Madame

by Antoni Libera

  This was not cheering news. But what did it matter if it made the trip feasible, if it meant he could go to France? Very little – almost nothing at all. If anything mattered, it was the question of whom the department would send as the ‘other’. Obviously it would have to be a Party member – but who? The head of the department? The chairman? That cunning old opportunist Professor Levittoux? Actually, he wouldn’t be so bad. He had pre-war manners and quite a good brain, and his Party membership was pure opportunism. But he was unlikely.

  Not long afterwards the director of the Office of Overseas Co-operation, a certain Gabriel Gromek, MA, summoned Freddy to his office for what was known as a ‘little talk’. He began by asking him how he came to be acquainted with ‘Mr’ Billot and through what channels he had established contact with the university in Tours. He then proceeded to upbraid him, quite severely, for publishing his work in a foreign journal without prior approval, indeed without even trying to obtain such approval or so much as consulting anyone (‘quite unacceptable behaviour!’). Finally, indicating that the matter was a mere formality, he asked Freddy to sign a brief promise of loyalty to the Polish government during his trip abroad. This well-known trap was the means whereby pressure was later exerted to draw people into collaboration with the secret police. Freddy was speechless. But he concealed his consternation and, knowing full well that if he did not go, neither would anyone else, replied poker-faced that in that case, thank you very much, but if these were the conditions he would rather not go at all. Too bad, but never mind, he could live without it. It wasn’t so important. And he rose to leave.

  ‘Good heavens, Dr Monten, there’s no need to take it like that!’ exclaimed the director of the Office of Overseas Cooperation, furiously backpedalling; ‘No need to take offence. No one’s forcing you. If you don’t want to sign, fine, we’ll just take your word for it. All these precautions are for your own good, you know. You haven’t yet been to the West, you’ve no idea what it’s like. Conferences and symposia are just the bait – the carrot they dangle in front of you to get you there. It’s your collaboration they’re really after: they want you to become their agent. They’ll take you out for coffee or to dinner in a restaurant, and before you know it you’ll be betraying your country. Oh yes, they have their ways! They’ll flatter you and fawn over you, and then they’ll offer you money to sweeten the deal – just to open you up. Literature, classics, Racine’ – he pronounced it Rah-sign – ‘my aunt! All they want is to squeeze information out of you and to get you to slander and defame our people’s democracy. They’ll be lying in wait for you in the corridors during the breaks. We know what they’re like! That’s how they operate. So I’m warning you: be vigilant!’

  Freddy listened to these ravings with an utterly bland expression, as if he hadn’t quite grasped what they were about. Assuming an air of studied distraction (the young scholar absorbed in his books, head in clouds), he asked, with seeming irrelevance, whether he would be going alone or accompanied on this ‘delegation’.

  ‘You will be accompanied by Dr Dolowy,’ he heard in reply.

  Dolowy! Unbelievable! The last person he would have expected. Although perhaps it wasn’t so surprising: assistant professor Dolowy was, after all, secretary of the Party Organisation and the dean’s right-hand man. Still, there were limits. The man was a blockhead. He didn’t even speak proper French! Of course the only reason he was going was to keep an eye on things, but even so . . . they might at least have sent someone with some knowledge of something. All he knew about was Louis Aragon and his precious Soviet Union. It was ridiculous. Who had suggested him? Who had approved it? Don’t they realise they’re making fools of themselves? They’ll be the laughing-stock of the academic world. But perhaps they don’t care . . . After all, sooner or later someone else will be invited and then some other Dolowy will get to hitch a ride on his coat-tails.

  In the event, his fears proved unfounded, or at least excessive. Not that Dolowy suddenly revealed an unsuspected side to his nature, but his presence at the conference in Tours proved less burdensome than Freddy had expected. In fact, the man was hardly ever there. He put in an appearance just three times: once at the beginning, when he came to pick up his per diems and his meal vouchers for the cafeteria; once on the third day, for Freddy’s lecture; and at the final banquet, given by the hosts in an elegant restaurant. If it hadn’t been for his snoring and smoking and his habit of eating tinned sprats in oil (an impressive stock of which he had brought with him) off a sheet of newspaper, he would have been quite harmless.

  What did he do all day? Visit museums and monuments? Unlikely. Go shopping, sit around in cafés? Likelier, but still doubtful. He was on a tight budget and counted every penny. Perhaps, then, he was carrying out some secret mission for the Polish secret police?

  One night Freddy was awakened by curious noises coming from the other side of the room – a sort of muffled clanking sound, like something knocking against something. He raised an eyelid and saw a light: the lamp on Dolowy’s bedside table. Dolowy himself, crouched in an ungainly pose, was rummaging around in his suitcase. Feigning sleep, Freddy continued to observe him through half-closed lids. But he failed to determine what the fellow was doing, and couldn’t identify the source of the mysterious clanking sound emanating from the bottom of the suitcase.

  The following morning, when Dolowy was in the shower, Freddy crept out of bed and with beating heart risked a peek at the man’s luggage. There, under a pile of dirty linen – socks, handkerchiefs, underwear – were rows and rows of little glass jars with blue lids. Ossietra caviar. On each lid was a picture of a sturgeon against a background of grains of roe. There were dozens of them.

  Now the light dawned: Dolowy was dealing on the black market. In Poland, Soviet caviar was a fraction of the price it cost in the West. The profit on one jar was mind-boggling, even if you sold it for half its usual Western price: some ten or fifteen dollars. It was a fantastic business operation – and with almost no risk. No one was much bothered if you took caviar out of Poland: since it was imported from the Soviet Union to begin with, it wasn’t subject to duty, at least not in retail quantities. And was anyone in the West going to rifle through your bags to see what you were bringing in? Once in France, there was no lack of eager punters to take it off your hands: elegant restaurants would buy as much as they could and be grateful for it. It was a sweet deal all round.

  Freddy later calculated that the total value of the caviar stashed in the depths of Dolowy’s bags came to at least three hundred and fifty dollars. In Poland that was enough for the cheapest car: a second-hand Syrena or a Fiat 600.

  Dr Dolowy had higher aspirations, however. Or so, at least, one could be led to believe by his unstinting efforts to increase this miraculously obtained capital still further. For the secretary of the Party Organisation, having coolly liquidated his stock of caviar, proceeded, not being one to rest on his laurels, to invest some of his newly acquired funds in several thousand ballpoints – not the pens themselves, just the little ball attached to the cartridge. In France, the realm of the Bic, they were of no use to anyone, but in Poland, a country of titanic enterprise and construction on a vast scale, where there was no room for such unimportant details, they were priceless. Those concerned with the production of pens – private entrepreneurs whose task it was to fill the various gaps in Poland’s light industry – were ready to pay any price for basic parts like this. And so – more profit. Enough, perhaps, for a secondhand Wartburg?

  At the final banquet Freddy did all he could to stay as far away as possible from his colleague, and especially to avoid being seated next to him at dinner. His efforts were vain. Dolowy somehow always contrived to manoeuvre himself into a nearby position. When they sat down he slyly insinuated himself into the seat just opposite Freddy, who was on Professor Billot’s right. Freddy clenched his teeth and briefly closed his eyes. His enjoyment had been spoilt. Now he wouldn’t be able to relax; instead of relishing the délicieuse a
mbience of the evening, talking freely and animatedly, he would be tense and embarrassed. And things could get worse: the boor might start talking himself, joking and showing off. And what if he drank too much? The very thought made Freddy break out in a cold sweat. He felt weak with shame.

  This time, alas, his fears proved well founded, although Dolowy’s performance was not the nightmare he had envisaged. It began with his assuming the role of benevolent protector or devoted impresario, in which part he launched, for Professor Billot’s benefit, into an importunate and effusive torrent of elaborate praise. The object of his excesses was Freddy.

  ‘He’s the best we have!’ he insisted, as if Freddy were some competitor or object for sale. ‘He’s our pride and joy. Respected by specialists in the field and adored by his students. It’s thanks to him that our department has been enjoying such fame and popularity. Young people from all disciplines flock to us in droves. And that’s why French culture, especially seventeenth-century French literature, so dear to all of us here, has found thousands of admirers in our country. It’s all his doing; he’s absolutely priceless. I, who specialise in Louis Aragon, can’t compare with him. No one else in Poland has done so much for France. He’s more than just a spokesman for France – he’s a veritable ambassador! So you see he must, he absolutely must, remain in constant touch with his spiritual homeland. His visits to France are invaluable, not just for him, but for all those who draw, and wish to go on drawing, from this well, this inexhaustible treasure-house –’

  ‘Please, please,’ Freddy moaned in Polish, ‘please stop.’

  ‘Quoi? Qu’est-ce qu’il a dit?’ asked Professor Billot.

  ‘Il est très modeste,’ Dr Dolowy hastened to explain, with a protective smile. ‘He wants me to stop praising him. But you should listen to me, Monsieur le Professeur. His visits to France will benefit us all. I’m relying on you.’

  Freddy was saved from further torment by a waiter bearing the first course: blinis with caviar. Dolowy broke off in mid-sentence. ‘Oh la la! Quelles délices!’ he cried. ‘C’est un festin royal!’ And he inquired of the waiter what kind of caviar it was.

  ‘The best. Ossietra,’ the waiter proudly announced. ‘And fresh – straight from Russia. We have our own suppliers.’

  On Dolowy’s thick, caviar-smeared lips, open in eagerness to admit another heaped portion, a faint and playful smile lingered and was gone.

  Freddy returned to Poland in a high state of nerves. Things had gone well – indeed, more smoothly than he had expected – but he felt no elation. In fact, he felt awful: stifled, humiliated and somehow soiled. Those soaring flights of the spirit, that pure crystal which was the poetry of his beloved Racine, that whole world of subtle ideas and perfect forms had been curiously polluted. Here was harmony and grace, the beauty of ancient ideals, French clarté at its best – and obscenely in the middle of it was Soviet caviar under a pile of dirty underwear, peddled surreptitiously in some dingy, suspicious spot, and on top of that some smaller cargo – ballpoints for pens! – intended for illegal trade with Polish ‘private enterprise’. It was ugly and sordid and defiling.

  And that wasn’t all. He had left for France like a proud aristocrat of the spirit subjected to the indignity of being spied on by a miserable wretch who would then write up a surveillance report about him. But who had been the one to poke about in other people’s luggage? Who was now in possession of damaging information about a colleague? Against his will, he had ended up as the spy and the potential grass! Knowing what he knew, he was in a position to ruin Dolowy and certainly to blackmail him. ‘So, my friend, how did it go this time with the caviar? No hitches? How much did you get for it? Make a good profit, did you? And those ballpoints, you seem to be on to a good thing there!’ And he could go on tormenting him in this fashion, making it clear that an attack on his part would not go unrevenged. Revolting, wasn’t it? Especially since Dolowy clearly had no hostile intentions. On the contrary, he seemed prepared to be supportive (albeit only in his own interests). Of course, Freddy wouldn’t have dreamed of denouncing Dolowy, even in his own defence, let alone of resorting to blackmail as a preventive measure. But the very fact that such a possibility had even occurred to him made him angry and disgusted with himself.

  The worst thing was the humiliation. He was acutely, painfully aware that he had been bartered in, like of a piece of goods. His person, his talent, his understanding of Racine were nothing but merchandise to be peddled. ‘Scientific exchange’, my foot! It was trade in human livestock! He had been the object of a transaction; he had been hired out, like a thing, like a slave. And for what? For a few hundred dollars’ worth of shady dealing, so that Dolowy could earn a little extra on the side through a bit of semi-legal trade and get a bigger place or a car. It was intolerable.

  When he got back to Warsaw, he decided he would never again agree to go abroad under such conditions. If those were the rules of the game, he wanted no part of it. He’d find other ways of getting out of the country. He’d show them yet.

  Unfortunately this was not easy. Professor M. was right: there were very few chinks in the Iron Curtain that one could slip through. And Freddy, in his laborious attempts to exploit them, got himself hopelessly entangled in an interminable string of procedures, so that he was forever running about after forms, signatures, references, assurances, guarantees and all the other essential requirements for a passport. It was a never-ending battle, and the machine against which he was pitted was truly infernal. His life became one long obstacle course.

  But Freddy’s struggles were not in vain. Once a year, on average, they bore fruit, and he got his passport. It was a ‘private’ tourist passport – not to be confused with the ‘special’ passport you got through the university when you were sent abroad to a conference or on an exchange, still less with the subtly different ‘professional’ passport, also obtained through the institution you worked for, let alone the ‘consular’ and ‘diplomatic’ passports, which were a different kettle of fish. So roughly once a year Freddy got to go to France – usually in the summer, during the holidays, when academic life in both countries was at a standstill. Work-wise, therefore, he derived little profit from his visits, apart from being able to work in the archives and libraries. Sightseeing or taking advantage of the various specialties France had to offer in the way of material culture was out of the question. He was terribly hard-up. The amount of hard currency he could legally take out of Poland was all of five dollars. He supplemented it as best he could with the publication fees for his articles and the occasional small grant from some institution where a sympathetic French friend could exert influence, but it was barely enough to live on. If he wanted to stay for the full time allotted to him, he had to deny himself more or less everything: restaurants, cafés, even the most modest shopping. He visited museums only on the days when there was no entrance fee; theatres and cinemas were out unless someone invited him.

  And yet, in spite of his poverty, he felt a different person. He felt free. Free from worry and tension and stress, from the sensation of being besieged, from the fearful knowledge that every encounter with the outside world meant another conflict, another battle, out of which he would come crushed, downtrodden, humiliated. In France he felt none of that. In France, even though he was nothing – a foreigner, and from Eastern Europe at that, without a penny to his name – he wasn’t afraid. He was serene. He was normal. He was himself.

  As the time of his return approached, his serenity began to crack. ‘It’s like the rreturn of some sickness!’ Freddy cried in an anguished voice. ‘With every day that passes it gets worse. You feel weaker and weaker, you lose all your taste for life; everything starts to seem hopeless and you sink into a kind of lethargy . . . Wait, I’ll rread you something.’ He went up to a bookshelf and took down a volume in French. ‘Listen,’ he said (I give the passage in translation):

  When they come through here on their way to Europe they have a gay, free, happy air. They are like horses ret
urned to pasture, like birds who have flown the cage – men, women, young, old, all are as happy as schoolchildren on a holiday. The same people, on their return, have long, gloomy tormented faces; they have a worried look. Their conversation is brief and their speech abrupt. I have concluded from this difference that a country which one leaves with so much joy and returns to with so much regret is a bad country.

  ‘Did you get that, or shall I translate it?’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ I said quietly, dazed by the things I’d heard.

  ‘What do you think this passage is about? Who are the people it rrefers to?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know . . . I’ve no idea.’

  ‘It’s about Rrrussians!’ Freddy cried. ‘Nineteenth-century Rrrussians! From the time of Tsar Nicholas the First. Do you understand what that means? It means we’ve become just like them! They’ve succeeded in trrans-forrm-ing us! The rreds have succeeded where the white tsars couldn’t!’

  ‘Who wrote it?’

  ‘The Marquis de Custine. A Frrench arristocrat. In 1839. To be exact, it’s his report of something he heard frrom an innkeeper in Lübeck, who often came in contact with travelling Rrrussians. Those were his observations.’

  La belle Victoire

  I decided there was no point in besieging Freddy any longer with insidious questions. I would not get the information I wanted. Besides, I’d lost my enthusiasm for the game. The thick and entirely unexpected hail of information with which I’d been pummelled during the past hour had distanced me from Madame. I wanted only to be gone, out in the street and alone with my thoughts, to digest in peace and quiet the things I’d heard and put them into some kind of order in my mind. So when Freddy at last paused for breath, I saw my chance and took it.