[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Page 67
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
An old woman in a drab, proletarian coat reaching her walked by across the
street.
"Ask her," Becca urged Magda. "Ask her."
"Ask her what?"
"Ask her-where was the concentration camp. What hap here? Is there anyone
around who was here then? Would sh at my grandmother's photos? Anything."
Magda nodded and ran across the muddy road. Whe reached the old woman, she
began to speak quickly, ges eagerly with her hands. The old woman turned her
head o look at Magda, then turned and walked away, head down.
few more steps, Magda quit following her and crossed back
"Well?"
"You saw. She would not speak with me."
They looked up and down the road. "There!" Becca said.
are some men. Let's ask them." She pulled Magda along.
The small knot of men they approached were in dark cloth stared at the
strangers with sullen eyes. There were five of
it
JOEL"
ts e
Briar Rose
117
three smoking cigarettes with such ferocity Becca was sure their moustaches
were in danger of going up in flames. Magda began to speak even before they
were close. One man growled something that sounded like "Braaaagh," and turned
away sharply, his hand suggesting they leave. A second suddenly found great
interest in his own pockets, searching for what eventually turned out to be a
cigarette and matches. The third and fourth merely glared at them, but the
fifth, a man no more than fifty, wearing a dark cloth cap, spoke volumes with
his hands as he talked in rapid Polish. Becca was glad she didn't understand
the words.
Magda held her own hands up as if to contain the waterfall of words. Finally,
without replying, she grabbed Becca and turned her around, shepherding them
both back to the car, away from the man whose voice seemed to rise in direct
proportion to their escape.
"What did he say?" Becca asked when they were close to the sanctuary of the
Fiat.
"He said nothing worth the repeat."
"He said a lot."
"It was filth. Better not to know."
"I must," Becca put her hands on Magda's shoulder and looked directly into her
eyes. "I must."
"He said that nothing happened here and that we should take our
Jew questions away or that the nothing would happen again."
Magda's shoulders were shaking.
"Prezepraszam, " It was the old woman who had refused Magda's questions
earlier. "Prezepraszam. "
Magda turned to her and the old woman spoke quickly, pointing towards the
church where, as it happened, a round-faced priest in a black cassock was
emerging. Then ducking her head, as if warding off a blow, the old woman
scurried, beetlelike, down the street.
"What did she say?" Becca asked. "Why did she point to the church?"
"She said that the only one who could tell us anything is the priest. He is
the only one who will talk to us about these things.
She said not to ask the people anything. Especially not the men. But the
Page 68
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
priest, she said, is the one to ask."
"Enter the priest," Becca said. "Right on cue. Do you think he knows anything?
He doesn't look old enough to have been here fifty
11
V
118
Jane Yolen
"Priests in these little villages know all the secrets," M
"After all, they hear confession."
"But I thought," Becca whispered, "I thought confes secret."
"Secret does not include history," Magda said. She wal church path and
intercepted the priest, speaking quickly a
"It is okay," the priest said, loud enough for Becca to h a year in America.
In Boston College. I am speaking Eng to call me Father Stashu."
"I am Rebecca Berlin and this is my friend-and my
Magda Bronski," Becca called back.
"Pardon me if I ask, but Chelmno is not a usual stop
Not even tourists-" and he looked piercingly at Becc
Holocaust tours."
Irritated, Becca asked, more pointedly than she mean look Jewish?"
Father Stashu smiled. "Not at all. But Americans wh way to this part of Poland
are almost always looking for ments. There are no monuments here in Chelmno.
And do not like to talk about what happened."
"Father Stashu," Magda said, "I do not wish to be i your intelligence or ours,
but 300,000 people died here you not want to talk of it?"
The priest's pink cheeks turned even pinker, as if bu her remarks. "I did not
say, my child, that I would no
I have made a great study of the evil that happened he people who lived
through it do not like to discuss it. Es to strangers. It is making them
uncomfortable."
"Uncomfortable!" Becca exclaimed.
"When I first came here twenty years ago, I thought place ... a career in the
church. A few years in little pla move on to larger city, and maybe become
bishop. Y
Polish priest can aspire to greatness in these times." H
but when they did not join in his little joke, he quic
"But when I began to learn what happened here fifty well, it was only thirty
years ago then-I knew I had to these poor ptople cleanse their souls. It
became my lif
"How can you cleanse them . . ." Magda began.
". . . if they will not talk about it?" Becca finished
I
61
)le
to tn
I
it
Page 69
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
k
I
Briar Rose
119
"Come, my daughters, walk a bit with me, and I will explain it to you." He led
them, an arm through each of theirs, across the street, stepping over a small
ditch filled with muddy water. "This, you see, was where the Nazi
schoolteacher and his wife lived. There were Nazis imported here,
homesteading, you see. They brought in good party members to colonize-to make
German-this town. They
gave it a new name."
"Kulmhof " Becca whisDered.
"Ah, yes-you have done your homework. There are no Germans left here now. Only
Poles. But that does not excuse them, my poor people. If you ask them, they
will tell you they were as much victims as were the Jews. But they do not in
their very hearts believe that. Only sometimes in the confessional will they
cry to me. Only sometimes, on their deathbeds, will they tell me they fear
dying because they will have to confront the souls of all those murdered
Jews. And Gypsies. And other Poles, too-Communists and protest-
ers. And a few priests, as well."
They were walking along the road now, away from the church
and Fa er Stashu guided them past a dirty barricade, past some broken-down
stone outbuildings, the whole thing the color of the muddy road.
"And I say to them that if they are truly repentant, God will forgive them.
And if God forgives them, they will also be forgiven by the souls of the Jews
and Gypsies and Communists and priests."
He srniled, but the corners of his mouth turned down instead of up
and his eyes did not look as if they were smiling
"You do not sound-forgive me for saying this, Father-terribl)
convinced," Magda said.
Becca bit her lower lip. It was just what she had been thinking.
"When I was twenty-three and coming here for the first time, I
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]