The Amber Room (25 page)

They watched her gliding passage. “A magnificent young woman,” Alexander said. “And a worthy mate for you, my friend.”

“I only hope I can be the same for her.”

“You will, you will. Of that I have no doubt.” Alexander's manner became brisk. “I have reluctantly decided that you two must be separated tonight.”

“All right.” It was to be expected.

“You are both too valuable to keep together. I shall place Katya as hostess to a table of old Polish nobility. They will treat her like the queen she is.”

“She'll like that,” he said, missing her already.

“Your table will be a mixed lot. More males than females—there are several like that. Can't be helped, I'm afraid. But
there is one gentleman in particular whom I have placed beside you, a photographer.”

“He must be doing well to be able to afford tonight.”

“Oh, he's here as the guest of one of our wealthier patrons-to-be. His name is Viktor Bogdanski. I'll introduce you when he arrives.” Alexander patted Jeffrey's arm in parting and turned to greet new arrivals.

Jeffrey mingled as the room filled with wealth and power. Ignoring the uncomfortable sense that these people lived in a world where he did not belong, he greeted clients he had met in the shop, made polite noises as he drifted from circle to circle, kissed the air above innumerable age-scarred and bejeweled hands. Alexander was constantly pulling him before new faces, making sure that all present understood who he was.

Katya came over from time to time, to smile and share a few words before being pulled away once more. The Count had appointed himself responsible for ensuring that everyone met her. Yet no matter where Jeffrey was or with whom he spoke, he remained acutely aware of her presence. The brief glances they shared across the elegantly crowded room sparkled with an intimacy they knew was on display for all to see, and yet which they could not help but share.

Eventually Alexander led him to a small, neat man with a sharply trimmed beard who stood quietly in a corner, nodding and smiling slightly when attention turned his way. Jeffrey's first impression was of a man utterly content with his own solitude.

“Jeffrey, I would like to you to meet Viktor Bogdanski. Viktor, this is the friend I have spoken with you about.”

Viktor offered his hand. “Alexander seldom speaks as highly of anyone as he has of you.”

“I seldom have reason to,” Alexander replied. “Now, I shall leave you two to discover why I wanted you to meet.”

Jeffrey watched the old gentleman glide back into the beautifully dressed crowd. “This is the most comfortable spot I've found all night.”

“I share your sentiment wholeheartedly.”

“So why are you here?”

“Ah.” The man sipped at his drink. “I happen to believe in what is behind this charade. Events like this are a necessary nuisance. They are as close to real need as many of these beautiful people would ever care to come.”

Jeffrey spoke of a concern he had carried since the project's onset. “Do you think perhaps the money should be going to something more, well—”

“Urgent?” The man shrugged. “I try not to judge the actions of others. I am also an artist of sorts, and I consider that there is more to the rebuilding of a nation than just filling bellies and healing physical wounds. Preserving a sense of national heritage is a most worthy endeavor.” He smiled around his beard. “That is, I would think so if I were to judge such goings-on. Which I won't.”

Jeffrey motioned at the sparkling throng. “The trickle-down theory at work.”

“Exactly.” Viktor examined him frankly. “Alexander tells me that you are new to the faithful fold.”

“Newly returned,” Jeffrey admitted. “Or trying to find my way back.”

Viktor nodded approval. “It is good to know which way to turn when the wind blows.”

“I am not all that sure I've got it clearly worked out,” Jeffrey admitted.

“Toward the unseen sun,” the photographer said emphatically. “You must remember where it was when you last saw it, and reach for it in hopes of its reappearing soon.”

Jeffrey thought over the man's words as Alexander called the gathering to silence, welcomed them, repeated the night's mission, and invited them to find their assigned seats according to both the seating chart beside the doors and the place cards by each seat.

As they moved slowly toward and through the double doors, Katya came up and slipped her hand into his arm.
“Would the handsomest gentleman in the room be so kind as to escort me to my table?”

He looked down at her and said quietly, “I'm so proud of you.”

Her violet-gray eyes shone at him. “I wish I could kiss you.”

“Alexander told me to cool down the way we were looking at each other,” he told her. “He said there were some hearts in this room too old for such vicarious passion.”

“The Count put it differently,” she replied as they entered the grand ballroom. “He said the sparks we were generating might set some of these varnished hairdos alight.”

They arrived at her table. Jeffrey made the obligatory circle, exchanged stiff-backed bows with aged Polish aristocracy, kissed the hands of dowagers, held the back of Katya's seat, accepted a smile that touched him at levels he had not known existed, then walked to his own table.

The first courses were set in place. The glasses were hand-cut leaded crystal, the plates rimmed with gold leaf, the waiters swift and silently efficient. Jeffrey returned toasts and exchanged polite conversation with the others, wishing he felt more comfortable with such social chatter.

Viktor eventually pried himself free from the matron to his left, turned to Jeffrey, said, “I detect a yearning for a fare of greater substance.”

“You're right there.”

“Very well, I agree.” He gave a sort of seated bow. “You begin with a question, and let us see where it takes us.”

Jeffrey thought of Gregor and asked, “How did you come to faith?”

That brought a chuckle. “You do not act in half measures. I like that.”

“If you'd rather—”

Viktor waved it aside. “Not at all. It is a most worthy question. What matters the surroundings to such as that?” He thought a moment. “I shall have to take us back to some rather dark days in my nation's heritage in order to answer
you, however. It all took place during the early days of martial law in Poland.”

Jeffrey nodded. “That's fine, but only if you want to.”

Viktor's dark eyes turned inward. “I suppose there are many bad things to be during a state of siege, but among the worst is a photographer for the losing side. What my eyes saw, my camera captured. Thus was the moment preserved on my film and in my mind and heart for all my days. The bitterest truth and the harshest image.

“My life was my pictures, and my pictures sought to give life and reality to what otherwise could not be imagined. I sought to show the outside world the chains my country was seeking to cast off, the price my people had been forced to pay in carrying their weight for so very long.

“The date was December 11, 1981. I can't say that it was a typical evening. There was more excitement than usual, a tension throughout Poland that you could almost touch. I had captured some great material over the past several days. Massive demonstrations of workers. Students clambering on the shoulders of their fellows to look over the militia's riot gear and talk to them, shout at them, plead with them to wake up and remember who they were. A series of footprints in fresh snow forming the word
zwyciezymy
, which means ‘We shall overcome.' Sympathy strikes by trainees in the fire department, who of course were seen as a great threat by the authorities, since firemen were officially part of the power structure.

“The clever activists among us, the ones who treated politics as a chess game, were speculating that a state of emergency would be declared. I would listen to such talk, but I seldom took part. My task, my life in those days, was simply to be the eyes for those who sought to see but because of distance or barriers could not. And yet I did listen, and much of what I heard made sense. The situation economically and politically was getting out of hand. There was no food on the shelves; everything had been diverted by the central
authorities in an attempt to cow the people, force them by fear and by hunger into submission. The queues were unbearable, even for bread.”

The room swirled about them in wafts of rich food and expensive perfume. Jewels glinted and flickered in the chandeliers' glow. Rich fabrics and starched shirtfronts and polished cuff links caught light and sent it spinning with each gesture and every word. As Jeffrey sat listening to Viktor's words, he felt a new dimension growing from the night. There was the world that he saw, and the world of Viktor's memories, and both held portents he could scarcely comprehend.

“We expected the decree might come in mid-December, when the Sejm, our Parliament, was to meet,” Viktor continued. “Under the Polish constitution, only the Sejm has the power to decree a state of emergency. That evening, I was working on my photographs at the Solidarity press office in Warsaw, preparing a portfolio that friends would attempt to smuggle out of the country. It was a very good collection of images. As I was sorting them, our halls were suddenly filled with the militia's navy-blue uniforms. They said they had warrants for our arrest. We were accused of anti-government activities.

“Funny what you think at a moment like that. I was only worried about my camera. I looked over my shoulder as they led me from the room in handcuffs. They were going through my files of stills and slides and negatives. One of them picked up my camera, opened the back and stripped out the film, then with a casual motion swung it against the wall and smashed it. I felt as though I had lost a limb, and part of my life spilled to the ground with the little pieces of glass and metal.”

Jeffrey felt a chasm growing between him and the room's glittering display as the man continued with his soft-spoken story. “Midnight Saturday they declared martial law. Sunday morning there were no phones, no radio, no papers—no one knew what had happened. All of this I learned later, from friends who had either gone underground and escaped the
first sweep or were not listed by the police and remained free. My own story was quite different. But before I tell you what happened to me, first I shall speak of what my nation experienced.

“Later that day, Jaruzelski appeared in uniform on television. Jaruzelski at that time was Secretary of the Polish Communist Party and head of the armed forces—the first time one person had ever held those two posts. He announced that martial law had been declared. But it is important to note that the words in Polish for martial law are the same as for a state of war or a state of siege. You can imagine the reactions. Some said it was just the next stage of the argument between Solidarity and the government. Others lived that time in the terror of believing the Soviets had invaded.”

Jeffrey glanced up and was astonished to find the entire table watching and listening. He inspected the circle of faces and sensed an unwavering quality to their attentiveness, a solemn sharing of what the photographer was saying. They listened with an intensity born of shared concern, a somber gathering who knew already of what the man spoke and yet listened with the patience of ones willing to allow the moment to live yet again. Jeffrey searched their faces, found a common bond and a collective strength rising from their love of the Polish nation.

“Monday came to those not arrested,” the photographer went on. “For those of us in prison, the names of passing days meant little. People who were free went back to work and found that everything was much the same, yet altogether different. Everybody worked under much tighter control. Only one telephone line functioned in each factory, no matter how large the company. A stooge for the regime was placed in charge of the outgoing line. Every other hour, someone at Party headquarters would call to ensure that all was quiet.

“There was a curfew from ten in the evening to six the next morning. You were forbidden to leave town. You were forbidden to buy petrol. Train services were cut back, and
a special Party permit was required to buy a ticket. Tanks were stationed on many street corners. Soldiers were everywhere. The military scrambled the army units. The central authorities did not want sons standing across the barricades from their sisters and mothers. So units were sent to distant cities—Cracow to Gdansk, Gdansk to Warsaw, Warsaw to Wroclaw, and so on.

“It was a very cold December, and on every street the soldiers kept bonfires burning in order to stay warm. Our cities remained shrouded by smoke from these fires throughout the cold winter weeks.

“Our cities lived a very oppressive life. People had no way of knowing what was happening. The papers said only what the government told them to say, which was the lie of convenience. Everyone on television wore uniforms. You could see how nervous the announcers were, how
terrified
. The authorities forced these reporters to dress up in military uniforms and read the Party line.

“The despondency was made very bitter because it arrived on the crest of hopes that Solidarity had ignited. Over all this loomed the constant fear that our friends to the east would arrive—that is how Soviet propaganda always described itself, Poland's friend to the east.

“That first Monday, everyone went into the stores and bought out everything they could find—all the flour, all the sugar, all the cans and boxes of preserved food. After that, no further shipments of food arrived. The shelves remained empty. Grocery stores remained open because they were told to do so, and yet they had nothing to sell except perhaps a few bottles of vinegar. Sales clerks just stood behind the counters. Then in the spring, when the first vegetables arrived, even the vinegar disappeared. People used it to pickle vegetables at home.