Against the Flow

by Tom Fort

  Through Jurek I asked Julian Bartnik what effect the collapse of the old system had had on hunting. He smiled, showing a few, well-separated tooth stumps. Before, of course, it was reserved for the Party elite and their cronies. Periodically they would sweep down from Warsaw in a fleet of limousines, exchange their shapeless suits for jackets and hunting breeches, fracture the silence with gunfire, get drunk, stuff their faces, have their photographs taken with piles of animal corpses at their feet, toast their marksmanship and Marxist–Leninism from silver flasks shaped into hunting horns. Tito came once, and – as befitted his international stature – was allocated a bison to shoot. The Polish Prime Minister of the day was only given a bear, which Bartnik himself had to shoot for him.

  These days, he said, the ex-Party men were much too busy pretending to be good capitalist democrats to spare time for hunting. But the market was taking up the slack. Sportsmen came from Germany, Austria, America, Switzerland, waving their dollars and brandishing their firearms. A few months before, he had been instructed to arrange for a bison to be conveniently situated. A hunter arrived from Zurich, shot the beast as it grazed, and airlifted it home in his helicopter. The charge was $10,000.

  When we left I tried to explain how touched I was by their hospitality. ‘They say the door of their house is always open,’ Jurek said. ‘To me, to you, to anyone. They say that life is short, and if you are lucky and have food, you must share. They ask if you have in England our saying, that a house is blessed by having a guest?’

  I shook my head, feeling rather ashamed.

  ‘In our cities we are losing it too. But in places like this it is the rule. Everything they have comes from God and is for all people.’

  It is easy for us to forget or overlook how vital our rivers once were, how much of a country’s history flowed through them. Poland’s great river, flowing 600 miles from the Carpathians in the south to the Baltic in the north, is the Wisła, or Vistula. For centuries it served as a great, free-flowing artery, making possible the emergence of the port of Gdańsk (Danzig as was) as one of the richest and most powerful commercial hubs in Europe.

  Each spring, with the melting of the mountain snows, the river ports along the Wisła and its tributaries – including the San, the Dunajec and the Bug – came to life. Great rafts known as skuta were made ready. The corn, harvested the previous autumn on the estates of the noble landowners and stored through the winter, was loaded into the silos thrusting up from the oak decks. The rivers were swollen, yellow, foam-flecked, surging with irresistible force. At the last moment the passengers would be taken on; often they were members of the grain-owning dynasties, desperate to exchange the monotony of life in the country for the excitement of the city for a month or two. The convoy would sweep away, the groan of the timbers competing with the roar of the water and the cries of the rafters as they dug their poles down.

  Sixteenth-century Danzig was five times the size of Warsaw, three times that of Kraków, bewilderingly cosmopolitan, phenomenally wealthy, its culture as golden as the corn that nourished it. Visitors were awestruck by the splendour of the public buildings and merchants’ mansions, and by the scale and energy of the commercial life. In the marvellous chapter on the grain trade in God’s Playground, Norman Davies’s history of Poland, he depicted the port as:

  an anthill of work, prosperity and culture, common enough in Italy or the Netherlands but unique in Poland. As such it undoubtedly presented a superlative attraction, a materialist Mecca, to which the Polish nobleman was drawn and tempted – to buy and sell, to be ruined or make his fortune, to load himself with trinkets and luxuries for his house and family, to hear the news and gaze at the sights, and at last, relieved and exhausted, to sail against the currents of the Vistula on the long, slow journey home.

  Those currents continued to flow, strong and clean, long after Danzig’s heyday was over. Salmon and sea-trout forged their way upstream from the Baltic, seeking their ancestral spawning grounds, all the way to the Tatras and the Dunajec, where my friend Adam Gebel caught his first salmon some time in the 1920s. But post-1945 the age of hydraulic ambition dawned. All over Europe, all over the world, rivers were dammed to power developing industries, and to light and heat peoples’ homes. The construction of a succession of dams on the lower Wisła, and two immense hydro-electric barriers – one downstream from Warsaw, the other upstream from Kraków – blocked the way to the spawning streams. Gross pollution resulting from Poland’s post-war industrialisation completed the job of wrecking the river.

  Over the past ten years or so, the Wisła has been on the convalescent list, as measures to tackle the worst of the effluent pollution have taken effect. But no one has proposed taking away the dams, and the river’s spirit remains broken and shackled. In Kraków the summer flow is non-existent. Confined by walls of concrete, the Wisła is more reservoir than river. If it could cast envious eyes to its tributary in the east, the San, it surely would.

  The San is born in the foothills of the Ukrainian section of the Carpathians. For 50 miles or so its sinuous course defines the border between Poland and Ukraine. Not far from Smolnik it turns west then north-west, after which it flows in the shape of a back-to-front S through south-east Poland to join the Wisła near Sandomierz.

  In the 1960s the decision was taken to dam the San where it emerged from the Bieszczady via a steep defile at Solina. Two barriers were installed, creating two reservoirs, one very big, one much smaller, both very deep. Until then, the river had tended to flow warm and murky through the summer. Now the water coming into the reservoirs was stored and cooled, and the silt retained. The water released from the turbines stayed cool, even in the hottest summers, and generally clear. Unwittingly the engineers charged with constructing another epic symbol of socialist dominance over Nature had created a perfect habitat for trout and grayling, and the San was transformed into the best fly-fishing river in Poland and one of the best in Europe.

  Fishing there should have been one of the angling highlights of my 1990 expedition. In Jurek Kowalski I had as my guide a brilliant fisherman, streets ahead of and miles above me, who knew every bend and pool of the stream. But the weather is a great leveller of fortunes. Fierce and unseasonable heat (it was early May) kept the fish deep and out of sight, and as jittery as cats. There were moments, though.

  One morning we drove from Krosno in pitch blackness to the stretch of water immediately below the second dam. The dew was heavy on the grass and the grey half-light was filled with the growl of the turbines and the roar of escaping water. Stars still pricked the paling sky as we tackled up. The water was black and smoked with trails of mist. It was also extremely cold and strong-flowing, as I found when I tried to wade out. Despite the liberal application of solvent, the rubber waders I had brought with me leaked badly, and my teeth were soon chattering.

  I began casting towards the far bank, where the trees rose steeply, coal-black against the sky. Little by little the day came to life. As the rim of the sun rose into sight I felt a twitch at my fly, then the solid resistance of my first Polish trout. It was not very big, and I held it in my hand for a moment to admire the red and black spots speckling its olive-oil flanks before letting it slip away. I got another, slightly bigger, then a third, big enough to kill but too lovely to warrant it. Then a much bigger fish took with a violent thump at the limit of my casting range, making me lose my footing for a moment. Everything went slack, and when I retrieved the fly I found it had snapped at the bend in the hook.

  By now the sun was blazing across most of the river. The fish would only take in the band of water that was in shadow, which narrowed and narrowed until it vanished altogether. After that there were no more plucks or twitches or thumps. The full rising of the sun sent the San to sleep, and it was time to pack up.

  We stopped at a pre-fabricated house near the turbines. It was divided into two, and served as the living quarters for the men employed to check and adjust the water flow. There was a shed outside, from which ca
me the noise of a machine. We looked in. A thin wiry man was bending to feed a slender section of wood into it. Drifts of shavings covered the floor. The man’s face lit with pleasure when he saw Jurek.

  His name was Tadeusz Korecki. ‘He is a good fisherman,’ Jurek said. ‘Once he was Polish fly-fishing champion, but now he prefers to go sailing on the lake. When he is not making pencils.’

  Korecki ushered us into his side of the house and made coffee and a pile of spam sandwiches. Smoking incessantly, he explained that he made 20,000 pencils a month, almost doubling the wage he got for sitting above the turbines watching the dials. Dirty plates were piled in the sink. Ashtrays heaped with butts stood on every surface. The tattered rug was grey with cigarette ash and spotted with food stains. He said his wife was working as a nurse at an old people’s home in Naples. The implication was that tidying the place would have to wait until she got back.

  He showed me the book on Polish fly-fishing written by his and Jurek’s friend, Józef Jeleński. Jeleński was living in Libya then, consoled in his exile by his cabinet of fly-tying gear – the one thing in his life, so Jurek said, that he managed to keep in order.

  Permit for the San, 2008

  Eighteen years on, the San was exactly as I remembered it: big, broad, flat, stately, powerful. But much water had flowed by in Poland. Lech Wałȩsa had become President Wałȩsa and then ex-President Wałȩsa. Solidarity had vanished from the scene. Governments of varied political complexions had come and gone. The Kaczyński twins – two limbs of the same ultra-reactionary, rigidly Catholic, viciously intolerant being – had enjoyed their brief spell at the helm (although one, Lech, remained as president). Poland had joined NATO, then the EU. Despite the exodus of workers to Britain and elsewhere, the country’s economy was booming.

  At a local level, Tadeusz Korecki was dead. Józef Jeleński was back in his homeland, battling to keep the Raba alive. Jurek Kowalski was no longer a fresh-faced hospital doctor but a medical adviser for GlaxoSmithKline, based in Warsaw, with a house there and another in Krosno. His secondary career, in the administration of fishing, had also blossomed; he had served as both president and vice-president of FIPS-Mouche, the body that organises competitive fly-fishing across the world. Jurek’s hair had gone ash-white, his face had rounded out, and the years of hard work had left him looking a touch weary. But I soon found that he was the same, softly-spoken, perceptive, serious commentator on the human comedy that had made him such good company before.

  He reported a revolution on the San. Although the local branch of the Polish Fishing Association had managed to hold on to the lease, it had – under Jurek’s influence, I suspected – introduced a novel business model. The prime section, seven kilometres from the lower dam down the first significant tributary, was designated as gold-star water on which fish could not be killed. The number of permits was strictly limited, a premium price was charged, and foreign anglers were encouraged to come and take them. These changes had aroused bitter opposition from local anglers, accustomed to getting their fishing cheap from the state and being allowed to kill every fish of any size. But by the time I returned with Jurek, the storm had passed and the political waters were comparatively calm again.

  Jurek had arranged permits for us on the special section, but – as before – the weather gods were not kind. This time the problem was not tropical heat but rain and tempest. Throughout the three days I was there, heavy, moist cloud never stopped rolling up and over the Bieszczady Mountains, delivering downpours with distressing frequency. The San was running clear but very strong, and the atmosphere was saturated with moisture, so that every now and then layers of mist would form suddenly across the surface, thickening silently and swiftly to obscure the patterns of water and shroud the pines; then, just as suddenly, dematerialising.

  Jurek’s other duties allowed us just one day’s fishing together. The conditions were too testing for me, although he got one cracking trout of 42 centimetres that lit his face with delight. Before he left for Krosno he entrusted me to the care of a party of French anglers who were staying at the hotel where the permits were issued and where I was to stay on for a couple more nights. Most of them were members of the French youth team, there to practise in advance of the world championships in Portugal. They had a manager, but the undisputed kingpin of the party was an Arab called Said: tall, rangy, with hawkish nose and sparsely bearded, jutting chin. Said was a core member of France’s adult team, and – like my Slovak friend Peter Bienek – had been in New Zealand for the 2008 championship. He had come to the San to help with the coaching and for some relaxed fishing of his own. He spoke excellent English and was effusively genial to Jurek and me. Flashing his swift smile, he said I’d be welcome to tag along after Jurek had gone. There was room in the van, I could fish with them the next day. No problem.

  That evening, with Jurek departed for Krosno, Said invited me to join the French for dinner. I sat next to him, opposite his brother-in-law Jackie. Jackie was the pack joker, with a little grey quiff that bounced up and down above his quicksilver brown face as the cracks and insults sparked back and forth. I couldn’t follow any of it, so Said and I talked about fishing. No other subject seemed to interest him at all – certainly not me or my life, except where fishing was concerned – although he did let slip that he was married with two grown-up children and was an economics lecturer at a university in Lyons, or perhaps it was Lille.

  He talked at length about New Zealand. What a country! What rivers! What fish! He had broken two rods there, one of them on the biggest trout he had ever seen. His mobile, aquiline face registered awe and disbelief that he, Said, could have been defeated in such a manner. Pah! The trout was on but he could not hold it. It was too strong, like a buffalo. Bang! The rod went, the trout was gone. He laughed, and asked me if I’d ever been to New Zealand. No? The look he gave me over the ridge of his nose suggested that it was just as well. I might have suffered something a lot worse than just a broken rod.

  He was indisputably a demon on the water. In the morning we went to a pool towards the bottom of the special section, which was big enough for all the French to fish together and – equally important – remain within earshot of each other. Said, probably acting from a generous but misplaced hope that he could teach me something, invited me to fish close to him. But I was thoroughly intimidated by his air of Gallic superiority, so I made excuses and set off upstream before making a perilous crossing of the river, the water up to within a couple of inches of the top of my waders. The badinage between Said, Jackie and the others followed me like a Greek chorus.

  As so often in fishing, the promise of the far bank proved illusory. It was deeper than it looked and it took me some time to find a shelf of rock shallow enough for me to fish from. By then Said had progressed far enough up the middle of the pool for him to be able to give me a full commentary on his regular successes. ‘Oh, nice fish. Grayling, I think. Yes, another grayling. I have eight now. This is big grayling, forty centimetres, I think. On the dry fly, very small, size twenty. On the drift. You must have the drift correct, Tom. I think maybe your fly is dragging. The grayling will not take if the fly is dragging.’

  Thunder boomed and the rain came down in sheets. When it slackened, the fish near me began to feed at the surface on a sudden hatch of olives. I hooked two, lost them both, and hated myself. Later Said offered me some sandwiches and I felt ashamed of the dark thoughts I had harboured towards him. The day wore on, punctuated by storms, and I longed for it to end. I began to wonder how many of the ribald comments echoing across the water were about me. None probably, but I still felt humiliated by my failure, like a hack golfer who’d accidentally strayed on to the fairway at Augusta.

  As we were packing up, three Polish anglers turned up, waiting to get on the water after us. They were noticeably unfriendly, even when the French party’s Polish guide tried to talk to them. Said commented on this dumb hostility. I suggested it might arise from resentment that foreigners, French foreigne
rs, were helping themselves to the cream of Polish fishing. He considered the idea then shook his head. ‘It is not just the fishermen,’ he said. ‘I find all Poles are the same.’

  Said and his gang left for home before dawn the next day. Deprived of the attentions of the more thickly gelled and gallant of the French lads, the two pretty girls who shared duties at the hotel reception desk completely lost their sparkle. I was the only guest left, and evidently a poor substitute for the Gallic charmers. I had no transport, so I bought a permit to fish the unrestricted stretch of the river, which was within walking distance of the hotel. But by the time I got there in mid-afternoon, the weather had worsened again. There was a deluge as I was tackling up, which at least had the effect of thinning the throng of fishermen; and a second soon after I had completed a hazardous wade into the middle of the river to address a gathering of grayling that were feeding purposefully along the far side.

  With the rain hissing malevolently against the surface, I retreated to the cover of a picnic shelter on the bank and watched as the river perceptibly rose and thickened. Eventually I packed up and went back to the hotel. In the evening I walked back to the bridge leading to Lesko.

  The San in the mist

  Mist blanketed the San. A couple of hardy souls were still fishing, dark smudges in the gloom. The water was a grey, elemental, implacable force, and I was heartily glad not to be in it.

  I left the next morning, taking the bus from Lesko to Kraków. I had a dead man to ask about.

  Jurek made the introduction. I had driven him from the San via Krosno to Skoczów, a scruffy town in the foothills of the western Carpathians. A fishing competition was being held there, after which Jurek – as captain of the Polish fly-fishing team – was due to announce who would be going to Wales later that year to defend the title won in Finland in 1989. On the way he told me he intended to drop two of the winning team for getting drunk and misbehaving. ‘We are representing our country so we wish to do well,’ he said in his careful way, ‘but we have a bad reputation in other countries for cheating and playing tricks and getting drunk on vodka, so it is important that we behave well.’