Madame

by Antoni Libera

  ‘Well, but you have to go home in any case. Wouldn’t you rather have company?’

  ‘Of course. I’m just wondering if this awful weather will help our conversation. I rather doubt it.’

  ‘Well, it won’t hurt. And walls . . . well, you know . . .’

  ‘Walls? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Walls have ears!’ he enunciated with the emphasis one gives to a truth so obvious that it needs no saying, and strode toward the hall.

  I followed, increasingly tense.

  ‘Turn off the light in my study, would you?’ he asked as he put on his coat.

  I went back obediently and pressed the button in the wooden base of the lamp. In the dark, an image remained imprinted on my retina: the image of the sheet of paper in the typewriter. At the top, in the left-hand corner, it bore Constant’s name and address, and below it, slightly to the right, the words ‘Minister of Internal Affairs’. Below that, in the centre, was one word in capital letters: ‘COMPLAINT’.

  ‘I’ve found your gloves!’ came Constant’s voice from the hall.

  ‘Where were they?’ I called back, coming out of the study.

  ‘On the hanger, behind the rail. They were hidden behind my hat.’ He handed them to me.

  ‘Well, shall we go?’

  ‘Yes, let’s go.’

  The bolt rasped as it was drawn back.

  ¡No pasarán!

  Although I had no reason to fear that the door to this Aladdin’s cave would close suddenly – Constant’s promise and the enigmatic wariness that followed it were guarantee enough of his intentions – prudence demanded that I mobilise what resources I had for the conversation that lay ahead. This meant reaching into my memory and summoning up any knowledge I might find it useful to draw upon, as a prop or even as a kind of incantation.

  What did I know about the Spanish civil war? What had I heard about it? How was it presented in the propaganda?

  In school we concentrated mainly on Polish history, straying from it seldom and mostly to episodes in the history of other nations that were somehow connected with our own. The Napoleonic campaigns, the Austro-Hungarian empire and the fall of the tsars in Russia were the main topics of general historical instruction; mention may also have been made of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune. As for modern history, our picture of world events was entirely dominated by the Russian Revolution and Hitler: two centres of the world, two monstrous nuclei around which everything else turned.

  The Russian Revolution was a ‘turning point in history’, a miraculous event which cured Russia of her ills, transformed her, within a short space of time, from the most backward to the most progressive of societies and heralded the dawn of freedom for all the nations of the world. Thanks to it, the oppressed peoples of the world arose and began to fight for their rights, and Poland regained the independence she had earlier (and quite rightly) lost as a result of giving ‘magnates’ and ‘the nobility’ free rein to indulge their lordly whims and allowing the ‘propertied classes’ the run of the country.

  But such is the way of this best of all possible worlds that all good is immediately countered by evil. The Promethean fire which the ‘great Russian nation’ had gone to such efforts to kindle at once became the target of vicious attacks from forces hostile to humanity. Unfortunately our own country, too, was among them, and played a truly despicable role in the drama. ‘The Polish aristocrats, under the leadership of Joseph Pilsudski, a bourgeois nationalist and counterrevolutionary’, instead of being grateful to the Soviet Union for overthrowing the rule of the tsars, waged a war against it, which by a regrettable stroke of pure luck they won – to the detriment of all: their own nation as well as the other nations of the world.

  The greatest evil, however, took root in the West, especially in Germany. There, vile imperialism took the form of fascism, which was ‘reversing the wheel of history’ and returning the world to a state of slavery. The freedom, happiness and prosperity which reigned in the Motherland of the Proletariat were such irritants in the eye of Reactionary Forces that they took up arms against her. But the Great Land of the Soviets dealt firmly with the evil. First it occupied half of Poland, rescuing at least part of it from the invading barbarians; then, when the aggressor still dared to advance, it forced his retreat, drove the beast back into its lair and there felled and slew it.

  Since then the world has been divided into two parts: the liberated part, where the system of popular democracy has brought peace, freedom and justice to all; and the enslaved part, where a system based on exploitation has brought poverty and war. We were lucky enough to find ourselves in the former zone.

  Against this background, the Spanish civil war was seen as an expression of the vicious struggle between the forces of progress and the evil forces of reaction. Modern Spanish history was presented as follows: As a result of the proletarian revolution in Russia, the crumbling social order of the backward country that was Spain began to totter on its foundations. Confronted with the victory of the Left, the reigning monarch, the appropriately named Alfonso XIII, ‘fled the country like a rat’, and in 1931 the Republic was born. Unfortunately, and against Lenin’s wise advice, building the most advanced form of society was not attended to at once; instead half-measures were resorted to, and the results were disastrous. ‘The Hydra of bloodthirsty reactionism raised its foul head’, and in 1933 the achievements of the revolution were erased. Then the workers and peasants joined together in a popular front, and in 1936 brought down the Right. But again, instead of slaying the ‘malignant bloodsucker’ at once, they took pity on him, and this was fatal. The ‘reptile’, set loose, revolted and ‘leapt savagely at the throat of the infant Republic’. This was what the world’s most rapacious beasts of prey, the German and Italian fascists, had been waiting for. ‘Scenting slaughter and profit’, they rushed to the aid of the monstrous Caudillo and, after three years of struggle, ripped Spanish democracy to shreds. From that moment on Spain was ‘bleeding to death in the shackles of the Franco regime’.

  Our picture of this chapter in modern history was further enriched by a so-called Polish Page, which was presented as follows:

  In the mid-1930s our country was governed by a fascist band of Pilsudski’s followers who, to our eternal shame and disgrace, sided almost openly with the Spanish reactionary rebels. Fortunately, under that hard, repulsive shell there burned an inner fire, embodied at that time in the radical Left – the Polish Communist Party. It was this formation, the precursor and germ of socialist Poland, that rescued our honour, allying itself at once with the forces of progress and, most importantly, organising generous armed assistance to the Spanish Republic. The ‘best sons of our soil’ hastened eagerly to the battlefields of Spain, there to create, under the banner of the 1848 revolutionary slogan For Your Freedom and Ours, tough and resolute battle units – the Dabrowski Brigades, named after the general who took part in the 1863 Uprising and later fought and died in the Paris Commune. They paid a high price for their courage. The band of Pilsudski-ites in power, instead of being proud of them, first heaped calumnies upon them and then stripped them of their citizenship.

  The Polish Page was not an obligatory part of the syllabus; it was an ‘optional’ addition to our reading, and I can’t say that it had ever stirred my interest. If, in spite of this, I knew slightly more than most about the subject, it was owing to a certain accidental set of circumstances.

  * * *

  They were fairly recent, dating back about six months to the time when, disillusioned after the AST festival, I had withdrawn into the shadows and abandoned all forms of social activity.

  One day, during break, when I was standing by myself at a window in the upstairs corridor, gazing absently at the grey concrete of the schoolyard, I saw Roach, the school representative of the Socialist Youth Movement, coming towards me. Roach’s real name was Jacob Boleslaw Kugler. He was short and ugly – hence his nickname – and about two years older than I was, even though he was in
the same year: he’d started late, and in addition, because of his frequent absences from school (due to the unstable lives of his parents, Party officials with high government posts whose fortunes depended on the winds of political change that blew from the East), had had to repeat a year. He was in 10d, a class parallel to mine that took German as the additional foreign language.

  Although I had few contacts with people from 10d, and even fewer with the SYM, I knew Kugler quite well from chess tournaments. I didn’t like him much. He was arrogant and malicious and looked down his nose at everyone. And what a creature! A gnome with a huge head and the exophthalmic stare of a basilisk, with an almost permanent smile of contempt on his pinched, narrow lips. He was extremely bright, however, and a very good chess player – which was why I put up with him. One might even say I had a certain weakness for him. He intrigued me, and he represented a kind of challenge. I couldn’t beat him, but neither could he beat me: our prolonged and relentless battles always ended in a draw. I remember one such duel quite well, for it was more colourful than the rest, and symptomatic of our feelings and approach towards each other.

  We were playing in a ‘lightning game’ tournament at the club. Lightning games, as their name implies, are played very quickly: each game has to take no longer than, say, ten minutes, five for each player, and is won either outright or by the player who hasn’t lost by the time his opponent’s time has run out. Moreover, in a lightning game you don’t say ‘checkmate’: if your opponent’s king is unprotected, you may simply take it.

  After a long, exhausting series of heats, he and I both reached the final. We sat down at the table and, surrounded by the other players, our instructor among them, began the game. The silence was absolute. Roach, even though he played black, soon had the advantage and controlled the centre of the board. I made an elementary mistake and lost a piece; Roach, sure of his victory, speeded up the pace, hoping for a quick exchange. Soon only the kings and four black pawns were left on the board. I didn’t have a chance. It would take him ten or fifteen seconds to queen his pawn, and another thirty seconds or so to checkmate me. He had the time. I was helpless. Then I had an idea straight out of a Shakespearean tragedy: instead of fleeing with my king to the centre of the board (where the checkmate process took longest), I made straight for the enemy monarch, and when my opponent had advanced his pawn to the penultimate square, I placed my king next to his – face to face, as it were. Roach, his attention on promoting his pawn, didn’t notice; he advanced to the last square and effected his pawn’s transformation into a queen. At which point, poker-faced, I took his king with mine.

  ‘That’s an illegal move!’ he objected.

  ‘You should have said so when I made the previous one,’ I replied with exaggerated politeness. ‘Or just taken my king. I was aware of the risk when I put it there.’

  ‘Well, let’s see what the judge has to say.’

  Our instructor stood for a moment in perplexed silence and then announced grandly, ‘A loophole in the rules. I declare a draw.’

  Kugler rose with a disdainful shrug for this verdict. But the expression on his face belied his apparent nonchalance. The emotions I was concealing were of a rather different kind. Like Roach, I tried to appear confident, but inwardly I felt I had been incredibly lucky. I was terrified of him.

  This distribution of strength and sentiments characterised our relations both on and off the battlefield of chess. Our antipathy was mutual and we kept our distance, but we respected each other. On the rare occasions when we met, the air was thick with biting irony and sarcasm, but it was a game, not a real war. He provoked me (and amused himself) by deliberately exaggerating, often to the point of caricature, certain habits of speech and styles of argument typical of Party activists bred, like his parents, in the good old days of the Stalinist period; I replied with calm irony and insincere meekness. Neither of us was serious, and neither believed the other.

  Now, when he came up to me as I stood by the window in the corridor, the conversation was no different.

  ‘So, what’s our noble spirit musing about, in such splendid isolation?’ he inquired, propping up the wall with his arm. ‘Doubtless planning some new piece of théâtre . . .’ He smiled his sarcastic smile.

  ‘Wrong, comrade, quite wrong,’ I replied wearily. ‘Just looking for a bit of peace and quiet, somewhere I won’t be pestered. In vain, it seems.’

  He tut-tutted in feigned concern. ‘Withdrawal from life leads to alienation,’ he pronounced sadly, ‘and that can only bring trouble. Better turn back from that path.’

  ‘I don’t feel up to it,’ I said in a resigned tone. ‘I’ve gone too far.’

  ‘We could help you,’ he suggested eagerly.

  ‘Thank you, don’t bother. It’s incurable.’

  ‘That’s just defeatism. It’s worth a try,’ he said encouragingly.

  ‘Many have tried, and failed.’

  ‘We have something particular we want to discuss with you.’

  ‘No doubt. I didn’t think you’d come to make conversation.’

  Quite unperturbed by my hostile tone, he got down to business. ‘Among the many talents with which God has seen fit to endow you –’ he began.

  ‘God?’ I broke in. ‘Aren’t you ashamed to blaspheme in this way against Science and Truth and the Laws of Nature? Or have they discovered something? Perhaps there are new instructions from Moscow?’

  ‘Your sarcasm is entirely wide of the mark,’ he said with calm condescension. ‘It was a figure of speech. If God doesn’t suit you, fine, let’s say Nature. We’re flexible.’

  ‘Like a police truncheon.’

  ‘That’s poor, really pretty poor. You can do better.’

  ‘Alas, it’s my level. You musn’t expect better of me – you’d only be disappointed.’

  ‘Your humility, comrade, is excessive. Excessive! Anyway, where were we?’

  ‘God – or perhaps Nature.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘As I was saying, among the many skills you possess, you also, if I’m not mistaken, know how to tickle the ivories.’

  ‘There must be some misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘I only know how to play.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard it called that, too. The point is, comrade, your skills musn’t lie fallow. They must be developed, so they can give you satisfaction.’

  ‘I don’t seek publicity.’

  ‘Yes, so we have observed. Especially when I think of your fondness for the stage: the klezmer performances, the cabaret numbers . . .’

  ‘A cabaret with Aeschylus doesn’t get much applause,’ I said elegiacally. ‘It was community work: I was propagating culture. Pure devotion to duty.’

  ‘So much the better. In that case we have a common aim. I, too, have the good of the community in mind. And the school community is eager to mark an anniversary that will shortly be upon us, namely the thirtieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish civil war – a war, comrade, in which the Poles, or more precisely the Polish Left, played such a laudable and glorious role. It would therefore like to celebrate the occasion in a suitable way, and expects us to organise the event.’

  ‘Excuse me – who, exactly, expects it?’

  ‘I thought I’d made myself clear. I repeat: the school community.’

  ‘And how can you tell?’

  ‘First of all, by the atmosphere,’ he replied. He was calm and assured, like an experienced doctor making a diagnosis. The role of radical Party idealogue, keeper of the Doctrine and guardian of the Faith, was greatly to his liking; it amused him to remind me of what life had been like in the good old days of real Party discipline. ‘People talk,’ he explained, ‘I listen. And secondly, from the fact that a formal motion to that effect has been made by the appropriate representative bodies.’

  ‘Meaning what? By whom, for example?’

  ‘For example, by the advisory council of our organisation.’

  ‘The advisory council,’ I sighed. ‘Fascinating. I’d
no idea such a thing existed.’

  ‘Well, now you know, comrade.’

  ‘All right,’ I said sharply, suddenly impatient, ‘what, exactly, do you want? What has any of this got to do with me?’

  ‘Let me hasten to explain. What we want is a musical touch. In other words, comrade, we want you to play,’ he said, stressing the verb. ‘To employ your talents for the good of the community.’

  I smiled coldly. So that’s what’s eating them, I thought. ‘And what is it, exactly, that you would have me play?’ I tried to sound discouraging.

  ‘Oh, nothing extraordinary. With your virtuosity, it’ll be child’s play.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Just a few Spanish melodies . . . some songs from those days.’

  ‘I’m afraid they’re not in my repertoire,’ I replied grandly, with a tormented-maestro expression.

  ‘We’ll provide you with the sheet music, comrade,’ he assured me.

  His eagerness was genuine, I realised. I decided to see how far he was prepared to go to get what he wanted.

  ‘It’s not a question of the sheet music,’ I said, with a petulant air. ‘It simply isn’t the sort of thing I play. I only play jazz or classical music.’

  ‘Oh, come now, what are a few Spanish tunes to you!’

  ‘Indeed, very little. However, my principles forbid it. A person of principle like yourself should be able to understand that. But I have a suggestion for you.’

  ‘Yes?’ He was wary now.

  ‘Why don’t you ask our Exotic Trio? They specialise in . . . Cuban folksongs, after all – that should be perfect for your programme.’

  ‘We already have,’ he confessed, in a tone devoid of enthusiasm. ‘They’re practising,’ he added importantly.

  ‘Well, then, what’s the problem? You’ve got your musical touch.’

  ‘If we had, we wouldn’t be talking to you.’

  Then an idea for a really grotesque ploy came to me. I shot out an exploratory arrow. ‘Well, since you seem so desperate . . . all right, perhaps I might be of some use to you.’