He squinted at me. ‘Stanislovas’?’
At that moment Rachael appeared by his side. ‘Steponas!’ she said brightly.
‘You’re Daumantas’ son,’ Mendle said, placing me. I nodded.
‘Nu, in that case I’ll come. Your father’s a good man. What is it then? A horse in need of a shoe?’
‘That and a cartwheel.’
‘You’re looking very smart,’ Rachael said, eyeing my wedding suit.
‘A wedding,’ I said.
‘Tatinka,’ Rachael said to her father. ‘Can I come?’
Mendle nodded. ‘Why not?’
‘I have space for you,’ I offered.
I let the horses find their own pace on the road back to the cottage. Mendle soon passed us. When we got back to the Stanislovas farm, the sound of singing drifted from the cottage. The guests were seated around the long table. ‘The food is bitter, bitter,’ they were singing, banging their spoons on the wooden table, ‘when the bridegroom kisses the bride it will be sweeter.’
While Mendle went to work on the cartwheel, Rachael and I wandered across the lane. A small wooden bridge spanned the river, where the banks drew in close between tWo low hills. It was old and little used and we had to cross with care, picking out the planks that did not look as if they would give way.
‘Who is getting married?’ Rachael asked when we were sitting on the crest of the knoll, on the far bank of the river.
‘My cousin, Asta. Stanislovas’ daughter.’
For some moments we sat in silence, gazing back across the river through the trees to the cottage and barns and work sheds. The sound of singing and shouts was just audible above the rush of the river through the.narrow banks.
‘I have something to give you,’ I said.
‘Oh?’
I pulled a small metal disk from my pocket. There was a hole punched into it, through which ran a thin chain. On the disk was the engraving of a knight seated on a rearing horse, his sword swinging above his head. I gave it to her. She examined it closely.
‘It’s a Vytis,’ I told her. ‘The emblem of Lithuania. This insignia was on coins minted in the times of Vytautas the Great, one of the early Grand Dukes of Lithuania.’
She looked up at me. Her eyes were dark, almond shaped, shaded with thick, curled lashes.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly, and touched my hand.
‘Vytautas was one of Lithuania’s greatest Grand Dukes,’ my father told me, one evening, sat at the table, drinking, after supper. Often he taught me the history of Lithuania in the evenings. At school we were taught only what the Poles wanted us to learn about the history of our united countries. ‘It was he,’ my father continued, ‘who defeated the Teutonic knights in the battle of Tannenburg. For years the German Orders had been trying to invade our country, interested more in snatching land and riches rather than spreading the gospel. Latvia and Estonia were already theirs, and they were bleeding them dry. They never fully recovered from the defeat at Tannenburg.’
More and more often my father returned to this tale. The contemporary resonance of the story of that struggle between the German knights and the Lithuanian people was growing more pronounced each day. The Nazis were agitating in Klaipeda, laying claim to the region, which had been part of the empire taken from them by the Versailles Treaty. There were daily demonstrations organised by local Nazi party members, protesting against the ill-treatment of German citizens.
The German government had initiated a trade embargo against Lithuania, in protest at the country’s abuse of its German minority. This was a heavy blow to Lithuania, as Germany was its main trading partner. The Nazi party in the Klaipeda region of Lithuania was demanding that the Nuremberg Laws be applied to what they called Memelland. Many of the region’s Jews were retreating into safer areas of Lithuania.
It was for his treatment of the Jews that I held Vytautas in esteem. He drew up a charter that gave the Jews in his empire legal autonomy, safeguarded their business interests and outlawed the blood libel, attempting to put a stop to the accusations of Jews murdering Christian children for their Passover preparations. He initiated an era of religious tolerance the like of which Western Europe would not enjoy for hundreds of years.
‘I will keep it with me,’ she said. ‘It’ll be my good luck charm.’
She wrapped it carefully in her handkerchief and slipped it into the pocket of her dress. When we returned to the cottage, the wedding guests were spilling out onto the grass. Mendle had finished and Rachael joined him on his gig. I stood in the road and waved as they drove down the lane towards the village. When I turned back to the cottage, I noticed my mother was watching me.
Chapter 38
The kitchen was the heart of my home; it was the place I loved to be. In the evenings, by the light of a candle, I worked at the scrubbed table. A large stone held the door open, in the summer, and the fragrance of the night hung on the air. In the winter the kitchen was the warmest of the rooms in the house. The large oven glowed in the corner and all day the house was filled with the smell of bread baking. At nights, in the winter, there was the delicious smell of pork as my mother slow-cooked kugelis through the night. For breakfast we ate the grated potatoes soaked through with the fat of the pork.
When my schoolwork was finished I worked on my poems. They were filled with tales of the Grand Dukes, heroes of the old empire battling the German knights, or of woods and valleys and clear lakes, of the Nemunas and simple peasants, the country that existed in literature, more than in reality. I was very much under the influence of the romantic Lithuanian poets, Mickiewicz and Baranauskas, and the father of Lithuanian poetry, Donelaitis. My father was exceptionally proud of these poems I wrote; they were to his taste. I wrote in both Lithuanian and Polish. Whilst my Lithuanian poems flew with exuberant metaphors, my Polish poems were more tempered, precise and often gloomy.
In the late summer of that year the annual poetry reading festival was held in the village hall. I entered myself with a couple of poems I was proud of and had worked at intensely. The poems, in Polish, were nationalistic in tone. One, called simply Hymn, took as its starting point the village itself, its humble wooden buildings, dusty roads, its hard working folk, the fields and forests that surrounded it. Its gaze widened further out to the rolling hills, the cities and then finally the whole nation, from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathians, from Poznan to Wilno, Krakow to Gdansk. My father grunted when I read it to him. Wojciech Rudnicka, my schoolmaster, was enthusiastic. He clapped energetically when I read it out to the class. ‘Bravo,’ he called, and ‘Good poem’. As I left he clapped his friendly hand on my shoulder, and whispered in my ear, ‘You’ll be entering the tournament, I hope, Steponas.’ He spoke of it always as if it was a medieval jousting rather than a poetry reading contest.
I took extraordinary care when I dressed for the competition. I hurried home from the fields where I had been working and carelessly rushed my tasks, apologising to the chickens that I stepped on in my hurry. A large bowl of steaming water was waiting for me in my room and I peeled off my clothes and washed the dust and sweat from my body. My mother had laid out my best clothes, neatly pressed. They smelt clean and were stiff against my body.
‘Oi,’ my mother said, ‘what a son I have! He is a man already.’
‘He’s been a man a long time,’ my father grunted, forking potato pancakes into his mouth. ‘Works like a real man,’ he added proudly.
‘Nu, but of course,’ my mother said, beaming. Grandmother, in black, hovered in the doorway, a gentle smile on her face.
I met Jan and Povilas on the road into the village. They were going to the village hall though they had not entered the competition. They were boisterous and tried to lift me onto their shoulders. I pushed them off, worried they would mess up my appearance. The village was busy and in carnival mood. There was music and in front of the village hall girls from the school in traditional dress were dancing. A small crowd milled around, mainly students and teacher
s from the schools in the neighbouring villages. As I pushed through the crowd my excitement grew. It was not so much the sight of Jurczyk, editor of the local paper, that made my hands tremble nervously, it was the knowledge that in the crowd of spectators Rachael would be sat listening. I very much wanted to impress her.
At the doors of the large, wooden village hall I met Itzikl, a cousin of Rachael. He was a thin boy with yellow skin. He was tough enough, though. If he was provoked he did not hesitate to settle the argument with his fists at the edge of the wood, by the millpond, where all school disputes were settled. He grinned, seeing me. His teeth were all out of place and one of them was black and dead. I smiled.
‘I see you entered the competition,’ I said.
‘You bet.’
‘What’s your poem?’
‘It’s satirical.’ He grinned his mash-toothed grin.
Itzikl’s father was a communist, a member of the Bund. He was a big, good-looking, blond-haired man. He played the guitar well and sang communist songs. Itzikl was so unlike him that there were many who laughed at the ‘bastard’. ltzikl worshipped his father though, and enthusiastically embraced his communist ideals. So passionately did he spread the ideas that he had heard among the students at school that even mild mannered Wojciech Rudnicka was forced to give him a warning.
‘Good luck,’ I said and shook his bony hand.
The hall filled. The competitors sat on a row of wooden chairs on the low stage. I sat stiffly, scanning the sea of heads for her dark hair. I could not find it. To my right sat ltzikl, grinning confidently. He would follow me. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My mnd flicked over the lines of the poem I had learnt by heart, rehearsing it as I worked in the fields.
‘We are very pleased to have a real live poet among us today,’ Wojciech Rudnicka said, rubbing his soft, scholar’s hands together. Being Master of Ceremonies he had dressed up for the occasion in a dinner suit. He flicked his lank, dark hair back from his forehead and half turned from his position at the front of the stage to indicate a round, red-faced, seedy man seated at the back of the stage by the purple curtain. The real live poet bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of the polite applause that rippled around the village hall. His shoulders were white with flakes from his scalp. His lips were large and moist. He surveyed the audience suspiciously and did not seem to notice the nervous line of young poets beside him.
‘As you can see we have ten talented young folk entered for the competition this year, and I can guarantee you that each one stands a strong chance of winning. A fine talented bunch that give us faith in the future of our noble Polish language and its strong tradition of poetry.’ Wojciech Rudnicka flicked back his hair and jutted out his weak chin. ‘Maybe one of these young folk here,’ he said with a florid sweep of his pink hand, ‘will one day be as admired as our esteemed guest. Who knows?’
Again the audience rippled with applause. Wojciech Rudnicka smiled. ‘It only remains, then, for me to introduce the first of our young poets this evening.’ The first competitor was a boy called Karol. He stepped forward, confidently, to the edge of the stage, closed his eyes, lifted his head and shouted his poem to the wooden beams that held up the roof. I noticed the fleshy, wet-lipped poet cringe by the curtain. He closed his eyes too, a crease scarring his pink forehead, and looked as though he wished he were anywhere else. Karol’s poem ricocheted around the rafters and fell dead at the back of the hall. He stopped suddenly as though he had forgotten his last line. For a moment the audience held its breath, but then he opened his eyes and bowed deeply. The audience clapped enthusiastically. Wojciech Rudnicka jumped back onto the stage nodding and clapping. He smiled enthusiastically at the cringing poet, who managed to raise a weak smile in return.
Each poet stood in turn and took their place at the edge of the stage. Somebody opened the window and above the sound of the audience fidgeting it was possible to hear the sound of the men standing outside the door, with the horses, waiting, smoking, drinking and laughing.
As my turn approached I grew more confident that the poem I had written was far superior to those of the other competitors. I did not, however, get much satisfaction from this confidence. And then I noticed Rachael. She slid through the doors stealthily and sat on a wooden bench by the back wall, among a group of women.
The competitor to my left stood up and edged towards the front of the stage. I did not hear her words but willed her only to be finished quickly so that I might get my chance. There was a spattering of applause from the bored audience as the girl bowed shyly and retreated to her seat. The greasy poet seemed to have fallen asleep. His head was sunk low against his chest and his eyes were closed. I took that as a challenge. I stepped confidently to the edge of the stage and looked out across the faces. I paused before I began and sought out her eyes. She smiled.
Turning to the sleeping poet, I addressed him, loudly, in Polish, ‘Proszae Pana! Sir! With respect I would like to dedicate this poem to our nation. Ladies and gentlemen, my poem is titled Hymn.’
The poet awoke with a start and regarded me with a spark of malice in his liquid eyes. Sure of his attention I began.
I imbued each line with as much pride and longing as I could. The words seemed to spin out from me like smooth pebbles across a clear cold lake. They dropped like fresh dew into the laps of the audience. A silence fell upon the room. I felt my words become pregnant with meaning, each one swollen with love for our country. The images of the nation from its tiny villages to its ancient cities, its forests and lakes and mountains, its heroes and heroines, kings and queens, resounded in the silence.
As my voice rose to the last stanza I heard a noise growing in the audience. They had become blurred before my eyes. I sensed them shifting, the sound of feet and voices. I drew the last word from my heart and tossed it to them, and then felt it explode like a bomb. I opened my eyes to the audience on its feet cheering. A wave of heat coursed through my veins. A sense of sweet exultation lifted me from the boards of the stage. The damp poet was beside me, his arm around my shoulder, shaking my hand. Wojciech Rudnicka was beaming and clapping vigorously at the edge of the stage.
‘A young poet for the nation,’ the lank-haired poet said to my teacher. ‘Moving. Most moving. God in heaven, a poem to rouse the soul of our nation.’
I bowed, trying to pull back the smile from my lips. I edged back to my seat, aware that still the audience was clapping. My cheeks burned red. Rachael had seen my moment of triumph. My joy was without bounds.
Itzikl clapped a hand on my knee and smiled at me wanly. He pulled himself to his feet and stepped slowly forward ‘to the edge of the stage. The audience was still on its feet. At the front, I noticed, stood Tomasz Bozek and Pawel Polmanski, the councillors. Shouts resounded in the small wooden hall. The doors opened and the men who had been waiting outside pushed through, cheap cigarettes between their thin lips and vodka bottles, half empty, still clutched in their hands. Itzikl stood motionless at the front of the stage. Wojciech Rudnicka moved forward to the edge of the stage but then hesitated, drew back. A word was thrown forwards from the audience. It seemed to hit Itzikl like a physical blow for he staggered back a step. It was thrown once more, and this time it came from more than one mouth.
‘Ty Zydzie!’
‘Swinia!’
‘Ty Zydzie!’
Jew. Pig. Blyad. Jew-pig. Zydzie! Zydzie! The words hailed down upon the stage. They roared in my ears. I felt the blood draining from my face. Itzikl stood still on the edge of the stage, colourless, his poem arrested on his lips.
‘Give us the national poet!’ somebody shouted. ‘Get rid of this fucking Yid!’
To my horror I heard my name on the lips of the drunken men. Tomasz Bozek was grinning at me, his bald head glistening in the late light that slanted through the windows. ‘Give us the Polish boy,’ they shouted. ‘Let’s hear the Polish boy again.’
Itzikl crept back to his seat beside me, cringing away from me. I tumed to him,
but he backed away as if I was about to hit him. Fear lit his eyes.
Wojciech Rudnicka spoke into the ear of the guest poet. He hustled him forward to the edge of the stage. The poet cleared his throat and held his hands out like Moses about to part the waters before him. Slowly the noise began to drain from the room. Wojciech Rudnicka crept across the stage behind the poet-prophet and pulled Itzikl up by the arm.
He pushed him through a door behind the stage and closed it behind them. I sat silent, rooted to my wooden chair, hot and cold flushes washing through my body. Painful waves. Rachael, I noticed, had left.
Chapter 39
Wilno. Its church spires rose above the winding streets. Gediminas’ tower stood on the ancient hill, the birth-site of the ancient city. On this hill the greatest of the Grand Dukes had fallen asleep one night, on a hunting trip in the deep old forests. As he slept he dreamt of an iron wolf howling at the moon from the hilltop. In the morning he summoned a wise old man to him and told him the dream. The bearded pagan priest interpreted it. On this hill the Grand Duke was to found a city. It would be a powerful city. The howling of the iron wolf signified how the fame of the city would spread out around the world.
I climbed the hill on the morning of my first day in Wilno and looked out across the city. The early autumn mist clung, still, to the hollows of the valley, shrouding the town. Below me the two rivers joined, the rivers where the first Christian missionaries met their watery end, martyred by the fierce natives, the last of Europe’s pagan tribes. Below me, too, stood the cathedral, which even as I watched began to glisten under the rays of the sun that had climbed above the hills and cut through the milky sheets of mist. The pope had won in the end and set his church in the place of the temple of the ancient gods.
My mother said nothing as she stood by the old cart that was to take me to the city. She cried silently into her handkerchief. My father shook my hand and then embraced me. He had dressed in his best suit to see me off. Clumsily, uncomfortable in the stiff, tight three-piece, he loaded sacks of apples and pears, potatoes, onions and garlic onto the back of the cart for me to take to the city. Adam, one of my father’s workmen, sat at the front of the old cart, with a sack rolled as a cushion. Having embraced my father and said a last goodbye to my mother, I jumped up onto the cart and Adam flicked the whip across the smooth flank of the horse.
The Last Girl Page 16
