The Prodigal Daughter (6 page)

Abel found the
task of being accepted to serve in the armed forces considerably more difficult
than he had at first imagined. The army was none too polite about his sight,
his weight, his 43 heart or his general physical condition. Only after some
string pulling did he manage to secure a job as a quartermaster with the Fifth
Army under General Mark Clark, who was waiting to sail to Africa. Abel jumped
at the one chance to be involved in the war and disappeared to officer
candidate school. Misis Tredgold did not realize until he had left Rigg Street
how much Florentyna was going to miss her father. She tried to convince the
child that the war would not last long, but she did not believe her own words.
Miss Tredgold had read too much history.

Abel returned
from training school as a major, slimmer and younger-looking, but Florentyna
hated seeing her father in uniform, because everyone else she knew in uniform
was going away to somewhere beyond Chicago and they never seemed to come back.
In April 1942, Abel waved goodbye and left New York on the S.S. Bonnguen.
Florentyna, who was still only seven, was convinced goodbye meant forever.
Mother assured her daughter that Papa would return home very quickly.

Like Mis.
Tredgold, Zaphia did not believe that – and this time neither did Florentyna.

When Florentyna
progressed to the fourth grade she was appointed secretary of’ her class, which
meant she kept the weekly minutes of class meetings. When she read her report
aloud to the rest of the class each week, no one in the fourth grade showed
much interest, but in the heat and dust of Algiers, Abel, torn between laughter
and tears, read each line of his daughter’s earnest work as if it were the
latest best-seller.

Florentyna’s
most recent fad, much approved of by Miss Tredgold, was the Brownie scouts,
which allowed her to wear a uniform like her father. Not only did she enjoy
dressing up in the smart brown outfit, but she soon discovered she could cover
the sleeves with different colored badges for such enterprises as varied as
helping in the kitchen to collecting used stamps. Florentyna was awarded so
many badges, so quickly, that Miss Tredgold was kept hard at it sewing them on
and trying to find a new space for each one. Knots, cooking, gymnastics, animal
care, handicrafts, stamps, hiking, followed quickly one after the other. “It
would have been easier if you had been an octopus,” said Miss Tredgold. But
final victory was to be hers when her charge won a badge for needlework and had
to sew the little yellow triangle on for herself.

When Florentyna
progrond to the fifth grade, where the two schools joined together for most
classes, Edward Winchester was appointed president of his class, mainly because
of his feats on the soccer field, while Florentyna held the post of secretary
despite having better grades than anyone else including Edward.

Her only
disasters were in geometry, where she came in second, and in the art room. Miss
Tredgold always enjoyed re-reading Florentyna’s reports and positively relished
the remarks of the art teacher. “Perhaps if Florentyna splashed more paint on
the paper than on everything that surrounded it, she might hope to become an
artist rather than a house painter.”

But the line
Miss Tredgold would never forget was written by Fiorentyna’s homeroom teacher:
“This pupil mustn’t cry when she is second.”

As the months
passed, Florentyna became aware that many of the children in her class had
fathers involved in the war. She soon discovered that hers was not the only
home that had to face separation. Miss Tredgold enrolled Florentyna in ballet
and piano lessons to keep every moment of her spare time occupied. She even
allowed her to take Eleanor to the K-9 Corps as a useful pet, but the Labrador
was sent home because she limped. Florentyna wished they would do the same to
her father. When the summer holidays came, Miss Tredgold, with the approval of
Zaphia, extended their horizons to New York and Washington, despite the travel
restrictions imposed by the war.

Zaphia took
advantage of her daughter’s absence to attend fund-raising meetings in aid of
Polish soldiers returning from the front.

Florentyna was
thrilled by her first trip to New York even though she had to leave Eleanor
beli~
ind
. There were skyscrapers, big department
stores, Central Park and more people than she had ever seen before; but despite
all the excitement, it was Washington she most wanted to visit. The journey was
Florentyna’s first in an airplane, and Miss Tredgold’s as well, and as the plane
followed the line of the Potomac River into Washington’s National Airport,
Florentyna stared down in awe at the White House, the Washington Monumen~, the
Lincoln Memorial, and the as yet unfinished Jefferson building. She wondered if
it would be a memorial or a monument and asked Miss Tredgold to explain the
difference. Miss Tredgold hesitated and said they would have to look up the two
words in Webster’s dictionary when they returned to Chicago, as she wasn’t
certain there was a difference. It was the first time that Florentyna realized
that Miss Tredgold didn’t know everything.

“It’s just like
in the pictures,” she said as she stared down out of the tiny airplane window
at the Capitol.

“What did you
expect?” said Miss Tredgold.

Henry Osborne
had organized a special visit to the White House and a chance to watch the
Senate and House in session. Once she entered the gallery of the Senate
Chamber, Florentyna was mesmerized as each senator rose at his desk to speak.
Miss Tredgold had to drag her away as one might a boy from a football game, but
it didn’t stop her continually asking Henry Osborne more and more questions. He
was surprised by the knowledge the nine-year-old girl already possessed even if
she was the daughter of the Chicago Baron.

Florentyna and
Miss Tredgold spent the night at the Willard Hotel. Her father had not yet
built a Baron in Washington, although Congressman Osborne assured them that one
was in the pipeli= in fact, he added, the site had already been fixed.

“What does
‘fixed’ mean, Mr. Osborne?”

Florentyna
received no satisfactory reply either from Henry Osborne or from Miss Tredgold,
and decided to look that up in Webster’s dictionary as well.

That night Miss
Tredgold tucked the child into a large hotel bed and left the room assuming that
after such a long day her charge would quickly fafl asleep. Florentyna waited
for a few minutes before switching the light back on. She then retrieved her
guide to the White House from under the pillow. FDR in a black cloak stared up
at her. “There can be no greater calling than public service” was printed
boldly on the line underneath his name. She read the booklet twice through, but
it was the final page that fascinated her most. She started to memorize it and
fell asleep a few minutes after one, the light still on.

During the
return flight home Florentyna again carefully studied the last page while Miss
Tredgold read of the progress of the war in the Washington Times-Herald. Italy
had virtually surrendered, although it was clear that the Germans still
believed they could win. Florentyna didn’t interrupt Miss Tredgold’s reading
once between Washington and Chicago, and the governess wondered, because the
child was so quiet, if she was exhausted from the travel. On returning home she
allowed Florentyna to go to bed early but not before she had written a
thank-you letter to Congressman Osborne. When Miss Tredgold came to put the
light out, Florentyna was still studying the guide to the White House.

It was exactly
ten-thirty when Miss Tredgold went down to the kitchen to make her nightly cup
of cocoa before retiring. On returning she heard what sounded like a chant. She
tiptoed slowly to Florentyna’s bedroom door and stood alert, listening to the
firmly whispered words:

“One,
Washington; two, Adams; three, Jefferson; four, Madison.”
She went
through every President without a mistake. “Thirly-one, Hoover; thirty-two,
FDR; thirty-three, Unknown
,-
thirty-four, Unknown;
thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty,
fortyone, Unknown; forty-two...”

There was a
moment’s silence, then: “One, Washington; two, Adams; three, Jefferson...” Miss
Tredgold tiptoed back to her room and lay awake for some time staring at the
ceiling, her untouched cocoa going cold beside her as she recalled her father’s
words: “You were born to be a teacher and the Lord’s plan takes us all in its
compass; perhaps you will teach someone of destiny.”

The
President of the United States, Florentyna Rosnovski?
No, thought
Miss. Tredgold, Florentyna was right: she would have to marry someone with a
simple name.

Florentyna rose
the next morning, bade Miss Tredgold bonjour and disappeared into the bathroom.
After feeding Eleanor, who now seemed to eat more than she did, Florentyna read
in the Chicago Tribune that FDR and Churchill had conferred on the
unconditional surrender of Italy and told her motherjoyfully that that meant
Papa would be home soon.

Zaphia said she
hoped she was right and commented to Miss Tredgold how well she thought Florentyna
was looking. “And how did you enjoy Washington, my dear?”

“Very
much, Mama.
I think I’ll live there one day.”

“Why,
Florentyna.
what
would you do in Washington?”

Florentyna
looked up and met Miss Tredgold’s eyes. She hesitated for a few seconds and then
turned back to her mother. “I don’t know, I just thought Washington was a nice
city. Would you please pass the man-nalade, Miss Tredgold?”

F
LORENTYNA
COULDN’T BE SURE how many of her weekly letters were reaching hor father
because they had to be mailed to a depot in New York for checking before they
were sent on to wherLver Major Rosnovski was stationed at the time.

The replies came
back spasmodically, and sometimes Florentyna would receive as many as three
ietters in one week and then no word for three months. If a whole month passed
without a letter, she began to believe her father had been killed in action.
Miss Tredgold explained that that was not possible since the army always sent a
telegram to inform a family if a relative was killed oi missing. Each morning,
Florentyna would be the first to go downstairs to search through the mail for
her father’s handwriting or the dreaded telegram. When she did receive a letter
from her father she often found that some of the words were blocke
,l
out with black ink. She tried holding them up to the
light over the breakfast table but still she couldn’t decipher them. Miss
Tredgold told her that this vias for her father’s own safety, as hc might
inadvertently have written something that could be usJul to the enemy if the
letter fell into the Wrong Hands.

“Why would the
Germans be interested in the fact that I am second in geometry?” asked
Florentyna.

Miss Tredsgold
ignored the question and asked if she had enough to eat.

“I’d like
another bit of toast.”

“A
piece, child, a piece.
A bit is something you put in a horse’s mouth.”

Every six months
Miss Tredgold would take her charge, accompanied by Eleanor, to Monroe Street
to sit on a high stool with the dog on a box by her side, to smile at a
flashbulb so that Major Rosnovski could watch his daughter and the Labrador
grow up by photograph.

“We can’t have
him not recognizing his only child when he returns home, can we?” she declared.

Florentyrra
would print her age and Eleanor’s age in dog years firmiy on the back of each photo
and in a letter add the details of her progress at school, how she enjoyed
tennis and swimming in the summer and volleyball and basketball in the winter,
also how her bookshelves were stacked with his old cigar boxes full of
butterflies caught in a wonderful net that Mama had given her for Christmas.
She added that Miss Tredgold had carefully chloroformed the butterflies before
she pinned them and identified each one with its Latin name. How her mother had
joined some charity committee and started taking an interest in the Polish
League for Women. How she was growing vegetables in her victory garden, how she
and Eleanor didn’t like tire meat shortage but that she liked bread-and-butter
pudding, while Eleanor preferred crunchy biscuits. She always ended each
I
etter the same way: “Please come home tomorrow. “

The war
stretched into 1944, and Florentyna followed the progress of the Allies in the
Chicago Tribune and by listening to Edward R. Murrow’s reports from London on
the radio. Eisenhower became her idol and she nursed a secret admiration for
General George Patton because he seemed to be a little bit like her father. On
the sixth of June, the invasion of Western Europe was launched. Florentyna
imagined that her father was on the beachhead and she was unable to understand
how he could possibly hope to survive. She followed the Allies in their drive
toward Paris on the map of Europe that Miss Tredgold had pinned to the playroom
wall during the days of her lessons in Polish history. She began to believe that
the war was at last coming to an end and that her father would soon return
home.

She took to
sitting hour after hour on the doorstep of their house on Rigg Street with
Eleanor by her side, watching the corner of the block. But the hours turned
into days, the days into weeks, and Florentyna only became distracted from her
vigil by the fact that both Presidential conventions were to be held in Chicago
during the summer vacation, which gave her the opportunity to see her political
hero in person.