The translation came back, “He wants two thousand dollars now for both pieces. He needs that to buy essential things for his family. The rest he will receive later by means that we have already worked out. And two hundred dollars more for our friend here.”
“All right.” Jeffrey brought out the money. The man watched him count, scooped up the money, shook hands swiftly all around, and headed for the door.
“Wait,” Jeffrey called out. “Ask him what it’s like over there.”
The small man turned from the door long enough to give him a haunted look. Through Gregor he replied, “Hell.”
* * *
Gregor was visibly in pain by the time they returned to the car. “All this movement has aggravated my condition. I fear that I must take a few days off and rest. I am indeed sorry for having let you down.”
“You haven’t let anyone down.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not.” Gregor spoke to the driver, who nodded and started off. “Would you please allow me to make one stop on the way home? It is personal business, some medicines I must drop off, and which must be done today.”
“Sure.”
“Thank you.” He gave instructions to Tomek, then continued, “The problem we face with my being ill, you see, is that I have arranged our buys to a rather precise timetable. Many of these people face extremely dire needs. For us to postpone our visits raises the risk that they will seek other buyers, even if they know they may well be cheated.” Gregor shifted in his seat, searching for a more comfortable position. “I shall endeavor to heal as fast as possible.”
Their way took them out beyond the rows of high-rise concrete tenements that ringed the city, into the verdant green countryside. The roads became increasingly narrow and potholed. They turned into a small grouping of nondescript houses, stopping before what appeared to be a Victorian manor. Its pale yellow paint had long surrendered to the march of winds and rains and winters, its fenced-in yard equally neglected.
“Where are we?”
“This is what I do with my income from the antiques,” Gregor replied. “That is, here is one such project. Would you like to come along?”
“Sure.”
“Splendid. It won’t take long.”
A set of new swings and slides on one side of the entrance gate stood in glaring opposition to the house’s general state of disrepair. To the other side of the path leading toward the front door was a massive pile of coal.
Gregor noted the coal spill as they walked toward the entrance. “Ah, it arrived. Excellent. Only nine months late. Just in time for next winter, I suppose.”
“What is this place?” Jeffrey asked.
“A state-run home for young orphans,” Gregor said, pushing open the door and shouting into the dark interior. “I work with the very young and the very old, you see. I seek out the ones who are least able to work for themselves.”
A slatternly woman in a filthy apron and gray-grimed dress waddled out on dilapidated slippers, dried her hand, and offered it stiffly to Gregor. He bowed over it as though greeting royalty, turned and pointed to Jeffrey. The woman gave him an indifferent nod and pointed back down the murky hallway.
“She is now alone, at least as far as the state is concerned. Her two assistants were let go, as the state no longer had money to pay them. She is responsible for cleaning, cooking, and tending to the needs of sixty-one children.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I have hired two young village girls to come in and help her. But all the state orphanages are suffering from funding cut-backs, and I can only do so much.” He turned and walked down the hall. “Come. Let me show you something.”
They entered what had once been a formal sitting parlor, and was now a sort of holding pen for young children. There was not a stick of furniture in the room. Some of the children held ragged toys, others blankets, but they were not doing anything. Five- and six-year-old children just sat and rocked constantly, hugging themselves and humming a single note. Their blank faces yearned for what they had never known.
Gregor stepped through the doorway, and immediately they surged toward him, gluing themselves to him, reaching for any part possible to touch, to hold, to hug. Their little voices keened a wordless cry.
“They have food and clothing, these children,” Gregor explained over the clamor. “But they have no love. If you are feeling brave, I dare you to smile.”
Jeffrey did. Gregor bent over, shook a child loose from his sleeve, and turned the boy around. He pointed toward Jeffrey and said something. Immediately several children turned and searched his face, then flung themselves on him.
“Alcoholic parents, unwed mothers, families who cannot afford another child,” Gregor said above the loud keening. “Most are not the victims of disaster, but of neglect—which of course is a disaster all its own, as far as these children are concerned.”
Uplifted faces searched Jeffrey’s face with a yearning that threatened to pull his heart from his chest. He stroked a little face, found his wrist held with a ferocity born of lonely panic.
“The children here are neglected,” Gregor said. “They are intellectually and emotionally starved. Their parents are either dead or too tired, too worried, too beaten down, or too drunk to give them the love and the attention they need. We—myself and the people with whom I work—try to set up visiting schedules using people with a good heart and a strong faith. We have book-lending trucks for the older children. We arrange for doctors to make regular visits. We set up groups small enough to give each child some personal attention, and take them out to show them a bit of the outside world. We try to awaken hope, to stimulate thought. It is so much more important than giving them a piece of candy or another bit of clothing.”
As they were leaving the house, with a dozen-dozen little faces pressed to the windows, Gregor told him, “It is far worse in the handicapped children’s homes. I would not dare to take you there on your first visit. Under the Communists, these little people were simply written off. They spend their time lying in bed for lack of wheelchairs and people to push them. They need everything, my dear boy. Everything from toys to baths to hands who will bathe them with love.”
* * *
Jeffrey was immensely relieved that the first call to come through that evening was the one to Alexander. He shouted over the static, “How are you feeling?”
“Not well, I’m afraid. It seems that I am powerless to silence voices I have no desire to hear. It makes me wonder if perhaps there is not some message which I should heed. Much as I detest the notion, it is not one that I am able to shake.”
Jeffrey resisted the urge to tell of his conversation with Gregor. Now was not the time. “Gregor has been taken ill.”
“Ah,” Alexander sighed. “This trip has proven to be a veritable deluge for you, Jeffrey. Perhaps you should return home and wait for a more opportune moment to make your debut.”
“I’m doing okay, really. I’ve found some good pieces, and Gregor says there are some other things that we’ll lose if we don’t move swiftly.”
“Gregor tends to know best about such things.” Alexander’s voice gathered a bit of strength. “I take it you have a plan.”
“I really need an interpreter, someone I can trust. I was wondering if I might ask Katya to join me.”
Alexander was silent a moment. “I have had a most delightful time coming to know your young lady. The more we talk, the more I am reassured with your choice.” There was another pause, then he said, “I find myself unable to face the prospect of returning to Poland at this moment. I must therefore agree with your idea. You will impress upon her the need for secrecy.”
“As hard as I can.”
“Very well. Do as you see fit. I would be grateful if you would try to call from time to time. I realize that it is sometimes harder to find a telephone line to the outside world than it is to find the crown jewels of Russia, but nonetheless I would like to hear from you when it is possible. Your calls do me more good
than I shall ever be able to convey.”
“I’ll try every night,” Jeffrey replied. “Take care of yourself.”
“I shall do my utmost, although I must say that my efforts seem of little avail just now. Perhaps you might ask my cousin to remember me in his prayers.”
“I’ll tell him,” Jeffrey replied. “But I imagine it’s going to be superfluous. I don’t think he’s ever stopped.”
* * *
The call to Katya took another four hours. After apologizing his way around an extremely irate roommate who answered the phone, he said, “I need you.”
“Where are you?” The voice sounded totally asleep.
“Don’t you want to know who this is first? Katya, wake up. This is the real world calling.”
“Jeffrey?”
“Katya, come on. I can’t give you time for coffee. It took three bribes and two shouting matches to get through to you once.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Poland?” She worked the words out around a yawn.
“Where do you think I’m calling from? Of course, the way these phones operate I might as well be on the dark side of the moon. Katya, are you awake yet?”
“Sort of.”
“I need you. My world is unraveling here. I can’t even talk to my driver.”
“You have a driver?”
“It’s part of my inheritance from Alexander.”
“He’s dead?”
“Come on, wake up, Katya. No. You spent this afternoon with him in the shop.”
“Oh yeah,” she said around an enormous yawn. “I remember now.”
“I’ve had to take over for him.”
“He wouldn’t tell me why you had to stay there all alone.” Katya yawned again. “Can’t this wait until morning?”
“No!”
“There’s no need to shout, Jeffrey.”
“Take a deep breath, Katya. You have got to wake up.”
There was a long pause. “Katya?”
“I’m here, Jeffrey.” Her voice sounded more focused.
“I need you. Can you come tomorrow?”
“You want me to fly to Poland? Really?”
“Desperately really. Can you meet me here in Cracow?”
“I’ve never been to Cracow.”
“I sure hope you’re awake. Can you come?”
“Yes, I’m awake.” There was another pause, then, “Yes, all right. I’ll come. If you really need me.”
The pleasure he felt at her words bordered on pain. He had not even wanted to admit how much he had been missing her. “I do. In more ways than one.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s leave the discussions for your arrival. You need to call Alexander at Claridge’s first thing tomorrow morning. He will make your travel arrangements and fax me your arrival details. And, Katya, it’s very important that you don’t discuss this with anyone besides your mother.”
“You’ve explained the need for secrecy. I haven’t forgotten.” Her voice took on the tone of a little girl’s. “It will be nice to see you again, Jeffrey. Especially in Cracow.”
CHAPTER 16
Greeting Jeffrey with a fierce hug upon her arrival, Katya allowed him to take her first by the hotel and then into the center of town. She made no attempt to hide her excitement. “I’ve always wanted to come here.”
“Gregor suggested we walk to the central square and have lunch there,” Jeffrey said. “Then we meet with him, and afterward get back to work.”
Following the hotel receptionist’s directions, Jeffrey led her the seven blocks to where entry into the city’s old town was announced by a return to cobblestone streets. Katya walked slowly, her eyes bright with discovery, her gaze touching everything.
She pulled him over to one side. “Look at this old state-run store. That’s how drab everything looked the last time I was in Poland. You can’t believe how startling it is to come back and find so many new signs of capitalism springing up. Let’s go inside, so you can see for yourself how it used to be.”
The lamp store fully retained it’s stodgy socialist style. Wares were displayed on unpainted plywood shelves. “This is everything the shop has,” Katya whispered. “There isn’t any back room for extra stock, and there’s no need to ask the shopkeeper anything. She’s here just to take your money. And don’t expect her to thank you or ask you to come again.”
The glass globes were dusty, the wares outdated, the bulbs packed in little gray cardboard boxes stamped with smeared Russian Cyrillic. The shop was empty save for a bored young woman camped behind her magazine, the air dusty and undisturbed by change. Katya picked up a hand-blown ceiling light and read the tag. “This translates into thirty-seven cents. They set the price before the government changed, and they never bothered to alter it. They’ll just sit here and wait for the government to get around to selling the shop and putting them out of business. It’s called Communist initiative.”
Next door was a new store, its window set in a shiny copper frame on a marble base. Its wares suggested the shop was still so new that the owners were not yet sure what would sell—women’s high-heeled shoes competed for space with Japanese watches, cordless telephones, electronic pocket games, pressure bandages, and bras.
No one on the street smiled. People stared at shop windows, darted their eyes everywhere, or stared at nothing. Everyone they passed seemed to give him one swift glance, recognize in an instant that he was foreign and Western, then turn determinedly away.
An old woman in a filthy woolen shawl came by, begging with a tear in her eye and a crack in her voice. She shuffled from one passerby to the next, never raising her steps from the stones, her feet encased in men’s work shoes that slapped softly against her feet. Jeffrey gave her the equivalent of twenty cents, and was rewarded with a sign of the cross made by hands knotted with arthritis.
When they entered Cracow’s vast central square, Katya pointed to the tall age-blackened church with its two spires of totally different designs. “It’s called the Mariacki, and it’s over a thousand years old. Part of it, anyway. There’s a living legend attached to it, as there is to a lot of this city. Most of the stories are based on fact. So much has happened here that they don’t need to make anything up.”
“I thought you told me you hadn’t ever been here before.”
“When did I say that?”
“On the phone last night.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m surprised you remembered which city to go to, you were so asleep.”
“I was awake by then. It’s true, though. This is my first visit to Cracow.”
“So how do you know about all this?”
“I read, Jeffrey. They have books about Poland. It’s not the middle of darkest Africa or anything.”
“So tell me the living legend.”
“Legend isn’t right. Legend has to be fiction. Living history is better.” She pointed at the left-hand spire. “Every hour a trumpeter comes out and plays the Hejnal, which is an old Hungarian word for reveille. He plays it to the four corners of the globe. The trumpet call always cuts off in the middle of a note. It symbolizes the time the Tartars invaded Cracow—I’m not sure when, I think around six hundred years ago. A Tartar arrow stopped the trumpet call when it pierced his throat.”
“That’s a pretty grisly story to repeat every hour for six hundred years.”
“A study of Polish history is a study of war.” She looked up at him. “There’s a lot of sadness, but a lot of beauty, too.”
Like you, he thought. “I’m really glad you came,” he said.
She allowed her gaze to linger a moment longer before pointing to the square’s central structure. “Let’s go in there.”
As they walked toward the massive edifice, she said, “This is called the Sukiennice, or Cloth Hall. It was built in the fourteenth century to house the cloth, thread, cotton, wool, silk, and dye merchants who clothed the upper half of Central Europe. At that time,
Cracow was the capital of the second largest kingdom in the world after the Holy Roman Empire, and cloth was a very important industry.”
Wrought-iron lamps hung down the hall’s narrow hundred and fifty-foot length. The merchants’ stalls were converted into shops selling crystal and amber and tourist trinkets and silver and hand-knit lace. The vaulted ceiling was lined with the old royal shields from the Polish-Lithuanian Empire, which at its height had stretched from the icy wastelands crowning Europe through modern-day Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Rumania, the Ukraine, and parts of Turkey.
“There isn’t the danger I used to feel here in Poland,” Katya said as they crossed from the Cloth Hall to a large cafe at the edge of the square. “There is still sadness, though. Too much of it.”
“You’ll be meeting Gregor later,” Jeffrey replied. “That’s one thing the two of you will certainly agree on.”
The Café Kawiarnia Sukiennice was a series of bright white and red chambers. The ceilings were domed, the rooms small and interconnected, the windows decorated with wrought-iron, the atmosphere splendidly foreign.
“Look around these rooms,” she said. “Every face is a character, an individual. When I go out in London, I feel as if everybody has spent hours polishing off all their individuality. They wear stylish clothes, they fix their hair just so. Then they sit somewhere and pretend that everything in their life is perfect.
“Here they can’t, Jeffrey. It’s a luxury they can’t afford. They come as they are, they sit here because they want to be with a friend or talk with family or just have an ice cream. They don’t seem to have on the false facade. They sit without the lies which wealth creates. You look around here and you see a roomful of extremes. Every face is a story. I love that. I am sorry for the hardship that created it, but that does not make me love the result any less.”
* * *
As they waited for Gregor to buzz them into his apartment building, Jeffrey warned her, “As far as Gregor is concerned, you are something of a risk. I imagine he’s going to test you a little.”
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