“Where is your home, darling?” the woman asked. Where was my home? It was a good question. It was also a logical one, I just didn’t know how to answer it. At first I couldn’t remember where I lived, and even once I did, I didn’t know how to explain it.
“In a factory. We are staying in my uncle’s factory.”
“With your parents?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember which factory? My husband will go and get them.”
I tried to explain it—describing the offices inside, where I had spent most of my time. This was no help at all, and I was starting to shake violently by then—tremors running throughout my body. The woman gently pressed me back down and rested the washcloth over my eyes.
“Rest now. We will find your parents soon.”
I wanted to go to sleep and to never wake up. As soon as I closed my eyes, I saw them again—three Soviet soldiers, walking past a bakery, walking toward me with hate in their eyes. I sat up, wild with fear all over again.
“What if they come back?” I said, and at last my eyes filled with tears. I looked to the woman, but for the first time, I really saw her. She had fat silver curls beneath a brightly colored scarf and deep hazel eyes brimming with compassion.
“They won’t come back,” she promised, and then she pointed across the room. I watched as her husband dropped a chair by the door and sat heavily upon it. Beside the chair, a long rifle leaned against the wall. The man leaned forward and picked it up, resting it on his lap as he watched the door. “And even if they do, they won’t get anywhere near you.”
* * *
Maybe I slept, or maybe I just fell into that deep dissociative state I’d fallen into during the assault. Time passed, and for a while I wasn’t cognizant of the pain...but when I roused again, it was the pain that I noticed first. From my thighs to my waist, I felt raw and bruised.
Although I could deduce the basic mechanics of what had happened to me, I had blocked out most of the assault, and some of my injuries made no sense. My left eye was swollen shut. My right upper arm and shoulder throbbed. My right heel felt bruised.
“What’s your name, darling?”
“Emilia.”
“Are you ready for some water, Emilia? Some food, perhaps?”
The silver-haired woman was still sitting beside me. Her husband was still at the door, reading by the electric light that hung from the ceiling, his rifle still in hand. I looked around the apartment for the first time and realized that I was in an upper-class home.
“Some water, please,” I whispered. My voice was hoarse. I couldn’t remember screaming, but maybe I had. My lips were cracked, and when the woman lifted the glass to my mouth, the water stung a little.
“Some vodka?” she suggested. I thought I would vomit again at the thought of it. I pressed my hand to my mouth and shook my head hastily.
“Have you thought about how we might find your parents?”
“The factory...” I said again, helplessly. My mind was a little clearer, and this time I at least thought to say, “My uncle owned it, Piotr Rabinek. It was a textiles factory. A large factory. It is maybe fifteen blocks from the market.”
“In the industrial district,” the man by the door said gruffly, and he glanced over his shoulder, met my eyes and then awkwardly looked away. I felt my face flush with shame. Had this kindly old couple seen it happen? Did they think it was my fault?
Oh, God. Was it my fault?
Had I done something to attract the attention of those soldiers? I should never have left the market. I should not have been walking alone.
“Can you tell us anything else about the factory?” the woman pressed again. “There are a lot of factories in the industrial district. My husband will go and look for your parents, but you need to give us something else to go on.”
“There are red geraniums in a huge planter under the awning at the front near the offices. My father says there were also white ones there once, but they had to destroy them because...” The flag. The Polish flag was red and white. The Germans would never have allowed a patriotic display like that.
“Is it a large awning?” the old man asked, without looking in my direction. “And is there a row of oak trees along the front?”
“Yes! The oak trees...”
He sat the rifle beside the door, then slowly and carefully rose.
“Lock the door behind me, Maria. I know the place.”
After he left, Maria helped me to the bathroom to wash up. I stared into the blackened mirror, and a stranger stared back. My lips were swollen, and I couldn’t figure out how that had happened because none of the men had tried to kiss me. Then I remembered a hand over my mouth at one point and struggling to breathe through my nose, but my nose was blocked because I’d been crying, and I had thought for a while that I was going to suffocate.
My eye was swollen shut, bruised green and deep purple, yellowed around the edges. My underpants were gone. I couldn’t remember them being removed. There was blood all over the back of my skirt—so much blood, as if I’d been caught off guard by my monthly courses. My thighs were bruised just as badly as my eye. I tried to use the toilet, but my urine stung and burned. It was easier to hold it.
I walked back to the mirror and tried to look at myself again, but this time there was so much shame in my eyes that I couldn’t bear to see it. I gingerly washed my face with water and limped back out to Maria. I found her setting up a little table beside my sofa. Milky tea and a bowl of chicken soup.
“Thank you, but I can’t eat,” I told her.
“Sit,” she said firmly, and when I did, she dipped a spoon into the soup and lifted it to my mouth. I ate it, too weak to protest.
“It’s happened to a lot of us, you know,” she said. “There was a strange mercy in the German disdain for us. They were happy to kill us and torture us and starve us to death, but they didn’t see us as human, so they were at least less inclined to rape us.” Rape. I hadn’t let myself think the word. Now, though, it sat in the forefront of my mind, and I considered it from several angles. The soldiers raped me. I was raped by the soldiers. I have been raped. This morning I was someone who had never been raped. I can never say that again. I am changed by this. Am I ruined by this? Oblivious to my inner monologue, Maria continued softly, “But these Soviets are different. Some of their commanders have encouraged them to do it. They say the men need sex because they have been away from their wives for too long. They tell them they are entitled to it, and who bears the cost of that? Us.” She sighed and shook her head. “Again, it is the Poles who must suffer. As if this country hasn’t been through enough.”