back, sore from taking my suitcase down from the closet shelf and putting it back up, since I’d packed and unpacked six times. Pietrik had won a radio at the factory, a prize for the most productive worker, and we’d turned it up, for good-looking Eddie Fisher, my favorite singer, was on.
Dungaree doll, dungaree doll,
Paint your initials on my jeans…
Pietrik held me, and we swayed to the music. It would be nice to be able to dance again. But how could I go to America and have the operation without Zuzanna?
I released Pietrik and continued to unpack.
“How can you be so foolish?” he said.
“I’m not going without Zuzanna.”
Pietrik sat on the bed next to my open suitcase, Matka’s old green one. “Zuzanna told you to go. How can you pass this up?”
I wanted to get on that plane. More than I’d wanted anything in a long time. I would have the chance to have my leg put back to normal or close to it. Just the idea that I might be relieved of the pain made me giddy. And all the girls were scheduled for dental work. Could the dentists there fix my tooth? It had gotten so bad I hardly smiled. Plus, what would it be like to fly in a jet to New York and see the sights? California too. The Lublin papers had already made us celebrities.
I pulled my good dress from the suitcase and hung it back in the closet. “How can I leave Zuzanna here?”
“We’d miss you if you went,” he said. “But think of all you’ll miss out on, Kasia. Zuzanna’s the one who most wants you to go. What about Halina? How does this look, her mother afraid?”
The thought of flying on a plane for the first time made my stomach hurt—never mind the prospect of having to use my terrible English in America and of another operation.
“I’d be gone for months. Who’s to say Zuzanna would be alive when I returned?”
Pietrik took my hand. “We’ll take good care of her.”
His hand felt good around mine. I pulled away and closed the locks on my empty suitcase.
“There’s no changing my mind,” I said.
Pietrik heaved my suitcase up, returning it to the top shelf of the closet. “You have to learn there are some things you can’t change.”
“So it would be better to leave my sister here to die? I’m not—”
I turned to see Zuzanna there in our bedroom doorway.
“Oh, I was—” Had she heard?
Zuzanna stepped into the room, hands behind her back. “Don’t worry about it, Kasia.”
I braced myself, arms folded across my chest. “I won’t go without you.”
“I’m glad,” she said.
“So you’re not upset with me?”
She smiled. “Not at all.”
I wrapped my arms around her and felt her hard ribs through the back of her dress. “Good, because I would never leave you.”
“Well, that makes me happy,” Zuzanna said. “Because if I’m going to die, I’ll want you near me.” She pulled from her pocket a telegram envelope. “Especially since we’ll be in New York together.”
She pulled a sheet from the envelope, cleared her throat, and read: “Miss Zuzanna Kuzmerick cleared for travel to U.S. STOP Travel documents to follow STOP Report to Warsaw Airport with New York–bound group STOP Bon Voyage STOP Caroline Ferriday STOP.”
Pietrik walked to the closet and pulled the suitcase down from the shelf as Zuzanna and I swayed in each other’s arms to Eddie Fisher’s smooth voice.
Together, together, together.
DECEMBER 1958
We landed at Idlewild Airport in New York at 8:30 A.M., thirty-five very excited Polish women. The din of Polish on that plane was so loud, but the other passengers were kind and seemed to enjoy watching it all.
Caroline met us as we came down the steps from the plane—some of us very slowly—and directed a parade of wheelchairs. The name Caroline means joy, so it’s no wonder we were all so happy to see her. She looked beautiful in a navy suit, French scarf, and a charming little felt hat with a feather on top.
“Why isn’t she married?” all the Polish ladies asked.
Tall, slim, and delicately pretty, with the regal bearing of a queen, in Poland Caroline would have had many marriage proposals each day.
Once we made it through customs, a crush of reporters and Red Cross people and friends of Caroline surrounded us…so many camera bulbs flashing!
“How do you like it in America so far?” said one reporter, pointing a microphone at my face.
“If the food on the plane is any sign, it will be a