by Sue Gee
‘Do you want to get one?’ asked Ewa. ‘I’ll pay.’
Stefan shook his head. ‘Unless you are very cold? I feel like walking.’
When there were no buses, they could hear their footsteps on the pavement, Ewa in boots from Ravel, Stefan in boots from Poland. They walked arm in arm, their breath coming quickly.
At Oxford Circus they turned right, walking up towards Portland Place.
‘Do you remember when we came here, the first evening?’ Ewa asked. ‘We had to wait to cross, and we realized we were near the embassy.’
Stefan frowned. ‘Yes, I think so.’ He was looking along the pavement. ‘Do you see that?’
A little group of people were standing outside the embassy; there were placards, and black umbrellas. As Ewa and Stefan drew near they saw an elderly man in a hat and heavy coat holding a placard: Polski Sierpień – Polish August – 1980–81. From beneath the Solidarność logo rose a fist. There were Solidarność badges, and more placards and posters – Free Poland: Army Out! A cordon had been run round the building. Ewa and Stefan stood at the edge of the group, and waited.
‘Can you see anything?’ Stefan asked.
Ewa craned her neck towards the unlit windows. ‘No.’ She turned to the woman next to her. ‘Has anyone come out?’
The woman shook her head. ‘What do you expect? But I think there is to be a deputation, from the Polish Solidarity Campaign. Eric Heffer, he is coming, I think.’
They waited, stamping their feet. After a while, journalists and cameramen appeared. Photographs were taken – the elderly man with the placard, a beautiful girl in a headscarf holding another. ‘Jerzy should be here,’ Ewa said suddenly. ‘This is exactly what he should be doing, photographing this.’ Someone moved to take a picture of her and Stefan, arm in arm, and Stefan moved abruptly away, putting his hand up to his face.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘Are you really afraid?’
‘I just don’t want my picture in the paper,’ he said, and waved the photographer away. ‘No – please.’
A car drew up: heads turned. Two men got out and walked through the crowd; they crossed the cordon, went up to the door, and knocked loudly. ‘That’s Eric Heffer,’ said Ewa to Stefan. ‘The great big guy – he’s a Labour MP.’
Heffer and the other man knocked again, and peered into the windows on the ground floor. Ewa pressed forward as they turned away, and spoke to the journalists.
‘They say they can see people moving about inside,’ she told Stefan.
After a while, the two men drove away again.
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want to break the fucking door down,’ said Stefan. ‘Excuse me. I don’t know.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘We can wait a bit longer, I suppose, just to see.’
They waited, and once they saw a face at an upper window, looking down, just for a moment. Then it disappeared, and after that nothing happened.
‘Let’s go,’ said Ewa. ‘We can go and have a coffee, or a drink. We can go home and have lunch with my mother, would you like that? She always cooks Sunday lunch, and we can hear the news there …’
Stefan shut his eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘Perhaps.’ He opened them again. ‘You decide. I can’t think properly.’
Ewa hesitated. ‘Let’s … let’s go and find a pub and have a drink, and take it from there.’
‘Sure.’ Stefan was pale again; he looked blank and cold. Ewa put her arm through his again.
‘Come on.’
They walked back into Oxford Street, and turned to walk the way they had come, crossing into Wardour Street. ‘We’ll find somewhere along here, or in Soho,’ said Ewa. They began to smell Chinese food, wafting on the cold air, and an amusement arcade whined and banged, lights flashing. They passed a little alleyway, with a phone box, and Stefan stopped.
‘I have to try again,’ he said. ‘I know there’s no chance, but I have to, okay?’
‘All right. Have you got enough change?’
‘I think so. Can you wait? Do you mind?’
‘No, of course not.’
He lightly brushed the melting snow from her hair. ‘I’m sorry – I know it’s difficult … Wait here, okay?’
She stood on the corner of the alleyway, and watched him walk to the phone box, feeling in his pocket for change. I love his back, she thought; I love the way he walks. I love him, I love him. What are we going to do? People were hurrying past the alleyway, on their way to a Chinese lunch, or Christmas shopping in Chinatown. Ewa stood huddled into her coat, feeling her feet aching with cold; she paced up and down, and waited, watching Stefan in the call box dial and dial and dial.
Suddenly he turned and flung back the door, coming out shouting. ‘Bastards! Fucking miserable bastards.’ The door swung to, and he began to kick it, in a frenzy. He flung himself against it, pounding on the glass, kicking and swearing. Ewa had never seen Stefan angry, barely even irritated; she stood for a moment, frozen. Then she ran down the alleyway towards him.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’
‘Bastards! Pigs!’ He drew back and flung himself on the door again, beating it so hard with his fist she thought he would break the glass, or break his fingers.
‘Stefan!’ She grabbed him, trying to pull him away. ‘Stefan, please …’
He began to cry, covering his face with his hands. ‘I can’t get through, I can’t get through. My poor Krysia! What have I done, what the hell have I done?’
Ewa drew back. ‘I love you,’ she said helplessly, knowing that this was the last of last moments she should be telling him. ‘I love you. I’ll try to help you –’
Stefan went on sobbing, kicking the box again. ‘I’m sorry, Ewa, forgive me, forgive me, it’s not you. I just want to go home, do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ she said bleakly. ‘I understand.’
They had lunch in Chinatown because to face the family seemed impossible. Stefan was calmer, and better after they had eaten, but he said simply: ‘I don’t know what to do,’ and because there was nothing he could do, they wandered, past the open supermarkets selling noodles, soy sauce, tins of water chestnuts, thin china bowls and plastic chopsticks. After a while, they walked back to Charing Cross. Carol singers in the concourse rattled tins for the blind. None of the newspapers on the stall had headlines about Poland yet. Travelling on the stuffy train back to Blackheath, over the Thames where the fine snow fell on to the riverboats, it was as if nothing had happened at all.
Back at the house, they found Jane decorating the tree in the hall. They could smell mince pies from the kitchen, and hear an old movie on the television in the sitting room. Through the open door they glimpsed the boys, sprawled on the sofa, and Stuart, reading the paper by the fire.
Jane smiled at them as they went towards the stairs. ‘Would you like to come and have a drink with us, tonight?’
‘Oh –’ Ewa hesitated, looking at Stefan. From the sitting room they could hear Stuart calling:
‘Is that them?’ Then he got up, and came out. ‘Sorry to hear the news,’ he said. ‘Must be a bit of a shock for you both.’
Stefan shrugged, half-smiling. ‘They are bastards,’ he said, in his slow English. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Come and have a drink,’ Jane said again. ‘Do. We never see you, Ewa, or – Stefan? Is that right?’
He nodded, holding out his hand. For a flicker, Ewa felt she should be saying: ‘You don’t mind him staying here, do you?’ as if she were an au pair, or something, not a grown-up who had purchased her own flat. Then they were all shaking hands, and she and Stefan agreeing to come down about six, for a drink.
Upstairs, she switched on the lights, lit the fire, quickly, and went into the kitchen to make coffee, hearing him pick up the telephone again, and dial, and put it down again, defeatedly. They drank their coffee, and watched the old movie, too, and Ewa rang Jerzy, and got Elizabeth, who said that he was very low.
‘I’m not sure this is the right time to have a wedding,�
�� she said lightly.
‘Oh?’ But Ewa didn’t ask more. ‘Can you tell Jerzy to ring me when he feels like it?’
‘All right. How’s Stefan?’
‘Much as you would expect,’ said Ewa, and said goodbye. She didn’t ring her mother, because she thought she would start crying, but Mama rang her anyway, and she forced herself not to, talking in monosyllables. Stefan paced, smoking. Before they went down, they switched on the television again, for the early evening news, where Michael Buerk’s voice could be heard, behind his photograph.
‘Warsaw tonight has been sealed off by troops. Scores of armoured personnel carriers are patrolling the roads, the soldiers inside carrying automatic weapons with fixed bayonets. Hundreds of police with riot shields and truncheons ring important buildings. Strict censorship has been imposed. There’s a curfew. Anybody breaking the emergency regulations, according to the new “military council for national salvation”, will be shot. During the night all Solidarity’s offices were raided, its leaders and officials under arrest. All except one …’ Wałęsa’s picture flashed on to the screen.
‘… Lech Wałęsa, who’s said to have avoided immediate imprisonment, by agreeing to “negotiate” with the government.
‘Poland’s Prime Minister, General Jaruzelski’ – flash to his photograph, in uniform and the inexplicable dark glasses – ‘in his message to the Polish people, said “Our country is on the edge of an abyss. We are not days, but hours away from catastrophe.”’
Ewa reached out to Stefan, and took his hand. He squeezed it, then took it away, and lit another cigarette. She got up, and went to the bathroom, brushing her hair, doing her face, spraying on scent. She did these things because that was what you did, before you went to parties, but she was scarcely aware of doing any of them.
While she was gone, Stefan sat watching the second lead item, about a car bomb explosion in the West End today. How had that happened, and they knew nothing about it? Then he got up and switched off the television, and stood by the fire, smoking. He thought about Krysia, who did not even have a proper address for him in London, just a pigeon hole in a post office. He had sent her and Olek, and the parents, a Christmas parcel two weeks ago, with the snowsuit in it: would it ever reach her now? He tried to imagine her, watching Jaruzelski on the television in their apartment, holding Olek on her lap, and crying, and he realized that thinking of Poland now was as if he were watching a film whose sound track had been ripped out without warning, leaving only silently mouthing figures, trapped in silent apartments, silently arrested and interned, or walking through silent, snow-filled streets, past soundless men with bayonets. He closed his eyes, thinking again: What have I done?
Then Ewa was back in the room, lightly touching his arm and asking gently: ‘Are you all right?’
He opened his eyes, and nodded. ‘Sure. Should we go down now?’
‘If you’re really up to it.’
‘Sure,’ he said again. ‘They’re nice people, aren’t they?’
‘Very nice,’ said Ewa, as if she were speaking to a stranger, and they went out of the flat and down the stairs, for drinks and mince pies.
Sunday 20 December The afternoon was cold and damp. Drizzle clung to the winter coats and anoraks of the crowds making their way across Park Lane and over the muddy grass in Hyde Park, towards the raised platform of the Polish Solidarity Campaign. Jostled along the underpass from the tube station, Anna and Jan found themselves met by a forest of hands giving out leaflets and magazines.
Anna looked at a copy of Socialist Worker, thrust at her by a young man in a donkey jacket.
‘What is this?’
‘It doesn’t have to be like it is in Poland,’ he said. ‘Take it – go on, please take it.’
Anna hesitated, aware of Jan, dark-faced, beside her.
‘What does he say?’
‘That…’ she faltered. ‘I think he means that what has happened in Poland is not the true socialism …’
Jan looked the boy in the donkey jacket up and down. ‘You know nothing,’ he said in slow English. ‘Nothing.’ He strode off towards the steps, and Anna hurried after him.
Behind them, Ewa, arm in arm with Stefan, was calling: ‘Wait for us!’
When they came up through the exit by the park, they saw at once that already it would be hard to get anywhere near the platform.
‘But there are thousands,’ said Stefan, alongside Anna.
‘Did you think no one cared?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t you think there would be thousands here?’
He shook his head, bemused, reaching for his cigarettes. ‘I don’t know … the last time I was in a crowd like this was … when? Waiting to hear that Solidarność had been registered? I think so. Incredible to see all these people now.’
Anna looked at his pale face, filmed with sweat. Ever since last weekend, he’d had a permanent air of confusion. Beside him, Ewa looked tense, protective, gloved hand slipped through his arm. Stefan was probably about the same age as the Socialist Worker fellow – Anna wanted to ask him what he thought about … all that, but she didn’t want to distract him any more, and anyway, Jan …
Jan looked grim. As they walked slowly with the crowd towards the platform, she said carefully: ‘I’m glad you’ve come. I think Stefan is a little overwhelmed.’
He shrugged.
Damp grey mist clung to the bare trees on the edge of the park; Anna slipped suddenly in the mud, and reached for Jan’s arm, auto-matically. He did not ask if she was all right, he did not take her arm; he simply stood, like a dead thing, waiting until she had recovered her balance. Then they walked on, separately.
The megaphone on the platform was being tested: hollow shouting echoed over the crowd. After a while, Ewa said: ‘Mama? Let’s stop, shall we? We can hear.’
‘All right.’ They came to a halt next to a little group of two or three families, the men in heavy coats and fur hats, the women in hats. The air was full of Polish voices, but there were plenty of English ones, too – how many were there here? Ten thousand? Fifteen thousand? Clouds of breath streamed out on to the air. Beside her, Anna could hear Ewa trying to identify for Stefan some of the people up on the distant platform. Shirley Williams … Peter Shore … Lord Bethell … E. P. Thompson …
A dark man had taken the microphone and announced himself as Tadek Jarski, chairing the platform: the speakers were to have five minutes each.
Then the speeches began: passionate declarations of allegiance, passionate pleas that Poland should not once again, as at Yalta, be abandoned by the British, that British trade unions should show real, practical solidarity with Solidarity. Food aid was to be sent through the Church. Piotr Iglikowski, Secretary of the Polish Solidarity Campaign, described how he had been in Poland last week, at the time of the coup; he spoke of the fascist-style terror, and of how he only just managed to get out before the borders were closed.
Collection tins rattled. ‘Medical Aid for Poland … Medical Aid for Poland …’ The collectors were moving through the crowd; everyone was feeling in pockets, getting out purses. ‘Thank you, thank you …’ On the lapels of the dark winter coats and anoraks, in the greyness of the winter afternoon, the white and red Solidarność badge shone. PSC leaflets were being passed out everywhere.
Anna’s feet were getting cold. Dziadek and Babcia had talked after mass this morning about coming here, but she was glad they hadn’t – it would have been far too much for them. There was to be a march, soon, down Oxford Street, and up to the Embassy. She turned to look at Jan, standing impassively. Ewa and Stefan had their arms round each other; Anna felt suddenly so lonely, and so sad, that she thought she was going to cry. I wish Jerzy had come, she thought. I know he’s unhappy, but even so …
The wedding had been cancelled within days of martial law, and it had been Elizabeth who rang, and told her.
‘Jerzy doesn’t feel he can celebrate anything at the moment,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s better we postpone it, just until he’s feeling
better.’
‘Are you very upset?’
‘No, no, it’s all right. What about you, Anna? This must have been a shock – to all of you. How are the grandparents? How is your husband?’
‘The grandparents spend all day watching the news. My husband – well, he is very angry, and frustrated …’
He doesn’t know what to do with himself. I had to force him to come here, to try to make him see that people are fighting, that you don’t have to be alone. But he is … unreachable.
‘Mama? Are you coming on the march?’
‘What – oh yes. Yes, my feet are frozen, I need to walk.’
‘What about Tata?’
Anna shook her head. ‘You ask him.’
Ewa hesitated.
‘Oh, go on!’ Anna snapped. ‘I can’t do everything.’
Ewa frowned. Then she leaned forward, and kissed her. ‘Of course you can. You’re my Mamusia, my little Mummy.’
Anna smiled, and patted her cold cheek. ‘Thank you, darling. You’re a good girl.’
‘No, I’m not. You know I’m not.’
‘Well…’
Around them people were turning, beginning to make their way back towards the park gates.
‘Come on.’ Ewa moved over to Jan. ‘Tata? Are you coming with us? To the Embassy?’
‘To the Embassy …’ Jan said slowly.
‘Tata! Wake up! They’re delivering a petition.’
Jan looked at her. Ewa looked at Anna. Anna moved quickly towards him.
‘Jan? What is it? Are you ill?’
With the same, half-dead slowness, he shook his head. ‘No. No. Just … I want to be by myself for a while. I’ve had enough.’
‘All right.’ She wanted to say: I’ll come with you, I’ll be with you, let me look after you. She said: ‘We’ll see you back at home, then.’
‘All right. Or – I might go back to work for a bit.’
‘Tata!’ Ewa said again. ‘For heaven’s sake. Don’t go back to work, go home. Have a rest, you look terrible.’
He nodded distantly, and then the crowd round them was so large that they all had to turn round and walk with them to the open iron gates and out on to Park Lane. Ahead, a great long river of people, with banners held high way up at the front, was moving, flanked by police, towards Marble Arch.
