Candlelight Stories

by Andrzej Galicki

  Monday both of us had free. Of course, that made Monday our favorite day of the week. We wandered around Vienna, exploring various nooks of the old city. Once, we went to the large store that sold numerous books and newspapers, rummaging through magazines, curious if we could find some interesting news from Poland. Suddenly, Iwona squeezed my hand like she had done in the department store.

  "Look," she whispered. "It's her, again."

  I looked in the indicated direction and saw our familiar old woman from the train. She stood in front of one of the shelves, flipping through pornographic magazines.

  When she realized that we had seen her, she winked from behind her wire-rimmed eyeglasses.

  We moved toward her, but she disappeared from our sight behind a group of American tourists who had just entered the store. When we got to the place where she stood, she was no longer there, seemingly having vanished into thin air.

  "Was it she you saw back then, on the first day?" I asked.

  "So I thought. I was not sure, but now I am. She disappeared just as suddenly as now. I wonder what she might want from us?"

  "I think it’s just a coincidence. Maybe she lives somewhere nearby."

  Iwona nodded without conviction. To be honest, I also did not believe in coincidences.

  After a month, I noticed that something was happening with Iwona. She was somehow becoming lost in her thoughts, absent-minded. Something did not give her a peace. In the end, when I pressed for an answer, she said:

  "I have not had my period recently. I didn’t want to tell you anything, because sometimes it comes late, but now it is almost certain…"

  I was speechless from the shock.

  "What? You’re saying..."

  "Well, it looks like you'll be a daddy."

  "How could this have happen?"

  "Remember the first day of our journey?"

  "You mean at the Station Red Poppies? So it was not a dream?"

  "Of course not. I never doubted it. I wonder what we shall call him."

  "Of course, Poppy."

  "What if it's a girl?"

  "It cannot be, because then, she would have to be called Poppy Head."

  "Are you happy?" I asked anxiously, seeing that she did not look especially enthusiastic.

  "A little, yes, but it worries me a little also."

  "What are you worried about?" I was confused.

  "Because we probably have to return to Poland soon. And there, things are not going well. I thought we'd stay here longer, until all the political problems have been resolved over there."

  "Nobody knows what will happen there. Now, we need to consider all possibilities. You know what? We'll talk to Lolek. He has certainly met cases like ours. I'm sure he will give us good advice."

  "Okay, but let's not talk yet to my aunt, not until I am sure. I do not want her to panic."

  We decided to celebrate the news by going to the Prater the next Sunday.

  ***

  The big Ferris wheel rotated slowly, majestically above the amusement park, its small cabins rising up. From them, viewers could not only watch the panorama of the Prater, but almost the whole of Vienna. In the treetops below us, the first golden leaves could be seen.

  "It all looks so beautiful from the top," said Iwona. "It was worth it to spend those few shillings just to see this view. And you know, before we go, I would like once again to ride the Ferris wheel in the evening. When it is dark, you can see all the city lights. It must be a breathtaking view."

  I agreed with alacrity. I was also curious how Vienna looked from above at night. I reminded her that later that evening, we should meet with Lolek and wondered what he would have to say about our new situation. We spent the whole afternoon exploring Prater, riding all the devilish tricks and machines. A man could not be bored there. And when dusk fell over the city and the electric lights gave the world its own dimension and mood, Iwona said - now - and led me back to the Ferris wheel, silhouetted against the dark sky. We took our place in the metal gondola and the wheel moved. Our cabin slowly climbed to higher and higher levels and soon we found ourselves over the treetops, roofs, and still were climbing up. Unfortunately, the weather decided to play a joke on us. From over the Danube, clouds suddenly appeared and soon, a clap of thunder was heard, followed by the next one. Soon enough, we were plunged in the middle of a real storm with thunder and lightning. We were lucky that the cabin had a tin roof on which the rain began to patter, playing us a serenade. Iwona snuggled up to me and when I held her, I felt her trembling with emotion. Suddenly, a deafening crash was heard around, and the lightning crossing the sky blinded us for a moment. Iwona cried. I also heard a strange sound unintentionally torn from my throat.

  On the bench in front of us, we suddenly saw our familiar old woman from the train.

  She gave a friendly laugh, seeing the daze of fear we were in.

  "Yes, yes, kids. It's me again. What a pleasant meeting, right?"

  "Yeah... Yeah…" I stammered without conviction.

  "Some herbal tincture of mine?" She pulled out from somewhere the small flask we knew well full of brown liquid.

  "Rather not, thanks. We drank some coffee recently," I muttered, not really to the point. Iwona was not able to utter a single word.

  "You will drink it later in the evening," creaked the old witch and she pressed the small bottle into my hand before I could protest. "And do not forget about your job. Poppy should be born in our country." She added.

  This time, I also was not able to answer. She waved farewell and disappeared in the flash of another lightning and thunder that for a long time resounded, roaring in our ears. Iwona and I remained silent, not talking until our feet touched the solid ground.

  "What does she want from us?" asked Iwona when we were already on the street. "We did not promise her anything."

  We long wondered about this problem, so engrossed by different considerations that we had not even noticed when we got to the gate of the house where lived Lolek with his colleagues.

  "Just not a word about the crone," I warned Iwona. "He’ll tell everybody that we’ve gone mad."

  She agreed with me naturally.

  ***

  Lolek lived on the third floor. There were still four of them. Although my colleague from Warsaw had returned to the country, his bed did not have long to wait for the next passenger. However, now, Lolek was waiting for us alone. His colleagues had gone to the nearby Gasthaus to celebrate something.

  "What???" he shouted when we told him the news. "You're pregnant? Congratulations!!! Well, your problems have been solved."

  "How so?"

  "All you have to do is let this baby be born here. He’ll be a native Austrian citizen and nobody will be able to move you out of here. Remember, do not do stupid things and do not go back to Poland for the birth. Such an opportunity will be lost for him and for you. But, wait a little, this we must celebrate, and yet I’ve got nothing for a drink. I suppose I can just jump out..."

  "No. Do not bother. We both do not drink, but you if you want..."

  My hand hit a rounded shape in my jacket pocket. I put the flask of herbal tincture on the table.

  Lolek unscrewed the bottle, sniffed it and immediately poured himself half a cup. Iwona tried to protest, but he just cried: "For the health of your baby" and drank everything in one gulp.

  "Fair, that stuff," he said, and blew out air with satisfaction.

  We got up and said goodbye. We had yet a long walk home ahead of us. When we were leaving, I noticed that our host was already strangely sleepy and on our way home, we discussed the piece of advice our friend Lolek gave us.

  "We have to say everything to my aunt," decided Iwona. "Now I'm sure of it. If she agrees that we stay with her until the birth, we will stay here. If not, we go back to Poland. I do not want to bear my children in an unfamiliar place. When Poppy grows, he alone can choose where he wants to stay. At least, he will be able to decide of his own free will."

  We wer
e passing a small street named Opelgasse when our attention turned to strange, wistful vocals, wailing rather without words. Several men stood on the sidewalk under a spreading chestnut, listening to this serenade coming from the window of one of the apartments on the upper floor. The girl sat there in the open window and combed her long, greenish hair and her voice was so tempting that I also lifted my head and I could not tear my eyes from her. Iwona tugged at my sleeve.

  "Let's go," she said firmly. "Our house is still far away. Maybe we should use a shnellbahn. There is a station somewhere around."

  "I wonder who it could be?" I asked myself out loud. "Such singing. I’ve never heard someone sing like that."

  "You better not listen," she replied shortly. "It's a Siren. You stay away from her."

  "The Siren on the banks of the Danube?" I asked, surprised. "Or maybe it's a mermaid from Warsaw on vacation?"

  Iwona did not answer. As we walked, I realized the air had a smell of autumn.

  ***

  Contrary to our fears, Iwona’s aunt was very happy.

  "Of course, the child must be born here," she said firmly.

  "Ya, ya" added Hans. He patted me on the shoulder several times and went to his cellar to fetch a bottle of white wine.

  "You two have to marry immediately," Iwona's aunt planned. "Maybe we'll do the wedding in Vienna. I do not know if that's possible. I'll call your mom."

  "After all, we are already... " I started, but I bit my tongue when Iwona kicked me in the shin.

  "Please, Aunt, let me talk first with my mom," Iwona continued negotiating with her aunt while Hans and I sat down with two viertles of white wine in front of the TV. The football match of Austria had just started. It was about a cup of something. Hans and I made a bet for another bottle of wine about how many goals Prohaska would shoot this time.

  ***

  Overall, our situation was great. We had a place to live, we were both working and at the same time, taking a German language course, and in addition we were expecting our first child. All that remained was to wait, to see what would happen next. Winter was approaching, and the situation in Poland had not resulted in the best way. The strikes involved a number of large industrial plants. Solidarity grew in strength. What was going to happen next? This question troubled all the Poles in Vienna.

  We were worried very much that the great national political movement was not going to buckle under the brutal violence of the authorities, or even worse, fraternal "aid-attack" from the east. Daily we watched the news on television where Poland has been always the headline.

  Once, sitting before the colored TV screen and listening to some discussions of government representatives with a group from the opposition, Iwona and I both become stunned for a moment. We saw without a doubt in the crowd on the screen two familiar faces: the Butcher and the Professor. Both were speaking wisely and fiercely debated. And when the discussion turned to Karolczak called Karol, I stood up from my place to turn the TV off, but Iwona stopped me abruptly.

  "Look!" she cried out loud. "It's her!"

  Yes, our Baba Yaga in her wire glasses was writing something in a notebook. She must have taken a swing of her good herbal tincture, because once again, she had turned into a bald cock and yet, nobody was surprised.

  "What could she be doing over there?" Iwona wondered.

  "Maybe she is acting as the official spokeswoman."

  "Do you think that those punks can come to power?"

  "I hope that Solidarity will not allow them to, but in politics, anything is possible."

  "Still, it is so lucky that Poppy will be born here. Now that I think about it, it really is for the best. By the way, what happened to Lolek? He hasn’t shown up for a long time."

  "I heard that he returned to Poland, right on the second day after our visit and no one knows really why."

  We looked at each other seriously.

  "Do you think it was the herbal tincture of Baba Yaga?" asked Iwona.

  "I'm afraid that yes. Someone had to go back with them after all. We failed, so it ended up being him. But I bet nothing good can come out of this exchange. He is smart, yes, but hard working? Probably he now operates all the phone booths in Warsaw."

  "Do you think so? But over there, every other public phone is broken. I think he’s rather trading hard currencies somewhere on the street market."

  Meanwhile, over Poland, inexorably dark clouds slowly crept across the blue sky.

  Back to ToC

  Few candlelight stories

  Do you like spending relaxing evenings with your friends, a glass of red wine in your hand, the crimson liquid shimmering under the yellow glare of the candlelight? Do you like listening to their stories about things that happened directly to them, or more often, to someone they know, or even more often, to someone known by the person they know? Do you like to listen to the night insects play their monotonous music at night while the pale moon shows its mysterious face in the small, square window of the room in the country house where you and your guests have gathered? Do you like hearing stories that seem strange and impossible during the day?

  Now, at night, the things called impossible do not exist. That’s why you have to be cautious. Very cautious. Do you really know all the people gathered around this small table with the burning candles and the bottle of red wine, which is tinted just like blood? If you are not sure that you know all those faces protruding from the darkness with their excited expression and their eyes shining in the candlelight like the eyes of wolves, well, be careful beyond all imagination, because impossible things can happen and once they do, you will be in for an evening you will surely never forget.

  ***

  The wooden villa near Otwock was surrounded by a wired fence among the pine grove, peaceful and quiet, the perfect place for someone who wanted to live away from the hustle and bustle of the city, from the glitches of the trams and the smell of the car exhausts. A quiet, still house in a quiet, peaceful place.

  "Yes, I would like to live in the place like this when I retire," I joked as I approached the metal gate.

  "Before you start to think about retirement, you must begin to work," said Halinka, my friend from college and current girlfriend, soberly.

  She was studying at the Faculty of English Studies, University of Warsaw, and although we were both on our last year of University, the prospect of work still seemed distant to us. Maybe subconsciously, we were chasing out of our minds the thought that soon we would become like our parents, this other, confusing human race (with which there is nothing really to talk about), revolving around the boring and irrelevant matters of life, such as the bills for electricity and gas while dismissing the really important things such as the Top Twenty of Radio Luxembourg hit list, so casually, as if it was possible to live normally without them.

  I raised my hand to press the white button located on one of the gateposts.

  Barbara, Halinka's friend from school, had inherited this house after the death of her grandmother. She had moved here and despite the protests of her parents, lived alone in this sanctuary, calling it her new headquarters. This was a dream place to encourage the development of her inner self, something she had been seeking fervently since she studied at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Warsaw. So far, she was still engaged in this pursuit and I wondered if today's meeting had something to do with it or if it was just an ordinary private party to boost our morale and preserve the memories of our student days, the end of which was approaching relentlessly.

  We heard a buzzer and the gate opened before us. Barbara stood on the porch, waiting for us with the inviting smile of a hostess.

  "It's nice that you came," she said, taking from my hands the bottle of red wine I brought with me.

  "We are still missing Basia and Piotrek but they are probably coming by the next train."

  She led us right into the living room where we found Nina already sitting on the couch. Of course, with her was the inherent Jacek while und
er the window sat a guy whom Barbara presented to us with a mysterious expression:

  "Karl, my friend from Munich."

  We knew that she was recently in Germany and that she had friends there, but he looked to us like someone more than a mere acquaintance. A thread of familiarity connected these two. Something visibly intimate lay between them.

  Just as Barbara had predicted, within half an hour, the bell rang and Basia, with her boyfriend, Piotrek, appeared in the parlor.

  "Well, we're all here," said Barbara after greeting the new arrivals and introducing them to Karl and vice versa. We all drank herbal tea and nibbled petit fours while beyond the windows of the living room; the sky was slowly getting gray. From time to time, we could hear a dog barking nearby on his chain, or the hooting of an owl somewhere in the forest among the trees. Other than those, silence reigned all around. We sat there listening to the almost uninterrupted silence. For us, the people of the city, it was very surprising to the extent that even the girls stopped talking to each other just to hear it.

  "No wonder you call this place the Sanctuary," Halinka finally spoke. "It is indeed a temple of peace. Do you not feel uncomfortable here sometimes, especially at night?"

  "Because it is quiet? That's what I love the most about this place, this infinite peace. Do not think, however, that at night, it is really so quiet here. When night falls and the forest falls asleep, then the house wakes up. It is all wood and a wooden structure, as explained to me by one engineer I know, is never completely rigid. Something around it creaks, squeaks, moans and groans, mostly just at night, when no noises could be heard from the outside. Sometimes, I feel as if the house is talking to me, as if it is telling me old stories for bedtime. But I know that it's doing it out of sympathy for me, so I don’t feel scared at all."

  Barbara stood up and pulled out of a drawer in the dresser eight white candles. She placed them on tiny saucers around the top plate of the round table standing in the middle of the living room, and next to each candle, she set a crystal wine glass.