Life Lessons

FICTION

by Magda Bartkowska

          The first person Marzena handed her memory book to was her mother. From her place on the countertop, she watched Mamusia hunched over the kitchen table, where colored pencils and shimmery stickers lay scattered around the dark green pamiętnik. She tried not to interrupt. Not to ask how much longer. The high-pitched refrain of a Modern Talking song pulsed faintly from her older sister Wiola’s room down the hall.
         Marzena turned to look through the fifth-story window of their communist building. Down below, shoppers were meandering in and out of the Supersam grocery store, and by the ice cream booth, a stray dog was squatting. Marzena giggled. Her gaze roved over the neighborhood, finally settling on the road leading to downtown Gdańsk beyond which a series of gray apartment bloks rose; the cars traveling in both directions appeared as small as the ones she played with in the sandbox.
         Mamusia was still working on the entry. A buzzing began to thrum underneath Marzena’s skin, as if a colony of ants were erupting inside her. She couldn’t wait to see what her mother would write, this woman who on rainy days read her stories and made her warm salted milk soup with noodles, but also yelled and sometimes refused to speak to Marzena for days. Like that time when she’d thrown a tantrum over having to get dressed in nice clothes for church. God will punish you, Mamusia had warned. Marzena sensed now, in a rudimentary way, that whatever her mother ended up writing in the memory book would be some kind of a clue.
         But as much as she wanted to open her mouth, she stuffed the buzzing feeling deep down inside, and busied herself with counting the small Fiats that appeared around the bend in the road so that the feeling wouldn’t make her explode.
         Marzena had already spent hours looking through Wiola’s pamiętnik. This, of course, when Wiola wasn’t home. Marzena would sneak into her room, mostly because she wanted to try on the high heels made of red mesh which Wiola never allowed her to touch, the ones with a bow above the sleek, open toe. Marzena dreamed of the day her feet would be big enough to fit in a pair of shoes like that, and while her mother was busy frying pork chops, she paraded around the room in the red high heels, pretending she was going out dancing with boys late at night just like her sister. When she bored of this game, Marzena sat on the sofa, poring over the pages of Wiola’s pamiętnik, all of its silly rhymes and forget-me-not poems and sketches done by her friends and classmates over the years.
         She didn’t have as much time to collect entries in her own memory book, since her family was moving to America in less than two months. America, that wondrous place Marzena had heard so much about. She knew how special it was, how amazing. Better even than Yugoslavia, where her parents had gone on a trip before she was born, where they’d posed in front of intricate buildings in seaside villages and sunned themselves on rocky beaches against the backdrop of mountains. Every time Marzena put the slides of their trip into the mini projector and brought it up to her eye, she knew that the beautiful landscape was nothing compared to the place where they would be living soon. Because in America, anything was possible. The adults always said that to live in America was to be free. You could do what you want there. You could say what you want and not get in trouble. You could be who you want. You could be free.
         Marzena did know about freedom already. Freedom was riding the elevator down by herself and skipping outside to the playground. Freedom was roaming the neighborhood with her friends, drawing chalk arrows on sidewalks in their scavenger hide-and-seek games, the impossibly blue, wide dome of the sky eventually dulling as the sun slowly dropped and the mothers leaned out from their balconies, yelling, “Supper!”
         But American freedom, that would be something else. What exactly, Marzena didn’t know. It would be better, that much was certain.
         The fifteenth Fiat was rounding the bend in the road when the kitchen stool at last scraped the floor. Mamusia stood, handed Marzena the pamiętnik, and promptly started clearing the table as Marzena flung open the cover.
         Red ink gleamed on the first page. The words embedded themselves under her skin like a warning.

~
Love God, love your neighbor,
But most of all your Mother’s heart
For when it stops beating and becomes still,
Many are the tears that you will spill.
~

          The first time Marzena was brought to a funeral, she was three years old and her feet had been nudged into white leather sandals with little gold bells. When she walked, they jingled. Yet no one heard her slip out of the house where the coffin stood open, the adults gathered around it reciting their prayers.
          Out in the farmyard she hopped past the well and the dog chained up by his doghouse. A cow mooed in the barn. Marzena wanted to go see it but there was thick brown mud everywhere. Her white leather sandals squelched in the mud until Mamusia’s words—“Child! What are you doing?!”—shot across the yard, turning her to stone.
          At home, Mamusia tried washing the sandals with the jingling bells. She scrubbed them, sighing, while Marzena peeked into the bathroom and quietly gazed up at her face.
          “See what you did?” her mother said. And something as bitter as the red cough syrups she forced Marzena to drink in the winter coated her insides.
          She’d broken the rules. Wandered away into the wild of the farmyard. Now she was the girl who’d ruined her beautiful white leather shoes by walking straight into a pile of cow dung.
          In the end, the sandals got tossed in the trash with the onion skins and the coffee grounds.
          There was, in the family album, a picture of Marzena in a light pink dress and a yellow checkered sun hat, romping through a field of tall grass, grinning. One afternoon she took it out. Attacked it with a bobby pin from her hair. Poked holes all over until the smile was gone. Gone from the face of the girl who got her into trouble.

~
Be a good girl,
Learn when you are young
Because you’ll be out in the world
Before very long.
~

          During their last weekends in Poland, Marzena and her family crammed into their orange Fiat and visited all of their relatives. They drove by roadside shrines and shimmering lakes, railroad tracks and cornflowers edging golden fields of barley. Marzena brought her pamiętnik and thrust it into the hands of her older cousins, waiting with shining eyes for their words.
         Marzena’s father—who’d lived in the States for some years already, sending them packages of fancy, bright clothes and jars of peanut butter and coffee to supplement their monthly rations—brought along his expensive American video camera everywhere. Shiny and grayish-black, it was a behemoth of a device that he had to hoist up onto his shoulder, which Marzena thought made him look like someone from a TV station, someone important.
         At their relatives’ houses, Tatuś recorded the aunts and girl cousins bustling in kitchens, and the uncles with their sons showing off cars; the tables set with fried pork chops and salads and cakes; the shot glasses raised to their travels and health.
         When they arrived at Ciocia Wanda’s one weekend, Wiola goofed off for the camera with Stasia, their older cousin. The two of them stood on the back steps pretending they were servants, with towels draped over their arms and a plate with a rotten apple in each of their hands (which they’d grabbed from the ground underneath the large apple tree in the front yard), while Marzena and everyone else watched from the side, laughing.
         Stasia was a nurse with hair dyed a bright red. It was decided that Marzena’s ears needed piercing before the move to America, and that Stasia would be the one to pierce them. Marzena sat on a stool in Ciocia’s kitchen while Stasia marked her earlobes and prepared the needle and potato. Stasia was one of the nicest adults Marzena knew, and she wanted to show her cousin how brave she was. Whenever she had to get shots at the health clinic in Gdańsk, the doctor always praised her lack of tears, so Marzena knew she could sit through the pain this time too. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists as Stasia placed a slice of raw potato behind her ear, then pushed the needle through. Marzena swallowed her scream.
         In the mirror she admired her new earrings, small silver rings. Her head she held higher because now she was a Girl With Pierced Ears. She threw away the colorful stick-on earrings she used to wear every day.
         That evening, as she was playing with her younger cousins Aga and Julia, and the three of them started tickling each other and howling with laughter while they tossed around on the living room floor, a sharp pain suddenly shot through Marzena’s earlobe. The silver ring was caught on her sweater. When she reached up to carefully free it, her fingers came away stained a bright red.
         “It’s nothing, Marzenka, nothing happened,” the adults said. “It’ll heal before the wedding, you’ll see.”
         Mamusia quickly removed the American sweater from Marzena’s body so she could soak the blood stain. 

~
Laugh among others
Cry only in hiding
Be light when you dance
But never while living.
~

          Marzena’s parents took her and Wiola on a road trip across Poland. In Kraków, they visited the Wawel Castle and the Sukiennice, and churches containing crypts of the important kings Marzena hadn’t learned about yet (nor would she ever learn about them in her new school on the other side of the ocean). At the Cudgel of Hercules, a tall limestone stack near a national park, Marzena hopped after a frog in the road and thought it was the best part of the trip.
         In Częstochowa, they stood in line to see the Black Madonna painting. A floor-to-ceiling iron screen separated the altar with the famous icon from the crowd of pilgrims filling the chapel. They were there for the evening ceremony. Trumpets blared as an intricately engraved gold panel was lowered over the solemn Mary with two slashes in her cheek, holding the baby Jesus. Marzena, her legs aching, strained her neck to try to see over the heads of all the people in front to see what the big deal was.
         Before they left the next day, Mamusia bought a wooden engraving of the Black Madonna from one of the vendors in town. At home, she hung it up on the living room wall, across from the two sofas in the corner on which Marzena and her parents slept.
         Something about Mary’s slitted eyes unnerved her. The emotionless, steady gaze. The grim line of her mouth. The darkness of the rough wood. She felt Mary watching. Seeing her. Right through to the deepest parts of her core. The tainted parts.
         Sometimes, when Marzena knew she was being really bad, like that time she threw a fit over not wanting to go get her passport picture taken, Mamusia would throw up her arms and ask, “What demon has possessed you now, child?” Marzena’s stomach churned at the thought of a foreign, dark presence inside her, manipulating her into naughty behavior like getting on her mother’s last nerve. She’d bite the inside of her cheek and breathe hard and fight to keep the dangerous wildness of the dark presence at bay.
         And now the Black Madonna, the Mother of God, was watching.
         The engraving terrified Marzena, much like many of the Bible stories Mamusia read her before bed. Especially the one about God demanding Abraham prove he loved him above all, so he asked him to kill his only son Isaac. And only at the very last second, when Abraham had his knife raised up high in the air, ready to plunge the blade into his son’s trembling body (here Marzena would burrow closer to her mother, shivers running down her spine), did God tell him he could stop. 

~
Dearest child of mine
If you wish to be happy in this world
If you stumble upon a bad road
Above all else cherish God.
Love the ones who gave you life
Be their comfort and not strife
And remember that the Lord above
Keeps you in his constant care and love.
~

          On Marzena’s last day of second grade, her teacher organized a small goodbye party. For the occasion, Mamusia slid a blue polka-dotted dress over Marzena’s skinny raised arms, combed all the snarls out of her hair and tied it into two pretty pigtails, then made Marzena put on the white leather shoes that always pinched her feet. “It’s only for a little bit,” her mother said. “You want to look nice for your party, don’t you?”
         Two of the tables at which the students sat during lessons were pushed together, and Marzena stood with Pani Walczyńska on one side while her classmates crowded around on the other. They stole glances at Marzena’s father as he freed his video camera from its black case and hoisted it up onto his shoulder. The shouts and laughter of recess in the big hall kept bursting in underneath the closed classroom door.
         Marzena’s classmates elbowed their way to the front to give her their treasures: books and teddy bears and handmade cards, colorful hair ties for her pigtails. Pani Walczyńska jumped in every now and then, saying things like, “We wish Marzena that she’ll have friends just as wonderful as the ones she has here, right?”
         Her best friend, Dominika, was the last to come up with her gift: bubble gum wrapped in Donald Duck comics. Dominika’s father lived in America, too, and this, more than anything, had bound the two girls together. They knew they were special—their fathers were in a country everyone dreamed about, sending toys and clothes that made their daughters stand out. At school, the students had to wear dark navy smocks which covered their outfits, but at the end of the day, Marzena and Dominika unbuttoned them to reveal the bright colors and sparkles that everyone knew came from no Polish store—even though their mothers had taught them to be modest and not brag.
          Another teacher opened the classroom door and popped her head in. “How much longer is this going to go on?”
          “We’re almost done here,” Pani Walczyńska said. “Well, Marzenko, we hope you won’t change too much over there, beyond the border.”

~
The world’s full of diamonds, rubies, and pearls
And all at prices obscene
But the most beautiful gems on this Earth
Are friendship and a conscience that’s clean.
~

          One of the gifts Marzena received was a book she had wanted for months: Boy Scout in Love. Her eyes lit up when the wrapping paper revealed the cover with a uniformed boy holding a flower bouquet and sporting a heart on his sleeve. Something important would be revealed to her in this book, she knew it. Some part of her curiosity would be satisfied at last.
         The story was about third-grade boy and girl scouts at a summer camp. Marcin, the main character, was assigned the task of working on the camp newsletter. He was trying to write it one afternoon but got annoyed because two girls were nearby, playing with dolls and blabbing on and on and he couldn’t concentrate.
         In fact, the camp counselors noticed how rude the boys and girls were to each other, so one of the men counselors came up with a new badge for the boy scouts to earn—the sweetheart badge. The boy trying to earn the badge had to pick a girl to be his sweetheart, and do nice things like give her his dessert and take her on a walk and carry something heavy for her. In order to get the sweetheart badge, he had to announce her first and last name at the evening assembly.
         The girls waited to be chosen.

~
When Marzenka was really small
She loved gingerbread cookies best of all
But after some time had passed
The gingerbread turned into a boy at last.
~

          A week before the move to America, Marzena’s relatives came to Gdańsk for a farewell party. Marzena’s mother urged everyone at the table to eat more cheesecake and babka. She scurried back and forth to the kitchen to bring a little bit more of this, a little bit more of that. Wiola sat morosely on the couch between their cousins. Ciocia Wanda lit a cigarette.
         “Karol, get that camera away from me,” she said, laughing her throaty laugh. “When they see in America what kind of women there are in Poland, that’ll be the end of it. They’ll be horrified to see such a skeleton.”
         “Then they’ll all start sending care packages over,” said Wujek Rysiek, her husband.
         Ciocia took a drag on her cigarette. “Uh-huh, with food. That way I can finally gain some extra weight.”
         “I’ve had to loosen my belt a few notches since I got here.” Marzena’s father chuckled.
         “Ahhh, the wife has been taking care of her husband.”
         “Well, of course.” Ciocia Wanda flicked the ash from her cigarette into a crystal ash tray. “What if he were to leave her a second time? She has to take care of him.”
         Marzena’s father exchanged the video camera for a regular one and started snapping photos. Marzena was told to go sit with her older cousins, Stasia and Tomek, so she situated herself on Tomek’s lap and smiled for the camera just like she was instructed.
         “No, Marzenka. Smile!” someone said from across the table.
         Her shoulders sagged, but she complied, attempting to stretch her lips a little bit wider.
         “Marzenka, what are you doing with your mouth? Smile, child!”
         Somewhere between her stomach and chest, a dark hole began to unfurl. The eyes of everyone around the table were on her, their expectations as heavy as the smoke in the air, and she shifted uncomfortably on Tomek’s lap amid the coaxing and laughter, while her father, her father who had been gone for three years, waited with his finger poised over the camera.
         “Smile, Marzenka, smile! Not like that, smile like a normal person!”
         Flames crawled up her neck and face and consumed her. Her lips were now stretched so tight that her face hurt.
         But finally, finally there was a flash, followed by a collective groan, a groan she took to mean that whatever her face had done in the end, had not been what they’d wanted. It hadn’t been good enough. She had failed to satisfy them.
         Marzena scrambled underneath the table and made her escape from the living room, grabbing a few pretzel sticks from a glass so that she could pretend she was smoking.

~
When life’s concerns surround your forehead
And a chain of worries crushes your soul
Do not lose hope
But joyfully say,
“I must be happy in this world.”
~

          All spring, Babcia Bronia’s health had been failing. On the day that Marzena and her family were supposed to fly to America, they went to her funeral instead.
         Everyone crowded around the open coffin in Babcia’s room. Behind it, lit candles and flowers in vases stood guard. Babcia lay there in a black dress, with a rosary wound around her clasped, wrinkled hands. Jesus and Mary gazed down from the wall. Marzena tried not to look at Babcia’s face so she wouldn’t have to imagine what might happen if the white bandage tied around her jaw were to be removed. She tried not to breathe through her nose.
         The priest in his purple robe walked in and everyone made the sign of the cross. “We are gathered here today to bid our sister Bronisława farewell.” Prayers and mournful songs filled the small room. Ciocia Wanda refolded her handkerchief and brought it up to wipe her face. Marzena’s father stood off to the side with the camera on his shoulder, recording everything.
         Behind her, Mamusia sniffled.
         The priest finished and people started leaving the room. Some of Marzena’s cousins and uncles lifted the lid of the coffin and placed it over Babcia. Someone hammered the nails into place.
         Outside in the yard, a wagon with two horses was waiting. An old blanket covered the floor of the wagon and green branches were spread all around the outer edge. Marzena’s cousins and uncles emerged from the house with the coffin and loaded it up onto the wagon. The horses clop-clop-clopped down the street and everyone walked behind the wagon to church, the adults singing a funeral song.
         They sat in the front pews while Marzena’s father walked around the church with his camera. At the cemetery, he stood across from them, on the other side of the open grave into which Babcia’s coffin was being lowered. He recorded the priest’s prayers and all the people standing there in dark clothes, heads hanging low. He recorded the carnations in their cellophane wrappers and the handfuls of dirt each mourner tossed into the grave. He recorded Marzena leaning against her mother, eyes darting this way and that.
         Behind her, Mamusia sniffled.
         Just like at the funeral five years before, Marzena’s feet were once again in pristine white shoes—her American sneakers, or adidasy, as everyone called them, even though they were simply a generic pair of sneakers from Kmart which her father had sent in one of his packages from abroad.
         This time, she did not wander off.

~
There are tears that burn like the hottest of fires
Hearts which never reveal their regrets nor desires
Grievances, which every judge will pass by,
So if you see someone crying, do not ask them why . . .
~

          Marzena has heard so much about the country that will be her new home. The adults always say that to live in America is to be free.
         You can do what you want there.
         You can say what you want and not get in trouble.
         You can be who you want.
         You can be free.
         When Sundays dawn in America, Marzena gets ready for church. White tights are slid up over her belly. A white shirt with long sleeves is buttoned all the way up to her neck and tucked into a black leather skirt. Her hair is tamed into two pigtails secured with white ribbons. New white shoes are slid onto her feet, shoes Mamusia bought her in the children’s section of Bradlees—her first pair of real heels. As Marzena walks from the car to the church steps in her American city, she ignores the way the shoes pinch her toes, because on the pavement the shoes make the same kind of marvelous clicking sound as the adult women’s high heels. This is supposed to be a good thing, she knows.
         Marzena sits in the hard wooden pew between her parents. Above the altar, a life-size Jesus hangs nailed to the cross. The organist begins playing and everyone stands as the altar boys come down the aisle with the priest. Mamusia scolds Marzena for hopping on and off the kneeler.

~
Forget-me-nots
Are of fairy tale stock
They grow by brooks
And give bright looks 

When you swim by
They giggle and sigh
Whispering modestly,
“Please don’t forget about me.”