The Upright Heart by Julia Ain-Krupa Page A

their cheerful shouts as they run from one another, darting between the old apple trees. Elżbieta’s husband is out at school.
    Sitting down in an old rocking chair to mend a pair of her little brother’s socks, Elżbieta hums a tune to herself, an old Christmas carol that recalls the happy memories of her childhood. Maybe they didn’t have much, but life was filled with joy. Their house was a home filled with love. And every summer her cousin Helena would bring Elżbieta to her
zameczek
—her little castle—in the countryside, where Helena lived with her husband, a Viennese nobleman who had horses and an endless stretch of land. It was here that Elżbieta was provided with painting and music lessons, where she danced and had her first kiss. Here she also became her ladyship, but just for the summer months. Whenever shereturned home to Rybnik, her title, and her pleasure, would fade into oblivion.
    Her grandmother, Julia, would yell at her every time she went.
    “Don’t you know?” she would shout, hands on her broad hips, pale blue eyes glimmering in the sun. “That this isn’t real? They will destroy your life if you keep going there, imagining you will be like them. You will never have their life.” This would always devastate Elżbieta, and she would run to bed, tears in her eyes.
What does she know?
Elżbieta would tell herself.
She can’t imagine how important those times are for me
.
    Julia was Elżbieta’s paternal grandmother, and Wiktor’s mother. She was a strong woman, even stronger than Wiktor’s wife, Waleria, and she was, as discussed in secret,
cyganka
(whisper:
she was a Gypsy
).
    Elżbieta didn’t know. She didn’t know that hiding the truth from yourself can be a dangerous game. She had no idea that concealing the Gypsy truth, the street where she came from, the realities of her daily life, could be harmful to her future. But she couldn’t help but feel that she was the most refined member of her immediate family. If any one of them were to have a charmed destiny, it would be her.
    And here she was, just a few years later. Who could have imagined that the war would come? Who could have foreseen that the life they had known would take such a turn and that so many dreams would be smothered in the cold, dark earth? That her beloved papa, dear sweet Wiktor, would meet a tragic end?
    Elżbieta was only sixteen when the war began. One year into the war she was able to find work at a well-respected flower shop in town, and it was there that she spent her days counting the roses and the lily of the valley whenever May would come. Even though there was a war, spring still came, and with it arrived the most beautiful delicate blossoms of violets and tender white lily of the valley that would shake and tremble in the wind. Elżbietawould bind them into miniature bouquets, creating small bunches of flowers wrapped in leaves. They were still affordable to some.
    She had finished school at the age of fourteen, and was studying to become a piano teacher until the war began. This was a job that she could imagine herself doing. This way she could always be clean, her auburn hair rolled back, just so, framing the curve of her ear, the cuff of her blouse undone, and then she would always be surrounded by music.…
    Roses are red, white, pink, and yellow. Roses are glorious gifts of nature, starting small, narrow, and then expanding and opening to inform the whole world of their extraordinary beauty. They offer you solace in difficult times. They serve as a reminder that life can improve, that there is always sun lurking somewhere beyond the clouds.
    Elżbieta’s grandfather, Albert, was known for growing prize roses. At the age of five he traveled alone on the train for days to meet his mother and her new husband in Bavaria with nothing but a suitcase, a teddy bear, and a small placard hanging from his neck that read “Albert Kajzerek, Rybnik, Poland.” Through his experiences in Munich with a nobleman