“What’s that?” Martha whispered.
“Salt,” Stefan replied. “When they eat this, it means they will never go hungry.”
An ironic custom, Martha thought, in view of what they’d come through. The bride was still painfully thin. Incredible to think that she gave birth just days ago. As she watched, the bread was replaced with two small glasses.
“Now vodka,” Stefan said.
The bride and groom raised the glasses, drained them, then threw them over their shoulders. A cheer went up. Martha turned to Stefan, bewildered. “What are they doing?” The guests on either side of the couple were scrabbling about on the floor.
“They will find the glass. If it is broken, they will live together a long time and be happy.”
The cheering turned to shrieks of triumph as broken shards were held aloft. Martha glanced at the baby in her arms, amazed that the noise hadn’t woken him. Then trays of glasses appeared, along with plates piled with bread and small chunks of the corned beef and Spam that had come in the Red Cross delivery. Each guest was given a bite to eat and a slug of vodka to wash it down with.
“You like it?” Stefan grinned at Martha’s face as she took a sip of the colorless liquid.
“It’s very strong.” She coughed as she put the glass down. She could feel the vodka burning its way to her stomach. She glanced over to where Kitty and Delphine were sitting. They clinked glasses with Dr. Jankaukas, who was sitting between them. Then all three downed the vodka shots in one go.
She turned to Stefan. “I don’t think I can drink the whole thing.” She was going to offer him the rest of hers. Then she remembered what the major had said about the UNRRA man who had been sent back to Texas after going blind from drinking the hooch the DPs made.
“This is good,” Stefan said, as he took a drink. “Not like what they make under the bed. It comes from Russia.”
Martha thought she’d better not ask how a consignment of Russian vodka had found its way into Seidenmühle.
“We found it in the forest.”
She looked at him, mystified.
“In that place where we got the tiles for the roof,” he said. “There were steps going under the house. I think maybe Russian soldiers hid there.” He shrugged. “They left many bottles of vodka.”
Martha took another sip. It didn’t taste quite as bad as the first mouthful. She heard a shout from the other end of the room. An accordion struck up, accompanied by a violin. The groom led his bride to the middle of the floor. They danced a few bars, then others crowded around. Everyone was clapping in time to the music. As they joined in the dancing, whoops of delight filled the room.
The bridegroom darted across to where Kitty was sitting, grasping her hand and pulling her out of her chair. The bride was grabbed by another man, who whirled her around, making her braids come loose and fly out behind her.
“Poor girl,” Martha said. “I hope she’ll be all right. She only left the hospital two days ago.”
“All the men at the wedding must dance with her,” Stefan said.
“Another Polish tradition?”
He nodded. “I will take the baby now, yes?” The wry look on his face told her this was his strategy to avoid this part of the proceedings. “Someone wants to dance with you.”
Martha turned to see Dr. Jankaukas standing behind her chair. He smiled and raised his eyebrows in lieu of an invitation. She’d only met him a handful of times—and attempts at conversation had made her realize just how rusty her French was. But the good thing about dancing, she thought, as she took his hand, was that you didn’t need to talk.
Martha hadn’t anticipated the consequences of partnering with someone so tall. Her feet left the floor every time he spun her around. She felt giddy when the music stopped and clutched his arm, afraid of embarrassing herself by falling over. She was laughing, trying to remember how to apologize in French. He gave her a courtly bow, then passed her to another man—one of the DPs who had helped renovate the stable block. Dr. Jankaukas was swapping her for Kitty. A much better partner for him, Martha thought, as Kitty was only a couple of inches shorter than he was.
Martha’s new partner was already a little the worse for wear from the vodka, judging by the way he kept tripping over her feet. Kitty shot her a sympathetic smile as she swept past with the doctor. She looked happy, Martha thought, as if the burden of anxiety had been lifted from her shoulders. It was good to see her enjoying herself—a temporary escape from reality was what she needed, like most of the people in this room.