Run, Boy, Run(46)

The two boys, freshly washed, combed, and dressed in their Sunday best, waited excitedly for the novice to come. A teenager, he talked to them at length about sin: which sins you went to hell for, and which you didn't, and how you could atone for them all by confession.

"And then you don't go to hell?"

"Once you've confessed, you're pure again," he promised them. "But you have to confess everything. If you don't, your soul stays filthy and nothing will help you."

There was one thing, Jurek knew, that he could not possibly confess. But was being Jewish a sin? And if it was, did you go to hell for it? He prayed every night to Jesus and Mary and often touched the cross and the medallion of the Madonna that were always around his neck.

On the Saturday before confirmation, he and Tadek went to confession. Jurek had learned his lines by heart. He entered the confession box, crossed himself, and recited to the latticework partition that separated him from the priest:

"I have sinned the following sins against God. I have stolen chickens, eggs, vegetables, and fruit, and I once even stole a farmer's jacket."

He stopped. He could hear his father telling him, "Never forget that you're a Jew." But was that a sin? Did he have to confess to it? He went on: "If there were more sins that I don't remember, I'm sorry for them, too. I promise to mend my ways from now on."

When they came home for supper that night, the two boys were astonished to see two sets of freshly ironed white clothes—pants, shirts, jackets, and lace collars—and two new pairs of shiny shoes.

"Is that what we're wearing tomorrow?" Jurek asked.

"Yes," Pani Kowalski said. "In the morning I'll heat water and you'll wash well. I borrowed the clothes from the neighbors."

"I'll wash at the trough," Jurek said.

"You can't wash with soap at the trough," Pani Kowalski told him.

"You'll wash here, as you were told," Pan Kowalski ordered him sternly.

Jurek quailed.

"No one will see you, you silly boy," Pani Kowalski laughed. "We'll draw the curtain."

She showed Jurek a curtain that could be drawn to screen off the tub.

"Eat all you can tonight," Pan Kowalski advised. "Tomorrow morning you're not allowed to."

"Or to drink," his wife added.

The two boys sighed.

"For how long?"

"Until lunchtime, when the ceremony is over."

The next morning, a large piece of laundry soap was waiting for him on a stool by the tub. A bucket of hot water stood beside it.

"It's better than the trough," Pani Kowalski said, combing Tadek's washed hair. "Take off your clothes, stand in the tub, and wash yourself well. If there's any place you can't reach, Pan Kowalski will help you."

"I'll be fine," Jurek said.

"After you've dried yourself, put on your underwear and I'll help with the rest," Pani Kowalski said, handing Jurek an article of clothing he had never seen before.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Haven't you ever seen a pair of underpants?"

"Yes. The Russian soldiers gave me some last winter, to keep me warm. But those were long."

"Well, from now on you'll wear underpants all the time."

Jurek put on the underpants and stepped out from behind the curtain. He didn't know how to put on his new clothes, and Pani Kowalski helped him expertly into them. Then she brushed and combed his hair vigorously. Last, she put on his lace collar and brought him to the mirror.

Jurek was dumbfounded. Another boy was standing there. But this boy, too, had only one arm.

The confirmation ceremony was impressive. All the boys held candles, and all the girls, white roses. The mass took longer than usual, and Jurek's stomach was rumbling from hunger. In the end, the children were called up to the altar for their first communion  . Each knelt and was given a wafer. The small white cracker only made Jurek hungrier. He couldn't wait to go home and eat lunch.





17. The Kidnappers


Jurek stayed with the Kowalskis a whole year. Gradually the hauling jobs diminished and Pan Kowalski went back to his smithy. Jurek was fascinated by everything about it—the fire, the bellows, the expertly delivered hammer blows that could turn a white-hot piece of iron into an ax, horseshoe, or sickle. Although Jurek taught himself to operate the bellows with one hand and a shoulder, the long tongs needed two hands, and so Pan Kowalski made him special one-handled tongs of his own. He learned to pluck the glowing iron from the fire with them and to lay it quickly on the anvil. Pan Kowalski showed him how to give it the desired shape by turning and pounding it.

Behind the house were fields. They were green in spring, yellow in summer, and snow-white when winter came. On winter days he joined the boys' snowball fights and in summer he went with Tadek to swim in the Wisla. Now that he had underpants, he no longer feared being seen naked. Not that they kept him from almost drowning the first time he tried to swim. Tadek had to pull him out of the water.