Time Imperfect

By Bronislaw Wildstein

"An Imperfect Time" is an epic story depicting the fate of people involved in the grim history of the twentieth century. From the pogrom in the village near Pinsk to the reality of the Third Republic, the author leads us along winding roads, reversing the narrative, changing epochs and countries. We follow the fate of several generations of the Brok family, to whom history did not spare anything, neither suffering nor betrayal, nor crime, nor ideological asphyxiation. But you can look at the book a little differently, namely as a record and an attempt to understand the experiences that shaped today's Poland, from the bloody October Revolution through hopeful Solidarity to the futility of the Third Polish Republic. Finally, this book can be read as a kind of morality play showing the struggle of people against the temptations of evil and nothingness, those temptations that were effectively misled by the twentieth century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zmok Books
• Release date: Jan 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781950423231

Bronislaw Wildstein

Bronislaw Wildstein (born in 1952), writer, journalist, currently a columnist for Rzeczpospolita and the weekly Uwazam Rze. He graduated in Polish at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In the 1970’s he was an anti-communist opposition activist. He was the co-founder of the Student Solidarity Committee in Krakow (1977). In 1980 he participated in the founding of Solidarity and the NZS in Krakow. Martial law found him in the West. He was the Co-founder and in 1982-87 editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine, Contact, published in Paris. He published in the emigration and underground press. He was the Paris correspondent RWE: 1987-90. At the beginning of 1990 he returned to Poland, where he performed the functions of, among others, director of Radio Krakow; edited “Zycie Warszawy "; deputy editor-in-chief "Life"; president of TVP; journalist of "Rzeczpospolita" and weekly "Wprost" and many other periodicals. He has worked in broadcast radio and television. He was decorated with the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Book preview

An Introduction

The flickering index of numbers on Adam Brok’s monitor were taking an apparent nosedive, in free-fall. It seemed as if the computer had gone mad and wanted to throw off the virtual entities oppressing it. The screen filled with red. Adam instinctively glanced over at his neighbors’ computer screens, visible behind the flimsy, purely symbolic partitions that separated them, and had the impression he was in a hall of mirrors. At dizzying speeds, in the grip of some nameless impulse, the machines were devaluing the transactions encoded in their bowels. The brokers’ faces, turned to exchange incredulous glances with each other before turning back to their screens, all displayed the same astonishment, now tinged with panic.

It suddenly occurred to Adam that the computer screen was merely a thin sheet of glass. Beyond it, beyond the plunging index numbers next to the names of the corporations that moved swiftly across the tenuous surface, each accompanied by a little red triangle pointing downward – beyond that abstract world of numbers and letters and symbols, he saw unfinished buildings crashing to the ground, scaffolding collapsing, conveyor belts grinding to a standstill, stores closing, job centers filling up, lights going out, darkness descending on people and cities. Then everything went quiet; he found himself enclosed in a bubble of silence, all the more astonishing because the stock exchange floor was a perpetual roar of debilitating noise. The illusion lasted a fraction of a second. The roar returned with redoubled intensity. In the stock exchange all hell had broken loose. People were screaming at each other and into phones, or in many cases just screaming at no one in particular. The floor was an image of chaos. Can we contain this? Adam thought. How did we keep it in check before? Or have we ever been in control of anything? Perhaps we were just riding time’s turbulence, deluding ourselves that we were steering the waves?

He may not have been alone in asking such questions: it was unusually quiet at The Spouter-Inn. Somewhere in the back someone was shouting, while someone else was laughing hysterically; but instead of the usual buzz a heavy silence filled the restaurant.

Why are we surprised? Why the hell are we surprised?! Christina Lopez burst out at one point, expressing what everyone was feeling at that moment. We’ve known for months it all had to come crashing down. It was a bubble, it had to burst, it couldn’t go on forever! But we went on believing we could snatch a bit more, make a bit more – make money out of something that doesn’t exist! We should be surprised it didn’t go belly-up until now!

No one contradicted her.

And yet it really did take us unaware, mused Adam as he left the restaurant after a few drinks and hailed a taxi. We’re more than surprised: we’re in shock. Shocked that something that was clearly going to happen, was bound to happen, finally has happened. He was still thinking about this as he let himself into his apartment and fished out a letter from Poland among the litter of leaflets and junk mail in the hall. An express delivery. The apartment was almost sterile – not like the apartment in Poland, he thought as he extracted it from the post office packaging. Nancy had cleaned up before she left. She didn’t live with him, only staying there from time to time, but it was becoming increasingly clear that she was waiting for him to propose they move in together. Adam was in no hurry. He liked Nancy and they got on well, but there was something about the finality of the decision to live together that put him off. Still, sooner or later he would have to make up his mind. Nancy was going to present him with an ultimatum, that was clear. It was also clear in the end he would do what she wanted. The benefits far outweighed the costs. But Adam continued to put off the decision.

The letter was from his father. Adam plopped three ice cubes into a glass of pure malt, added water from a long-necked bottle, flung himself into a black leather armchair and switched on the television. As he flicked through the channels, every one of them was showing the scene he had participated in a few hours ago. The commentators, sounding very unsure of themselves, were all repeating the same warnings couched in phrases cocooned in layers of conditionals and dripping with caveats: that the markets might continue to fall and that a further downward trend might have grave consequences for the world economy. Beyond the windows, the lights of Manhattan continued to glimmer. Adam ripped open the envelope.

"I’ve decided to write to you, though I feel rather awkward about this. But then you can hardly say I’m badgering you – it is my first letter after all. I used to send you postcards; sometimes you’d even answer them. We both know perfectly well the grievance you hold against me – if that is what your deep-seated feeling towards me can be called. A justified one from your point of view. But in general? Except… is there an ‘in general’? All my life I’ve exposed supposedly objective and impartial points of view to ridicule. The only points of view here are yours and mine, your mother’s and mine. From my point of view… well, I’ve paid the price. But let’s drop this general bullshit. That’s not why I’m writing to you. I’m writing because I want to see you. I’d be glad if you could come home to Poland even for just a short visit. I can pay for your flight and cover the costs of your stay. I know you have money, you have a career after all, but if it would help... In any case I’m anxious to see you as soon as possible. In the eight years since you moved to the States I’ve seen you only a handful of times, and very briefly at that. The last time you were in Poland was four years ago. No, I exaggerate: almost four years ago. On that visit, you spent exactly twenty-three minutes with me. I know because I checked my watch and made a mental note of it. You were in a great hurry to get to some important meeting, or maybe just one that held some attraction for you. That’s not a reproach. You might reply that before you left we didn’t see each other that often either. That’s true. It’s been that way ever since I moved out twenty-three years ago and left you, you and your mother. But I didn’t want to be separated from you. It was your mother that didn’t want you to spend much time with me. I can understand that – which doesn’t mean I agree with her. But until you were fourteen we used to spend quite a lot of time together. Remember? After that… it was up to you. Your decision. Yours and your mother’s. It was a question of emotions and politics. A volatile mix. But no point in theorizing. I just wanted to remind you of the facts. And maybe justify myself a little. This probably sounds pathetic. But I don’t want to start crossing out and polishing and rewriting everything. I’m tempted to. I am a journalist after all – a columnist. But I decided to write to you the way I would talk. To talk to you on paper, if that’s the only way.

You know I don’t like to make a big drama out of things. But I’m asking you to come because I want to see you one more time. Maybe things aren’t quite as bad as that, but you never know. I’m seventy years old. My father died when he was my age. I feel my time is coming. Of course, I’d like more time, but no one’s going to ask me what I’d like. What more is there to say? I know you understand.

I’m waiting.

Your father"

Manhattan was lit up; it was like any other day. On television, they were talking of a financial crisis. The date was September 2008.

 But that is not when this story begins. Perhaps it began a hundred years earlier. In a place called Kurow, not far from Pinsk, on the broad, forested plain, which at the time belonged to Russia (and before that to Poland, a country erased from the map over a hundred years earlier), there lived a Jew by the name of Baruch Brok with his wife Doba and five children.

All sorts of people lived there then: Russians, Poles and Jews. Jewish Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Catholic. They did not always know who they were. They only knew they were from there. They knew which Catholic or Russian Orthodox Church they went to and who celebrated the services there. They lived alongside one another; sometimes they lived together. But the Jews were different. They knew who they were, and their neighbors knew they were different. They all lived under the same broad sky, which spread its brightness over them in daytime and glimmered with lights at night. Sometimes it clouded over or disappeared in fog, but the locals knew it was there and would be back. They had only to wait and it would reappear as always, in all its splendor.

The Brok family were not badly off. They had a pleasant house with a well-tended garden, a wagon and a horse. Doba looked after two cows and a large poultry flock. They lived on the edge of the village. Baruch was a merchant, trading in leather. But that was not his main occupation. He was a tzaddik; they called him a miracle-worker. He would disappear from home for hours at a time, sometimes for half a day or more. When Doba asked questions, he just smiled. Sometimes people saw him standing in the fields or in the forest, looking up at the sky. They said he talked to God.

Matwiej saw Baruch one summer day around noon. The Jew was leaning against a tree, looking directly into the sun. He stood there, quite still, for so long that Matwiej took fright and fled the scene. Anyone else, it would have burned their eyes out, he said later, but not him. He looked at me and smiled. His pupils shone as if the sun had moved and settled into them for good.

Piotr saw him in the little lake on the far side of the forest about three hours’ walk from Kurow. It was spring. The leaves were a deep green and the flowers had bloomed, but the mornings were chilly. Baruch was standing in the water up to his armpits, looking up at the clouds. The morning mist was rising off the water. Piotr even stopped to ask if he needed anything, but then Baruch looked at him with that smile of his and said nothing.

Zosia saw him in a clearing in the forest. It had just rained and everything glistened; the world seemed newly born. Baruch was walking around in circles, arms in the air, his fingers snatching at the sun’s rays. Like he was dancing, Zosia reported in an unsure voice, looking at those around her.

Leon told them how he’d seen Baruch standing in the field by the forest when a wolf ran up to him. It stopped less than a yard away then lay down on its belly like a dog. I thought it was a dog at first, I even came a bit closer, but it was a wolf, for sure. I swear. It leapt up, turned to me and snarled; then it disappeared into the forest. Swear to God!

But the strangest reports came from peasants returning from the horse fair after the first heavy snowfall of the year. In the distance, on a hilltop under the blue sky, they saw a man climb down from his cart and leap into a snowdrift. He rolled about in the snow like an animal then lay perfectly still. His horse stood by waiting patiently. At first, they didn’t know who it was. They drove up thinking something had happened. Then, coming closer, they saw it was Baruch lying in the snow, looking up at the sky, smiling. There was a crow standing close to him. Baruch turned to it, and the two eyed each other: man and crow. The peasants stood speechless and waited – a good while, by all accounts. No one spoke. There was only the steam rising into the darkening air from the men and their beasts and the creaking of the shafts as the horses strained against them. Suddenly the crow cawed and launched itself into the air. For a moment Baruch followed it with his gaze; then, noticing the onlookers, he grew serious and stared at them intently until they felt uncomfortable. At last, picking himself up, he greeted them, brushed the snow off his clothes, climbed into his cart, and drove off.

He healed both people and animals. He could set bones, ease sprains, dress wounds. He knew how to wash weak eyes and deaf ears. He could advise people on the treatment of chronic ailments, cure boils and carbuncles, drain abscesses, relieve pain. He stroked old Kuzma’s hair until the pains clouding her mind went away. He cured Szydlik of the back pain that had left him virtually crippled. From the neighboring village, they brought him a young girl who had lost her mind, grown afraid of her family, and was tormented by evil spirits. Baruch clasped her to himself, though she struggled to break free. After thrashing about briefly in his arms, she calmed down and fell still; and so together they stood there for a long, long time, until at last Baruch kissed her on the forehead and let her go, while she ran to embrace her family. She was cured.

One night the miller brought him his little son. He had fallen ill a few days earlier and was delirious with a high fever. Old Mother Yevdokia’s spells and incenses hadn’t helped. Neither had the nettle and birch bark infusions. He only got worse. That night he drifted in and out of consciousness. The family gathered around him to pray. It was then the miller decided to take him to Baruch. The Jew stood looking at the boy for a long time; then he sat down beside him. He put his hands on the boy and there by the window he sat as the autumn night flowed past outside. You could hear the roar of the river. By morning the boy had revived. Soon he was completely well.

Sometimes Baruch would shake his head sadly to indicate there was nothing he could do. On those occasions, he wouldn’t even try anything. It was useless to convince him otherwise.

He not only helped people from his village. Jews journeyed from far and wide to see him – to talk with him, seek his advice. The locals thought of him as their own. He never exacted payment. They gave him whatever they had, if they had it. Sometimes it was money, but more often foodstuffs: eggs, milk, cheese, flat bread, occasionally vegetables or fruit. Sometimes things they had made at home: cloths, blankets, bed linen. On occasion, he wouldn’t take anything. I have what I need, he’d say. You may want it some day.

***

Somewhere far off the revolution was sputtering out. The losing side were strange bunch of people. They had wanted to depose our Dear Father Tsar and establish common ownership of property, women and children. The Russian Orthodox, who were the majority in the district, remembered others like them. They had claimed to be the true Orthodox. Only they truly loved God and therefore did not hold with the idea of private ownership. But they forced nothing on no one; and when people laughed at them and hurled insults, they ran away.

The revolutionaries, on the other hand, were set on remaking the world by force. People listened to them with fear and wonder, though sometimes they laughed too. Well, of course you could kill the Tsar, they knew that, he was a man after all, and such terrible things had happened before. But to live without any Tsar? The Tsar who kept order, who oversaw God’s order on earth? That seemed not only a terrible thing to want but a stupid one as well. No wonder the army and police had put down the revolution. Could people be that crazy? Although you heard increasingly more often that it wasn’t people but the Jews. That is what they said in the taverns and inns: it was a Jewish conspiracy, because the Jews wanted to rule the world. Learned people knew about a book that had been stolen from the Jews where it was all written down, how they planned to take over the world. When people looked at Itzhak or Tevya who had lived among them ever since they could remember, they found it hard to believe. But when they heard about Jews being God-killers, they began to believe it and anger welled up inside them. Word went around from tavern to tavern, from market place to market place.

Reports arrived that people were rising up against the Jews, assaulting them, beating them up, trashing their property. It seemed foolish to destroy perfectly good things. But you couldn’t very well take them; that would be no better than stealing. This way they got their punishment fair and square. Though apparently some people did help themselves to things, because taking from a Jew, well, you could hardly call it stealing.

Direr reports began to circulate – reports of mounting violence, rage, arson. Then blood. Burning houses cast a lurid glow over the countryside. More blood. Now they were killing Jews. In Bialystok, in Siedlce, the earth around their holdings became a blood-drenched mire. Twisted bodies protruded starkly from the mud around the charred heaps of what had been houses. Goose down from torn bedding floated in the air along with soot and the cries of the murdered.

But all that was still far away. True, peasants at the market in Konskie had beaten up some Jews, laid into them with their whips; and in Luckowice they had dragged out the innkeeper from behind his counter and beaten him unconscious then set on his wife when she came running to help him. By the time they were finished, all that was left of the inn was a pile of rubble. But that did not yet make a pogrom, although an air of dread now hung over the land. Winter refused to go away; the first rains hadn’t come, and the earth was rock hard. They worried about the harvest. The sky was heavy, and the scud, unwilling to yield up its moisture, swept across it. The light emerging from behind the clouds had a dim, eerie quality.

How could it have happened? It was a question many later asked themselves but were afraid to voice aloud. Men from the neighboring town of Stryczkow had come to the Kurow market and chummed up with some of the locals. Together they went to the inn for more tipple, the out-of-towners standing rounds for the locals. Trading had been good, they said. Soon they got on the subject of the Jews. Something had to be done about them. Finally, one of the strangers said, You’ve got one right here you’re chummy with. Plays the saint, the slimy toad! That kind are the worst! He needs putting in his place.

But he’s a decent fellow despite being a Jew, protested one of the locals.

You defending a Jew?! said the stranger. What’s he done, dimmed your wits, or what? Maybe he’s bewitched you? They say he’s a sorcerer.

The strangers nodded assent. The locals felt ashamed of standing up for a Jew.

So how could it have happened that this group of strangers, armed with heavy gnarled sticks, left the inn and went with a few of the locals to the Brok holding? They shouted as they went, as if needing to nerve themselves up, though they formed a sizable crowd. They called on others to join them. We’re going to put the yids in their place, they cried. Some ran out after them; some joined the throng. Others locked themselves in their houses. Darkness was falling.

They stopped at the entrance to the yard. Brok’s dog was barking madly. They smashed the gate and raised an uproar. Baruch came out of the house. He walked halfway across the yard and stopped a pace short of a man who had showed them the way. The man, cudgel in hand, stood uncertainly before him, as if at a loss what to do next.

Quiet, Blackie! said Baruch firmly. The dog hunched down by the kennel and whined. What do you want, people? he said, so that everyone heard, though he spoke softly. Why have you come here?

You… Jew! said the man in front of him at last, almost spitting on Brok. He made as if to raise his stick, but only lifted it off the ground. Jew! he repeated.

Yes, I am a Jew, Baruch said calmly. You know me. I’ve always lived among you. My parents lived here and my grandparents before them. There’s always been peace between us, even though we pray differently. And you? he asked, shifting his body as if to get closer to the stranger. With Baruch’s gaze boring into him, the man seemed to want to step back. I don’t know you, he said. I haven’t done you any harm. It was anger that brought you here, that brought all of you. But we are not to blame. We’ve done nothing to deserve your anger. Think about it. Nothing’s happened yet. Go away. Tomorrow you’ll be relieved you did.

Such was the stillness you could hear their heavy breathing and the intermittent whines of the dog. Darkness closed in, though the people could still see each other.

Thrash the Yids! yelled one of the strangers in the crowd. Another, standing right behind the man facing Baruch, raised his club slightly and took a step sideways as if to go around Brok; but the Jew turned toward him, and he stopped. Then someone else in the crowd, it may have been a woman, for the voice was thin and high-pitched like a woman’s, yelled, Have done with the Christ-killing Jew! Kill him! A clod of hard earth hit the window, shattering the glass. For a moment, no one moved; then the door of the house opened and Brok’s wife, a child in her arms, ran out, desperately calling his name: Baaruch!

Brok turned abruptly. Doba, go back! he managed to cry out just before the man who had tried to circle around him lifted his club with both hands and brought it crashing down on his temple. In that sudden interval of silence the sticky smacking sound was plainly heard. Even before Baruch slumped to the ground, the man in front of him smashed him another blow across the face then leapt with both booted feet onto his body as it lay there thrashing on the ground. The crowd surged forward to reach him with their clubs and boots. They finished him off the same way they finished of his dog, which was tearing frantically at its chain. Several men had run up to it with their clubs.  Pandemonium broke out in the yard. Doba screamed as she ran to her husband. A little girl that had run out of the house behind her raised a piercing cry. Louder still came shouts of Thrash the Jews! and the dog’s appalling whines.

The clubs beat Baruch’s still body into the mud. A man aimed a vicious kick at the place where his head had been. Much good it did you, talking to God, eh? he snarled.

Doba never made it to her husband. They struck her down with their clubs. Nor was her infant spared. Falling out of her broken arms, it lay writhing and screaming on ground while they finished its mother off. The child’s screams drowned out the attackers’ shouts, but then more boots and more clubs crushed the life out of it. The little girl, falling under a hail of blows, managed to get up and hobble away, squealing pitifully. More blows brought her down. Still she would not die. Now she was crawling on the ground, moaning in agony. For a moment, you could hear only her groans, for the howling of the dog, which they’d beaten to a shapeless pulp, had ceased, and the attackers’ throats had grown sore from shouting. Breathless, they stood over her, as she tried to crawl between their legs.

We need to finish her off… don’t let her suffer, said one. A man brought a heavy hobnailed boot down on her neck. There was a crack like a dry twig snapping. The girl stopped moaning and lay still.

Again, there was silence. Again, you could hear the men’s labored breathing. One ran inside the house; others followed, working themselves to a new pitch with their shouts. More sounds of shattering glass. Pieces of furniture came flying out the windows. But the excitement was wearing off. Someone ran out with an oil lamp, smashed it against a ledge and was about to light the oil when one of the locals knocked the flaming match from his hand. You want to burn down the whole of Kurow?! he yelled. The wind was blowing up. Thrash the Yids! Who’s next? Let’s go get ’em! cried one of the strangers. But the cry was met with silence. They dispersed without a word. Each went his own way into the night.

***

The next day Abram, Baruch’s younger brother, arrived in Kurow. He found eleven-year-old Jacob in the forest, frozen to the bone, together with his younger brothers Joseph and Adam, aged nine and three, whom he had managed to get out of the house. Anticipating trouble, their father had ordered his wife and son to take the whole family into the forest; he had been warned, it seems. But Baruch refused to run away. He told Doba to hide and not come back until it was safe. Doba took the children into the forest, but when she heard the shouts she turned back. She entrusted the children to Jacob and repeated the order to hide. But as she was running back towards the house, six-year-old Golda broke away from Jacob and flew after her.

Abram drove his nephews to the neighboring town and left them with a family he knew. He came back with two helpers. For some time, he walked around the farmyard, as if registering everything in a non-existent inventory. He stared vacantly at the bodies wedged in the mud. He did not pray. With his own hands, he loaded the bodies into the wagon. He had the dog’s carcass buried.

He organized Baruch’s, Doba’s and their two children’s funeral in a nearby town. He had their house repaired and redecorated so that no one could recognize it. Later he sold it. The new inhabitants expressed no interest in the fate of the previous owners.

A group of Jews came to the funeral. Even the old tzaddik from out by Baranowicze came. After the service, he went up to Abram and took him by the arms, but Abram, a big powerful man, gently removed his hands as though they were the hands of a child.

Don’t say anything, rebbe. I know what happened and what you want to say. I know it’s always been like this and always will be. I’m not looking for comfort.

The tzaddik shook his head.

Yes, it’s always been like this, but I have a feeling it will get worse. He pointed at the leaden sky. Bad times are coming. The Lord is turning away from us and we understand less and less.

Two of his students took him by the arms and together they shuffled slowly off. Abram turned away and stared blankly at the forbidding sky.

He’d left Kurow a dozen or so years earlier, when he was only eighteen years old. He got into the trading business with his brother, but quickly overtook him, collecting leather from all over the district and selling it far and wide – for big money, they say. He moved to Pinsk where he reportedly bought a two-storey house, and then a store on the main street. But that wasn’t enough. Nothing satisfied him. He began traveling to Kiev then to Warsaw. He also ran commercial ventures in Berlin. He set up stores and exchange houses in more and more cities. He traded in leather then in gold and precious stones. His real money, however, he made in the weapons trade. Some said he did more than trade: he was involved in huge, illegal financial operations and had dealings with gangsters, selling their stolen goods. Others, or maybe it was the same people, said he was a sorcerer. He’d sold his soul to the devil. Though what would the devil want with a Hebrew’s damned soul?

Abram Brok adopted his nephews as his own. He never married and he never went back to Kurow. The day he came for the bodies of his brother and family was his last time there.

No one in the village wanted to talk about it. People were not even sure which of the locals had joined the strangers – strangers, incidentally, whom they would still meet on market days in Stryczkow, sometimes at the Orthodox church, or on other occasions. The locals went on trading and drinking with them, but no one wanted to recall those events. In the privacy of their own homes, they said that among those who had helped to kill Brok were people he’d healed and even saved. Leon, whose horse he had saved, was supposedly there; so was the blacksmith’s son whose chronic ulcers he had cured; and even Baruch’s neighbor Stach whom he had taught to walk again. But who had really been there and seen the clubs falling on Brok and his family?

Some years later, a constable from Stryczkow let slip to a chance drinking companion in the tavern that a few days before the events in Kurow he had received a visit from his boss, the district police commissioner. He was ordered to put the fear of God into Brok. But why him? said the constable whose niece Baruch had healed. He’s a good Jew and has nothing to do with the revolution. The authorities know what they’re doing! snapped the commissioner, flaring up; and, breaking off the discussion, he took his subordinate to task. Later he added: It’s the ones everyone likes that are the most dangerous. People trust them, and they wait for years, hatching their plans, biding their time, until one day they start stirring up the locals against the authorities. Maybe he is a decent man, the commissioner conceded, but he comes from a poisonous tribe. He’s got to be made to see he can’t hide from the authorities. Everyone must be made to see that a Jew is a Jew.

The constable even got money for the job. He met with the wiliest of his underworld contacts, whose trade in stolen goods and other shady dealings he overlooked in exchange for information. He told him to see to it that Baruch and those who dealt with him got a good fright. Anatoly nodded. He understood. The constable never dreamed how it might end. Afterwards even Anatoly looked scared. But the affair soon died down. No one would speak of it. Only once, in a sermon, did the local Russian Orthodox priest say something about innocent blood crying out to heaven for vengeance and about the guilty and those standing idly around being called to account; and though he made no specific reference to anyone or anything, everyone knew.

That year spring refused to come. Persistent overcast shut out the light and the snowstorms went on until the end of April. The sun would not come out. A lean and hungry pre-harvest time beckoned. The heavens were closed from sight.

***

It was not until the doors slid open and Adam Brok emerged into the arrivals hall that he realized how much the airport had changed after the construction of the new terminal. His last visit to Poland had been over three years ago. Somewhat disoriented after the night flight, he stumbled along, staring at strange faces, watching people as they fell into each other’s arms, hearing their cries of joy at being reunited. Something kept telling him he was here to say goodbye to his dying father and then arrange for the funeral. He tried to shake off this conviction which seemed to come from nowhere, but it was useless; the harder he tried, the more firmly entrenched the conviction became. He had a feeling of coming back. For eight years he had, without realizing it, been drifting away from his country. His visits only confirmed the fact: Poland for him was receding in time and space, becoming an increasingly fainter memory. Now it was embracing him again.

He had woken up in the plane while the other passengers still slept. On raising the window blind, he was dazzled by the sunlight, which glanced off the shapes piling up beneath him. Masses of cloud sculpted themselves into mountain ranges, hidden cities or fantastic buildings, which dissolved as the light hit them then re-formed themselves anew. On his first long-haul flights Adam would spend hours gazing at the clouds, the sun and the sky. But the novelty soon wore off and he stopped noticing them. Now, as he gazed out at the clouds, it took him a few minutes to realize the extent to which the sight absorbed and delighted him. He seemed to be seeing it for the first time. Over the Atlantic the sun was drawing the curtain back on the old world. The blue expanse was widening. Someone was bringing him back. He felt tension within him and he sought to make sense of the shifting shapes outside.

The strange feeling was still there when the plane landed with a jolt in Warsaw. In the chaos of the arrivals hall Adam tried to impose some order upon his impressions. Someone was watching him, but it wasn’t any of the strangers in the crowd whose wandering gaze would settle on him momentarily and then move on. He realized he was returning to a past he thought he’d escaped for good. This past lay in wait for him even here in the form of this new terminal.

He recalled his conversation with Taggart. It’s actually perfect, works out very well, you know? We were thinking of sending you out there anyway. We appreciate what you did for us in Russia. Didn’t work out of course… deal fell through, but you did all right. We want to get into the Polish television market. Not just there of course, but Poland’s interesting and its potential’s underestimated. Places like France and Germany, they’ve stopped developing, no prospects left, but Poland… why, anything could happen there. Europe as a whole you can… – he finished the sentence with a contemptuous sweep of his hand. "But Europe’s peripheries, that’s different. Worth taking a look at. Besides, television these days is a lot more than just television. Not many people get that. Television’s about ideas. And ideas – mused Taggart as he looked through the glass wall down on the New York cityscape – ideas are the biggest business there is. It’s about what’s important. Take pollution. Sure it’s important to reduce our carbon footprint. But you have to explain it to people, you have to make them see it. Taggart was wading into deep waters, but somewhere even deeper inside him there lurked a roguish Puck. Many times Adam would come back to this conversation. Now if we could get a piece of the new energy markets… that would really be good business. Crises are a great occasion for serious initiatives. They have a television corporation out there called WTV. Well regarded… seems to have cornered the market, but they overinvested and now they’re looking desperately for capital. It’s a great opportunity. We’ve done the preliminary research. Everything looks good. Digitalization opens new possibilities. So, what say we sign a tentative contract? We’ll cover your expenses, and pay you on a profit percentage basis. Means more risk for you, but more money if you do well. So? Shall we hammer out the details?"

Adam walked slowly through the waiting lobby past strangers whom he might well have known once. His gaze passed over the broadly smiling face of an elderly woman. He turned away, but she was already running toward him with an almost youthful step. Only then did he know for certain it was his mother; and only when he felt her frail arms around him, the touch of her thin body, the kisses on his forehead and cheeks, which he had to stoop to receive, only when he felt these things did the full extent of the past, its images, sounds and smells, come flooding back to him. In his mind’s eye, he saw an ecstatic little boy walking through a sunlit field hand in hand with his beautiful mother. He stared at the old woman before him and he felt a tightness in his throat. A nameless smell spoke to him of home.

The package-strewn trunk of the old rusted-out Opel Corsa would not accept his bulky suitcase. In the end, they managed to squeeze it into the back seat. The car interior looked no better than the exterior. During his last visit, he had offered to wire her money for a new one. She took offense. As a gift, he said, trying to convince her. In that case you can present it to me wrapped in a red ribbon; otherwise I won’t take it. And if you try to send it to me, I’ll send it back at your expense. She said this in a characteristic tone of voice, which could mean she was either joking or in deadly earnest; you never knew. The Corsa had looked a lot better then. Sending a car over was too complicated. He stopped thinking about it.

So, tell me everything, she said, turning the key in the ignition and lighting a cigarette. The reek of nicotine permeating the car assailed his nostrils. It overpowered even the gasoline smell and the scent of his mother’s expensive perfume,

Oh, I forgot you don’t smoke, she said, glancing at him and rolling down the window with difficulty. A few puffs and I’ll throw it away There was a note of childish regret in her voice.

It’s all right, don’t worry about it, he said. His head was spinning from the smoke, but he decided to suffer heroically. His mother inhaled with relief.

Well, so how are things?

With me... well, you know… Everything’s changing. It’s like an earthquake. I don’t know if I’ll stay at the Exchange. I’ve had a few offers – one of them in Poland. For the moment, I’m taking a long holiday. I guess Father couldn’t make it, eh? Even as he said it, he realized he was raising the matter too soon. But it was too late. His mother’s face contorted as it always did – as it had for twenty-three years. Those years he reconstructed and reckoned up much later, but he perfectly remembered the first time that grimace passed over her face. She had practically stopped talking to Adam. All he got from her were half utterances tossed out to be rid of him. Those long periods of apathy would alternate with effusive demonstrations of tenderness, embarrassing for a ten-year-old. It was from that time on that the very sound of his father’s name, the very mention of him even in the most casual of conversations, would invariably bring the same grimace to his mother’s face. Adam knew a pause would now ensue, a pause his mother needed before she could go on.

Your father…? I don’t really know. I think he’s in hospital. After a moment she added, I hope it’s nothing serious. He was never a hypochondriac, I’ll give him that. This last she said in a tone edged with unpleasant irony.

She might have got over it by now, Adam thought. The same niggling thought came to him every time he met his mother – and this for years. If she couldn’t forget, she could at least come to terms with it. Face what had happened. No one was asking her to forgive, but she should stop this constant dwelling on it. As it was, she would with bat-like sensitivity pick up anything that evoked even the remotest association with her ex-husband and then obsess over it as though it were a thorn buried in her flesh. Her face would harden into a mask of bitterness and pain. This time she lit a cigarette.

Your father could always fall on his feet. Let’s hope he still can.

She’s being unfair, Adam thought. She may have cause for bitterness, but here she’s being unfair. Though maybe it’s just what I like to think, he wondered, as his mother nervously changed lanes, provoking a furious horn-burst from a    car coming rapidly up from behind. Maybe I just want to defend my image of my father, since there’s so little left to defend?

"What about you? Are you still working for the same weekly? Renaissance, was it?" he asked, though he knew the answer.

"If you’re asking does it still exist, yes, it does. I’m surprised myself. The weekly’s still there. I’m still there. Of course, it’s not like your father’s Republic, which has become the main organ of our intellectual elite, the light of the salon. While we… we paid a monstrous price for that police informer, Stawicki, not to mention the ostracism… But I can see you don’t understand. Our petty quarrels don’t interest you. From the American perspective…  She tried to impart a warmer tone to her irony. I don’t want to bore you. I’d much rather talk about things that really interest you. Much has changed in Poland since you were last here. Then again, who knows? Has anything really changed? A whole lot of farting and breaking wind and now it’s back to the way it was. Pardon the vulgarism. She tried to control herself with her son who disliked her lapses into coarse language. Back to the same old swamp. And I – we – we’ve been relegated to the sidelines. Increasingly more so. We’re being pushed further and further out. Time’s pushing us out too. Soon it’ll have us out for keeps – out to the cemetery. She laughed drily and threw a defiant glance at her son.

When the idea dawned on him, it seemed as obvious as it had been sudden in coming. Adam felt ashamed he hadn’t thought of it before. He should have done it years ago. He could afford it easily. In Florence on a recent weeklong holiday in Italy he had recalled his mother’s fascination with the Uffizi Gallery. He was looking at Cellini’s famous cast in the arcade opposite the museum: the beautiful youth sadly contemplating his trophy, the severed head of a woman-monster, which he holds in his outstretched hand. His mother had heard about the sculpture from her father, Adam’s grandfather. He was on his deathbed, talking about his unfulfilled dreams and unrealized travels. He couldn’t have been much older then than Adam was now. Gazing at the sculpture, Adam wanted to tell Nancy about it, but even though she listened politely, she didn’t seem interested.

"Mom, here’s an offer you can’t refuse. As soon as I’ve checked up on Father… I’ll talk with him and… you know, generally… see what’s up… Right after that I’m taking you to Tuscany. To Florence. You’ve always dreamed of spending time in the Uffizi, if only to view Cellini’s Perseus. There are other interesting places in Tuscany… Siena. I was there just recently. Passing through. I’ll take you on a week’s holiday. One week. I won’t take no for an answer."

His mother turned from the steering wheel a moment. A young girl’s smile spread across her lined face, a memory of bygone times.

"That’s terribly sweet of you. I’m really very touched you should think of me. But you know I won’t come. I’ve contemplated Florence enough. I could lead guided tours around the Uffizi… write a whole essay on Cellini’s Perseus."

You know it’s not the same as the real thing.

Of course, it’s not the same. And that’s why I know it’s too late. There’s a time for everything. Hard to explain… it’s so obvious. If you haven’t done it when the time’s right, it’ll never get done. People that go chasing after unfulfilled dreams make me laugh. I’m past the age of gathering impressions. I won’t go to Florence. I’ll stay here.

Part I

Zuzanna

Chapter 1

She had never really got back to normal after her husband left her twenty-three years earlier. Perhaps because of the tragic death of her brother Tadeusz – my little son as she called him – which followed on its heels just four months later. He died in January. He had gone up to Gdansk, to take care of some Solidarity business. Irena called her a few days later, saying she hadn’t heard from him. Susanna tried to calm her, but she felt icy fingers clawing at her mind, heart and soul. It was so unlike Tadek. She tried to put things in perspective. She realized her husband’s leaving was taking a toll on her psychologically. All the more reason to keep her feelings in check. She had to look after Adam, go to work and carry on with her underground activity; and now she had to look after her brother’s fiancée as well - Irena looked ready to fall apart at any moment. Susanna tried to be strong but could not control the trembling that ran through her body. She fought off panic attacks. Not him, not Tadek, please not him, she kept repeating silently to herself. She prayed, but even as she prayed, memories of those mysterious murders and unknown assailants continued to oppress her. She kept seeing the bloody face of Father Popieluszko, the priest they’d killed.

The last time she had seen Tadek was on New Year’s Eve, less than two weeks ago. She had picked Adam up at about ten from a children’s party at the house of one of his schoolmates. Benedict had asked to have him for a few days, and also before that, for Christmas, but in both cases Suzanna had refused. Adam was in a fit of the sulks. For almost twenty minutes she plodded through the melting snow with him, trying in vain to cheer him with jokes. The jokes fell flat, and he went on pouting. When they got home, she felt no trace of the several glasses of wine she had drunk earlier. Luckily Adam was tired and fell asleep almost at once. Suzanna sat by him a moment longer, gently stroking his hair. When she was sure he was asleep, she went into the other room and sat down in front of the lifeless TV screen, vowing she would not switch it on. She ate some bread and cheese and washed it down with some leftover wine. As the alcohol slowly coursed through her body, she examined the tapes in the cassette player, rejecting Kaczmarski, then, one by one, Vysotsky, Kelus and Cohen. She paused for a moment longer at Armstrong before rejecting him too. She fiddled with the radio knob but found nothing to hold her attention. The wine was finished. She fought off memories of past New Year’s Eves spent with Benedict. Times they’d spent together. Old times. Once again, she allowed her mind to dwell on what she detested about him. His pettiness, his cowardice. But as usual she realized after a moment; she was only poisoning herself.

She sat down on the window ledge. Outside, Warsaw loomed dark and indistinct. Here and there you could see the feeble flashes of fireworks. If it wasn’t for Adam… something inside her said. But the thought was unclear. Her life was over, she was living its last embers, and if it not for Adam… She seized a bottle of vodka from the fridge and poured herself a glass. Then another, and another. The tightness inside her eased. But the ringing of the telephone brought it back.

Happy New Year! We’ll be by in fifteen minutes, shouted Tadek. She didn’t even have time to reply.

She turned on the TV. People in far-off cities were partying in the streets. Next moment the screen was alive with the faces of Poland’s communist leaders. She switched the thing off.  Just then the door buzzer sounded. Tadek and Irena and a group of their friends burst into the room and kitchen. She just had time to close the door to Adam’s bedroom.

It was a good thing, said Tadek, hugging her and clinking his glass against hers. "He didn’t deserve you. He doesn’t deserve you! he sang out. But you knew that. Two worlds, one house… one bed. Well, it can happen, I guess, but to live together? You had yourselves a kind of Poland in miniature. The Solidarity activist and her disgusted husband, the regime’s propagandist!" Tadek’s laughter was infectious and Suzanna couldn’t help joining in. Her brother grew serious.

But he thwarted you at every turn, limited you, infected you with his… his… – he groped for the right word – "…his skepticism, his disbelief, that suspiciousness of his. He wanted to destroy everything you believed in… what we believe in. His childhood trauma was supposed to excuse it all. The child in the cupboard! But what about us? I don’t remember our father. They were pretty well done with him before I was born. After that he was just dying. I don’t know if I really remember anything about him or if I’ve just built up a picture of him from the stories you told me. Can one salvage a two-year-old’s memory? I think I remember the funeral and our mother crying. But that doesn’t seem likely either. And Mother? What was her life like? It’s thanks to you I grew up to be someone halfway decent. It was you that raised me when she no longer could. And he? After his ‘trauma’ only good things came his way. From age seven on he had a cushy life. So, they kicked him out of the university. Big deal! Then they tasked him with a job on the Republic so he could sing the praises of the Party, history’s bearer of light and wisdom. He saved us from ourselves. Anyway, what kind of husband was he? You know he ran after every skirt he laid eyes on. And finally got caught by a canny young wannabee journalist. What a pile of schlock! To hell with him, that’s what I say!... You know, he said, lowering his voice abruptly and whispering into her ear, it’s important, this trip to Gdansk. Very important. But now – he was shouting again – let’s party!"

Suzanna yelled and sang with them. She almost felt good. They danced. Someone put on the soundtrack to Cabaret. Life is a Cabaret, old chum, Come to the Cabaret! Suzanna screamed at the top of her voice.

My wonderful sister, Tadeusz sang, hugging her. Free at last. Young, beautiful, whole life before you. You can only be happy. Suzanna nodded.

When they left, she dragged herself to bed and sank into a leaden sleep.

***

Days passed and still no word from Tadek. Suzanna lived in semiconscious state. She went to work, did all she was supposed to do, and desperately sought some trace of her brother. Everything seemed to be happening somewhere outside of her. After consulting with friends from the underground she decided to call the police. They listened, took the photos she gave them and promised to put out a search for Tadeusz. The photos appeared in the press, along with a brief note about the missing man.

Benedict was less on Suzanna’s mind too during those days, though she called him. She rang the editor’s office.

Ye-e-e-s? said a hesitant voice.

Tadek’s missing. He’s been missing for ten days. No one’s heard from him. I’m afraid they may have arrested him. Your people. She didn’t say the thing she most feared.

My people?

Oh, give it a rest. You have contacts, influence. Try to find out something. That’s all I’m asking.

All right, I’ll try. Though, despite what you think, my possibilities….

Just do what you can. I’ll wait to hear from you. She put down the phone.

Weeks went by. Appeals for information about Tadeusz Sokol also appeared in the underground press. After a few days, she received a call from Jerome with whom she worked on the Underground Weekly. One of his colleagues from Gdansk had seen Tadeusz just as he was about to return to Warsaw. That was almost three weeks earlier.

They dragged Tadeusz’s body out of the Motlawa River in early March. Her boss, Portico’s editor-in-chief, called her to his office. For a moment, on seeing the two uniformed policemen standing next to him, she imagined they had come for her. Got to get through this somehow, she thought. Just as well Benedict can look after Adam. But then they asked her, Are you the sister of Tadeusz Sokol? and she felt the breath squeezed out of her body. They showed her a ghastly photo of Tadeusz’s bloody face, beaten to a pulp.

Jerome drove her to Gdansk in his little Fiat. It could all be just a mistake. The thought thudded through her body as if it had been someone else’s. Jerome pulled up on the side of the street opposite the red brick building of the Forensic Medicine Institute. He promised to wait for her in the café at the corner, but she, dimly conscious that he was speaking to her, did not catch the meaning of his words. She gave the man in the lobby her name. A man in a white coat and a police officer came down to meet her. They descended a flight of stairs. Paint of a nondescript color was peeling off the walls. At a signal from the white-coated man, the worker downstairs pulled out one of the huge drawers that lined the wall.

Tadeusz’s body, oddly short, was covered by a sheet up to the armpits. It was as if someone had taken a piece of rubber and carelessly cut it into her brother’s shape to brutalize it. The skin was greenish, the flesh seemed soft like custard. A broken bone jutted upwards like a spike through a deep gash in his arm. There were lesions all over his chest. Crushed and broken bones stuck out from what had been his face. Suzanna stepped forward, reeled, but managed to pull off the sheet. The legs were hacked off below the knees.

What are you doing?! shouted the man in the white coat, pulling the sheet back over the body.

What… what did you do to him?

It wasn’t us. Must have been the boats, the boats plying the Motlawa… the propeller blades… Death was by drowning. That much we’ve established.

He might have said more, but his voice trailed off. Suzanna made her way shakily to the door.

Where... where’s the... Following the direction given her by the worker, she bolted out of the morgue, pushed through the door of the filthy restroom, knelt down and vomited into the toilet bowl. She wretched and wept in deep heaving sobs, choking on the bile. Her whole body wanted to dissolve in the dirt of that place, to be swallowed up in the spasms. It lasted a while. At last she got up, dragged herself to the dirty washbasin, splashed cold water over her face and rinsed out her mouth. When she returned to the morgue, she was almost calm. They took her back upstairs. She had to sign something, explain something.

Jerome was waiting. He asked no questions. It was he, she said after a while, putting out the butt of another cigarette. They murdered him.

The official version was this: Tadeusz Sokol fell into the Motlawa river in a state of intoxication on January 9, 1986. Death was by drowning. The severely lacerated body was sighted and fished out on March 6th. Injuries were sustained through contact with the propellers of passing boats.

The drive back to Warsaw took almost eight hours. They barely talked. The air in the car was thick with cigarette smoke; now and then Jerome had to open the window. They stopped a few times for gas and watery coffee and exchanged meaningless remarks. It was only during their last stop at a dingy old shack of a building called The Warsaw Inn past Plonsk that Jerome, finishing off a glass of some insipid drink, asked, What are you going to do?

They sat looking at the night and the lights of the cars swishing along the highway.

I’m going to find everything out. I know who did it, but I need to find out the exact details. I’ll do what I can.

We’ll help you, said Jerome.

Chapter 2

Tadeusz was her little son. That was what she called him when he was just a few months old and she had to look after him. She was ten years old, had a responsibility, and so she felt quite grown-up. Her father’s health was worsening, and her mother had to spend more and more time caring for him while still run the house.

Zuzanna was pleased with her newly acquired duties. Looking after her brother was absorbing work and made her feel proud. She changed his diapers, bathed him, taught him to walk, tried to teach him his first words. She told him stories, which he seemed to understand, though all he did was babble. Or, he would fall asleep listening to them, in which case she was sure he took the stories into his dreams, populating them and taking part in them, for in dreams you could be anyone.

Even when she had to beg off play dates with her friends, when she arranged her lips in a sort of pout, the way adults do, and explained to them that she was looking after her little brother, the natural regret she felt at missing out on these moments of care-free play was more than made up for by the sense of superiority she felt over their childish games. They were merely playing at grown-up life, while here was she living it in reality. She suspected they even made fun of her, unwilling to admit they envied her for the serious tasks she was carrying out at her age. But she didn’t care what they thought.                    

In looking after her brother, she felt she was doing something very important. She was fighting for her family; and so, she forgot the sadness that was increasingly filling the house, forcing out the joy of the previous year. Well did Zuzanna remember that time. How could she forget the moment heralding