Maks was still fussing, "We can't go! Kalina!"
"Hush, Maks, I'll arrange it."
Maks was saying "You're the one who didn't want to leave town! You refused to go to camp. And I know why. Because you wanted to keep meeting…"
"Quiet, Maks!" Kalina aimed a blow at her little brother, while hissing, "There are such things as vacations. Vacations, get it? Some people go on vacations..." tears sprang to her eyes, "with their families."
"Oh." He looked unconvinced and whined again, "but our secret upstairs."
Our secret upstairs? So they weren't talking about Konstanty?
"What secret?" she asked. No, of course they weren't thinking of her and Konstanty––that was all in her mind, just as she'd thought. And the way he'd smiled this morning, so distant, and he must have heard about the electricity as he was coming down the stairs––what would he think? It would be more dignified not to be too friendly. She felt like running away.
"Oh, Maks thinks everything's a secret. There aren't any secrets." And to Maks:
"I'll ask Paulina."
"Oh." He brightened.
Kalina was saying "Please. You'd like it there, really."
"I thought you wanted me to 'just go'," Hania said, "and now you want me to go somewhere in the country with you? I don't understand."
"I'm sorry about that. Actually, you're not like the others."
The other babysitters? Hania wasn't sure what she meant, but she was pleased anyway, even though she suspected the apology was made out of expediency.
Maks was bouncing beside her on the sofa. "Please, let's go to the country. It's great there. There's a frog pond…"
A frog pond and Maks, thought Hania, horrors––
"…and a river."
Worse and worse, thought Hania.
"There's electricity in the house," said Kalina. "And the internet."
"Let's go," said Hania.
There was fruit on the trees, said the children, and vegetables in the garden; the air was clean, said the children, and we leave from Central Station.
The air in Central Station was not clean. Or maybe it only gave that impression. They had not crossed the busy expanse of high-rise construction and cars and buses under the looming crenellations of the Palace of Culture and Science, but had dived into extensive underground passages, come out near their destination, and rushed along the street and into the building. Central Station looked like a war zone, thought Hania, as they picked their way down to the platform to wait for their train. Homelessness was rare in Poland. Even drunkards, who might spend a night or two on a bus-stop bench, were sooner or later usually hauled home by their relatives. Families didn't live in cars or tents as in America, she knew, but all the deranged old women and unclaimed addicts of Warsaw did congregate in tattered heaps about the station. Hania shuddered and turned her eyes away from unwashed limbs even as she dug in her purse for a coin.
Still, constrained as their hearts were for various reasons, the three had something of a holiday feeling as they rushed down a staircase with an assortment of bags and packs. Only Kalina edged away from Hania on the platform, leaving a wide-enough gap between them so that other passengers might not think they were together. Maks dropped a soda bottle and it rolled across the platform and over the edge onto the rails. Hania screamed at Maks to leave it as he headed after in hot pursuit. And then the train came in with a rush and whoosh.
She couldn't see the step. She always hated that moment of stepping from the platform over an unseen chasm, onto the narrow confines of the railcar ladder. Would she stick? No, there, puffing and pulling her bags after her, she followed Maks down the aisle to their compartment. Only the compartment was crowded with a family of a type she recognized instantly in spite of her intermittent association with Poland: church-going, godly, moving up from the lower to the middle class, disapproving, uncompassionate. The type who kept a hawk's eye on their neighbors for signs of degeneracy and envied them bitterly––to the point of hatred––for any acquisitions or attainments. They never looked directly at her; they put their noses in the air and didn't like how much room she took up on the bench.
She went out to stand in the corridor by an open window. A young soldier, trying to pass, was momentarily nonplussed, politely apologetic. She squeezed back into the compartment to let him by and extracted a package of cookies from her luggage. Someday she was going to lose weight, she thought, as she returned to the corridor. She would go on a diet. Someday she was going to get on the scale and be able to see it. Someday she would feel happy enough not to need comfort.
They were leaving Warsaw. In the distance she could see the roofs and spires and domes of the Old Town; somewhere over there, she had read in a book called Warsaw Triptych, was what had once been 'Crown Warsaw,' the area around the later residence of kings, the castle built up by successive generations on the fort of a medieval duke named Trojden. Beyond, in the Middle Ages, there had been the little agricultural and trading communities belonging to individual nobles and clergymen: Areas clustered around Warsaw that were entities unto themselves in the kingdom, even sometimes having their own measurements and monetary systems. Warsaw, the author said, had once been a sea of orchards surrounding manor houses.
Now they were crossing the river, its broad gray, empty water spread below them. The Vistula was the last large river left unregulated in Europe.
And now they were out of Warsaw, into the countryside, and there were fields and trees and farmhouses, bicyclists waiting at railway crossings, combines mowing here and there, and troops of men and women lying under trees at the edge of hay fields, resting from their work in the midst of the day.
She wasn't really leaving Konstanty behind, she thought as the train picked up speed; she could get an internet connection over the phone, Kalina had said.
They had been travelling a long time through forests. The sign Żabia Wola passed before the windows as the train came briefly to a stop, let them off, and departed again. Hania watched it leave, feeling there must be some mistake. The station was a slab of cracked cement beside a dirt road. Pines rose all around, their narrow brown-orange trunks reaching straight for the sky, there to burst into a profusion of branches that obscured the light. The air was clear and heavy with pine scent and very quiet.
Hania looked around, "Here?" she asked doubtfully. "But we're in the middle of nowhere."
"Isn't it great?" asked Maks happily.
"We have to walk a ways," said Kalina, shouldering some of the lighter luggage. "This way." And she set off at a brisk and swinging walk. Maks trotted happily after her.
"Wait!" cried Hania, as she slung a bag over one shoulder, a backpack over the other, picked up a grocery sack and the remaining soda bottle and staggered after her charges.
There followed a period in which she was aware only of the awkwardness of her bundles, the sunlight flickering through the woods, and the passing of the tree trunks against an infinite green underworld.
"Stop!" she panted to her companions after a time, and sank down onto the pitchy soft needles at the side of the trail.
"No, we're almost there, come on," they urged her.
The walk was difficult, but worth it. Hania, seated at the edge of the forest with Kalina and Maks, leaned back against a tree and thought, "this is heaven." Before them stretched a pale-green field of grain, in the distance a heavy dun horse was pulling a wagon, and under them the moss was soft and springy. It was neither hot nor cold and the sky was blue and wide and full of birds.
"Oh, look. A stork," pointed Maks, as a big white bird rose from the grain and glided, all legs and long beak, past them.
The village was a string of houses along two sides of a narrow, paved road: houses ranging from cabins of vertical wood slats, with windows sagging at odd angles, inhabited by the elderly, to spruce stucco blocks belonging to persons who owned cars and commuted to work in nearby towns, to old, Germanic-looking structures of patinated red brick fronting identical-looki
ng barns. The yards opened onto meadows, the meadows onto fields. There were grape vines scrambling over doorways, and fruit trees, and hens, and after the city, an amazing absence of noise.
The house, when they reached it, was a small brick building with low beams and rooms that opened inconveniently one off the other, with big white tile stoves in each corner. The kitchen facilities were rather charming but antiquated––a brass faucet and a large gas stove of dangerous aspect. The bathroom, however, had been renovated in an un-aesthetic Leroy Merlin style that left nothing to be desired in the way of hygiene.
Kalina and Maks struggled with the wooden shutters and flung open the back windows. They did indeed look onto a frog pond and a bit of the neighbor's barnyard. Somewhere a cow was lowing and a large rooster, with a speckled neck and mad jumble of tail feathers, strolled superciliously about the grass. It would be fine here for awhile, thought Hania, pleased at the children's pleasure. Even Kalina's face had lost its sullen and injured air; she looked almost happy and carefree for a moment.
Hania hooked up her laptop, feeling an immense sense of relief when the screen lit up and the internet appeared. Konstanty was within reach. Now he seemed even more accessible than when she had known him to be living above her head in Warsaw. She was barricaded by distance from any hint that she might be pursuing him, and yet she had a perfect excuse for writing to him. Happily, she began to type:
As Catholics and Protestants were burning each other elsewhere in the 16th century, Poland remained 'a country without stakes,' full of differing ethnicities and faiths: There were Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Ruthenians, Tatars, Jews, and smaller Armenian, Dutch, Italian, French, Greek and Scots minorities; the population was not only Catholic, but also Muslim, Jewish, Karaite, Orthodox Christian, Uniate, and Protestant. Jews had had far-reaching protection since Bolesław the Pious's Charter of Kalisz in 1264: if a Christian fought with a Jew, the matter was to be judged by the Jews, if a Christian injured a Jew 'with a bloody wound' he was required to give him half his possessions; anyone jeering at a synagogue was to be fined in pepper. Muslims, like Jews, were also left to pursue their religion unimpeded; nor was either Islam or Judaism a barrier to ennoblement.
The prevalent attitude was tolerance. King Zygmunt the Elder declined to get involved in religious matters; 'permit me to rule over the goats as well as the sheep,' he said, and his son Zygmunt August was similarly broadminded. 'I am not the king of your consciences,' he told the parliament.
6
Konstanty, seated at a restaurant table, was regarding Agata with a serious look. She was very prettily dressed today; he couldn't have recounted the exact details, but he had a general impression of elegance. However, she wasn't listening to him, or she wasn't responding anyway. He said that he would like to see the Land of the Falling Lakes.
She said, giving a passing woman the once over, that she'd never heard of the Lake of a Thousand Fishes.
He said it was a wildlife reserve in Croatia that had been much disturbed by war.
She said she got tired of people talking about Iraq.
He said he'd read an interesting article on linguistics.
She said linguini always had too much garlic and what did he think of The Da Vinci Code?
Still, when he mentioned President Kaczyński and she said she didn't care for potatoes, he thought it was mildly encouraging.
Konstanty, reading his email that evening, was disconcerted. Left town? Without saying anything to him? Well, why shouldn't she have done, and what business was it of his?
He opened 'new mail' and typed:
Respected Madam…Somehow writing emails always made a person more uninhibited. He wrote in a way he would not have spoken, a way he would not––quite––have written had he been holding a pen, seeing the words form on paper. The computer added an element of impersonality to the whole exchange. The fact that she was at a distance also freed him somewhat. He didn't think much about what he was writing; his thoughts just came out his fingertips.
Thank you for sending the next section. I've had a less than entertaining day. Lunch with a woman who made me feel the existential isolation of every individual and of myself in particular––if I weren't so imperviously conceited already, I'd have come away feeling I hadn't a thought worth sharing. We might have been two robots knocking with programmed fingers on each other's plated aluminum casing––and getting, of course, no answer. Dinner with a colleague whom I used to think tolerably intelligent. Perhaps my luncheon date had made me incautious. A propos of a discussion on town planning I told him––why?––that I wonder at the number and size of Warsaw's statues to soldiers. I got carried away: I suggested that perhaps some negotiators––however futile their efforts––should be looked up out of history, even very minor ones––some little clerk, maybe, who heroically lifted his hand and said 'Wait. I think we should talk about this first,' or 'I doubt this is really worth it?'––and put upon a pedestal. His best response was to smile patronizingly at me and say 'don't tell me anyone could have behaved more gloriously than the heroes of the Warsaw Uprising.' The heroes of the Warsaw Uprising! 150,000 civilians died!
...I'm cataloguing all the obstacles ideas encounter: there's the mental turn off, the attitude of mental superiority, the anger, the lack of imagination. The worst is that I find such mechanisms in myself as well.
I'm very obliged to you––if you're still reading––for allowing me to unburden myself. I didn't know you were leaving. When will you be back? I hope you enjoy yourself.
He got a rapid reply.
Respected Sir, I don't know when I'll be back. I'm sorry you had such a day. I agree with you about the statues. A few days ago I passed the one by the parliament buildings that says 'God, Honor, Fatherland,' and I thought––why not 'Peace, Charity, Brotherly Love'?––I'm sure God would like that better, at least the God of the New Testament.
No really, he thought, she goes too far.
It does seem that too many of the ideals we hold up for future generations are belligerent. How about statues to men of the medical profession instead? I don't mean to flatter you but surely they've done more for humanity than soldiers? When one considers that in medieval and early modern Europe two-thirds of all children died before their teens––I'd put up statues to Pasteur, Fleming, the smallpox man, the Japanese fellow who experimented with anaesthesia, etc. It would be a very international group, too, and that would be good.
Speaking of which, I've rewritten these sentences about poor Queen Bona––who was brought from Italy to Poland, then retired again to Italy, only to be poisoned at the Spanish king's bequest, by her…doctor.
Why couldn't Agata write to me like this? wondered Konstanty, as he mused over Hania's letter. Why is it that the first person with a kindred-seeming mind that I meet in a long time should be the size, the size of…––Tsk, unkind, unkind, he chided himself; why did you write to her if you intend to insult her, even in your imagination? But some part of his intellect wasn't listening, some part was already formulating a reply: '...the research of the Nobel laureates North and Fogel indicate that it was better nutrition not medicine that caused the drop in mortality...shall we put up statues to cooks?'
The next days passed pleasantly. Kalina and Maks had been instantly claimed by a gang of neighborhood children––girls in pink sandals and boys in football tees––with whom they spent the whole day. Kalina had made efforts to disassociate herself, considering herself too old, but had been quickly drawn in. Curiously to Hania, who was accustomed to the strict age and gender divisions of childhood friendships in America, the group was comprised of all ages and sexes, from five-year-old Kuba up through his thirteen-year-old sister Patricia. Hania had trouble distinguishing some of the middle members, but Patricia stood out as a live wire, a leader. Patricia was slim and long-legged and going to be beautiful. She was also untruthful, unreliable, and self-centered. So if life were like a chick-lit novel, thought Hania, watching the children out the wind
ow, Patricia would grow up to marry a rich, sensitive, humorous, perfect man and live happily ever after. On the other hand, her cousin Yola, pale and quiet and sweetly mothering all the younger children, was obviously destined for hard work and a husband who beat her.
In the meantime, the children were having fun. They never seemed to be at a loss for ideas, but if all else failed there was always the unending game of berek––tag––to be played. And when it rained one day, the game of berek was played through the rooms of the house, while Hania sat typing.
"Don't you mind them?" said Kalina, who had not joined in the chase, but was sitting on the sofa beside her. "Mama won't let them in the house. That is, she didn't, the time she came here."
Hania shook her head, "No, I don't mind. Children have to do something." She was pleased Kalina spoke to her; the girl had been doing so more and more often, usually only to voice some dissatisfaction, but still––it was a start.
"Anyway, it lets me work. I'm typing this nice bit about Zygmunt August and Barbara. Well, I don't know if 'nice' is the word for it. This romantic bit, I should say. Could I read it to you?" And, not waiting for an answer, she began:
"The habits of Zygmunt August, the last Jagiellonian king, were refined and ascetic. He dressed habitually in black, woke and slept early, was served by one personal servant. His disposition, wrote a papal nuncio, 'is very pleasant and engaging, his character far from stern, but he is constant and unshakeable in his decisions.' He remained unshakably attached to Barbara Radziwiłł, a beautiful young noblewoman whom he had married against convention and whom he refused to abandon when parliament demanded he get a divorce. When she died, only five months after her coronation in 1550, the heartbroken king walked or rode behind her funeral cortege for a month, from Cracow to Vilnius, where she had desired to be buried."
Swans Are Fat Too Page 8