A black-and-white postcard turned sepia, the cardboard soft with age. On its back, in a faded old-fashioned handwriting: “To dearest Haneczka, we send best wishes and as always many expressions of our fondness”, the signature illegible. It was mailed on July 26, 1937, in Niemirów, Poland; the postage stamp’s edges are frayed, but the date is decipherable. Nobody I know wrote or received it: I bought it at an internet auction.
Centered in the photo is a straight sandy tract, a tunnel in a pine forest. It is the road leading from the town to a nearby village where the health resort’s villas, pump houses and mineral springs provide water cure. My grandmother lived in the town and worked as a laundress in the spa where she also pushed elderly pensioners for walks in their chairs. My mother was born in the town during the German invasion of Soviet Union in 1941; late at night in the church cellar in the middle of the air raid of June 24th. Some time later, date unknown, her older sister died there of meningitis. After the war the two towns and their surrounding forests ended on the Ukrainian side of the freshly carved borders in Central Europe.
I visit during a summer heat wave. The village meadows are fragrant with dying grasses, storks nest on chimneys and telephone poles, bees buzz around poppies and irises in full bloom in the gardens, blood-red strawberries burst with sweetness on your tongue. Yet even in full sun the forests fill me with cold dread – I cannot stop thinking about what happened there a few decades ago. Poles and Ukrainians, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, blinded by rage and propelled by old hatreds exploded in annihilations of each other’s families and villages. Burnt sheds, stables, and homes, broken cups, dishes and children, slaughtered cows, sheep, and wives. Married couples butchered because they were of mixed origins. It went on for months during and after the war. Here, too, for three years the Nazis proceeded with their programmed murder of the Jews. And in centuries past these trees witnessed the cruelties of the Polish manor lords over Ukrainian peasants, the brutality of the Cossack uprising, the pogroms of Jews.
But in the summer of 1937 a woman is rushing past the tree trunks on the forest road. She is my grandmother. Her front tooth is missing – it fell out last Thursday after weeks of pain. It looked awful, too, all brown and black. No mouthwashes or herbs helped. The gum is healing now, but it still throbs when she bends down or lifts heavy things. And she has to do a lot of lifting in the laundry room.
In the old forest the trees have smooth trunks, straight and tall. Their branches stretch to the sky like arms calling for help. The dusty brown of the bark protects the helpless orangey pinks of the inside layers, visible in the cracks. Crowns of long, dark green needles whisper with each breath of wind – even when it seems calm they shiver, murmur. Orange flowers, sticky with pollen, glow on the grass-green tips. Sunshine fills the road, but between the trees shadows lurk and dusk lingers; in places the darkness creeps to the road’s edge. When she walks in the early morning, with the risen sun on her back and the shadows still long, the forest breathes cool air at her, even in the summer. The air smells of pine resin and new earth, but also something she cannot name – darkness, decay. Death? The primeval forest keeps its secrets and knows its future.
Yesterday she saw Piotr again. Her mother is not so sure about him, but she likes the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles. He has blue eyes and blond curls where she is brown-eyed with long dark plaits; her father is Ukrainian. Ukrainians of Cossack ancestry are dark and smoky. Piotr is a carpenter’s apprentice, it’s a good trade. His uncle and godfather, the retired customs officer, will leave him his house and property: he and his wife Helena have no children. It’s probably Helena’s fault – all of Piotr’s aunts and uncles had lots of children, Piotr is one of nine. She would love to have children, yes. Not just one, like her mother did. Two girls, blond and blue-eyed, in pretty yellow dresses in church on Sunday. Yes, she will have many children. She will sew them nice clothes, she is very good at sewing, knitting and crochet, she really liked that sewing course she took a few years ago. She will keep her house nice and tidy, clean and neat. They will probably live with her mother, she will help with the children when she is not working in her store. On Sundays, they will visit Piotr’s family, spend time in Helena’s precious garden, with her roses, peonies and irises, hollyhocks and geraniums. She is so proud of that garden; well, she is proud, that one. And the rector will marry them – Helena is his housekeeper, after all. She will invite her friends from school and from work to her wedding, but who should be her bridesmaid? It has to be somebody special. Piotr’s brother Stefan will be the best man, he is the only one of his brothers and sisters who moved to town with him. And she needs to think about her dress – she will make it herself, white, of course, but simple, with long sleeves and skirt, and a veil. She’ll need to buy some white shoes – satin, may be? She can’t afford silk.
The future and the past echo in these forests. Does she hear them? Does she feel their breath when the breeze chills her bones as she hurries through the pines? Shadows? What shadows? She catches a birdsong – a sparrow, a small black point high above her head, trilling his soul out in alarm to the sun. Branches in the sky, pine resin in the air, birdsong on the breeze. She emerges at the bend in the road. The poppy-filled meadow of the spa walking grounds, drenched in the morning light, stretches before her. She is glad she has arrived.
The next day I fly home. I sit at my desk, I stare at the photo, and I see the ghosts.
Centered in the photo is a straight sandy tract, a tunnel in a pine forest. It is the road leading from the town to a nearby village where the health resort’s villas, pump houses and mineral springs provide water cure. My grandmother lived in the town and worked as a laundress in the spa where she also pushed elderly pensioners for walks in their chairs. My mother was born in the town during the German invasion of Soviet Union in 1941; late at night in the church cellar in the middle of the air raid of June 24th. Some time later, date unknown, her older sister died there of meningitis. After the war the two towns and their surrounding forests ended on the Ukrainian side of the freshly carved borders in Central Europe.
I visit during a summer heat wave. The village meadows are fragrant with dying grasses, storks nest on chimneys and telephone poles, bees buzz around poppies and irises in full bloom in the gardens, blood-red strawberries burst with sweetness on your tongue. Yet even in full sun the forests fill me with cold dread – I cannot stop thinking about what happened there a few decades ago. Poles and Ukrainians, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, blinded by rage and propelled by old hatreds exploded in annihilations of each other’s families and villages. Burnt sheds, stables, and homes, broken cups, dishes and children, slaughtered cows, sheep, and wives. Married couples butchered because they were of mixed origins. It went on for months during and after the war. Here, too, for three years the Nazis proceeded with their programmed murder of the Jews. And in centuries past these trees witnessed the cruelties of the Polish manor lords over Ukrainian peasants, the brutality of the Cossack uprising, the pogroms of Jews.
But in the summer of 1937 a woman is rushing past the tree trunks on the forest road. She is my grandmother. Her front tooth is missing – it fell out last Thursday after weeks of pain. It looked awful, too, all brown and black. No mouthwashes or herbs helped. The gum is healing now, but it still throbs when she bends down or lifts heavy things. And she has to do a lot of lifting in the laundry room.
In the old forest the trees have smooth trunks, straight and tall. Their branches stretch to the sky like arms calling for help. The dusty brown of the bark protects the helpless orangey pinks of the inside layers, visible in the cracks. Crowns of long, dark green needles whisper with each breath of wind – even when it seems calm they shiver, murmur. Orange flowers, sticky with pollen, glow on the grass-green tips. Sunshine fills the road, but between the trees shadows lurk and dusk lingers; in places the darkness creeps to the road’s edge. When she walks in the early morning, with the risen sun on her back and the shadows still long, the forest breathes cool air at her, even in the summer. The air smells of pine resin and new earth, but also something she cannot name – darkness, decay. Death? The primeval forest keeps its secrets and knows its future.
Yesterday she saw Piotr again. Her mother is not so sure about him, but she likes the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles. He has blue eyes and blond curls where she is brown-eyed with long dark plaits; her father is Ukrainian. Ukrainians of Cossack ancestry are dark and smoky. Piotr is a carpenter’s apprentice, it’s a good trade. His uncle and godfather, the retired customs officer, will leave him his house and property: he and his wife Helena have no children. It’s probably Helena’s fault – all of Piotr’s aunts and uncles had lots of children, Piotr is one of nine. She would love to have children, yes. Not just one, like her mother did. Two girls, blond and blue-eyed, in pretty yellow dresses in church on Sunday. Yes, she will have many children. She will sew them nice clothes, she is very good at sewing, knitting and crochet, she really liked that sewing course she took a few years ago. She will keep her house nice and tidy, clean and neat. They will probably live with her mother, she will help with the children when she is not working in her store. On Sundays, they will visit Piotr’s family, spend time in Helena’s precious garden, with her roses, peonies and irises, hollyhocks and geraniums. She is so proud of that garden; well, she is proud, that one. And the rector will marry them – Helena is his housekeeper, after all. She will invite her friends from school and from work to her wedding, but who should be her bridesmaid? It has to be somebody special. Piotr’s brother Stefan will be the best man, he is the only one of his brothers and sisters who moved to town with him. And she needs to think about her dress – she will make it herself, white, of course, but simple, with long sleeves and skirt, and a veil. She’ll need to buy some white shoes – satin, may be? She can’t afford silk.
The future and the past echo in these forests. Does she hear them? Does she feel their breath when the breeze chills her bones as she hurries through the pines? Shadows? What shadows? She catches a birdsong – a sparrow, a small black point high above her head, trilling his soul out in alarm to the sun. Branches in the sky, pine resin in the air, birdsong on the breeze. She emerges at the bend in the road. The poppy-filled meadow of the spa walking grounds, drenched in the morning light, stretches before her. She is glad she has arrived.
The next day I fly home. I sit at my desk, I stare at the photo, and I see the ghosts.
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