This bird has swooped over the tree where Buddha sat, carried an olive leaf to Christ as he wandered in the desert, laying it down by his side while he slept, eyes like the deepest muddy river, sun sparkling off its shallow surface. This bird has bathed his charcoal-dusted wings in the Nile, traveled the cosmos and beyond with her people in ancient times. He has dipped his longest feather in the dust of a tomb painted with Egyptian history, real, imagined, and forgotten, the tomb that was submerged in water and then projected into the stars. He then gave the feather to Maat, and now Maat weighs it against every heart. What heart is equal to the weight of a feather? You might ask. The right one.
This bird always recognizes the heart that longs to belong. The longing heart yearns for love, and this bird takes special care to watch over it, not because it is any better than the others, and not because the bird can do anything to alter its reality in the physical world, but because these hearts need more reassurance than others in order to feel that they belong. And when they are reassured by the quiet voice within, the one that is signaled from elsewhere, held still by the flapping of this bird’s expansive black wings, then there is a chance for peace. And when this heart is at peace it can really love, and its love helps to heal the world.
III
Plaster my heart with silver and gold. Make the moon grow so big we can step on a ladder to greet it. These are the kinds of wishes whispered by Elżbieta’s son, Wiktor’s grandchild, little Mateusz, when he was just an altar boy. And when Mateusz was in trouble, he would turn his back on the family and stare at the wall. He could hold this pose with pride for hours until his parents had to beg him to turn around. What had begun as his punishment turned into a game in which he punished them. You could see early on that he knew how to win. What made him dream that he could leave this little town and become someone? As a teenager he stood at the summit of Rybnik, coal smoke burning in the dusk, shouting at the top of his lungs, “I will never leave this town!” But he would, and he would go far.
Days were spent playing soccer and hockey, running in the fields and through the forest where just a few years before Nazis had fought, where you could still find shells and bullets and other treasures left over from the war. Now there was a Gypsy camp in the woods, slightly removed from the riverbank, and Mateusz and his friends would gaze at the caravans from the other side, sneaking behind trees in the night, wondering what it was like to be on the other side. There was always a beautiful woman to watch and dream of as she bathed in the cool clean waters, unraveling her long black hair, which would float along the surface of the water, just like a mermaid’s, as if no other woman had ever existed.
From this point on there would be only one female ideal in Mateusz’s mind, that of a woman with dark and exotic looks. Yes, he would find his way to love Polish beauties with their long blue eyes and blond hair tied into a thick braid to match that of a horse’s mane, but he would always dream of a dark woman until he found himself the right one.
What made Mateusz, a child of this old world, altar boy and rebellious one, shorts appropriately cropped for the times, young muscles strengthening as he grew into a handsome young man—a perfect mix of mother and father, of the dark looks and the gentle eyes—think that he could become an actor and leave this town? Was it that the black bird was watching over him? Burrowing close to his tender heart? Was it hubris? Was it a dream? Nothing that pulled at his heart and made him want to remain in the tender, sad world in which he had spent his entire life thus far could keep him from reaching for some bigger dream. Some unknown particle felt both within and without propelled him forward to Warsaw, into that drama school, text from The Little Prince in hand, sweating palms bleeding through the letters, dampening the page. But that didn’t matter now. He knew the words, the right ones. The reading was from a section about a fox and the prince, about how loving someone imprints them forever on your experience of the world. You may know this story. You may have read it, too. And if you haven’t, you must go and read it now.
IV
The first thing Wolf did, after praying, was to go to sleep. I lay my body down on top of his, as I would have done as his lover, as I have always wanted to do. I still remember that unbearable need to merge my body with his. People say that love is joyful. Why? I remember when we made love, I wanted only to cry. The joy of feeling an extension of his life inside of me was too much, because no matter what we did, he could never be close enough. Ecstasy lies right on the border of loss. I could not bear to love him, and yet I had no choice.
The boat rocks us back and forth as we cross the ocean. Sometimes the movement is gentle, like lying in a hammock or being cradled in your mother’s arms, but at other times it is wildly violent, and Wolf lies sick in bed, moaning as he vomits out whatever food he has managed to get down.
We boarded in Hamburg.
I wonder how many lost souls have left Europe for other shores? I suspect that most of them stayed behind. When we first came aboard the boat, I felt so unsure. Where was I to fit in this tiny room with only a bed and a place for the little dog to sleep?
We are traveling to America now. I wander the deck at night and listen to people. Most of them have never been there before. A new life begins for us all. We look out at the uncertain world. I understand these travelers well. Our old world is lost in the mist. Wolf keeps mostly to himself. He sits in his room and reads a lot. Sometimes he stares out the small circular window in his room and watches the sea pass by. He loves to snuggle and pet the dog, whose old stomach seems to be stronger than the rest.
V
This city was destroyed during the war, but slowly things have been built up again. Some places have been renovated to look as if they were never even gone. There is a second coming, a revitalization of life, never to replicate what it once was, but now the city can be something else. When thirty years have passed, this city will become a monument to the socialist system. There are wide boulevards. There are statues bound together with pride in tribute to the worker, and there are also monuments to the past. Here uprisings challenged a reign of terror and despair. Ghetto Uprising, Warsaw Uprising, walls crumbling down, a cacophony of screams at dawn but nobody hears your sound above his own, basements filled with mothers and children weeping in anticipation of an uncertain end. That was Warsaw then.
Now thirty years have passed and everything has changed. Before World War II people called Warsaw the Paris of Eastern Europe. It is now Paris without the glamour, Paris without the fine cuisine, the outdoor cafés, the Arc de Triomphe, and the city lights.
It is here that Mateusz comes to study theater, and his world begins to open.
There is magic to standing in a black box with everything on the outside submerged in darkness, bright lights shining down on an imaginary world. You are the center of that world. Your breath reverberates throughout the darkness and people are watching and waiting to return your breath with a wave of intensity so honed that it might feel like love. There is an unexplainable transmission of energy in this dark house where every story is possible. Fake tears and blood are never really fake. Didn’t you know? If you do this, if you give yourself over to the magic, then you can feel your body expanding to incorporate everyone, and you can experience the most wonderful sensation of oneness and you will feel that the whole world is in love with you, and you will shine like the brightest sun. There is a practice to living so many lives, but is there also a price? How does the individual survive when it spends so much time stepping into other souls? Who’s to know? Maybe the answer comes later. Right now, under those hot lights, with the hushed silence of an audience at your feet, the consequences are nothing but an irrelevant dream. And the universe is rotating, and you want to bask in its glory, and you are calling out to the cosmos from the earth, and now, for just this moment in time, you are at home in this one room, and it feels like you are the central point of everything.
VI
The wings of a bird are not so different from the wings of an a
ngel. And what about the wings of the mind? Remember you, the child? You also had wings. You lay beneath the clouds and projected yourself into their midst.
Freed from his obligations toward Wolf, toward Anna, toward the people of this world, Wiktor recognizes that the time has come for him to move on. But how does one go to the next level? Does it involve ascending or descending? Perhaps simply moving to the side? Leaving behind this world is something new, something he has never done before. He walks for hours toward the outskirts of Kraków, where there is a big stone quarry with pale blue waters the color of the brightest sky or the clearest mind. He walks down the rocky steps and looks up at the pink dawn. The water reflects this blush of life. And the mirrored beauty causes a surge of emotion in his heart that he has not felt since he died.
“But oh I will miss this world,” Wiktor says aloud, to no one in particular, arms cast straight up into the air, chest heaving, weeping like he didn’t know he could.
For a moment it seems as if he will be sucked into the earth. There is no freedom in hanging on to the familiar. A flock of birds flies overhead. Everything changes once again.
Now it is time for Wiktor to be set free, his old clothes disintegrating with each passing moment, just as the sky brightens incrementally. He steps into the waters, tenuously at first, but there is no shallow bank on which he can lean, so he must submerge himself completely. How is it to swim when you are no longer alive? There is nothing so beautiful. You can breathe water just as you once could the air. Everything is available to you as it never was before. You may witness a realm of microscopic creatures, for every molecule of water and life is moving together and there is no separation from one element to the next. I breathe, you breathe, as if there is someone to talk to.
Now Wiktor swims to the rough surface at the bottom of the quarry where there is a circular hole just big enough to fit his body. He swims down into the opening, which appears to be a secondary reflection of that ecstatic pink sky. As he moves through, a cold wind blows past his face, sweeping something away. He arrives in the garden of his childhood home, where there is an apple orchard and chickens run wild. There is that old smell of dawn coming over the fields and a sense of longing so strong that he must run, just as he always did, across the fields, away from home. Running wild, arms outstretched, hands brushing the tall prickling grass until breathlessness forces him to succumb. This is an image of his world, formed in childhood. This is the fullness of being alive. This time of his life has come to him once again. Was this feeling the cause of that strange, sad pain? I can live it again, now, and everything is okay. He hears his mother’s voice calling his name, and when he turns his head to reply, the familiar world falls away.
You could call this darkness, only that everything is filled with light. The new world appears like the night, for there is a thick terrain of stars that is spread out in a twisted expanse before him. This is the whirling double helix of life, and also something beyond. This has no name. In the arms of the universe, there is nothing to see or hear, nothing to know. Gravity is a memory. I wouldn’t dwell on it for long. The afterlife is weightlessness. One, two, three, go. Count your way to forgetting. Who are you now? You are the body that created the shadow. You are the sound that created the world. You shiver with the joy of being home again.
VII
Anna cannot go back to sleep as night changes hands with the dawn. First a line appears across the horizon like a pale purple finger reaching out to provoke the light. Periwinkle blue is met by a variation on pink so vibrant that it is always remarkable to see again. Pale crooked fingers spread further and brighten until the sky is all aglow and pink and purple, as if nature were blushing at her own ability. And when the atmosphere is cast in this particular shade of purple-pink, the light also tints the rooftops and the waters with its unbelievable expression of love. It is enough to make you forget the pain of yesterday and want to begin again.
The pink sky is aglow above the rooftops of Kraków and the looming church tower nearby. Even with everything that has happened in this city in recent years, it still looks storybook perfect at any hour. In the fog, in the snow, in the delicate smoke-laden wind of winter’s reprieve, Kraków is always magical. Anna listens to the ticking of the old silver wind-up clock beside her bed. On a little cot across the room, her brother, Wojtuś, sleeps so peacefully, as if nothing bad could ever happen to him. Even now. Anna feels her soul wrestling with everything. Stars in my hand, what does that mean? She looks down at her empty palm and a sudden association comes to mind: the pattern on the ceiling of the old school library, tiny white orbs of light cast against a blue background. The mural was painted at the end of the nineteenth century. The girls used to love to play games of hide and seek in the library and to read together, sometimes adventure stories, other times romantic histories about knights or princesses. Aside from the schoolyard and the roof of the school building, which was always off limits but still used for games, the library was their favorite place for escape. And then there was a leak in the roof, and a mother crow made a nest for her babies hidden in the soft beams of wood. Eventually the ceiling had to be replastered, the walls painted over, and the family of birds relocated. Now the orbs of light were gone, and there was only a gray wall to look up to. But the magic of the past was never forgotten. The next autumn the Nazi invasion began, and Anna and her family left town. And soon after the school was burnt to the ground with the girls inside.
It is no longer possible for Anna to stay in Kraków and do nothing. She will return to Łódź, put a candle on those grounds. It is a small gesture, but it could help somehow. As if those girls are listening. Most people wait for All Saints’ Day, but I will go now, Anna decides as she rises from her bed and changes from her old nightgown into her only dress. She puts on her stockings and combs her hair. She walks to the mirror to pin back her hair, noticing the gray strands that multiply weekly along her temples. Age comes with experience much more than it does with time. She puts on her shoes and coat and takes all of her savings from a drawer beneath the old mirror. The money is enough to travel there, but she doesn’t know if it is enough to get back home. She leaves a note for her parents and walks out the door.
VIII
There is a grin that spreads across the bird’s beak as longing surfaces like a wave cascading out from Mateusz’s Hamlet and into the theater. This is his final scene. He is lying on the stage floor, dying the first of one thousand public deaths. It is a small price to pay for receiving all the love in the world.
These are words that are understood even across the language barrier. She stands in the crowd feeling so much like a stranger, sensing the way that people look at her, for she is so obviously unlike everyone around, and yet somehow these people welcome her, because she is different, because she has come so far.
Why did she have to come? Why did she pack her bags, leave her things, everything, just to travel from New York to Poland and see for herself? She felt an emptiness created by the absence of stories, by the ones her parents did not tell. She lived with the isolation created by her mother’s hysterics, her father hiding out alone in his library with his cigars, his books, his prayers, and his regrets. He never said anything to her, but she knew. Her mother was not his true love. Even though it was forever hidden, there was evidence of his story in his every action, his every word.
Her parents had left their whole world behind just so they could have a better life, but they did not have the chance to think about how this change, this deep sense of sadness and loss, would influence their children’s future. Or maybe they only foresaw positive experiences, opportunity, happy times. How would their children learn to feel their roots when those connections had been so brutally severed?
IX
With a small blue glass memorial candle in hand, Anna boards the bus to Łódź. At first she feels nervous and shaky, eyes darting around, scanning her fellow passengers, as if there is someone to look for, somebody to tell, but within an hour the lul
l of the passing landscape calms her down. She wraps her light brown woolen coat around her neck, for even though it is spring, there is a strong chill in the air. The first promises of a colorful dawn give way to a gray, rainy day.
Her fellow travelers are joined together in this gloomy light. She watches them with interest. Beside her is an empty seat. Across the aisle sits a young mother with her daughter. The woman has long dark eyes and smooth alabaster skin, and she and her child eat sandwiches wrapped in a striped kitchen towel stuffed inside a simple cotton bag. At the front of the bus are two young priests, and at the back are three workers, all drunk, all sleeping. They are like a row of angry ducks leaning against the glass windowpane. Their snoring is intermittent, punctuated by moments of reprieve. The bus is otherwise empty, bumping along the road that leads Anna back home.
The Polish countryside passes with its little houses, its smoking chimneys, always burning, even now, in spring. Old ladies with patterned scarves on their heads, their faces so wrinkled you could read history in those lines, carry pails of fresh milk along the side of the road. Where are they going? They walk this way every day.
The world is bleak and heartbreaking, but it is also beautiful.
Anna closes her eyes and imagines what it will be like to step off the bus and set foot in Łódź once again. Her heart expands. Will there be anyone from the past to remember her face? Is there anything left standing inside the gates of the old school? Or is it just ashes? Just dust? No matter, I will light my candle. Anna’s eyelids grow heavy, succumbing to sleep. She can already see herself turning the corner, just like she did for so many years. She approaches the imposing wrought iron gates, the old school building looming overhead. Inside the girls are waiting, their starched uniform dresses pressed, their shiny hair clean, their smiles radiant. Anna will open her hand and show them what she has been given. The gates will open. Something will begin.
The Upright Heart Page 15