Swans Are Fat Too

by Michelle Granas

  Hania typed on, through the unwillingness of the nobles to compromise, to give up their right to rebel, their right of life and death over their peasants, etc., through the failure of reforms, until Russia, Prussia, and Austria, desirous of righting a balance of power among themselves, claimed that chaos prevailed in Poland and, in the first of their successive Partitions, which took more and more territory, divided part of the country between themselves.

  ….Stanisław August did what he could in the situation. He promoted the arts, sciences, and education (including for girls and including through Europe's first ministry of education). He also co-authored one of the first national constitutions in Europe. The Constitution of May Third was supposed to extend political rights to the bourgeoisie and make Poland more democratic, but instead it led to further rebellion by part of the nobility, another war, and the Second Partition of the country between Russia and Prussia. It is held against Stanisław that he eventually joined the side of the magnates, although he was trying to save what he could of the reforms. He was forced to abdicate and shortly died. He was a humane man, who tried his best for his country. Today he is often vilified.

  There, another one who did his best in the face of difficulties, thought Hania, as she finished typing. She liked to read about people who'd made an effort to do what they could. She was trying too. What was that verse?

  Do the work that's nearest

  Though it's dull at whiles,

  Helping when we meet them

  Lame dogs over stiles.

  She smiled rather wryly to herself. They were all lame dogs: herself, Maks, Kalina, Bartek the least of them. She went to attend to her own duties.

  She had insisted that Kalina see a doctor.

  "Why?" Kalina had objected. "I don't want to go."

  "Yes. But I don't want to be responsible if anything goes wrong." This time she had a point of leverage and Kalina gave in with only token protest.

  Hania searched through the phone book and found a private clinic on the outskirts of town. In a private clinic they wouldn't ask to see documents; there wouldn't be any questions about Kalina's parents, etc. So they were going, riding on one bus after another, with Maks, complaining bitterly, in tow because they couldn't leave him alone. Hania tried to concentrate on the views out the window. What a lot of theatres putting on 'Szekspir' and Irish plays; what a lot of movie houses; what a lot of apartment buildings and billboards again. They got off the last bus and began to walk.

  Somewhere they were passing a churchyard. Was this the one? She slowed her steps, peering through the fence to see if there was a printing office inside. There didn't seem to be. The fence was sharply spiked, there was a security agency poster on the parish house––obviously the parish priest had never read Les Miserables, thought Hania––and there was a sign on the gate scolding the parishioners for not wearing good enough clothes to Sunday service. Hania stared at the notice in disbelief. Maks and Kalina were leaving her behind. Of course, there were all kinds of priests in the Church: some very good and some––not so good. She hurried to catch up with her charges. "Kalina, is this the church?"

  "No. And please don't try to find it, because you won't."

  Hania tried to imagine herself going in and speaking to the priest. What would she say? How would she begin? "Do you know, Father, what sort of a man...?" She couldn't even remember how one greeted a Polish priest. It wasn't just "good day." It was… "May He be praised...?" Something like that. But how did one say "goodbye?"

  They came to the clinic and went inside. There was marble everywhere, bright cream paint, and fashion-model girls sitting at the reception counter behind new computers. Everyone was very pleasant and there was no waiting. Kalina disappeared into a room. Hania sat in a leather chair and Maks went to look at various medical posters.

  "Maks, come sit beside me," she said, probably just too late.

  "Well," he said matter-of-factly, dropping into a chair beside her, "I don't know why you don't want me to watch television. I think that"––he pointed to a poster graphically detailing a bladder operation––"is much worse."

  She was inclined to agree, but adjured him to sit still and stop kicking the chair. "Look at that other poster––the one with the magnified dust mites."

  She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on Beethoven's Sonata in F. She opened them to find a woman, heavily pregnant, sitting beside her. The woman smiled and gestured toward Hania's midriff. "When's yours due?"

  "Er…" The woman was going to be so embarrassed. "October."

  "Everything's fine," said the doctor, appearing with Kalina and handing over a schedule of tests to have done. She's speaking to me, thought Hania, as if I'm Kalina's mother. Do I look that old? I'd have to be at least five years older than I am to have been a mother of Kalina's age.

  They left the clinic and took the several bus rides home. Kalina seemed undaunted by the experience, thought Hania later, watching her around the apartment, perhaps even rather pleased by the attention. Perhaps that's what she wanted all along?

  A postcard came the next day from Ania, tucked among the sheaf of bills that arrived almost daily. It was stamped "Switzerland."

  Kochanie, We've just passed a wonderful week in the––somewhere illegible. Lots of sun and good talk with friends. We're staying here with the Kueblers. I think we'll be leaving on Saturday. We miss you lots. Hugs and kisses. Mama

  Saturday, that would have been nearly a week ago. There was no telling where they might be now. Please don't let them be on their way to Poland, she thought.

  One thing, after all, was certain. Whenever they arrived, she was going to be held responsible for what had happened. She didn't for a moment suppose the fact that Kalina had become pregnant before she came to stay would ever prevent Wiktor––and her father too, when Wiktor complained to him––from blaming her. It would certainly be all her fault for not looking after Kalina properly. And it wouldn't be entirely ill will; she didn't suppose either Wiktor or her father had ever considered questions on the order of the length of the human gestation period; they lived in such abstract worlds she doubted if they knew…Considering her own relatives, thought Hania, there was something to be said, in theory, at least, for the 'family values' people. If only the most rabid advocates weren't so likely to be people hiding some emotional disturbance of their own.

  So what, she wondered, was she going to do about this editor of Kalina's? Could she just turn her eyes away and let him go on preying on young girls? Or did she have to take some action? And if so, what?

  Later that evening Kalina came up behind her while she was searching the phone book for the names of editorial offices. "You can't do that!" she said.

  "I wish I didn't know about it," Hania said, "but since I do, I don't think I can just let someone take advantage of young girls and not do anything to try and stop it. How many teenagers do you think this man will use the way he used you? From what you tell me, I don't for a moment suppose you were the first or that Paulina will be the last. I don't want to involve the police, but it seems to me that if I spoke to his superiors, he could be warned to behave himself, or an eye could be kept on him, or…I don't know…I'm not asking you to give me his name––I know you can't."

  "No, so don't try." Kalina was being offensive again––and actually, Hania didn't blame her.

  "I know this is really difficult for you…but think if other girls ended up in your situation. It isn't right, Kalina."

  "What's wrong with my situation?" Kalina asked angrily. "I like my situation. I want a baby."

  Then a moment later: "Okay"––she was almost shouting at Hania––"It wasn't the way I said, okay? He didn't know I'm fifteen. I told him I'm a university student and Paulina also. He didn't ask us to come into the office, we followed him. He didn't ask me to come back, I just came. There, are you satisfied?" She flung out of the room.

  "Oh," said Hania. That put a different complexion on the whole. Adultery might be regrettable bu
t it wasn't any of her business. Then for a moment, she wondered if Kalina was telling her the truth; turning it over in her mind she doubted and believed by turns; finally, she realized she would never know and that she had better drop the subject.

  13

  Let us plant roses, friend,

  Long yet, the world is sure

  To whir with snowy storms,

  Let's plant them for the future!

  – Seweryn Goszczyński,

  'Planting Roses,' 1831

  Everything was dreary, she thought with discouragement, typing away at the history. I am coming to a point in Poland's history where it becomes harder and harder to see events simply as something in the distant past, errors that modern progress will eliminate.

  Tadeusz Kościuszko, friend of Thomas Jefferson and participant in America's war for independence, has a bridge named after him in New York and a mountain in Australia, and is considered by many to be a hero. He was born in Mereszowszczyzna––an unpronounceable place even by Polish standards, thought Hania––of rather poor parents, who owned only one village of serfs. He really wanted to be a soldier, but as no one––and he offered himself to various German courts––would have him, he had to wait for the American Revolution. After taking part in this conflict, he used the money he received for his services to emancipate some American slaves; back home he contented himself with freeing his female serfs and reducing the men's labor…Then, in 1794, he headed a rebellion against the Russian occupation. Although he tried to encourage the peasantry to join by promising them some civil liberties, it was still a far cry from 'all men are created equal.' And the insurrection was a disaster. When the Russian forces reached Warsaw, they massacred ten to twenty thousand of the inhabitants (in revenge, perhaps, for the population's earlier attack on the Russian garrison, when two to four thousand soldiers were killed). The final outcome was the Third Partition, after which Poland had to wait another 123 years to regain its independence.

  Respected Sir, Hania wrote, Given the divisions––social, linguistic, denominational––of all the peoples existing within Poland's shifting borders, the idea that a small group of people should take to the idea of dying, and worse yet, of killing, for the sake of 'Polish independence' seems unreal...The immediate results always so out of proportion with any possible benefits...not that I think killing is justified for any benefit...

  She considered, her finger over the send button: Should she send this? Perhaps he was getting tired of all her questioning. 'Delete,' she pressed.

  Kościuszko had been captured by the Russians, but was pardoned by Tsar Paul I, along with 20,000 other political prisoners.

  Serfdom was abolished in the Prussian partition in 1823, in the Austrian partition in 1848, and in the Russian partition in 1864.

  Maks came to interrupt her. She looked up from her typing. "You never pay attention to me any more," he complained.

  "I thought you were the boy who wanted to make me miserable." She wasn't in the mood for Maks's tantrums, but she regretted the words once spoken. Actually, he hadn't been making her life miserable lately and he'd even seemed fairly cooperative.

  "But you're going to stay and take care of Bartek and Kalina, aren't you? So that's okay." He adjusted his glasses. "I don't have to make your life miserable."

  She stared at him. Had she given that impression?

  "Maks, I can't stay." His face began to take on an ominous darkness, but she couldn't deceive him. "I'd really like to help you, but I can't. I have to go back to New York in two weeks. But your parents will come back, and you'll be glad to see them, won't you? And school will start and you'll see your friends again…"

  The phone rang. Maks was muttering something, but she didn't know whether it was "stupid, fat turnip," or "stupid, fat cabbage-head…" and she was glad for a reason to ignore him.

  "Hello?"

  "Haniu, kochanie."

  "Tato?" Her father.

  "Hania, how are you?"

  "I'm…"

  He cut her off. "Hania, listen, Gerhardt just called and he says––"

  "Tato, I don't know any Gerhardt."

  Her father and Wiktor moved almost entirely in emigré circles of academics, writers, musicians, and scientists of vaguely Polish antecedents, who, although they seldom went near Poland themselves, had no interest in anyone who lacked a connection with the place.

  "Kuebler. You know, Wiktor's friend in Berlin. Or Bern? So listen to me. Wiktor asked him to ask me to call you to ask if you wouldn't mind staying another two weeks?"

  Why, thought Hania, did Polish people never do anything directly? Why was it always by involving as many intermediaries as possible? And then she thought––two weeks more; a reprieve of two more weeks. And then, but my job?

  "Tato, I have to be back in New York…"

  "So I'll call this Szopecki and tell him that's all settled then, shall I? And he can tell Wiktor and Ania."

  "Who's Szopecki?"

  "I don't know. Gerhardt gave me his number. I think Ania and Wiktor are going to Turkey with him."

  "To Turkey? What for?"

  "To rest, I suppose, what else? You should go sometime. You know it's not good the way you never get out and see things."

  "Yes, well…"

  "So how are you? How are things? Did you know it's very hot here today?"

  "Kalina's pregnant and I'm in love with a man who will never think of me." She could say it in perfect security. It would never go in.

  "Good, good. So that's fine then. Did you know that Ania and Wiktor are going to a spa in Turkey? Wiktor's so tired after all the work he's done this summer that they need to rest. It's someplace called…let me see…well, someplace with a Turkish name."

  "Yes, Tato."

  "Mamo, it's Hania."

  "Haniu, kochanie, how are you? Hold on a minute, I have to let the dogs out."

  Hania waited for her mother to come back on the line.

  "So, what's happening? How do you like Poland?"

  "I like Poland very much. It's…just…I have this problem...these problems..."

  "Say it straight out, because––wait a moment…" There was a conversation in the background, something about a truck and bales of hay. "Okay, sorry, I'm back on. Wayne's going out and I had to speak to him first. So, what's up?"

  "There's this man…"

  "In Poland?"

  "Yes. I…"

  "Oh Hania, you really don't want to get involved with a man in Poland. I hope it's not too late to tell you that?" Her mother's tone slid from worried to irritated, "You know, I really can't understand this fixation you have with Poland."

  "That's not the problem…I…"

  "Well, what does he do? Could he find a good job in America? You know, it's not all that easy with immigration. You wouldn't believe the problems we had."

  "But I don't think he'd want to leave. In any case, that's not the point…"

  "Not want to leave? Is he crazy? How could anyone not want to leave Poland?"

  "Mamo, Poland isn't like it was. It's completely changed. Lots of things are good here…"

  "Like what?"

  "There's no death penalty, and the murder rate's quite low, and there isn't a huge jail population, and mostly people don't go around shooting each other, and men and women like each other, and if the health system's far from perfect, at least they're trying to provide one––but that's not what I called to talk about, I…" She thought of the moderate peasant prosperity of Żabia Wola, of the chic denizens of Krakowskie Przedmieście, of weeping willows draping the banks by the Palace on the Water. She would never make her mother understand.

  "Hania, please. We can argue about Poland some other time––this is going to be a very expensive call for you. How's the piano playing?" But her mother wasn't listening. Hania could see her quite clearly across the distance; she had her hand half over the receiver and was giving instructions to her husband. Hania could see him too: a kindly man, who always wore boots and a Stetson, even to
his wedding, even indoors. He called Hania a 'gal,' had nothing whatever to say to her, and tried to hide the fact by making jokes about 'Pollocks' and about taking her horseback riding.

  "It's fine." She murmured, said goodbye and hung up. There was no one to talk to.

  The phone rang again under her hand. She picked it up mechanically and was jolted by the sound of Konstanty's pleasant-timbered voice. Almost, she was too nervous to say hello back.

  "I was calling to apologize for being so abrupt on the stairs this morning."

  Oh, so he wasn't angry. She almost cried with relief. But, of course he wouldn't be angry with her for something she couldn't help. She'd have thought less of him if he had. She could reason like this now that he'd called.

  "It's just that I had to get to the hospital rather quickly. I hope your crisis with the children wasn't too serious?"

  "No. Not serious. Just…something I couldn't leave." She couldn't tell him about Kalina. What sort of a family would he think them? He would know eventually, of course, but by then she'd be back in the States, and it wouldn't matter so much…But why was she being so 19th-century? Teenage mothers were the commonest thing in the world. Still, she didn't think it would be a neutral fact to him.

  "Do you have plans for tomorrow evening? Shall we try again?"

  Hania put down the phone, her heart bubbling with gladness, and something like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture––the part after the cannons––playing in the background of her mind.

  He had said––she heard the smile in his voice––that this time, he would knock on her door, and they would walk together. He would come at eight.

  At seven-thirty she was taking a shower. In the shower one hears nothing. She didn't like that. Maks had been unusually quiet all day. She turned off the water a number of times but she didn't hear anything. She was rinsing the last of the soap off when suddenly someone was knocking vigorously on the bathroom door.