by Sue Gee
‘People have told me.’
‘And what if you’re caught?’
‘A fine? I shouldn’t think anything very terrible. Everyone’s doing it, they’re desperate for dollars. Are you all right now?’
She pulled herself together. ‘Yes. What a way to arrive. I wouldn’t be much use in a war, would I?’
‘I shouldn’t think either of us would be much use. Come on.’
They were outside a low apartment block, some five or six storeys, with concrete balconies, one of a half dozen along the street.
‘Number four,’ said Jerzy, and they went up to the main entrance and inside climbed the concrete stairs. At a plain white door, like a fire door, they rang the bell, and waited. After a few moments it was opened, and a tall, stooping, white-haired woman in glasses looked at them, looked again at Jerzy, and burst into tears.
‘Jerzy … Jerzy …’ She held out her arms, kissed him on both cheeks, over and over again.
‘This is Elizabeth …’ Jerzy said at last.
Wiktoria nodded to her, kissed him again. ‘Come in. Come in.’
They followed her inside, into a small white-painted corridor hung with a mirror and flower prints.
‘Please – you can put your bags in the bedroom – and there is the bathroom – and then come and have something to eat.’
She indicated a room off to the right, and wiped her eyes. ‘Forgive me.’ She smiled at Jerzy, their eyes on a level. It was the first time Elizabeth had seen him with a member of the family who was not dwarfed by him: Anna’s father must have been tall, too. They went into the bedroom, put down their bags. A fifties light-fitting hung from the ceiling; when they went out into the sitting room the square couch and armchairs, the lamps, the spindle-leg tables and plastic-seated chairs all looked as if they’d been made twenty-five years ago. They noticed this later in many public places, too – hotel lounges, restaurants, office reception areas.
Wiktoria came from the kitchen, moving stiffly, carrying a tray.
‘Sit down, sit down.’
‘Have we taken your bedroom, Aunt?’ asked Jerzy.
‘It doesn’t matter. I can sleep on the couch quite well.’ She was laying the table, slowly setting out flowered plates, small cotton napkins. A wooden carving in relief hung on the wall, the Virgin Mary in a shrine. On another wall, above a shiny sideboard, hung framed photographs.
‘So – perhaps you would like to wash, before we eat?’
‘Please.’ Elizabeth got up again, and went out to the bathroom. It was very small, and smelled, though much more faintly, like the toilet on the train. She washed her hands with soap quite unlike any soap she had ever seen in England: green, slimy, flecked with gritty specks of something. When she went back to the sitting room, Jerzy and Wiktoria were talking rapidly in Polish.
‘Excuse us –’ Wiktoria broke off as she came in.
‘No, no – I’m quite used to it. I can understand a little, anyway.’
Wiktoria smiled. Elizabeth gathered that they were talking about the family. They all got up to look at the photographs above the sideboard.
‘My niece,’ Wiktoria said to her, leaning on Jerzy’s arm, and pointed to a picture of a family picnic. ‘This was taken in … 1937, 1938. There is Anna … and Jerzy and their father next to each other … this is me … and that is Teresa.’
The family sat or stood under a clump of sun-dappled trees, a rug spread on the ground, a wicker basket open. Anna looked sunburnt and happy, wearing a cotton dress, her hair in plaits. Jerzy and Tomasz leaned against each other, smiling; Teresa was a little apart from them, her face shadowed by a straw hat, and Wiktoria, tall and plain and big-boned, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, sat leaning back on her hands, at the edge of the rug.
‘We have this at home,’ said Jerzy. ‘In Mama’s album. Who took it?’
‘My mother,’ said Wiktoria. ‘Your great-great aunt. She died the next year. I was very glad, later, that she had not lived to see the invasion, and the war,’ She shook her head. ‘And then there is this one …’ She pointed to a much smaller print of the photograph of Anna’s mother, her hair cut short in a twenties bob, her eyes very dark. ‘Poor Ewa,’ she said. ‘Such a terrible thing, to die so young. I don’t believe Tomasz ever really recovered, although he and Teresa were happy, I think. And this is the children, the same winter Ewa died, when I was looking after them.’ There were the two small figures, in fur gloves, walking in the snowy park. ‘And this last one – Anna just a few days before the Uprising, after she had come to live with me.’
‘We haven’t got this one,’ said Jerzy.
‘No? No – you wouldn’t have. I didn’t have the film developed until after the war.’
They saw Anna sitting at a kitchen table, drinking from a cracked cup and saucer. The print was pale, over-exposed. ‘I was trying to be clever, to take an indoor photograph. We knew we were going to be called to our units in a matter of days – I wanted a photograph of Anna, just in case … And as it happened, of course, it was Jerzy who was killed.’ She sighed. ‘And poor Teresa. Sometimes afterwards I used to think it had been madness, you know, ever to think we could have overcome the Germans. All those lives lost, Warsaw destroyed … And yet – we had to do it. There was no question.’ She patted Jerzy’s arm. ‘And now, poor children, nothing to eat. Come and sit down.’
They ate a coarse bread, margarine, a rubbery cheese like Edam, sliced tomatoes, a kind of spam, and some very old Jaffa cakes. There was also a dish of something like a cross between cream and yoghurt, tasting of vanilla, and delicious. They drank tea from heavy cups.
‘He is a good man, your father?’ Wiktoria asked Jerzy. ‘He has taken care of your mother?’
He flushed. ‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’
‘Good.’
‘He also … suffered in the war.’
‘Naturally.’ She poured more tea. ‘You realize it is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Uprising?’
‘Oh. Yes, I suppose it must be.’
‘And shall I tell you something? We are being … exhorted? I think that is the word. We are being exhorted on the television, almost every day, to remember those times. There is a shortage of coal, or there are problems with rail transport, so that it does not arrive; there are food shortages, and in another month or two it will be winter, and the temperature will fall. And what do they tell us? To be as selfless and patriotic as they were – we were – during the Uprising! To endure as we did then. Do you know there are posters up, official posters, showing the anchor of the AK – the symbol of Fighting Poland? We are to fight now, apparently, by putting up with shortages and queues and freezing apartments. They have been showing films from the Uprising all through the summer, to encourage us. Yet do you know that it is almost impossible to place an obituary in any newspaper, and say that the person mourned was a member of the AK? Or announce any kind of AK meeting or reunion?’
‘Incredible,’ said Jerzy.
‘No. Not really. Have you had enough to eat? I have asked you nothing of yourself. Anna says you are a photographer?’
‘Yes. And Elizabeth is a painter.’
‘Ah.’ She turned to Elizabeth. ‘And what do you paint? Portraits? Landscapes? Anna used to draw and paint a little, you know; perhaps she still does?’
‘Yes,’ said Jerzy. ‘But mostly in her work. With the patients.’
‘She is working in that psychiatric hospital still?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm.’ Wiktoria began to clear the plates. ‘The whole of Poland is a psychiatric hospital. Or rather, that is where Mr Gierek and his friends should be residing, if it were not too good for them. Now – do you want to rest, or go out, or go on talking to an old woman?’
Elizabeth’s head was beginning to pound.
‘Perhaps …’
‘Perhaps we should just go for a stroll,’ said Jerzy. ‘Stretch our legs after the train.’
‘Of course. And if you decide to stay out late – well, I
can give you a key.’ She smiled at them; Elizabeth felt her unbend towards her. Just a little.
‘The presents!’ she said to Jerzy suddenly. ‘We must give your aunt the presents first.’
‘Great-aunt,’ said Wiktoria. ‘What presents?’
‘Just what you wrote and asked for. And a few other things …’ Jerzy disappeared into the bedroom, Elizabeth helped Wiktoria clear the table. He came back carrying the parcels, and laid them all out on the table. Wiktoria picked up soap, soap powder, shampoo, chocolate, tissues and toilet paper, writing paper, talcum powder, tins of fruit and ham, boxes of biscuits.
‘But you have brought a shop!’ She put down a tin and kissed him again. ‘It must have been so heavy.’
‘Not really. And here is a letter from Mama.’
‘Ah. Thank you. I shall read it while you are out.’ She snapped open a plastic handbag. ‘A spare key … I will see you later. Or in the morning. Off you go now.’
They were approaching the shopping centre, open and spacious, the tall buildings predominantly grey. There were a number of department stores, but there was almost nothing in the windows, although they were well lit, and the stores open, at nearly seven o’clock. Women carried plastic string bags of potatoes or apples; they walked past a number of hot dog stalls, but saw few cafes or restaurants. They walked on, along quiet, unlit streets, until they narrowed, and they found themselves in winding alleyways, a cobbled square ahead of them.
‘This must be Stare Miasto,’ Jerzy said. ‘The Old Town.’
The houses in the narrow streets were painted in dilapidating pastels, dark green, cream; ornate wrought-iron lamp fittings hung from them at street corners; the roofs were red-tiled. As they came into the square they saw empty tables and chairs in a corner, with folded parasols. Jerzy pulled out their paperback guidebook, unfolded the map. ‘This is the Market Square,’ he said eventually.
‘Where is everyone?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
Further on, they came to another square, before the Royal Palace, graceful, pink-washed. Here, too, there was only a scattering of people. The sky was darkening; Elizabeth shivered. Their arms round each other, they stood looking up at the palace, and the long column in the square bearing the statue of King Zygmunt III, holding a cross.
‘Do you realize,’ said Jerzy, ‘that every single thing we’re looking at is a complete reconstruction? The palace was only finished two or three years ago. All these medieval houses, the monuments, the streets – they were just ruins in 1945. They’ve been rebuilt brick by brick.’
‘And this is where your father was, in the Uprising?’
‘Yes. There were hand-to-hand battles here, while the bombs fell. And under here, I suppose … or somewhere not far away, Tata crawled through the sewers. All the way through to the city centre, where we’ve walked from.’
‘Jerzy?’
‘Mmm?’
‘You’re a bit pale.’
‘I’m all right.’ He looked at the map again. ‘Somewhere near here must be Krasiński Square, where the RAF dropped supplies, early on. And further away was the ghetto, and Pawiak prison. That’s where my uncle escaped from.’ He folded it up. ‘We’ll visit all that another day. Shall we try and find somewhere to have a drink?’
‘Yes – I’m frozen.’
‘I suppose people simply don’t come out in the evenings,’ Jerzy said, and they walked on. ‘Groups of people out in the streets are discouraged – it’s only a few years since the last food riots. And anyway – there’s nowhere to go, is there?’ They passed a few bars, a couple of cafés. And plaques, in almost every street, on walls, on corners, set into the brickwork with candles burning beneath them: On this spot 30 Poles died at the hands of the Nazis, 8 November 1943; On this spot 50 Poles … On this spot 100 Poles …
‘Shall we go in here?’ Jerzy said at last.
They looked into the window of a restaurant advertising Polish specialities, and saw small candlelit tables, a bar at the far end. When they pushed open the door they could hear Muzak with a fifties flavour, and saw wooden speakers on shelves: the waitresses wore flowered pinafore dresses. They sat down, and examined a long menu in Polish and English.
‘Proszę?’
One of the waitresses, in heavy eye-liner, was standing beside them. She smiled thinly. Jerzy asked if they were serving bigos. She shook her head.
‘Chicken, veal …’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Elizabeth, suddenly too tired to think of food.
They had lemon tea and nutcake, the cake sandy and tasteless. At a nearby table a group of people were talking animatedly.
‘I think they’re from the university,’ said Jerzy. ‘They’re talking about films.’
There was a very drunk man in a grey check jacket at the bar; the waitress not serving stood a little way from him, expressionless. Elizabeth felt suddenly exhausted, a very long way from home.
‘Shall we go?’
They paid, and walked slowly through the streets to Wiktoria’s. On the corner of her street an old woman was feeding six or seven stray cats from tin dishes, calling to them softly. The moon rose above the trees and low blocks of flats. When they unlocked her front door and went inside, Wiktoria was just coming out of the bathroom in her dressing gown.
‘Hello, children. Have you enjoyed yourselves?’
They nodded, yawning.
‘Go on now, straight to bed. Sleep as long as you like in the morning.’
They went, half expecting her to come and tuck them up.
They sat at a table in the Market Square, which this morning was livelier: other tourists sat beneath the cotton parasols, although it was still cloudy, or took jingling pony and trap rides. From an open upper window, rock music throbbed; a hurdy-gurdy played on the far side. Jerzy was reading a guidebook, his camera round his neck, Elizabeth was sketching; their cups of coffee, undrinkable, stood between them, sour whipped-cream topping floating on the surface.
‘There’s a museum of photographs from the Uprising,’ Jerzy said. ‘Would you like to go?’
She nodded. ‘In a bit. What else?’
‘There’s Pawiak: the prison reconstructed, with a museum. And there’s the cemetery where Jerzy is buried – reburied. Where all the Uprising graves are.’ His fingers drummed lightly on the metal table. ‘Does that sound like too much? Too grim? I don’t want to inflict death on you on our first day.’
‘But you want to make your pilgrimages.’
‘Yes.’ He reached across the table and she put down her pencil and gave him her hand. They looked at each other, thinking of the night before, naked between Wiktoria’s cool sheets.
A little later, they wandered across the square, and through the narrow streets as the sun began to filter through the cloud, and it grew warm. At breakfast, they had asked Wiktoria if she wanted to come out with them this morning, but she shook her head. ‘You can see how stiff and creaky I am – it is no pleasure for me to walk. Besides, I’m sure you want to be by yourselves.’
‘But we must take you out somewhere before we leave Warsaw,’ Jerzy said. ‘For a meal …’
They all laughed.
‘We’ll see. You make the most of the time you have.’
‘I think this is it,’ Jerzy was saying now; they were standing at an open doorway to a gallery, small white-painted rooms leading off each other. A woman in a paisley-patterned dress sat at a table inside, knitting; the sun shone through the windows on to the wooden floor. She took their money and they walked through, stopping at each framed photograph hung on the walls, or on screens dividing the rooms.
In bomb-shattered streets, women moved awkwardly behind barricades, carrying buckets of water over the rubble. Little knots of people stood watching, hasty burials; a boy no more than twelve, in makeshift uniform, bit his lip in a nervous smile; a young soldier in his teens sat on an upturned bucket amidst torn-up paving behind a barricade, laughing over a Flash Gordon novel – Błysk Gordon
. An old woman picked her way over a heap of rubble through a hole in the wall of a ruined house: below, in the exposed foundations, her son reached up to help her. A man in a hat and black suit stood motionless, in a street piled with bodies. A bunch of carnations rested on a shallow grave, a soldier’s tin helmet hung on the plain wooden cross; in the background were ruins, beneath a lowering sky.
They looked at them all in silence, then left, thanking the attendant; she nodded, barely looking up from her knitting. Out in the street, they passed more plaques, more shrines with candles burning. On this spot 42 Poles were executed by the Nazis … On this spot 12 … Here were 19 …
Some had small bunches of flowers laid in the niche in the wall, or white and red ribbons, and some had postcards of the Pope, smiling, his hand raised.
‘We must ask Wiktoria about the Pope,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Do you want to go to mass while we’re here?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Only perhaps? I thought that would be one of the first things you’d want to do here.’
‘Why? We never go in London.’
‘I know, but –’
‘But what?’ Jerzy said irritably.
‘But nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I mentioned it.’
They came to a small park, and sat on a bench, beneath the trees. There were trees and parks everywhere in the city; the impression, still, was of space, and cleanliness – not a shred of litter anywhere. In the main roads and streets away from the nest of the Old Town, traffic squealed. Pedestrians had right of way: if you put a foot off the pavement, cars were meant to let you cross. It felt absurdly dangerous.
Elizabeth turned to look at Jerzy, who was scuffing at the earth beneath the bench with his heel. He looked withdrawn and troubled. Well – you could call it troubled if you were feeling sympathetic and understanding. Otherwise you might say sulky.
‘Jerzy?’
‘What?’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. I’m just thinking.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
Not: yes, thank you for asking, and sorry I’ve suddenly cut off without warning or explanation. Just: yes.
