Sorrow’s Bargain
Mama grabbed Petra by the arm, twisting it. I heard a crack and Petra screamed. She held her forearm and sobbed and sobbed. Petra had pulled on Mama’s apron too long, crying for food.
“Byc cicho Petra! Połamię ci drugie ramie!” she screamed at Petra in her native Polish.
Be quiet Petra! I will break your other arm!
Petra couldn’t quieten herself. Mama dropped a pair of men’s pants into her steel-washing tub and rose from the short wooden stool she used.
“I’ll take her Mama,” I said, and Mama sat back down.
I brought Petra inside the tin shanty that had been our home for six months. We barely had money for food, let alone for a doctor. I found a pillowcase and tore off a strip, wrapping it around Petra’s tiny arm and neck to make a sling. I cuddled Petra and she quietened, her little chest heaving with empty sobs.
*
Mama took in laundry for forty cents a week and spent hours with her hands in scalding water and lye. The skin on her red, scalded hands peeled off and scabbed. At night, she coated them in lard and wrapped them in cotton strips. The next day, she dipped her sore hands back into the lye.
Every night, we went to bed with our stomachs grumbling. Zofia, the oldest girl, Darek, my oldest brother, and Borys slept on a thin sleeping bag that was unravelled at the corners. Ludwik, me, and Petra shared a urine-soaked mattress. Mama lay on a threadbare blanket with two-year-old Anatol.
Mama roused herself and scooped Petra into her arms. She wept, “My poor, poor girl. Kocham cie.”
I love you.
She stroked Petra’s hair and placed her back in bed. Mama could weep and hold Petra as much as she liked but Petra would never speak to her again.
*
Like most immigrants, Marcel and Agati Bajorek came to America from Poland seeking a better life for their seven children. They didn’t expect the baleful stares and thinly veiled insults in the first neighbourhood where they settled. They moved into a neighbourhood frequented by Pollacks. Our townhome showcased the fine architecture of the era. It had a tray ceiling with floor borders that matched the frames, and a slate grey stone fireplace big enough to crawl inside. An oak spiral staircase led to the second storey of the house.
Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed, was the blackest day in America. With a wave of the cruellest magic wand, golden opportunity transformed into a wasteland. People lost everything, their money, houses, investments. Food became scarcer and more precious than riches. Mama didn‘t buy toys or clothes anymore. One day she said, “Marcel, go out and hack, for God’s sake. Get money for your children.”
Papa went out and worked at whatever it was he did. When he came home, he placed a half-gallon of milk on the kitchen table and said to Mama, “Agati, that’s milk for the children.” His shoulders bent and he burst into tears. Mama placed her eyes around this proud man, murmuring to him. Zofia did the same. She hugged him and murmured words of wisdom, “Papa, mogło być gorzej.”
Papa, it could be worse.
None of it made sense to me. I hated being hungry and I hated not getting new toys. I couldn’t imagine our lives getting worse. During the weeks ahead, Papa left the house to find work. We gathered at the door when we saw him coming home. Sometimes he came home with a quarter or food or milk. Papa couldn’t bear to watch us suffer or the burden that proved too heavy for him to carry. One night as we slept, he slipped out of the house and never returned.
Zofia consoled Mama the way she consoled Papa.
“Mama, things could be worse. The rest of us are still here.”
Mama placed her hand over Zofia’s and nodded as she wept.
One day, a portly man came to the house to see Mama, talking loudly about the mortgage. He became an ill omen. Mama stepped out onto the stoop to talk to him. I saw him smirking with his arm on her shoulder. Mama looked down at her feet as though she was about to cry and nodded.
The man came back two days later. He spent an hour in the bedroom with Mama. When he left, he was humming a tune. Mama didn’t come out of her room for an hour. When she did, she clutched her dress closed. Zofia levelled Mama with a stare.
“Zofia! You know nothing about the world. Don’t look at me that way.”
“Nothing is this bad,” Zofia insisted, at a loss for words.
The man came to our home again. In return, we got to stay in our home for a month … but then the man tired of my mother.
“You said another month!” Mama hissed.
“You know my terms. If you are willing…”
“I won’t place my daughter in your hands!”
“Then you have until the weekend,” the man waltzed out with his nose in the air.
“Thank you, Mama,” Zofia sidled up to Mama and hugged her. Mama shrugged her away.
“It wasn’t for you. He wanted Petra.”
We took what we could carry. I pulled Anatol and Petra in a wooden wagon, they were hot and tired. Mama stopped to get water where she could. She divided small pieces of bread and cheese among us, and we’d walk again.
“Mama, where are we going?”
“Wherever we can, Antoni.”
Borys walked along with a bounce in his step.
“Like Peter Pan?” He thought it was an adventure.
“Yes Borys, like Peter Pan,” Mama gave him a tired smile.
I heard of our shanty town before I saw it. Children ran amok in hand-me-down clothes made of old curtains. Adults sat in front of their shanties staring ahead into the distance. A woman bowed her head and cried into her hands.
Mama stopped when she found an empty hut and dropped the bags she was carrying in front of it.
“Home sweet home!” Mama beamed at us when we arrived. “Someone must have moved out.”
A black woman in the next shanty shook her head and said in a slow, Southern drawl, “Tuberculosis. The whole family.”
Mama paled and said nothing, but she made the decision to stay.
The hut was marked with rust and black stains. The roof had holes in it that leaked when it rained, turning the dirt floor into mud. It had one large room that offered no privacy. It was a cesspool without a door.
Over the following sun-scorched days I realized we weren’t leaving. It took weeks until I accepted that we were home. In a daze, I wondered how God could be this cruel. What was the joke?
Many months went by. We were hungry and emaciated, but Petra fared the worst. After Mama broke her arm, she became mute. I did my best to coax her out of her impenetrable world, but it was never to be, and we left her alone.
Mama woke us up one morning and shoved us into the bath in pairs and threes.
“Hurry! There are important people coming to see you!” she scrubbed our hair and bodies with lye.
“Wyjsz z wanny Antoni!” Mama yelled at me to get out of the bathtub.
I didn’t move fast enough. She swatted me hard on my behind. I howled but only for a moment.
“Byc cicho Antoni! Polamie wam rece!”
Be quiet Antoni! I’ll break your arms!
I glanced at Petra, and I quieted.
We stood still when a well-monied couple arrived in a loud, shiny automobile. The man got out and looked to Mama who nodded. He stepped in front of Zofia, looking her up and down. He walked down the row of us children then back to Zofia.
“Can she sew and clean?”
“Yes sir. I taught her myself.”
The man opened his wallet and pulled out two dollars. It was more money at one time than we’d seen in a year.
He turned to Zofia. “Let’s go.”
Zofia stayed where she stood. She looked at Mama, her mouth agape. Mama turned away from Zofia and stared at the ground. None of us spoke.
Mama lifted tearful eyes to her precious, eldest daughter and mouthed, “Przepraszam.”
I’m sorry.
The couple waited for Zofia to climb into the back seat of their car. The man slammed it shut behind her. Zofia looked out the window at Mama, tears streaming down her pretty face. As the car pulled away Mama lowered her head and wept.
Seeing the cold-heartedness of my mother, I figured Ludwik would be next to go. He was two years older than me and strong enough for hard work. Time proved me right. One day, a farmer in a pickup truck drove up and paid Mama ninety cents … ninety cents for my brother. He opened the back of his truck and jerked his head at Ludwik, who climbed inside. They roared off, Ludwik clinging to a crate to keep from falling out. I didn’t cry. I thought Darek would have to help Mama with the washing now.
The next buyer tried to get Anatol, but Mama refused. She wasn’t selling her youngest and clasped him firmly to her bosom. She offered Petra, but the man didn’t want her. He said his wife wanted a child of a young age. Mama shook her head. The man gave her a hard look and left without a word.
*
My siblings and I remained together. We children became more protective of each other. Mama wore her shame like a cloak; she seldom spoke to us. But at night, she hugged her children against her chest, kissed them and cried. Except for me. I never let her touch me again. Every time that I thought of hugging her, I remembered the faces of my siblings … the siblings that I couldn’t hug anymore … especially Zofia.
Before the Second World War, Mama died. The doctor said it was tuberculosis. I believed she died of a broken heart.
Borys and Darek joined the army. Borys was killed only six months after he was dispatched to the war front. Darek returned with a commendation for bravery.
I found Ludwik after many years. He was married and had prospered. Anatol completed college. He was a bright young man who studied to become a professor of literature. Petra never regained the ability to talk. She married a kind-hearted gentleman who had also lived as a boy through the Depression.
I spent decades looking for my eldest sister, only to find Zofia died of tuberculosis one year after she was sold. She was used as a servant by the people who bought her, and she wasn’t kept in a good condition.
I never thought I would be a happy man, but life decided something else for me. I met a beautiful woman at the age of nineteen. We both were poor, but we knew that we made each other happy; we married and had a family. I named my eldest daughter Zofia because she reminded me of my sister. Through the years I looked at my children and knew I would sell my soul to the devil before I’d sell any of them.
“Why couldn’t Mama love her Zofia the way I love mine?” I always questioned myself.
They say time is the best healer, but some things never go away, like my yearning and regret for my sister – Zofia.
