Journey
Warsaw, 1957
I would like to find out how the human spirit can survive in totalitarianism. “I am the richest man in Poland. I am the father of ten children, none of whom died during the war” (Remigiusz Grocholski). These sentences, when translated into French, should win some award. [p. 102]
(…) Colonel Grocholski invited me to his apartment, full of old furniture from a much larger house. He was a tall man, with an aristocratic appearance, nearing seventy, clearly accustomed to receiving guests in lavish interiors. The lady of the house, staying in the background – the burden of maintaining this elegance lay on her shoulders – served us tiny cups of coffee. Who am I? – a teacher, a writer, I visited Poland before the war, I was a soldier on the eastern front. The Colonel had some free time that day. He could show me the city.
Proust – bourgeois by origin – was intimidated when meeting aristocrats whose names belonged to the history of France. The history of Colonel Grocholski was the history of Poland. From this balcony, his grandfather’s brother threw a bomb at the Russian governor at the beginning of the January Uprising. There was a shrine on the street in memory of my interlocutor’s acquaintance – Lieutenant Zbigniew Szczepański (we encountered such shrines almost every intersection: a few candles, a bunch of dried red carnations, a cardboard with a name, the date 1944, age 23, and some words about the Nazi invaders). Further in this direction, behind the broken remnants of ruined houses, in one of the cellars of the Old Town, Mrs. Grocholska ran a dressing point, assisted by an Ethiopian from Athens. A cousin swam across the Vistula at night with a plan of German positions, but the Soviets did nothing, and the swimmer disappeared. Yes, he had an estate in Podolia beyond the eastern border, and when the war broke out, he went to his regiment. He commanded a battalion of partisans east of Lviv – in Polish Ukraine – but at the outbreak of the Uprising, he was in Warsaw. His unit was the last to surrender.
Would I like to visit the Institute for the Blind in Laski, west of Warsaw, the next day? The Colonel introduced me to the bus driver: although an American, he was intelligent and kind, he was a soldier. Then he showed his ID to a young man sitting in a war invalid’s seat, who respectfully gave up his place. As we walked through the birch forest – Laski – the Colonel quoted Mickiewicz’s words about Poland – the Christ of nations – which, as a reward for its sufferings, could ask God for the redemption of the Russians. Partisans fought in this forest during that terrible summer of 1944, and the Colonel sent his daughter Anna – who would suspect an eleven-year-old of smuggling documents under her clothes? – as a liaison. The girl was wounded but survived (…) [pp. 103, 104]
(…) Nevertheless, that spring all tickets for Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” were sold out. This play – pretentious, empty, boring – never spoke to me, but for the Polish audience, it was poignant. Beckett’s vision of life – two lost tramps on the wasteland of the stage, waiting for someone who will never come – was a quite honest picture of a world the viewers knew, so they watched this performance with tears in their eyes.
Colonel Grocholski, just as he would once invite me for a week or a month to his estate in Podolia, now insisted that I visit him whenever I could. In the furniture-filled apartment located on the University grounds (where it was easy to get lost) on Krakowskie Przedmieście, there was always enough space for a mattress for one of the ten children (I got to know them one by one: an Olympic skiing champion, a heartthrob – a conqueror of women’s hearts, a boy with a currency crime sentence, an art historian, etc., etc.), for a cousin, for friends of friends.
After too long a distance with the French in Paris, I was moved to hear the complaint-free, open responses of Count Remigiusz – the first aristocrat I met in my life, ignoring the new rules of 1917, or perhaps even 1789. He had been in many prisons, but he was free. He had no money, but something always turned up – his suit came from a relative in Belgium. Rents in Poland were low. Communists were corrupt simpletons, but he was not afraid of them. He missed his horses the most. In every room, he had drawings of them (some of his own), photographs, and paintings.
I guessed from the poster that The Barber of Seville is Barber of Seville, so I invited the Colonel, his wife, and former liaison Anna – a beautiful art student I immediately fell in love with – to the theater. The performance was brilliant (two-story decorations allowed for quick action changes), and the older gentleman was delighted that I filled my head with Rossini, not propaganda nonsense (…) [pp. 105, 106]
Warsaw, 1960
(…) We paid a social visit to the Grocholskis – Mary particularly noted how much the Colonel’s aristocratic habits depended on the practical skills of the lady of the house, whose worn hands and pleasant, tired smile she remembered.
I introduced my wife to Anna, who had just returned from a year in Paris. (…) However, I was deeply moved by Anna’s hunger for knowledge and her desire to escape confinement, so I opened an account in her name, into which I deposited those illegal francs. Before she could use it, the francs were devalued several times, but it was still a significant sum by Polish standards.
Passports were not issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where too many uncertain liberals had taken refuge, but by the Ministry of the Interior, that is, the police. Naturally, the only reason an American might finance such a trip for a young woman is to prostitute her or recruit her for the CIA.
As a result, Anna was reluctantly given a passport after a year of police interrogations (since for long, weekly conversations with a woman like Anna, you even get paid…)
The money was well invested. A year in Paris after a lifetime in Warsaw is a joy one must imagine: one accompanies this young woman in thought on her pilgrimage along the Seine towards Notre Dame under the vast sky brought by the river, when she views Monet’s water lilies in the Orangerie, or simply sits in a cafe with a new acquaintance, absorbing all the charms and pleasures offered by Paris – every detail seen with fresh eyes, without routine. To escape History. “Of my four great-grandparents – I heard from her many years later – three died in Siberia, one ailing after being released from Dachau.” As one friend noted, one reason for Anna’s spinsterhood was that too many boys among whom she might find a husband were murdered in the Uprising. Paris escaped history – surrendered without a shot in 1940, and when the Germans fled in 1944, it was left to propose its revolutionary slogans to the world: Security, Freedom, Comfort. Nothing more.
Upon returning to Poland, every traveler had to report for further interrogations, this time with two officers. The already known investigator asked questions about facts: “Which Poles did you meet? What did you talk about? What books did you read? Please write down your monthly expenses. Where did these 10,000 francs come from?” The second, however, did not take his eyes off her: “Why did you blink? What does that smile mean?” (…) [pp. 113, 114]
In search of topics to talk about with this charming young woman (Anna Grocholska – HKG), the first policeman told her about his family, about his son’s very, very numerous interests. So when Anna returned from Paris, she brought the boy a toy – a fire truck. The policeman was stunned. Many people bribed him, but no one ever gave him a gift. Anna inherited her father’s stoic attitude towards the police. “They know what I think of them. I break no law. If they want to arrest me, that’s their business.” Jacek Woźniakowski’s wife, Maja, bitterly regretted the thousands of hours spent in queues in Krakow, hours she took from her children, while for Anna, these were peaceful moments when she could read or pray. She felt inner peace, was not afraid – I felt it – and found interesting work, painting while lying on her back – like Michelangelo – high on scaffolding, ceilings of churches under renovation, or sculpting on the Old Town three doves on a portal – a detail delightful to the eye.
The Colonel asked us to take him and his wife to their former estate outside Warsaw. He wanted to show us the houses he had given to his workers before the war. “If only more people from our sphere did the same! No woman will choose communism if she has a home and a garden. [pp. 115, 116]
Warsaw, 1968
When I reached the university gate, on whose grounds the Grocholski apartment was located (the Colonel had been dead for several years), a guard in a steel helmet, with an automatic weapon slung over his shoulder, demanded my passport.
I learned the details at home from Anna (already a professional art historian), her relatives, and friends. [p. 120]
Warsaw, 1989
In November, it is already dark at three o’clock when I arrive at the Grocholski apartment on Krakowskie Przedmieście at number 30; in the kitchen, as usual, relatives and friends are bustling, the patient hostess is Jacek’s younger daughter (Woźniakowski – HKG), Anna, whom I met a quarter of a century ago as a little girl, with noisy sons and a taciturn husband, the youngest son of Colonel Grocholski and the director of the Institute for the Blind in Laski. Americans keep their distance, preferring not to give or receive too much, but here I must play the role of the Good Mr. Charles – actively participating in welcoming ceremonies, gratefully accepting heavy, much too expensive albums. They show me old family films, naturally, mostly dedicated to the Colonel and summer days at the estate in Podolia. Aunts in hats, men in cavalry uniforms; a world where horses were more Beautiful than the women standing in the shade in long, white dresses; for me – a moralizing historian – a world of castes, religion, and death. [pp. 142, 143]
Warsaw, 1990
(…) In my budget, there is money for one night in Warsaw before flying to Oxford and home – one visit on Krakowskie Przedmieście at number 30. Henryk and Stefan are already bigger and more civilized: for Mr. Charles, one draws a bow across his cello, the other plays the piano (…) [p. 145]
Warsaw, 1993
(…) I spend the day in Warsaw with Anna, the younger daughter of Jacek Woźniakowski and the wife of the youngest son of Colonel Grocholski (…) We visit her sons’ state school (PPSM No. 1 named after Emil Młynarski in Warsaw – HKG) which she speaks of with respect. For an American, meeting a nun – Anna’s acquaintance, who teaches the boys religion – is something special (…) We go to pick up Anna’s sons after choir practice at the parish church (in reality, this refers to the Archcathedral of St. John in the Old Town and the “Cantores Minores” choir). Henryk is passionate about history, Stefan about sports – he will become a wealthy athlete to support his parents in old age.
The boys have lived (and still live HKG) all their lives in this one apartment, which belonged to their grandparents and which seems like an oasis of order, full of serenity and dignity, where – as I observed – no tensions arise beyond the matter of paying the bills this month. There has been no war for 45 years. None of them have been arrested. Piotr’s first wife died in childbirth. The daughter from that marriage almost died in a car accident. Such is life – but History has not cast a shadow on the boys. [pp. 366, 367]
Based on:
“Journey”
Charles Merrill
ZNAK Publishing House Krakow 1996