Against the Flow

by Tom Fort

  There were various reasons for this. Compared with 2004 the pound had lost a quarter of its value against the Polish złoty. The vivacious state of the Polish economy had caused a doubling of average wages there, so that emigrant workers in the UK were now earning only two or three times as much as they could at home, where the cost of living was still very much lower. Besides that, the UK economy was contracting, making jobs scarcer, while other EU countries had followed Britain in easing restrictions on workers from the new member states, increasing opportunities elsewhere.

  And many – nobody can know how many – left for the very simple reason that they preferred their own familiar country to this strange and often unwelcoming one, and had saved enough money to buy land, build a house, start a business or fulfil other ambitions back home.

  While I was away during the summer of 2008 I obtained a perspective on this great movement of people from eastern Europe that was very different from the usual British point of view. To us, this nation of islanders, the human inflow was a major event that had a significant impact on our way of life and materially affected the way we saw ourselves in relation to the rest of our continent. To them, however, it was not a big story. Economic migration from the region has been a recurring historical phenomenon. It has happened throughout the centuries without vitally weakening any country’s sense of national identity. Poles are Poles, at least in part, wherever they find themselves, similarly Latvians, Lithuanians, Hungarians and the rest. It’s no big deal, my friends said when I asked. You go where the work is. So what?

  Thus, in that sense, I was more with the flow than against it, although it took me a while to work that out. I liked the title, though. And as I was to spend good deal of my time working my way up rivers with a fishing rod in my hand, it seemed reasonable to stick with it.

  Over the Thames I saw a sign for The Oval, home of Surrey County Cricket Club, and glimpsed the famous gasworks to the northern side of the ground. The coach went up Kennington Lane, past Tesco, along New Kent Road into Old Kent Road. I wondered what the Polish plumber would have made of this. He would probably have recognised Tesco because Tesco had invaded Poland, but would the Polish Tesco help you spend less each day or would it have some equally fatuous and annoying Poland-specific slogan? And what of Sainsbury’s, making life taste better? And what of cricket itself? My Polish friend Adam, long resident in England, would watch any sport on TV, including cricket, then telephone me to ask about the terminology. ‘What is this No Ball?’ he would demand. Then, ten minutes later: ‘What is Extras? And what it mean, Declare?’

  We passed Julius Ceasar Solicitors, Whistle and Flute Dry Cleaners, Beddy Buyz. More questions suggested themselves. A sign disclosed that Dover was 72 miles away. Leafy Blackheath, with its wide green spaces and old houses in dark chocolate brick, soothed me towards the first of many slumbers.

  By the time the A2 delivered us into Dover, the Battle of Borodino was brewing on the road to Moscow. When my journey began I was almost two-thirds of the way through War and Peace, a novel which – as anyone will tell you – requires energy and a following wind to get through. I hadn’t wanted to leave it behind, fearing that I might never go back to it, or if I did, that I would sink in a confusion of Bolkonskys, Bezukhovs, Rostovs, counts and princes and countesses and princesses, battle lines, retreat lines, supply lines, hussars and cuirassiers, Prussians and Russians. Like Napoleon and Kutuzov, I had to finish what I had started. But I was travelling light and the book was heavy. I had resolved that it must be finished with by the time I reached Kraków.

  Cannon were booming and soldiers were dropping like cut corn as we pulled up in the port, between the green sea and the rough, blinding cliffs. An information panel at the quay informed anyone interested that the temperature was 23 degrees Celsius, and that 36,824 passengers, 7,424 cars and more than 4,000 lorries had passed through in the previous 24 hours. We all got off the coach and I asked the pretty young mother of the boy who’d been sitting in front of me if she knew how long we would be waiting. She smiled uncomprehendingly and replied in Polish. I went inside the departure lounge and found a quiet spot. After eight hours of fighting, the French ceased to attack. Napoleon rode away from the battlefield. Kutuzov roused himself from a doze and ate some roast chicken.

  Every now and then, like some junior aide-de-campe dispatched by the general to observe and report back, I went outside to make sure that the coach was not embarking without me. Eventually the incoming ferry docked and spewed forth its streams of vehicles. We were waved back on to the coach. At the head of the line next to us, a little man in long shorts tried to coax a very elderly Winnebago Chieftain into life. Its engine coughed and died. A gang of tough-looking bikers in leathers, scarves, earrings and reflective sunglasses gathered to offer advice. A couple of them partially undressed and poked around underneath the Chieftain’s bonnet. Just in time blue smoke plumed from the exhaust and the gallant old wreck heaved itself up the ramp and into the dark belly of the vessel.

  It was a very long while since I had travelled anywhere by ferry. After 9/11 I, like everyone else, had got used to tediously intrusive security measures at airports. Their absence at Dover – no baggage screening, no frisking, not even a glance at a passport – was at the same time oddly liberating and more than slightly puzzling. Who, I wondered as I joined the throng clanging their way up the metal stairways from the car decks, had made the calculation that our enemies would refrain from blowing up Pride of Dover or Sea France Berlioz or any of the other great, gleaming sitting ducks plying the Channel routes?

  I stood on deck in the evening sunshine, drinking beer, the breeze coming off the water into my face. The surface churned and boiled at the ferry’s stern, as if the kraken or globster or some other leviathan of myth might be about to put in an appearance. England began to edge away. The Kentish cliffs reared above the sea, presenting a formidable physical barrier. Where the green of the downland met the white of the chalk, it looked as though some other monster with mighty incisors had munched its way along the coast, devouring it in a succession of clean downward bites that left tumbles of rock like crumbs where the waves rolled in.

  There is no ignoring the separateness of this island. Across much of mainland Europe the dismantling of border controls has blurred the distinctions between countries, so that you have to stay reasonably alert to be sure which one you are in. Northern France merges almost imperceptibly into Belgium, Belgium into Holland, Holland into Germany. But the sea and the sea’s boundaries and all that is involved in crossing them constitute an absolute division that no treaty, no political or economic union, no plague of globalisation, can disguise. Visitors from Julius Caesar to the Polish Plumber can have been in no doubt, as England’s south coast appeared before them, that they were about to encounter a place very different from anywhere else.

  There she goes, I thought. My England. My white cliffs. My Dame Vera.

  Chapter 2

  Bus to Kraków

  THE LIGHT WAS beginning to fade as our coach slid out of Calais and set off around the northern fringe of a landmass that extended 8,000 miles to the Sea of Japan. And I made a friend of sorts, although I never did find out her name. She was sitting across the aisle from me, a broad, handsome, middle-aged woman in ample blouse and skirt. Beyond her, filling the window seat, was her husband, who was also built on generous lines. He didn’t speak much, and not at all to me.

  They came from Ironbridge in Shropshire, where she had been brought up by Polish parents. I gathered that her father had made his way to the town during the war and subsequently worked there in a factory. They were on their way to Kraków to stay with her relatives. She said her husband suffered from vertigo and had grommets in his ears, which made flying uncomfortable for him, hence their decision to take the coach. Although she spoke Polish well enough to be able to translate the announcements for me, she had an English reluctance to part with personal information. There was a daughter somewhere, I gathered, and grandchild
ren in unspecified numbers for whom she liked to cook Polish food. I had visions of gleaming mounds of pierogi and placki and steaming bowls of bigos. ‘We all love Polish food,’ she said, patting her stomach and gazing fondly in the direction of her husband’s. They had a basket of provisions on the floor between them which they dipped into at intervals. Whenever we stopped at a service station they sailed off purposefully to the food counter, where I would spot them with pasties filled with hot cheese and ham; or – once we got to Poland – dishes of steaming cabbage and sausage.

  Somewhere in northern France, or possibly Belgium, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky died his lingering death. It was typical of him to have stood on the battlefield of Borodino, pondering eternity and his new-found love of life while staring at a smoking shell until it went off and tore his abdomen apart. I didn’t miss him much. I read on, delved into my own stock of food, stared out of the window. At about ten o’clock the lights and the music were switched off and we settled ourselves for sleep. Everyone was swallowed by the darkness except for the driver, his head and shoulders a still upright shape against the orange and yellow lights of his instrument panel.

  At 4.20 the next morning we stopped in northern Germany for the lavatory and a coffee break. We stood around in the yellow lamplight, keeping close to our familiar, reassuring vehicle. Most of the younger men smoked, cupping cigarettes in their hands and pulling on them hungrily. No one spoke much. It might have been a chance to open channels of communication, but the restraint on speech seemed to me almost Cistercian. Back on board the psychic barriers came down once more.

  Later I watched mist rise from the meadows. We passed a sign: Berlin 215 kilometres. I bit into a cold steak-and-kidney pie, releasing coils of meaty aroma. ‘Ooh, that smells good,’ groaned the lady from Ironbridge. ‘I’m hungry.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘It’s the cheeks of your bum, that’s where it gets you.’ She was right. We looped around Berlin to the south, heading for the Polish border through pine forests and fields of wheat, rapeseed and potatoes. Wind turbines materialised out of the mist, pale and motionless, as if waiting to be woken up and put to work. A pair of storks, emblematic birds of eastern Europe, trod carefully across the ground, heads down. The rising sun lit the flattened bodies of the host of insects spattered against the windscreen, each individual shape different, like snowflakes.

  In Russia, Napoleon and his troops occupied Moscow. Pierre was taken prisoner. Petya Rostov, Natasha’s younger brother, was killed. Pierre was rescued. I noticed that we were no longer in Germany but Poland, devouring the miles that had stretched before the retreating French army like an eternal punishment in that appalling winter of 1813. At half-past ten on a radiant summer’s morning I bade farewell to Pierre and Natasha after a brief, abortive grapple with Tolstoy’s concluding polemic on history, free will and predetermination. (I don’t care what anyone says, this has to be the most tedious and ridiculous ending to any great novel. What on earth was his editor thinking of?)

  One journey ends, another starts, I reflected with Tolstoyan profundity. The TV screen came alive and we settled down for the morning film. It was some kind of musical celebration of the joys of marriage, in which farcical nuptial episodes were interspersed with rapturous duets and choruses in praise of marital bliss. Our numbers began to thin. The woman who’d left England with nothing got off at Wrocław, the mother and her son at Opole.

  On the outskirts of Opole the coach stopped to refuel. The service station nudged my memory. It was just the same as any other, anywhere in Europe: forecourt, shop, café, ranks of pumps, cars, trucks, coaches with nozzles thrust into their sides.

  TF with little red car, 1990

  I had come this same way in my Peugeot on 3 May 1990, my head and heart swirling with apprehensions. I’d bowled along an almost empty road from the border with what was then still East Germany (for a few months more), and had suddenly come upon an enormous queue of traffic. For a moment I’d thought there must have been an accident ahead. But the queue was to one side, to let passing vehicles through. The cars – aged Polish-made Fiat 126s, East German Trabants, the odd Czech Škoda, Romanian Dacia or Yugoslav Yugo – were mostly empty. Their owners stood beside or behind them, with hands in pockets or holding a cigarette.

  Further on a gap had opened up in the queue. The cars behind it were being pushed forward to fill it. The queue was a mile long at least. At its far end was a petrol station, two antiquated pumps presided over by two attendants in overalls, one to wave the cars forward, one at a time, the other to wield the nozzle. It was a scene I was to witness many times in Poland and Romania. (They seemed to manage better in Czechoslovakia and Hungary; whereas in Bulgaria no one, not even the British Ambassador, had any fuel at all, which was why I had to leave after five days.) Usually there was a sign stating the meagre ration. Sometimes, without warning, the station would be shut and another sign would go up, telling people to try somewhere else. What never changed was the air of resignation hanging over the queue. No one showed anger or impatience. Going short and waiting in line had been part of life for so long. Everyone knew the rules.

  Not any more. Polish motorists had become like any other motorists, and their cars were like cars everywhere else. In two months in eastern Europe in the summer of 2008 I didn’t see a single Trabant, although I looked hard. A few Fiat 126s and Dacias and ancient Škodas did survive, relics of a departed age, like horses and carts.

  The coach sped along a smooth new EU-funded highway that skirted what had previously been known as the Upper Silesian Industrial District, Poland’s energy and manufacturing heartland, a swathe of coal mines, blast furnaces, factories, slagheaps, towers and chimneys, overhung by an unmoving blanket of acrid fumes. Now the air smelled the same as it did in Kent and the dark ridges of coal and spoil had been cleared away. On the approach to Kraków the hoardings proclaimed the wonders of mobile phones, power showers, ride-on mowers. Ride-on mowers in the land I remembered for the swish of the scythe! We passed Spar and Ikea, and showrooms with walls of curved glass behind which gleamed burnished ranks of Audis, Mazdas, Suzukis, Grand Vitara people carriers.

  As we pulled into the bus station, I tucked my copy of War and Peace underneath the window seat in front. I wonder who found it, and if they kept it. Maybe another traveller picked it up and turned the pages. Europe two centuries ago. Austerlitz. L’Empereur. Tsar Nicholas. Balls, duels, intrigues, battles … It would have made a curious introduction to England in 2008.

  Chapter 3

  Raba

  I WAS MET at the bus station in Kraków by a small, bald man with a bristling moustache and brisk, bustling manner. He offered me a quick, strong handshake and introduced himself, speaking English with a strong German accent. His name was Marek Kowalski. He was an atomic physicist, and worked in some kind of research establishment in Kraków. He did not attempt to explain the nature of his work to me, perhaps because he was not allowed to, perhaps because he thought that it would be beyond my understanding, most likely because it had nothing to do with what had brought us together.

  Once again, as in 1990, I was entrusting myself to the angling brotherhood, of which Marek was a proud member. Once again I had my rod with me, my waders at the ready, my tackle-bag to hand. Rivers would once more be my pathway, and the company of fishermen my education.

  The introduction to Marek had been arranged by a fishing friend from my previous visit, Jurek Kowalski. Jurek said he had not met the other Kowalski in the flesh but had ascertained that he spoke good English and was a keen fly-fisherman. There was no mistake there. Marek’s enthusiasm was huge and voluble. He told me his river was called the Raba, which flows north-east out of the Tatras and joins the Wisła – or Vistula in English – east of Kraków.

  As we drove out of the city, Marek told me about the revolution that had overtaken fishing in Poland. In the old days it had all been organised by the Fishing Association, a state-appointed bureaucratic apparatus that, through its local branches, exercised total control o
ver every river, stream, lake, reservoir and pond in the country. In the Poland that had emerged during my 18 year absence, familiar monopolies had been challenged everywhere, including the riverbank.

  Marek belonged to a club that had secured the rights to the prime section of the Raba by outbidding the Fishing Association. This was a very good thing, according to Marek. Under the old system the river was over-fished, poaching was rife, illegal methods flourished, and every fish caught was killed regardless of size. Now, with the injection of money, commitment and a new business model, everything was incomparably better. Bigger fish were stocked and more of them survived because more fishermen were putting them back alive. Bailiffs had been appointed – he brandished his bailiff’s card at me – and the poachers had been sent packing. In fact the locals generally had been elbowed out in favour of well-heeled, enlightened Krakovians such as himself. Such was progress. You embraced it or you were left behind.

  The club water was below a big reservoir created by a dam at Dobczyce, about 15 miles south-east of Kraków. The reservoir ensured a supply of cool, clean water suitable for trout and grayling. That and its closeness to the city, Marek explained, gave it a market value way beyond the reach of the peasant fish-slayers who lived in the villages along its valley.

  His preparations for fishing were meticulous in the extreme. He took off his driving trousers and folded them precisely on top of socks and shoes before pulling on blue leggings and chest waders. He placed his club permit, licence and bailiff’s card in one small plastic bag, his car keys in another, and his mobile phone in a third, putting each bag into a separate pocket of his many-pocketed fishing waistcoat. He took out his rod and reel and assembled them with the care I imagined him devoting to an experiment involving nuclear particles. He clipped a net to his belt and placed a baseball cap on his hairless head. Throughout this procedure he maintained a fluent commentary on his actions, accompanied by regular rasping clearing of his throat.