Legacy of Courage/Prologue

Prologue

The year is 1915 in the ancient city of Cracow, Poland. The great Austro-Hungarian Empire that held sway over this southern part of Poland is in decline. But for Oleńka, the little fair-haired girl sitting on her bed waiting for Fräulein Purtzell to help her dress, it is the decline in health of her beloved grandfather that is uppermost in her mind.

Fräulein Purtzell is called away to Grandfather Armatowicz’s sickroom just when she is in the middle of dressing Oleńka. This is happening more and more. Distressing sounds come from Grandfather’s room, moaning and cries as of pain. Oleńka is not allowed in to see her Grandfather any more. She remembers how he used to kiss both her cheeks Dobranoc kwiecie różany, he would say every evening—Goodnight, rose blossom. But it has been a long time since his moustache has tickled her cheeks.

The times Oleńka spent in Grandfather’s study had been such happy ones. She had watched him sharpen his goose quills with a penknife and scatter golden sand over his written page to dry the ink. She had loved to accompany him to the dining room where he took his second breakfast at 11 o’clock; a side dish of bigos, a sauerkraut stew, or marinated herring washed down with a small glass of złotówka, a liquor made in Gdansk in which floated tiny golden specks. When no one was looking Oleńka licked out the glass.

It had been Oleńka’s job to help Grandfather off with his heavy outdoor shoes when he came in and bring him his embroidered slippers. On a shelf in his room were seven long pipes—one for every day of the week. A stone jar held the fragrant fine-cut tobacco

with which he filled the pipes. Oleńka was allowed to blow out the match and sit at his feet, watching as he blew smoke rings.

All that is changed now. Doctors with grave faces come and go . No one has much time for Oleńka anymore. She sits shivering half- dressed on the big bed in which she sleeps with her mother. It is winter and the day ahead stretches out long and boring. She goes to the heavily curtained window and looks out at the passers-by. What are the lives of the children who troop by? How she longs to play with children her age. The heavy features of the stone statues decorating the building across the street reflect her ennui.

Since no one is around Oleńka approaches her mother’s jewellery case, normally a forbidden place. She opens the first drawer with its blue silk lining and examines the pearls with their diamond clasp. The second drawer is lined with velvet, and on it lies the diamond star pin that sparkles so when you move it in the light.

There are footsteps in the hall and Oleńka shuts the slender drawer and leaps back into bed. Fräulein Purtzell enters, her eyes red as if she has been crying. ‘Such a good man to suffer so!’ she mutters. Absent- mindedly she continues to dress the little girl. A woollen dress goes over the white camisole, a lace collar is done up at the back.

The fair straight hair she combs none too gently and ties with a big silk ribbon.

But it is when the black wool stockings are brought out that Oleńka turns fractious. They are hard to get on and they itch.

‘Do hold still, child!’ Purtzell exclaims.

‘But I hate these black wool stockings, I hate them,’ wails Oleńka.

‘Here, you try to pull them on yourself, like a big girl.’

‘I’m not a big girl and I never want to wear these horrid things again.

The exasperated Fräulein spits out, ‘Then you should go to live in Africa.’

Immediately Oleńka sits, stops squirming and asks with interest,

‘Why Africa?’

‘Because in Africa it is warm and no one ever has to wear black wool stockings!’

…Strange what we remember from childhood. Oleńka never forgot that remark. Not when Grandfather died and Fräulein Purtzell left them; not when as a young woman she had to mend the runs in her silk stockings with a tiny hook; not when she went to Africa more than 50 years later.