Mother and Me by Julian Padowicz

sounded as though she were on the other side of a closed door. I felt a blanket being wrapped around my shoulders. I realized my teeth were chattering and I was suddenly cold. And I was sweating again.
    â€œHe’s so delicate,” I heard Mother saying apologetically. Miss Bronia was cradling my head and shoulders in her arms like a baby, and I realized I must have fainted completely. I tried to sit up, but Miss Bronia held me down. “Just rest a little longer,” she said.
    â€œHe was just very scared,” I heard Auntie Edna saying. “You see, he’s just fine now. Bronia is a genius with children.”
    â€œHe is all right, isn’t he?” I heard Mother ask.
    â€œYes, Mrs. Waisbrem, he’s all right. He’s just very upset,” Miss Bronia said.
    â€œMiss Bronia, I will give you a hundred zloty if you stay with him.”
    â€œThat’s not necessary, Missus,” Miss Bronia said. I could tell from her tone that Miss Bronia was impatient with Mother the way Kiki sometimes was. “I’ll just hold him for awhile,” she said.
    Then I realized that the truck was moving again. Mother crawled back to her seat over the bags. Across the way, Fredek was sitting beside his mother with spots on his shirt that I realized were blood. He made no effort to wipe them off. Nobody was talking.
    I started to sit up again. “Just rest awhile longer,” Miss Bronia said in her kind voice. I closed my eyes and let her hold me.

    Then I was sitting beside Miss Bronia again, as the truck made its wobbly way forward. Mother had sat down now beside Auntie Edna. The major’s wife and Auntie Paula, I realized, were not with us. Had something happened to them? No,I had seen them both after the attack. Had there been another attack while I was unconscious? That would have been too embarrassing. Or were they sitting up front with the driver and the major? Held tight against Miss Bronia’s side, I could not see out of our partially open door. Fredek kept lowering his face to look at the blood spots drying on his shirt.
    I was aware that I had not experienced any more feelings regarding Kiki since regaining consciousness. Kiki might already be dead, I said deliberately in my own mind. But, strangely, the words had no impact. She might have had her hand severed by machine gun bullets like that poor woman—or a foot, or a leg. I tried to make myself visualize these conditions, but, still, I had no feelings about it. That wave of fear for Kiki’s safety that I had felt before falling unconscious, I could remember it, but I could no longer feel it. Why was that? What was happening to me?
    After a while, the truck stopped again. Auntie Paula appeared at the rear of the truck. “I told Dembovski to stop here so he could rest,” she explained. “He drove all night and now all morning.”
    â€œThat’s a good idea,” my mother said.
    â€œBesides which, I need my cigarettes,” Auntie Paula added. She laughed as she said it, but it didn’t sound as though she really found it funny.
    There were trees beside the road. “Everyone find a bush,” Auntie Edna was saying as we climbed down from the truck. There was a jolly tone to her voice too, and it didn’t sound any more real than Auntie Paula’s. “Fredek, stay close,” she added.
    â€œYulek, stay close to Fredek,” my mother called.
    I saw Fredek heading into the trees and followed. He stopped by a large tree and began digging into the leg opening of his shorts. Not wishing to intrude on his privacy, I walked to a tree a few yards further. In a moment, I saw Fredek walk past me to a still further tree. It took me a moment to understandhis purpose—he wanted to go further from the truck than I did. Unlike the matter of helping the wounded, this was only a silly game. I let him have his silly way. When I had finished, I simply turned around and walked