Swans Are Fat Too

by Michelle Granas

  "I think I'm going to faint." She was swaying.

  Hania caught her. "Here, sit down."

  Kalina collapsed onto the ground. The train whistle blew. Boże, Boże kochanie, the train was coming in.

  "Kalina," said Hania with forced calm, "You can not faint now. You can't. We have to find Maks. Get up!"

  The loudspeaker announced. "Train for Warsaw leaves in three minutes."

  "Kalina! Three minutes. Come on, I'll help you. You can faint on the train." She pulled the girl to her feet again and supported her as they staggered along the passage, up the stairs, along the platform. The whistle blew. The train was going to go. A station guard stopped the train with a signal, rushed towards them, caught Kalina's other arm, and helped Hania drag her up onto the train. They were off.

  On the train Kalina revived. "I'm all right now," she said, leaning wanly and limply against the window and leaving Hania to fret on her own.

  If only the police had been helpful, she thought, they could have called Warsaw and someone would have been looking for Maks at the station. If this had been America, the police would have been helpful and efficient; they would have found Maks…and then would have charged me and probably his parents with child neglect or abuse and after ruinous lawyer fees we'd be lucky to get off with just our smirched names and suspended sentences and Maks would go to a children's home. In America someone always has to be to blame …I am to blame.

  Maybe the conductor will have caught Maks, she thought, as the compartment door opened and she handed over her ticket to be checked. When the conductor left she said to Kalina, "Do you think the conductor might have found Maks? He won't have had a ticket."

  Kalina opened her eyes. "If Maks doesn't want to be found, no one will find him." She closed her eyes again.

  True, thought Hania, leave it to Maks. But he would have to get out at Central Station, go through all the taxi stands and traffic, around the station, through the underpasses, along the city streets. What if he got run over?

  "Will he take a bus?" she asked Kalina, "when he gets to Warsaw? Got. Or do you think he'll have walked?"

  "He'll walk. He wouldn't know which bus," mumbled Kalina.

  "Will he know his way?"

  "Maybe. Probably. If he doesn't get lost in the underpasses."

  Of course, maybe he was still back there in Szczotki Dolne. Or maybe he never left Żabia Wola. Maybe he was wandering, lost, through the woods.

  A train employee came by, pulling a refreshments cart. "Anyone want potato chips, sandwiches?" he queried. Hania shook her head impatiently. She was too nervous to eat. How could one eat at a time like this?

  Warsaw. At last, they were on the outskirts of Warsaw. The suburbs passed, one after the other, the train stopping occasionally. And then here they were, coming into Central Station. She roused Kalina, made her walk to the door so they could jump out the minute the train stopped. It was entering the tunnel, the platforms raced by, a shriek of brakes and they were there and getting down from the train.

  "Do we search the station first or go straight home?"

  "Go straight home. He wouldn't stay here, I'm sure. This close to his goal he'd go on."

  "But Kalina," Hania asked, as they rushed up a staircase against a tide of travelers hurrying down. "What is his goal?"

  "Just to get home, I guess."

  "But why?"

  "Here," said Kalina, without answering as they emerged from the building onto the sidewalk, "which way do you think he'll go? Do we split up and take different routes? Or what?"

  "No. I think we'll take a taxi. If he isn't at home, I'll call the neighbors in Żabia Wola, and if no one's seen him, I'll have to call the police again." She headed for the front of the taxi stand.

  "Even if he's there," Hania said to Kalina in the taxi, "he won't be able to get in. Not even into the building if the intercom's fixed."

  "'Course he will. He's not stupid like that Paulina …" she broke off abruptly. "He'll ring at the neighbors and ask them to let him in or he'll wait till someone comes in or out."

  "Yes. He still won't be able to get into the apartment though, will he? Unless you have a key hidden somewhere?"

  "He won't care about that."

  "What do you mean?"

  But Kalina had the look of someone who was biting her tongue, and wouldn't answer any more questions, but only stared out the taxi windows and shrugged.

  9

  While Hania was still paying the taxi driver, Kalina had already rushed over to the entry, pushed a button, and been let into the building. The door didn't close fully behind her and Hania was able to catch it before it locked. She stood for a moment in the entryway, hearing Kalina's footsteps running up the stairs. She followed more slowly. One landing, two. Surely if Kalina had found Maks waiting in front of the door, she would have called something down to her? The third landing, the fourth. Hania was panting now. There was the Lanskis' door. No Maks. Above was only Konstanty's apartment. Maks wasn't here. So where was he? Boże. Boże. And where was Kalina? Hania looked about. Had she gone to a neighbor? To Aneta's family?

  Kalina was coming storming down from above. "He's not here and Bartek's gone too!" she shouted.

  Bartek? Who's Bartek? And what do I do now? thought Hania, her heart sinking.

  "He's our dog. She is, I mean." Kalina stopped several stairs above Hania, and tears began to roll down her face. "We were keeping her in the attic," she muttered between sniffles, "in the old laundry space. We've had her there for months."

  Someone was on the stairs above them, slowly descending. Konstanty Radzimoyski. Hania's heart gave a painful slam in her chest. Not him. Anyone but him.

  "Good evening, ladies. Are you looking for Maks?"

  Oh, wonderful Konstanty.

  "Is he with you?"

  "Yes." A smile. "Why don't you come up?"

  Maks with Konstanty. Horrors. "I hope he wasn't too much trouble," Hania ventured, hurrying up the stairs.

  "Oh no. He was quite helpful. I'm setting up a website with medical information for people with no knowledge of medicine. It has to be in simple language. I tried each sentence on Maks and if he understood I figured I'd got it right."

  Konstanty's apartment was identical in layout to the Lanskis'––but how different in atmosphere, thought Hania. Somehow it had an air of peace and order that was completely lacking below.

  They passed through the hallway, into a large room. The first thing Hania noticed was the large carved desk. The next was Maks, almost lost amongst the tapestry cushions of a wide sofa, holding a small mongrel dog.

  "Hello, Maks," said Hania, calmly. "We've been looking for you."

  "Why did you let people know about Bartek, stupid?" said Kalina angrily.

  "I'm not getting rid of her!" returned Maks belligerently.

  "Mama will make you."

  "I'll run away." He lifted his chin, adjusted his glasses. "I know how now." He tightened his grip around the dog's neck.

  "Maks. Kalina. Please. We can discuss it later." Hania turned an inquiring eye on Konstanty.

  He said, "When I came home this afternoon and saw that the intercom had been fixed, I was afraid the girl who was coming to care for the dog might not be able to get in. So I went upstairs to make sure it was all right––had food and water and all that. And I found Maks….I got the Lanskis' number in Żabia Wola from information, but no one answered, so I thought I'd better hang on to him. I left an email message for you too, but I suppose you've had other things to do than check your emails."

  "When he disappeared, we thought he'd come here."

  "You knew about the dog?" asked Kalina incredulously, staring at Konstanty.

  "Yes. I suppose everyone in the building does." Except your parents, he added to himself. "It's been a couple of months now since I first noticed you and Maks going up there to the attic. Sometimes I hear it barking. And sometimes at night I hear toenails clicking on the stairs so I know you walk it. I was afraid it might not be ve
ry good for it to be shut up in a dark attic. But I kept an eye on it and since it appeared to improve in condition, I decided to hold my peace."

  "Improve in condition! Did you see it when we found it? It was skin and bones and now look how fat it is…" said Kalina indignantly.

  "Er, yes. In fact, I wonder…"

  "And its hair was all matted and it had sore eyes!" Kalina went on.

  "We put my eye medicine in," said Maks. "It worked real well."

  Konstanty the doctor raised his eyebrows a little, "I'm not sure that's recommended," he began and then stopped abruptly. "Yes. You've taken very good care of her."

  "I suppose you'll tell our parents now." Kalina's remark was sarcastic in tone and delivered to the air between Konstanty and Hania.

  "It's not my business," said Konstanty politely, withdrawing a little.

  "Maks, Kalina, let's not bother Mr. Radzimoyski anymore. Let's go home."

  "Have a cup of tea before you go?" Konstanty asked Hania. She realized that he was looking at her dress. She glanced down at it and found that the green frog-pond water had dried in tie-dye rings across her front.

  "I thought Maks fell in the pond. I was searching for him." She explained, embarrassed.

  "You must have had quite a day. You look worn out."

  The sympathy of his tone was almost too much. Behind the sofa, a parchment genealogical chart hung on the wall. Below it, Maks and Kalina were quarrelling about the dog. Hania realized how very, very tired she was. She just wanted to get away, to go someplace and hide.

  "Thank you," she shook her head at him, "Thank you anyway. And for looking after Maks."

  "Don't mention it." But the reserve was up again.

  It was a weary troop that entered the Lanskis' apartment a floor below. The apartment had the musty smell of closed-up rooms and a good bit of dust had collected. Only the little dog seemed in good spirits and ran about sniffing everywhere and exploring. No one felt like talking. There was hardly anything to eat in the apartment, but they opened a can of green peas and mixed it with a ramen soup, and after this unappetizing meal, divided in three, they all went to bed.

  As Maks dropped off to sleep, Hania heard him murmuring, "the inner kidney has fifteen collecting tubes …"

  When Hania woke the next morning, it was to the consciousness of multiple sore muscles, of relief, and of a curious flat feeling. In all her life, it seemed to her, only two people had ever said, with concern, "you look tired." That the first should have been Kalina and the second Konstanty was one of those strange ironies of life. Neither really cared for her. Why was it? Was it because she was so overweight that no one had ever felt she needed care or protection? Her grandmother had cared only for those who might be of use to her, or would in some way increase her sense of worth. To them she had been charming, warm, and imperious. Her father? He was too lost in his abstractions ever to notice other people's feelings, and her mother had been so concerned with trying to illicit a response from her father that she had never had much time for her daughter as a person. And yet Hania knew that if she had been a sylph-like figure, she would not have been as easy to overlook. Why is there a point after which excess weight makes a person invisible? It had seemed to her sometimes, playing the piano, that her love for the music, for the doing of it, the making it, was connected with the fact that it made her real, made people pay attention, made them notice––if not her, at least something she had created…She rolled over in bed. Enough, she said to herself, with an attempt at an inner laugh. Soon you'll be like Kalina, with her pacifier. Get up and eat breakfast and you'll feel better. Or was breakfast her pacifier? Now there was a shocking idea. Somehow the thought of breakfast wasn't at all enticing anymore. And there was the dog problem to deal with, and the apartment to clean, and she wanted to get Maks back to playing the piano, and––and, in short, it was time to get up.

  The dog was lying curled on a sofa, but raised its head and thumped its tail when it saw her. It really was the most hybrid-looking creature, she thought, as she bent to pet it. Perhaps it had had a Dalmatian in its ancestry, and possibly a Yorkshire terrier. Very small, it was mostly white, with a few ill-placed black spots, and tufts of hair growing at odd angles. In fact, the sofa was already covered in hair. She supposed it needed to go out. The children weren't likely to wake early today she thought, so she searched through the apartment till she found a piece of string, which she knotted round the dog's neck. The dog didn't seem to mind the knotting, but when she suggested it get off the sofa and accompany her, it dug in its feet, lowered itself flat and heavy against the sofa cushion, and gave every signal that it didn't intend to budge. Obviously a Lanski, she thought with chagrin.

  She stopped tugging on the makeshift leash and straightened up. "Bartek!" she said very firmly, pointing to the floor, "Get off and come along!"

  Bartek gave her a reproachful glance, slid off the sofa with a thud, and waddled towards the door.

  As they strolled slowly to the grocery store, Hania tried to ignore the fact that she was sure all the passers-by were thinking 'like owner, like dog.'

  She went into the store with the dog. The proprietor leaned over the counter to look at it, almost friendly for the first time since she had begun going there.

  "What a breed." He clucked to the dog, "nice doggie," and tossed it a bit of sausage, which it caught and swallowed in a flash. "I see it's going to have puppies!"

  "No!" exclaimed Hania in horror.

  "Oh, yes," said the man, "I know about dogs. Not a doubt."

  Hania looked at the dog, looked up. Konstanty had appeared behind her. "Good morning, pani."

  "Ah, here's a doctor," said the proprietor, indelicately, Hania thought. "What does pan doctor think? Isn't it going to have puppies?"

  Konstanty put his head on his side, regarded the dog, looked at Hania, and nodded his head regretfully.

  "No…" said Hania, but this time it came out more as a wail.

  They came out of the grocery store. "Are you going home?" said Konstanty, "I'm walking that way."

  They began to walk. "I heard recently that the building administration has plans for the attic. It's going to be renovated––part as storage space and part as apartments," said Konstanty as they headed toward their building. "So the children wouldn't have been able to keep the dog there much longer anyway."

  Hania was silent, taking this in.

  "The puppies are an additional problem, I realize," said Konstanty as they walked along. "But I should think having the dog is good for Maks. Of course, it's none of my business, but I've been noticing him since I came back to Poland three-four years ago, and I think he has problems. Or rather, that he could easily develop into a child with problems. Perhaps if you explained to your aunt and uncle how important the dog is for him––that it's not just a whim––they would let him keep it."

  Yes, thought Hania, that's how it would be with other parents. But not with Ania and Wiktor. Konstanty didn't know that they'd just dumped the children on her, unsuspecting, and been out of touch for––how long was it now?––over five weeks. Concerned parents they weren't. Somehow family loyalty prevented her from saying this.

  "You can be very persuasive," he added with a smile.

  She felt the compliment but turned the subject and began to tell him about the previous day's adventures. Somehow, in telling it began to seem very funny and Konstanty was even laughing.

  They were approaching the building. "Are you going in now, or would you like to take a turn around the block?" he asked. They walked on. His phone rang and she listened to him talking to a patient, his tone calm, kind, concerned. He was so good, she thought. He excused himself, begged her to go on with her story.

  She got to the part about Kalina's near faint in the underpass. "I hope nothing's seriously the matter with her," she said, adding that Kalina adamantly refused the idea of medical attention and she had no power to force her.

  "There are many different causes for fainting," said K
onstanty cautiously, "mostly they're not serious …it's sometimes thought to run in families. Do other members of your family faint easily?"

  No, thought Hania, no, all the adult Lanskis I've known are unusually stouthearted and hardheaded.

  But Konstanty had stopped and was standing as if struck by a thought. When she looked up at him questioningly though, he merely began to walk again, his measured stride beside hers.

  Why did I tell him all that, thought Hania later, miserably, as she sat in front of her laptop waiting for the children to awake. Why? What a family he must think us. Rushing about like complete maniacs, diving into ponds, running away, children with problems, neglectful parents…he would know that even if she hadn't said anything. She had an image of his own family––not that she'd ever known them––but they would be like other educated Polish families, only more so: Parents very concerned for the children, watching their every behavior––correcting, correcting––encouraging, ensuring that they did their homework, learned to speak English, learned to speak French, stood up straight, spoke respectfully, wore clean clothes, sat still, went to church and really took in the commandments, never ever caused heads to turn, and developed a sense of civic duty and strong family bonds. She had an image of Kalina and Maks quarrelling on the sofa at Konstanty's. She remembered herself barging onto the train in her soiled dress, luggage jammed in the entryway…Enough. They lived in two different worlds and that was that. She could still be friends with him. "You can be persuasive…" he had said that with a smile. She felt a surge of warmth, but it didn't last long. She opened the lid of her computer and began to type:

  Poland spent almost the entire 17th century engaged in battle. In addition to the Khmelnytsky rebellion, and wars with the Turks due to incursions in both directions of Cossacks subject to both sides, the main struggles were with Sweden and Russia. The war with Russia began when Ivan the Terrible invaded Livonia toward the end of the 16th century. After Ivan's death, some Polish noblemen helped an impostor, the 'False Dmitri,' usurp the Russian throne, and when he was murdered in 1609 (his remains were shot from a cannon back in the direction of Poland), the Poles took Moscow and ruled there until 1612. A settlement put the first of the Romanov dynasty on the throne, but Poland and Russia still seized every occasion to fight, and their wars continued on and off across the century, intersected by wars with Sweden, including the invasion called the Swedish Deluge, which was accompanied by great cruelty…