Florian's Gate

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Despite what Alexander refers to as my apartment’s minuscule proportions,” Gregor said as they left the apartment, “it has several major advantages. It is a fifteen-minute walk to the old town, and the building has only five floors and thirty-seven apartments. That is nothing compared to the monstrosities that the Communists have erected. You will be visiting a few of them.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Jeffrey said, casting a backward glance at the building. He took in the dull gray exterior, the flaking windowpanes, the crumbling front steps, the dusty strip of unadorned earth fronting the curb, and wondered what a disadvantaged place must look like.

  “My building was erected in the fifties,” Gregor went on, making his rolling way down the sidewalk. “At that time, buildings were still being made from brick and concrete rather than mortar blocks and steel. As a result this building is insulated, you see. My walls do not sweat in the cold. Nor do they freeze in the dead of winter, as happens in some of the newer buildings—the interior walls, I am speaking of. Sometimes I feel a little guilty not residing as most people do here, but as you can see my health is unfortunately not the best. One winter in such a place and I would be immobilized for life.”

  He stopped in front of a stubby car the color of old mustard. Jeffrey looked it over, tapped the plastic hood. It was a square cigar box on skinny tires, designed to grow old swiftly and fall apart. Gingerly he pushed down on his side; the car rocked like a boat in high seas. No shocks at all.

  “Don’t you think we would be better off having Alexander’s driver take us around?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” Gregor replied, climbing in and shutting his door. It bounced back open. He reached out with both hands and slammed it into submission. He inserted the key and ground the ignition. Jeffrey sighed in defeat, slid onto the narrow seat. The car sounded like a motorized sewing machine. “This is an East German car, a Trabant,” Gregor said above the engine’s whining putter. “In Poland they call them Hoennecker’s Revenge. Hoennecker was the former ruler of East Germany.”

  “Back in the U.S., people put quarters in motel beds and don’t get as good a ride as this,” Jeffrey replied. He hung on to the door strap with both hands, tried to lift himself over the worst of the bumps. He turned his head as a bus coughed out a vast cloud of black smoke that engulfed their car. “Do they have a nick-name for buses?”

  Gregor nodded. “Skunks.”

  They left Cracow, turned onto a small secondary road, and began making their way through open farmland. The fields were verdant green, the sky a baked blue. Jeffrey rolled down his window and inhaled the fresh air.

  They passed a smattering of run-down houses that gradually condensed and formed a small village. Jeffrey remarked, “It seems as if the main color of communism wasn’t red. It was gray.”

  “The hardest lie to accept is one told time and time again,” Gregor replied. “I would hear the Communists lie on the evening news, and some evenings I would just cry out for my country’s pain.”

  Jeffrey eyed row after row of sagging sad-faced houses. “Why didn’t they ever paint anything?”

  “Ask a thousand people, my boy, and you’ll receive a thousand reasons, all of them true. For the larger housing projects, there was no need to keep up appearances because all the property was state-owned. Resources went to new projects, not maintaining old ones. Buildings erected after the war with one bathroom for ten or eleven apartments—which was a vast improvement on no indoor plumbing at all—have remained exactly as they were built.

  “Those families who wanted to improve their apartments had to fight against a system that controlled all supplies of everything. Paint and brushes, for example, had to be ordered through requisition, and could take years to obtain. What was received was used indoors on their apartment. No one but the state laid claim to the building as a whole, and the state’s attention was always elsewhere. So the buildings were usually left to rot.

  “Most village homes remained privately owned in Poland, but here again the supply problems remained catastrophic. Added to that was the lack of money, the people’s sense of resignation over their plight, and a desire to blend in with their surroundings. A well-maintained private dwelling would attract the worst type of attention—thieves or tax inspectors.”

  Cobblestone streets and gray buildings gave way to a small central plaza. Two carts piled high with vegetables and pulled by bony horses with drooping necks stood in front of the only store whose sign Jeffrey could understand—Bar. They continued to the village’s other side and halted in front of an old farmhouse.

  Gregor stared through the front windshield at the house’s dilapidated condition. “The Communists did not choose to give up power in Poland. They were forced to leave because they led the nation to economic ruin. Worse than that. They led the nation by an economic lie, and generations of Poles have paid the price for this lie.”

  From the front, the farmhouse was almost smothered by a veritable forest of dahlias. They began around ankle-height up by the gate, and mounted steadily until arriving at the low-sloping roof.

  As Jeffrey started to climb from the car, he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. “Before we go in, I need to know how much Alexander has told you of the way we work.”

  “Just the bare bones.” When they had returned upstairs after breakfast that morning, Alexander had outlined their purchase strategy. Gregor was responsible for both locating the items and making the initial check; he knew enough about antiques by now for him to be trusted to weed out any obvious fakes. Any purchases that had to be made immediately, in order to keep them from falling into other buyers’ hands, he also took care of and stored for Alexander’s arrival.

  Purchases were concluded immediately on the basis of paying a fair price by Polish standards. Once the piece was sold, the full sales price less commissions—often a fortune by Polish standards—was passed on through Gregor. Gregor received half of the commission less expenses, plus an unidentified sum from the shop’s total profit.

  “Prices here are still excellent by Western standards, but nothing compared to what we found in the past. This is especially true with the smaller items.”

  “Because they can be smuggled easier,” Jeffrey guessed.

  “Exactly. The border guards are daily becoming more lax and open to bribery. People are taking their heirlooms out of closets and into the antique stores, and receiving prices that mount daily. The price that was unthinkable yesterday would not buy a bent spoon tomorrow.

  “Nowadays people with something to sell are being approached by strangers from all over,” Gregor continued. “The Italians are busy buying up everything they can get their hands on at rock-bottom prices. Meanwhile, they have lawyers who are lobbying the new parliament to change the export laws.”

  “We have new competition, then,” Jeffrey said.

  “Yes and no. Most of these strangers are sharks. They look to pay pennies for what they can sell for fortunes. The Polish people know this. Still, their families are hungry, their children are sick and needing medicine, many have lost their jobs. They hold and they hold and they hold, because this precious item is often the only real savings they have, the only security against trouble, the only hope for their old age. But in times as bad as these, sometimes it only takes one more small problem, one more calamity for them to give up and sell. When that happens, they may act out of panic and sell to whomever gets there first.”

  “Things are that bad right now?”

  “Horrible. You will see that in your travels, I am sorry to say.”

  “So I should make an initial payment equal to what the Italians would pay as a total, is that right?”

  Gregor gave him an approving look. “Alexander said that you were quick to catch on. Yes, that is exactly what I want you to do. And if it is something we can fit in the car, we carry it away with us. If not, I arrange to have a truck come by the same evening that we make our visit. These people are hungry, Jeffrey. They may decid
e to sell the item twice. It is best to remove such temptations as swiftly as possible.”

  “So where do we store it until it’s time for shipment? A warehouse?”

  Gregor shook his head. “Warehouses have become the favorite target of gangs. No, we have worked out a safer and a quieter place than a warehouse, Alexander and I. Someplace where we can keep whatever pieces I find and purchase before his arrival. Tomek works for me when Alexander is not here. He owns a truck that he and his son use to transport all the articles we purchase.”

  Gregor led the way around back to a swept yard made muddy by the morning’s heavy dew. A host of tame ducks greeted their arrival with apprehensive glances and worried quacks. A truly ancient dog made do with a couple of wheezy barks, then watched in silence as they progressed through the ducks and chickens and mud.

  An old woman pushed aside the draped cloth that served as her screen door, spoke what clearly was a greeting to Gregor, and led them inside. The house was built for people of her height; Jeffrey had to remain in a perpetual stoop. The ceiling beams were about five and a half feet high; the woman passed under them easily.

  She was very heavy, standing almost as wide as she was tall. Her face had taken on the shape of a featureless circle and the color of unbaked dough. Her arms were thick and wobbled as she walked, her legs massive and encased in several layers of socks and flesh-tone support hose. She wore three sweaters and an apron over her faded housedress.

  “I am so very sorry,” she said through Gregor. “The house is too small, I am too poor; you must be used to so much nicer things than what I am able to offer.”

  “Everything is just fine,” he said, wondering what on earth there might be of interest. The house was furnished with either rough-hewn pieces made from lumber scraps or just plain junk.

  She ushered them into her minuscule sitting room, where Jeffrey found a table loaded with food—sliced ham, roast chicken, devilled eggs, fresh rolls, homemade pickles, vegetable salad, and two cakes. She said through Gregor, “Won’t you have a little tea?”

  Jeffrey whispered, “This is for us?”

  “This is Polish hospitality,” Gregor replied.

  “We just had breakfast.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We are her guests, and in Poland you offer your guests the very best of what you have.”

  The old woman stood with hands crossed in front of her stomach and watched them sit and begin loading their plates. She poured them tea and said through Gregor, “It’s nothing, really. Just a second breakfast.”

  Gregor smiled. “The fact is, she has been preparing for several days for our arrival. She is not a wealthy person, as you can see. But whatever she has, she will devote to hospitality. It is the Polish way.”

  “Please tell her the food is great.”

  “Nothing would thrill her more than to see her American guest take seconds,” Gregor said.

  Jeffrey ate and examined the cramped surroundings. The walls were covered with a continual design that had been painted over the cracked limewash and decorated with religious prints—saints, crucifixes, photographs of icons. The floor was ragged carpet laid on ancient linoleum. Each room had a single bulb for illumination. The light filtering through handmade windowpanes was cloudy and vague. The entire house was neat as a pin and gave the impression of a snug little cave, saved from being claustrophobic only by its cleanliness and the woman’s genuine smile.

  When they could eat no more and refused her offer of yet another piece of cake or another glass of tea, reluctantly she allowed them to stand and follow her back into the narrow hall. She stopped at the entrance to the cottage’s other room and said, “My husband was hit by a truck and killed last year. He was a victim of Poland’s greatest killer—vodka. It was the driver who had been drinking, not my husband. He had never given in to the temptation, may the good Lord bless his soul. It was so strange to hear of his death from the official, when the house still smelled from his morning coffee and his shirts still hung from the line. Now I am alone, and my daughter has three babies and a husband who has been laid off. I have hoarded things I never needed for far too long.”

  Jeffrey followed Gregor’s lead and stood patiently, nodding to her words, wondering why she continued to smile as she spoke, feeling the onset of a serious crick in his bent-over neck.

  With a theatrical flourish she swept the curtain door aside and said through Gregor, “My daughter’s room.”

  Jeffrey stepped through the doorway, looked around, and laughed out loud.

  Gregor stepped up beside him. “She wants to know if anything is the matter.”

  “No, nothing. It was just a little unexpected, that’s all.”

  Opposite the doorway stood a cabinet, so heavily carved as to make the exterior appear like a pile of unsorted sculptures—vases and grapes and bas-relief statues and hanging flowers and gods’ faces and framed designs—all jumbled into something only a museum curator could love.

  Gregor moved up beside him, said, “In the late seventeenth century, one quarter of the students at the major Italian universities were the children of Polish gentry. That particular generation transformed the country’s tastes, as you can see. They drew it toward the ornate foppery of early Italian Renaissance style. This is a perfect example of the result.”

  “Horrible,” Jeffrey decided.

  “Perhaps. Alexander would certainly agree with you. But the last time we came upon such a piece, he said he knew of a dozen curators who would positively drool at the news.”

  Beyond the cabinet was a bed. It rested on a simple wooden frame, but around this was a second frame the likes of which Jeffrey had never seen. The floorposts were a foot square at the base, rising to carved Grecian urns that sprouted tall flowering plants. Each of the posts appeared to have been carved from one solid log, and supported an upper bedframe carved and gilded to appear like golden grapes hanging from a leafy vine. The carving on the headboard alternated between pastoral scenes and royal coats-of-arms.

  “A young prince’s bed,” Gregor guessed, coming up beside him. “Remarkable.”

  “How did it get here?” Jeffrey ran a hand across the headboard, could not find any trace of a seam.

  “That, my dear boy, is a story we shall most probably never know.” Gregor turned back to where the lady waited in the doorway. “I’ll tell her that you are interested in taking it, then, shall I?”

  “This belongs in a museum,” Jeffrey said, then corrected himself. “If it’s real, that is.”

  “Oh, I imagine it is. Thankfully, most of the items I locate are authentic, especially ones of this size. Although the Communists had visions of making themselves the new royal class, with all sorts of special privileges, they had few resources for making replicas of anything. What was available usually went for massive statues of Lenin.”

  * * *

  After leaving the farmhouse they drove slowly on past the village. The roads were narrow and in terrible condition. Jeffrey maintained his death’s grip on the door strap and enjoyed his tour of the countryside.

  The evidence of poverty was starkly vivid. No one he saw wore well-fitting clothes, much less anything new. The people themselves looked worn down to the point of absolute exhaustion. Even the children they passed had pinched, chiseled features and dark shadows under their eyes.

  Almost all the farm work he saw was done by stoop labor. Women tilled fields with hand hoes, wearing headkerchiefs and high rubber boots. Men walked beside horse-drawn plows or wagons filled with produce or manure or wood.

  There was very little car traffic on the roads. Trucks and buses wobbled along on uneven axles and belched deep clouds of smoke. People rode bicycles or walked along the road’s edge.

  It appeared that everyone he passed had some physical ailment—a pronounced limp, a disjointed shoulder, a bent spine, a missing limb, a scar. When they passed a group of people standing together or stopped for a traffic light, he watched intently but saw no smiles. All the faces looked closed t
o him, screwed down and clamped shut against a world that was always hostile, always a risk, never open or friendly or helpful or safe. All the voices drifting in through his open window sounded tired. Tragic. Resigned.

  The village where their second meeting was scheduled was much like the first—a series of winding streets that led nowhere.

  “I keep looking for a center of town,” Jeffrey said.

  “The war destroyed many towns’ central structures,” Gregor explained. “The Communists then came in and built endless rows of functional housing. This was vastly cheaper than restoring the grand old structures. The Communists were very big on functionalism. Beautification was not a word in their vocabulary.”

  He pulled up in front of a split-beamed log cabin, the spaces between the wood chinked with spattered concrete.

  Jeffrey did not open his door. “They have an antique?”

  “I have done business with them several times,” Gregor replied. “Perhaps the pieces came from a friend or a relative or someone else who did not want to risk having his face seen.”

  Gregor opened his door and stood. When Jeffrey joined him, he said, “At the same time, it could very well have come from a midnight raid on the local manor. Flaming torches carried by a mob attacking in rage and panic against an official who had sold his soul to the Nazis, with the sound of the Soviet tanks rumbling in the distance. Quite a bit of that happened as well. If the booty was small, it might have been buried in the cowshed. If large, it may have spent the past forty years as one wall of the chicken coop.

  “Even if the family was better off, the antique was always hidden,” Gregor went on, making his limping way along the roadside. “Valuables may not have been dumped into a hole in the ground, but they were never on display. The room with the desk or the painting or the silver was never open to non-family. If the owners were fortunate enough to have a small garden plot, they might build the piece into the wall of their shed, or stack it behind all their tools. But the antiques were never there to decorate. They were held as the family’s last resort, the item to sell when all was bleak and the crisis was life-threatening. Never for show.”