Into the Whirlwind (17 page)

“I see,” Mollie said softly. Mrs. Kazmarek opened the battered satchel at her feet and hauled out stacks of the papers, inspecting each batch before setting them on the dining table. There was a curious mingling of relief, delight, and pride on Mrs. Kazmarek’s face as she kissed each batch of papers.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Mollie said, “what precisely are those papers?”

Mrs. Kazmarek laid a hand gently across the top of the pages,
and a hint of sadness tinged her face. “These bags contain our history. The history of the Polish people.”

Mollie’s brows lifted in surprise. Mrs. Kazmarek pushed herself to her feet and retrieved a framed photograph from the hall table. “This is a picture of my parents,” she said. “You see how thin my father looks? How poor his clothing? That’s because he was conscripted into the Russian army for two years before he could escape. For centuries, the people of Poland have been mistreated. Their land stampeded, their treasures plundered. The Russians and the Germans have partitioned our land so that Poland is no longer on the maps of Europe.”

Mollie knew plenty about Poland. It was impossible to live in Chicago and not be aware of the waves of Polish immigrants who’d settled in the city.

“Even here in America, we struggle,” Mrs. Kazmarek said. “People laugh at our accents and make jokes about our culture, but they cannot stamp out the Polish people. We refuse to disappear. So I will preserve the memory of our grand and glorious history.” The sorrow faded from Joanna Kazmarek, and her face became one of strength and beauty. “There was a golden age of Poland,” she said, her voice vibrating with pride. “A time when people from all over Europe came to study at our universities, benefit from the wealth of our land. As we spread out across the world, it is important we
remember
.”

Her lips compressed. “Zachariasz has no patience for all this. No interest in Poland. We could not even get him to learn to speak Polish! But whenever Jozef and I meet someone from Poland, we listen to their stories and record their memories.”

Through the arched doorway, Mollie could see down the hall to a room piled with towers of papers, books, and photographs. “That is what is in the front room?”

Joanna nodded. “Those are the memories. And this is the
book,” she said, laying her hand on the stacks of paper before her. “I read everything sent to me by the Polish immigrants, and when I find something truly unique, I make a copy here on these pages. Someday I will publish these pieces for all the world to see. What good is our work if all it does is fill this fine home to the rafters? I will write a book and make sure it is in every library of this country. The memories of our people must never be forgotten. I will protect and shine them until they gleam like diamonds in the darkness.”

Mollie found the woman’s passion touching, but Dr. Buchanan’s response amazed her. He was on the verge of tears. “I wish I had someone like you in my life,” he said. “I don’t know the first thing about who I am or where I came from. My parents died before I thought to ask them about such things. What kind of name is Buchanan? German? Irish? I don’t even know. All I know is that I was born and raised on Union Avenue, but that’s all burned down now. No past, no future.”

Mrs. Kazmarek leaned across the table and cuffed him on the arm. “You can be Polish,” she said. “Come. I am feeding you a bowl of good hot
flaki
. Your first step to becoming an honorary Pole.”

Five minutes later, Mollie and Dr. Buchanan had piping hot bowls of thick stew before them. Mollie recognized the slices of carrots and celery floating in the broth but wasn’t certain about the meat that made the stew so hearty. She devoured the stew even though it wasn’t the sort of dish she would appreciate under normal circumstances.

In contrast, Dr. Buchanan savored every drop. “You must show me how to make this flaki,” he said. “Now that I’ve had it, I’ll crave it for the rest of my life. What is in it?”

“You don’t want to know,” Mrs. Kazmarek said.

“Yes I do. It’s delicious.” Dr. Buchanan tilted his bowl to eke out the last drop.

Mrs. Kazmarek folded her arms across her chest and fixed the dentist with a sad smile. “Dr. Buchanan, I am older and wiser than the two of you put together, and sometimes you need to trust your elders.
You don’t want to know!
”

Dr. Buchanan shrugged his shoulders but gratefully accepted Mrs. Kazmarek’s offer for a second bowl of stew. While the older woman stepped into the kitchen for more flaki, Mollie glanced about the home that Zack lived in. Normally, a home was a reflection of the owner, but it was hard to tell much of anything about Zack from this townhouse. The front rooms were crammed with Mrs. Kazmarek’s history project, but the dining room was clear of papers. It contained nothing but the table, four chairs, and the rather fetching painting of a girl in a garden Mollie had admired the first time she was here.

Mrs. Kazmarek slid the bowl of stew before Dr. Buchanan, then glanced up at Mollie. “You have noticed the Monet again,” she said approvingly. “Zachariasz overpaid horribly for that painting, but he was determined to have it.”

Dr. Buchanan swiveled in his chair to look at the painting. “Hey, she looks like you, Mollie.”

Mollie looked closer at the picture. It showed a young woman with a cascade of black curls spilling down her back, but that was the only resemblance Mollie could see. The woman stood in a green meadow dappled with sunlight, holding something protectively in her hand. Mollie leaned forward to get a better look.

“She is holding a watch,” Mrs. Kazmarek said. “A gold watch.”

“Oh” was the only thing Mollie could think to say. Dr. Buchanan turned his attention back to his bowl of Polish stew, but Mrs. Kazmarek watched Mollie with the strangest look
of expectation on her face. The woman didn’t really think the picture looked like her, did she?

There were so many things about Zack she didn’t know. In the past, he had been just an intimidating man in a starched collar with a list of rules she must follow. Now he was a man who had raced through a fire to save her. Who brought his pet bird home every weekend. And, for some reason, had horribly overpaid for a portrait of a girl holding a watch.

“Zack doesn’t seem like the kind of person to get sentimental over artwork,” she said.

Mrs. Kazmarek’s smile was a curious mingling of love and pain. “He is very protective of the women in his life,” she said. “Do you know how he got that chip in his front tooth?”

As Mrs. Kazmarek recounted the story, it made Mollie’s heart ache. When Zack was a boy, his mother had been a laundress for a boardinghouse near the docks. Six days a week she hauled water and did heavy labor before walking two miles back to her neighborhood. A gang of young Irish troublemakers had taken to following her home. They trailed behind her, sneering out polka tunes with dirty lyrics and hoping to get a rise out of her. Sometimes it was only hurtful words, but other times they threw bits of rubbish at her or yanked on the back of her skirt. She always ignored them, but when Zack heard about it, he rounded up two other Polish boys and confronted the Irish gang. It was three against five, and the Irish boys were older than Zack and his friends. Zack was only fourteen years old, and it did not go well. Mrs. Kazmarek nearly fainted when Zack was carried home with two broken ribs and a chipped tooth . . . but the Irish gang left her alone after that.

It confirmed what Mollie was beginning to understand about Zack. Beneath his polished veneer of corporate success and finely tailored jackets, he was a rugged, aggressive man who
would bluntly reach out and correct a wrong. Or defend a woman. Hadn’t he stood by her side through the fire, hauling her to safety even when it meant he was thrust into danger?

Frank’s warnings about Zack were wrong. It was understandable that her father’s oldest friend would have the protective instincts of a lion, but Mollie was coming to know and trust a side of Zack that Frank would never be able to see.

Thank goodness for the pierogis Zack brings
, Mollie thought as she pulled on her shoes.

In the past week, she had started feeling guilty about eating so well when others in the neighborhood subsisted on bread and apples. Three days ago, she had impulsively brought some of Zack’s pierogis over to the German immigrants who lived in the burned-out post office across the street.

This morning, her generosity paid off when Mrs. Schneider came to tell her of a space in the Pilsen neighborhood that had just become available for lease. Some people renting an attic above a brewery had decided to move to St. Louis and walked out on their lease. That space would last only a matter of hours.

As Mollie dragged on her shoes, Declan insisted on accompanying her. “It isn’t safe on the streets,” he said.

Crime was becoming a problem as the surge of goodwill in the days following the fire began to evaporate. Hunger and desperation were powerful forces, and gangs of ruffians had taken to roaming the streets. The mayor had turned to one of the city’s most illustrious residents, General Philip Sheridan, for help in restoring order in the city. Chicago was placed under martial law, and teams of soldiers patrolled the streets to keep looters at bay, but the city was still on edge.

Declan’s nerves roared to life whenever he felt threatened,
and she doubted he had it in him to put up any sort of defense on her behalf, but she nodded solemnly. “I’d appreciate that,” she said simply as they set off with a brisk pace.

Her tension ratcheted higher as they rode the streetcar to the brewery. With each stop of the car, Mollie gritted her teeth as passengers dawdled in their boarding and disembarking. She pinched the skin on the bridge of her nose as a man carried six small cages of chickens aboard. She was terrified the streetcar would not deliver them to the brewery fast enough to secure the space.

Declan sensed her anxiety. “What will we do if the space is already taken?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

Declan grimaced and folded his arms across his chest. His hands were trembling, and he didn’t want her to see. “I wish I could snap my fingers and fix this problem for you,” he said. “Instead I’m just another burden. Like always.”

“Nonsense.”

“During the war, Colonel Lowe always knew the right thing to do. When we were moving through Virginia, the civilians despised us and wanted to see us dead, but Colonel Lowe would sweet-talk the mayor’s wife or offer to harvest crops in the field. He always knew how to buy goodwill. He got us out of one scrape after another.”

Mollie sighed. “Declan, you mustn’t compare yourself to Colonel Lowe.” Over the years she had heard plenty about the famous commander of the 57th Illinois Infantry, especially from Declan, who idolized the man. She had never met Colonel Lowe, but he must have walked on water given the way Declan, Ulysses, and even her father always praised his name.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “When my nerves get the better of me, I ask myself what Colonel Lowe would do. He was always
so confident, even when we were pinned against that cliff and were looking at certain death. And I was such a coward,” he whispered. “Even today, I fall to pieces when a door slams.” He turned to look at her with pain-filled eyes. “I
know
there are no snipers lying in wait or cannons exploding, but they are with me every day, hovering just beyond my line of sight.”

She laid a hand on his arm. “It is normal to be afraid of death,” she said. “Perhaps if you came to church services with us, you would not fear it so badly.”

The streetcar stopped at the 18th Street intersection, where the brewery was located, and Declan vaulted from the bench. He hopped out of the streetcar, and Mollie had to hurry to catch up with him. “Declan . . . I didn’t mean to offend you. I just want to help. Perhaps a minister—”

He stopped to face her. “Don’t you think I’ve tried that, Mollie? Sitting in a church makes me feel like a bigger failure because all those people crammed in so tight make me nervous and I just want to get away. It’s hard for me to be alone but harder to be in a crowd.” He turned and kept trekking forward. “There is no fixing me, Mollie,” he said darkly. “I have a cracked soul.”

Mollie trailed along beside him, scurrying to keep apace. “Your soul is
not
cracked. Perhaps you are not a hero like Colonel Lowe, but not many people are. If you compare yourself to Colonel Lowe, you will continue to berate and belittle yourself, and that is not fair.”

They reached the end of the block. The brewery was a squat brick building of four stories, two smokestacks, and a short flight of stairs leading to the front door. “I think this is the brewery we are looking for,” Declan muttered.

It was, but she felt like she was on the verge of something very important. Declan had been wrestling with these demons
for years, and this was the closest he had ever come to opening his mind to her.

“Declan, you are precisely as God intended you to be, nothing more and nothing less. If you wish, we can find someplace quiet and you can tell me what is going on.
I want to help
.”