Jablunka

A small village in Moravia, January 1846. Josef Benes loses his family to typhoid. The village overseer gives him to a pigkeeper, Milos Krivanek.

Seasons

Part One : Josef

Chapter One

Jablunka

 

January 1846

 

                The wind still howled rattling the walls of the hut. Josef Benes huddled on the dirt floor closer to the dying embers. Around his shoulders he wore a ragged piece of sheeting stained by dirt. He had draped the other blanket over two bodies, one large, one small that lay on the sleeping space above the hearth. Maminka, his mother, Maria Benes and Janos, his brother now lay still beneath the reddened blanket.  Josef had done what he could for them. He had prayed over them to keep away the devil and had cleaned them, as much as he could. A few hours before he had pulled on his patched wool coat, picked up a wooden bucket and axe and went out into the cold. Using the axe he broke a hole through the frozen stream. The water bucket filled he had lugged it back into the hut. Josef heated the water using some of it to clean them, some to make the porridge he tried to get them to eat.

                Six days had passed since Father Tomisek had come. He had looked at Janos and Maria, at the rash on their shoulders and necks and at the blood seeping through their skin. He had drawn back his hands and had muttered one word, typhus. Leaving behind a small sack of oatmeal he had fled the house. No one had come since. Josef had cooked the last of the oatmeal.  The cabin sinking into darkness he sat beside the ebbing warmth of the hearth and wondered what to do.

                That winter had been hard as had the two before. What few pieces of furniture and crockery they had, Maminka had to barter for food. The men who had paid money when they had come had stopped coming put off by her growing thinness and desperation. The last one who had come had brought ten kruezers. He had also brought the typhus. Maria had attributed the severe headache and fever that attacked Holena to a curse laid against her house by Pane Sikorski, the butcher's wife, who had not forgiven her because her husband had visited her three months before.

                Die Hure they called Maminka in the village. The w***e. Josef had first heard the word when he was four, screamed out to him by another four-year-old. Neither child had known what it meant. A year later Josef learned the word's meaning. Before that all that he had understood was that after the men had left he, Janos and Holena had full stomachs and sometimes, new clothes or boots to wear.  He did not know what the men and Maminka did. In good weather Maminka would send the children outside. In bad weather the three would huddle under a blanket. Maminka would tell them to keep their heads under the blanket and sleep.

                That afternoon it rained, a warm summer shower. The pelting against the thatched roof kept Josef awake. He lay still feeling the warmth of four year old Janos and three year old Holena. From above the grey surface of the blanket he could hear the pig keeper, Milos Krivanek sounding as if he had been hurt. Maminka had told Josef to stay under the blanket but being only five his curiosity proved stronger than his memory. He sat up to see Milos; his great hairy body unclothed kneeling behind Maminka who was also naked. She was on her hands and knees, her head between her shoulders, her hair hanging down over her face. Milos moaned. Maminka said nothing.  Milos began rocking back and forth. Noticing the boy, he stopped. He smiled and began to laugh.

                With a great hand he took hold of Maminka's long loose brown hair.  He yanked her head up with a sudden jerk causing her to gasp. Josef found himself looking into his mother's open eyes.  Milos chortled. “You see boy, how hard the w***e works.”

                 Josef knowing that he had done something very wrong ducked back under the blankets. The man's laughter continued to peal through the hut. Josef discovered the enormity of his error after Milos had left. Maria dragged him out from under the blanket ignoring the sleepy protests of the other children.  By the scruff of his neck she hauled him to the corner of the hut where she kept the dreaded birch stick She beat him on the head and shoulders screaming at him, “you stupid piece of s**t. Never do that again.”

                “Please Maminka. No Maminka. I'm sorry.”

                After the beating she let him slip outside with Janos and Holena. Maminka sank onto a stool in front of the fireplace. She did not watch them leave. She did not watch them return. Throughout the day she remained on the stool staring into a dead fire. Hungry the children fell asleep on the one flea-infested mattress. That night Maria shook the children out of their sleep. She led them into the encircling forest. She raced along the path towards the village, the three children stumbling behind her.  At the edge of the village, within sight of the houses she stopped. Then she began to screech uttering every obscene word that she knew.  Her voice exhausted, she spat.  In a final gesture of contempt she crouched and urinated. Giggling she hurried back to her hut, her children, confused and embarrassed, following her.

                Maria Benes considered herself to be a good mother. She had kept her children alive. Between her customers, the garden, the cow, a few chickens, fish from the river and the nuts and fruit from the forest the family managed to live.  Maria had taught her children what she knew about tending plants and animals. When they were grown her sons might become labourers or join the army. Holena might become the servant of a free peasant. With the money her children could earn she might look forward to having a house again in the village, a seat in the church, grandchildren. Then the third bad winter came and the typhus.

                Holena had been the first to die. Josef and Janos had helped Maminka to dig a shallow hole in the frozen earth.  They placed Holena's cloth-wrapped body in the hole, filled it with dirt and placed stones over it to keep away the wolves. Maminka cried making them kneel in the snow and pray. That evening both Janos and Maminka took ill. At Maminka's request, Josef ran to the priest's house for help. The priest came two days later.

                Maminka told Josef during her last moments of delirium before she became too weak to say anything that he was to blame for what had happened to her. He was why her aunt had made her live in the forest, hiding her shame away from the village.  If he had not been born she would have married a leading man of the village, perhaps even the overseer. Even the baron had loved her.  He would have taken her away from here if not for Josef. F*****g b*****d. It had been Josef's fault, the priest's fault, her uncle's fault. S**t on them all.

                Maminka's strangled moaning softened and then ceased. After that Josef could hear only the wind. He sat in his corner beside the fireplace until morning and wondered what he had done wrong.  He thought of going for help. On such a dark, cold night who would want to come. As the fire died in the hearth Josef decided that he would have to find someone to help him. He could not bury them by himself.  The cold seeped into him.  Hunger gnawed his belly. He could find wood enough in the forest but no food. He decided that going to Father Tomisek would be best. The knez would feed him and find him a place to stay.  Maminka's family no longer lived but there might be others willing to help.

                Josef left the hut at first light.  He had difficulty getting out. The snow, up to a foot thick, had piled against the door.   He stumbled through the drift.  Beyond the sheltering trees snow covered the path that led to the village. He found his direction by steering towards the trails of grey smoke curling into the white sky. Although the day was cold he did not feel uncomfortable. The wooden soles of his boots although thin kept his feet dry. Rags stuffed into the boots helped warm his feet. His coat would help keep out the cold, at least for a while. 

                A light powdering of fresh snow had settled over an older frozen crust. In most places the crust would support a child's weight but not everywhere.  He stepped on a spot where the crust was thin. It broke sending him sprawling. He pulled himself up and shoved his legs through the loose snow until he found a place where the crust would support him. So he made his way out of the forest, running interrupted by an occasional stumble. By the time that he cleared the trees, the rags protecting his feet had become soaked from the snow spilling into his boots.

                In his journey to the village Josef saw only one person, old Tomas the woodcutter. The man paused in his sawing to cross himself when he saw the child. Everyone in the village had heard of the typhus. The Benes brat should be dead. The devil protected his own.

                Josef could feel the cold numbing his fingers and toes.  Even so he knew better than to knock at the front door of the priest's house. He trudged to the back and rapped on the kitchen door. As he waited he thought of what the priest might give him to eat. They might even allow him to sit beside the kitchen fire for a few minutes.

                Father Jan Tomisek sipped his coffee with the air of a man who could take his time over his breakfast.  As he buttered a roll his housekeeper, Pane Svoboda, informed him that one of the Benes b******s, Josef, was at the back door.  Should she chase him away? The woman's expression told him that she shared his fear that the boy had brought the typhus with him.  The priest told the housekeeper to toss the boy some bread through the back window. Pane Svoboda seemed satisfied. Father Tomisek returned to his coffee. As he drank he considered the problem posed by Josef's survival.

                One small fact offered him some comfort. He had never baptised Josef. From the parochial view the boy was not his concern.  Josef was a lay matter, the responsibility of Pan Dombrowski, the baron's overseer.  Maria's aunt and uncle were dead. Who in the village would want another mouth to feed? In these foul times, very few would, least of all one of crazy Maria's brats. The w***e's son was too young for the army. Father Tomisek conceded that he should do something about having the child baptised, but the soul having been rescued what to do with the flesh?

                He disliked the prospect of appealing to Pan Dombrowski, that greedy little Pole. Still, the man had a shrewd mind. First,breakfast. Father Tomisek saw little reason to face the cold on an empty stomach. As he munched on his roll he gave further thought to the Benes problem. They would burn the w***e's hut with the bodies inside, a grisly prospect but unavoidable. The serfs would refuse to handle the corpses if it were not done. One could not blame them. Typhus terrified everyone. Strange about Josef though.

                The priest's understanding of typhus differed from Maria's. To him the disease had been God's punishment for the woman's immorality. As by products of that evil the children had to share in the punishment. Why had Josef been spared? The priest could think of two reasons.  Some survived the fever. Where they went after that the disease went with them. They acted as instruments of God's will. Others went through plagues untouched by disease. God's mercy? Had it been God's? The priest shivered. He had heard Maria screeching in the night. Had she sold herself and her children to the devil?  God might have nothing to do with Josef's being alive.

                Josef huddled on the kitchen step as the priest finished his breakfast. The cook handed him a plate of rolls, closing the door after the boy had snatched the plate.  As he tore apart the last roll Father Tomisek opened the door. On seeing the priest Josef scrambled to his feet. Snatching off his cap, he bowed.

                “How are your mother and brother, child?”

                “Dead, your Excellency.”

                “God's will.”  The priest studied the child's face. Through layers of accumulated grime he failed to see any sign of a fever. Neither could he see any trace of grief, just the same placid stupidity that he saw on the face of any other serf.  They may have divine souls, he told himself, but their minds were little better than those of the animals with which they lived. “Do you have a fever, Josef?”

                “No, father.”

                After a moment's hesitation the priest extended the back of his massive hand to allow the boy to kiss it. “You will come with me, Josef.”

                “Yes, father.”

                      ***

                All the peasants of Jablunka believed that their lord the Baron Von Kraunitz lived in a great castle made from silver in far off Bohemia. The emperor lived in a palace of gold and diamonds in Vienna. The greatest personage of all, the Holy Father lived in an even larger palace of even larger diamonds and thicker layers of gold in the grandest city in the world, Rome. No one doubted this, least of all Josef. The largest building that he had seen, and only at a distance, was that of the estate manager, Pan Dombrowski. 

                Built almost two hundred years before it contained fifty-two rooms.  An entire room was just for plates, not wooden ones, but made from fine clay. Josef knew this to be true. Once many years before, Maminka had worked in the overseer's house. Josef had never dreamed of setting foot in such a fine place. As he followed the priest up the road toward the great iron fence that surrounded the overseer's house he could not keep from trembling. He knew that such a place was not for him but if he worked hard and tried to change they might allow him to be a servant there.

                Josef knew why Maminka had never liked him. She had told him. He was a premien, a changeling dropped by the divozenky, the wild women of the forest, an ugly squalling thing taken in exchange for the mother's actual child. Such a creature always brought bad luck to whoever cared for it. He had brought the illness and the hunger. Perhaps it would be different now. If they would tell him what they wanted of him he would try to do his best.

                As they trudged along Father Tomisek told Josef the truth about his mother. God had punished her for her sins. Her greatest sin had been that she had not baptised her children. Janos and Holena would not burn in purgatory as Maminka would. They would go to limbo where all children not baptised went. Although they would be happy there they would never see God. Josef was fortunate. Once baptised, he could go to heaven if he behaved himself.

                As the gatekeeper bowed and opened the iron gates, Josef tried not to look too excited. It would not do to forget himself in the company of the priest. He looked ahead at the great house and imagined himself living in such a fine place, wearing clean clothes and sporting a fat belly. Such things, Maminka had told him, were for good people. Sometimes when unable to sleep he thought of what it would have been like to have been born into such a fine house, to be able to eat strange foods such as white bread and oranges.

                He had tasted an orange once. A peddler staying the night with Maminka had brought one three years before. Each of them had had a slice. He could still remember the bright colour of the skin and the tangy sweetness of the pulp. He would have lots of oranges if he lived in the house of Pan Dombrowski. They could use him in the kitchen. If he worked hard everyone would like him and he would have oranges to eat. Josef could taste the peddler’s orange again, the golden juice trickling down his chin.

                Josef never did get an orange but he did not complain. The overseer's kitchen thrilled him. Wide-eyed he gazed at the great turnspit large enough for an entire side of beef. He passed huge cheeses and walked beneath long sausages dangling from the ceiling. Dazzled he bumped into barrels of flour and great casks of butter. He could not believe that so much food existed in the world let alone in one room.

                Overriding the wishes of the kitchen staff the priest ordered that a stool be placed for Josef beside the fire. Leaving the boy to warm himself he went to confer with Pan Dombrowski. Josef would have continued to sit ignored by the staff if not for the cook, Pane Tiso.  Upon entering the kitchen she had seen the strange child staring at the food.  When the other servants warned her against approaching him she silenced them. The child seemed healthy enough. Had they given him something to eat? No one had ever gone hungry in her kitchen. That tradition would not be broken. Having finished baking a cake to celebrate the birthday of one of Pan Dombrowski's daughters, she offered Josef the pot to lick.

                Josef discovered that the thick, black sticky substance tasted even better than oranges. Pane Tiso called it chocolate. It came from a far away place called Mexico. As Josef's tongue darted against the sides of the pot he concluded that people who lived in such a land must be the happiest of all people.

                Pan Dombrowski did not ask to see Josef. Father Tomisek returned and told Josef that he could remain in the kitchen for the rest of the day.  The servants would give him a bath and new clothes. His old clothes they would burn. Tomorrow would be a great day. He would baptise Josef welcoming him into the church. They would then bury his mother and brother. Tomorrow his new life would begin. Pan Dombrowski had promised that Josef would be looked after.

                For the first time since the summer Josef found himself immersed in water. Two servants brought a large copper bath into the kitchen. Maminka had told him that bathing was dangerous to the health.  Josef had splashed a considerable amount of water over the floor before the servants succeeded in subduing him but once settled Josef found himself enjoying the strange sensation of hot water seeping into his skin. When finished they gave him a clean nightshirt one that had formerly belonged to a stable boy. They placed a flock mattress in front of the fireplace. With a pillow and two blankets Josef felt himself to be the inheritor of untold wealth.

                Father Tomisek came for him in the morning. The priest brought him some used clothes. Josef felt quite pleased with himself.  The priest sprinkled holy water over him and muttered words that he could not understand. He was now born again Father Tomisek told him.  Born again? Odd. He did not feel different. Perhaps that would come later.

                He had dreamed of what the baptism would be like. It would take place at the church. The entire village would be waiting to welcome him. Because he, Janos and Holena had never been baptised the other children had not wanted to play with them.  That would be different now. On Sunday when the bell rang he would be there with everyone else. Was that not true? Father Tomisek nodded and told him that it was time to leave.

                He and the priest set off down the trail that led back to maminka's hut.  He had to trot to keep up with the priest's long legs.   “Why there,” he asked. “Why not the church?”

                Father Tomisek told him that his mother had been a bad woman. Although baptised she had betrayed God and his church. They could not bury her in consecrated ground. Neither could they bury her children there. Josef, having been baptised would have the right to be buried in the churchyard. He should pray to God to show mercy to his mother in Purgatory.  The priest told himself that God would forgive him for the lie.  The Benes s**t had been damned to Hell but Josef's belief that she might yet be saved could strengthen his newfound faith.

                Two men waited for them beside a fresh unmarked mound of earth.  Behind the mound the blackened ruins of the hut still smouldered. The two labourers had been sent by Pan Dombrowski to see to the burning of the hut and the burying of the blackened corpses. A thaler and a bottle of schnapps apiece had satisfied them.  The two men whipped off their caps at the approach of the priest.

                As Josef prayed with the priest and the men he failed to notice another man approaching the northern edge of the clearing.  After the priest had closed the bible the man approached, sheepskin cap in hand. Josef recognised him as Pan Dombrowski's pig keeper, Milos Krivanek, the same man who had once told Josef how hard his mother worked.

                The children knew the dark, knife-scarred face well. Usually drunk when he came, he would always hurt Maminka, sometimes with his belt leaving ugly welts on her shoulders and back, but he paid well. She never turned him away. Josef wondered why he was leering at him. Then he felt a push against his shoulders. The priest shoved him towards the man. “Say hello to your father, Josef.”

                Before Josef could speak Milos reached out. He grabbed Josef by his left arm. Bidding the priest a respectful good day he dragged Josef away. Josef looked back to see Father Tomisek chatting with the two workmen, acting as if nothing untoward was happening. Josef tried to break free. Milos tightened his grip and moved faster forcing Josef to break into a run to keep from falling over. The pig keeper pulled him off the path into the cover of the trees. Milos stopped. One great hand hauled Josef up by his coat collar. The other slammed against the boy's face cracking against his cheek. He threw the stunned boy down onto the snow. As Josef crawled away Milos slammed a boot into his stomach.

                “One word, you little b*****d, I'll kick your arse all the way to my house. Now get up.”

                Milos yanked him up by his coat collar and hurried him towards the path that led deeper into the woods.

                                          

 

 

Seasons, Amazon Press

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Written in Canadian English. Some words of Czech used.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed the story. You make every situation in the story come alive for the reader. You ensured the reader could understand the struggle of the boy to live and survive. Old world, sickness killed off, so many. I love history and thank you for sharing the outstanding story.
Coyote