Story of Anna part II

- Yesterday you started telling my mother's story, grandma. - reminded shyly granddaughter, helping grandmother to button up her lousy pyjama shirt on the back. The buttons often got tangled in grandma's great pride, impressive long and ash-grey braid, the last standing proof of grandma's long gone beauty.

- What did I say, my dear?

- You mentioned a red hair boy, and how mother presented my father to you after starting a new school...

- Ah yes, your father Dariusz. What a handsome man, he was, what a handsome man...

- Yesterday you said he was skinny and white.

- Not skinny and white, my dear. He was tall, slender and pale, just as an intelligentsia representative could be. But first, let me focus on my beloved child. I'll tell you dad's story a different night, you must understand, I'm very old . Once my brain starts wandering, I lose myself in a tale and never come back to the main plot. Where did I stop?

- My mother met my father, a math teacher, at a new school. You met him a couple of days later...

- Thank you, my dear. Yes... Proud, loud, daring Anna found herself an ideal man - a background to her life, a silent shadowy servant who was happy to serve loyally on every command, without asking questions, and - what's most important - without causing too much trouble. Until a certain moment, I want to say. At first, I found him a little cowardy and odd, not the best guest type you could wish for. That day, when Anna came home holding his delicate, little hand, he handed me a bouquet of lovely flowers, gave my husband a bottle of homemade spirit and didn't say a word for a good twenty minutes! Not only did he let Anna lead the whole conversation until we sat down to eat all together, but he also didn't interrupt her once, even when she mistakenly called his sister Marlena instead of Małgorzata. I thought his sister's name was Marlena until the day of their wedding. It wasn't the proudest moment of mine, when I cheered for Dariusz's sister, Marlena, believe me, my dear.

But, as I'm talking about your mother, she loved Darek the way he was. They complemented each other. She was very patient and sweet with him, as much as he was with her. When asking him a question - implying she would do ask, as most often she just carried away with whatever she found necessary - she was very respectful and gave him as much time to reflect on the matter as needed. I saw her thousands of times yelling at her youngest sibling Jan: 'Are you deaf or what, answer when I'm talking to you!'. As you know, uncle Jan's temper is quite... non-existent. But I never saw her behaving this way with Darek. She used to call him my treas, so fragile and dependenture and treated almost the same way she used to treat my father and her grandfather, Czesław - with a certain disarming tenderness and calm in her voice and movements. It reminded me of a way your uncle Jan behaved with newborn puppies. She used to put delicately her strong, massive hand on his thigh or shoulder as if he was built from the mist and could dissolve at any moment. Just as if she had instinctively prevented the future...

She loved your father with all her heart. 

Your mother was 18, a young, innocent and curious mind, promised by my husband to that cobbler from Denka. They were the same age and his father was happy to leave all his possessions to him, as he was the eldest and the only son. We tried to reason with your mother but she always pretended she didn't hear us. Rude, it was, very rude, but I do not blame her at all. After being promised to my husband and having lived almost forty years without having love towards my life companion, I didn't push her too much. I knew what she wanted to avoid, and she knew I knew. Though we never spoke about it, in one way or another, she sensed what was my marriage built on and didn't accept it. She dealt with that whole situation with what I liked calling Anna style- one day, after a Sunday mass, when all folk was leaving the church, she stopped for a second and very loudly, so everyone could witness the scene, and declared that she was in love with a gentleman from another village and was going to marry him, and if anyone forced her to marry the cobbler from Denka, she'd kill herself before the arranged wedding. No one dared to condemn her in public, and little did she care about what people murmured behind her back. I felt sorry for the cobbler but it finished well for him - got married two years later and is a proud father to six sons, all strong like bulls and smart like foxes.

Your father, instead, was a man of 33 years, intelligent, educated, with a quite rigid reputation at stake. Had been disrespected by the people, he would have lost his job from one day to another. What's quite significant, before having met your mother, your father was married to a graceful, kind woman named also Anna. I will tell you more about Anna and Darek another time if you don't mind, my dear. - grandmother wiped gently her face with an old handkerchief, feeling very warm and sweaty, despite freezing cold wind blowing outside the hut. Was she tired by another long day of her life? Did she feel nostalgic and missed her daughter?

- In one way or another, the folk in Żarna accepted Anna, and our folk accepted Dariusz, the math teacher. God blessed all and no one dared to threat their beautiful love. Naturally, Anna had to study math as hard as any other student, and they didn't show off at school. Two months after seeing each other, your father asked for Anna's hand. He arrived in our village with his old mother for an official dinner with me and my husband. I remember his proposal very well - his voice trembling and his jaw shaking, like a little boy who got caught plotting some mischief. I was asking myself how does he lecture his students? Anna, on the other hand, was all moving around on her chair like a wasp, waiting for him to finish his well-prepared, probably memorised by heart, speech. Once ended, she didn't let us speak. She jumped on his beloved and hugged him greatly, kissing and crying. She kissed his mother too, I think she truly liked her not as her fiancee's mother but as a person. As you know, your second grandmother died very early, before your sister was born. She and your mother knew each other for merely a couple of weeks but the time they spent together was filled with love and respect. She treated Ludmiła the way she didn't treat me that much.

- Do you know the story of my second grandmother, Ludmiła? I'd like to hear about her a little bit more.

- I do, my dear, I do know many stories. If you remind me, I will tell you Ludmiła's tale another time.

As mentioned earlier, your mother and father got engaged two months after having met, in autumn, and organised a modest but lovely wedding at our possession early spring. The folk gossiped the wedding was a cover for a bastard to-be-born but this was not the case. They just didn't want to live without each other. Your mother moved to Darek's house, the one you and your sister were born, near Żarna forest. He was working at school. Your mother, who graduated a special class, wanted to attend university to keep educating herself and become a doctor, but he didn't want her to leave. I found it very unfair, for he was able to work in his field of interest and she was stuck in that old ruin of your house with an old mother-in-law, who needed assistance all the time, my poor wild bird captured in a love trap, without a way to escape. She wanted to cure people so badly all her life, and yet so easily gave up on her biggest dream, let your father make her what she never wanted to be - a housewife whose world was as vast as a farmyard. When I saw her becoming more gentle and quieter, I realised that what I'd always desired - to see her this way - was wrong. I was losing her, losing my Anna. I also resented so much for all the trouble she cost me and my husband, for all sleepless nights and moments when she'd threated us and yelled how much she hated us. She didn't yell at her new husband and his mother, nor at his sister, Małgorzata, your aunt. She had no one to yell at; she gradually calmed her temper. Or was she just growing up? Maybe the latter. Or maybe, and it's only my deep thought, she was just bored by the repetitiviness of the daily routine of a housewife in Żarna with no friendly soul to yell at. After all, your father's family is an essence of sweet and loving Christians. Who would she quarrel with? Who should she yell at? Don't get me wrong, my dear, I was happy seeing your mother's nerves getting civilised. Truth is, I wasn't happy to know it happened after she had moved out. Had she calmed herself when living with us, I wouldn't have disliked her earlier and maybe our relationship would have been different. But it was too late now - time flying by, your mother changed and it wasn't my victory, it was theirs. 

- Is this why I remember my mother as sweet and gentle?

- Yes, my dear. Anna I knew died the day she married your father. Don't get me wrong, she still showed her character, took initiative and all decisions in her family, talked much and spoke with that loud, deep voice of hers. But she showed character, not bad temper, took initiative when necessary but not stole it from others, talked much but with excitement rather than with anger, spoke loudly but didn't yell. That summer, your grandmother Ludmiła died choking on a piece of nut and Anna had to give up on her work-related dreams, as the house needed a proper female hand. Not that grandmother Ludmiła was of any help, poor creature stuck on a wheelchair and without left hand, but at least she was a woman. All men in your father's family were well-educated, intelligent people who didn't put too much thought in that old, falling house and impoverished farmyard. Just like your second grandfather, all they cared about were books, math, physics and other whims I don't know why a human should dig into. Two years later your sister was born. Then, six years later, it was you. That's the story.

- No grandmother, this story is incomplete. It doesn't explain what happened before I have come to this world, what happened to my dad and my mother. Why don't you go into detail, paint them so I can see the colours, unveil more about the most recent events?

- My dear, dear child. If you want to know what happened next in Anna's life, you will need to wait until tomorrow. And now, hand me over some milk. My throat is swollen.

Story of Anna part I

- Never have I met a woman like Anna - started grandmother, grinding helplessly, as she was toothless. She liked, though, to work out her jaw a little bit before starting a monologue. She knew she'd feel tired by this primary activity of all humans. It ain't easy being old, she reflected. Had she known this simple truth years ago, maybe she could have taken certain decisions differently.

- Are you talking about Anna, my mother?

- Yes, my dear, your mother. Your mother, since she was a little little dove, was incredibly strong and fierce, rapid in her actions, judgements and words. Little did she care about others, and yet, at the same time, she was the most caring and loving creature I bore. When loving, she handed you all her heart, so loyally and vulnerably, I'd fear for a life tragedy to come. When getting angry, though, she was ruthless and she hurt you - she, indeed, wanted you to feel pain. Being very perceptive, she instinctively felt your weaknesses and aimed faultlessly in the worst spot. Many had to heal for a long time after the words she had yelled in her theatrical furies. Did she think about the consequences? I doubt so.

Once, when for a couple of weeks she was meeting that boy, that sweet, red hair medic's son, I strictly forbid her from seeing him. He wasn't good enough for her. He came from a very troubled family and I simply feared of certain pathological patterns he would have instilled in her if they had spent more time together. Enough saying both his parents were heavy alcoholics without a place to settle. His father didn't work as a medic for years. He suffered from a serious mental breakdown after he couldn't have helped his beloved wife during the boy's birth. Once she had left this world, he found another partner to his pitiful life and both decided to turn the boy's life a hell on earth. Nothing good would have come from his and my daughter's relation, trust me, my dear.

- How did my mother react when you told her your decision?

- She threw an old pan in my direction. The pan's arm broke when hitting the wall. It was my favourite... and she knew it well. 'Mum's pan', children would call it. There were three pans on the shelf. She knew which one to choose.
She said she hated me with all her heart and felt sorry to have a mother like me, she swore she'd run away forever, with him, of course. Until today, I truly believe she'd have done it for real, she was capable of such move, no doubt at all. She saw me crying three nights and did her chores without talking to anyone at home, with this maleficent smile... she was delighted by my torment, mine and her father's. Every time one tried to start a discussion, she looked deeply into one's eyes for a couple of seconds, without even moving a single muscle on her face, and she turned back ferociously. It felt like a slap in a face, although she didn't even touch us. So great pride in her, there was. For three days didn't she talk to me, nor to her siblings, as if she knew she was going to abandon us forever. The only person she'd talk to and take care of those days was your grand-grandfather and her grandfather, Czesław, whom she loved most. He was a true anima buona, the only one able to calm her wild spirit. Annoyingly, he always took her side so I didn't know much of her plans. He didn't even bother to inform me, his daughter! Every time I begged him to tell me what the two were murmuring about, he shook his old, grey head and smacked out loud. I keep a little bit of resentment in the deepest part of my heart till today.

- Why didn't she run away, as she promised, grandmother?

- God listened to my prayers, that's what happened, my dear. Three days from our fight, the medic, in one of his alcoholic furies, beat the boy's last breath out. He hanged himself a couple of days later after his second spouse ratted him out at the police station. I'm not sure what hurt him more - the death of his only son or mere treachery of that old, grey-haired, rash-covered woman. It seemed like the latter, given he hanged only two days after her move, not after the boy's death. Anna, when got to know what happened, got closed in the attic for a couple of days by her father and brothers. It was the only place we knew she couldn't have escaped, no matter how hard she'd try. As you know, our house was very high and there was no window she could have used to escape or jump from.

- Why were you forced to enslave my mother? Did she want to suicide?

- Oh, we never knew with her for sure. She screamed she'd kill herself so many times, I lost count when she was your sister's age. I'm glad none of you took her temper. It wasn't an easy love, my dear.
Turning back, however, we had to close Anna to ensure she wouldn't harm the medic. In a great attack of fury, she swore to kill that beasty creature with her bare hands. Although merely 16-years old girl, she was of great strength and truth is everyone could have killed the medic. He was malnourished and haggard, always drunk, falling down every couple of steps. Why didn't the son save himself? We never knew. Sometimes I think he wanted it to end. After all, Anna didn't get permission to see him again, and what other ally did he have in his miserable existence? His creation was God's joke, and so was his death.

- What happened next?

- Luckily, after a couple of months, your mother's heart wound healed and she started acting like a normal young woman. Never did she apologise for what she had told me that day, never have I forgotten that rage in her eyes, so different from all other children of mine. I wanted to like her as much as I had liked her before, but I didn't manage. I gave her mother's unconditional love and devotion, for God's sake, but I never really liked her again. Was it fear, was it the uncertainty of a moment of another drama at home that could happen at any time? Was I a weak mother? I guess I'll get to know when meeting God in heaven.
Turning back, as I said, your mother eventually turned back to normal, just in time before starting a new school in an adjacent village. She was very talented and hard-working pupil, always prepared and focused, no surprise she passed her class with the highest grades and got a promotion to a better school with a special class for talented kids who'd be trained to become academics in the future. Her greatest dream was to become a medic and save lives. She didn't fear death, as much as she didn't fear life. She would find interest where others found disgust, like half-dead animals, ripped bellies with the stuff out, the sight of blood and body weaknesses. It drove her curiosity and all she wanted was to transform her talent onto something useful. I was proud of her but, at the same time, I wanted her to leave for a university and never come back. Not in the way she was, at least. I hoped she'd go to live in a bigger city, learn the culture, master savoir-vivre, learn self-control. I hoped she'd become a respected matron, a good housekeeper and loving mother of her children, a proud wife of her husband, a loyal friend of her siblings. But she decided to prank me again.

- Are you talking about school in Żarna?

- Yes my dear, the same school your mother worked in until her death. The one you are very familiar with. After all, she never became a medic. Such a waste...
Three months after starting a new school, she came to me as pale as death, with her heart beating like a drum. At first, I feared something terrible happened. I remember stirring a soup. When I saw her all excited, the dirty spoon fell down and accidentally got dirty my favourite skirt. That day all aprons were drying outside. It was stupid of me to use my favourite garment but all others were dirty already. How is that I memorised a spoon and a brown, linen skirt I was wearing?
However, she looked at me and at your grandfather who had just came back from the field, and declared with all seriousness in her eyes and voice: 'Mum, Dad, I fell in love. His name is Darek and one day we will get married'.

- Darek is my father's name!

- Oh, you can be sure she did keep her word. We didn't expect anything different. There was no room for negotiations. A couple of days later she brought your dad to our house. He was tall and white, very slim, I'd say, contrasting your mother's corpulent posture. They looked so different but I would sense great chemistry. Him being melancholic, serious, with a lion's wrinkle, with short and neat brown hair. Her - laud and tempered, with tiny wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, blonde and one head shorter than him. They entered my house holding hands and didn't stop until everyone sat down to eat a supper. Her dad, and your grandfather, didn't accept Darek at first, as he seemed quite weak material for a husband, pretty poor, and what's most important - 15 years older. As you might have heard already, Darek, your father, was your mother's math teacher.

Grandmother wiped her face with a cotton handkerchief with a flowery pattern. She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds.

- You can finish tomorrow if you feel sleepy, grandma. - whispered softly the granddaughter. She felt genuinely curious about her mother's story, given she didn't spend too much time with her. But she knew nothing good would come from rushing her old, poor grandmother. She delicately covered grandma with a wool plaid. - You will finish tomorrow. I will wait.

Grandma and granddaughter

It was a long, gloomy night. One of many. Way too many, one could think, staring meaninglessly at a wooden ceiling of an old thatched hut at the edge of Żwirki village. Way too many murky nights with no-one-knows-what creeping out of leaning trees, leafless of course, at this moment of the year. Nights of a lazy scent of wet, rot leaves here and there, manure, chestnut and fresh, cold air.

- What are you staring at, nanny?
- Nothing, my dear. Reflecting on my past, that's it, nothing that could matter to you.

A little girl with straw-colour hair and big, wide-open hazel eyes nodded with all energy she could find in her tiny body. It was easy to believe that this old, crooked, even a little bit scary lady was telling the truth. What interesting could there be in her head for such a nice, lovely creature like the girl herself? If not for grandma's signature floury scent of fresh bread and honey-covered cookies, the girl would genuinely fear the old lady. There was a certain emptiness in her eyes, aloofness that was truly difficult to grasp for the girl - as if the grandma, when staring at her, saw something through her, lurking behind her back, hidden deeply in her 10-years old soul. Was the grandma gazing at her past self, trapped in her granddaughter's body? Whatever was living in the grandma's mind, the girl wanted to have nothing to do with it. To the point in which she was pretty convinced grandma would see and talk to ghosts.
- Oh yes, yes... so it was, it was... - would she murmur, not opening fully her toothless mouth. A terrifying smell would come from her mouth hole - that's why the girl didn't really like to hug her grandma. But she had to, eventually, four times a year - on her and grandma's birthday, on Christmas and Easter. Apart from these exceptions ordered by the holy word of her own mother, she would aptly avoid finding herself next to grandma's face and old, dry, white-red body. A least, as much as she could, given her duty was to take care of the old hag.

This time, though, the greatest enemy of the girl - excluding sickness and death, of course - visited her childish mind - its name was Boredom.

Rarely would the girl feel bored - the moments she was spending outside the hut would always bring plenty of simple, foolish amusement and joy of playing together in a larger group of Żwirki's children horde. The ones spent at home filled with daily chores - these were also close to get the girl bored immensely, though in the past she could use those precious moments for carrying hours-long disputes with her mother and 6-years older sister. With fresh, girly voices around, even such mundane chore like plucking feathers would become an event worth memorising. Now, the girl's mother was dead, and her sister married to a smith from an adjacent village, Kostno. She would still visit her younger sister and old grandma (though she never really liked any of them, she had to keep the promise given to her dying mother that fatal night), bringing some wood, material and food. She knew once the old hag would die, the girl would be left alone on this cruel world. The sister wouldn't let her live at Kostno, for reasons known only and only to her heart. Hence, to purify conscience enough, she'd take as much care of both as possible, to delay grandma's death and let the young girl come to marital age before then.

- Nanny, why don't you tell me more about what you're staring at? This time, I'm really dying to know what your heart is hiding.

- If you show a real interest, my dear granddaughter, do hand me some milk with honey, so I can strengthen my throat, and then tell you some stories I saw with my own eyes in my life.

- Have you seen ghosts, nanny?

- I have seen way more than mere ghosts, my dear. I have seen love, and hatred, and fear and lust. I have witnessed courage and cowardy, and sacrifice, and murder.

- Who did murder who, granny? - interrupted the girl, clearly excited, shaking voice, glowing eyes. Would this evening be different from others, would this one bring something to her life? - such was her thinking.

- Love murdered life, my dear. This, and many other stories I can tell you this evening. But remember my dear, not without my warm milk with some honey.