Swans Are Fat Too (20 page)

They were in traffic again. "It's not really that bad. What makes any problem seem worse is the sense of helplessness. Mostly we can do something for our patients. Not always, of course––and then it's good to have some other interest, some distraction. Most doctors have some outside passion that occupies them; for the women doctors it's usually their children. The male doctors go skiing or mountain hiking…I like history... But I'm sorry to hear you have problems that need to be reduced to size by the contemplation of worse ones."

The sympathy and the unstated question were almost too much. Almost she told him everything. Instead, she just smiled and said offhandedly, "No, nothing so terrible––just small worries about the children."

"I suppose their parents will be back soon."

Why did this fact no longer seem desirable?

They were approaching the cemetery, parking, passing by flower stalls. Polish people were always buying flowers for graves. Hania stopped. She couldn't afford one of those big formal bouquets––not to mention that she thought they were hideous––and perhaps one of the small pots would seem too skimpy. She could imagine her grandmother thinking "is that all?" in the one case, and "hmpf, what a waste of money," in the other. Konstanty was waiting patiently.

"I don't know," she said, "None of these seem right somehow."

They walked through the gates into the alleys of graves, quiet below the tall arborvitae and linden trees. Even the sound of the nearby traffic seemed muffled. Here were the birch crosses to the young, the piteously young, men and women who died fighting in the Home Army. "Age 17." Hania read on one of the markers, "I don't suppose he even understood what it was all about."

"The origins and reasons? No. Most soldiers don't. Or if they do, only their small, immediate part of it. They are cogs in wheels beyond their imaginings, no matter how well instructed or aware they may be...And not only soldiers. Take the First World War. Perhaps 37 million casualties, and the causes––I don't mean the train of events––are so unclear that historians can't agree on them; only that there was a great deal of nationalist feeling about."

They walked on. He said, "There used to be the graves here of some of the German soldiers who fell; some thousands of them in mass graves. But they were moved a hundred kilometers or so outside of Warsaw. I don't know why."

And here they were passing the tombs of the survivors of the 1863 Uprising. The graves were planted with hostas with tall pale-blue flowers; there was moss and cobblestones. What a lot of old rebels lived to be one hundred, thought Hania. Was that like musicians? They tended to be very long-lived too; it was good to have an interest in life. Were they kept alive by a passion of contrariness?

A short walk further and they reached the grave they were seeking. And now that they were here there seemed nothing to say or do. Hania stood contemplating the slab of marble. "Natalia Lanska, Pianist," it said, and her dates. I'd prefer to have "beloved wife and mother" on mine, thought Hania suddenly, not "pianist." Still, she was sure "pianist" was exactly what her grandmother would have wished. No doubt she had even directed it to be engraved thus.

She turned away, and Konstanty fell into step beside her. "I used to hear your grandmother playing," he said, "when I first came back to Poland from England. I would come back from the hospital––I was doing very long shifts in those days, conditions were worse than they are now––sometimes I would come in weary and discouraged, and I would hear your grandmother playing. I'm not musical, you know. I can't tell one Chopin piece from the other, but I always found it solacing and––uplifting, in a way. When she fell ill and stopped playing, I missed it. I've never found that recorded music has the same effect at all, even though it's supposedly more perfect––or so I've read."

"Yes. Live music is like a conversation with another person, recorded music is like words in a book. It's not the same thing."

"When will I have the privilege of hearing you play?"

"Oh, I don't play anymore," she answered dully and he gave her a look and obligingly changed the subject. 

"Over there," he said, pointing an arm, "is a Muslim cemetery, and in that direction, the old Jewish cemetery." 

"What will you do about the Second World War?" asked Hania, as if by an association of ideas. "I notice you've left it off in the material you gave me. Are you still working on it?"

"Yes. I'm thinking about it. Its closeness makes it difficult. My parent's generation lived through it––or didn't live through it in a lot of cases––and the numbers are so vast. The extermination of the Jews. I don't know if you realize we passed through the former Jewish ghetto on our way here? It's all Stalinist-and-later-era apartment buildings now." He gestured with an arm, "And then the non-Jewish population––2 million or more across Poland. During the Warsaw Uprising, over 150,000 civilians died in two months...In Poland––as in America and England, I think––we concentrate on our own losses; we forget the other civilians who died: Germany's more than two million victims, Russia's 13 to 17 million, China's 11 to 16 million. Over 60 million people across the world, and over half of them noncombatants––women, children, the elderly.…We don't remember much about the bombing of German cities, or about Hiroshima, or the millions who starved in Bengal under British rule, or that our ally Stalin was a monster. It wasn't the liberating, saving, or patriotic event of later myth-making."

"You don't want, certainly, to exonerate the Nazis of their crimes. But the other participants shouldn't be exalted either. To paraphrase Churchill, you think that 'Never have so many owed their deaths to so few?'"

He was a little shocked at her irreverence, but smiled. "Something like that. Only, no, it's really that we're all responsible."

They walked in silence for a while, and then he continued. "To me the only heroes were––not the politicians or the fighters––but the ordinary people who risked their lives to save others––and there were many who did so. For instance, there was a young Pole named Matysiak I read about recently. He not only went into the Ghetto to bring out the Jewish girl he loved and her family––he then went back to rescue her dog. A couple I know kept a Jewish woman, a complete stranger, hidden in their apartment for two years––to the risk of their own children. I don't know that it's a decision I would have made. Of course, there were lots of denouncers too––that's the other side of the coin––but when one thinks that for every Jewish person saved ordinarily not one, but very many people, had to be involved, then one can see that Warsaw still holds numerous individuals––elderly people now––who showed the best side of their humanity."

"Yes." They were strolling slowly, very slowly, back towards the car. Hania broke another long silence. "Speaking of difficult subjects, do you think Churchill
did
help Stalin assassinate General Sikorski? Or is that just one of those conspiracy theories––Poles have a tendency towards those, I know."

"No. I don't know if it was Churchill. Or if it was an assassination. But I think the fact that the British have sealed the records for an additional fifty years is suspect."

"Fifty years. I wonder if I'll live long enough to know the truth?"

Not unless you lose weight, he thought, and then was angry with himself for the thought. It seemed so cruel, so harsh to have jumped to his mind like that. And she was really such a nice young woman. "Of course," he answered. "It won't make the news in America, but I'll send you a postcard, and we can dodder over to our old history books and scribble little amendments in the margins."

Konstanty dropped her off at their building. He had errands to do, he said. Hania, after a visit to a hospital and a graveyard and a discussion of war casualties, should have been depressed. Hania floated across the sidewalk and up to the door as if she were a part of the sunshine.

Aneta, the neighbor, was there, just going in. She watched Hania descend from the car and approach the entrance.

"So he gave you a ride?" She was watching the car drive away.

"Yes."

"He's nice, isn't he?"

"Yes." They went into the building and began to climb the stairs.

"Of course, I suppose he feels a lot of gratitude to your family."

Hania didn't really want to discuss her family or Konstanty with Aneta, but she couldn't help asking, "What do you mean?"

"It was because of your grandmother that they––the Radzimoyskis––got to keep that apartment. Everybody knows that. She had pull with the authorities. Didn't you know? Didn't you ever wonder how come only you––your family––and the Radzimoyskis have a full pre-war apartment, and for the rest of us they were divided? It was your grandmother. Who knows where the Radzimoyskis would have ended up otherwise, because in those days…well, you've heard how it was. You're lucky."

Hania could hear the note of envy, that bane of Poland, creeping into Aneta's voice. Even Aneta, she thought, whom she'd always thought pleasant, if simple:
et tu
Aneta. Suddenly she felt quite flat. So perhaps his attention wasn't liking for her, but repayment, in sort, of a family debt to her grandmother? Well, of course, that made more sense. She said good-bye to Aneta and began to climb the next flight with such a weight on her heart that she suddenly realized––it's not a crush. Her legs didn't seem to want to move. She leaned against the banister. She was trembling and she felt sick. It's not a crush, she thought, I am in love with him, and I have every reason to be in love with him. He's a kind, caring, interesting man whose character has been known to me for a long time and whose family background vouches for his adherence to high standards. I'm in love with him. It's not just some crush that I'll forget about when I go back to New York and my usual activities.

But I'll have to.

She let go of the banister, straightened herself, and went on up the stairs. 

She opened the door of the apartment to chaos.

"Hania! Come! Come quick!" shrieked Kalina.

Maks appeared, dancing about, waving his arms. "Bartek's having puppies! Bartek's having puppies!"

"Haannia!" called Kalina urgently. 

Hania hurried down the hall and into Maks room. Bartek had chosen Maks' bed for her birthing nest. In the midst of heaped sheets and blankets, the dog was panting and straining. One small puppy––was it a puppy?––lay in a crumpled ball, another appeared to be emerging from the birthing canal. There was blood everywhere and green liquid. Hania felt her stomach heave.

"Aaaaa!" shrieked Maks, "Blood! Blood!"

"Is she all right?" asked Kalina, "Hania, do something!"

"Blood! Blood!" Maks shouted, hopping about.

"Maks! Be quiet!" commanded Hania, going to the bed.
Boże
,
Boże
, she knew nothing about dogs. "Imagine it's ketchup."

"I'm going to faint!" whimpered Maks.

Must be from Ania's family, thought Hania, her mind ricocheting. Surely the puppies were coming much too fast for normal? "Maks, you can't faint! Go find a hairdryer! Go!"

"
Do
something, Hania," said Kalina, "this one––I think it isn't breathing."

"Get that bulby thing we bought, Kalina, quick!" Kalina was gone and back in a flash, handing her the instrument.

Hania knelt beside the puppy. Indeed, it still had the sack over its face and appeared quite still. With a feeling of deep revulsion she wiped the sack away and began to suck the liquid from the puppy's throat with the bulb syringe. It didn't seem to be responding. She continued to aspirate and rub it. Maks had come with the hairdryer. Maybe it was breathing now? She wasn't sure. She handed the puppy to Kalina with instructions for her to warm it. There was the other puppy to see to. And another puppy was coming,
Boże
.  She'd read what to do on the internet––had tried to prepare––but she'd never expected it would be so––so real. "Paper towels, Maks! Run!" He ran.

And now, oh horrors, there were the umbilical cords to be seen to. Tie them with dental floss and cut them with a dull scissors. That's what the material said. Three puppies––if the one Kalina was warming lived.

"It's moving," she said, "look! It's moving!"

Okay, so that was that. An hour later there were four puppies, two brown, one black, and one spotted, nestled beside their mother, nursing. Hania, Kalina, and Maks stood in a row, watching them.

Hania drew a deep breath. In a minute she could start cleaning. Maks would have to sleep elsewhere.

Someone was knocking at the door. Who could it be? More bill collectors? She didn't think she could deal with them now. Her hands were still bloody. Maks had already gone to see. She could hear him exclaiming excitedly to someone: "Bartek-had-puppies-Hania-saved-one-with-a-squeezy-thing-she-made-it-breathe-there're-four-of-them-there-was-lots-of-blood-it-was-horrible!"

Hania stepped into the other room. There was Konstanty, holding out her handbag: "You left this in the car."

"Oh. Thank you. I'm so sorry to have inconvenienced you. I can't…" she gestured helplessly with her stained hands.

He laid the handbag aside. "I gather you've saved the day again. Congratulations."

"Yes," she said rather wanly, "I'm the fix-it lady, the repairwoman."

"I'm sure you are," he smiled at her, and was starting to say something when Maks interrupted him.

"Come see the puppies! Come see!" he called, gesturing and hopping excitedly toward the bedroom.

Konstanty glanced at Hania. 

No! thought Hania with an inward cringe. The bedroom's a total mess. It was a total mess at the best of times and now…She really didn't want him to go in there, but Maks was still beckoning, and there was nothing for it but to invite him with a gesture to follow.

Kalina had disappeared. The room was empty except for Bartek and her offspring. The puppies had squirmed into a heap beside their mother, who growled softly as Konstanty approached, but made no objection when Maks bent down and carefully scooped up a puppy. He placed it in Konstanty's hands. Konstanty held it up to eye level and examined it.