Swans Are Fat Too

by Michelle Granas

  "Who is it? What's happened?" she called.

  It was Maks, squeaking, "Come, come quick! Burglars! Burglars have come into the apartment!"

  "Maks!" she called, "Please leave me alone. I'm not falling for anything like that!"

  "But come quick!" he was whispering loudly and urgently through the keyhole. "They're going into your room!"

  "Maks, please."

  Silence.

  She dried herself and climbed out of the tub. Strange, when she first came to Poland the tub had seemed unusually high, in an odd European way, and hard to get into, and now she hopped right over without a problem. Maybe she had just got used to it, or maybe running after Maks was making her more agile. She had left her bathrobe in the hasty flight from Żabia Wola, so she had nothing to wrap around herself but an old beach towel she'd found in a cupboard. It made a rather insufficient covering, but she only had to reach her bedroom. She tucked the towel in modestly and was reaching for the door handle when Maks began to knock again.

  "They're taking your clothes."

  "What?"

  The towel came undone and fell to the floor. She scrabbled for it, slung it around herself, and ripped open the door. Maks was standing there, head tilted slightly back, holding his glasses to his nose.

  "Why didn't you hurry?"

  "Maks, I don't like this sort of trick."

  "Suit yourself, I warned you."

  She hurried along to the bedroom. She had left the new dress hanging on the front of the closet. It was gone. She jerked open the closet door. There was nothing inside, not even hangers.

  "Maks!" she shouted. "Maks! Where are my clothes?"

  He appeared in the doorway. "I told you. Some burglars came in and took them."

  "What nonsense. Tell me where my clothes are."

  "I can't. I don't know where they took them."

  Hania controlled herself with difficulty. "And what did they look like, these burglars? Like one seven-year-old boy named Maks?"

  "No. One was sort of tall, and had blond hair, a nose like this, and a kind of squinty eye." He squinched up an eye. "The other was very large, with big arms, and…he was bald…They were wearing black caps."

  "I suppose they were in desperate need of a size-vast collection of dresses." She glanced at the clock. Fifteen till. "Maks, it isn't funny anymore. Where are they?"

  He raised his hands in a gesture of ignorance.

  All right, she thought, they had to be in the apartment somewhere. She began to look. She tore her bedroom apart: looked under the bed, behind the closet, picked up the seat cushions. She ran into the next room, and searched it similarly, then Maks and Kalina's room. She threw boxes of toys onto the floor, jerked blankets off beds. Kalina was asleep on her bed, but woke up and said drowsily that she hadn't heard anything.

  "Maks says burglars took my clothes."

  "What nonsense," Kalina murmured, half asleep still, "he probably threw them out the window."

  Hania ran and looked out all the windows. Nothing to be seen on the sidewalk. Where could they be? She ran, towel clutched around her, into the piano room, lifted the piano lids––nothing. Five till.

  "Maaaaks!" she cried in despair, "Don't do this to me! Where are they?"

  "Burglars took them. Maybe," he said, taking off his glasses and polishing them with an air she could only suppose he'd learned from a James Bond movie, "next time you'll pay attention to me."

  She suppressed a strong urge to slap him. Two minutes till. It was hard to search while holding onto a towel, but she was a one-armed wonder.

  The door-bell rang as she was straddling boxes in the służbówka.

  She scurried to Kalina. "Kalina, I can't go to the door. Please, you'll have to go let Mr. Radzimoyski in––no, I mean, don't let him in––tell him what happened."

  Kalina groaned but didn't get up. Hania leaned over and shook her. "Please, Kalina, please go now, before he thinks I've stood him up again."

  Kalina stumbled to her feet and padded down the hall to the entryway. Hania, holding her breath to listen, heard her say good evening, and then:

  "Hania says to say she can't come out tonight." A long pause.

  What? Thought Hania, she isn't going to explain? She's going to leave it at that? Feeling intensely ridiculous, she called from down the hall, "Because somebody took all her clothes!"

  She couldn't imagine how he would look on hearing such words. Would he laugh? Would his face take on a thoughtful look? Whatever, she was sunk beyond hope of recall.

  Kalina was saying, in her sleepy voice. "Maks says burglars came in and took all Hania's clothes. She was in the shower, I think. At least, I guess that's why she's been running around half-naked, shrieking…But I don't know, I was asleep."

  Aaaaah, thought Hania. I'm going back to New York and I'm never coming to Poland again. Never, never, never.

  "Would you ask Maks to come here, please?" she heard Konstanty saying to Kalina. She retreated down the hall; she didn't want to know anymore. When she finally took her hands off her ears, she heard the door click open. She listened. There was a sound of thudding on the stairs, and then she heard Konstanty saying to Kalina. "Please tell your cousin that I will be back in fifteen minutes." There was the click of the door shutting again, and then Kalina calling, "Hania, Hania, he's gone and Maks has brought your clothes back! He put them in a bag and took them to the attic."

  Kalina helped her iron the dress again. She was ready when the doorbell rang.

  They were walking side by side along the street. "How did you convince Maks to give them back?" she asked.

  "I reasoned with him. I told him that you were his friend and that you always tried to help him and he should try and help you. I told him I was sure he wouldn't want to make you feel bad…things like that."

  "And it worked?" she looked at him in amazement.

  "No," he shook his head rather ruefully. "I'm sorry to say, it didn't appear to move him a jot. Seeing which, I remained very calm; I told him I would call the police, that a detective would come and take fingerprints on the closet, etc."

  "And that worked?"

  "No. He said that burglars wear gloves and that his fingerprints would be all over the house––it wasn't proof."

  "Ah, that sounds like Maks."

  "So then I asked him if he'd heard of a truth serum? And he began to look a little less certain and asked if it were true. I couldn't lie to him, but I said I had a large syringe upstairs…" his hands made the gesture of a foot-long needle, "and that was sufficient… I wish it had been the gentler methods that worked; it would have fit my worldview better, but there you are…He's quite a character, is Maks."

  "Ye-es," said Hania, without enthusiasm. "I suppose he'll grow up to be a big-league criminal, or a politician. Probably both."

  He looked down at her and smiled, "That's a very pretty dress."

  "Thank you." She blushed.

  14

  Some Poles hoped Napoleon would restore Poland's independence. In 1797 the Polish legions were formed in Italy and fought for Napoleon until only a couple regiments were left as soldiers of the Kingdom of Naples. (Amongst other employment, Polish troops had been sent against Italian peasant uprisings, against the Papal States, and, in 1802, to put down a slave rebellion in Haiti. So strange are the uses of soldiers.) In 1806, Napoleon reached Warsaw and established the Duchy of Warsaw. Polish volunteers rushed to his armies again. After Napoleon's 1812 disaster, Poland was again partitioned between the usual powers…

  Hania paused, considering how to rewrite the next series of failed insurrections. One in 1830 was ignited when a group of cadets attempted to assassinate the Tsar's brother. Constantine escaped from a Warsaw palace in women's clothing, and later was willing to grant an amnesty, but, while some Poles wanted to negotiate, others were unwilling. The country fell into chaos and the resultant war with Russia lasted till September 1831. The constitution was suspended, repressive measures taken, and 9,000 persons went into exile. Then
there was another uprising in Galicia in 1846, during which the peasantry turned on the insurgents; and––she began to type:…In 1863, in spite of the fact that Poland had been enjoying increased liberty and growing economic and cultural attainments, grievances still existed, and another rebellion against Russia was attempted. It too was unsuccessful. The result was that 20-30,000 Poles died, 10,000 were sent to mines in the Urals, and 40,000 were sent to Siberia.

  Death and food for patriotic poets, Hania thought; all this dreary history was doing nothing to raise her spirits. Somehow she wanted to go far, far away––maybe to Siberia––and hide. But why? Yesterday evening had been one of the best evenings of her life; she and Konstanty had talked and he had even laughed and there had always been understanding, even when they disagreed, and no lack of topics. And yet she had risen today with a sense of despair. She was falling deeper and deeper in love, and she was quite aware that on his part––she swallowed––on his part…There was no 'on his part.' He might like talking to her, but he would be shocked by the very idea of a connection between them.

  I am obliged to set a good example of happy maturity for the children, she chided herself, and I can't control my own emotions. She wanted to help them and perhaps they were less in need of help than she herself. Perhaps Kalina had been right in commenting on her size, and what did she know about relationships? She had never had a successful one in her life. Kalina had gone seeking love––never mind if it was also lust––after her own manner and seemed content enough with the outcome.

  Kalina, actually, didn't seem unhappy at all. In fact, having got over her disappointment in her lover, her sense of betrayal, she seemed, if anything, relieved. Her ideas were all concentrated on the coming baby. The baby was to her, Hania thought, what the dog was for Maks: They needed affection and had enough sense to try for it by giving. In the face of their possibly greater wisdom, she felt uncomfortable that practical questions kept occurring to her. How would Kalina raise a child? How would she support it? But when Hania asked her what she intended to do about school she averred that she still intended to go, why shouldn't she? And when Hania mentioned the fact that there would be the birth six months into the year, and the baby to nurse, and the impossibility of leaving it to its own devices while she sat at school…Kalina had serenely replied that she was sure it would work out somehow, and what did Hania think of the name "Julia?"

  Hania put aside her worries for her.

  "'Julia's a nice name, but what if it's a boy?" And she couldn't resist adding, "like Maks?"

  "No!" Kalina seemed truly taken aback. Obviously the thought had never occurred to her. "Hania," she said in a tone of horror, "do you think it's a…boy?"

  "Could be."

  "Jejku!"

  A while later, Kalina asked her, "If it's a boy, what do you think of the name 'Mścigniew'?"

  "Mścigniew? You wouldn't give the poor thing a name meaning 'Vengeful Anger'––Kalino, you couldn't do it!"

  "Why not? I found it in a list of names. It even has a saint's day. See? December 19."

  "A saint's day for Vengeful Anger? Still…"

  "Okay, then, how about 'Igor?'"

  "Igor…Igor…Igor Beavor. Why not?"

  And one day, looking at Kalina full of her coming motherhood, Hania had a flash––of envy, of longing: She will have a baby, and I will grow into an eccentric piano teacher, with my hair in a wops on my head and strange clothing. I will be barren and childless, develop uterine cancer at fifty, and die early and unloved. She gave herself a shake. There were, as her grandmother said, no excuses; there was certainly no excuse for mourning over herself. She had work to do, and she rose with her usual determination and went to the piano room.

  If she was going to be a piano teacher, she had better get at it. If she was going to stay then she had to make money.

  It was after a phone call from Wiktor two days previously that she had finally made up her mind. He had called, just like that, out of the blue, when she had entirely given up the idea that he might phone.

  "Haniu, kochanie, how are you?" She had been expecting a call from Konstanty; Wiktor's voice had taken her by surprise.

  "Um...I'm…fine." She had such a mix of images in her mind, she didn't know what to start with first. But she made a stab at it. "Um...uh...um..."

  "Good. Good. Listen, kochanie, I've just had this offer to stay and work here so we won't be back when we thought we would."

  He didn't hear Hania's gasp but continued, "So since I know you have to be back in New York, we're trying to arrange for someone to come stay with the kids. But at the moment we haven't had any luck. There's an acquaintance of Ania's who knows someone who had a woman from some place in the countryside doing cleaning for her and she's going to try and get a number for us––but we don't know yet if she'll be willing to stay with the kids. If that doesn't work out we'll have to try something..."

  "But...Don't you think you should be here––because of the children's schooling and...and…" Hania hadn't expected to have to tell them about Kalina over the phone. She had imagined telling Ania, one on one; still, she had to do it. But Wiktor was saying, with a tone of rather smug amusement:

  "But after all, they're the ones that have to go to school, not us."

  "Yes, but, but, I really think Kalina needs––needs her mother."

  "Kalina needs her mother? She's a big girl."

  "Yes, well, that's rather the point. She's..."

  His tone was dismissive. "Now, listen, I don't know when we'll be able...

  But Hania broke in on him, fiercely. "Wiktor, is Ania there?"

  "Ania? She's fine. Now, what I wanted––"

  "Wiktor! You should come home because Kalina is expecting." There, she'd said it. She held her breath waiting for his shocked reaction. But he swept on.

  "Well, we were expecting to be home too, but this is a very interesting offer and I really think it would be irresponsible of me to pass it up and––"

  "She's expecting a baby."

  But he was talking across her, over her, about a possible babysitter.

  "Kalina is expecting a baby and Maks needs his parents too!" She said it loudly and firmly. He couldn't not have heard. It was only, as she heard him saying good-bye, that she realized how protected he was against hearing anything he didn't want to hear. Would he know, deep down in his subconscious, what she had just told him, or was it completely blocked out? She didn't know, and it didn't matter. Kalina and Maks had no one but herself. She found she was trembling.

  The children at the private school in New York would never miss her. She picked up the phone and dialled a number. The principal was not pleased with her. In fact, although the school advertised itself as nurturing and supportive, she didn't feel supported at all. She felt like she'd had an earful and would never find employment in New York again. When the call was over she was free and unemployed and had an empty apartment in New York which she very much hoped someone would want to sub-let.

  Then she called her father and asked him to call Gerhardt or Szopinski or whoever else he thought might be able to get a message to Wiktor to tell him she was willing to stay with the children.

  Maks was watching her as she put down the phone.

  "You're staying?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." Somehow he didn't seem very pleased. His tone was listless. "Mama and Tata aren't coming back?"

  "Not right away."

  He nodded, and turning, went away. She found him later sitting on his bed, with all the dogs beside him. He didn't look up when she opened the door. So it did matter to him then. She felt full of pity, but there was nothing she could do.

  "I'm sure they wish they could be here," she said to his bent head. He shrugged.

  Kalina shrugged too when she told her, but somehow Hania didn't feel that she was pleased either. Whatever they might say, however much they might protest, she realized, they wanted their parents and they had been expecting them back at the start of the ye
ar.

  She felt so flattened by their reaction that she almost wished she could go back on her decision. But, she told herself, she had decided to stay for their sakes, not for her own, so what was she unhappy about? Because she too needed someone to want her, came the unbidden thought, and since she knew that she wasn't, really, going to receive anything from Konstanty, she had desired the children as substitutes.

  She had to put these thoughts away. Perhaps the children would eventually give her what affection they could spare from elsewhere; in the mean time, she had practical matters to attend to––like how to make money.

  The only thing she knew how to do really well was play the piano. She had a mental block about it, but that could be overcome. She had overcome many things to become as good as she was: she had practiced through fatigue––the endless hours––and boredom with some of the drudgery of the mechanics, and despair, when nothing would go right or some piece seemed impossible to master. She had learned one just went on. She got up, went into the piano room, and sat down at a bench. Once it would have seemed the most natural thing in the world to start playing; now, after over a year's break, it seemed strange. She decided on a Chopin mazurka––his most nocturne-like and not a very difficult piece, because she was out of practice, and also, because she was fond of it. She put her hands forward. How nervous she felt; suppose she had forgotten too much? She played. She imagined she was playing for Konstanty, who understood everything, too quickly, but wouldn't understand this––neither the music nor her pain, and so she put it all in, transformed it. Stopped. So, actually, she could still play. That is, she had played this piece far more accurately in the past, but not, surely, with deeper feeling.

  Maks was standing in the doorway. "Babcia used to play that," he said. "She played it differently. You made a lot of mistakes."

  She was torn between a sort of wry amusement at his thinking he knew enough to criticize, and being impressed that he had sufficient musical memory to tell the difference between her rendition and his grandmother's.

  "Thank you for those kind words, Maks. Maybe if I practice more, I'll do better."