Jurek stayed with the Kowalskis. Pan Kowalski was a blacksmith by trade. Mostly, he shoed horses. Apart from that, he had a small farm with a vegetable garden, two horses of his own, and some pigs and chickens. Now that much of Warsaw lay in ruins after heavy fighting, which ended with the Russian advance continuing, there weren't many horses to shoe. Pan Kowalski worked mainly at hauling loads in his wagon, such as debris to be cleared and bricks for rebuilding. Tadek and Jurek helped. Sometimes they went into town with him and sometimes they stayed behind to take care of the animals. The one thing they refused to do was go to school. Each time Pan Kowalski tried to make them, they ran away.
On one of their trips to the city, Pan Kowalski pointed at a burned-out neighborhood and said:
"That was the Jewish ghetto."
Jurek couldn't believe his eyes. Suddenly it all came back to him: the streets, the houses, his parents, the blurred figures of his brothers and sisters. It was all gone.
Every Sunday he went with his new family to church. In the morning he washed in the horses' drinking trough, donned Tadek's second-best suit, and put on his Russian army boots.
One weekday morning, Tadek and his father went off in the wagon and Jurek stayed behind to help Pani Kowalski on the farm. Finishing his chores early, he went for a walk in the streets, hoping to find someone to play with. But all the children were in school, and after a while he found himself in front of a church. After a moment's deliberation, he entered. The church was empty, not the way it was on Sundays. There wasn't a sound. He sat down near the altar and looked around. A door creaked and a priest appeared. He was wearing an ordinary cassock, not the ornamented vestments used for mass.
"Playing hooky, eh?" the priest asked jokingly.
"No," Jurek said. "I was just passing by."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Jurek Staniak. I live with the Kowalskis."
"Oh, yes," the priest remembered. "You're one of the flood victims. Come, help me move a table."
He noticed Jurek's missing arm.
"Never mind," he said. "I'll do it myself."
Jurek was insulted. "I can do everything, Father."
The priest realized his mistake. He nodded and let Jurek help him carry a table to his room.
"Would you like some tea?" he asked.
"Yes, please."
The priest made tea and put a plate of cookies on the table. They both sat down.
"How old are you?"
Jurek thought.
"About ten."
"Have you been confirmed?"
Jurek knew what being confirmed was. He had seen boys and girls in the villages going to church for it. The girls looked like princesses in their white dresses and crowns of flowers, and even the toughest boys looked like gentlemen.
"No," he said.
"We're having confirmation for a large group of children soon. I'll speak to your adopting family."
Did that mean he would he look like those children? It was hard to believe.
Subsequently, he returned to the church several times. He dusted the objects in the sacristy, hoed the garden, sawed wood for the stove in the kitchen, and chatted with the priest over tea.
"How did you lose your arm?" the priest asked one day.
"It was caught in a machine. The lousy doctor didn't want to operate and left me all night in the corridor."
"Why didn't he want to?"
Jurek squirmed. "I don't know."
The priest said nothing for a while. Then he asked, "He didn't say anything?"
"I don't remember."
"But you were treated in the end?"
"The next day another doctor came. He had to amputate because I had gangrene."
Another time, the priest told Jurek he had been with the partisans during the war.
"Where?" Jurek asked.
"In the Kampinowki forest. For a whole year."
"I was there too," Jurek said, happy to tell about it. "Sometimes, in summer, I'd leave the farms I worked on and live in the forest."
"I once ran into some Jewish boys there," the priest said.
Jurek gave him an anxious look. But the priest's face was friendly. "Did you ever see any partisans?" he asked.
"Once. They shot my dog because a mad dog bit it."
Jurek told the priest about Azor. It made him sad.
***
A large group of nine- and ten-year-olds was to be confirmed in May. Pan Kowalski grumbled that he would have to pay for private catechism lessons for Jurek and Tadek. The other children studied religion in school.
"Will you hire the priest?" his wife asked.
"Why the priest? I'll take a novice."
"We can pay him with a dozen eggs," Pani Kowalski said.
"Let it be a dozen eggs," Pan Kowalski agreed good-naturedly. "As long he saves those two young sinners."