Swans Are Fat Too

by Michelle Granas

  Respected Sir––she would write when she got home. She began composing her letter between spoonfuls, then pushed the bowl away, deciding she didn't really want it––"Is that instinct? That the accretions of experience, good or bad, have to be passed on? Is this the reason why humanity seems to have such difficulty breaking out of old patterns of behavior? One war leading to another and on and on, when avoidance would be possible if a little reason would be used because––"

  That ice cream was going to go down Maks' shirt front. She half rose, scrabbled for a napkin. Too late.

  "Maks," she asked another day, "don't you have friends you could go see or invite to play with you at the park?"

  "All Warsaw kids go on vacation," interposed Kalina, "they've all gone to Cyprus or Egypt or Tunisia. Except the ones who went to the sea or to the mountains."

  "Everybody goes on vacation but us. Why can't we go back to Żabia Wola? We could take Bartek. She'd like it."

  "Yes, and come back again on the train with all the puppies? No thank you."

  "Don't say we're going to the park again. It's too boring. I won't go. There's nothing but sandbox babies in the park."

  "So we'll go sightseeing."

  "Nooooo!"

  "Come on, if you're good I'll buy you a nice treat. We'll go see St. John's Cathedral, where Stanisław Leszczynski was crowned king three hundred years ago." She had been typing about Stanisław that morning and her mind was full of his story as she got ready to go out. It seemed to her comforting, somehow. 'A man who would have been a good king for Poland but wasn't given a chance,' Konstanty had called him. Stanisław had been a high-minded young nobleman when he caught the eye of the Swedish king, Charles XII, who had just invaded Poland. The king of Poland being on the run, Stanisław had been crowned in his place, but on Sweden's expulsion, he had had to abdicate and go into exile. The previous Polish king tried to have him assassinated, but he forgave his would-be assassins.––For which fact alone he should be honored, thought Hania.––Then he spent the next years playing music, painting, engaging in philosophy, and educating his daughter, who was unexpectedly invited to marry the French king, Louis XV.

  So that was another marriage, sighed Hania. It was better not to dwell on such things. She picked up her handbag, collected Maks, and left the apartment, still thinking of the past.

  Years later Stanisław had been persuaded to try to regain his throne. Konstanty had written that the French prime-minister, Cardinal Fleury, had sent him off for reasons having to do with the Austrian succession and Bourbon interests in Italy and nothing at all to do with Poland. Poor Stanisław hadn't known that, of course.

  Stanisław was getting on in years, badly overweight and not very healthy…

  What had Konstanty thought on writing that, she wondered, did he feel the sense of repugnance some people seem to feel toward the obese? And yet his tone toward Stanisław was warm––

  …he set out obediently for Poland in disguise, as an ordinary traveller, with a few companions, and was duly elected. Unfortunately, he was forced to abdicate again after a disastrous period of foreign intervention and the Russians' siege of Danzig. He had to flee on foot, through swamps and over great distances, all the time in danger of his life.

  Hania and Maks were waiting at a stop light to cross the street. Maks tried to annoy her by repeatedly extending a foot beyond the curb.

  …Having unwittingly served French interests, Stanisław was given the Duchy of Lorraine to rule, which he did with great success, making technical inventions, designing palaces and innovative gardens, promoting justice for the common man and religious tolerance, writing treatises on government, law, and philosophy; founding an Academy of Science and a public library; setting up a social security scheme for his subjects and a rudimentary but free health care system; and hosting many free thinkers banished from his daughter's court in France...

  He had done all these things and been much beloved by his subjects, thought Hania, as she walked along with an eye on Maks. She'd asked Konstanty in an email if there were any statues or squares in his honor in Poland? No, he'd replied, he didn't think there were, not in Warsaw anyway. Perhaps because he hadn't won any battles? she'd asked, writing that she thought Stanisław made a good hero. She hadn't added that it made her own efforts to make the best of things seem more supportable to have a model. She liked the account of Stanisław's last days too:

  He lived to be 88; in his last years he was rather feeble, but one of his former mistresses, whom he had shared with great goodwill with his prime minister, took kind care of him and he would sit by the canal with a fishing line, watching the passers-by. One morning his robe caught fire as he bent to light his pipe at the fireplace. An elderly waiting woman came to his aid and received burns as well. "Who would think that at our age we would burn with the same flame?" he joked with her, gallant to the end. His days were numbered but he remained cheerful: "you warned me not to get cold, you should have told me to look out for the heat," he wrote to the Queen of France, his daughter.

  Hania hoped she'd keep her sense of humor that long. Judging by the look on Maks face she was going to need it. He was dragging behind her.

  "Where are we going?" he whined, as they walked along Krakowskie Przedmieście.

  "To the Old Town."

  "The Old Town bores me."

  "Yes. I know. You've told me so 23 times already. But we can't stay in the apartment all the time and I haven't been there for so long. And it's full of history. Look, see this church?"

  The Church of the Sacred Heart loomed above them, its tall double flight of stairs protruding onto the pedestrian mall. "Chopin's heart is buried in there. Well, not buried, but sort of encased in a pillar."

  Maks looked up at her, with a scowl. "That's horrible." He had stopped and was standing still. "Why do you tell me horrible things like that?" he said in a tone of disgust.

  Oh dear, she thought, maybe she shouldn't have told him. One could never tell with Maks. It was unpleasant––carving up bodies for sentimental reasons.

  "Come on," she said to Maks, "You're right. I'm sorry I mentioned it."

  "No." Maks pulled at her hand. "I want to go and see it."

  A beggar came towards them, an elderly woman, well-dressed and holding out her hand. A man, dirty and ragged, who had been sitting between the stairs, climbed hastily to his feet and came towards them too, hobbling on a cane. Hania distributed coins right and left, received elaborate, insincere blessings from one, and a look of resentment from the other, and hastened into the church. Here it was all white walls, and gilt, and an atmosphere of candles and the strong scent of incense. They crossed the nave quietly, so as not to disturb the scattered figures kneeling to pray. It seemed pleasantly peaceful. I could come here, sometime, and join them, thought Hania. They stared at the pillar for a long time. There was nothing, fortunately, to be seen, but obviously Maks' imagination was working. Hania wondered what went on in Maks' mind. Was he disturbed? Was this simultaneous repulsion and attraction normal?

  "Where's the rest of his body?"

  "In Paris."

  "Oh. Who was he?"

  "Chopin?" It was her turn to stare. How, living in a household of musicians from birth could he not know who Chopin was? But naturally, if no one paid attention to children they didn't know much. "He was a composer. One of the great musicians of the Romantic period. I'm sure you've heard his music. He was born here in Poland, but as an adult he lived mostly in Paris, because Poland was controlled by Russia then. About a hundred and fifty years ago there was a revolt and some Poles tried to get rid of the Russians. The result was that a lot of people got killed"––oh dear, here they were again...

  "How many?"

  Really, the child was a ghoul. "Mmm. Lots. Anyway," she hurried on, "what I wanted to tell you was that the Russian soldiers were so mad about the whole thing that when they found Chopin's piano in a palace near here, they threw it out the window, onto the cobbles." She saw she had his attenti
on. "Come on. I'll show you where, if we can find the spot."

  They walked down the street. "This doesn't mean that I want to go," said Maks suddenly, as if their little conversation had been compromising. "You're still my enemy."

  "Your enemy, Maks? Would you put it so strongly as that?"

  Maks looked a little uncomfortable but he added, his gaze in the distance, "Yes. You'll see."

  "Listen, Maks," Hania began, and then stopped. Hadn't she already tried reasoning with him?

  "There's a poet called Norwid who made a famous poem about the piano. At the end he says that 'the ideal hit rock-bottom.'"

  "I don't know what you're talking about," said Maks. He was drooping along listlessly again, past the intricate wrought iron gates of the university, and the presidential palace––with scaffolding up again, because every president had his taste in paint––past Mickiewicz's super-sized statue behind the fence...he was walking slower and slower.

  "There, Maks," Hania pointed, "In front of that church, St. Anna's, see, the king used to sit on a chair, on a high platform, specially made for him, during ceremonies. The former Tsar of Russia, Vasily Shuisky, and his brothers were brought here as prisoners from Russia, almost 400 years ago."

  He wasn't listening.

  "They spent the rest of their lives locked up in a castle."

  He looked up quickly, but resisted the temptation to be interested. She gave up. There, standing before the Castle, in the

  Royal Square, was the tall column of Zygmunt III Vasa. They reached him and she stared up, contemplating the slightly bent figure. A jail-and-Jesuit-twisted man with a large cross in one hand and an upraised sword in the other. It was a good statue, but the symbolism was offensive. They should take it down, Hania thought, even if it is a good statue, artistically speaking. Or they should break his sword or cap it, to show that no one approves of that mentality any more.

  The base of the statue was crowded with skateboarders, whizzing up and down, from plinth to cobblestones, and a number of break-dancing teenagers were mashing their heads into cardboard to the sound of a radio. They seemed as far removed from old Zygmunt as possible, but one never knew, perhaps such images left marks upon the brain and influenced behavior, later, in moments of trial...

  Above them the brown-orange walls of the Castle looked down stolidly below the cheerful clock tower. They crossed the cobbled square with its pastel, candy-box houses. Not for them the expensive britchkas with their round, heavy horses awaiting customers. Those are the sort of horses I'd have to ride, thought Hania, as they threaded their way through the tourists, if I were ever to get on a horse. She spared a warm fellow feeling for the creatures.

  They headed for the river, passing through the old market square, where the well-to-do sat under canopies, eating salads, and on to the embankment, where the young people sat on walls, drinking beer. Below, far below, on the other side of a highway, the river stretched out, gray and reserved and windswept, to a far bank where willows grew and nothing moved but possibly birds.

  Hania leaned against the railing. Her ancestors, down how many generations, had stood thus and looked at the river. There wasn't any place in America where she could stand and think that. Did it matter? She looked down at Maks and considered putting the question to him, but he was caught up in watching the bicyclists go down the hill, and she didn't dare. In spite of his current intermittent enmity, he was close, he was here, he was her cousin, and New York and all her life there seemed very far away.

  They turned back, and on Świętojańska Street, next to the massive pile of St John's Cathedral, they listened to a violinist, standing on the cobbles beside the crouching statue of a bear guarding the Piarist church. Someone, Hania supposed, from a symphony orchestra somewhere in Russia, or Belarus, whose livelihood depended on busking, illegally, in a foreign city. She was lucky in comparison. Two policemen were strolling towards them. The violinist hastily lowered his instrument, picked up his case, and moved off.

  There was a window, selling waffles with cream. The scent was delicious, and Maks pulled her towards it. They ate, standing in the street; the cream dripped between their fingers, and the waffles were as good as they smelled. Well, thought Hania, this has really been a rather successful outing. We've walked a long way, and Maks hasn't really complained that much––since we got here––and maybe it had some educational value too. Really, she felt quite pleased. They finished their snack. Hania threw away the wrappers.

  "Shall we go?" she said to Maks.

  Maks backed away. "Who are you?" he said loudly.

  "Maks," she hissed, "Stop that. It isn't funny. Come with me."

  "What do you want from me?" he said, even more loudly, so that a middle-aged couple standing near, tourists obviously, looked at one another, clutched their cameras, and hurried away. "Why do you want me to go with you?"

  "Maks! Stop that and come on!" She said angrily, her face turning red. People all up and down the street were stopping to stare.

  "What's happening, child?" a brisk woman asked Maks, approaching and giving Hania a suspicious look.

  "I don't know this lady, and she wants me to come with her," shrieked Maks, with totally convincing theatrics, "I think she wants to kidnap me."

  The woman was joined by a number of other persons; they all turned and gave Hania indignant glares and began to talk at once.

  "No," Hania tried to explain, growing more flustered by the moment. Piano concerts had given her poise, but nothing like what was necessary for such a situation. "He's just pretending! He's my cousin. Really ...I…"

  No one listened to her explanation. There were five different opinions of what should be done and an argument was starting.

  "Here are the police coming," said one of the group surrounding Maks. "You'll see I'm right," he added in an irritated tone to the others.

  The police, the police, just great, thought Hania. What to do? What to do?

  "Run, Maks! They're going to put you in jail for disturbing the peace!" she yelled over the hubbub of his rescuers.

  "Aaaa!" shrieked Maks, and breaking through the circle, he dodged around the brisk woman and her helpers, pushed his way through a group of Japanese tourists who were clustered round a store window, helplessly observing the commotion, and ran down the street.

  Hania whirled and ran after him. The Japanese tourists flattened themselves against the wall. Hania raced after Maks till they reached the end of the street and ran into the

  Royal Square. Maks stopped. Hania looked behind. No one seemed to have come in pursuit. She caught up with Maks, and walked past him without speaking. He fell in beside her.

  "Maks," she said furiously, controlling her voice with difficulty. "I've tried to be your friend. But this was it. The outer limit. It's over. Finished. I'm not going to be your friend anymore. I don't care what happens to you. I don't care what happens to your stupid dog. It's over." She strode on, very fast. She just wanted to get as far away from the Old Town as possible.

  "You mean you're really mad?" said Maks, trotting to keep up. He seemed surprised.

  She stopped. "Yes! I'm really mad! I'm furious! I'm not going to do anything for you anymore." She walked on. "I'm not going to cook for you, or clean for you, or sit with you at night, or teach you the piano, or anything. You don't like me. Well, fine. I don't like you either."

  To her surprise, he burst into tears. Real, genuine, grief-stricken tears. He cried all the way along

  Krakowskie Przedmieście Street; he cried, with heartbroken sobs, at the bus stop, where several women scolded Hania for her cruelty––"Pani, how can you treat the child like that? He'll make himself ill"––and all the rest of the way home, only stopping on the staircase to scrub his face with his sleeve. "I don't want Kalina to see me like this," he explained, sniffingly.

  In spite of her year of teaching she really knew nothing about children, Hania thought.

  11

  Pity me, both old and youngling

  I've
been to a bloody wedding.

  – 'Świętokrzyski Lament' (Medieval)

  "Tata called," Kalina said, when they came in the door, exhausted and red-faced. And then to Maks, "What's wrong with you?"

  Why, oh why, do I always miss them, thought Hania, tearing her mind away from the unpleasantnesses of the afternoon, and Maks' condition.

  "What did he say?" she asked eagerly. I need to tell them that I have to be back in New York, that we're going to run out of money––because I've been using my own and what with paying for the groceries, and the electricity bill, and the train tickets…

  "What happened to Maks?" Kalina asked Hania accusingly, when Maks wouldn't answer her. "What have you been doing to him?"

  "I..." Oh, really, thought Hania, now I have to justify myself as well. "Maks can tell you that. But please tell me what your father said."

  "I don't know; I wasn't listening."

  "What?"

  But of course, like father, like daughter, thought Hania in outrage. "Aren't you even interested in when they're coming back? It matters because of Bartek, after all––and I have…"

  "Why are you getting so excited?" Kalina looked at her curiously. "I told them everything's fine, nothing to worry about, and they shouldn't hurry back. That's right, isn't it? We don't want them to come back, do we?" A pause, and then, very definitely,"I sure don't."

  "No, no, we don't want them to come back," said Maks, continuing to sniff. "We want you, Hania. I'm sorry I did all those bad things."