Her great-grandmother was exiled to Siberia, and now she has written a novel about a similar woman. Read the excerpt

– Cut the dwar! – There was a loud cry in the distance. At first I thought that the voices reaching my ears were just a figment of my mind. I was sure I was still asleep. After all, it was the middle of the night. It was dark outside the window. – Open up! Bystrieje! I opened my eyes wider. These screams were joined by a terrible pounding on the door. I immediately rose to my feet and jumped to the window in one move. Outside there was a sleigh pulled by two horses. I couldn’t see anything else. I heard movement in the corridor, and then my bedroom door burst open. – The lady will come down quickly! – Krysia, what’s going on? – The soldiers are at home. They tell everyone to come down. “I’m coming,” I replied and quickly put on the blanket.

As soon as I came down, I noticed three men standing in the middle of the hall. Two NKVD men with red stars on their coats had guns pointed at my father. The third one, Zbigniew, who worked for us until recently, had a red armband on his sleeve. Papa was sitting on a chair against the wall. My mother was standing next to me, full of tears. – What’s going on? – I turned to my parents, not taking my eyes off the uninvited guests. “You have thirty minutes to prepare for your journey,” one of the soldiers replied. – We are resettling you. – Where to? – I asked. However, none of them responded. All I could hear was my mother’s crying and Krysia’s lamentations, standing right behind me. – Bye Bye? Where are they taking us? – I have no idea. – Sign! – Zbigniew pushed a piece of paper into my hands. I quickly glanced at her. It showed that we voluntarily agreed to be relocated from our property. My parents’ signatures were already at the end of the document. – I won’t sign anything! – I held out a card to him. Then one of the soldiers touched my papa’s head with the gun. – Definitely? – he asked, grinning evilly.

I gripped the piece of paper tighter, then placed it on my thigh and quickly signed it. Zbigniew snatched it from me smugly. – Twenty minutes! – the NKVD soldier shouted. “We have to pack, daughter,” Papa said in a calm voice. – Papa, what about you? – Father is staying here. You can pack, Zbigniew ordered. There was palpable hostility coming from him. I had no idea where this transformation came from. Until recently, when he saw me, he would take off his hat and bend low with a smile on his face. Today, if he could, he would kill us with his eyes. But I haven’t changed… At the same moment, Jerzy ran into the hall, and the men pointed the barrels of their guns at him. – Don’t shoot, he’s our gardener! – I screamed in horror. – Put your hands up and sit against the wall! – One of the soldiers came closer to him and made sure that Jerzy obeyed the order. – Apollonia, start packing immediately! – my father reprimanded me. “Honey, go to our bedroom and pack us both,” he told his wife.

I fought with myself for a long time, I didn’t want to leave my parents and Jurek alone with these bandits, and on the other hand, I knew that time was running out. Finally, I ran upstairs, followed by Krysia. Mom still stood by my father, ignoring his requests. We hurriedly threw everything we could get our hands into a large suitcase.

There wasn’t much of it. Everything that was better has been plundered long ago. So I packed all the dresses, two pairs of pajamas, a few pairs of shoes and underwear. I put on a dress made of thick checkered fabric and fur, and boots. We both carried the suitcase downstairs with difficulty. There I saw that my parents were still not packed and my mother was standing in the same place as before, in tears. So I shrugged off my fur coat and ran back upstairs, straight to their bedroom, and grabbed two suitcases from the closet. I had no idea what they wanted to take, so I packed everything one by one until I filled it all. When I went downstairs again, I noticed two piles of food in the hall, spread out on two large down comforters. Irka, with a fierce face, tried to wrap them in a tight cocoon. – Miss, run as quickly as possible to the child’s room and pack everything that is there! I nodded at her. In all this chaos, I would forget about the baby. I packed everyone but him or her. My heart was beating like crazy. I couldn’t find any suitcase, so I used Irka’s idea. I threw the sheet on the floor and threw the clothes and toys I had prepared into it. I wrapped everything and tied the corners into one knot. – Leave! I heard the voice of one of the soldiers. I quickly walked back to the hall. The parents were already leaving the house.

Dad carried both suitcases. Irka and Krysia were carrying bundles of quilts filled to the brim. Jurek was still sitting against the wall with his hands up. My fur was gone. – Leave! – a soldier standing in the doorway shouted at me. I threw the bundle on the ground and moved towards Jurek. After a while, I crouched down next to him and snuggled into his arms. – Jerzy… – I whispered and kissed him tenderly. I was afraid this was our last meeting. That I would never see him again. The fact that we were taken at night and against our will did not bode well. “It’ll be fine, Pol,” he said in a gentle voice, as if reading my thoughts. – I will find you, I promise. – No Please. Do not do this. You won’t be safe with us, you see what’s happening. We are their enemies. Stay and watch our house, and I will come back to you as soon as I can. Do you hear? I’ll be back! – I said, bursting into tears. I didn’t want to leave the manor, even if it didn’t resemble the place it had always been. And above all, I didn’t want to leave Jerzy. (…)

With each step I took that took me away from Jerzy, I grew more afraid that there would be no return. Mom and dad were already sitting in the sleigh. At the door, Irka handed me my mother’s coat, because one of the soldiers was already wearing my fur coat. – With God… – she whispered in my ear and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. – Come home, my child. I didn’t answer her anything. The words stuck in my throat. I never knew how to say goodbye. I felt that something was ending forever. I was afraid I would never see this place again. I sat down between my parents. After a while, the sleigh started moving. I turned my head towards the house. At the same moment, Jurek appeared on the stairs, next to Irka and Krysia. He ran a few meters and then stopped where our sleigh had just been standing. – Stars! – he shouted with all his might. – I will look at the stars! (…)

We were surrounded by darkness. The only source of light were torches held by soldiers. They smoldered enough to keep the horses on the road. I saw twinkling lights in the distance. After a while there were more and more of them. We then realized that we were not the only ones being taken to the unknown. A dozen or so minutes later, our sleigh turned into a village where several other sleighs were parked in the middle, already partially filled with

people. We stopped in front of one of the houses and after a while a young couple with two small children joined us. They were more scared than us. They sat across from us and looked at us in disbelief, just as we did to them. I knew that because of our noble origins we were an enemy of the Soviets, but I couldn’t understand what kind of enemy these simple people from a wooden house could be, much less their two children. What surprised me the most was the fact that the young NKVD soldier kept bringing them things to our sleigh. At the end he gave them a tin bucket, an ax and a shovel. He seemed to be a completely different man than those who came after us. It was as if he was helping them, preparing them for their next journey. As if he knew exactly what they would need where we were going. (…)

When we finally moved, women from the houses that had been spared started running towards us. They carried loaves of bread in their hands and threw them straight into our sleighs. One of the hosts handed over a bucket full of potatoes, and another threw in a bag of flour. And so, when we left this village, our sleigh was full of food. I took a pillowcase out of my suitcase. “Here, can you put some bread in it?” I said this and handed her a cotton cloth. “Thank you,” she replied and hesitantly reached for the gift. – I’m Apolonia. “Wacław,” she replied, carefully putting the bread inside. (…) All sleighs stopped at the railway station in Śniadów. We were shouted away to the platform. We were ordered to enter one of the carriages of the waiting freight train. It seemed to me that it had neither beginning nor end. Only then did I notice that there were already other people inside. We could hear their cries, and through the tiny windows we could see the outlines of faces. At that moment there was a terrible noise at the station. The screams of the NKVD soldiers guarding us mixed with the laments of women and children. Everyone was afraid. Nobody wanted to board this train.

The entrance to the carriage was placed high. The men with us jumped in first. They took suitcases and bundles from us. Then they helped the women enter. A young boy offered me his helping hand. In one moment, complete strangers, becoming partners in misfortune, also became the only people we could count on. After getting inside, it turned out that there were no seats. There were only wooden narrs arranged in two rows. Everyone quickly took a piece for themselves. Our family set up their belongings right next to the couple with whom we came here. The thought that we would be close to each other gave me inexplicable comfort. Next, another family and three more on the other side. There were almost thirty of us in total. My mother refused to take a seat. She stood and sobbed louder than ever. Papa tried to comfort her, but he also had a hard time finding words of comfort at that moment. When the last passengers entered, the carriage doors were closed and we could hear that we were being chained. It became terrifyingly dark.

Until the end of my days – cover promotional materials – Branch