Home Is Nearby

by Magdalena McGuire

  ‘It’s worked out well for both of us,’ I said. ‘You get a nice bit of political corruption for your story and I get some metal for my art.’

  Dominik laughed. ‘You’ve changed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re not that innocent girl from the country anymore.’

  ‘Ha,’ I said. ‘Must be your influence.’

  I was carving into my egg cutlet when a girl in a mini-skirt sidled up to us. ‘Dominik!’ she said, grabbing onto him with her smile. ‘I loved your article about the strikes. You know, when I read it I felt like I was right there with you.’ She glanced at me and said, ‘He’s a great writer, isn’t he.’

  ‘Where are my manners?’ Dominik said. ‘Ania, this is Mischa. And Mischa, this is my girlfriend – soon to be fiancée – Ania.’ As Mischa rearranged her tray in her hands, Dominik told me she was an economist. ‘Precisely what our country needs right now,’ he said.

  ‘Not that anyone listens to our advice,’ she said. ‘Look at the mess we’re in.’

  ‘We were just talking about that,’ Dominik said. ‘Come to think of it, I could do with your help with an article I’m writing. Shall we meet up sometime, maybe next week?’

  ‘I’d love to.’ She glanced at me – triumphantly, I thought – and then said goodbye, her long legs striding away.

  I picked at my cutlet. ‘How do you know her?’

  ‘Oh, from around.’ Dominik pushed back his chair, the legs scraping against the tiled floor. ‘Actually we used to go out. Nothing serious, you understand. Just fun.’

  ‘Just fun … And Małgorzata? What about her?’ I knew I sounded petulant but I wanted things to be out in the open.

  ‘Małgorzata?’ Dominik’s eyes widened and then he caved in and gave a shrug. ‘You know she likes to have fun too. We did, for a while. Again, nothing serious. She’s a woman of the world. Ask Krzysio.’

  ‘Krzysio? That’s not possible. Is it?’

  Dominik gave me an amused smile. ‘What? He’s not allowed to experiment?’ He reached out and took my hand in his. ‘All that stuff with Małgorzata and the other girls is behind us, Aniusieńka. You’re the one I want.’

  12

  The welding torch crackled as I switched it on, releasing its electric charge. It zapped against the metal, shooting tiny bolts of light. Heat flared next to my gloved hands. Perspiration streaked the lenses of my welding helmet. I waited for the torch to fuse the disc to the end of the rod, watching as the metal glowed red. When the two pieces had joined I switched off the torch. The metal hardened once more.

  Next to me was a hollow face, nearly my size, made of bronze. The sculpture regarded me with holes-for-eyes as I pushed my helmet onto my head. I was in the workshop of a well-known sculptor who was a friend of the professor’s. The sculptor had allowed me access to the place after hours, saying that he liked to encourage Professor Jankowski’s protégés. On my first day in the workshop he and the professor had given me a lesson in welding. I was armoured with a helmet and long gloves so that the torch wouldn’t burn the hair off my arms. I was relieved to find that welding wasn’t difficult. The professor’s friend had said, ‘You’ve got a steady hand. You say you’ve never done this before?’ Never, I told him. ‘But my father’s a headstone carver,’ I said, ‘so I know my way around tools.’ Looking relieved, he had told me that in that case, I wouldn’t require babysitting from him.

  The car parts were scattered on the workshop floor. As entranced as I’d been with their shapes, I had decided to change them, using an electric saw to remove the inner hexagon so that I was left with the outer ring. For all the talk of me being a natural with the tools, I’d ruined the first few discs that I tried to dissect and was glad that neither the professor nor his friend were there to see it. My later attempts were better, leaving me with five rings that I joined together with short metal rods, stacking them on top of each other in the manner of a totem pole.

  I switched the torch back on and fused the bottom ring to a metal base so that the sculpture stood upright. This done, I took some photos for Dominik. He was going to include a picture of the sculpture with his article. Though the sculpture wasn’t yet finished, he wanted a picture of it in this form, before I’d covered it with feathers. It would be more impactful if people could view the metal clearly, he said. I would have preferred that people see my sculpture in its finished state, but it was Dominik’s article. He knew what would work best.

  After taking the photos, I untied one of the hessian sacks that Father had arranged to be transported to Wrocław. There were three sacks in all. The two larger ones contained feathers from pigeons and chickens. The third, smaller sack, held the feathers of crows. Along with the sacks, Father had sent me two jars of honey and a letter in which he described the goings-on of the village.

  I sank my hand into a sack of feathers, stroking their down and the hard lines of their quills. As I inhaled the tang of bird droppings and dirt, I pictured Father throwing kitchen scraps to the chickens, shooing away the bossier ones so the others could eat. Father and I had been collecting the feathers for as long as I could remember. ‘You just happened to have these lying around the house?’ Dominik had asked when he saw them. ‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘what’s wrong with that?’ ‘Nothing, but you’re going to have to curb this hoarding of yours if we’re going to live together in a one-room apartment,’ he’d said. ‘Otherwise there won’t be room for us, let alone our tribe of children.’

  I picked up a crow feather and held it against the metal sculpture. The feather’s purple-black sheen was luxurious but too dark for this piece, I decided. The pigeon feathers and the paler chicken feathers would be perfect. I assessed my sculpture, making up my mind to leave the bottom disc as it was. The second one would be covered with a smattering of feathers the colours of ivory and ash. Gradually the feathers would consume the discs, so that the metal of the top disc was hidden entirely.

  Feathers drifted to the workbench as I separated the dark ones from the light. When I had a good selection I cut them in half and put aside the quilled ends. Then I started to glue the tips onto the discs, carefully arranging them side by side. Having completed a row of feathers on the inner rim of a disc, I started on the next row, overlapping them like scales. In time, the feathers transformed the metal into something eerie and delicate and soft to touch. This piece was called Flight.

  There was a meditative quality to this part of the job, the gluing, the arranging and smoothing of feathers. One feather was the white-peach of a baby’s skin. Another was charcoal and blonde. The task was so absorbing that I forgot where I was – even who I was. Past and future disappeared, erasing me, so that nothing was left but the work.

  I jumped when I realised someone was calling my name. Professor Jankowski’s friend was standing at the door. ‘You scared me,’ I said.

  Without smiling, he said, ‘There’s a man on the phone for you.’ He gestured for me to follow.

  I was taken aback by his curt manner, and checking my watch, noted it was time for obiad. The phone call had probably interrupted his meal. He led me into a house that gleamed with wooden furniture and pointed me to the telephone in the living room. I took the receiver. My hands were dirty and I pried my fingers away, trying to minimise contact with the phone.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, as he moved to another room.

  ‘Ania.’ It was Dominik. The waver of his voice made my heart skip a beat.

  ‘Are you alright?’ I pressed the receiver harder against my ear. ‘Dominik?’

  ‘I’m at the hospital.’

  My knuckles strained as I clutched the phone. ‘You’re hurt.’

  ‘No. It’s Krzysio.’

  13

  Dominik and I sat in his room, my fingers picking at the tasselled rug as I tried to understand how this could have happened. All I could think about was Krzysio lying on the hospital bed, his face lurid with bruises. One was a purple rod against his cheek. Another swelled blue around his eye. A
section of his forehead was bandaged. The shock of it had made me want to flee the room. I didn’t know how his mother could bear it. She sat by his side, stroking his hand. ‘Your friends are here,’ she had said, leaning close to her son. His chest rose and fell underneath the white sheet. Dominik had put his arm around Krzysio’s mother and taken her into the corridor for a cigarette. I watched as she leaned her head against him and cried.

  Dominik stilled my hand to stop me from picking at the rug. He kissed my eyelids, my brow.

  Last night, Krzysio and Dariusz had been walking past the botanical gardens when they were beaten up by two militiamen. There was a witness to the event, an old man who lived in an apartment block close by. The old man had taken his dog outside to urinate when he saw the militiamen attack. He said that Krzysio and Dariusz lay on the ground as the militiamen kicked them with their boots and pummelled them with truncheons. According to the old man, it was only five minutes after curfew.

  I wiped my nose with the back of my arm. ‘Five minutes …’

  It was Dominik’s turn to pick at the rug. ‘The old man said they were holding hands.’

  ‘So the curfew was just an excuse?’

  ‘I guess,’ he said. ‘That’s what happens when thugs get high on power.’

  Dariusz was in a special care unit and wasn’t allowed visitors. The militiamen had beaten him so hard that they’d broken three of his ribs. He was bleeding inside his body. Apparently the hospital had called his parents to tell them they needed to come to Wrocław straightaway. I thought of Father getting a phone call like that and wrapped my arms around my stomach.

  ‘There’s really nothing we can do?’ I said.

  Dominik tipped his head back, releasing the bulge of his Adam’s apple. ‘There’s not much point in reporting a crime to the same people who committed it.’

  ‘So we do nothing.’

  ‘They’ll want to keep this hidden. Our job is to get it out in the open.’

  A shrine marked the spot where Krzysio and Dariusz had been beaten. Dominik took me there on the way to his place. Candles were wedged in the earth around the base of a birch tree. A handwritten placard was nailed to the trunk. It informed people that, “On this spot, two students were attacked by militiamen.” It stated that the students had done nothing to provoke the attack and were now both in hospital. Beneath the placard, a bunch of carnations was tied to the tree. Dominik told me that more shrines like this had cropped up around the country. ‘For other people who’ve been assaulted?’ I had asked. ‘Assaulted, yeah,’ he said. ‘Or worse.’

  Dominik pressed his fingers to his eyes. ‘I’m exhausted. Tell me about something good. Tell me about your sculpture.’

  That all seemed like a long time ago. Without any real enthusiasm, I told him about my piece. I retrieved the camera. ‘Here you go. There are some shots of the dumped metal as well as the sculpture. Without the feathers, like you asked. And who knows what else Małgorzata has got on the film.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about my article.’ Dominik jiggled the film cartridge in his palm. ‘Your sculpture’s given me an idea about how to end it on a more lyrical note. After all that stuff about political corruption and waste, I’m going to write about how resourceful our artists are. About how that symbolises the Polish people in general, that we can make something out of nothing.’ He placed the cartridge on the floor. ‘Anyway, that’s the gist of it. I still have to figure out how to put it eloquently. And we’ll have to choose a pseudonym for you, to go with the picture of your sculpture. What about ‘The Sparrow’? That’s a nice play on Skowrońska.’

  I took the film from him. It weighed almost nothing. I thought back to Krzysio lying on the hospital bed with his battered body. And Dariusz, who was so badly hurt that we weren’t allowed to see him.

  My thumb and forefinger gripped the cartridge. ‘I don’t want a pseudonym,’ I said. ‘I want you to use my name.’

  14

  After what happened to my friends, I lost the impetus to work. What good was sculpture at a time like this? Unlike Dominik’s writing, it couldn’t change the world. For the next couple of weeks, I stopped going to the workshop and skipped many of my classes. It was Małgorzata who pulled me into line. She visited me at the dormitory one afternoon, the small mound of her belly showing under her geometric-print dress. I was still in my nightgown. Małgorzata said, ‘You look like you’ve swallowed a cup of vinegar. Stop moping about – that’s not going to do anyone any good.’ Sitting next to me on the bed, she told me a story. She said that Ryszard remembered going to the theatre a few years after the war had ended. There’d been a blackout and everyone, including the children, waited in the dark for two hours, without complaint, until the lights came back on. When the play started they all stood up and clapped. The point was, Małgorzata said, that people needed art. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I had told her. ‘Of course I’m right!’ she said. ‘When have I ever been wrong?’

  I returned to the workshop to complete my sculpture. What Małgorzata said was true, but I still wanted to feel that my work was useful in some way, that it wasn’t an indulgence. As I glued the remaining feathers onto my sculpture I had an inspiration. Perhaps Małgorzata and I could curate an exhibition of artworks that responded to martial law. A lot of students at the Academy were making this sort of work, why didn’t we show it? Małgorzata liked the idea but said we couldn’t use her apartment. ‘Last time my neighbour complained about the noise. If we keep her little darlings awake again, she might report us.’ However, Małgorzata knew of someone who might be able to help.

  We went to see the priest at the Church of Three Saints, who was a well-known Solidarność activist. His church was a gothic building made of stone, with ash trees in the garden. There was a single white crucifix by the entrance. Małgorzata and I made our way inside and came upon the priest in a back office. A handful of women in floral house dresses were with him, organising food parcels for people in prison. The priest gave us a crooked-toothed smile and told us that he would host our exhibition, provided we made sure everyone cleared out well before curfew. As we left, he held the door open for us and said, ‘If you’d like to collect donations for the church, these would be most welcome.’

  The exhibition opened in late spring, on a Tuesday afternoon. People filed in quietly, stopping to dip their fingers in holy water and cross themselves, shoulder to shoulder, forehead to chest. Inside, the church smelt of old prayers. Stained-glass windows threw fragments of colour onto the stone floor.

  Though Małgorzata had been the one to secure the church as an exhibition space, I took the lead role in curating the show. I had anticipated that the bulk of my time would be spent selecting the artworks for the exhibition. Very quickly, I learned that the key part of my job was to delicately manage the artists’ egos and insecurities. I sympathised with them. To be an artist, you needed to let yourself be so vulnerable and porous that you could feel – very acutely – the joy and pain of the world. Yet, at the same time, you had to remain tough in the face of obstacles and criticism. It was a tremendous risk, putting your dreams and fears on display for everyone to judge. I could see how it made people crazy with anxiety. I sensed that, like me, some of the artists felt like frauds.

  For my part, I had been so busy orchestrating the show that any insecurities regarding my own sculpture had all but disappeared. My focus was consumed by the need to bring to life a collective vision. It was rewarding – and precisely what I needed at this point in time – to be part of something bigger than myself. I had overcome my fear that art was an indulgence. I understood that this show was important.

  Looking around the exhibition, I took immense satisfaction in how it had come together. After clearing the pews, we had stacked wooden crates in the nave of the church. The photographs and smaller sculptures were displayed on top of the crates. The larger sculptures, and the installation piece, were freestanding. The priest hadn’t wanted us to remove the holy pictures hanging from the wall
s. For this reason we positioned the larger paintings on the floor, leaning them against the slate walls.

  For the exhibition, Małgorzata had created a series of photographs about the people who were missing from our lives because of martial law. People who had been interned or, as in a couple of cases, had simply disappeared. She had approached their families and asked them to choose an object that represented the person they’d lost. Among the items she’d photographed were a pair of brown shoes, their laces worn at the ends; a mug adorned with a photo of the Pope; and a cushion embroidered with folk-style flowers and trees. Simple, everyday items that any of us could own. Objects of the Missing was, in my opinion, her most affecting piece of work.

  One of the students from the Academy had created a huge painting on hessian, called History Repeats, which displayed a shadowy figure lying face-down on a forest floor. This was a clear reference to the Stalinist massacre in Katyń and the work was more politically charged than aesthetically interesting. However, the artist had been so passionate about our exhibition, and had spoken so clearly about the links between Stalinism and martial law, that I told him we would display his piece. A more interesting painting was Parts Between Us. Composed entirely of shades of blue and green, it showed a man sitting on a wicker chair in a room without windows, his head in his hands. The painting made me feel lonely without being able to pinpoint why.