“They could leave. They could go to Israel. But the ones who stayed here, we did not hate them. There was a Jewish boy in my class, Kopelman. He was not our good friend, but it did not matter. The truth is, he kept to himself. He was not one of us. It was as if he could not hear us. So what Kopelman said to us also did not matter.” Marek raised his head and looked at her. “I am not saying this was a good thing, but it is not like these people think.”
Ellen tried to imagine what it would be like to live among people who did not see or hear her. “To me, that would be an unbearable way to live.”
“Then don’t come to Poland,” he said.
She could not believe how brutal the conversation had become.
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I am not explaining it very well. To me, it is sad that Poland lost its Jews. It is a different country now than the one my grandparents knew. My grandmother says, ‘The spice is gone. Now we all taste like potatoes.’”
She was surprised by the sweet smile that appeared when he spoke of his grandmother.
“My grandmother’s best friend was a Jewish girl,” he said. “From when I was very young, she told me about this girl and her family. The stories of the Jews are her best stories, how they played together and how wonderful it was, and the Jewish festivals. It was my grandmother who sang me their songs. She did not know the words, only the tunes. Maybe there were no words. I don’t know.”
Ellen was amazed and touched by this. “Do other people like your grandmother’s stories too?”
He nodded. “People don’t know how to say it, but in a way, I think they miss the Jews. Our generation does not have these Jewish friends like my grandmother had.”
Ellen heard the contradiction between this sentiment and the anger he had expressed toward Jews like his schoolmate Kopelman, and toward others whom he somehow held responsible for depriving the Poles of their full measure of martyrdom during the war, and for being able to escape to Israel. She wasn’t sure he realized this. “What do people miss about the Jews?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. For some people, it is nostalgia for another time. For me, it is something I hear in their music. It is very powerful, this emotion they had. I hear prayers in the notes. And these prayers are hidden everywhere, like the covered-over Jewish words, Hebrew street signs, and store names on the doors in Kazimierz. You have seen this?”
“Sort of,” she admitted. But what he was saying made her uncomfortable. It was as if the Poles, now free of the constraints of real relationships with Jews, were enjoying a romantic, unthreatening Fiddler on the Roof fantasy of who they wanted them to be. It was creepy, a form of necrophilia.
A round woman, her hands and apron covered with flour, poked her head out of the kitchen and wiped her wide brow with her wrist. Her eyes were short slits in the heavy mass of her face. She said something to Marek in Polish.
“I have to eat my dinner now, before people start to come,” he told Ellen. “Would you like to join me? The cook says she will make you a plate too. We can sit over there.” He pointed to a small table next to the kitchen door.
“I’d like that very much,” Ellen said, relieved that they had made peace, however unsettling.
While Marek went to get their food, Ellen sat down at the table and inhaled the smells of Grandma Sadie’s kitchen, the chicken and onions, the chopped liver, and the fried chicken skin her grandparents called griebenes. How she missed them.
Marek returned bearing two heaping plates of roasted chicken and cooked vegetables. Ellen liked the way he enjoyed what she used to call “Grandma food.”
“Smacznego,” Marek said as they began. “That is Polish for bon appétit.”
“Smacznego,” Ellen repeated.
“Not so bad, for an American.” He smiled.
“The chicken’s very good,” she said. “But speaking of very good, how do you know English so well?”
He smiled slightly. “My mother teaches English. Also, when I was nineteen, I was sent on a special program to a music conservatory in London. I learned more English there, and I made friends. We are still, as you say, in touch.” He smiled.
She wondered if the friends included a girlfriend and felt a jab of jealousy. “Have you traveled much?”
“Not so much as I would like. Not enough money. Too much politics. It is not easy, being from Poland.” His smile seemed less certain.
“I understand,” she said. “Being American has a way of making traveling easier. Of course, there was the time I was the one American around for an anti-American demonstration in Lima. That was a treat.” She rolled her eyes, enjoying the admiring way he now looked at her. It seemed the right time to ask him on an adventure. “Marek, have you ever heard of a town called Zokof?”
He seemed surprised but not displeased with the question. “No, I do not know it. What province is it in?”
She pulled her map of Poland from her purse and pointed to the town.
“Oh, yes,” he said brightly. “It is near Radom.” He leaned over her and the map with a gentle familiarity. “It is very possible that your song was from there. They were famous for their music in that area.”
“My song?” She laughed, feeling the warmth of his skin. “It sounds a lot better as your song, believe me. My grandfather used to murder the tune.”
Marek laughed for the first time since she’d arrived. She liked the sure, masculine sound of it.
“Your family is from Zokof?”
“My grandfather was born there. When my father was in Warsaw about a year and a half ago, he visited, just to see it.” She was careful to add, “It was sort of a last minute thing,” because she didn’t want Marek to think of her father as one of those mourning Jews. “He met an old man who lives there.”
“A Jew?”
“Yes, why?” Ellen’s nervous defenses rose again.
“Because I have never met a Jew from that region. I think they are almost all gone.”
Ellen was relieved he didn’t say they’d left.
“He might be able to tell us something about your grandfather’s song. Did you tell your father that you heard it here in Kraków?”
“My father died last December.” It was still hard for her to say this, and she was grateful when he put his hand on hers in a consoling way.
“I am very sorry,” he said.
“Thanks,” she responded quickly, having become unhappily used to the etiquette of condolence.
“Maybe this Jew in Zokof remembers some music from the old days. That would be very interesting,” Marek said hopefully, as if trying to cheer her.
“Maybe,” she said halfheartedly.
“The only way to learn about these songs in the small towns is to talkto people who remember them,” he pressed on gamely. “In the cities it is easier. For example, I can find a lot of information about the music of Mordechaj Gebirtig because he was from Kazimierz. You know Gebirtig?”
Ellen looked at him blankly.
“The man who wrote the song about the town on fire, ‘Undzer Shtetl Brent.’ It is very famous. I am certain your grandfather sang that to you too.”
She felt foolish. “No, he only sang the ‘For-a-GirlTune.’ That’s what I called it. I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of Mordechaj Gebirtig.”
Marek shook his head. “You should know about this history as much as you know about Auschwitz. It would give you something to be proud about.”
Ellen made a face. “It’s not like I know so much about Auschwitz either.”
“Well, you are not going to learn that from me. But I could teach you something about Jewish music.” His smile teased her.
“I bet you could.”
“We could go together to Zokof. I could take you in my car,” he said. “A week from Tuesday maybe?”
Ellen nodded yes, her insides fluttering.
29
DURING MONDAY’S CLASS, ELLEN LEANED AGAINST THE STUDIO wall, thinking of Marek. Thinking of Marek had by then become something of a pastime,
and a tension-easer. She replayed and reexamined their conversations, minus the moments of disagreement. She thought about the tab of beard he wore under his lower lip, the warm look of his eyes, his lovely accent, the smooth, inviting feel of his skin. This is the stuff of high school. Too much distraction, she told herself. To no avail.
Pronaszko rose from his chair. “Ellen,” he said, with a suggestion of a bow, “the class is yours to finish.” He smiled, gracious as a prince.
She hopped to her feet, having almost forgotten that she had asked for a half hour to work with the company that day. “Sure!” she said, annoyed at herself for sounding like an eager kid.
The company stirred warily.
“Let’s start one at a time across the floor.” She pointed to the far corner. “Work with the idea of weight, how it pulls your body forward, backward, or sideways.” She waited out Andrzej’s translation, making circles on the floor with her pointed toe, purposely not demonstrating. She wanted to see how inventive they were, what ideas they had about movement. The only instruction she added was, “As you cross the floor, increase your weightedness.”
The dancers slowly began to move, en masse, toward the designated corner, where they wadded themselves together like prisoners trying to avoid notice. Ellen saw in their improvisations a resistance to venturing past the boundaries of their classical training. They approached the task given them without joy or curiosity. It was evident to her that their cooperation rested entirely on Pronaszko’s heavy presence in the room. When he finally stood and called class to an end, both he and the dancers quickly gathered their belongings and left the studio.
Andrzej the translator stayed where he was, posed in what he must have imagined was the perfect Bob Fosse jazz stance. Ellen found this disconcerting, especially since nothing in the flat, pale blueness of his eyes gave her any indication of why he was lingering. She needed the time to work alone, and rifled through her bag for another pair of leg warmers, hoping he’d get the message. Finding them, she sat down.
Andrzej stared at her. “How do you choreograph from that chaos you made with us?” he half whispered, clearly not wanting the few stragglers near the door to see him questioning her.
Ellen, appreciating the delicacy of the moment, bunched her striped blue leg warmers around her ankles and slowly pulled them up. She waited for the other dancers to leave. “I let things get wild so I can get to the outer edge of what I’m going for,” she told him. “Then I shape the movements and layer them with music and words and the set. You know what I mean?”
Eyes on the door, he nodded, but Ellen thought he looked unsure. “This is interesting,” he said, not unkindly. He stole a glance at her in the mirror. “I thought perhaps we could go for a coffee after class tomorrow.”
The invitation was so tentative it was almost endearing. Still, there was a calculated guardedness about him that Ellen did not like or trust.
“Thanks, I’d really like that, but I have plans.” She smiled, anticipating her day in Zokof with Marek. “Actually, I won’t be here tomorrow.”
His eyes widened at the rebuff, then narrowed as he seemed to consider whether to believe her. “Some other time,” he said, his lips flattening into a smile without mirth.
“Definitely.”
He stretched into second position on the floor. “I am curious about the dance you are making for us.”
Ellen closed her dance bag and crossed the floor, hoping he would leave so she could get started. “I’m still working on it.”
He didn’t seem interested in leaving. “Do you choose your principal dancers from the improvisation technique?”
“No, I choose them by the type of movements they do best. When I need those kinds of movements, I put those dancers in.” She knew he was lobbying for a lead part, and she hoped he had the political sense not to ask her.
He shook his head suggestively, letting the angle cut of his hair fly. “You have ideas about how I move best?”
“Not yet,” she said curtly. “Actually, I was planning to work on the piece now.”
It was clear from the momentary tightness in his face that he understood he was being dismissed, but he tried once more. “Maybe I could show you how the movements look on a man.”
She smiled at recognizing this old dancer ploy, that once she saw his interpretation of a movement she would be more inclined to give it to him. She couldn’t resist teasing him. “I always like seeing how a movement looks on a man.”
“So do I,” he said slowly.
She realized this was a confession when he jumped nervously to his feet and muttered a quick good bye.
After the door had closed behind him, Ellen faced the mirror and led herself around with an outstretched arm, like Marek in her dream, holding the rod above his head, beckoning. She began to hum the “For a Girl Tune.”
30
YOU HAVE A MESSAGE,” THE FRONT DESK CLERK TOLD ELLEN when she returned to the Palace Hotel later that afternoon.
My group is playing in łódź tomorrow. Last minute engagement. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Maybe we can go to Zokof again another day. I hope you have a good visit with your friend. Call me at the Ariel Café, if you like.
Marek.
Ellen called the Ariel Café.
“Marek is not here,” the receptionist said. “I am sorry. I do not know where you can call him. The musicians are separate from the restaurant.”
“Could I leave him a note?”
“Of course,” the woman said empathetically.
Within an hour, Ellen had delivered it to her. It said:
Marek,
I’m sorry too. I was looking forward to our going to Zokof together. Until we meet again, I’ll be humming the “For a Girl Tune” and thinking of you.
Ellen.
She added her telephone number and hoped the message sounded more jaunty than needy.
Now she was sorry she had ever mentioned to her mother that Marek was driving her to Zokof. That had set off all her mother’s alarms. “What do you know about this boy?” she’d demanded, as if her daughter hadn’t any street sense of her own.
Ellen wasn’t having any of it. “Mom, he plays klezmer music every week at the Ariel Café. That’s as close to a nice Jewish boy as you can get in Poland.” She could hear her mother fretting on the other end.
“Why couldn’t you hire a reputable driver through the hotel?”
“Mom, stop worrying about Marek. I haven’t gotten myself raped or killed yet.”
Her mother emitted one of her exhausted sighs. “Don’t be smart with me. You don’t know where this boy is from or how he thinks. Ellen, you know better. A woman alone over there is a target.”
“That’s why I’ll feel a lot safer going to Zokof with him than with a strange driver.” To her relief, her mother was temporarily stumped by this argument and let the matter drop.
Now, as Ellen stood outside the Ariel Café, the sky had clouded up over Szeroka Square. The first fat drops of rain had begun. Ellen knew that in Kraków this meant a thorough soaking was coming and that she needed to find shelter until the storm passed. The weather was a setback in getting things together for her trip. She’d sent Rafael a letter telling him to expect her. She had to buy fresh produce, pack up the provisions she was bringing him, and make sure she brought the traveler’s checks she’d bought with funds from her father’s trust account, the balance of which she intended to give him in full. Her memory of the trust’s language—in the event of the incapacity or death of the undersigned—gave Ellen a moment of raw grief so painful she had trouble breathing.
She crossed the square in the rain, over the great expanse of paved stone, tears flowing, her body hurting. She thought she’d take a shortcut to the tram stop, through a street behind the square. But her path was blocked by the strange fortresslike building that stood at the southern end. She didn’t know what it was.
The stone architecture was a confusion of rectangles, arched doorways, buttressed walls, and a parapet
. On its left side, the whole edifice seemed to have been torn apart and was collapsing like a classical landscape into a deep grassy pit the size of a city street.
She noticed a recessed doorway on the far right side of the building. The rain had begun to fall in sheets, and she ran to it for shelter. There was a sign near the entrance door: The Old Synagogue, Museum of History and Culture of Kraków Jewry.
Tentatively, she opened the door, walked into a darkened vestibule, and found herself in an almost bare sanctuary, inexplicably bathed in white light. The light so reminded her of her dream of Marek and the old woman in the window, she hesitated before taking a few cautious steps farther. A cool draft blew her wet hair.
In the center of the hall stood an enclosed circular balustrade. Its delicately crafted wrought iron bars curved to a pinnacle on top, like a giant birdcage. Despite the sunless sky, the white light poured through the windows around the chamber, illuminating the ceiling’s rib vaults, which flowed delicately onto several slender stone columns. The whole effect was elegant, yet intimate.
Ellen’s cowboy boots echoed on the stone floor, reminding her of how carefully she’d tried to walk in Wawel Cathedral to soften their sound. But this white place was nothing like the dark, ornate Wawel, which had made her feel dwarfed amid the outsized sarcophagi and the soaring heights of its walls.
Near the entry wall stood a short, stocky woman in a brown nubby suit, one stiff hand curled protectively over the other.
“Excuse me. Do you speak English?” Ellen asked her in Polish.
With a restrained smile, the woman nodded.
“Do you know anything about this place?”
The woman nodded again. “This is the prayer hall of the oldest Jewish religious building in Poland, dating from the fifteenth century. It was once the seat of the Jewish community. Several hundred people could worship here together. Some of the outer walls rise to about seventy feet and were part of the city’s walled defenses.” She spoke methodically, with a British accent, as if reading from a tour book.
A Day of Small Beginnings Page 26