Swans Are Fat Too

by Michelle Granas

  Solidarity, a mass movement of 11 million members, was characterized by the determination of ordinary citizens simply to turn their backs on the regime in power, and is especially memorable because, for the first time in centuries, Poland had produced a truly revolutionary movement. Through restraint and a willingness to negotiate, the movement led entirely peacefully to the collapse of communism in Poland and to the reestablishment of independence. In the wake of the Polish revolution, Communist regimes were sent––peacefully––packing in one country after another across Eastern Europe, in what is called the Autumn of Nations, or the revolutions of 1989...

  Hania finished proofreading the last sentences she'd just typed about the growth of civil society––resolutely keeping out of her mind such mental associations as had to do with the old system and apartments and people who might or might not have behaved one way or another out of gratitude––and booming economics (but not, of course, that everyone benefited). There, that was it. There wasn't any more. She deleted the last period. Put it back again. There was really nothing more to be done on the work. She just had to send it off to Konstanty and that would be that. She opened the email:

  'Respected Sir...There was no place at all to say any of the things she wanted to say. It had been nearly three weeks now and there had been no exchange between them other than her return of new sections and his acknowledgement of the same. His silence told her as effectively as shouted words that he had decided to put an end to their friendship. She felt humiliated and slightly sick looking at the words. She took a deep breath. Hearts didn't really break. Respected Sir, Here is the remainder. She pressed send.

  Sometime she would have to give him back the handwritten papers, but that could wait. Maybe she could mail it to him, and then she wouldn't have to meet him. It was Saturday morning, one of her gormless little piano students would be coming, and then there was housework to do, and piano practice. She could certainly keep herself busy. Kalina and Maks had gone off to the park to try to give away the puppies. She crossed her fingers that they would be having luck.

  And here it seemed her wish came true. A couple of hours later, just as she noticed that it was starting to rain, starting to pour in fact, and wondered what was happening with the children, they burst into the apartment, shaking off water-drops and bubbling with glee and excitement.

  "What?" Hania cried, leaping from her chair, and seeing their empty arms, "Did you give all of them away?" What a relief.

  "Better!" exclaimed Kalina with a laugh, "We sold them!"

  "You what? How?"

  Maks was bouncing up and down, digging wads of bills out of his pockets. "Look how much! We sold them for four hundred złoty each. To nice people in fancy clothes."

  Hania looked at him in amazement. Kalina giggled and held up a cardboard sign. It said, 'Rare Breed! Chien Bâtard.'

  "We didn't want to say just 'mongrels' in Polish, so I wrote it in French. And people kept coming up and saying 'what's that? And I said 'Shen Batar' from Ulan Batar, I think, sort of like Shih Tzuh of the Manchu and everyone said 'oooh' and 'aaaah' and wanted to buy them."

  "Look. We've got 1200 złoty."

  "Rany Boskie! But..."

  Well, what was there to say really?

  They grinned at each other, laughed, Maks skipped about and sang. It was a moment of camaraderie and solidarity.

  Then there was the sound of a key turning in the lock of the apartment door. Their heads all turned and they gazed in surprise at the door. It swung open, and first a large suitcase was thrust in and then Wiktor followed––a man with a neat gray beard and an expensive, rumpled overcoat.

  He didn't appear particularly happy to see them. They stood in a group staring, while he reached outside the door and pulled in another suitcase.

  "Your mother will be here in a moment," he said rather gruffly, not particularly looking at any of them. "She's getting things out of the car." The charm was definitely not turned on.

  Ania walked in then, blonde and pretty and dressed in slightly too young clothes. She had a look of irritation on her face.

  The meeting was awkward. No one really knew what to say.

  Wiktor and Ania came together and rather sidled over to the group and made perfunctory kisses all around.

  "Er…um..." Someone had to say something. "Did you have a nice trip? Did you come by car?" Hania asked. She couldn't very well say, "Why are you here?"

  "No." answered Wiktor shortly. "It was a terrible trip. Very inconvenient."

  "Oh...um..." She felt the need to act as hostess, somehow. "Could I get you something? Shall I make some tea?"

  "Coffee," he barked and turned and headed for the piano room.

  Hania watched him go. When she looked back, Kalina and Maks seemed to have faded away somewhere. Ania was saying to her, in an aggrieved tone over her usually rather saccharine accents, as she hung up her coat, "You know we had this really strange phone call from the school. Of course, we don't believe a word of it. I won't even tell you what they said, it's so ridiculous. But as responsible parents we had to come back and it's very, very inconvenient, because Wiktor is so busy, and we can only stay the weekend, we'll have to drive all the way back Monday night, and Wiktor's very upset about it, but I said, we have to come, because how will it look if we don't?

  How will it look? Thought Hania, that's what matters to you?

  "And we can go right back..."

  But here she was interrupted by Wiktor, saying in a voice that began like quiet thunder and ended in a rather high shriek.

  "Where is my piano?"

  "I...I sold it."

  "You what?" Wiktor's eyes were bulging and his voice was shrill, "You what?" he shouted.

  "Because Kalina's pregnant and we needed the money."

  Ania clutched at her heart, her throat. "It's true! She's pregnant! I can't believe it!" Her voice was shriller than Wiktor's and much higher. "She's pregnant! How could this happen? How?!"

  Wiktor continued: "How could this happen? My piano!" He strode about in circles muttering and gesticulating. "My beautiful Steinway grand..."

  "My daughter is pregnant!" shrieked Ania, stamping her feet.

  "My piano!" shouted Wiktor over her screeches.

  "My daughter!"

  And then they both stopped and turned to Hania. "You! It's all your fault!"

  Konstanty held out his cup to his sister, and she poured a stream of hot golden tea into it, then added a slice of lemon with tongs. The finished history lay to the side of the tea tray, on the polished surface of a small wooden table. They were sitting in the large living room, with its view of lawns and trees and a number of recently planted azalias. Somehow he didn't see any of it. The white pages of the history were a sort of specter of Hania. "Respected Sir," she had written, "Here is the remainder." Nothing more. It was probably the shortest note he'd ever had from her. Well, and what more did he want? Nothing. Nothing, of course. He hadn't seen her for nineteen days now. He had never meant to hurt her, and knew, perfectly well, that he had. He had liked her but had never intended that she should have feelings for him. He hoped she would get over it quickly. He looked at his watch. It would be exactly nineteen days in another two hours.

  "You're very quiet today," said Pelagia.

  "No, no, I'm just the same as always," he answered distractedly. He had known that she admired him––that walk in the cemetery, that dinner out. But he was rather used to being admired, so he hadn't been careful––hadn't thought about what ideas she might get...Or, yes, actually, he had. So why had he continued to seek her out?

  "Did you write all this, or did that––what's-her-name, the fat one?" Pelagia was flipping through the history, reading here and there. "I like this bit," she said appreciatively, pointing to a passage.

  "She's not fat!" Konstanty nearly snapped.

  Pelagia looked up at him in real surprise. And quickly back-tracked. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, "You know I can never remember anyone's name. Hania Lanska.
That's it."

  "It was a joint effort," added Konstanty rather stiffly.

  "She seems to have talents."

  "Yes."

  A long pause. "I like large women," said Konstanty. But a voice prompted, no, you like one girl, who happens to be overweight.

  "And why not?" asked Pelagia's husband in his deep voice as he came into the room, "Your sister likes large men." He sank his enormous frame into a chair beside his wife. He had put off his banker's suit for the weekend, but he still looked like what he was: a very well-fed, well-pleased man of money.

  Pelagia gave him a rather irritated glance. "I like one large man. Sometimes."

  After Konstanty had left, she remained sitting on the sofa, leafing through the pages of the history. She handed a few pages to her husband, and he read them calmly, balancing a glass of wine on one broad knee.

  "I can't use this," she muttered glumly, sinking back against the sofa cushions.

  "Well," said her husband, "I rather agree with him. But no, I suppose you can't. You'll have to snip and trim it."

  And Konstanty, driving back to Warsaw through the rain raking cold claws across the windscreen and the brown falling leaves, struggled with an urgent desire to talk to Hania, see Hania. But he stifled it. It wouldn't be fair to her.

  There, that was it, thought Hania, looking around the room. It hadn't taken her long to pack, even though her arms and her fingers were stiff and clumsy with nerves. Down the hallway she could hear Ania and Wiktor in Kalina's room, having hysterics. Every once in a while she would hear Kalina's voice, rising higher than theirs, then sobs. Then Wiktor shouting. Then Kalina's voice telling them, in her clear, lucid, no-holds-barred tone, just what she thought of them as parents. Well, she was enjoying herself, thought Hania, rather bitterly. She was finally getting the attention she wanted. It wouldn't last. But she was making the most of it. Only there was Maks––who was completely left out of the action. The last time she'd looked, she'd seen him slumped against the door, whimpering against it––"I sold the piano. I did that. I've been bad too." But no one was listening.

  She had called to him softly. "Maks!" But he had ignored her. And when she had tried again, he had made an impatient 'go away' gesture in her direction.

  She had gone back to her packing. Wiktor had told her to leave. He had said a lot of other things she didn't want to think about, and Ania had backed him up with nods of her head and shakes of her head and tears. She pulled the strap of the bag over her shoulder. The only thing left were these notes belonging to Konstanty. She put them uncertainly under her arm, and headed down the hall.

  There was no point in saying good-bye to Ania and Wiktor. Their last words had been on the order of "get out!" Kalina was fully engaged. But she had to step over Maks to get past him as he lay with his ear against the door. She knelt down beside him.

  "Goodbye, Maks. I have to leave now."

  "Goodbye." He hardly looked up.

  She straightened, and went on down the hall and out of the apartment. As she pulled the door shut, she dropped the papers, and they scattered across the landing. She had a wild desire to drop down beside them and burst into tears. Instead, she bent with shaking fingers and gathered them together. She had better give them back now and have one less thing to worry about. She left her bag on the landing, climbed to the next floor, and rang the bell with her heart thumping.

  After a pause the door opened, and Konstanty stood there, looking surprised and serious. "Please come in," he said courteously, stepping back, but she shook her head.

  "Here," she said, "I just brought these back. I have to go now. Goodbye." She pushed the papers toward him. He took them and started to say something, but she held out her hand, "Goodbye." He took her hand, and held it a moment longer than necessary, so that she had to make a slight effort to get free. "Goodbye," she said again, pulling her hand loose, and she was backing away, turning, going down the stairs.

  "Wait," he said, but not very loudly, and she didn't stop; he could hear her feet on the steps and the sound of something heavy bumping against the banisters.

  He closed the door, and leaned against it, breathing hard, his heart racing.

  Hania lugged her bag along the street to the bus stop in the pouring rain and wind. The bus stop had a shelter and fortunately, it was empty. She sat down on the hard bench. It was cold and her clothing inadequate. She was wet, and her hands and feet slowly turned numb, but she hardly noticed. She had been rejected by everyone. The outer weather was nothing compared to the great inner cold seeping through every part of her being. She struggled against it, tried to make plans. She didn't even know where she was going. The bus didn't come. She put her face down in her hands.

  When she looked up, she saw that Kalina and Maks were running across the street toward her.

  "Hania!" they shouted. "Hania!"

  "Are you really going?" said Maks.

  "Tata told us!" said Kalina. "I can't stand him!" she shrieked. "He never listens! I told him I was the one who sold the piano! I told him!" Kalina was obviously still riding the adrenaline of altercation.

  "Don't go," said Maks, looking subdued, "Please."

  "It's all right, Maks," she said, "I have to go."

  "But..."

  "Kalina, Maks, you can see I can't stay now. But thank you for coming..." Really, it had made a tremendous difference to her. "I'll always remember our summer together, and...and I'll always be your friend."

  They nodded, standing in front of her. She rose and gave them awkward hugs. "You'd better run back. You'll freeze without your coats." They turned and ran.

  She sat back down. Still the bus didn't come. She blew in her hands.

  Konstanty couldn't settle down in the apartment. He turned on the television and flicked through all the channels and turned it off. He opened his laptop, and then closed it again. He went into the kitchen to make himself some tea, and forgot why he was there. He went to the window and stood there, looking out at nothing. The rain spattered against the window. An occasional car passed, and an occasional hurrying umbrella. The pavement glittered gray in the descending dusk. In a moment it would be dark. Wasn't that Kalina and Maks running across the street? He watched without much interest as they ran into the building. Hania wasn't with them. Hania was downstairs. He found himself trying to imagine what room she was in. Maybe she was standing at the window, just below him. She would look out into the street and see the same things he saw. Why did the thought increase his pulse so? She would look down the street at the crowns of the lindens and the piles of leaves around the trunks, down on the tops of the cars, and along the street to the bus stop. Someone was sitting at the stop with a large canvas bag. He looked again.

  Konstanty, who never ran, whirled away from the window and ran out of the apartment, leaving the door open, and taking the steps down three at a time.

  Here was the bus at last, thought Hania with relief, and rose to meet it, oblivious of the water sluicing off the shelter roof onto her head. She hefted her bag to her shoulder as it came up.

  "Don't get on! That's the wrong bus!" someone shouted as she lifted her foot to the step.

  She moved back. Konstanty had appeared at a run around the edge of the bus. She stared at him. He slowed to a walk but seemed to be panting. The bus moved off with a roar.

  "Oh," she said with difficulty, her jaw clenched against cold and emotion, as he came up to her, "now I've missed the bus."

  "You didn't want it anyway," he answered.

  "Didn't I?" she muttered doubtingly, "I'm going..." Actually, she didn't know where she was going.

  "Where? I met Kalina and Maks on the stairs." He tugged at his tie to loosen it and got his breath under control. "They told me you were leaving."

  "Yes. S-so I guess any bus to someplace I can stay. Any cheap hotel, I guess." She was shivering uncontrollably. "Which bus should I take then?"

  He had come unaccountably close. He was standing still, and his breathing was now only just sl
ightly hurried. He didn't look exactly calm, but collected and rather amused. He answered deliberately, "None."

  None? What did that mean? And why was he here? She stared at the wet pavement. She couldn't meet his eyes. She couldn't bear that note of tenderness she imagined. It must be pity. She had such a lump in her throat she was afraid she would start to cry. That would be the final humiliation. Another bus was coming up. They always arrived like this, in clusters.

  "Don't go," he said.

  "This isn't the right bus either?" She sniffed.

  "Completely the wrong bus."

  "I'd b-better w-w-walk then..." she murmured between chattering teeth, and leaned sideways for the handle of her bag. He reached out a hand and stopped her. "You don't want to do that."

  She took one quick look upwards, and saw that he was watching her with a look of––a look of––a look of all her dreams. She had a moment of panic. It was her imagination, of course. It must be.

  She stepped hastily backwards.

  "You aren't going to run away from me now are you?" He stood watching her with an expression of mingled fear and laughter––that would serve him right. He'd been so blind not to recognize at once what really mattered.––And yet, she somehow didn't run.

  "I..."

  "Hania…You're just exactly what I want. I can't let you go––not by bus, not by foot, nor...taken off by pneumonia...Come. We have lots to talk about but here it's too cold. Come." And then, more firmly, but smiling at her, "Come." He shouldered her bag, and took her hand––somehow she didn't pull away––and together they crossed the street.

  And then they were in his car, heading to Konstancin. "So," he said to her adverted face––she still couldn't look at him, but sat staring at her hands clasped in her lap––"You'll like my brother-in-law, he's a very decent fellow, and my sister––you'll grow quite fond of her when you know her well...They'll be happy to have you. There's lots of space. But anyway, I shouldn't think you'd be there long…Your aunt and uncle won't stay in Warsaw, and you'll want to be close to the children. They really need you. So we'll have the wedding at once, don't you think? I can't see any reason to wait…"