Vera (14 page)

Actually, things have been getting a bit easier in Poland ever since Stalin's death. Just a little. Not so many Russian ‘advisors' running every damned thing, but enough. We have a Russian, Konstantin Rokossovsky, as our defence minister, and the security agency, UB (Urząd Bezpie-czeństwa), is an anthill of KGB stooges. Jan has been finding it, in his profession, a little easier to say things critical of the government. But he is wary. And not only of Gomułka's pact with the Bear; he has noticed a resurgence of Polish anti-Semitism, which is never far below the surface.

Jan says, ‘Two of the Russian minders are Jewish. The Poles hate them. They think, “Ha! The Jews are trying to destroy the glorious, romantic Polish spirit.” Now the Poles want a new Auschwitz.'

When Jan says this, I believe him. He doesn't use hyperbole. He has a set of eyes that can look at a placid gathering of a thousand and in one minute, pick the change of mood that is coming: the men whispering a message that is telegraphed through the crowd; the man who nods when a brick is to be thrown, when a pistol is to be produced from a pocket.

The two Russian-Jewish big shots do not honour Shabbat; they never go to shule; they never wear
tallit
; they wouldn't know
tzitzit
from the tassels on grandma's cardigan. But the Poles have identified them as Jews, and as soon as that word,
Żydowski
, is spoken, it runs like an infection from one to another. Anti-Semitism is a virus that always tends toward epidemic. It rages in the blood of the ignorant and the educated alike. People who have spent years over learned books find themselves surrendering to a fever that has them muttering tales of international conspiracies. Stories appear in newspapers: a Jew murdered in Wrocław, another in Poznań.

I won't stay here.

I am drinking in the nightclub with Jan. I am enduring a fever of my own.

Friends come and commiserate. ‘Vera, Werunia, we will hide you, we will defend you – you and Marek and Jan – they will never find you, they will never put a gun to your head, a knife to your throat.'

No, no, no: a thousand times no. What, did I live longer than the Nazis only to go into hiding again? Am I to contemplate the idea of Marek living his life in secret compartments?

I won't stay here.

I sip from my wine glass, and put it back down on the wooden surface of the table. ‘I won't stay here. We must leave. We will go to Israel.'

‘To Israel?' says Jan. ‘To do what?'

‘How should I know? To grow oranges. We are going to Israel.'

Jan has certain views about Israel. He thinks that the Zionists constitute a cartel of totalitarian bastards. ‘You want me to go to Israel? You want me to exchange one totalitarian regime for another?'

I say, ‘You are being melodramatic.'

‘Am I? I'm not going to Israel.'

‘Then where? Did you see how many of us stayed here in Poland, in Germany, everywhere – stayed here when Hitler was smashing the faces of Jews into glass windows? His whole career, his fame was built on spitting venom at us. Do you know what people said, what the Jews said about Hitler? “How long will he last? One year, two years.” Some lessons you can never forget. That Hitler shit came all the way to Lvov. Sometimes I slept two hours in a week. I couldn't breathe.

‘We go. If not to Israel, to the North Pole, the South Pole. Far away.'

Jan's mother has gone to Australia. She told the passport people, ‘The Olympic Games. In the city of Melbourne. I want to see the Poles running. Also, the javelin, the discus. Our Polish heroes. Jumping. Riding horses. Janusz Sidło. Elżbieta Krzesińska. All our Polish heroes. Give me a visa.'

And they did. But she didn't come back.

For me and Jan and Marek, why not Australia? Who has even heard of it? Kangaroos, that's all we know. If not to Israel, better we go to Australia. Already Jews are there, a few. How?

Before Jan's mother went to the Olympic Games, I had never heard anyone mention Australia. I look it up in the encyclopedia at the library. The encyclopedia is censored, of course it is, but nobody has bothered to censor Australia. Also, the encyclopedia is very Marxist. Australia has a man who dresses himself in plates of steel and attacks the forces of capitalist brutalism. There is a drawing. He looks insane. But there is also a picture of this man without his steel hat. Very handsome. Beautiful eyes. The encyclopedia says the Australians speak English. The whole country used to belong to England. The English sent all their crooks to Australia. What the hell? Now they have all the same things as England. Cars, roads, factories, sheep, more oranges than Israel.

I think,
Let's go.

And we can go; it's no problem. Gomułka has proclaimed to the Jews of Poland: ‘Our great socialist motherland doesn't suit you? Fine. Go somewhere else. You will find nowhere else the poetry and romance of the indomitable Polish people, Chopin, for instance, the Warsaw Concerto, where else will you find the Warsaw Concerto? Fine, you want to live without this poetry, without this music, also free health care, free education, you think you will find free health care and free education in America, in Australia, wherever? Ha! Think again!' We can get one-way passports, thanks to the proclamation to the Jews of Władysław Gomułka.

We leave it to Jan's mother to take care of all the paperwork – immigration forms, all of that. I have never had any patience for those tedious forms. I think, ‘Someone will do it, not me.'

Jan's mother writes to us, ‘What will I put under reasons for emigrating?'

I tell Jan, ‘Write this to her: what do you think? The Poles want to kill the Jews. What do you think?'

Marek asks me, ‘Where are we going?'

‘To Australia. On the train. On the ship. There will be kangaroos. You know kangaroos? Also a man who wears metal on his body and robs the banks. Sunshine. More than Poland.'

‘When?'

‘When? Now.'

Marek is happy about the plan. A train all the way across Poland and Germany to Bremerhaven. A ship that floats on the ocean. Of course he's happy.

Am I happy? Maybe. Escaping from the Poles when they go crazy about Jews is good – of course it is. But Australia is like another planet.

Jan says, ‘Australia is fine.' He's relaxed. Why wouldn't he be relaxed? He drinks like a fish. People everywhere would be relaxed if they drank as much as Jan.

We have farewell drinks with friends.

My friend Paul says, ‘Damn this country if it frightens away people like you and Jan.'

I say, ‘I will write.' Will I? Sure!

‘You will write me long, wonderful letters and tell me about the Australians. Who are they? I've never heard of them. Write me long, wonderful letters and tell me who these Australians are. Kangaroos. About the kangaroos, tell me everything.'

We pack up all our belongings. My mother will be coming with us, so she has to pack too. There is not so much to pack, really. Family heirlooms? Swallowed up by the great maw of the Nazis. They had an appetite for theft, the Nazis. And if not the Nazis, then the neighbours: ‘The family Geldstein is off to Auschwitz for a permanent stay; what use will they have for a dinner service and a handsome epergne from Dresden?'

It is winter; there is snow in Warsaw. Marek and Jan and my mother are in overcoats as we stand on the platform at the station, and I am in an overcoat myself, and a scarf. The train is waiting, huffing and puffing.

Jan and my mother take Marek for a walk along the platform, pointing out one thing and another to him: the iron wheels of the train, the signboard that reads ‘Berlin, Bremerhaven'. I am alone for a few minutes. Dear God, do I know what I am doing? Australia? What? Kangaroos? A man dressed in steel?

I think this: Y
ou should do exactly what you are doing, Werunia. This may be an interval between one hell and another. Australia may be madness, but the worse madness is to stay. Whatever life holds in store for Marek, may it never be that impotence as you watch soldiers in black murdering your friends.

The train huffs and puffs. Ten minutes to departure. Jan and Marek and my mother return.

I say, ‘Let's go.'

  
13
  

ON BOARD

O
n the ship, there is not so much to do. But I have never before travelled on a big ship, so I'm excited each day by the breadth of the ocean. Looking at it, you can sometimes think that it is the real world and what happens on land is secondary.

It's a Swedish ship. The Australians must have rented the ship and the crew and the officers from the Swedes.

All the passengers are migrants. Quite a number of Poles, and there are also Greeks and Italians, some Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians. All of them churned up in the war. Some fought for the Germans, or with the Germans, some against the Germans. Now here we are, the whole crowd of us escaping Europe. Except for the Germans, who are staying put. It is hard to avoid the stupid observation that despite our differences we are all human beings, sailing off in a big white ship to find comfort and security and wealth in Australia. Those who were great enthusiasts of the German war and those who turn in a circle and spit on the ground at the mention of Germans are all packed up together on the ocean, with a shared ambition. What was the point of the war? As I say, a stupid observation. A shared ambition is no great wonder. Whoever you are, a little more comfort than you're used to is welcome.

Remember: among these people sailing to Australia there are some ugly stories packed away with the luggage. I hope to God that any anti-Semites on board don't form a political party on the high seas, ready to apply for a licence when they reach Australia. Dear God, I'm sick of it. As much as anything, I want a holiday from madmen with grotesque plans for the brutalisation of Jews. Apart from anything else, it's tedious. Jan's mother in Australia says there's no anti-Semitism. I say this: ‘I'll believe it when I see it.' But I hope it's true.

Men and women have separate quarters on the ship. Why this should be, I don't know. We meet Jan at meal times in the restaurant – I and Marek and my mother, little Marek always delighted to see Jan again.

The poor thing is in the care of his careless mother for hours at a time.

He says, ‘
Mama, zagraj ze mną
.'

I say, ‘I can't play with you. Mama is reading a book.'

He says, ‘
Mama, gdzie jest mój przyjaciel Jan?
'

I say, ‘Where is Jan? In his cabin, maybe. On deck. I don't know. Shush! Mama is reading.'

Of course, this makes me feel guilty, and so I attempt to play with Marek for about two minutes; then I pick him up and go up on deck to look for Jan.

The cabin I share with my mother, four other women and their children is crowded and untidy, with open suitcases, and clothing left disarranged. Outside the cabin, the passages are narrow and claustrophobic. You turn a corner and come to another passage, then stairs to an upper deck, still very cramped, and all the while people stream past you. Finally you're on the open deck, and there's the ocean, fresh air, a blue sky extending forever: liberty. It fills me with hope.

I stand at the rail, holding Marek, a smile on my face. I hear the rush of the sea against the hull of the ship, the throb of the engines, the creaking of the lifeboats on the iron struts that overhang the rails.

The stewards pass by in their clean, white jackets and their blue trousers; they are mostly young men, some of them very handsome.

Other passengers stand at the rails like me: families, the kids mostly young, maybe a bit older than Marek. Some of them are dressed in a way we don't dress in Poland. The Italians look more stylish than the Poles. The Italians dress their kids beautifully. They're very proud of the way their kids look.

When the ship's officers pass me, they put their hand to the peak of their cap and smile. The officers dress completely in white. This is the perfect job for the officers; the male and female passengers are separated. They have the chance to sleep with the women if they can find a private place. About their seamanship, I don't know, but they certainly know how to flirt with the ladies. They put their hands to the peaks of their hats and smile and if they think you are Italian, they say, ‘
Buona sera, signora
,' and if they think you are Polish, they say, ‘
Dobry wieczór pani
.'

I know nothing about Australia except the kangaroos and the man dressed in steel plates; I have no desire to learn anything. And yet, with this astonishing ocean as inspiration – sometimes blue, sometimes a pale green, sometimes black – I realise that this journey has all the features of the age-old stories of Jewish displacement, journeying, renewed hope: the woman, her child and her husband leave their homeland, cross the ocean, stand on the soil of an alien land, roll up their sleeves (well, I do and Jan does; Marek is spared) and strive to build a new life under constellations we have never seen before.

Judea, Egypt, Babylon, Central Asia, the Far East, Africa, Iberia, Europe, America – and now Australia. We are a stubborn people. Voices whisper, ‘What's the point? Sit down. Die.' And the Jews respond, ‘You know what? Fuck that. You crush this temple; we build another. In Samarkand maybe, in Seville, in Fez, in the Sahara, under the Andes, by the waters of the Mississippi, in Jerusalem. We build another.' It's rare for me to feel as completely a part of the immemorial Jewish narrative as this. And I am not likely to build a temple in Australia. The other Jews, they want to build a temple: good.

Yet I remember the synagogue of Lvov on Shabbat, the light within, the faint acrid smell of burning candles, my father in
kippah
and
tallis
, everyone standing when the Torah was lifted, when the Ark was opened, and my father, stooping a little with his siddur held before him, the singing of the cantor and the choir, and at
aliyah
, the men who strode up to bless the Torah. I remember Shabbat before Yom Kippur, and the candles were lit and the chandelier was lit before Shabbat so that when we came into the synagogue everything was bright and certainly you could smell the fumes of the burning candlewicks and of the melting wax.

I didn't always know how to tell the difference between good men and ordinary men, but I always thought my father was one of the good men. He wasn't especially devout but he thought it was important to be at the synagogue before Yom Kippur. When the men took their seats I could see my father leaning sideways to talk to the man on his left then leaning the other way to talk to the man on his right.

We are a stubborn people, and God knows – do I have to even say this? – we are an oppressed people.

Up on deck, the ocean glittering now, I'm okay with that. Let me belong to an oppressed people. Let me know what's it like, as I do.

Marek, if he doesn't know, let him never know it in this Australia, whatever it is – this Australia where Jan's mum finds no anti-Semitism.

In this Australia, I will need to speak English, the native language of the place. I have with me novels in English that I know well in Polish. I have Dickens, I have Dostoyevsky translated from the Russian into English, and Tolstoy. ‘
Wszystkie szczęśliwe rodziny są do siebie podobne; każdy szczęśliwa rodzina jest nieszczęśliwa na swój sposób.
' This, everyone knows: ‘All unhappy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Poor Anna. What Tolstoy is about to subject her to. And on another day, a different book: ‘
To były najlepsze czasy; to były najgorsze czasy
.' Or: ‘It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.'

I am making a book of phrases in English as I go along. I write down: ‘happy family' =
szczęśliwa rodzina
.

Then Marek implores me to give him my attention.

I say, ‘Mama is reading a book. Mama can't play games with you now. You want to play games, good, look for Jan.'

Each time this happens, I tell myself, ‘Vera, you are not a good mama. The boy is just being a boy. Take some time to play with him,
potwór
.'

But even as I'm saying this to myself, I've picked up my pen and returned to Tolstoy and Dickens and Dostoyevsky, and to my notebook of phrases.

I say, ‘Later I will show him the ocean, also maybe sing him a song.'

So, the phrases:
‘
good morning' =
jak się masz
; ‘good night' =
dzień dobry
; ‘What is your profession?' =
aki jest twój zawód?
; and ‘let's dance' =
zatańczymy
. Also: ‘Are you from a happy family?' = C
ze szczęśliwej rodziny?
And ‘Is this the best of times?' =
Czy są to najlepsze czasy?

Werunia on the high seas, absorbing the English language.

We are in the Suez Canal. On deck, I point to the date palms and Marek claps his hands.

At one point, the canal is quite narrow. A man in classical Arab attire is leading a camel over the sand. This is the world. When you have stayed alive, the time might come when you see a man leading a camel over the sand. This is the first time in my life that I have grasped that the world has breadth: not just distance, but breadth. When you are murdered, this, too, is stolen from you: your life, and the world in which your living self might have found such bounty.

It is poetry.

I raise my arm to wave at the Arab.

I tell Marek, ‘Remember this.'

And to Jan I say, ‘The best thing! A camel!'