Praise for Irina
“I loved following Irina’s journey from Polish servant girl to French business woman. Her determination and curiosity made me cheer, and her harrowing escape from those who would thwart her progress had me holding my breath. A great historical novel filled with details only the best research could show.”
—Holly Johnson, Cincinnati, Ohio
“A masterfully detailed description of culture, religion, history and politics of the times intertwined with a deeply moving portrayal of tragedy, hope and perseverance through the eyes of the very courageous Irina.”
—Judith Sainato, The Villages, Florida
Irina
Copyright © 2021 Philip Warren
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-7367794-2-2 (KDP Edition)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021905268
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.
Cover design by Evocative
Typesetting by Stewart A. Williams
Copyedit by Brooks Becker
First printing edition 2021
The PineLands Company, Publisher
New Wilmington, Pennsylvania
www.philipwarrenwriter.com
Irina’s story is dedicated to the millions
down through the centuries
whose lives were taken
because of hate, greed, and bigotry.
May they rest in
God’s eternal peace.
Author’s Note
The Polish Language
While the names of characters and common Polish words are rendered carefully, their sounds, even if spoken only in your mind, may be unfamiliar. For your ease, I have provided below phonetic assistance for names and words, alphabetically. There is a presumption that many French words and phrases used are more generally understood. In Polish, as in French, always roll the “r’s.”
Irina Kwasnieska—Yee-ryn-ah Quaz-nyez-skah
Ambrozy Rudzenski (Father)—Om-bro-zhy Roo-dzen-ski
Antony Tirasewicz (Bishop)—Ahn-toe-knee Tier-as-sheh-vitch
Bardzo Dobrze—Bard-Zaw Daub-Zheh—Very good!
Bela Kinizsi (Sir)—Bay-lah-Che-kneeze-si
Berek Joselewicz—Bay-wrek Yo-zel-eh-vitch
Boleslaw III (King)—Bo-yes-whaw
Deena Sklowdowska—Deenah Skwaw-doff-ska
Dzjadzja—Gia-Gia—Grandfather
Dobrze—Daub-zheh—Good!
Duzo zdrowia—Dew-zhaw zdraw-vee-yah!—Good health to you!
Djenkuje—Jenk-coo-yeah—Thank you
Franciszek Montowski—Frawn-cis-shek Mawn-toff-ski
Gniezno—Knee-yez-no
Ignacz and Maria Kwasniewski—Igg-knots & Mah-ree-yah Quaz-nyez-skah
Jan Brezchwa (Count)—Yan Bresh-vah
Janos Tomori (Captain)—Yahn-ose-Tah-mor-ee
Janus and Eva Joselewicz—Yan-oose & Ava Yo-zel-eh-vitch
Janusz Krawcyk—Yan-oosh Kraff-chick
Jerzy Andrezski—Yare-zhy On-dresh-ski
Kazimierz Wielki (King)—Kahz-ee-mersh Vee-al-key—Casimir III the Great
Krosno Odrienskie—Krozno Odr-jhan-ski-eh—Krosno on the Oder
Matka—Maht-kah—Mother
Martinus Madrosh (Father)—Mahr-teen-us Mah-drosh
Nie—Nyeh—Is it not so?
Ojciec—Oy-chech—Father
Ostrow Tumski—Awstrow Tomb-ski
Pan—Pahn—Mr.
Panie—Pah-knee—Mrs.
Pawel Tokasz—Pa-vel Talk-osh
Poznan—Pauz-nahn
Prosze—Praw-sheh—Please
Shimanski (Father)—Sheh-mein-ski
Srodka—Shrawd-kah
Szczecin (Shetchin) and Wroclaw (Vraw-cwav)
Szlachta—Schwack-tah—nobility
Tak—Tahk—Yes
Teofil—Tay-oh-feel
Tomasz Wodowicz—Toe-mah-sh Voe-dah-vitch
Ulica Zydowska—ou-leetz-ah Zhih-doff-skah—Jewish Street
The Warta River—Var-tah
Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia—Ves-o-ick Schviunt Baw-zheh-gaw Nah-raw-dzen-yah—Happy Christmas
Wielko Polska—Vee-yel-ko Pole-skah—Greater Poland
Wigilia—Vee-lee-yah—The Vigil (before Christmas)
Woda—Vaw-dah—Water
Wojciec—Voy-chech
Wozna—Vawz-nah
Zuzanna Kwasniewska/Tokasz—Zuzzie—Dzu-dzahn-ah Quaz-nyez-skah/Talk-osh—Dzu-dzee
Zygmunt Sokorski (Duke)—Zig-moont So-kor-ski
In traditional Polish, a female is usually addressed with an “a” at the end of her name whether she is married or single. Irina Kwasniewski may be her given name, but referring to her as Kwasniewska will get her attention and informs other listeners that you are addressing her and not a male member of her family.
Chapter I
1378
Poznan, Poland
With each step deeper into ulica Zydowska—Jewish Street—fear crept beside her. What Irina had already seen in the city tore at her hopes, and she shivered in the damp gloom.
Firelight painted the slippery cobbles with dancing yellows and oranges as she eased her fingers along the slick courtyard wall. The splintered planks of the Joselewicz gate lay in the street like discarded kindling. Her heavy felt boots, sodden from the long walk into the city, slowed her steps as smoky air filled her throat. She opened her lips to cry out, but no sound came.
Peering through the gate’s wreckage, she could see that a blaze, having caught wood and straw, had begun to climb over the feet of those tied together. Over the crackle of flames came the gasps of familiar voices, voices she had come to love. Her eyes went from the flames to the people she knew, who struggled not to scream away the pain. Neither did they plead, so certain was their fate. She only hoped they knew to breathe in the heavy smoke, the only way to hasten their end. This was a sad bit of life’s lore she’d once learned from old Joselewicz. Did you remember what you told me? She heard their final rasps rise with sparks into the chilled night air, and except for one, their heads lolled into their eternal sleep.
Irina shuddered, sobbing. Moj Boze—My God—how could you let this be? Amidst the inferno, she sought a glance from the one remaining awake to the pain, the one she loved more than any other. When their eyes met, she used her hands to give her Berek Joselewicz the only message he could take with him.
The stench of burning flesh—his flesh—made her turn away from what she could never have imagined to be the gate to hell. She retched into the gutter.
* * *
1410
Giverny, France
Irina awoke, trembling, and sat up in the great carved bed, her gown drenched in the nightsweat that had become her companion of late. Whether this was caused by the disease she knew was slowly consuming her or by visions of the long dead troubling the night wanderings of her mind, she did not know. What she did know was the one moment she had just lived again was but a small part of her story. Why can I not forget?
She didn’t recall Velka walking with her from the salon to her bed chamber, but they must have done so right after the rain stopped. Why do
es this night seem so much like the other? Somehow, her treasured servant and companion had managed to get her into bed, and for that and so much else, she had learned gratitude to the one Almighty God who had protected her for nearly fifty years.
To be sure, the woman she saw in the nearby looking glass was not the girl who had journeyed to France from Poznan more than thirty years before. Hair that had once been auburn now hung long, gray, and unbraided, lank strings against her neck. Her body shook with the pain that racked her. She was sure the belly that had once grown a new life now grew something that would end her own. That she would not live to see Giverny’s next spring flowers, she felt sure.
Throwing off the coverlet, she attempted to rise, grabbing at the bed’s headboard. She gasped, laboring to breathe the early dawn’s chilled air. Steadying herself, she glimpsed the swaying grasses just catching the sun’s earliest radiance. Ordinarily their dance in the shifting breezes seemed magical, but this morning, the sight out her window made her dizzy and she fell to the floor, knocking aside the candle table.
She cried out but knew Velka was fast asleep in the next room. Catching sight of her treasured blue cape, she pulled it over herself once more and murmured to the God she knew was listening. “How could I have lived so long? How could I have done all the things I have done, yet not the one thing I must?”
No answers came. She did not expect them. Irina had begun to hope she would once more see the only child she had borne, that there existed some mystical balance scale allowing her the necessary time. Yet discomfort jostled the morning as she lay curled into a blue sphere, waiting for her shivers to melt into the sun’s first rays.
As to God, that he existed at all had been difficult to accept in her early years, given what she had seen happen in His name. What did I know of God? What I knew was what the priest told us. The Mass was in Latin—not Polish! What did God know of me? Did He care for us?
She wondered if her once deep doubts remained as a mark against her in the ledgers of heaven, even though she had long come to believe there was an Almighty watching, waiting.
In the mist of semi-consciousness, she could hear Velka’s voice. Despite the old servant’s cooing words, Irina knew that her life was seeping away, that whatever was consuming her would not go away with the turning of many more seasons.
Velka helped her mistress to the privy room—Irina refused to use a chamber pot—and to her morning ablutions. In a shallow tub of tepid water, Irina shook with cold once more as she sponged herself carefully, completely. Cleanliness had always been her habit, even as a mere peasant, a servant girl.
Fresh once more, Irina prodded herself to dress for the day’s routine, but could not find the will. She was not hungry and had little strength. She was exhausted from the wrenching scenes in her night journey. Never before had she felt this way. “Velka,” she began in her easy French, her voice a whimper, “put me back in my bed. Perhaps I will mend by the noon hour.”
“Yes, My Lady. I will bring you hot tea.” Velka spoke Polish to her, their most fluent tongue, even after decades away from their homeland.
After a while, Velka returned and waited for Irina to finish the steaming cup, as if the simple gesture of taking it might also carry away her cares with the porcelain. She plumped up her mistress’s pillows and bade her rest. “You will be well soon. You must give yourself time.”
Irina did not believe the faithful Velka but surrendered to the comforting softness of the large down pillows. She let her mind drift to places in her heart by which she had paused many times before, and let each memory unwind as if from a spool of thread. She knew that for many of the events she thought she remembered, she herself could not have been present. She had come to rely on others for many of the missing pieces, and surmised still more, but prayed only that the one Omniscient Being would find a certain justice in assuring the rest of her story be told. It was one of pain, love, and cruelty, all too common in her time, but it was also her story of triumph in a brutal world ruled by men.
The throbbing pain in her stomach returned. To Him, she made her plea once more. If it is soon that I come home to You, Great God of all, will you not let me see my son again?
She forced a smile, remembering young Berek, tall for his seventeen years. Black curls framed brilliant blue eyes and a smile to melt December’s river ice. As the sun-bathed breeze whispered forgotten things, she allowed herself to remember more of what had happened that day so many years before, to Berek, and to her.
* * *
1378
Poznan, Poland
The ancient path to Poznan was hours long, and each step became its own vow to leave the Kwasniewski family farm and never return. Hot tears stung Irina’s eyes in acceptance of the truth. Her family had tossed her from their lives like the contents of a chamber pot. There would come a day, she promised herself, when the hurt would sink so deep in the well of her memory, she would forget she had ever lived in the village of St. Michael. By nightfall, she would be in the embrace of her beloved Berek and the rest of the Joselewicz family, and a new life would begin for her. Of that, she felt certain.
Newly green hillocks awash in wildflowers greeted her along the wagon track. Usually two muddy ruts after a rain, today the tracks were two deep scratches in the rich, dark earth every farmer desired in his fields. Even so, her felt boots, though nicely padded, yielded to every stone as she wended her way in the waning afternoon sun.
Many were the times she’d walked this same path with her mother to Srodka, the market village nestled on the hill lying just above the great city of Poznan. As country women, they wore kirtles of wool in winter and undyed linen in summer, along with colorful babushkas designed to catch a man’s eye. Few had a change of clothes, so what began as new and bright soon became grimy with farm dirt and cooking grease. Yet they were protected from the weather and warmed at night, and that’s all that mattered. They often went barefoot in good weather, saving their thick felt boots for colder months.
Of luxuries such as hose, boots, and clean clothing, Irina had only dreamt while living on the farm, but since working in the city for the Joselewiczes, she’d become accustomed to urban ways. Now, thanks to her mistress, Panie Eva Joselewicz, she wore nicely made felt boots all year long. How her life had changed, and because it had changed for the better, her walks between Poznan and St. Michael were usually spent in easy reverie. Today, it was different—in so many ways.
Thoughts of the family into which she was born would not leave her. Ignacz Kwasniewski had been her ideal of a man and father, and for the first thirteen years of her life, she leaned toward his every word. She loved his stories about the past, about Poland, and about their ancestors, savoring them as other children savored sweet treats.
“Our people had means once,” Ignacz said as part of his ritual dispensation of family lore around the supper table. “Long ago,” he would say, “the Kwasniewskis were people of wealth, even minor nobility. Now, we have nothing except each other.” At that, Ignacz would hug her and her siblings so tight they could not stop giggling.
What had been scribed in everyone’s memory, he told them, were images of pillage and slaughter wrought by hordes from the east. “They roamed everywhere, leaving no village elder alive. Overnight, our clan was reduced to farming just to eat.” Tears hung in the corners of his eyes.
Even so, Ignacz cherished his world as it existed. A few miles from the road to distant Gniezno in the east, and to Poznan in the west, St. Michael was a quiet place. He laughed out loud every time he spoke of it. “There is no inn to serve food and ale and nothing to see, just a collection of peasants all working hard for our next meal, and the landlord’s next ten meals! Everyone knows each other in St. Michael—hah!—most of us are relatives. We barter amongst ourselves, sing and drink at our weddings—if we can find anyone to marry—and cry together at our funerals. Someday, perhaps, it will be different. One of you,” he
would say, pointing to each of his children in turn, “will find a pot of gold and make us rich again.” Then he would laugh again, and Irina would fall asleep dreaming of a sweeter life.
She had heard her father’s words over and over but never realized how important his dreams were to him. From the time she was little, Irina knew she was her father’s favorite, that he had special hopes for her, and she did nothing to discourage him. “Tell us more,” she would always say.
“It was in the reign of Casimir the Great that Irina was born,” he would remind the family. “Poland was a great state, respected amongst nations, but now, Louis is king and he is no Pole. Times aren’t so good.” Looking directly at Irina, he went on, “You are the oldest, Irina, and our family has many children, as it should be, but it is becoming more difficult to feed all of us.”
Her mother, Maria, a plump and energetic woman, smiled from ear to ear when her husband told his stories, exaggerated or not. Often, she told Irina not to let her father spoil her so, that she wouldn’t be a child for long, and would soon have to help the family. Irina thought that what had happened to her in Poznan was exactly what her father had hoped. She would later learn how wrong she was.
Along the cartpath, shadows lengthened, and Irina stumbled when her foot found the ground’s hollow of an empty rabbit’s nest. The sun was beginning its long slide toward evening, and she needed to hurry. As she trudged on, letting the sweet mix with the bitter, she realized with the speed of a lightning bolt why a household of once abundant love had come undone.
…
Father Martinus Madrosh knelt to recite his daily prayers, a regimen of meditation he cherished, when a rap on his oaken door startled him.
“Father Madrosh,” Squire Jan Brezchwa called in a loud whisper.
“Yes?” the older man replied, and the duke’s aide entered, his young features tense in the soft light.
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