Rebecca Thaddeus, the author of One Amber Bead, is a contemporary American writer with Polish roots. In her novel she describes the complicated and difficult circumstances in which Polish people lived in the chaotic and tumultuous 20th century, as seen through the eyes of two cousins, one living in U.S. and the other one in Poland.
There are three heroines in One Amber Bead. In order of appearance they are Jadzia, Apolonya and Evelina or Evie. Jadzia and Apolonya live in a Polish village called Niedzieliska in southern Poland; Evie lives in Chicago. Jadzia and Evie are cousins of the same age (born around 1923), and Apolonya is a couple of years older. The three girls differ not only in their looks like day and night but also in their personalities.
The pale and fair-haired Apolonya (whom I prefer to call Pola, though she has nothing in common with the famous Hollywood silent movie actress Pola Negri, apart from the name and a rural origin) is more serious than her age, bitter and disillusioned. She knows exactly what she wants, which is to never leave Niedzieliska. Being a principled 18 year-old woman, Pola won’t forgive her brother Antek, a Nazi sympathizer, for his treason, when he voluntarily joins the German army. Proud and fearless Pola refuses to be forcibly deported from her village. This act of disobedience costs her her life - she is shot by a ruthless Nazi commander in front of her whole village, including her best friend Jadzia.
Equally pretty, but dark-haired and complected Jadzia is her best friend opposite: cheerful, immature, naïve, and full of illusions about human nature. She had dreamed of leaving the village, so she is not afraid of being deported and initially treats it as a kind of adventure. Later, as a slave laborer in a German countryside, she maintains positive feelings toward her masters and tries very hard to please them. As if this was not bad enough, she falls in love with their 16 year old son. Had she forgotten that there was a war going on and that she had not come to Germany of her own volition? Had she not been taught at school and at home the legend of the Polish princess Wanda, who chose to drown in the waves of the Vistula river, rather than marry a German prince? Her naïvete causes Jadzia physical and mental humiliation, and she almost ends up in Auschwitz. After the war, disillusioned Jadzia marries a gentle, kind man, has two kids, and adapts quite well to life in communist Poland. When her kind husband dies, she marries … Antek, who meanwhile returns to Poland from Argentina, where he was hiding along with many other Nazis, and adopts his brother’s name, Alfons. Jadzia’s and Antek’s past affection towards Germans, the centuries-old enemies of Poland is the shameful secret they share now.
Evie, Jadzia’s American doppelgänger, leads a life typical of the second generation of Polish immigrants to the States at the beginning of the 20th century: her dad and older brother work, her mom stays at home and takes care of the younger children. While Jadzia’s dad is kind and dedicated to his family, Evie’s father is abusive and scary. He does odd jobs and drinks heavily, so the family lives very modestly. The sudden death of her mother and her younger brother put an end to Evie’s fairly happy childhood. She takes on the responsibility of her mother’s role with her little sister (who was born just before her mother died), and her father then becomes even more abusive and violent towards the girls. Evie’s situation is not to be envied, but it does suddenly improve: just before U.S. enters the war in December of 1941, Evie gets engaged to a Polish young man, Mikosz, whom she has known since their schooldays and whom she initially despised. When Mikosz goes to war, Evie takes a job at a defense factory. She meets the factory owner at a dance and soon afterwards they become romantically involved. She is not naïve, yet at the same time she has a glimmer of hope that the rich man will eventually want to marry her. It does not happen, so she marries Mikosz, and leads an ordinary middle-class life raising two daughters.
Typically, the second generation of immigrant families feels little connection to the parents’ country, considering itself American rather than of the parents’ nationality. Not Evie though: she is proud of her Polish descent; she celebrates the holidays and weddings as it was all done in her mother’s village. When it comes to Polish food, the natives and immigrants alike seem excessively (at least to me) attached to pierogi, kiełbasa, bigos, and kołaczki, the latter considered as comfort food (presumably some local delicacy, perhaps from Małopolska or Silesia, unknown to the people from central Poland), and vodka.
Jadzia and Evie, finally meet in 1970 in Chicago after 37 years of exchanging letters in which they confide their innermost secrets to one another. 15 years after this meeting, shortly after Jadzia’s death, Evie travels to Poland to visit her mother’s and Jadzia’s village. It’s a difficult journey, a bit like going back in time (there are still outhouses in small villages!), for which she is not mentally prepared. However, she bravely tolerates all discomforts, and overcomes the feeling of alienation and not fitting in. She even comes to terms with Jadzia’s deepest secret about her husband, Antek, and returns to the U.S. with a sense of a mission fulfilled: Poland became her second home.
