Wegierska Gorka

 

It was a dry, mid-summer afternoon when Frank set off from the Penzion. Instead of turning right and going downhill into Wegierska Gorka, he turned left and started uphill. After about 10 meters the road turned into two dirt tracks with high grass growing in the middle, and all around were high mountain fields covered with wildflowers and long grass gone to seed. Walking upward, he saw the rocky tributary of the Sowa River coming out of the mountains far ahead of him, winding itself down into the valley to his right and eventually through Wegierska Gorka. There, Frank frequently saw people swimming in the river below the dam; a nearby snack Imbiss served only ice cream and beer flavored with sweet syrup.

Frank continued to climb the hill until he came to an intersecting path that led to two nearby towns. At the terminus of the tracks he had just walked, a line of trees stretched out in front of him. This formed a border between two fields. The left one was covered with rape seed plants, the yellow flowers bright but unfragrant, and the other field was filled with wheat, its long, seeded stems giving physical proof to the slight breeze.

He stood in the shade of a tree for a moment. The hottest part of the day was just beginning, and he looked down at the town in the valley and breathed in the view. On the other side of the river were high, pine-forested mountains that strode imperiously above the town's three productive smokestacks.
After a few moments of nervous meditation, Frank turned left onto the overgrown cart path. It graded slightly downward and was still a ten-minute walk down to the next village, the name of which he couldn't pronounce.

The day before, the owners of the Penzion had sent Frank and the other English teachers over to visit the caretaker of a nearby WWII bunker. The caretaker, a man, had walked them through the well-kept village to the edge of town where the football pitch was. Next to that was the bunker.

The bunker history somehow turned toward how the man had survived the war, and he told the group story after story of how horrible and brutal it was, and the terrible things that went along with it. The man said he had lived through government regimes so repressive that they, being Americans, could not understand it.

In truth, there were only two Americans, Frank and Terry, among the four of them. Of the others, one was a Ukrainian girl of 20 who acted as translator, and the other was an awkward youth from English-speaking Canada.

During the war, the man said, he had been taken prisoner because all the able-bodied men in that region were either killed on the spot or taken captive. The man told them that he was one of the lucky ones because he had survived and could now tell them about his experiences. He told them they should be happy they were from the United States and they should truly appreciate the freedoms they now had around them in Europe as well, because war is the worst thing imaginable.

His words both fascinated and repelled the young group, who shifted uncomfortably when the Ukrainian girl related the more detailed aspects of his experiences. But the story that clinched his lecture was this one: after the man was captured by the German army he was taken to Auschwitz by train. There, he suffered much every day.

When Frank interrupted his story to ask for details about Auschwitz, the man looked him in the eyes disbelievingly and shook his head slowly. When, after a long stare, the man finally spoke, Frank didn't understand the words, but he certainly felt the disdain the man was radiating unto him. The Ukrainian girl said, in English, "He said, 'It is impossible to say how it was exactly, it was so… uh… despicable.' He also said you are unwelcome to ask any more questions."

Still glaring at Frank, the man resumed the story: one winter day in the camp, many prisoners were placed into a line. It moved slowly and nobody knew what was waiting for them at the end of it. There were periodic gunshots from near the head of the line. After two hours of standing in the cold, the man was close enough to the front that he could see a large contingent of SS guards. They were sending people off to the right or the left. Many of them were crying. There was a pile of dead bodies. As the line crept on, he could hear that they were sending many to the gas chambers. They weren't being secretive about the fact that many of them were going there, and the man was frightened beyond imagination.
When he arrived at the head of the line, he found himself face to face with the notorious Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss, who examined him for a long terrifying moment before sending him off to the right. That meant he was allowed to stay and work. He cried with relief as he shuffled away, but the cruelty he had seen in Höss' eyes would never leave him.

Höss's decision to send him to work had spared his life, and while he hated Höss more than anything, the man said he was extremely grateful not to have been sent to the gas chambers. It was during this part of the story that the man began to cry. The Canadian boy, who was also crying, hugged him.

After the tour of the bunker, the group walked the man back to his house, where he introduced them to his daughter who was studying at the university in Warsaw. The girl was very pretty and shy, and spoke English. She invited the whole group back to visit anytime.

It was the daughter whom Frank, his stomach tumbling over itself, was walking over to visit that next sunny day.

When he arrived at the man's house, Frank took a deep breath and rang the bell at the front gate. There was a ruckus of dogs and the chickens they kept for eggs. The man appeared from the chicken coop and gave a big wave. He crossed the yard and came to the gate smiling. Frank smiled back.

When the man opened the front gate and saw that Frank was alone, however, his smile weakened and he blinked quickly.

When Frank asked for his daughter, the man's smile slackened. He drew himself up and crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes in the process. No longer the welcoming host, he become the protective father in front of Frank’s eyes, and that the man calling on his daughter was the foreign devil who asked stupid questions didn’t seem to be to Frank’s benefit.

The man sized Frank up for a moment before calling over his shoulder for the girl. "Lydia!" His eyes never left Frank's.

When Lydia came out of the house and saw Frank, the sweaty frown that she had been wearing was replaced by a wide smile. She walked over to them and spoke Polish to her father, who just shook his head. The father stood between Frank, who hadn't been invited into the yard, and Lydia, who was sweating heavily and wearing a soiled white apron over her blue housedress.

"Hello, Fred, was it?"

"Close… it's Frank. Are you busy? Do you have time to talk," he asked.

"I am only prepare dinner," Lydia said. "Perhaps we could go for a walk? If we stay here he will watching us the whole time." She smiled broadly.

Lydia spoke to her father, who was clearly unimpressed by the situation. Again, Frank may not have understood the words he used, but his open scowl, his raised voice and his dismissive gestures didn't bode well. Frank doubted the wisdom of coming.

However, Lydia stood right up to her father, leaving Frank to embarrassingly witness a family feud in a foreign language. Luckily it was over quickly. Frank thought for certain that Lydia was going to tell him no, she couldn't go, but then she started untying her apron.

"I must return in half hour," she said, again smiling broadly.

They left the man standing at his front gate, watching them walk away. After a few steps, Lydia looked back and shooed him into the yard. He continued scowling and didn’t move.

A little further down the hill, Lydia and Frank's hands accidentally brushed together and Frank flinched, withdrawing his hand in surprise. She laughed at him and said, "What? You don't touch hands in America?"

"Uh, sure we do. I… er… just thought your father had thrown a rock at me."

She laughed again and soon they turned the corner and were out of her father's sight.

A moment later she said, "You seem very nice, Frank, but it is pity. I am leaving in two days for Warsaw. I study there summer classes. Why don't you come visit me," she asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Frank, embarrassed to say that he had no money, said, "I wish I could, but I have to teach every day here. I won't finish until September. But you can come visit me here…”

Lydia shook her head. “My family has no much money for trips…”

"Hmm. You're right - is a pity," Frank said, frowning.

Lydia sighed and said wistfully, "Yes, it is. But we have now, yes? Why not we go to the river?"
"Ok."

On the narrow path that led through a wood, Frank's leg brushed against a plant that burned his skin like mad. He blurted out, "Jezus! Lydia, I touched this plant here and it's burning like crazy! What is that?!"

"Oh, it must be Kopsiva. It's healthy. You don't have it in America? "

"No! Healthy, how?! Good gravy! Will it stop burning?"

"Yes, after a few minutes."

"A few minutes! Where are you taking me, Lydia? This is the Polish jungle, isn't it?"

"Oh, stop it and come on," she said.

Because he kept his eyes on Lydia, Frank heard but didn't see the river gurgling and splashing ahead of them as they walked through the wood. Reaching the bank, they walked upriver in silence, to a place that she wanted to show him.

"Because I don't want you get sick," she said, she pointed to how the Sowa River, which flows from the mountains down through the town of Wegierska Gorka, becomes polluted by the open sewer that runs into it.

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