The Upright Heart Read Online Free Page B

serious faces scattered across paper, the family posing in a dark parlor, backs upright, gazes still. From the torn lining of Wolf’s coat, decorated with faded representations of European landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, to the papers tucked into his breast pocket, nothing is hidden from Wiktor anymore.
    Wolf twirls a little pink string around his pinky finger. The string was given to him by his daughter, Leah. She is the spitting image of his sister, also Leah, who used the Yiddish spelling of the same name, Leye. He gazes out the window and wonders just how long it has been since he has seen these forests of endless white birch, like fragile ghosts standing, shivering imperceptibly in the silent wind. And the beautiful poplar trees, the upright
topole
so characteristic of his childhood. He remembers when he was studying at Slobodka Yeshiva in Lithuania, how he looked to those trees as an embodiment of the kind of man he wanted to become, proud and unmovable.
Every time I travel home I will look to them as a marker of who I am becoming
, he would tell himself late at night as he was falling asleep, face in a book, night giving way to the dawn. Then, early in the morning, he would take a long walk in the forest, turning over the latest ethical question in his mind.
If I feel at one with that tree
—he would say to himself, pointing to the tallest and most alone of the scattered group—
then I will know that I am growing in the right way. Only then can I return home and call myself a man
.
    If only I had known. If only I had known what kind of wind was about to blow
.
    When we left Poland I held on to that image. I am strong inside, I told myself. I know what it is to be a moral person in this world. It may have broken my heart to make the choices that I made, but at least it did not destroy my family life. How could I have known that life can be so cruel? That even though I was a young man of twenty-five, I was still no more than a child?
    Wolf cracks a sad smile and so does Wiktor, gently exposing small, crooked teeth as he listens to Wolf’s thoughts and looks out the window over his shoulder. Wolf’s suit is made of fine wool that is uncommon in Poland, especially after the war. With his black, wavy hair, his dark clothes and beard, Wolf stands out from the crowd. A small group of militiamen, the law enforcement of Poland’s communist regime, passes through the corridor of the train verifying passengers’ identities. They stop to look at him.
    “
Dokumenty
,” the youngest of the threesome asks, a wry smile playing across his face.
    Wolf removes from his pocket an American passport and hands it to the man. Wiktor notices how Wolf uses his left arm to hold the right one in place, doing what he can to conceal his trembling. The body exposes everything that the mind wishes to forget.
    “What are you doing in Poland? Where are you going?” the young man asks in Polish, laughing derisively at the bald eagle on the cover of Wolf’s passport. He opens the window in the train corridor and spits sunflower seed shells out the window as he speaks. Wolf’s passport pages flutter in the wind as the young officer leans his elbow out the window, flailing his arm about. Pieces of shells leap between his teeth as he mocks the yid who has come back for a second beating.
    Wolf takes a breath and sits up straight. Exhaling, he says, “I’m going to Białystok. To visit my family.” His two fingers grab on to that little pink string on his pinky as if to say,
Nothing is going to happen to me baby, don’t worry
.
    “
You
have family there?” the militiaman asks, changing to Russian now.
    Wolf replies in Russian.
    “Yes, I do. I could not come to see them during the war, but now that the war is over, I am here. I am going back to America next week.”
    The militiaman takes a step back and one of his friends nudges him to move on.
    “Okay, okay,” he says, returning to Polish, handing Wolf