Krysia by Krystyna Mihulka

Author:Krystyna Mihulka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2017-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

10

Enduring the Winter

Winter was coming, and with it the fear of being left without fuel during the harsh weather ahead. During the summer Litka, Janek, my brother Antek, and I had gathered dry cow and sheep manure that covered the pastures surrounding the kolkhoz. It burned well, with no bad smells. It couldn’t be stored, because it soon disintegrated into sand, so the workers on the kolkhoz had a special method for hardening it. They mixed the fresh manure with straw, formed it into bricks in special wooden containers that had been made for that purpose, dried it in the sun, watered it, and then dried it again. After they repeated this process several times, the mixture hardened and was ready to be distributed to NKVD officials and barn managers.

One day Litka said to me, “We can do that ourselves.”

“What, gather fresh manure and mix it with our hands?” I exclaimed.

“So what? Do you want to freeze in the winter?”

“No, I don’t. We’ll have to do it.”

The next day Litka’s mother, Pani Kulakowska, managed to get tin buckets for us. Litka and I followed the cows and goats that were grazing on the hills. Some of the shepherds were not too happy to see us and chased us away, but most of them allowed us to gather the fresh manure. The only way to pick it up was to use pieces of plywood that we found around one of the barns. Then we had to carry our full buckets to a sunny, flat, and dry surface next to the wall of our shack and spread the manure on the ground. We added straw to it and formed rounds that looked like huge pancakes. We let them dry, sprayed them with water, and then let them dry again. Antek and Janek wanted to help, but we considered them too young and allowed them only to gather straw and carry water. Except for the stench, it was like making mud pies in the sand. Since we had no toys or books and didn’t go to school, this was a good way of entertaining ourselves.

One day Natasha, the NKVD official who was in charge of the kolkhoz, walked by as we were working. She stopped and praised us. “Great job. Your kiziaki look good. I can see that you are hard workers. Next year you will be allowed to sort potatoes to benefit the kolkhoz.”

“Is that going to be our future?” whispered Litka.

“Be quiet. She might hear us,” I warned.

“She doesn’t understand Polish. And I hate her,” Litka retorted angrily.

“So do I, but we have to be careful about what we say.” I wanted to cry but knew that I couldn’t change our situation. We had to finish before dark, so, with a heavy heart, I continued to work.

When we were satisfied that the kiziaki were hard enough, we carried them inside the shack and stored them behind the stove, in the space provided for that purpose. Babcia, Janek’s grandmother, watched us and said, “You should be proud of what you have done.

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