by Libbylawrence
Times past, 1920:
A man weighed down by several sacks draped over his broad shoulders made his way hurriedly through a cold night. While doing this, he glanced repeatedly to each side to check on the progress of a gaunt woman who clutched an infant to her chest as she led a small child by the hand.
This father and husband was worried. He had struggled all his life to improve his lot and to provide for his loving family. But he had always known that his very life was nothing but a plaything to the cruel whims of an oppressive regime that had swept across his Eastern European homeland like a scythe slicing ruthlessly through wheat.
Still, he was a father above all else, and thus he managed to “pull a face,” as his cousin who had settled in England liked to put it. He did so to encourage his son. He did so in yet one more hopeless gesture of defiance.
“The soldiers could be here at any moment!” his wife whispered. “Oh, Ivan, how can we make it? How can we ever get away?”
He shook his head and said, “Sophia, we will make it, because we owe it to them.”
She nodded, and the family moved on through the night.
Ivan Conanowski continued onward. He would get his family out of Karnia or die trying.