Swans Are Fat Too (11 page)

The prevalent attitude was tolerance. King Zygmunt the Elder declined to get involved in religious matters; 'permit me to rule over the goats as well as the sheep,' he said, and his son Zygmunt August was similarly broadminded. 'I am not the king of your consciences,' he told the parliament.

6

Konstanty, seated at a restaurant table, was regarding Agata with a serious look. She was very prettily dressed today; he couldn't have recounted the exact details, but he had a general impression of elegance. However, she wasn't listening to him, or she wasn't responding anyway. He said that he would like to see the Land of the Falling Lakes.

She said, giving a passing woman the once over, that she'd never heard of the Lake of a Thousand Fishes.

He said it was a wildlife reserve in Croatia that had been much disturbed by war.

She said she got tired of people talking about Iraq.

He said he'd read an interesting article on linguistics.

She said linguini always had too much garlic and what did he think of
The Da Vinci Code
?

Still, when he mentioned President Kaczyński and she said she didn't care for potatoes, he thought it was mildly encouraging.

Konstanty, reading his email that evening, was disconcerted. Left town? Without saying anything to him? Well, why shouldn't she have done, and what business was it of his?

He opened 'new mail' and typed:

Respected Madam
…Somehow writing emails always made a person more uninhibited. He wrote in a way he would not have spoken, a way he would not––quite––have written had he been holding a pen, seeing the words form on paper. The computer added an element of impersonality to the whole exchange. The fact that she was at a distance also freed him somewhat. He didn't think much about what he was writing; his thoughts just came out his fingertips.

Thank you for sending the next section. I've had a less than entertaining day. Lunch with a woman who made me feel the existential isolation of every individual and of myself in particular––if I weren't so imperviously conceited already, I'd have come away feeling I hadn't a thought worth sharing. We might have been two robots knocking with programmed fingers on each other's plated aluminum casing––and getting, of course, no answer. Dinner with a colleague whom I used to think tolerably intelligent. Perhaps my luncheon date had made me incautious. A propos of a discussion on town planning I told him––why?––that I wonder at the number and size of Warsaw's statues to soldiers.  I got carried away: I suggested that perhaps some negotiators––however futile their efforts––should be looked up out of history, even very minor ones––some little clerk, maybe, who heroically lifted his hand and said 'Wait. I think we should talk about this first,' or 'I doubt this is really worth it?'––and put upon a pedestal. His best response was to smile patronizingly at me and say 'don't tell me anyone could have behaved more gloriously than the heroes of the Warsaw Uprising.' The heroes of the Warsaw Uprising! 150,000 civilians died!

...I'm cataloguing all the obstacles ideas encounter:  there's the mental turn off, the attitude of mental superiority, the anger, the lack of imagination. The worst is that I find such mechanisms in myself as well. 

I'm very obliged to you––if you're still reading––for allowing me to unburden myself. I didn't know you were leaving. When will you be back? I hope you enjoy yourself.

He got a rapid reply. 

Respected Sir, I don't know when I'll be back. I'm sorry you had such a day. I agree with you about the statues. A few days ago I passed the one by the parliament buildings that says 'God, Honor, Fatherland,' and I thought––why not 'Peace, Charity, Brotherly Love'?––I'm sure God would like that better, at least the God of the New Testament.

No really, he thought, she goes too far.

It does seem that too many of the ideals we hold up for future generations are belligerent. How about statues to men of the medical profession instead? I don't mean to flatter you but surely they've done more for humanity than soldiers? When one considers that in medieval and early modern Europe two-thirds of all children died before their teens––I'd put up statues to Pasteur, Fleming, the smallpox man, the Japanese fellow who experimented with anaesthesia, etc. It would be a very international group, too, and that would be good.

Speaking of which, I've rewritten these sentences about poor Queen Bona––who was brought from Italy to Poland, then retired again to Italy, only to be poisoned at the Spanish king's bequest, by her…doctor.

Why couldn't Agata write to me like this? wondered Konstanty, as he mused over Hania's letter. Why is it that the first person with a kindred-seeming mind that I meet in a long time should be the size, the size of…––Tsk, unkind, unkind, he chided himself; why did you write to her if you intend to insult her, even in your imagination? But some part of his intellect wasn't listening, some part was already formulating a reply: '...
the research of the Nobel laureates North and Fogel indicate that it was better nutrition not medicine that caused the drop in mortality...shall we put up statues to cooks?
'

The next days passed pleasantly. Kalina and Maks had been instantly claimed by a gang of neighborhood children––girls in pink sandals and boys in football tees––with whom they spent the whole day. Kalina had made efforts to disassociate herself, considering herself too old, but had been quickly drawn in. Curiously to Hania, who was accustomed to the strict age and gender divisions of childhood friendships in America, the group was comprised of all ages and sexes, from five-year-old Kuba up through his thirteen-year-old sister Patricia. Hania had trouble distinguishing some of the middle members, but Patricia stood out as a live wire, a leader. Patricia was slim and long-legged and going to be beautiful. She was also untruthful, unreliable, and self-centered. So if life were like a chick-lit novel, thought Hania, watching the children out the window, Patricia would grow up to marry a rich, sensitive, humorous, perfect man and live happily ever after. On the other hand, her cousin Yola, pale and quiet and sweetly mothering all the younger children, was obviously destined for hard work and a husband who beat her.

In the meantime, the children were having fun. They never seemed to be at a loss for ideas, but if all else failed there was always the unending game of
berek
––tag––to be played. And when it rained one day, the game of
berek
was played through the rooms of the house, while Hania sat typing.

"Don't you mind them?" said Kalina, who had not joined in the chase, but was sitting on the sofa beside her. "Mama won't let them in the house. That is, she didn't, the time she came here."

Hania shook her head, "No, I don't mind. Children have to do something." She was pleased Kalina spoke to her; the girl had been doing so more and more often, usually only to voice some dissatisfaction, but still––it was a start.

"Anyway, it lets me work. I'm typing this nice bit about Zygmunt August and Barbara. Well, I don't know if 'nice' is the word for it. This romantic bit, I should say. Could I read it to you?" And, not waiting for an answer, she began:

"
The habits
of Zygmunt August, the last Jagiellonian king
,
were refined and ascetic. He dressed habitually in black, woke and slept early, was served by one personal servant. His disposition, wrote a papal nuncio, 'is very pleasant and engaging, his character far from stern, but he is constant and unshakeable in his decisions.' He remained unshakably attached to Barbara Radziwiłł, a beautiful young noblewoman whom he had married against convention and whom he refused to abandon when parliament demanded he get a divorce. When she died, only five months after her coronation in 1550, the heartbroken king walked or rode behind her funeral cortege for a month, from Cracow to Vilnius, where she had desired to be buried.
"

"Yes," said Kalina dubiously. "I know all that. There's that famous painting too, that's in all the history books. I forget by whom. Where Zygmunt is sitting by Barbara's bed at her last illness, looking so sad. I used to like that when I was younger."

'When you were younger,' thought Hania in amusement, but she didn't say anything and Kalina was continuing:

"Now I don't believe in all that stuff anymore."

"You mean you don't believe in romance?" Hania had a little difficulty keeping a straight face. Kalina's tone was so worldly-wise and weary sounding.

"No. I don't believe in it. Do you?"

Hania was taken aback. "Well...of course, not for me, maybe. But I like to think that love exists, yes." What else was there of any value in the world? Even music was only a consolation for people without, or an enrichment for those who had––but that was a sacrilegious thought, and she suppressed it. 

"Well it doesn't." Kalina's tone was very flat, and Hania was looking at her with concern, but she suddenly jumped up and ran after the other children. What was wrong with her? Hania wondered, feeling that there was something about Kalina she should understand but that, like a word on the tip of her tongue, just eluded her.

Konstanty had sent an email attachment with a miniature thought to be Barbara, showing a blonde young woman in an amber velvet doublet, large slashed sleeves, and a cap with a swirling plume. She had a delicate narrow face and a lively, almost impish expression. Hania looked at the picture for a moment.

Love didn't exist? For Barbara it had. Hania went to the window and stood looking out at the fields. The rain had almost ceased, only here and there an occasional drop still spread a ring on the green water of the frog pond. Beyond the grain the pines were dark and wet. Just so the countryside must have looked to Barbara when she stood in a doorway in Vilnius.

The damp had brought the snails out. Big and small they littered every bare surface, leaving sticky trails of slime. "Look
pani
," said Patricia with a giggle, pushing Maks into the room, "Look at Maks." Hania looked and shuddered. "Maks! Take that snail off your nose at once! Oh, yuck."

Respected Madam,…Some of your questions rather startle me. They're perfectly legitimate, but I never heard them asked before. You wonder if the country would have been worse off if conquered by the Turks? It's too large a question. Does anyone like foreign rule? But offhand, I suppose for the serfs not much would have changed, and the nobles––would have moved to Paris.

I'm glad you like Zygmunt August. He's rather a favorite of mine.

Respected Sir,…Any ruler of Poland has my sympathies. When I look around the neighborhood it seems incredible that a system based on consensus could have worked and even more incredible that Poland had reached a civilizational level allowing it to pass so mildly through a period where opinions differed so much on matters of such weight. No––I don't quite mean that as harshly as it sounds. I'm always very admiring when people can manage to be tolerant, to compromise.

7

It's a bad habit Poles have

Of slapping each other about the faces…

– Mikołaj Rej (1505-1569)

You built the heavens

And embroidered them with gold stars…

– Jan Kochanowski,

'Hymn,' c.1553

I could happily stay here for a long time, thought Hania, sitting on her bed one late evening. From here she could listen to the sound of the night outside her open window and see a pale moon rise over the pines. Here, when she got up in the morning and found an email from Konstanty, she could almost believe her imaginary romance was real. Not that she let her dreaming go very far. Some sense of self preservation stopped her from that––only she could imagine, a little, that he liked her, that he enjoyed their exchange of ideas, that some feeling of empathy reached out toward her. It was that feeling that was her romance––nothing more. She would set it to music as she sat there. So much music was night music. There were Berlioz's
Les Nuits d'été
, John Field's nocturnes, Chopin's––she ran through
Opus 9, no. 2
, the one in E flat major, in her mind, feeling her hands move on the keyboard; then Debussy's
Clair de Lune
; and afterwards the romanza from Mozart's
Eine Kleine Nachtmusic
. She lay down, and with her eyes closed, she began to play the
Moonlight Sonata
in her mind––dum da da, dum da da––and as she dropped off to sleep it was intersected by the croaking of frogs. Dum da da ker-oak.

When she woke in the morning it was to all the farmyard sounds: the crowing of roosters, the clanking of feed buckets, the ring of a wrench striking the pavement, the curses of
Pan
Gieniek as he tinkered endlessly with his tractor, the voices of the women as they moved off to work in the potato patch or to find a neighbor to gossip with. 

And yet, she became aware that the neighbors quarreled too, passionately at times and hopelessly, since circumstances forced them to continue meeting constantly, forced side-taking amongst their relatives and acquaintances, and spread angry ripples of long-lasting dissent through village politics. Patricia's parents, she learned, did not speak to Yola's, and had not done so for sixteen years. "You don't want to have anything to do with those Kruczaks,"
Pan
Wieboda had said, shaking his head righteously. "They'll take advantage of you––you're from Warsaw, you aren't on the look-out for their tricks. Those are very primitive people."

"But
Pani
Ola keeps the house beautifully––and the garden," Hania had tried to defend her neighbor.

"You wait," the man had said, "she's just biding her time. She's like a fox that one." Hania said nothing and also listened in silence when
Pani
Ola brought over the present of a head of lettuce and a warning against the Wiebodas.