The Upright Heart

by Julia Ain-Krupa

  Now the full moon is rising to a visible position in the sky. It is coming up over Kopiec Piłsudskiego and the abandoned buildings of Podgórze, where the sounds of the ghetto and of the Płaszow camp are still audible to some. The moon is turning its way around the stars, the stars are revolving around the moon, and our world circles around the sun. Everything is moving all the time, and yet if you look up and out, are you able to know and remember that you are on a rotating globe suspended in the atmosphere and that only gravity is holding you down?

  This prayer is underway as Olga and Wiktor approach Wolf and the boy. When Olga hears Wolf’s voice her eyes dart around madly, desperate to seek out the source of the sound. Wiktor carefully observes how her face transforms. When she sees Wolf, she jumps behind a tree. She has waited for too long, and doesn’t know how to behave. Will Wolf see her there? Will he feel her presence at all?

  At this moment a mouse runs beneath the vines twisted beside the stone walkway, and the dog jumps up to follow the mouse, barking excitedly. Wolf continues his prayer, only louder now, and the chaos of sound reaches the front gate, where Anna is standing. The cacophony floods the cemetery, extending to its four corners, including the place where the men are busy debating the best method of removing a headstone. Paweł, the lazy stonemason who is resting against a tomb, flask in one hand, cigarette in the other, jumps in attention at the noise coming from the other side of the grounds.

  “Did you hear that?” he asks his buddies, but they pay him no mind. He asks again.

  “Must be from the street,” the thin one says.

  “Maybe it’s a ghost,” the other man laughs.

  The barking continues, and so does the prayer in song. Filtered through the branches of the trees at the center of the cemetery, the sounds become distant and formless. Paweł listens carefully, jumping to his feet.

  “No, it is something,” Paweł insists, reaching for a rock from beside the grave. Sweating now, he edges toward the sound. There is an unexplainable anxiety pumping through his blood. He is unable to distinguish fear from anger, unsure what he is anticipating, if it is just some kind of ghostly presence or else another man, a stonemason, maybe, trying to beat them to the best gravestones around. Determined not to let them win or hurt him, whoever they are, he walks through the trees, approaching the source of the sound, a large rock in hand. Startled by the sudden rush of wings as a black bird flies overhead, he ducks down, nearly falling back into a freshly dug grave. He has to scramble to retain his balance. His head reels from the rush of alcohol and adrenaline. Now his heart is in his throat and he is in a rage as he approaches the figure in the shadows. This area is dark, but he can make out the silhouettes of two men. One man is standing, the other is sitting down. There is also a small animal on the ground.

  Wiktor is waiting amid scattered trees. He resembles the stark branch of a tree that has yet to develop new leaves. He is lost in the moment.

  Olga is swooning in the moonlight against a tree trunk.

  Anna is standing at the gates, tiny beads of sweat pouring down her face as she sees a man crossing the cemetery toward Wolf and the boy. Screaming on the inside, she is suddenly frozen and unable to act.

  Just as he did after the train hit him, Wiktor’s body rises and sweeps now through the branches and the tombs, aboard the faint breeze of spring. “Wait for me!” he would shout if only he could. “Don’t move.” But there is no longer any possibility for sound. The best he can do is to rustle the branches of a tree and make a leaf fly into the approaching man’s face, but his diversions are useless, and they come too late.

  XI

  A man’s face is painted on the side of a building right here, on this abandoned street corner. His face spans the entire brick wall, but you cannot see him unless you come here at night, close your eyes to the world, and ask for his face to appear. Then you will see the white lines of his eyes, the charcoal outline of his lips, and the great white feathers that span from his head.

  This painting will smile at you when you ask it to, you will see, but for now it is no more than a secret mirage. It will be here one day, out for everyone to see, many years from now when this story is well hidden and everyone can celebrate in Poland freely and there will be songs danced in the streets of Kazimierz. You might not believe it now, but you will see. The man’s face will reign over this district of forgotten souls. You cannot imagine it, can you? But someday it will happen. And the sight of such change will make you want to weep.

  XII

  Pain is so very strange. When it comes suddenly, sometimes it can get lost in time and you feel almost nothing at all. First there is a shock and everything moves slowly, and then the world is still, everything has stopped. Then you are floating, about to separate from your body, until the pain brings you back, and you are abruptly reunited with yourself. And then you pray for escape, because it is almost too much to bear.

  I didn’t see him coming. I was listening to the sound of Wolf’s voice as his prayer rose into the heavens. The beauty of the prayer for the dead, which I hummed softly to myself, was enough to make me want to cry. I could reach that well inside that I have been trying to hide and let the waters of my heart flow until I drown in their depths. It is possible, you know. The body contains so much water that if you let your sadness free it can drown you in an instant. When I leaned back against the cold tombstone I was certain that this would happen to me, yes and now, I said to myself, looking up at the moon, so swollen and beautiful that I could almost feel it pulling at my heart. But the dog’s barking distracted me, which was good, because then I knew for sure that this would not be my day to cry or to drown.

  Wolf stopped praying and bent over to see what was happening with the dog when I heard a thump. The sound came before the slowing of time and also before the pain, as if my heart had skipped a beat and I could not keep track of what was real. It went like this: first a loud thud, then a cold feeling on my face, then Wolf shouting and the dog barking. “Hush, please, could you just be a little bit quieter?” I wanted to whisper, but I was unable to speak. Then I realized that the ringing in my ears was louder than anything. What is that buzz inside my head? What is that well rising in my throat? Could it be that the dam of sadness has broken open at last? No, it was vomit and blood. There was a strange taste, and then a feeling that something was pulling hard on my head. And then came the pain. I tried to open my eyes, but I could not see. I felt Wolf’s head and arms around me and his body trembling hard against mine. “Don’t shake so much, dear Wolf,” I wanted to tell him soothingly, but it was impossible at that moment to say those words. And then I heard the sound of many voices, like a chorus of men, women, and dogs, and of all the people in this world and beyond who wanted to save me but who could do nothing.

  And now something incredible is happening. It is like nothing that the pill has ever given me before, like none of my prayers that have ever been answered or not been answered. If I could sing and jump with happiness, I would. First I depart from the tombstone up through the trees, so tender at this moment of spring. They bow gently as I pass, a black bird nodding its beak in my direction, as if to say, go on, it’s your turn to fly. I am blanketed in the cold night air, the stars suspended around my body, just as if I were one of them. I lift up further and further, rising to meet the moon, and though nothing on the surface of the moon has changed, I can feel its delight at seeing me approach. I open my arms to welcome it just as it is welcoming me. You have never experienced such a warm feeling. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever known, like many temperatures of light and color passing through your whole being. Only you don’t have a body anymore, so there is nothing to keep you from feeling that your being extends past the sky, past the world, even the universe. Your body becomes everything at once. More than holding that little sweet dog in my arms, more than how it felt when I was a child and my mother hugged me tight, before there was war and everything became night.

  I see the moon smiling at me now, cal
ling my name with my mother’s voice. Is that her calling? Has she been secretly waiting for me all this time? Oh, Mama, you always knew just what I needed. You always did have a trick up your sleeve. I am going up to meet you now. And, Mama, I did what you asked. I never let myself be afraid. Can I cry now? Can I let my river of sadness run free? I don’t have to. I am almost home. I look down at the cemetery and I see Wolf sobbing over my dead body. “Don’t cry, Wolf!” I want to shout down into the blackness of the night. There I am, the shell of a human being, so empty without my soul, like a statue or a doll. I am surprised to see just how small I look lying there on the ground. For a moment I think to go back and help him, but I cannot. I am on to something else now.

  XIII

  Everything happens so fast, and from a distance there is only the racing heart and the night air to contend with. Anna doesn’t see Wolf leap to save the boy, sitting beside him trying to stop the bleeding of his skull, yelling at the man with the rock to tie a tourniquet around his head. Most strange is that the man does exactly what Wolf tells him to do. When he realizes just what he has done, he becomes prepared to stone himself next.

  No, Anna does not witness the frightening scene of the little boy losing consciousness, of Wolf weeping, or of the dog barking frantically, running around them in wild, near-blind circles, the souls of Wiktor and Olga shrieking at the edges, the violent man shouting and crying, “What have I done?! What have I done?!” as his friends run to the scene to fight with Wolf. She does not watch the man step in to protect Wolf from them. She does not see the thieves tell him that they had all better run, nor does she hear him respond by telling them to go to hell. Anna only sees the two men abandon their equipment and scurry out of the opening between the locked cemetery gates. As the second man, the thin one with the loose trousers, passes through the gates, out of the cemetery, she notices that he has a bloodstained handprint on his shirt. The red smear seems to stand on its own, lifted from the shirt in relief, vibrating in the strange half-light of night, blood pulsating in the street.

  Now as she leans against the outer surface of the cemetery wall hoping for invisibility, Anna feels a hot wet stream of urine slide between her thighs. Nothing in this world, not even the sight of her friend Maryna’s dead body smashed against the pavement, has ever been as shocking as the blood-stained handprint on this man’s sleeve. She cannot shiver the image out of her mind. When the men are gone, Anna begins to shout for help. She rattles the gate and screams with everything she has. As if she could make up for everything she has lost, for everyone who has died.

  An old man in his dressing gown comes running from a nearby building, and together he and Anna worm their way through the locked gates. There is such a commotion at the sight of the boy lying there in a pool of blood. Paweł, the drunk Polish man, lifts the boy up into his arms, as if he were light as a feather, and together the group, which includes the little dog and the sad foreigner, walk slowly out of the cemetery gates, Wiktor and Olga hovering above the scene in the branches of an unwavering tree.

  XIV

  The officer looks at me with an unfeeling expression. “Why are you here making trouble?” He asks. “Where are you from?” I pull out my documents and tell him I am about to get on a train out of Poland, and he stops his line of questioning.

  I leave the child’s body there, with the policemen and the drunken stranger who is now weeping with his head in his trembling hands, a long strand of cigarette ash falling from his fingers to the floor. I leave a part of me there, too.

  I walk to the train station with the young lady who helped us at the cemetery, both of us weeping all the way. A young couple passes us and laughs. The woman asks the man what is wrong with us, and he calls us drunkards and they continue on their way. When we arrive at the near-empty station everything feels bleak, and for a second I wonder if there will be no train, but there it is, lights facing west. I board with the dog. She hugs me tight, trembling in my arms, skirt stained with fear.

  My little dog stays faithful to me. He sits on my lap and looks out the window at the passing scene. The night is still shrouded in darkness, but I can see on the horizon that dawn is breaking. There is a thin pink line, a scar separating sky from earth, stealing the night away. When I close my eyes I see the train lifting up into the night sky, a shower of scattered letters falling like stars all around me. I could never gather them quickly enough. I can see Olga floating up beside me, her arms around the body of a small child. Maybe their souls are together now. I wonder this as I fall asleep. I don’t know why I thought that I could come back and see. There is no home for us here anymore. Everyone I love, everything I touch.…

  XV

  There is a wind of energy inside every man and in everything, and I can see it now, though I never could before. You lay there sleeping, head loping against the windowpane, breath quickened, eyelids shifting with the movement of your dreams. My darling, Wolf, where are you flying to now? You were always distracted by your thoughts. Now I am one of them, sending you a question, hoping that you might hear my voice from somewhere deep within. I watch the open planes of your sleeping face as they twitch with questions and cries, insuppressible, also in sleep. I watch the movement of your breath as it runs through your skin and veins and even through your cells, pulsing your life through to the next vibrant breath. People are more alive than they can ever know. And though I have no chance to lie in your arms anymore, at least I am with you now. When you boarded the train I followed you, and now I am at peace. Without a body, but still on the peripheries, unable to quit the witnessing of this world, I feel safe now because I am with you, just as we are supposed to be. We are together again.

  XVI

  From above, this world looks like a sea of grounded stars or a light box with secrets obvious and exposed. On earth everything feels so complicated and unknown, but up here it isn’t the same. You all linger there like you could make a difference, always saying, maybe this time.…

  Part IV

  The Feather

  I

  Death is all around, and it is impossible to sleep. Anna’s heart beats so feverishly that it translates into a staccato rhythm in her dreams. In these visions, Maryna cries out for help. So do Rachelka and the boy. His skin is soaked in blood, his hair, matted. Red is everywhere. Red is the color of the rhythm that makes her want to run.

  “Where were you?” Rachelka cries, spitting at Anna’s feet. Her hair is gray, her eyes aflame with anger. She runs barefoot and wild into the courtyard and out into the street. Anna hears a scream so deep and enduring that it is impossible to discern where it is coming from.

  Now she awakes with a start, and the first thing that she sees is Wiktor sitting at the foot of her bed. Wojtuś, who is not so little anymore, snores peacefully at her side. Anna sits up and jumps back against the headboard. They sit staring at one another for what seems like a long while. She marvels at the soft fuzziness of his kind face. Daylight is coming, and his image is fading with the increasing light. Do ghosts disappear in the day? She asks him in her thoughts. He takes her hand. She looks down to see that he has no hands but only colorless swirls of energy where hands and fingers should be. There is a powerful surge to their touch. He opens her palm, and in it he places a ring of stars.

  “Set them free,” he tells her, and she opens her eyes.

  II

  At the top of this wall leading to the churchyard there is a row of columns on which sit a group of saints. On the left stands a statue of St. Thérèse, and there is one of St. Anthony on the right. They are frozen in time, forever gesturing toward the sky. What are they questioning? One thing is for certain: there are truths to behold. During the day they subtly implore passersby to stop and remember them, maybe even go inside the church (light a candle, confess, attend mass), but at night these statues look like gods painted against the brilliant nocturnal sky. Above them hovers a scattering of clouds. On earth these statues mimic the central point of a cosmological system. We passersby orbit
them in awe. We see how their flesh is made of stone, quivering at the subtlest level. Their life force is much more refined than that of a leaf, a tree, or even a blade of grass. Theirs is hidden somewhere far beneath. Look again and you will see. Their hearts are on their sleeves.

  Tonight there is a black bird crouching on the head of St. Thérèse. This is no ordinary pigeon or crow, but a bird whose wings expand more than ten feet wide, a kind of bird you have never seen before. This bird has witnessed the construction of St. Mary’s Church, has seen Kraków way back when. This bird watched over droves of people as they were shuffled like cards and ushered out of Kraków, then turned into dust. This bird has seen it all. And tonight it followed the wind to rest here for a while, gathering strength before its next flight. This bird has sat on the Temple Mount and listened to every song, every call to prayer. This bird knows every language and every psalm. Now Polish is the language that it listens to most. This bird has flown to America, where they speak with a dull twang. In a time of uncharted waters, this bird followed as one culture was destroyed, another swiftly born. Erasing the past has never benefitted any group of pioneers more. This bird has heard the pitter-patter of immigrant feet in a country built by foreigners for people who belong. America, where everyone is a stranger, everybody looking for a home.

  This bird has seen great works of art painted and performed, has sat on the shoulders of Tolstoy and Tsvetaeva, of Debussy and Górecki, and on the windowsill of Kafka, where laughter and gloom always coexisted. This bird has listened to Mozart conduct his Marriage of Figaro at the opera house in Vienna, sat with the young composer while he quietly sang himself into his dying breath. “But who is that soprano?” he asked, a quiet murmur that came too late.