The Warsaw Conspiracy
Page 38
Where to begin? At the end, perhaps, of my time in Poland when we passed through the western gates of Warsaw, trundling along little travelled roads skirting Sochaczew. We dared not stop at Topolostan though I longed to see my familial home~now sequestered~one last time and kneel at the graves of my parents.
You cannot imagine the number of émigrés from Poland that have arrived here~estimates have it as high as nine thousand. As our carriage, one of many in a column, passed through the western German communities, we were buoyed by the incredibly warm and enthusiastic locals. Once in France we were given a friendly welcome and directed to a small town, one of several that served as a depot for the organized reception of the arrivals. There Iza learned the details of the small country estate she had inherited from your dear friend, the French Princess Charlotte Sic, not so very many miles from Paris. Upon Iza’s marriage to Jan Michał there at the depot~oh my, perhaps I should have led with the news of the marriage!~the newlyweds departed for the estate.
While all of us had been urged to come live with them, our fates seem to lie within the city of Paris. Here, we have been reunited with Jacob, our estate manager at Sochaczew and his wife Emma. Jacob had transferred our estate funds to a bank here so that we are better off than many of the émigrés who had to leave everything behind. Here in Paris the undaunted heart of a Poland-in-exile beats with the political and social thought that we hope will one day culminate in our return home. The words of our national anthem have never held more meaning: “Poland has not yet perished while we still live.” Prince Adam Czartoryski is here and a circle seems to be forming around him. Jan and Michał see him often, while~to my great joy!~Józef has been reunited with his friend Fryderyk Chopin and has resumed his musical studies here, where artistic and cultural inspiration abounds. Basia and the boys, whose French is par excellence these days, have taken an apartment near ours so we see them often. She is having the hardest time of all of us.
And I? you might ask. Remembering your mother’s words, I am trying to be content with my family around me~but for you and Jerzy~
What of you, Zofia? My eyes fill with tears when I think that you have at last allowed yourself happiness. Jerzy is such a fine man. The goodness of the years you have now will make up for the lost years, dearest. Live well, my cousin.
And now~Jan has just brought in the mail and in it is a missive from the country. Iza writes that she and Michał are expecting a child. Ah, I close my eyes and I see you smiling across the miles, your dark eyes dancing. You are to have a new title~Babka Zofia! I am smiling, too.
~~All my love, my dearest cousin~~
Anna
Historical Note
WHILE THE FAILURE OF THE cadets’ insurrection against Russian autocracy brought an end to the Polish army, to the Sejm, and to the semi-independence of the Congress Kingdom, Polish nationalism flourished under the new oppression, leading to political and military action within what had been the Commonwealth, as well as among the nine thousand émigrés in France.
Thus, history repeated the collapse of the Polish dream of full independence: in 1794 Princess Anna Maria Berezowska-Stelnicka witnessed the the dissolution of the kingdom by Russia, Prussia, and Austria; in 1813 Poland’s infatuation with Napoleon Bonaparte and his dream of an egalitarian Europe ended badly; and then came the cadets’ insurrection of 1830. Following these, for the better part of a century, hope and the indefatigable Polish spirit lived on through revolutions and insurrections—until 1918 and the rebirth of Poland and Lithuania. However, World War II would defer the dream again—until the fall of the Iron Curtain and a modern vindication.
Author’s Note
KONIEC WIEŃCZY DZIEŁO. THE END crowns the work. Following Against a Crimson Sky, The Warsaw Conspiracy completes a trilogy begun with Push Not the River, a novel based on a diary of a Polish countess. Sending my characters out into the world is both sad and joyous. Na zdrowie!
Reading Group Guide Questions
How do you interpret the first proverb, “Birth is Much; But Breeding is more”?
Discuss the longtime relationship of cousins Anna and Zofia.
How is Iza’s character illustrated? Does she change?
How do Michal’s feelings about one brother impact feelings for the other?
What does the story demonstrate about Poland’s national character?
Is Jozef’s quest to distinguish himself a universal one? What holds him back? Is he ultimately successful?
To what extent does the “outsider” theme play out?
What are Viktor’s better qualities? Is he a hero is some way(s)?
How true is the proverb, “It Happens in an Hour that Comes Not in an Age”?
In what ways does Anna’s final letter to Zofia complete a circle?
Next from James Conroyd Martin
The Story of the First 9-11
IN JULY OF 1683 VIENNA came under siege by the full brunt of the Ottoman Empire so that by 11 September it stood as the main outpost of Christian Europe. The citizens were starving and the walls of the city were giving way. Vienna was about to fall under the guns and mines of the Ottomans. Its collapse would mean plundered European cities, Christian slaves, and forced conversions. Allied European armies under the supreme command of Polish King Jan III Sobieski arrived not an hour too soon. The King descended the hill, riding at the van of his legendary winged hussars—armed with lances, pistols, and sabres—and an army of 40,000 against 140,000. Reputedly, the sight and sound of the wings of feathers attached to the hussars frightened both man and beast. Panic swept through the enemy and the battle was over within three hours. Europe had been saved from the enemy.
The Boy Who Wanted Wings is the story of a young Tatar boy adopted into a Polish peasant household. Aleksy has a long-held dream of becoming a Polish Hussar, a dream complicated by a forbidden love for a nobleman’s daughter. It is only when the Ottomans seek to conquer Europe, coming at Vienna in 1683 for a monumental and decisive battle, that fate intervenes, providing Aleksy with opportunities—and obstacles.
An Excerpt from The Boy Who Wanted Wings
By James Conroyd Martin
DESPITE BEING SOMETIMES LABELED THE Tatar by some of his peers, as well as by some adults who snarled at him, Aleksy had been content to stay within the cocoon of Polishness he had come to know. Even though as the years went by and he became less fearful of venturing away from the family that had taken him in, he was afraid that doing so would hurt them. And so he had embraced Christianity and the Polish way of living.
But then there were times like these when he felt removed from every thing and everyone around him. Oh, he knew that the boundaries of class set a count’s daughter upon a dais and well out of his reach, but to think now that the fortune of his birth and an appearance that reflected a coloring and visage that reached back to parents and ancestors made the chasm between him and the girl in yellow so much deeper and—despite logic—somehow a fault of his own.
Still, he thought, his acceptance of things Polish could be providential—should he ever have the opportunity—slight as it was—of meeting the girl in yellow.
About halfway up the mountain, he came to a little clearing that jutted out over a cleared field. He dismounted. His eyes fastened on the activity below. This is what he had come for, and so he put the count’s daughter from his mind. Brooding on what cannot be, he determined, would come to nothing.
The company of hussars on the field seemed larger today, at least fifty, Aleksy guessed. They were being mustered into formation now, their lances glinting in the sun, the black and gold pennants flying. There would be none of the usual games, it seemed, no jousting, no running at a ring whereby the lancers would attempt to wield their lance so precisely as to catch a small ring that hung from a portable wooden framework. Today they were forming up for sober and orderly maneuvers. He wondered at their formality.
Aleksy took note of the multitude of colors below and the little mystery resolved itself. Whereas on other oc
casions the men, some very young and generally of modest noble birth and means, wore outer garments of a blue, often cheap material, today they had been joined by wealthier nobles who could afford wardrobes rich in the assortment of color and material. These men—in their silks and brocades and in their wolf and leopard skins or striped capes—gathered to the side of the formation to watch and deliver commentary. Some of these were the Old Guard of the Kwarciani, the most elite of Hussars permanently stationed at borderlands east of Halicz to counter raids by Cossacks and Tatars unfriendly to the Commonwealth of Lithuania and Poland. Their reviews would be taken, no doubt, with great solemnity. Every soldier would make every effort to impress them. In recent years the group’s numbers had been reduced by massacres and talk had it that they were eager to replenish their manpower. Perhaps a few of the novices below would be chosen to join the Kwarciani.
Some place at his core went cold with jealousy. If only he were allowed to train as a hussar. He could be as good as any of them. Better. No one he knew was more skillful at a bow than he. He could show those hussars a thing or two about the makings of an archer—even though he had come to realize fewer and fewer of the lancers bothered to carry a bow and quiver. The majority had come to disparage the art of archery in favor of pistols, relying instead on the lance, a pair of pistols, and a sabre.
Naturally enough, there was no disdain for the lance, the very lifeblood and signature weapon of the hussar army. Aleksy smiled to himself when he thought of his own handcrafted lance. Through his father he had made friends with Count Halicki’s old stablemaster, Pawel, who one magical day had allowed him to peruse an old lance once used by the count. Having fashioned his own bow and arrows, he was already an expert in woodcraft when he took the measurements of the lance and carefully replicated it, creating it from a seventeen foot length of wood cut in halves and hollowed out as far as the rounded handguard at the lower end, thus reducing its weight. The shorter section managed by the lancer was left solid wood for leverage purposes. Finding a glue that would bind the two halves together had been a challenge, but an off-hand comment by Borys about a Mongolian recipe using a tar made from birch bark brought success.
Aleksy’s thoughts conjured an elation that was only momentary, for he thought now how he had had to hide away his secret project under a pile of hay in the barn—and unless he should happen to be practicing with it one day in the forest when a wayward boar might come his way, he would never be able to use it. The thought of mounting a plow horse like Kastor with it instead of riding atop one of the Polish Arabians strutting below made him burn with—what? Indignation? Embarrassment? Humiliation—yes, he decided, humiliation was the most accurate descriptor.
Inexplicably, the thought of the girl in yellow once again seized him, lifting him, causing his heart to catch. Would he exchange one dream for the other? Life as a hussar for life with her?
He thought he just might risk anything to succumb to her charms.
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