Fed out of obligation, clothed out of duty and sent to school because the Polowskis didn’t want the authorities knocking on their door. By the time Tanja was fourteen she had learned how to adequately care for herself. She went home only because there was nowhere else for her to go. She didn’t have any close friends at school, instead preferring to spend her time reading in the school’s library. World events, different nationalities and other countries fascinated her, along with human relationships, fashion, music, movies and travel. An event she looked forward to each Friday was rummaging through the school’s dump bin for the week’s newspapers that had been cleared from the teachers’ staff room. She’d fill her school bag with the sections she wanted and, once her chores were completed, would spend hours poring through them.
Tanja had become an avid reader and with this increased awareness came a degree of rebellion. Because of her suppressed and neglected childhood, Tanja’s mind was also being forced to mature quicker than most other fourteen-year-olds; and when she kept hearing stories of the happy and loving home environments of her school colleagues she knew there was something drastically wrong with her own. As she headed towards her fifteenth birthday she began to question life and its challenges. The more she read and the more she observed, the more impatient she became to meet ‘Paula Harris’. When she was younger, she thought ‘Paula Harris’ would be ‘born’ when she turned eighteen. With her head now filled with many months of reading and learning from outside the classroom, Tanja decided to spend one more year at home before leaving forever.
I think Paula’s going to arrive a little earlier than expected, she said to herself.
But the boys were different. Along with their father, all four worked on the local council with the youngest, still at school, due for a similar role upon turning sixteen. Never in their lives had any of them ever dared to question or back-answer their father. That was how it was.
The Polowski family home was almost a shanty. A couple of kilometres out of the town, it was formerly a portable classroom made semi-inhabitable. Built of weatherboard with no interior lining, it had a fireplace, a makeshift kitchen and six beds up one end. Old sheets hanging from a strand of wire partitioned off an area that housed the parent’s double bed. The toilet, a long-drop, was twenty-five metres from the house and the bathroom was a floor-less add-on at the rear. Old chairs and sofas made up a centralised lounge area and a black and white television set, with a wire coat hanger for an aerial, the only source of entertainment. Except for Sunday nights. Like it was carved into the ‘Polowski Rule Book of Life’ Sunday night was cards night. Even then, smiles were rare, small talk was guarded and the rigidity of the severe military discipline administered by Angelko held fast. After Tessa made supper at nine o’clock everyone went to bed.
One day Tanja approached her. She had just come inside from chopping firewood to check on the bread she was making. “How come this family never sits down and discusses things?” she asked.
“Because your father takes care of everything,” her mother told her gruffly.
“But at the table, you don’t even talk?”
“It’s not a woman’s place,” her mother spat back.
“But this is home. It’s our home. Why don’t you talk?”
“The men. They talk.” Tessa didn’t want the conversation to continue.
“Well no they don’t. Not really.”
“The boys,” she added bitterly. “If their father wants them to talk, they talk.”
“So what about us? Don’t we count?”
“Our job is to look after the men. Keep them happy and not bring shame on the family.”
“Oh come on mama, we’re not their bloody slaves…”
Tanja’s words were cut short as her mother backhanded her with a flour-covered wooden spoon. Tanja squealed in pain. “One thing I won’t stand for is insolence. Your father. He won’t either. Better you learn that lesson from me rather than him taking to you with his belt buckle.”
Tanja stood in front of her mother too shocked to speak, trying to come to terms with what she had done to her. As the pain of the blow started to come out, the tears flowed and Tanja ran to her bed. Quickly she changed her clothes. As she was about to leave the house her mother came at her like a bullock and blocked her way.
“And where are you going?” she yelled, demanding to know.
“Out!” she hissed, pushing past her.
“It’s dark in two hours, where are you going?”
Tanja looked her mother squarely in the eye. “You know, mama, the other girls in school, they speak so glowingly of their mothers. They hug each other. They touch each other. God knows they even talk to each other. In my nearly fifteen years I don’t remember you ever touching me …you know that? Apart from the beltings, and God knows there’s been plenty of those, you’ve never held my hand or even kissed me. Your mother ever kiss you?” she demanded to know, raising her voice. “Or did she want to abort you just like you wanted to abort me?”
Tessa’s eyes opened like saucers.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked, Tessa! Small town. You should be careful who you tell those stories to. Because they tell their daughters and their daughters tell me.”
Tanja even shocked herself with that comment as she had never referred to her mother by her Christian name before.
“I’ve read stories about this sort of crap; the unwanted child and how it’s treated and why. Obviously in just being around I’m the constant reminder of your own mistake! Think about it! Why the hell else would you constantly belt the shit out of me?” Then, sarcastically, “Does it make you feel good to make my legs bleed, Tessa? And how come it’s never in front of the others?”
Tanja could see the anger beginning to build within her mother. Seeing her start to make a move back towards the kitchen table for the wooden spoon, she cut in quickly.
“Oh don’t worry about the spoon, mama. Why don’t you go for broke this time and use this,” she yelled, leaning down to pick up an axe handle resting against the doorframe. She thrust it at her mother. “Where do you want to start? My head? What about my arms? Not many bruises there. Good target! Go on, Tessa, get on with it. JESUS, MAMA! I’M SICK OF YOU TREATING ME LIKE SHIT!”
“That’s because you are SHIT!” her mother replied, flinging the axe handle across the kitchen floor.
Tanja forced a bitter laugh. “So why am I shit? You had me! Obviously I represent everything that’s gone wrong in your sad miserable God forsaken life. Why? You don’t even like me! But how would you know? You’ve never even bothered to sit down and talk to me.”
Tessa Polowski had been confronted by too many home truths to offer any further resistance. She made her way over to the kitchen table. “OK. You go, you bloody bastard bitch! You go to town. Your father. He get home I tell him what you say.” Then with a torturous glee in her voice. “And when you get home he thrash the shit out of you with his belt buckle and I stand and watch. You bloody bitch! Go! Piss off! I hope you never come back.”
“Don’t worry, mama, I’ll be careful not to shame the family,” she replied sarcastically.
Tanja knew there’d be hell to pay when she got home later and she had to face her father, but right now she didn’t care. It was a Saturday and there was sure to be a function at the local football club. She decided that as she was nearly fifteen, it was time to start making her own way, whether her parents liked it or not. She was also very aware that her father would be waiting up for her when she got home and this time she would get the thrashing of her life.
To hell with him, I’m going anyway! she told her herself defiantly.
She set off on a two-kilometre walk arriving in the