when an hour later Anna helps her wash the dishes in her parents’ kitchen. “We’ve been trying to find a really good doctor. Piotr’s father gave us a few good contacts. Perhaps then we’ll know more.”
“That’s nice of him,” Anna says, uneasy at Piotr’s implied presence. She will write to her former father-in-law, she thinks, with thanks.
Basia dips the plates in soapy water, Anna rinses them and stacks them on a plastic rack. They can hear Adam’s voice in the dining room explaining something, insisting that he knows what he is talking about.
“He’s always been like that,” Basia says. “Just like Yan. He has to have his way.”
For over four years Anna’s old apartment, where her brother lives now, was a safe house for Solidarity activists. Equipped with high-frequency radio equipment to monitor police cruisers, a bag full of false identity cards. Sometimes “visitors” stayed for a few days, sometimes for a few months, sleeping on the living room sofa, staying away from the windows so that the neighbours wouldn’t know too much. At night strangers knocked at the door to take dispatches and to bring supplies.
Anna asks Basia about that time. “How did you manage?” she asks. “With a baby?” Basia, Yan said once, smuggled underground leaflets in Adam’s pram.
Basia laughs. Adam, she says, was instructed not to tell anyone of the “uncles” who stayed with them, and he was very good. Once only, in a crowded store, when he was four-years-old, he pointed to the Most Wanted poster with a familiar face in it. “Mama, look! This is Uncle Karol.”