Florian's Gate

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Of course he will,” Katya replied, and pushed on the door as the latch sounded.

  By the time they made their way up the two flights of stairs, Gregor had returned to his bed. He sat propped up by a half dozen pillows, wrapped within a voluminous shawl. Still he greeted them with a genuine smile. “You must excuse me for not rising any more than absolutely necessary. When my joints become inflamed, there is no better healing salve than rest.”

  “Can we do anything to help you?” Katya asked.

  “Thank you, my dear. That is most kind. But I have a very sweet old woman who would mother me to death if I let her.” He shook Katya’s hand, inspecting her frankly. “My cousin was most impressed with you. I can see why. Sit down, my dear. Take the comfortable chair there.”

  He turned his attention to Jeffrey. “You had your walk around central Cracow? What did you think?”

  “I feel as if I’ve been sent back to school,” Jeffrey replied, bringing over one of the straight-backed chairs. “I never realized how little I knew. I think before I came to Poland, my clearest impression of the East was of people standing in line.”

  “It was quite a true image,” Gregor replied. “Before, when people saw other people standing in line, they automatically assumed it was for something worth buying. If they had time, they got in line too.”

  “It was a favorite way of passing a few idle hours,” Katya agreed. “If you got to the head of the line and it was not something you needed, you’d buy it anyway. There was always someone you knew who could use it.”

  Gregor gave Katya a thoughtful look. “You built up obligations—in a good way, of course. The word is Rewanz, a positive revenge.”

  “Reciprocation,” Katya offered. “Returning a favor.”

  “Exactly. You balanced obligations. You helped out neighbors because you knew they in turn would help you out.”

  Jeffrey asked, “So what happened if someone always took and never gave in return?”

  “That very seldom happened,” Katya replied. “Too much was at stake.”

  “No one would ever remind you,” Gregor agreed. “You were simply expected to remember.”

  “You were always conscious of when it was your turn to give a gift or extend an invitation,” Katya explained. “There was a sense of honor and duty involved in not allowing the relationship to get out of balance.”

  There was a moment of silence, with Gregor smiling and nodding. “So, so. Tell me, my dear. When were you last in Poland? This is most certainly not your first visit.”

  “No. It was two years ago, just before the first cracks in the Communist power-structure appeared.”

  “Things have changed,” Gregor said mildly.

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “Yes, we passed through our period of euphoria, and now we’re in a period of worry. Already we are forgetting what we gained, and are spending all our time wanting for more.”

  “Many of the people I’ve seen on the street look shell-shocked,” Jeffrey said.

  “Indeed they do,” Gregor agreed. “They have come to realize that with the opportunities of change comes the darkness of uncertainty. That was one thing which the Communist regime stifled, you see. Change. Security for the worker was achieved by imposing iron-bound laws backed by fear.”

  “I have never seen so many people on shopping streets,” Katya said. “Everybody stops and looks at all the windows, standing there for hours.”

  “The shortages are gone,” Gregor said. “Nowadays the only thing that is hard to come by is money. Unemployment is rising daily as more and more obsolete factories are losing their government subsidies and are being forced out of business. The government is in virtual bankruptcy, services are being cut back, and with the West in recession there is little help coming. People are worried over how to make ends meet, and afraid of being hungry.”

  “Not just for food, from the looks of things,” Katya said.

  “Exactly. They are hungry for things they have seen in television and magazines and never had the chance to try or taste or wear or drive or own. Their hunger for experimenting in all these new Western wares is immense. Overwhelming is a better word. They are overwhelmed by desire for things they now find in stores, which before were nothing more than wispy visions of a world they weren’t sure really existed at all.”

  “I remember,” Katya said. To Jeffrey she explained, “Russia was always sending propaganda throughout Poland about what a great life communism was giving them. Poles knew this was a lie. But when they saw pictures from the West—on television or in a magazine or from a cousin in Chicago—they not only believed that the wealth was there, but also that it was easy to have. Everybody in the West was rich, in their eyes. There was this misguided notion that dollars were lying along the American streets just waiting to be picked up. And this has been the great disenchantment. All these fabulous goods are now on display here in Poland, but almost no one can afford them. Simply to be joined with the West does not guarantee immediate wealth.”

  “The people are exhausted,” Gregor went on. “They are stretched to the last possible limit, and this is causing an incredible isolation. Isolation of people, isolation of families, isolation of regions. Dialogue is gone. When I go to a council of regional Protestant and Catholic churches, theological differences are a luxury that no one can afford. The topics are how to feed the children. How to obtain medicine for the sick. How to stop the spread of pornography among the young. How to combat alcoholism.”

  “The Communist system guaranteed a certain stability,” Katya said. “Despite oppression and foreign domination and persecution and fear, it nevertheless offered the common folk security. There was bread. There was heat. There was a roof over everyone’s head. These were valuable things to people who had been totally devastated by war after war after war.”

  “But the cost.” Sorrowfully Gregor shook his head. “My goodness, the cost. Look into the eyes of a nation taught not to strive, to hope. There you will find the cost.”

  There was a moment’s silence; then Katya stood and said, “Perhaps you two would like to have a moment alone together. It was very nice meeting you, Gregor.”

  He extended a hand and a very warm smile. “My dear, the pleasure has truly been my own.”

  “I’ll see you downstairs, Jeffrey.”

  As her footsteps echoed down the stairway, Gregor said, “That is a remarkable young woman you have found for yourself. Or perhaps that God has found for you. I wondered at Alexander’s decision to allow a stranger to work with you, but now I see that he was correct.”

  “It means a lot to hear you say that.”

  “Yes, I can also see a bit of the Mongol horde in Katya. It is true for many of Eastern Europe’s most beautiful women—the mysterious slant to their eyes, and cheekbones shaped by icy Steppe winds.”

  Jeffrey couldn’t help but smile. “I thought you weren’t supposed to notice such things.”

  “Who on earth told you such nonsense? Not my cousin, I hope.”

  “No one did.”

  “My dear young friend, faith does not make one a eunuch. It simply points out the borders of correct thought and action. There is a very great difference between appreciating beauty and desiring it.”

  “I suppose I’ve never thought of it like that,” Jeffrey confessed.

  “Human society says so long as the person is not violated, there is no harm in lust. But God says you must draw the line at appreciating, before it hardens into sinful thought.” Gregor smiled. “Such beauty is always a joy to appreciate.”

  Jeffrey felt the familiar ache. “And what if I can’t appreciate her without wanting her?”

  Gregor turned an understanding gaze on Jeffrey and replied gently, “Then temper your desire with God’s love. And want her first as your wife.”

  Jeffrey looked toward the open door. “For the first time in my life I can think about taking that step without diving for cover. I just wish I knew how she felt about it.”
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br />   “You are most fortunate, my boy. The girl loves you dearly.”

  “Alexander said the same thing. I wish I knew how you two could be so certain. She sure doesn’t show it.”

  “In her own way, she makes it perfectly clear, I assure you. She does not tell you what you wish to hear because you are not yet ready to receive it.”

  “I’m ready all right.”

  “No, no, listen to what I am saying. The girl loves you. Not the man you want to become, and certainly not the man you want the world to see. She loves you.” He reached to the side table for pen and paper. “The question is whether you are able to make peace with the true Jeffrey Sinclair. She has, you may rest assured of that. She has seen you as you are and she loves you. That should help you quite a bit.”

  Gregor scribbled busily, said, “Give this to Tomek. He will take you to meet a gentleman in a village less than an hour from here.”

  Jeffrey accepted the slip. “Do you think I could come by and talk with you some more?”

  “Nothing on this earth could give me more pleasure,” Gregor replied. “Perhaps you can stop by alone in the mornings before you begin work.”

  “That would be great. Thanks.”

  “My dear boy, it is I who thank you.” Gregor adjusted his shawl. “And now you should be going. It is best to return before nightfall. Vodka remains the greatest hazard on Poland’s roads, and you have more difficulty recognizing who is caught in its clutches after dark.”

  CHAPTER 17

  As they left the main road and made their way through small townships, Jeffrey said, “I wonder what life is like in these villages.”

  “For most young people with intelligence and ambition, it is an imprisonment for the crime of daring to hope and to dream.” Katya shook her head. “It is because of the pressures against success that the Communists have so beaten down this people.”

  “You and Gregor agree on that point.”

  “I imagine there are a lot of things where Gregor and I agree.”

  Outlying villages gave way to a concrete forest of high-rise tenements, and they to an unending stream of three-story apartments. The street became hemmed in by gray sameness—without pause, without individuality. Buildings appeared to lean inwards, pressing down on the sidewalks and the streets and the people with a draining force. Here there is no hope of change, they seemed to say. No hope of improvement. No way to escape.

  “Even in the poorest villages there was at one time a castle and a cloister,” Katya told him. “Wars have done away with one or both in many places. In the villages where the Communists rebuilt, they did not feel a need to spend money on a heart, a town center. The streets have an aimless feel, none of them leading anywhere.”

  The car stopped a block away from what appeared to be the town’s only park—a dusty, unkempt stretch of grass with a few twisted trees. Beyond the park loomed a factory, its trio of smokestacks defiantly dwarfing the park’s stunted growth. Jeffrey and Katya left the car and entered a first-floor flat, where a man identified himself as the former factory manager.

  “I’m out of a job,” he had Katya translate once they were seated on a rock-hard sofa. “I didn’t move fast enough.”

  Jeffrey nodded as though he understood, and practiced patience. The man was overweight as only a once-skinny man could be. A pronounced swayback gave his overhanging belly an even greater bulge. His eyes and hair were grayish brown, his voice equally drab. Katya kept her face blank and nodded in time to his words. She waited until he was finished, then turned back to Jeffrey. “I do not like this place, can we please hurry?”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing of importance.” She rushed through the words, blurring them together. “He probably speaks a little of our language. I’m talking just to fill the air. Can you ask me to ask for the furniture?”

  Jeffrey nodded solemnly, as though receiving information of great importance. He replied, “May I please see the items for sale?”

  The man nodded and led the way down the hall to a door that he unlocked and ushered them inside. The room held a set of four Biedermeier pieces, one of the few intact sets Jeffrey had ever seen. They were all of ash, another rarity, the grain so fine as to outshine the paintings on the walls above them.

  Biedermeier furniture dominated the style houses of central Europe from 1815 to around 1850. Its strict lines and lack of gaudy exterior decoration was intended as an absolute rejection of the overblown carvings and intricate mosaics of earlier periods.

  Closest to Jeffrey was an upright secretary-cabinet, the fold-down face flanked by black side pillars. Its straight unyielding lines were made more delicate by the ash’s grain. Beside it stood a waist-high chest of drawers, and beside that a sofa table on a center-column and platform base. The real prize sat against the back wall—a settee fully nine feet in length. Rising from the silk upholstery was a long back piece carved from one single massive tree. The circular arms were also entire tree trunks, but scrolled with a waved pattern that gave even their massive breadth a delicate air.

  Jeffrey worked to keep his voice calm. “Anything else?”

  The man deflated instantly. In broken English he said, “Is not okay?”

  “It’s excellent. Really first rate.”

  The room lit up again. “And the price?”

  “Equally high. Are there any more pieces for sale?”

  With unrestrained eagerness Jeffrey was led to the bedroom, where a suite of garishly modern quasi-Western furniture sidled up to one piece that dominated the room.

  “Polish,” the man announced proudly.

  “It certainly might be,” Jeffrey replied, stooping for a closer look.

  “No might. Is. Is. Have picture in book.”

  Polish Biedermeier was called Simmler, after the major factory in Warsaw at the time. It was very rare, as few pieces had survived in this war-torn land. The chest of drawers was of nut burl, and the tree that had sacrificed its roots for the facade must have been massive—the top and each drawer was covered by one solid strip of veneer. Jeffrey felt a keen sense of pleasure; if authentic, it would be a nice piece for Alexander to present to the new regime.

  When they were back in the car and under way, Jeffrey asked, “What did that factory manager say that so upset you back there?”

  “It wasn’t what he said,” Katya replied. “He’s probably like a lot of others, but it was sort of like having a snake crawl out of the grass when you’re not expecting it.”

  “What do you mean, like the others?”

  “Oh,” Katya sighed. “He probably started off a staunch Communist, not just a Party member for the sake of his card but a real activist. That was more or less required for somebody in a position like his. But like a lot of them in the late eighties he saw the writing on the wall and started working strong for Solidarity. He was too shrewd to go down with the Communist clunker, too flexible, too awake.

  “Then came the time for the government to sell all the state-owned companies. As long as the Communists were in power, all companies were state owned. All of them, Jeffrey, from the local newspaper vendor to the biggest car factory. Private companies were against the law. So now the new government was to sell these companies. How? By auction. When? At a time to be announced. To whom? Whoever bid the most money.”

  “Here comes the catch,” Jeffrey guessed.

  “But of course. The problem was, how was the auction to be announced? Well, if the company director was shrewd and kept his old ties, it might have been with one group of placards that were conveniently misplaced, and one well-timed telephone call.”

  “So what do you think happened here?”

  “Who knows? Maybe a foreign company decided it was a perfect entry into the new capitalistic Poland, and all the attention kept everybody honest. Or he was caught trying a fast one. Or maybe, just maybe, the people in this region responsible for the auctions were intent on being honest. That happened, too—not everywhere, but more often than you mi
ght think.”

  As they passed beyond the high-rise apartment houses and re-entered the countryside, Katya pointed to a small chapel where a crowd was gathering. “Could we please stop for afternoon Mass? It would be lovely to hear one in Polish again.”

  Sheep grazed in a pasture beside the priory, and blossoming fruit trees gave the enclosure a sweetly perfumed air. Under the shade of a dozen ancient trees stood over two hundred people with hands folded in front of them, facing toward the unseen priest.

  “There is no room left inside,” Katya whispered as they approached the crowd. “It is the same all over Poland.”

  Katya stood and listened, and Jeffrey contented himself by watching those around him. The children played quietly or stood and faced the church with their elders. The attitude was prayerful, respectful, peaceful. The contrast to the hopelessness he had felt in the street could not have been greater.

  Once they were again under way, Katya asked him, “Why isn’t Alexander here with you? He wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “We went to Auschwitz two days ago,” Jeffrey replied simply.

  “Alexander went back to London because of seeing Auschwitz? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a little hard to explain.”

  The driver said something. Katya turned forward and replied briefly.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that yes, Alexander looked very pale when you returned from Auschwitz. What happened there, Jeffrey?”

  He turned to the driver. “I didn’t know you spoke English.”

  “Not speak,” the man replied, his accent most guttural. “Understand few words.”

  The driver began speaking in Polish. Reluctantly Katya turned her gaze from Jeffrey and listened in silence. When the driver finished, she sat there for a moment, then without turning back she told him, “He says his school was taken to visit Auschwitz when he was sixteen. What he remembers most was that there was one enormous boy, much larger than anyone else in his class, who used to bully everyone horribly. He says the boy was very cruel and liked to hurt people, especially the smaller children. He would take money from them, and if they didn’t have money he would beat them up. At Auschwitz their class was first taken into a big hall where they saw a documentary made by the Russians when they liberated the camp. What he remembers most is that the only one who lost control during the film was the bully. He started weeping so hard the whole hall could hear, and then toward the end when they showed some victims of the medical experiments, he fainted.”