More weddings, thought Hania. But at least this too had been a case, apparently, of inclination overcoming convention. Curious that Henri, who was a weak and not particularly worthy character, had managed it––she would have to ask Konstanty if the marriage had been happy.
In his stead came Stefan Bathory, a Hungarian nobleman of no particular means, who had been in the diplomatic service of various rulers, and had once been imprisoned for three years on the pretext that he had lost his mind. In prison he spent his time reading Julius Caesar, and in 1575, at age 43, was elected to the Polish throne. Considered one of Poland's better kings, he duly wedded Anna, fought with Russia over Livonia, abided by the constitution, and died in 1586...As frequently then at a royal death, there was some thought that he might have been poisoned.
Probably just ate mushrooms, thought Hania, looking down at her empty plate beside the laptop, and wondering how she was going to feel shortly.
The next king was Zygmunt Vasa, son of a sister of Zygmunt August and the King of Sweden. A fervid Catholic, he spent his reign working against religious toleration and trying to reclaim the throne of Sweden, with the result that, having avoided the religious turmoil of the 16th century, from the next century on, Poland was constantly involved in warfare and internal troubles.
Of course, she reminded herself, she shouldn't giggle at the word 'internal troubles,' when what she was writing about was Poland's descent from its golden age into misery as a result of human narrowness. But a couple of hours had passed and nothing had happened. She thought she must be safe, so she sent the pages off to Konstanty, with a humorous account of her adventures, and got her reward in his reply:
Respected Madam,…Your conscientiousness is admirable, and your devotion to our project in such circumstances beyond the call of duty.
She read these words over and over: 'Admirable.' He had called her 'admirable.' And he had written 'our project.' Of course, she reasoned with herself, it was just politeness, a trained manner of being civil and charming, and he spoke in this fashion to many people. And yet, she didn't think he would say something he didn't mean at all; there must be some element of truth in it. Still, she couldn't really take it personally, so to speak. She knew this, and yet she opened the email repeatedly.
She kept a closer watch on Maks after this incident, but several days rolled by uneventfully. There were mornings when Hania woke early to the sound of church bells and rose to find mist hovering over the meadows. Afternoons when they walked through fields trimmed with blue chicory and red poppies, purple vetch and tall-growing cow parsley to the river, where the water ran shallow and cold over small, round boulders.
There was always, thought Hania later, in remembering this pleasant bucolic interlude, a lull before the storm. It broke one morning. The phone rang. Who would be calling? Maybe it's Wiktor or Ania, thought Hania, leaping for the receiver. It was a girl's voice, asking for Kalina. Hania looked about: no Kalina.
"Kalina's not here right now, could I take a message?"
The caller hesitated, and then said, "Please, pani, could you tell Kalina that I can't get into the building because they fixed the intercom?"
"I don't understand."
"It doesn't matter. Just please tell Kalina that Paulina says they fixed the intercom and she can't get into the building. Goodbye."
Maks was watching her. "Who was it?" he asked.
"How strange. Someone named Paulina says to tell Kalina she 'can't get into the building because they fixed the intercom.' Do you have any idea what it's about?"
But Maks was already gone; he was out the door crying, "Kalina! Kaliiinaaa!"
From the sounds of altercation that ensued, Hania guessed he hadn't had far to look. She followed Maks to the back door. Kalina was lying in the chaise longue with a blanket over her head, fending her brother off with moans and attempts to kick him with a languid leg.
"Leave me alone, Maks. Leave me alone. I feel sick."
"But Paulina says she can't get in. What about Bartek? He'll die." He shook his sister, "Kalina! He'll die!"
"She'll die," mumbled Kalina from under the covers, "Go away, Maks, I'm sick. I'll think of something later."
"We have to go back…," said Maks, breaking off when he saw Hania.
"Go away!" whined Kalina.
"Kalina," said Hania, coming to the girl, "are you worse?" Good heavens, the girl wasn't usually this prostrated. Suppose she had to get her to a doctor––and here they were so far from everything. She didn't know anything about illnesses, she realized with a sinking feeling. Not a thing.
Kalina appeared to make an effort to pull herself together. "I'm all right," she said wanly. "I just want to sleep." Hania felt her forehead. She didn't seem to have a fever. That was a good sign. If there weren't any symptoms it was probably psychological, as she had suspected before. So that was okay––well, not okay, but not a case for a physician.
"Where do you hurt, Kalina?"
"I'm all right, I said. Just leave me alone," Kalina snapped irritably.
Thus rebuffed, Hania went back into the house and turned on her laptop. Should she ask Konstanty's advice? But in spite of the fact that the tempo of their email exchanges had reached two or three a day, and covered topics as varied as the people they'd spoken to and their ideas on Prus, she still didn't feel she was on those terms with him. She put Kalina and Maks out of her mind.
Respected Sir,…we were discussing Wokulski. Have you ever noticed that there are no––or at least very few that I can think of––love stories written by men that end happily? She could write to him about love because she knew it had nothing to do with herself; it was just an abstract question, like the change from ut to do in musical notation. All she could hope for––rather desperately––was his friendship…Actually, if one leaves aside the chevaleresque tradition of the Middle Ages, men rarely write love stories, do they?––It's almost always about something else, while the love element is just a vehicle––and if they do write about love, it usually ends with the woman being left or dying––Dido, Manon Lescaut, Anna Karenina, etc. I wonder what that says about men's relations with women? (This is a rhetorical question, I'm just throwing it out like that, you needn't answer.) I'm working on the…
Respected Madam,…I don't know what to answer. I hope you're wrong, but I note in my own reluctance to touch the question that you may have a point…I have read that the part of the brain that is most unused is the part relating to emotions, which is strange because it always seems to me that emotions get too much play in directing human affairs, but perhaps it's the better kind that don't get enough use...
Hania, typing about one dreary episode after another, thought he was right:
...In 1648 there was a rebellion, called the Khmelnytsky Uprising, against Polish rule in the Ukraine. One of the catalysts was a personal injury. Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a Ruthenian officer of Cossacks who quarrelled with a Polish nobleman named Czaplinski and whose estate was then raided, his son injured, and his fiancé kidnapped. (Khmelnytsky got her back, had her marriage to Czaplinski annulled, and married her himself, only to have her executed later, some sources say, for unfaithfulness). Finding the Polish king unwilling to help him in the matter of Czaplinski's predations, Khmelnytsky turned the Cossacks––who were angry that peace treaties between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire would prevent their usual raids on the Empire––against the Commonwealth and convinced the Tatars to join them. Although the Ruthenian nobility was Polonized, the mass of Ukrainians felt oppressed by the rule of the nobles, the harshness of the Jews whom the nobles used as middlemen, and by the effects of the Counter-Reformation in an Orthodox country. Khmelnytsky roused the peasants against Poles and Jews both…fifty thousand to several hundred thousand Jews died; Polish men, women, and children were put to the sword wherever they were found; and the Polish army committed atrocities in return. The Ukraine east of the Dnieper passed from Polish into Russian hands, while Poland suffered th
e Deluge, a string of invasions from all quarters.
Hania contemplated the passage. How horrible and stupid. Why were people so often horrible? With a vague feeling of the disquiet she always felt on reading about wars, she looked about, not able at once to revert to the everyday world where people were safe, and children played in the yard...And speaking of which, where was Maks?
As if on cue, Patricia and a group of her cohorts appeared at the open door. "Please, pani, where's Maks?
"He was here..." A minute ago, she was going to say, and then realized it was longer. She rose quickly. If he wasn't with the other children, where was he? She walked quickly through the house. No Maks. How long had it been since she last saw him? Half an hour, an hour? She'd lost track of time. Her uneasiness growing, she hurried into the backyard and shook Kalina awake.
"Kalina have you seen Maks?"
"I was sleeping." She closed her eyes again.
Hania walked from one corner of the house to the other, and scanned the distance in every direction. A minute ago, she thought, I was typing. A few minutes ago perhaps a tragedy was happening and I wasn't paying attention. The frog pond was fifty meters away. Gooseflesh began to crawl up her arms. She ran over to the water. It was only a meter deep, perhaps, at its deepest, and he had promised to stay away from it…but still. She pushed through the reeds and stared at the stagnant pool. The water was motionless, the surface broken only by skittering water insects. If he was in there, it was too late, she thought, the beginnings of panic rising within her. A frog plopped off a lily pad and made a little splash. It was a frog. It wasn't Maks, making one last effort to rise to the surface. She had to be sure. She plunged into the water, waded to where the sound had come from, and felt about in the murk with hands and feet. No small submerged body met her fumbling limbs. She pushed the hair out of her eyes, and bent over the water, peering down, her wet dress clinging to her bosom. "Maks!" Nothing. The water cleared slowly. She couldn't see the bottom but she felt sure there was nothing there. Almost sure. She waded in a circle, bent over, felt around, straightened.
No, but no, he'd just disappeared for a moment––he'd be at the other end of the village. She ran, wet clothes clinging and flapping, back to the waiting children. "Where's Yola? Where's Hubert?"
"Yola's with her aunt."
"Maybe he's with Yola and Hubert. Let's go see." She speed-walked down the road, the children following behind, pleased with the excitement, picking up additional children as they went. "Maks has disappeared, Maks has disappeared." Oh, goody.
They rang at a gate. Yola appeared. "Maks?" She'd seen him heading in the direction of the railway station. He was following behind some people with backpacks. Some tourists, maybe, she didn't know them. She saw them go into the trail by the woods. When? She didn't know, quite a while ago now.
Hania remembered what he'd said to Kalina: "We have to go back…" She'd been thinking about the email she was writing; she hadn't been paying enough attention. Oh, why hadn't she paid attention? Could he have gone back to Warsaw on his own? There could be no other reason she could think of why he would take the trail through the woods. It wasn't at all like him to go off on his own. He had lurid imaginings, was afraid of the dark, afraid of the forest. He would only have gone if he could have followed someone. Oh, Maks. Certainty struck as she tried to reason with herself. He wouldn't. He would. She had to follow him fast. Did anyone know when the train for Warsaw passed, she asked, her throat dry. The children all shook their heads. Yola went to ask her aunt. One went at eleven-forty-five and the next at one-thirty. After that there wasn't another until evening. It was ten to one now. Hania ran back through the village, through the house, and shook Kalina awake. "Kalino, wake up! Wake up! I think Maks has taken the train to Warsaw! Is it possible? Would he go to Warsaw by himself?"
Kalina opened her eyes, sat up looking dazed, thought a minute, and nodded her head. "Yes. He would. Because…"
Hania didn't wait to hear the reason. "Are you sure? Because if you think so, I'm going to call the police."
Kalina nodded, looking scared. "Yes. You'd better call them."
Hania called the police station. The receiver was picked up and she could hear sounds in the background, a leisurely conversation being finished before a voice came on. "Hallo. Police."
"Hello. This is Hanna Lanska in Żabia Wola. I'd like to report a lost child."
"One moment please." A long pause. She stilled her breathing.
"A…lost…child…" She could imagine the police officer writing slowly, the slow cursive of the uneducated.
"Please, it's a matter of urgency. I think he took the train to Warsaw."
"Name," the voice was bored.
"Maksymilian Lanski."
"No. Your name."
"Hanna Lanska."
"How do you spell it?"
"Please. It's a matter of urgency. He's only seven and I think he's on the train by himself…"
"Pani, please. One thing at a time. Spell your name."
"L.A.N.S.K.A." The minutes were ticking by.
"Is that L like 'Ludwik' or R like 'Robert'?
"L like 'Ludwik.'"
"Hold on a moment." She could hear a conversation in the background. Krzyś was going for coffee, or did he want a coke? And did you see the soccer game last night? Super goal, wasn't it?...
Hania trilled nervous fingers on the phone. "Please sir!" she wailed into the receiver.
"L like 'Ludwik' or R like 'Robert?'"
"L. Ludwik. Ludwik-Ludwik-Ludwik!"
"Pani, please! Don't get impatient." A pause… "Now is this lost child a boy or a girl?"
"A boy. Age 7. He just turned 7."
She could hear him repeating as he wrote: "A…boy….age…seventeen…"
"Name?"
She slammed the phone down in a fury.
"Kalino! Kalino! We have to go after him at once. We have less than twenty-five minutes to get to the station!" She ran through the house, stuffing their most indispensable belongings into a bag. A minute later and she was back outside, pulling Kalina to her feet. "Come on! Run! Or we'll miss the train!"
They ran, Hania with the bag slamming against her thigh, Kalina clutching her stomach. They ran along the edge of the field and into the woods and Hania stopped and leaned against a tree and wondered if her lungs would burst. Thirteen more minutes. They ran, stopping periodically to catch their breath, running on. Hania's throat was like sand paper, her lungs felt like a squeezed sponge and the world swam before her eyes. There was the cement slab of the station.
"The train's coming!" gasped Kalina, "I can hear it. It won't stop unless we're there!" She dashed on ahead and jumped onto the platform, flagging to the train. Hania came up as the train slowed to a stop with a long blast of its whistle. They just had time to stumble up the ladder when it was in movement again, then picking up speed. Hania opened a compartment door and collapsed onto a bench, gasping for breath, her chest heaving. Someone handed her a small bottle of water. She drank, and eventually felt better. She found a towel in her bag, dried her face, and looked around. Kalina was sitting opposite, watching her.
"What," said Kalina, "if he didn't take the train, and he's still back there in Żabia Wola?"
They rode for many miles in silence, contemplating this idea.
"He'll go to the neighbor's," they decided. "Someone will look after him. We'll call when we get to Szczotki Dolne."
"Of course," said Hania, when she came back from purchasing their tickets, "maybe he'll be in Szczotki Dolne. He'll have to change trains. How will he do that? How will he know where to go?"
"I don't think he'd leave the station," said Kalina doubtingly, "I think if he couldn't figure out which train to get on, he'd stay there. At the station. I hope."
"Let's hope so."
"Unless he got on the wrong train."
The two hours passed very slowly. The train stopped at every tiny town, every cement slab, every trail through the woods. It barely got under way a
nd it was grinding its brakes again.
They were coming into Szczotki Dolne. They were jumping down from the train, rushing along the platform looking right and left, into the shabby glass and metal station. No one was around. Hania rushed to a ticket window. "Excuse me," she said to the ticket lady, who looked up from her tea, "did you by any chance see a little boy pass through here? About this high, with glasses? Around a quarter to two?"
"Lots of children pass through here, I don't pay attention, I'm sorry."
Another woman entered the booth. "There was a little boy like that. With glasses. He was asking which platform for the Warsaw train. I didn't see his parents around. I thought he was goofing off while they were in the restrooms or something."
"Do you know where he went?"
"No. He went off and I didn't pay attention."
Kalina said, "Hania, the train will be coming." They turned and hurried towards an underground passage. No Maks.
A warning signal. Could that be the train? They quickened their pace, were almost running, then Kalina stopped and stood still.
Hania came back to her. "What is it? What's the matter?"
"I don't know. I feel strange."
Hania looked at her. She did look very odd, almost white. Maybe it was just the light of the underpass.
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