Plaza Requiem Read online

  When war was declared between Germany and Russia, and the sirens in Warsaw started to howl more often than ever before, Agnieszka suffered panic attacks. It was very hard for Galina and her mother to take her down to the shelter because she would freeze and refuse to move. As the Russian flyers began to circle around Warsaw, the sound of bombs made the air tremble. There was no way they could even think about happy times then, and Agnieszka’s health was deteriorating quickly. So one day, after they emerged from the basement, Galina came up with an idea.

  “Let’s wear these.” She had their swimming suits in her hand. “It’s very warm right now, and I’m sure these suits will make us feel better.”

  Agnieszka and her mother hesitated, but the moment they held those suits in their hands, they smiled – and Galina’s amber eyes beamed as she shared the memory with me. There remains only one photo of Agnieszka and it’s the image I recall whenever I think of her: a scrawny preteen with long, braided hair, a vivacious gaze and a nose just like mine.

  Galina was very excited to be out of her regular, worn clothes and have her bathing suit on, but she had lost so much weight that it was too big for her. She would have cried if she had seen herself in the mirror, but instead she went to the living room and hung an old sheet close by the window, under the sun. She laid another sheet on the floor, and sat down to wait for her mother and little sister.

  “We are having a window-side party,” she declared as they came in, clothed in their way-too-big suits. None complained or made fun of the other. They lay there, letting the sun warm their bodies, eating radishes they had grown in their kitchen.

  Later, in July, there was a typhus epidemic, and people became sick with dysentery and pleurisy. Mother asked them to stay indoors. Agnieszka and Galina, to console themselves, wore their bathing suits and sat down under the sun that came through the window. They sat reading, their shoes and dresses and a first-aid kit ready in case a siren howled. Agnieszka still cried but at least she had stopped refusing to follow Galina and their mother to the building’s basement.

  By the end of September, Kiev had fallen and London was under severe bombardment by the Nazis. Shots were often heard on the street. It was risky to go outside. Their window-side parties were over. It was safer to live with the curtains closed. Galina said: “I don’t know if Mama noticed this, but Agnieszka still wore her bathing suit under her regular clothes. She was holding onto something that could make her happy, my little sister.”

  That is why, on our last afternoon together, I turned up the heating and helped Galina sit down in a chair by the living-room window. I sat on the floor on a spread sheet. It was a sunny afternoon and Galina was quiet and all I could hear was the crunching of radishes and her soft breathing. I was about to be lost in sadness, but just when I thought Galina had forgotten how to remember that last summer with her family, and as I fought to hold back my tears, Galina took me by surprise:

  “I hope you never have to live through a war, ever, my darling,” she said, her hand reaching out to caress my hair, her hand bony and raddled by liver spots, and yet so beautiful. I was about to say something, but she hushed me and went on: “Little Agnieszka looked like a fairy in her swimming suit. It was blue, did I tell you that? It matched her eyes.” She fixed her gaze on my swollen stomach, and blew it a kiss. I moved closer to her pale, venous legs and let my head rest against her knee. We stayed like that for a few minutes. I felt so sheltered sitting there, her hand resting on my head. For a moment, I thought it would all be okay, it would all be back to the way it was. But when I lifted my head to look at her, her gaze was lost again. I rose to my feet and tried to make her speak, to make her recognize me, but it was useless.

  Galina never returned to Warsaw after the war. She never told me why, never wanted to share those details with me, but I discovered the reason when I was leafing through an old notebook of hers after she passed away. I didn’t want to do something she would have disapproved of, but found it so hard not to read it. So I allowed myself a random paragraph. Galina’s words surprised me, because my eyes landed on the one that seemed to answer most of my questions.

  I can’t fight the tears as I sit down with her notebook and reread her words in this crisp, early morning light. I’ve decided that Galina’s notebook will be Gabby’s. One day, she will be mature enough. My Galina will not be forgotten and I’ll still have respected her privacy the way she wanted me to. For now, however, I take advantage of the peace around me as I ache for her soft touch.

  I heard a troop of German soldiers coming close to where I had been searching for Agnieszka and Mama. I immediately looked for a place to hide. I entered a building and went into an open apartment. There were so many abandoned apartments then, all looted by Polish and German thieves. Most of the first apartments that had been vacated belonged to Jewish families, because they were forced to move into the Ghetto. We got used to that happening and even began seeing it as a normal procedure. And now we were in the same situation. Even though my own apartment looked now abandoned, too, it somehow took me by surprise to find so many others desolated in the exact same way. I could make out silhouettes on the walls, the marks left behind by furniture and paintings. And I got this idea that, somewhere inside the walls, the lost voices of the people who had once lived and laughed there were still trapped, wondering what had happened, why everything had gone so wrong. All of a sudden I knew it: while I had been waiting in vain for Mama and Agnieszka to return home, I had searched for their voices inside our apartment, trapped inside the walls. That explained my urge to lean against them, to caress them the way I had caressed Agnieszka’s hair at night when she crawled into bed with me. Those walls had seen us grow up. And they had seen my family be taken away. Somewhere inside them, their last words had found a nest.

  With Warsaw’s destruction, the voices that for centuries had been asleep between the walls of the old buildings and houses, the voices of the people who had lived and died in Warsaw’s dwellings, were left homeless. I imagined they became blind, invisible butterflies floating above the rubble. They had nowhere to go. None of them would ever rest again. They had nowhere to go back to. And it was then that I knew there was no going back for me, either.

  The thing is, in the end her mind played a trick on her and she did try to go back and, in doing so, she hastened our parting. After our last afternoon together, Galina did not come back to me either. I visited her every other day but the light inside her eyes was ever-dimming. She disintegrated slowly and there was nothing I could do to stop it – only Gabby’s kicks and hiccups inside me kept me going, a constant reminder that not even the most magnificent of miracles comes to us free.

  No matter how much time goes by, I still feel a need to return to Galina, and have chosen to do so every November 11. Today will be the first time that I will have let Gabby into my little tradition – my precious girl, whose slumber steps are now filling the hallway and coming close to me. As I turn to welcome her into the kitchen and into our past, I can’t help but laugh when she asks, her mouth suddenly wide open:

  “Why on earth are you wearing a swimming suit?”

  I need to blow my nose, to dry my eyes; most of all, I need to hug her – but before I go to Gabby, I hide Galina’s notebook behind my pooch of honour. It will be safe there for a few hours, until I can put it back into its drawer. I embrace my surprised daughter – my plump, tall and healthy daughter – the sweet scent of shampoo still lingering in her hair, and I know that we are blessed. Holding her tight, I whisper:

  “Remember the seeds we planted a couple of weeks ago?”

  The Last Confession

  My name is Marcela, but I’m still startled when someone calls out the name “Maria.” I shiver, I have this urge to run away as fast as I can… My heart beats, my hands sweat… It’s absurd, especially in the middle of winter. Here, freezing wind is the only enemy. It hurts to breathe, but I know there are worse things. The wind reminds me I am in Toronto and, no matter how much I mi
ss the warmth of the sun all year round, and the mangoes that grow in the tree in my mother’s backyard, I’m safe. But for how long? I had just come out of the shower this morning when I turned on the radio and heard the news. The government back home has been overthrown. Political prisoners are being freed. Trials will be held. I had dreamed about this moment – how I’d react, what I might say. In spite of it all, I had envisioned receiving the news while in the company of my loved ones, never alone like this. I had expected to feel overjoyed. But I peed in my underwear. After cleaning myself, I didn’t know what else to do, so I phoned Farah.

  “Congratulations! You must be elated!” she said as soon as she recognized my voice.

  I took a deep breath. It was hard to find air to push the words out.

  “Can I see you, please? I need to talk.”

  “What about the snowstorm? They say it will be big this time.”

  This Canadian habit, this talking about the weather all the time, drives me crazy. Farah, of all people, should know there are more urgent, grave matters to worry about.

  “The forecast people always exaggerate. Please, Farah. I’m begging you.”

  She agreed to meet me at the café close to her apartment building. I have time to get everything ready. The bed is unmade, the bookshelf is half-empty, and I still have yesterday’s coffee ageing on the stove. I take a piece of paper, a pen I brought home from work and sit down, close my eyes and see Tomás’s face, his fat-framed glasses, and the freckles on his nose. He was very serious and committed, but also had the most contagious laughter. I write down Tomás, and a knot takes my throat hostage. I need a few moments to be able to breathe again, to focus again, and write down his last name. I can’t go on. I have to stop. I get up and walk toward the window. I hesitate before lifting the corner of the curtain to look outside. My knees are trembling, but my back is covered in sweat, so I know it’s not the old heater’s fault this time.

  Maybe I should have chosen a different name, but Maria seemed just right: back then I, too, was a virgin. The control I had over my body made me feel strong. Maria was the name I used for our work underground. I thought I would be protected by its profound religious meaning, but also because it is such a common name. I was wrong. When they arrested me they knew exactly who I was. They knew Marcela, and they knew Maria, and nothing could save me.

  This is my second winter in Toronto. I tell myself I like winter because it helps me to stay focused on the present. I peek out under the curtain and see the sky is white. I can’t make out a single cloud. I hope the storm is a tough one. The sun that smiled at me from the blue sky during the summer was an injection of melancholy: I got homesick. That’s why I have been doing the opposite of what everybody else normally does around here: I go out and take long walks when it is grey and snowing, but when it is hot I try to stay indoors as much as I can. In the beginning I left the curtains and the windows shut, but memories of the time when I didn’t know whether it was day or night, or if it had rained, were too strong. I opted to stay indoors, curtains closed but windows wide open. The breeze pushed sunshine my way; allowing the light back in was a little victory. I live on the sixth floor. Nobody was spying on me from the outside. I kept reminding myself that this was Toronto, but the heat and the humidity somehow fooled me. I couldn’t stop thinking of my last days back home. During winter I’m more at ease. When it’s snowing I don’t have to be so vigilant. The scarf over my face helps me feel protected. The crispy – or slushy - sounds beneath my boots let me know if I am alone. I know immediately when someone is behind me; I seek refuge against a wall and let the person – or persons – pass, and then keep walking.

  I met Farah at work. We are telemarketers. It’s not a nice job, but it is the only one I could get as a newcomer, and it helps me pay my rent and food. I walk to the office, sit down at my little desk, and tackle faceless names and numbers they assign to me. I call the customers and read my script to them, and most of the time they hang up on me or insult me or yell at me. How dare I interrupt their meal or their work or their privacy or whatever. At the beginning I couldn’t sell anything, so one morning my boss threatened to fire me, which then turned out to be a blessing because that’s how Farah and I became friends. I was crying in the washroom during one of our breaks. She offered me some advice. She gave me a hug! Nobody had touched me since I’d left home. I just broke down when I felt her warmth, her smell of saffron and sandalwood. I hugged her back and thought I would never be able to stop crying. She later joked that I had made her chador all wet, and I asked her what a chador was, and when she told me we both smiled.

  Our office is a small place, yet everyone comes from a different country (none from mine, though, and nobody speaks Spanish except me). If somebody took a picture of my co-workers and myself together and sent it back home, my cousins would laugh and say we look like one of those old ads that Benetton posted everywhere in the eighties. Yes, in my country we were never rich but we were trendy and aware of the latest fashions, even if the faces on the poster didn’t resemble our daily world. Ours is a homogenous society, that’s why we were so easy to catch, so easy to brainwash. But I like to fantasize: with such a picture in my hand, I would tell my family something like this: “Sí, in Toronto I don’t even know where in the map to find the country where this co-worker here comes from, but that’s okay because we smile at one another every morning and sometimes we share food, and it’s a great feeling, sabes?” My cousin Pedro would have known what I mean. Not only would he have understood, he’d have wanted to come and see for himself. Maybe even try to hook up with some girl whose name he would have fun mispronouncing… Ay, Pedro, I miss you so much. If we only knew where your body is, what they did to you… Aunt Clara has probably worn herself out by now looking for him, trying to find anything out. Her hair had already turned grey when they arrested me, and she was not even fifty. If only I was brave enough to speak with her again…

  I’m happy – if you can ever be happy about things like these – that my mom wasn’t alive when they took me. I couldn’t have handled the thought of them doing something to her because of me. I couldn’t have handled the thought of her crying because of my choices. And if somebody had ever told me that the only person who would have understood me was the woman underneath the black veil, I wouldn’t have believed it. But now I live in Toronto, and since I take walks at thirty degrees below zero, anything is possible.

  Farah, a few years older than me, has the most beautiful dark hair. I saw it when she took off her veil – we were alone – to show me her biggest scar. In both our countries, anyone who is against the regime gets killed. Or imprisoned and tortured, at least in mine.

  Until this morning.

  Farah and I have a lot in common: we know what pain and fear taste like, the flavour and texture of our blood. We both have lost everything and everyone. Other people’s cries are like tattoos inside my skull. Shrill, deep, under a tsunami of loud salsa music. I have nightmares almost every night: I deserve them. That’s why I won’t ever be able to face Aunt Clara and my cousins again. That’s why I’m glad my mother passed away before all this happened.

  I need to go back to the letters, back to writing the list, but it’s so hard. It’s much nicer to just stand here by the window. The streets are almost empty, which is strange considering it’s Saturday and the storm is scheduled to begin later this afternoon. I can’t help smiling when I see someone walking their dog and the dog is all dressed up. If Aunt Clara had heard about dogs wearing boots, she would have laughed until her jaws hurt. Some dogs’ boots are nicer and cozier than mine. Farah thinks it’s funny, too. She belongs to a group of survivors and refugees who get together every once in a while to comfort one another. She has asked me to come along, but I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if I can endure listening to their stories. And I would be so scared to find someone from my homeland. What would I say then? What excuse could I give? How could I ever look them in the eye? With Farah it’s differ
ent. We can laugh at dogs wearing matching boots and coats, and if we feel like it, we can also talk, but mostly we don’t anymore, and that’s fine. She doesn’t know my entire truth. Nobody does. The moment my words have a sound of their own and leave my body they will be impossible to take back. And I’m scared to confront them. In English there is a word or a name for almost everything. Refugee and PTSD are some of the first I learned. When they are said out loud, people seem to understand, they turn benevolent and generous. Nothing wrong with that, but what do they really understand, I wonder. Unlike me, most of them do know where their loved ones have been laid to rest. There is another convenient word to go with this, too, which I was taught upon arrival: closure. What an unbearable, cruel word. A pain so big can’t be closed down.

  Many times I’ve wondered about what Aunt Clara would say if I told her that people in Toronto actually live in basements. And that, when I refused to rent one, all I had to say was, “I’m a refugee and have been diagnosed with PTSD, so I can’t live in a basement, thank you.” Very polite, very politically correct. I am a fast learner. Nobody needs to know what happened – or if anything happened at all. Aunt Clara would have understood, though. She, too, would have rejected the basement apartment.

  I got sick at work once. There was a mouse underneath one of the desks, a little brown mouse. I screamed so loudly I scared everyone. I ran to the washroom and locked myself in. I felt like my heart was about to break free from my chest. I threw up all over my clothes and was practically out of breath when the paramedics arrived. There’s a name for that, too: panic attack. Farah looked me in the eye, she knew there were no words to describe what had driven me to the washroom. “Whenever you’re ready,” she’d said, “I’ll be there.” Hence today’s call, the letters and the list. I will take her at her word. Our English is equally awkward, but I have learned since I arrived in Toronto that all languages become the same when spoken through sorrow.