by Susan Sontag
“Twenty-eight what, my darling?”
“Mama, you’re spoiling it!”
“For heaven’s sake, Peter, spoiling what?”
“I was adding the numbers on the freight cars. There was a 1 and a 9 and an 8 and a 7 and a 3 and then you—”
“Sorry. Go back to your counting.”
“Mama!”
“Now what have I done?”
“I have to wait for another train.”
She often did not have a proper night’s sleep, but her endurance was phenomenal. She could sleep whenever she wanted to and awaken refreshed after an hour.
Warnock waited for her to complain.
“I do not complain, as you see, Mr. Warnock,” Maryna said in the middle of the night, sipping tea at the end of their car somewhere in icy Wisconsin. She was going from two evenings at the Grand Opera House in Milwaukee to three at the Academy of Music in Kansas City. They had halted in a freight yard, and the train had been lurching forward and backward, screeching and shuddering, for more than an hour. “These ghastly all-night train trips. The dingy hotels where you have lately been lodging me and my family. The terrible actors I am obliged to play with. This is Marina Zalenska’s first American tour, and I have much to learn. I say only, please listen to me, for I shall not repeat myself, it will not be like this again.”
Poland was circles—everything familiar, saturated, centrifugal. Here the country, ever more spacious and thinly marked, streamed and spiked in all directions. In constant movement from one unfamiliar place to the next, Maryna had never felt so concentrated, so sturdy, so impervious to her surroundings. Acting armored her with its urgencies, its satisfactions. Shakespeare’s Juliet and Rosalind; Adrienne and Marguerite Gautier; even East Lynne’s wretched Lady Isabel—how comfortable she was in their company. Sometimes they entered her dreams, talking to one another. She wanted to console them. They succeeded in consoling her. It often seemed enough to have no thoughts but theirs.
Meanwhile, something was receding ever further from being spoken of. Something fitfully glimpsed was being covered over. She remembered when her hair fell out during the bout of typhoid fever three years ago, disclosing to her astonishment two dark pink stains on the back of her head, one below the crown and the other above the nape. Holding a hand mirror at the correct angle, she had stared with revulsion at the reflection of the birthmarks in the large dressing-room mirror behind her. But only her wig-maker and her dresser saw the back of her scalp, soon covered with a nap of obscuring first fuzz, and then the whole mass of hair grew back, and it was unlikely that she would ever be obliged to see her naked scalp again.
You see, you grasp, something upsetting, something unsightly looms into view … and then it is gone, and there is no point in chasing after it, no point in insisting on what is no longer there to be seen. How easily disturbing knowledge becomes useless knowledge.
Assume that, during their long separation last year, Maryna and Bogdan had both sought affection elsewhere, as needed: they were not going to force stories upon each other about what was known without being told. Love, married love, was full of generous silences. They were going to be generous with each other.
Maryna thought she knew what bound her so irrevocably to this man. He is just circumspect enough that I still feel free.
But wasn’t it presumptuous to suppose that Bogdan would always be at her side, attending every performance? In Poland he was Count Dembowski, patriot, connoisseur. In America he was a man with a role instead of an occupation: to stand next to his wife in the burning center of her glory.
“I’m worried about you, dearest. The curse of my profession is that it requires me always to be thinking about myself. I am so grateful for your presence, your support, your love…”
“Are you worried about me?” Bogdan said. “I don’t think so.” Was he going to reproach her now? No. “You’re asking me for reassurance.”
“I suppose I am,” said Maryna, chastened and relieved.
At the westernmost point of Maryna’s tour—a week at the Boyd Opera House in Omaha—Bogdan left her and went back to southern California. His declared purpose was to look for a property to buy, a home to which they could retreat whenever Maryna was not touring. She supposed that Bogdan would be returning to Carpinteria to try to penetrate the mysterious Aero Club, and she was sure, knowing Bogdan, that once he had secured permission to witness a flight he would soon be asking to become an aeronaut himself.
“If something happened to you,” said Maryna, “it would be unbearable to me. But you must do what you have to do.”
Impossible for Bogdan to keep her reassured by letter while Maryna was constantly moving; and there would be telegrams, they agreed, only for an emergency. Her tour would end in June with a week in Brooklyn, at the Park Theatre, with Camille, Adrienne, and Romeo and Juliet. They had tickets on the S.S. Europa in early July. If all went well, Bogdan would have rejoined her in New York by then.
Of course, he wanted her to worry. That was his husbandly right. As it was Maryna’s duty, to her art, to her sanity, not to worry too much.
Actually, she preferred that Bogdan not tell her all his plans; the least she could do was give him the right to have some secret adventure of his own. He wanted her credulity. Maybe they did fly. And surely they did crash.
* * *
NO, MAMA, I can’t stay longer. The plan has always been that after a week I would go on to Zakopane. The doctor who took care of Stefan, and who’s a great friend of mine, Dr. Tyszyński, that’s right, and whom I must visit while I’m here—no, he doesn’t live in Kraków anymore. Yes, he lives year round now in Zakopane. Mama, I don’t understand, do you want me to be uncomfortable? The hotel suits me perfectly. It’s much better that way, and I’ve so much to do. My triumphal homecoming. Irony, Mama. This is a purely private visit, you know that. Everyone clawing at me. Why? My admirers will stop plaguing you and Józefina as soon as I leave, I guarantee it. Perhaps I shall write a “Letter from America” for Antrakt while I’m here this week, what do you think, Bogdan? No, I’ll never have the peace of mind I need in Kraków, I’ll write it in Zakopane. In Warsaw? Why should I go to Warsaw, Mama? Out of the question. My Warsaw friends can take the train to Kraków if they want to see me. Because I’m mortally displeased with the administration of the Imperial Theatre. I did regard the director as a friend, yes. Until I learned he was only another vindictive bureaucrat. Bogdan, don’t you agree? We’ve never considered it. I would make scenes. And I need to be calm. Much as I long to salute my former colleagues, and I especially regret not seeing Tadeusz on the Imperial’s main stage, I am not going to Warsaw. Ask to be taken back? Mama, are you out of your mind? I certainly am still offended. But that’s not why I’m staying in America. We always planned to return for July and August to visit relatives. To be visited by friends. Bogdan should leave directly for Poznań to call at several of the Dembowski estates, alas, he has inheritance matters to discuss with his brother. It’s maddening that we came so near to seeing her again. We’d left New York, we were already on the high seas! Bogdan is heartbroken. She was an extraordinary woman, Józefina. Not modern at all, very irreverent. One doesn’t find women like that in Poland anymore. Bogdan, my mother has a suitor, if I may put it so politely. Does everything in this country go on and on and on? She’s close to eighty! Gliński, the baker on Floriańska Street, an oaf with a great domed head and flour-streaked mustache, I can count on finding him still there when I come by in the early morning to spend an hour with le petit. Am I? I don’t mean to be. I suppose there’s no harm in it. He lets Peter go with him to the bakery and putter about. Yes, Mama, he is called Peter now. No, really, it’s an American name too, but I’m sure he’ll let you call him Piotr. Mama, why the surprise that he’s not forgotten Polish? He has to speak it with Aniela. My secretary? Did Aniela mention her or did Peter? She’s American. Doesn’t know a word of Polish. Of course she could learn, but why should she? It’s America, Mama! Aniela glowed when I to
ld her that she was coming with us and Miss Collingridge was returning to California for the two months. But being back in Poland doesn’t seem to move her at all. Perhaps because she has no family. This awful ache in my heart. No, I’m talking to myself, Mama. I’m so glad to see you well, Mama. Believe me, Henryk, the greatest satisfaction I anticipate from this visit is seeing you. Bogdan, Bogdan dear, are you sure you don’t want me to go with you to Wielkopolska? Ignacy wouldn’t dare. Mama, stop trying to persuade me to go to Warsaw. Yes, there was a penalty. I already told you. Every theatre has a schedule of fines levied on actors for misconduct of every sort. Mama, of course I’d never been fined before! Ten thousand rubles, Mama. Yes, ten. That’s how much it cost to purchase my freedom. Ah, now you understand. I’ve distributed all the presents I brought for my sisters and brothers and their families, Henryk, I’ve deposited Peter in the care of my mother and Józefina, he’s being coddled by everyone. No, Peter, you can’t come with me to Zakopane. But Aniela is staying with you. No, Mama isn’t going for long. Mama will be back in a week or so. Mama, I don’t want to eat the apple pancakes. I’m quite sated, thank you very much. Mama, I’m—I’m thirty-eight years old! Bogdan, guess what Aniela said this morning before I left Poselska Street. It’s not as busy here as in America. She’s certainly less busy! Alas, so am I. Henryk, you should have been at the train station when we arrived from Bremen. The crowds, the flowers, the songs. Just as when I left. I was very moved. I couldn’t have known what I would feel coming home, Bogdan, could you? The whole of my American saga could seem now like a trip to the moon. But it doesn’t, Bogdan, no. American adulation is depthless, while Polish adulation has depths that … you know what I mean. The interview, yes. Just one. Please sit here. Would you care for some coffee? I have only an hour. Yes, I am quite happy in America. To be sure, theatre is thought of very differently there. No, they have some excellent actors. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Edwin Booth? But it goes without saying that I intend to perform again in Poland! I shall always be before all else a Polish patriot and a Polish actress. Still, as a modern artist, I want my art to be seen by many people. It feels altogether natural to act in English, and I’m planning for next year a season in London. With the miracles of modern transport, it is possible to take one’s art everywhere. I shall never be daunted by great distances. In this respect, I have become quite American. Bogdan, must you leave now? Stay another few days. Bogdan, how small our beautiful old Kraków looks. Nothing has changed. Nothing! I know it’s absurd, Henryk, but I dread coming to Zakopane. I’m afraid of finding it changed. You know how it is when you return somewhere after a long absence. Even a place you fled, you still want to find exactly as you left it. The same ugly pictures on the wall, the same sleepy dog under the table, the same pair of china dogs on the mantelpiece, the same leather-bound sets of unread classics in the bookcase, the same tuneless goldfinch singing in the window. He’s coming to Kraków, Bogdan. He writes, he likes to make fun of me, that he cannot guarantee that Zakopane hasn’t continued to change. Oh my dear. Those lines in your face, Henryk. I’m going to cry. No, it’s not the lines, you know that. It’s because you’re here. And your hair has gone white. And what is that tremor in your hand? Let me embrace you again, my Henryk, my beloved friend. I should have come to Zakopane, forgive me. I could have averted my eyes when walking past the chalets being put up by moneyed people from Kraków. I might have said that I didn’t recognize our Zakopane anymore, but you wouldn’t believe me. You know how I exaggerate. You’ve not forgotten that your Maryna is an actress, have you? Let me kiss your cheeks again. It’s true, I want nothing I’ve left to have changed, and why should it? I haven’t been gone such a long time. Only two years. You can’t call two years an eternity! Who’s being histrionic now? Are you laughing at me, Henryk? Yes, to be sure, I want to be found changed, for the better, by those I left behind. Well? Yes, I am stronger. Yes. For the first time in my life, I understand what it is to stand alone. Though I’m never alone. You understand. No, I haven’t left you for good, my dear, dear friend. It’s only that, what is it to be the greatest Polish actress? Remember when the peak of my ambition was to be better than Gabriela Ebert. Now, naturally, I want to be better than Sarah Bernhardt. But am I better than Bernhardt? I’ll never find out if I remain in Poland. I need ordeals, challenges, mystery. I need to feel not at home. That’s what makes me strong, I know that now. I need to fly out of myself, you can understand that, Henryk. And I don’t mean just being on a stage, impersonating and transforming. For what is acting? Acting, of course I can say this only to you, Henryk, is misrepresentation. The theatre? Pretense and flummery. No, I’m not disillusioned. On the contrary. Bands of students serenading below my hotel window. Each day masses of fresh flowers banked beside the entrance. The other day I heard Peter telling my mother that what he liked about plays is that people don’t really die, they’re just pretending! Do rescue Peter from Mama and Józefina, and take him riding, Jarek. He mustn’t stay all day in the apartment or the bakery. He needs exercise, he needs the outdoors. And after I left our phalanstery—no mockery, Henryk!—came difficult times, but I couldn’t ask Bogdan to help me, he was having such problems with the farm. I sold what I could, pawned jewelry and lace, and sometimes I had no money even for a pound of tea and a little sugar and went to bed hungry. But poverty was the least of it. For after unexpected joy there was heartbreak, too. I am stronger for what I have sacrificed. Forgive me for saying no more than this. I feel that speaking about it, even to you, would be the greatest disloyalty of all to Bogdan. You know? He … he talked to you when he returned? No, of course he wouldn’t. I was sure he would be the soul of discretion and dignity. Never mentioned me at all? Not once? That’s because he’s so angry with me. Then, Henryk, how did you know? But why am I asking? You know me better than anyone. I’m a monster. I’ve thrown love away. I’m a bad mother. I lie to everybody, including myself. No, I don’t want absolution from you, Henryk. No, no, I suppose I do. Yes? I don’t seem such a monster to you? I’m going to bury my head in your shoulder. And you will put your arm around me. How lovely this feels. My Henryk, my dearest friend, and how are you? All I do is talk about myself. Bogdan must go and contend with his fractious relatives. Bogdan must weep at the grave of his grandmother. She was ferocious. I admired her, and I feared her. For Bogdan she was toute tendresse. He’ll come back and we’ll have a little time in Paris before sailing from Cherbourg in late August, and all of September I’ll be auditioning actors for the company I’m forming for my fall and winter tour, which starts with a six-week season in New York. Krystyna dear, let me look at you. Of course we can work together for a few days on your Ophelia. Nothing would give me more pleasure. Come to the hotel tomorrow afternoon. Good. Good. The graceless walk. I like it. You can even stumble when you offer the posy to Gertrude. Don’t be afraid of being bold. You may try any effect, provided it is not sustained too long. Make the role your own, don’t feel shadowed by how I portray her. When the great Rachel brought her Scottish lady (stop looking as if you don’t know who I mean by the Scottish lady!) to London and was told that their great Mrs. Siddons had already exhausted every possible idea for playing the sleepwalking scene, Rachel replied, Surely not every idea. I intend to lick my hand. Your wildest fancy, Krystyna. Lurch, Krystyna! Brava. You have a large talent. But you are timid. An actor must deliver a pistol shot or two. Even Ophelia is not just a victim. Beware of limp lines, limp business, and limp exits. Don’t say that, Henryk. I’ll be back again soon. Why, to see how you are faring without me. Henryk, Henryk. May I not tease you? Must you be morose? Another tone, Henryk. Ah. You will ask me, you cannot stop yourself. Then you will have the answer: I suppose I don’t miss anyone. I’m so busy. Sometimes I miss Bogdan, which may sound odd, since he’s almost always with me. It doesn’t sound odd to you? Indeed. The perfect husband? Remotecleverindulgent? Now you sound like Ryszard. That’s something he might say. But you can’t offend me, dearest Henryk. You know, I am not as self-a
bsorbed as I appear. I worry that Bogdan doesn’t have enough to do. He likes California best of all, and is negotiating for a property situated in a beautiful canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains, a place for us to be together when I’m not performing. Of course I’ll always be performing. A successful actor in America does two hundred and fifty, as many as three hundred performances each year. Very helpful. She’s less a secretary than she is a sort of governess, I suppose. Very strict and abject. Everyone needs a governess, even I need a governess, and Peter adores her. Józefina, have you ever thought of remarrying? I understand why you quit the stage, you are not vain or egotistical enough to be an actress, and it’s more than commendable of you to stay on with Mama. But you must think of yourself, too. Don’t frown, Józefina. Marriage may not always be the best solution for a woman, but you, my darling sister with the creases in your lovely brow, you need to devote yourself to someone. Better, to some ideal cause or service, as Henryk does. You should have been a teacher. Yes, he’s a fascinating man. A noble soul. It’s so admirable, his medical mission in Zakopane. And you could— Ah, you look even prettier when you blush, Józefina. Henryk, I have an idea for you. But I can’t tell you yet. I shall make you think of it yourself. Yes, American tours are demanding, and they can last as long as thirty-two weeks. But a leading actor’s life always has its ration of pleasures, mostly childhood pleasures: capering, daydreaming, making believe, throwing tantrums. Your smile, Henryk, does it mean you had supposed me altogether incapable of lucidity? And I’m expected, expected to be ardent, domineering, mercurial, avid for affection; and I’ll have an indulgent elected family at the ready: the other actors, my tyrannical manager, Miss Collingridge, the wardrobe woman … and Bogdan will be with me part of the year, though I can’t expect him just to travel around with me. In California he has adventures that are his alone. Has he formed some sort of attachment? He’s not spoken of any, for which I’m grateful, but whatever it was, or is, he still wants to make his life with me. Peter, Mama is talking to Uncle Henryk. Yes, you and Aniela can go to the bakery. No, Mama, I shan’t be here for dinner. Bogdan is returning tomorrow. In a few days we’re going to Poznań to stay for a week with Bogdan’s sister. He’s my guardian angel, Henryk. Yes, I know that’s not what you asked me. I don’t know if I do. But I want him. I need him. I feel well with him. He doesn’t make me anxious. I am never bored with him. I hope that I love him. It would be so unfair if I didn’t. I do love him. Ah. You are very severe with me, Henryk. But you are right of course. I told you, I’m a bad person. I don’t love anybody. No, I don’t feel crushed by other people’s love. What an idea! But you shouldn’t still care for me. You are too kind to me, Henryk. Much too kind. Let me weep. I spoil everything. I make no one happy. You are shaking your head. But I am inconsolable, Henryk. No, I am not acting. Shall I tell you what acting is, Tadeusz? Acting is misrepresentation. The art of the actor consists in exploiting an author’s drama to show off his ability to allure and to counterfeit. An actor is like a forger. Bogdan, there’s news. Tadeusz and Krystyna are going to marry. I don’t mind when people behave predictably, do you? They were destined for each other. I trust the little fool isn’t about to give up her career to be a wife. She’s talented, more talented than Tadeusz. And I shall be the godmother of their first child. Oh Bogdan, it’s so awful to be old. I hate becoming old. You say that because you’re so kind, and you love me, but I know how I look. My beautiful Kraków. American cities are ugly beyond belief, Józefina. So ugly, so … disrespectful. But the land, the land, the mountains and deserts and prairies, and the wild rivers, are grander, more inspiring, and more disconcerting than in all our European fantasies of America. You cannot imagine how … heroic southern California is. I hope you will see it one day, Henryk. You breathe differently there. The ocean, the desert, in all their sublime neutrality, suggest quite another idea of how to live. You take deep breaths and you feel you can do anything you set your mind to. No, Mama, I’m not ill. I just need to be quiet for a day. Too many parties, and tears, and interviews. I’m told of imminent proposals for my return to the Polish stage which I won’t be able to refuse, including the directorship of a theatre of my own. Bogdan, why don’t I feel well here? Is it because I’m thinking of Stefan all the time? Now I remember why I wanted to leave Poland. It was because, because … no, I don’t know why. Even now. All I know is that I feel so restless. A theatre of my own. A Polish theatre. What could I want more than that? I came back to preen and be admired, and make sure that I’m still loved and missed, and have everyone beg me to return, and it gives me no pleasure at all, none. Barbara, I can’t remember your looking so contented, my dear. Do you think sometimes of our Arden? What an enchanting dream it was. And what stalwarts we were! I am very proud of us. Aleksander, we’re buying land in Santiago Canyon. The Hunnecott ranch. You remember. We must all meet there a summer from now, after the house is finished. Bogdan wants to have livestock but we shall have proper help, you won’t be asked to feed the horses or milk the goats, I promise! It will be wonderful. You two and Danuta and Cyprian and their girls and … Oh, don’t remind me. I can’t stop thinking about it. And there was no one to stop her! It’s horrible. Horrible. Of course we would invite Julian. But I know he wouldn’t come. And Jakub from New York. Ryszard? That goes without saying, doesn’t it, Bogdan? Is he still in the same lodgings in Warsaw? Geneva? Since when? Why Geneva? No, we’ve not had news from him recently. And you’ll come too, Henryk. Not to California, that’s not for you. This year I’m going to have my own company and a much longer national tour. In America, a leading actor is “managed,” like a business, and the manager comes along on the tour. And you’ll travel with us as the company physician. There’s always someone falling ill. Oh, it’s such a lovely thought. Do consider it, Henryk. Perhaps I’ll invite Józefina to come, too. My sister is a remarkable woman, don’t you agree, Henryk? Nostalgia, Aleksander? For Poland? Spruce-lined Tatras trails, the chestnut alleys of Kraków, that sort of thing? Oh. For my old life. I think that’s not what I feel. No, Henryk, nothing will make me nostalgic. I have set my heart against the past. America is good for that. America, America! you retort—by the way, I prefer this tone. If you suspect that I find in my new country whatever I want to find there, you are right, Henryk. America is good for that as well. And you baked these kaiser rolls all by yourself, Peter darling? They’re exquisite. Bogdan, I learned something very interesting the other day. According to Henryk, until not so long ago nostalgia was regarded as a serious, sometimes fatal, illness. Autumn was thought to be the most dangerous time, and soldiering a particularly vulnerable profession. Virtually anything, a love letter, a picture, a song, a spoonful of the tasty gruel of one’s childhood, a few syllables in the accent of one’s native region overheard on the street, could induce the onset of the disease. The case histories he’s read have all appeared in French medical journals, but it seems unlikely that only the French were capable of dying of their attachment to the past. Poles, we agreed, must have been even more susceptible to this illness, just as Americans have turned out to excel at freeing themselves from the past. Yes, it’s delicious, Mama. No, Mama, I don’t want a pork cutlet or cauliflower topped with breadcrumbs and butter. (My God!) Mama, I’m not too thin. The most admired actress in Europe today, the queen of the French stage, weighs no more than … oh, never mind! Mama, have you any idea, any idea at all, who I am? The very question, Bogdan, I asked him. Presumably, the decline of this illness is one of the many benefits of the progress of civilization: of the steam engine, the telegraph, and regular mail. But you know Henryk—optimism being foreign to his nature, and also being unable ever to forgo the barbed observation—he says he thinks the decline of this sentiment in its lethal form merely portends the rise of a new illness, the inability to become attached to anything. Of course I think of Ryszard sometimes, Henryk. Doctor. Can you prescribe something to kill the pain? Or is it the numbness? I wasn’t just being selfish. I panicked. He took my breath away. I felt too divided.
Bogdan, Henryk said to me yesterday, you know how acerbic he can be, Poland loves you. Poland needs you. But you don’t need Poland anymore. What can I say to him? Henryk, there are two kinds of people. Those, like you, dear friend, who only feel well where everything is understandable, familiar. And those, the race to which I belong, who feel trapped, dull, irritable when they’re at home. Which doesn’t preclude my being fervently patriotic. What I most admire about Józefina, Henryk, is that she is largehearted. Oh Bogdan, how could Ignacy be so intransigent! It must be awful for you. We deserve a bit of holiday now. I’m glad we made the effort and accompanied Henryk back to Zakopane. Should a pair of seasoned southern Californians have flinched at a two-day wagon trip? Should we not rejoice in the progress that has come to the village, starting with Henryk’s new, splendidly equipped dispensary? It’s still our rough, pungent, deliciously isolated Zakopane, and we’ve feasted, what feasts, and walked, what walks, climbing farther than we meant to for a familiar panorama, and the highlanders have been so welcoming. I know you thought we were staying until Sunday. But we shall just make Henryk more unhappy. He’ll miss us even more if we stay longer. Józefina’s brow, her hair. Don’t you think she’s lovely, Henryk? You’re blind, my friend. Where are we? We’re in Zakopane. But I didn’t want to come to Zakopane. We’re in Kraków. But I don’t want to stay in Kraków. Peter, embrace your grandmother and your aunts and your uncles and your cousins. Of course you can say good-bye to Mr. Gliński! Bogdan, Bogdan darling, I know you’ll think me unpardonably capricious, but I don’t want to stay as long as we planned. Let’s leave for Paris now. I need clothes, yes, days and days of fittings. And every night we’ll go to the theatre. She may be playing at the Comédie-Française. I know I’m going to hate her and fall in love with her. I already have a pang when I think of the sonorous vowels of Racine as she must launch them, and the majestic periods. Perhaps I wouldn’t enjoy seeing her Adrienne Lecouvreur or her Dame aux camélias, but her Hernani and her Phèdre—more than anything in the world. As long as she doesn’t know I’m in the audience. Mama, certainly I’ll be back next summer. And you and Józefina shall come live with us in America, when Bogdan and I have our ranch. You, too old? Don’t be ridiculous, Mama. Oh Poland. Don’t be a lost love. Be my strength, be my pride, my shield that I carry out into the world. Oh Ryszard, your hands, your mouth, ton sexe. Bogdan, is everything still all right? For me, yes. I’m resigned and triumphant, Henryk. Who would have thought it would be like this?
