Free Dobryd by Ann Charney Page B

Maria’s group turned on the guards and attacked them. The guards were armed and the women had only their teeth and nails to use against them, but they fought fiercely. Somehow the story survived them. It spread throughout the camp and beyond it. I heard about it almost as soon as we returned to Dobryd. You must never forget it. Maria was a heroine, a true heroine of Dobryd, and she was not the only one.”
    Our first interruption. A customer waits to be served, but for once I don’t mind the intrusion. My aunt’s words are ringing in my ears, my heart feels heavy and my head hurts. I feel as if I am being crushed by a terrible weight. I want to get away from it and ease the pain that almost paralyses me. I make my way out of the kiosk and for a while I wander about the marketplace. All my usual pleasures are there but this morning there is no comfort in them. Almost in spite of myself I make my way back to my aunt.

V
    My aunt is alone once again. There is a fresh glass of tea in her hands, and as soon as she sees me approach she rises to prepare one for me. With it there is a plate of my favourite cookies. The warm liquid is very soothing. I sip it slowly, waiting patiently for my aunt to begin.
    Instead, however, she turns to me and takes my face in her hands. “You don’t look well, my child. Are you all right? Perhaps your mother is right. These stories aren’t good for you. I must stop talking to you this way. You know, sometimes I forget how old you are. I even forget you’re here and God knows what you’re thinking all this time.”
    I try to reassure her: “I’m fine, ciociu . Really, my friends tell me even worse stories about the war. Everybody hears them at home. But I want to hear them from you.”
    These exchanges are part of the storytelling ritual. We know, even as my aunt protests and I reassure her, that sooner or later we will give way to our usual pastime—our secret vice that separates us from everyone else.
    â€œDobryd. Yes, we were talking of Dobryd. Its young people. How fine they seem to me now. They were filled with a kind of naive idealism that glowed in them and transformed them. Of course it was the age of idealism, of new ideas. We believed the world could be changed. We quarrelled about methods, and each group thought the other mistaken, but we were all united in our belief that a better world was coming and we would make it. The most unlikely people became the most ardent revolutionaries.
    â€œI’m thinking of Grisha, a friend of your mother’s, but first I have to tell you something about the communists of that time. Yes, I know you’ve heard that word from Yuri, but the young people I’m thinking of were quite different from Yuri and his friends. The ones I knew spent most of their time on the terrace of the Café Imperiale. There they sat, day after day, talking, arguing. Some of them were your mother’s close friends. They formed a study group, and together they immersed themselves in the works of Hegel, Marx, Lenin.
    â€œWhen you’re older perhaps your mother will tell you more about these men. In any case the young communists of Dobryd were for the most part content to argue about texts. Just as their fathers and grandfathers a generation back had spent their days in prayer houses studying and interpreting the sacred books.
    â€œHowever, a few young people did more than just argue and talk. Instead of waiting for the new order to come to them they set out to seek it, to make it happen.
    â€œI want to tell you about two of these people because they were special friends of your mother’s. Grisha and Halka.
    â€œGrisha was the son of one of the town’s richest and most respected families. As an only child, delicate from birth, he had been cherished and over-protected. He was an intelligent and curious boy, and his father spared no effort to provide him with the best tutors and the latest books.