The Pages in Between by Erin Einhorn

Author:Erin Einhorn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

On my next trip to B dzin, I presented Helen with the document I’d promised that named Honorata as manager of the house. Helen thanked me but said she still needed a signature from my mother. This time, I questioned her: “Why my mother? Why not anyone else in my family?” Helen seemed puzzled. “Because she’s her father’s next of kin,” she said. Technically, Grandma Fela was my grandfather’s next of kin, but as far as I could tell, that didn’t matter. What did matter, I told Helen, was that my grandfather never owned the house.

Helen, Wiesław, and their daughter, Marta, all immediately contradicted me. “Of course he owned the house,” Helen said. “He gave it to Honorata.” She added that my grandfather was listed on the deed to the property as the owner, but on this point, I had to disagree. The deed was one of the documents Helen had given me to copy on an earlier visit, and it was clear to me that the names on the deed belonged to my mother’s grandparents, not to her parents. “See?” I said, producing my copy of the deed and pointing to the top of the page. The owners were listed as Izrael syn Szmula, Izrael, son of Szmul, and his wife, Zysla Frydrych z Pasermanow. These were the Polish names of my great-grandparents, Yisruel and Zisl. Wiesław, Helen, and Marta crowded around to look at the deed, then all started talking in an angry, combative tone. Even Wiesław, who was usually passive, was saying something very quickly and pointedly. I turned to Basia, my interpreter, but her face took on a wash of angst as she struggled to follow three simultaneous Polish monologues and figure out how to convert them into English. I’d met Basia through Jarek, the B dzin historian. He had told me she was fluent in English, but I hadn’t spoken to her long enough on the phone to confirm this. Now it was clear that she was flailing. She was a sweet girl, an English teacher at a local school, and trying her best, but the Skowro skis were making her job extremely difficult. I wished I had one of my friends with me, someone with stronger English, but Krys and Ania were working, and Magda was still in New York. Her weekend trip had stretched to a week when a toothache led to the removal of her wisdom teeth. I was floundering.

I wondered how much English Basia actually understood and how well she had conveyed my words to the Skowro skis. I wondered if they had understood anything I’d said. Finally, I decided to try Polish. “Dom nie byla dziadek dom. Byla pra-dziadek dom, ” I said, messing up the grammar. House was not grandfather house. It was great-grandfather house. This only further agitated Wiesław. He responded loudly, faster than usual. Then Helen interrupted her husband, and he became annoyed and barked at her. They were both arguing, with each other and with me, cutting each other off until at last they were done.

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