Journeys with My Mother Read Free Page B

Such events cast a long shadow over Jewish existence, stirring up hostilities and pogroms.
    No photographs of Brana or my grandfather, Hersz, survived the war, so I have only my mother’s description to rely on. Hence, Hersz – tall, brown-eyed, his pointed beard neatly trimmed – seems better-looking than my paternal grandfather, Henoch, whose photograph I have. Hersz wore suits and, not counting religious events, covered his head for protection or style. Brana did not wear a wig; her long black hair was coiled at the back without being covered. Everyone in the family of eight was dark. Only my mother, Ola – as if she were dropped by a cuckoo – was blonde. Because of her looks, she was often mistaken for a shiksa. 2 How heaven-sent this was during the war.
    Brana and Hersz Szlang must have been quite prosperous when they moved to Warsaw. The entrance to their building in Nalewki Street – wide, with light shining through the stained glass – had an airy, cheerful, look. The teenage Ola quickly developed a taste for sliding down the staircase banister. One day, she lost her balance and ended up hanging above the stairwell. Clutching the rail with desperation, she screamed in alarm. Fortunately, someone was on the way up. Instead of helping her, the man offered her a wry smile and a little sermon: ‘Well, well, that should teach you to know better, young lady.’ It was possibly her first lesson in fortitude: she had to manage by herself.
    The Szlangs’ spacious third-floor apartment had a semicircular balcony. Every room was heated by a tiled stove and a coal-operated oven. No proper middle-class home was without a massive sideboard displaying crystal carafes, silver candlesticks and fragile porcelain figurines as well as dinner sets and cutlery, all reserved for special occasions. I am not sure I would have liked their taste: the Regency upholstered sofas and the heavy velour curtains, the carpet runners with two red stripes, all of them in the same shade of pale green, including tropical Monsteras in pots on wooden pedestals. Later, my mother, too, kept a few doilies and crystals, the latter still in fashion. Sometimes I tried to remove them out of sight but my mother protested. And now I am like her, keeping mementos no matter how trivial they are.
    In keeping with the house decor, the family was conventional with clearly defined roles for husband and wife. Hence, Hersz concentrated on managing the dyeing business and Brana on running the household. Every Friday, their heads covered, they observed the shabbes . Six children – five girls and the youngest, the one and only son – stood around a table covered with white damask, the light of candles illuminating their faces. It must have been heartwarming to receive parental blessings, a custom I never experienced in my parents’ house because my communist parents abandoned religion early.
    Back then though, there were numerous injunctions my religious predecessors chose to observe. Cooking had to be kosher. No work could be done on the Sabbath. Even if they went to visit Sara, Brana’s sister, who, with her husband and two sons, lived in Praga – on the right side of Vistula River, practically the other end of town – they did not take a tram. Instead, they walked along the long bridge, regardless of the weather, Hersz and Brana coaxing the little ones along.
    Hersz went to synagogue every week. Brana was not expected to understand Talmud or pray as often as he did. The day of Yom Kippur was marked with due solemnity. Hersz spent the entire day in the synagogue and all of them fasted. It was the Passover my mother remembered most fondly. How everything had to be spotlessly clean, and how special sets of fine porcelain and silver were retrieved from the depths of the cupboards; how every child was given a new set of clothes. Tosia and Ola, born only two years apart, were always identically dressed.
    I am struck