A Drop of Rain Read online

  The title of my history project is, “Mary’s Story: An Example of How the Broad Forces of History Affect the Private Lives of Individuals.” The title is Mr. Dunlop’s idea. I am using quotes from Mary’s stories—not everything she said. Then I am adding quotes from other people, as well as newspapers, magazines and books. I have a time chart at the beginning:

  September 1939—Beginning of World War II: Mary is an innocent six-year-old who will see many terrible things that will make her want to be a doctor. Her family is quite religious.

  1945—Beginning of Cold War: Mary’s family starts over again, like they did after World War I.

  1956—Soviet troops invade Hungary: Mary works as country doctor.

  1968—Soviets invade Czechoslovakia: Mary is raising her children and practising medicine in a big city. It is difficult to make a living because she is not a communist.

  1980—Solidarity Uprising begins: Mary’s children are teenagers. Mary and her children, like most Poles, agree with Solidarity.

  December 1981—Declaration of Martial Law: Life is hard and dangerous. Food is scarce; wages are low. Mary is widowed.

  1989-91—Fall of communism in Eastern Europe: Mary’s savings are gone. She has a poor salary and pension. She leaves for Canada and starts all over again to build a life.

  1999—Experience with capitalism reveals problems with that system: Mary has been working as cleaner in Canada for four years full-time. She is reduced to part-time. She becomes ill.

  Curtis

  The life within Hanna was fading when I met her. She was like a fallen bird. She had hit the window of mankind’s indifference.

  Yet, Hanna looked at me lovingly. She smiled at me. “Your young artist is very nice,” Hanna told Naomi.

  Hanna said this as I stood beside Naomi. These were the only words she spoke in my presence. She said the words slowly and clearly in English, so I would understand.

  Hanna thought that being an artist was an honorable career, not shameful. She felt me worthy of this honour.

  I am grateful.

  Mary

  No Guns!

  When the Solidarity movement is fighting for the freedom of Poland, it does not use guns. Instead, it uses the truth.

  There are open-air performances where poetry is recited into loudspeakers. And people applaud because the poetry tells the truth about life. About how we are not free or equal. Communism is good in theory. It means equality for all. But communism is not good in practice. If you belong to the Polish United Workers’ Party—that’s what the communist party is called—you have a powerful position and an instant apartment. You have these things even though you do nothing. If you do not belong to the Party, you have nothing, even if you work hard all your life.

  Corruption ruins any system—communist or capitalist.

  People look out their darkened windows at night, and suddenly they see lights in other windows. The lights spell, “Solidarity!” Then the lights go out. Then they come on again in a different place.

  When Solidarity is forbidden to meet or distribute information in Poland, it launches big balloons over the Baltic Sea. The balloons float to Poland, burst, and drop thousands of pamphlets telling everyone about the work of Solidarity.

  Polish people are forbidden to have radios. They must give their radios to the police. But everybody still knows what is going on. Information travels quickly from one end of the country to the other by word of mouth.

  Oh yes, after so many centuries of invasions, wars and insurrections, Poland knows how to fight! With no guns!

  You have to use your wits. Take my son Adam. He’s almost grown up now. He loves to tinker with mechanical things, just like my brother Johnny.

  When a curfew is imposed, we are careful to be indoors by ten p.m. But one day, when Adam visits a friend, he comes home late. Usually I am in bed by ten o’clock, but at fifteen minutes after the hour, I am so worried that I am fully dressed. I am pacing back and forth in the apartment.

  Twenty minutes after the hour, twenty-five minutes . . . There he is!

  Quick! Open the door! He’s in!

  He’s breathing hard from running—dodging the police.

  Adam hides his cap and jacket under the pillows on the couch. Then he lies down on the couch and pretends to be reading a magazine.

  “If the police come to the door, tell them I’ve been here all evening,” he says.

  The police do come, and I do tell them this.

  The police believe me and go away.

  Adam is planning to study engineering. First, however, he must serve two years in the Polish army. I miss him. The more so because I am a widow. It’s difficult to believe that Paul has been gone five years!

  Paul was tired and preoccupied. He was not watching where he was walking. He was hit by a streetcar and killed instantly. Luckily, I was not on emergency duty when they brought him in. Without my brother to help me, I don’t know what I would have done.

  As for my other son, Andrew, who is also a teenager, he uses his wits too. Andrew is a born businessman. Officially, of course, free enterprise is not encouraged under communism, but Andrew can sell anything from jeans to nuts, so he makes a little money to help his family.

  Andrew’s secret is that he talks to everyone easily. He is very charming, so people want to do business with him.

  One day when I am having even more difficulty than usual getting meat, I express my frustration to the children.

  “The situation is impossible!” I declare. “How on earth am I supposed to feed my family?”

  “What’s the problem?” asks Andrew.

  “We have no meat!” I answer. “In three hours I could not get meat. I looked everywhere.”

  “If you give me money,” says Andrew, “I’ll get you meat. Tell me what you want, and I’ll get it in a few moments.”

  “Nonsense!” I snap. “Don’t be a silly, boasting little boy!”

  “Give me some money, and tell me what you want,” Andrew repeats firmly, holding out his hand.

  I do as he says.

  Sure enough, Andrew is back in a few minutes with a big package full of stewing beef and sausage.

  Andrew knows all the shopgirls. He chats with them often. He is very handsome, as well as charming, and they like him. For Andrew, there is meat right away!

  This Christmas, we still miss Paul. Luckily, some relatives are visiting today. Uncle Johnny is here, as well as Grandpa and Grandma. And Adam has been given leave from the army for a few days.

  Because of Solidarity unrest, the communist government has soldiers posted everywhere. There is a soldier on guard just outside our apartment building.

  As Anne and I are preparing Christmas dinner, Anne looks out the window at the soldier.

  “That soldier looks lonely all by himself in the snow,” says Anne. “Adam says that the soldiers get tired of eating the same boiled kasza day in and day out. Why don’t I go and hang a bag of food on the fence for that soldier?”

  Anne does this. When the soldier opens the bag, he finds cabbage rolls, herring, poppy-seed cake and other good things. He gulps down everything like a starved dog.

  Then, with his feet, he writes “Merry Christmas!” in the snow. Then he goes on guarding the apartment building, looking as serious as ever.

  Popieluszko, a young priest in Warsaw, is killed the next year. The communists think he is preaching politics and helping Lech Walesa, but that’s not so.

  I heard Popieluszko preach once—not in Warsaw, but in our own parish. He did not mention politics. He behaved like a good priest. He only talked about religion.

  Solidarity fights with no guns, but still the government has to kill someone. So it seems.

  Young Popieluszko is visiting another parish outside Warsaw. He leads a mass in Bydgoszcz. Afterwards, when the church chauffeur is driving Popieluszko home, the car is ambushed. The chauffeur escapes into the forest, so he lives. But Popieluszko dies. His body is found a few days later, in a reservoir of
water. His hands and feet are bound, and there is a rope around his neck.

  Everyone knows that the communist government murdered him. The government thinks that, once Popieluszko is gone, everyone will stop going to church.

  Ha!

  Of course, I myself always go to church on Sunday. Otherwise, with all I’ve been through, I’d have taken to drink long ago. But now everyone goes to church. People who have not been inside a church for years start going again!

  One nurse, whose family lives in Bydgoszcz, tells us what is happening there. Outside the church where Popieluszko gave his last mass, people make a huge cross with candles.

  The authorities claim that the candles are a fire hazard. This is a lie.

  The authorities remove the candles.

  People make another huge cross. This time with flowers.

  The authorities remove the flowers.

  But people replace the flowers.

  Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, people keep placing flowers on that cross.

  That’s how to fight! With flowers!

  Eva

  Hanna decided on cremation. She did not want announcements of her death in the newspapers. She did not want a funeral. She did not want to be buried in the Catholic cemetery.

  She did not want anything more to do with churches.

  “I come from that tradition,” she said, but said no more. I assume she meant that, for her, tradition had failed to keep up with the truth.

  “Take me to the forest,” she said. “Leave me there.”

  I arranged to meet the body in the plain wooden box when it arrived at the crematorium. While I waited, I inspected the huge oven, the sterile metal tables and trays. While I waited, I heard the remote, leafless trees calling out to the heavens in eery, distant keening.

  It is the millions, I thought. She is finally joining the millions who died at Auschwitz.

  I watched as the oven’s powerful, jet-like flames began to burn the box.

  Joe

  I drove Eva to the crematorium to witness the arrival and burning of Hanna’s body.

  The crematorium is about fifteen kilometres from Mapleville in rolling farmland. Apparently, it is the only crematorium in the region. I’d never noticed it before. It’s situated well back from the highway. From a distance, it looks like a modern, brick farmhouse.

  Rest in peace, Hanna. You were an outstanding human being.

  You suffered far more than I can ever know.

  Hanna was a symbol of her martyred country. Who said, “Poland is the Christ of nations”? Winston Churchill?

  The Poles suffered more than even the Dutch during World War II. Of course, I myself was not in Holland during the war. I was a toddler in Canada.

  Hanna was a woman of extraordinary courage and penetrating intelligence. As well, she had the moral authority of a saint.

  I have never understood traditional, Catholic saintliness, but Hanna’s saintliness transcended religious boundaries and communicated even to a struggling agnostic like me.

  She was a hero.

  Week Fifteen

  Naomi

  Sunday, December 19, 1999

  A few days ago, Joe drove me to the airport to meet Mary’s daughter. Anne said she would be holding up a white sign with red heart on it. The sign flopped over, so I almost didn’t see it.

  Anne, or “Anna” as she is called in Polish, is in her late twenties. She has two children. She’s tall, thin, glamorous and blonde—like Sarah, only more mature and refined. She is sweet, gentle, caring and loving. She speaks little English, and I speak almost no Polish, so communicating is difficult. We use a lot of gestures, and we draw pictures.

  Mary’s operation is tomorrow.

  I am thankful that Anne is here, because I have no idea how to take care of somebody after an operation.

  Mom cleaned out Hanna’s room. She really scrubbed it. She also organized the boxes of Hanna’s papers that were stacked in the living room. Joe carried the boxes down to the basement and put them on shelves that he had made.

  Mom says Mary can stay with us when she comes out of the hospital. Mary can stay in Hanna’s room. Anne can also stay in that room. I’ll stay in the basement room.

  Mom says Mary can stay in our house for as long as she wants to. Mary can stay for free while she is recovering. Anne can stay for free until she goes back to Poland in February. When Mary is better, she can work as a housekeeper for Mom and Joe, if she wants to.

  The head of the nursing team that took care of Hanna came to “say goodbye” and pack up the medical equipment the team left behind. She sent Hanna’s hospital bed back to the medical-supplies place. She said that Mary would be fine on an ordinary bed like the one we had stored in our basement. Curtis and Joe carried that bed upstairs and put it in Mary’s room.

  I spend as much time as possible with Anne. Curtis says he’ll drive Anne and me anywhere we need to go, as long as Joe isn’t using his truck.

  Curtis has been more of a friend to me than Sarah has. I thought boys were gods, not friends. I can talk to Curtis about almost anything. He is a good listener, as well as a good observer.

  Sarah phoned a few minutes ago. She is pregnant, and her brother is in jail! Her parents are furious with both her and her brother.

  Her father says Sarah should have an abortion, but her mother says abortion is a sin. Sarah hasn’t decided what to do. If she keeps her baby, she loses her boyfriend, and she can’t go to Paris, or New York, or anywhere.

  Actually, Sarah may have lost her boyfriend already. He took off when she told him she was pregnant. He left town, and his roomates don’t think he is coming back.

  I told her that I won’t desert her. I also promised that I would help her more when I am not so busy with schoolwork and worried about Mary.

  Then Sarah said she wanted to kill herself.

  I got angry and said that she was just being melodramatic. I also said that she ought to consider other people besides herself. Then I hung up.

  After I hung up, I felt bad about what I had said. So I phoned Sarah back and told her she ought to phone the Mental Health Crisis Line, or talk to a guidance counsellor at school, or see her family doctor. I also told her that she can call me any time if she feels depressed. I also told her for the first time that my parents never married, and that I was illegitimate.

  “Having a baby when you’re single is not the end of the world,” I said. “It’s bad, but not terminal.”

  Sarah appreciated my saying this. I could tell because she was more quiet afterwards. She didn’t sound so hysterical.

  I love Curtis.

  I guess Mom loves Joe the way I love Curtis. I know Mom wants to marry Joe, even though she thinks marriage is old-fashioned. I could tell by the way she told me that he asked her.

  I handed in my history project a little early. It wasn’t as perfect as I wanted it to be, but I couldn’t work on it any more. I’m glad I did so much work for my history project and English journal before Mary got sick. The journal is almost finished. Now I just have to concentrate on passing my biology exam on Tuesday.

  Curtis is good at biology, especially diagrams of course.

  The grocery store where Curtis works says I can start being a cashier there immediately, but I’m going to wait until after the New Year. I have enough stress right now without trying to learn how to do a new job.

  I never heard anything from the Rec Plex director. Neither did Mary.

  I hope Grandma is enjoying Hawaii. She deserves some happiness.

  I hope you don’t mind, but now I’m going to fill in the rest of this week’s journal entry with some interesting facts that I learned while doing my history project. Here is what The Breakup of the Soviet Union said about the collapse of Soviet communism: “In a very brief period between 1989 and 1990, communist regimes in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania were swept away in popular protests, and this time the Soviets did not intervene to save the
m.”

  Mom gave me the following, amazing quotation from a new book that Joe gave her. The book is called Witness to Hope. It is by George Weigel. It is a biography of Pope John Paul II. Here is the quote: “The Solidarity revolution, unique among all the revolutionary upheavals of modernity, killed precisely no one.”

  Joe gave me the following helpful quote from himself: “In some respects, the Polish Solidarity Uprising was the greatest of the four great passive-resistance movements of the second half of the twentieth century. I mean the protest movements led by Mahatma Gandhi in India, Martin Luther King Junior in the United States, Pope John Paul II in Poland and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. It was miraculous that the Polish Solidarity movement defeated the massively-armed Soviet empire through peaceful protest alone—that it killed no one.”

  Curtis

  Mr. Speers framed “The Fallen Bird” drawing for me and entered it in a juried competition at the college. It won first prize.

  A reporter interviewed me and took photos of me and the drawing. The article will be published in a couple of weeks. The judges said that I was competing against some senior college students with much more “formal training.”

  Naomi was incredibly impressed with me. So was I. So was Dad. Even Mom was impressed!

  Mr. Speers said I can probably get a scholarship for art college now, as long as my marks are good.

  Some new guys at the grocery store are fairly cool. They’re a little older than me and already in second-year at the college. Kevin’s in Environmental, and Brian’s in Electronics. Brian hasn’t had Eva for a teacher, but he says she’s supposed to be tough. Kevin and Brian are old friends from North Bay. They do a lot of camping up there together. They said I could go with them some time.

  No time to write more.

  King Wolf needs marks to get out of his cage and into the forest.