It’s St. Nicolaus Day, and we must catch the train right after the TV recording because if we don’t, the next one will get us home at a quarter to midnight. In the 1980s, a trip from Gdańsk to Warsaw took four hours and passengers were fond of defaming communists’ incompetence in railroad matters; thirty years later the same trip drags from seven to eight hours with no one to blame.
The TV driver drops us in the middle of the crossroad, and we skip over ice blocks to the entrance of Warszawa Centralna looking still like a glamorous couple who appeared on Questions for Breakfast, a morning talk show on Channel 2: Lilly-Marie with a towering hairdo, I with a sleek one, and with enough make-up between us to pass for beauticians returning from a face-styling convention. We have only 10 minutes left, not enough to make it through the ticket line, so we hunt for a cash machine to be able to buy tickets in the train.
What made us risk this trip in the midst of train and airplane delays due to early snowfall was the promise of a rebound. A month earlier, a young upstart from a private network, a brunette with a TV-smooth face named Ola, had arrived at Elton from Warsaw to interview us about our dance classes; the result, featured on the same day following the evening news, showed us flapping our mouths like a rare breed of mauve angelfishes while a scary female voiceover ranted on.
“That’s not what you are supposed to do when interviewing a member of a minority group,” Lilly-Marie said.
Ola presented same sex dancing as a risky venture demanding that our personal data be kept secret for our safety. It transpired that we didn’t teach at Gdansk University, but at “one of the higher education institutions in Pomerania.” Apparently, we had no last names; I was featured as Iza Filipa, a fitting name for a cabaret performer.
“And they are a far cry from professional dancers,” the voiceover observed.
Our friends, including Pavko, liked the interview, which confused us even more. I kept listing insults and injuries until they politely agreed.
“Yes, you are right,” they nodded when I expressed my umbrage at turning us into a better kind of gay who venture into the minatory gay land occasionally, as the voiceover had it, to “talk with homosexuals.” No trace remained of Lilly-Marie’s cordial invitation addressed to all who wanted to join our Friday night class.
I worried that portraying us as famemongers would hurt our project and turn our community away from it, but I didn’t expect us to appear in an anti-advertisement.
“Yes, you are right,” they said to me noting how “niewidoma” was the only adjective applied to Lilly-Marie, not even to be alternated with “American.”
“Niewidoma” is a stout word; coined as politically correct under communism, it survived the fall of the iron curtain; not crude like English “blind,” or as clunky as “a person who doesn’t see,” it spurns stylistic fusions such as “in blind faith” and hesitates when used to label people.
“Sure, but think about Polish niewidomi,” Halina said on Skype. “They can’t even travel by bus on their own, and here is this person dancing.”
The truth was that no amount of dancing would make the city transit companies install voice recording in their buses, so Lilly-Marie couldn’t commute around town on her own either.
Our friends must have learned to treat a condescending poke attached to every piece of news that concerned them, like white noise. This was their survival technique, I told Lilly-Marie – if tuning out a voiceover helped people stay sane, then fine.
For someone born in the land of free speech, it was hard to conceive of why people train themselves not to listen. Didn’t they worry they’d miss something important in the process of tuning out?
But for me, this was familiar ground. “All throughout the early 1980s, the government-controlled TV ranted about the anti-communist resistance movement using the foulest of terms,” I told Lilly-Marie. “The only bit of news that mattered to people was that the resistance was still there.”
Still, many of our Elton friends could barely remember martial law, and Ola, the journalist from TVN wasn’t even born then.
“Ah, the greatest achievement of investigative journalism – we talk with homosexuals!” Lilly-Marie’s sighed. “So did she.”
We accepted the invitation to Channel 2 because it thrilled us to think this interview would be live: no one could twist what we said; we were going to have the last word.
The journalist who invited us to Channel 2 was closer to me in age; I remembered her presiding over drawing room-type literary discussions some years ago when such luxuries existed on TV.
When she called me on the phone, I talked her into postponing our visit till December (“We have to make room for our university schedule,” I said, my voice unrefined in contrast to the journalist’s pleasantly counterfeit one), and she picked the first Monday available. This turned out to be December 6th, St. Nicolas day, to which I gave no thought at the time, and probably so did she.
St. Nicolas day is an informal family holiday. She never tried to reschedule, though; I suppose she decided to be brave about it.
Once we arrive at the Channel 2 headquarters, the staff kindly ushers us from one room to another: our eyes acquire an extra shine, our hair an additional lift, and soon Lilly-Marie has enough wires circling her waste to turn her into a cyborg-like transmitter. Her translator hides in the studio’s attic and she hears him only through tiny headphones taped behind her ears; she says he sounds young and comforting, like an ally.
Once in the studio, we are seated apart to fit the camera setup. Our hosts look straight at a flat screen where I recognize Marta, the co-author of Forbidden Loves; she argues about something with interest in what looks like a prerecorded interview, but her voice is muted, and before I have a chance to ask why she’s there, the countdown begins and we are on the air.
Our hosts, a swank brunette and her polar opposite, a strikingly commonplace man, begin to introduce us. The woman makes sure to acknowledge my university affiliation, which is a relief after Ola's lapse, and then asks why we need our own space to dance. “Is it really that bad?”
She nods with relief when I tell her that it isn’t. Her companion in turn asks Lilly-Marie a few predictable questions, giving her a chance to say that she feels safer in Poland than in the United States. He is not curious why and leaves the audience to wonder how so.
We hope for the pleasantries to end and the interview to begin, but all of a sudden it’s over; the hosts lavish us with thanks, and the brunette extends her hand toward me with two chocolate Santa Clauses in silver wrapping.
“I hope you don’t mind them being men,” she says.
I take a breath and smile: “We need positive male role models in our lives.”
Later on, when we watch a recording of this interview on the internet, I notice that Lilly-Marie never knew of the host’s othering us with her final poke; the translator’s connection must have been cut off already, or else he was too embarrassed to repeat it. My answer isn’t aired either; the interview ends on the hostess’s last words.
The train is already waiting at the platform, and the conductor is right at her post. We hope she’ll guide us to a newer no-compartment car of which there is usually only one per train, but this particular train consists only of cars with compartments. Many travelers still find them cozier: in old cars you share a space with eight people at the most, but in the new ones you sit amongst an anonymous crowd as if a movie theater. We like anonymity in addition to automatic doors, space for luggage, and enough room to walk between the seats, but since this train has none, I opt for the first class and, to spare us from struggling down the hallway, we move into the first compartment with unreserved seats.
A round brunette with attentive hazel eyes, meticulously groomed and past retirement, is already sitting there. She looks like a volunteer from the ultra-conservative old ladies movement. Lilly-Marie smiles at her; we don’t expect her to speak English.
I watch the conductor gliding past our compartment and vanishing in the hallway. Then the door opens. A man gestures toward the place by the door asking if it is free. The church lady nods yes, and he staggers inside against the lurching boom and bust of the train.
His coat looks tattered and damp when he tosses it on the opposite seat, the smells of stale liquor and unwashed skin wafting off of him. When he settles at last, I notice his unmistakably black eye.
Right away, he strikes up a conversation with Lilly-Marie. First, he tries to make eye contact. When he realizes this is not going to happen, he stares at the glass door in an attempt to restrain himself. But nothing is happening outside. So he reconsiders.
“Jedzie pani daleko?” He speaks with a flair, only to determine that she doesn’t speak Polish.
This, however, seems to dishearten him only for a while.
As I watch the man hovering around, I decide to enlist myself as his conversation partner. I fear that if we tell him to go away, with our shiny looks and cosmopolitan air, he might retort with “I’m not good enough for you” and become unpredictable.
Later on Lilly-Marie says she learned to ignore strange people in public spaces. It’s a simple technique which makes them go away. A train compartment with its door closed, however, ceases to be a public space. It resembles a walk-in closet with no one from the outside to witness the succession of events. With the conductor nowhere in sight, I begin to calculate the safest option.
“Pani nie mówi po polsku,” I say. “And you, how far are you going?”
Conveniently, he welcomes interaction.
“Do you know that I was bad this weekend?” He says.
I decide not to look concerned, but sympathetic. “How so?”
“I’ve done certain things in my life which can never be undone.”
“I see,” I say. We are going to be fine, as long as I keep him occupied.
I relax and let him set his own pace.
“When a guy like me wants to apply for a job, let’s say, and everything looks fine and dandy, so he goes for an interview, and they tell him all right, we want you, but you need to get this additional forklift training, so once he admits that he spent time in jail, this job isn’t open to him anymore.”
“Ah,” I say. “That’s terrible.”
“But that’s sure the truth.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Can I translate this?”
He nods. I translate our travel companion’s monologue as I understand it. “This man must have spent time in jail,” I tell Lilly-Marie. “He’s released now, but finds it hard to get a job, so he’s somewhat bitter about the whole thing.”
Lilly-Marie shifts uncomfortably. This makes me cautious in turn; I’m still concerned that any noticeable sign of our fear may set him off. I translate to her everything the thief says; yet, I haven’t been sharing my concerns with her – that is that I’m scared of the thief turning dangerous. I don’t want her to seem upset since she’s sitting between him and me. Staying cool is of utmost importance.
I turn my attention to the man.
“I wonder what the lady sitting next to you thinks about it,” he says.
“Well,” I pass Lilly-Marie’s words to him. “The lady says you must be going through a hard time.”
Suddenly, he looks defiant. “I’ve always been my own man, I dare say.”
He urges me to translate his impromptu declaration of independence, but Lilly-Marie remains unimpressed. He shrugs and shifts, then abruptly relaxes.
“I’ve always been a lazy bum,” he says. “I only went as far as the 8th grade.”
I tell an abbreviated story of the thug’s struggle with education to Lilly-Marie and realize that keeping this translation project going gives us a chance at survival; it slows things down.
I notice the man likes it, too. He shifts his attention from Lilly-Marie to me.
“I’m not a free man,” he says. “I’ve spent 5 years in jail, and I’m going to spend there 3 more.”
He watches intently how I respond to the word “jail,” so I nod.
And this is how we proceed: he smiles at me at times, but I never smile back.
I don’t ask his name, so that he won’t ask mine. He calls me pani; I am calling him pan, and we don’t try to deepen our familiarity; anyway, passengers seldom share their names in a train compartment.
In the meantime, I process – Ah, the forklift example didn’t come from his own experience! If he’s been in jail for the last five years, the disappointing job search is what he and his friends expect will happen to them once they are out in the world. I become suddenly aware of my TV make up; I hope it doesn’t start pealing off my skin. Perhaps there is nothing authentic about our travel companion, either; we are no more than an audience in a provincial theater. The thug repeats the lines he must have rehearsed in the company of likeminded fellows to be pulled out at moments like this.
”I wouldn’t work for small change,” he declares. “Fifteen hundred z?otych per month, or whatever people make here.”
Ironically, the sum he mentions is what I‘m left with after a small home repair loan is taken off my wages, but I prefer to spare the thug this knowledge so he wouldn’t take me for a loser.
The church lady sitting opposite us reaches into her purse and retrieves her cellphone. I learn she will stay with us for most of the trip.
“Could you keep your voice low for a moment?” I tell the thug and he consents.
I take the opportunity to chat with Lilly-Marie. The thief, on his end, uses this time to collect his thoughts to start a new chapter of his story. As soon as the church lady ends her call, he begins:
“Sometimes I’m doing things that I know are going to end badly. But I do them anyway, and I don’t know why.” He eyes me earnestly. “I was supposed to report back on the 3rd of December, but it’s the 6th already, and I’m finally on my way.”
Until now it wasn’t entirely clear to me how someone could be in jail and travel by train at the same time. “Are you on some kind of a leave?”
“Yeah, I went to see my folks, but then I hung out with my friends, and things got a little out of hand.”
I’m amazed by my own confidence. There is no revelation he could make that would throw me off track. Still, I don’t want him to share details of his recent badness with me. I feel as collected as if I could steer his mind one way or another.
“I’ll be 29 when I get out of jail,” he says. “What am I supposed to do then? How am I supposed to live? I want to start a family.”
I catch myself staring at him. To my amazement, he’s surprised me after all.
“Yes, I want to have a family. I’m normal, right?” He says it as a challenge. “I’m normal. I want to have a family and kids. But I don’t know if I should. I don’t know if I can give them a good life.”
“Let me translate this.”
“Sure.” He beams. “I wonder what the lady will say to this.”
“He’s using ‘normal’ as a synonym for ‘straight,’ the way men do here,” I tell Lilly-Marie. “He wants to have a family but is concerned about how he’s going to supports his kids when he gets them.”
“Does he have anyone he wants to start a family with?”
“Not really, and this doesn’t seem to upset him. I suppose he thinks a wife will turn up one way or another.”
“So why does he want to start a family at all?
“It’s a matter of status to him.”
“I don’t think he should start a family until he sorts himself out,” Lilly-Marie says.
“The lady suggests you might want to work on your issues first, before you start a family,” I say to the thief.
But he happily goes on troubling himself about how to support his offspring. “How am I going to feed them? Well, not from the salary like these people get.” He raises himself on his seat: “So I am going to steal. Yeah, that’s only fair – I am going to steal to support my kids!”
Again I catch his well-rehearsed tone of voice. Jailbirds must have a lot of time on their hands to discuss their life options; they must have veritable support groups. I decide to put a stop to this.
“Could you stop behaving as if you had no agency in your life? You can make your own choices as we speak.” I hear my voice crescendo. I am no longer scared of the thief. “I know how it feels when people assume only one thing about you, when you are stuck, when you feel your life will never change. I emigrated at 26, and I had no useful skills to support myself in the world either. But I created my life the way I want it, and so can you.”
“That’s why you speak English not like people here,” he says. “Like you know it real good.”
“Well, this wasn’t easy either.”
I turn to Lilly-Marie: “I’m trying to tell him that he’s responsible for his own choices. I’m perfectly sick of him, too.”
The thief gestures for my attention, then points at Lilly-Marie: “Could you tell her that she looks like an angel?”
“He is telling you that you look like an angel,” I tell Lilly-Marie.
“I think she is really beautiful.”
“He calls you beautiful.”
“I wonder what this lady thinks about me.”
“He wants to know what you think of him.”
“Well, I’m less concerned than I was, bur I still don’t feel comfortable this man staying here,” says Lilly-Marie.
“The lady is a little concerned,” I say to the thug.
“Oh! But there is nothing to be afraid of,” he declares. “I’m not a pervert; I’m just a common thief!”
“That’s a relief,” Lilly-Marie says flatly when I translate this to her.
Another hour passes, and the thief, still sitting next to us, looks radiant, pleased and excited.
“This is such an important day for me!” He exclaims over the syncopated rumble of the train. “I didn’t like this day at first; I didn’t like the idea of returning to the facility; I thought it was going to be another unpleasant day. But it turned out to be so good, so surprising! I am always going to remember it.”
He closes his eyes, opens them and decides he is going to smoke a cigarette out in the hallway. Having said that, he leaves. But he plans to return – his coat is still on the seat.
As soon as he is gone, I make eye contact with the church lady who has been sitting opposite us for the whole time.
“Wasn’t that something?” I speak to her in Polish.
“Especially when he said he wouldn’t work for fifteen hundred zlotych a month,” she answers.
If she is lucky, her retirement is just over half of the salary our thief spurned.
“What are you two talking about?” Lilly-Marie asks.
“We are discussing the highlights of our thief self-presentation.”
“And highlights they were, most certainly,” says the church lady.
It turns out the church lady speaks English – hesitantly at first, but she had a good vocabulary. She must have understood most of what we said.
“Please don’t think that I was sitting here like a statue. I watched all that was going on carefully. I didn’t interfere because you were handling this man so well on your own.” She adds looking at me. “Another person would just complicate matters.”
I’m both relieved and concerned to see my fears confirmed.
“I didn’t want to leave the compartment even when my girlfriend called me on the phone only because I felt my presence was necessary and created some kind of protection for both of you. I believe I acted like…”
“Like a chaperone,” says Lilly-Marie.
The church lady smiles shyly. We both nod to express enthusiasm and thank her profusely.
“It’s obvious why this young man couldn’t succeed,” she continues. “He is from a pathological family, he didn’t get enough education to support himself, and his financial ambitions are greater than his earning capacity.”
I want to say, “That’s sounds just as if you were talking about me.” But I suppose the church lady would think it was a joke.
“I figure construction work would be great for him,” the lady continues. “There he could start with no experience and learn on the job. And jobs are always there.”
“That’s a fantastic idea,” I tell the lady.
“Perhaps you could suggest it to this young man,” she says to me.
“I will,” I nod earnestly. “As soon as he comes back.”
“And you and I are going to pray for him,” Lilly-Marie says to the lady.
When the door finally opens, we jump, but instead of the thief, a tall man enters our compartment. He moves about with a grace of a former boxer.
When he asks which place is free, both the church lady and I point to the one formerly taken by the thief.
I give him a preliminary scan: once his navy blue coat has landed on the upper shelf with his flat leather suitcase, I see that he wears a black turtleneck and black trousers. His clothes look expensive but not ostentatious, as if their point was not to draw attention to themselves.
His neatly trimmed crew cut, rectangularity of his features, and whatever else of him reminds me of professional fighters from James Bond type of movies, begin to worry me. With our Santa Clause inspired luck, I sincerely hope we didn’t exchange a hapless petty thief for a successful member of the mob.
Alarmed, I search for his eyes and am relieved to find them kind.
Then I make eye contact with the church lady. “Should we tell the gentleman what’s going on here?”
Her expression is noncommittal, and I find myself growing impatient with her. Only a moment ago, I saw the thief passing right outside our door.
“I’m going to tell him anyway,” I say.
“We have a situation here,” I tell the crew-cut man. “Another guy’s traveling in this compartment; he is a thief serving his sentence in prison. He looks like he’s been beaten up; he’s probably still drunk. He seems unpredictable at times. It may appear to you that I am on friendly terms with him – but I’m not. I’m just talking to him to protect us.”
“Tough luck for him,” the crew-cut man says, “because I work for the prisons.”
I stare at him, then laugh in disbelief. “Do you?”
The man nods, and we pass onto him the highlights of our encounter with the thief.
“He took a great interest in the lady here.” The church lady points at Lilly-Marie.
I translate this to Lilly-Marie who nods.
“He told us that women always fell for him,” the church lady chimes in. “He must have had an inflated idea about his personal charms and seemed pressed to prove them, which must have been most troubling for the lady.”
Lilly-Marie sighs. “Well, he was a lose cannon for sure. What’s going to happen to him when he returns to prison?”
I ask this question of our new travel companion.
“Considering that he missed the deadline, he’s going to lose his privileges, including leave and mailing privileges. In addition, due to his black eye, an inquiry will be forwarded to his local precinct to conclude whether any illegal actions were committed during his leave.” The man’s voice remains decisive yet kind. “This is meant to prevent incidents, when after a period of time, on the basis of evidence, a man is discovered to have committed a crime, while, to all appearances, he was doing his time in prison.”
“We were talking to him as if he was one of us,” the church lady says. “Especially pani here.” She points at me.
I turn directly to the crew-cut man.
“I admit I really wanted to know one thing. If he’s aware that some things are going to turn out badly, what force makes him repeat them?”
“You realize they never tell you the truth,” the prison worker says.
“But you can always determine something even from the way people lie.” Whenever pressed by my questioning, the thief would rant about corrupt politicians and how they mishandle public money. With such people at power, whom was he supposed to look up to?
“The supposed grand-scale theft by men in power justified his petty thefts. He said he lacked positive role models. At last he added, ‘including my own father.’ This sounded true and allowed me to ask about his father.”
The thief’s father was a drunkard and a violent man. “Who knows how many times I had to fight, and I mean, physically fight with my father to protect mother,” the thief said not long before leaving the compartment. “When I went to prison and mother came for the first visit, I watched her crying. I was no longer around and father messed her up.” His father died within a year, and the thief visited his grave only once.
But when I wanted to know how his father’s badness made him do things he regretted later on, he regressed into his corrupt politicians rant.
“Perhaps he really didn’t know how to express it,” Lilly-Marie says.
Grateful for the coincidence, we feel compelled to repeat all the thief’s woes to the crew-cut man.
“He was surely bent on proving that he wouldn’t be able to support his family on fifteen hundred zlotych a month,” the church lady says. “He made it sound like it was an impossible feat to earn enough and live honestly. But for now he doesn’t have any family to speak of!”
“Prisoners tend to live in this kind of fantasy,” the crew-cut man says. “It keeps them from having to address their behavior.”
He isn’t detached or cold; at the time, he just seems to have seen it all.
“An eight-year sentence seems so long,” I say. “And just for theft.”
“That’s what they usually get,” the man says. “For more elaborate crimes.”
I want to ask the crew-cut man if indeed ex-cons are supposed to embark on returning to society without any transitioning. If the thief lives in a fantasy land, then what is the realistic alternative? With eight years of jail and no job history it could quite possibly be hard to find work.
“On the subject of ex-prisoners, I recently heard a story of this kind,” the crew-cut man says. “The prisoner in question grew up in a family where everybody worked in law enforcement. At twenty, he was caught driving a stolen car and got a short sentence. Once he went home for the first leave, all the guys in his family beat him bloody. He needed to recuperate for a week after that. Then he returned to prison and made friends with other prisoners who were part of a drug trafficking ring. Once released, he started working for them. He bought a house, made a cushy life for his wife, and eventually got caught. Recently, I spoke to him in prison. He said he was going to return to drug trafficking first thing after he’s released.”
I translate the prisoner’s story to Lilly-Marie.
“This just proves the thief’s point about role models,” Lilly-Marie says. “The prisoner in the story grew up in a family which endorsed domestic violence, so in the end his choice was between people whom he knew and who were going to continue to abuse him and drug traffickers who offered him ways to become independent.”
Before I have time to translate, the church lady chimes in. “Our thief also told us how important for him was to be his own man,” she tells the crew-cut man. “He didn’t want us to pity him for his troubled childhood. He perceived himself as a hunter!”
“But as far as we can see he is still prey,” the crew-cut man says.
When at last the conductor appears in the hallway, the crew-cut man who sits closest to the door, watches the thief’s futile attempts to avoid her. Since the thief doesn’t have a ticket, we expect him to hide. But when the conductor at last comes through our door, the thief resurfaces as well. He pretends to be seated in another compartment. He says he’s just come back to pick up his coat.
The conductor takes one look at him and decides not to pursue the matter any further. When the train stops a few minutes later, we expect the thief to leave, but to our surprise we see him in the hallway, talking to another lady.
“You see what I mean,” Lilly-Marie says. “He didn’t have to stay with us. If we asked him to leave, he would have found someone else to talk to.”
“Surely,” I agree.
“He said this conversation meant a lot to him, and he was always going to remember it,” the church lady says.
“Prisoners do remember for a long time, that’s true,” the crew-cut man agrees. “From such encounters they learn how it feels to be us.”
“It must matter that someone relates to them as human beings,” the church lady says.
“Yes, and they go to great lengths to match our expectations, talk the way we talk, blend in.”
I notice that the thief never asked Lilly-Marie and me about the purpose of our travel.
Nor do we find it fitting to reveal it to anyone else.
At last the train stops and we see the thief walking past our window down the platform; with his coat collar high against the icy wind and a shawl around his neck, he strides ahead without giving us another look.
Photo copyright by Konrad Pustoła
It was the first time we had been interviewed for TV news. I had just gone from excitement to the embarrassing sense of rejection you feel when someone trashes what you think is your best idea ever. We were saying our goodbyes, grouped around the bar in Elton, the gay club where Izabela and I teach dance. The journalist was reporting on our same sex dance classes. TVN got interested because two female Israeli dancers performed in Dancing with the Stars – they were looking for similar stories. I had liked the journalist from the beginning. Ola was about my age, friendly, and clearly interested in getting to know us, asking about life in Tri-City, and how Poland was different from the States. We compared notes on work, hobbies, and Warsaw, where Ola lived. Being an open, all-inclusive California type, I was more than ready for a chat with another career woman just starting out. I began telling her what it was like being the youngest person among our colleagues and friends. She laughed. “I know how you feel,” she said. “I’m twenty seven, so I’m always feeling like everyone at work is older than me. Isn’t it a lot to live up to?” I decided that if we’d met under different circumstances, we might have become friends.
After Izabela and I had danced for a while, the camera man filming take after take, Ola went back to her questions. How had our respective parents reacted when we came out? Did we have brothers or sisters? How did our two families feel about our relationship? Izabela told Ola that since she had to accept her parents’ singularities while growing up, she expected them to accept hers when she became an adult. Since she came from a family of characters, she didn’t think to ask for approval. I told the story of coming out to my mother as she was trying to rush out of the house for work, then interrupting my own revelation to ask if we had any cream. “Coming out feels like such a long time ago,” I said. Ola seemed fascinated. She then asked who in our families was the most supportive of us.
“We don’t come from close-knit families,” I said. “But I’d like to tell you about Halina. She’s Izabela’s ex, actually, and she’s like family to us--someone we really value.”
At this, Ola jumped in. “Sorry, Lilly-Marie, but I don’t really have time to hear about this. I don’t know Halina, I don’t know who she is, and there’s no point in you telling me about her if I’m going to trash it.”
Later on we would wish we’d pointed out that Ola didn’t know our parents either, but was eager to hear all about them. For now I stood in a stunned, angry silence.
“The thing is,” I said, “you were asking who in our families is most supportive, and Halina is definitely one of those people.” I wanted to bring some of the earlier, light-hearted energy back into the room. Hopefully she would at least understand.
“Maybe some other time, when you expand your dance school.” I didn’t point out that we had no school. Ola was already collecting her coat and purse.
Still, we were surprised when, watching the interview later that night, we found that she’d edited out almost everything we’d said anyway.
Family, or my own close network of people, had always represented my central focus. The first thing I remember telling Izabela when we met was that it’s not creative work or politics or prestige, but people that brought substance to my life. I didn’t use the word family very often back then. It was only after moving here, and listening to people talk about the importance of “family,” meaning blood relatives, that I realized this was a value I shared. The only trouble was that my definition was different from theirs. Even as I nodded in emphatic agreement, I knew we weren’t agreeing on precisely the same thing. After the meeting with Ola, I thought back to a conference Izabela and I had attended a month earlier. We had each been asked to explain to our partners what we were most passionate about, and I chose family. My discussion partner, a middle-aged psychologist, who later admitted that she’d braced herself for a sappy-superficial account of what she called traditional Polish family values, was surprised when I talked not only about my supportive parents, but also about my close circle of friends, the people I’d lived and worked around for most of my adult life. My partner liked what I had to say, but my concept of family was obviously a revelation to her. I was surprised.
Izabela explained that “family” is part of the political and religious rhetoric here, much as it is among right-wing politicians and evangelists in the States. “That’s the only meaning of the word that people here are used to,” she said.
But this didn’t stop me from being umbraged at the hitherto nice reporter. “All she cares about is blood relatives,” I said. “As soon as I went outside her own little traditional, highly specific definition of the term, I was weird and she was ready to bale.”
“I don’t think it ever occurred to Ola that we were introducing queer family values,” Izabela said. “She probably thought that we were chatty and flippant, and wanted to talk about our buddies.”
“I didn’t think we were flippant!”
“Well, she certainly infantilized us. We are two grown up people expected to talk
about what mommy and daddy think about our lives…”
If Ola’s definition of family was strangely limited to me, my definition, probably to her, and certainly to my own immediate family, was strangely loose. Family, as far as I was concerned, was like a chart drawn on paper with flexible margins. Some names—those of my parents and other blood relatives, were permanent. Others—close friends who drifted away, former mentors, could be moved to the side or, in rare cases, crossed out. But the chart could always expand if a new name, a new category, needed fitting in. That isn’t to say that family was a status to be treated lightly—it often took quite a few years before I would consider even the closest of friends as family, and relative to the number of friends I had, it happened seldom.
My parents had divorced; then settled down with new partners. To me, this seemed normal. Still, the stepfamily situation confused most people. My mother wasn’t actually married to Paul, her live-in boyfriend, when I started referring to him as my stepfather. My use of the title annoyed her, but I didn’t know what else to do. “I can’t keep calling him “my mother’s boyfriend” forever,” I said at sixteen, infusing the last three words with typical teenaged disgust. “You’ve been living together for three years.”
When I was 18, and my father and stepmother split up, she and I continued our relationship, chatting by phone and spending weekends together when I was home from college. Naturally, I kept on calling her my stepmother, and her son my stepbrother. There was also a new spot on my personal family tree for Donna, my dad’s new girlfriend, a cross between a buddy and a mentor.
After leaving home, I lived, studied, and worked with the friends who would, in time, become part of my extended family. Jennifer and I shared food and housing even when neither of us had any money to speak of. The day Laurel told me she’d gotten her first teaching job was the first time I understood what it was like to feel viscerally happy and excited for another person. And when her boyfriend got cancer and I was in Poland, I felt as much guilt as if it were my sister who needed me. Later, it was Betsy who welcomed me back on my first visit to the States, then moved me into my sublet before my parents could make it down to Oakland. When an awkward situation arose between me and Francesca, the professor who was like a second mother, we didn’t drift apart as most teachers and students would have—we worked things out.
When Izabela and I moved to Poland, I started calling her my Polish family of one, which came about because the cover letter I sent out when looking for work explained that I was moving to Poland “to become part of a Polish family.” She called me her little mother when I praised her for eating eggs, cheerfully explaining that it was full of protein and would make her beautiful hair and teeth strong, and counseled her that no matter what else came up, her own writing was the priority. She was like an older sister when she handed her fabulous Urban Outfitters clothes down to me, and a bossy older sister when she marched me into the bathroom and threw foundation on my face. We were naughty girls on a sleepover when we stayed up too late, eating ice-cream and watching movies, and colleagues when we talked with other teachers in the English department office. We shifted from romantic to silly, from serious decision makers to conspirators, to pairing up as star and worshipful companion. It was with Izabela that I learned to share one i-pod, take her hairspray without asking, spend Polish Christmas Eves my parents could have no concept of, and speak my first words in a language and country about which I knew less than the toddlers we saw on the bus in those first months. When my private students asked why I had come to Poland, I didn’t mention that Izabela and I were a couple, thinking that coming out to them would be unwise. But I did mention that I had moved to Poland to get married.
In the spring, Izabela’s mother, confused and nearing the end of her life, but still buoyant with optimism, came to live with us. She called me słoneczko, the Polish endearment meaning little sun, and told amazing stories of her life as a traveling country dentist, which Izabela translated. I called her my mother-in-law, but when the nurse at the hospital, where she was transferred only a few weeks after moving into our house, called her my grandmother, I didn’t contradict her. Jadwiga was in her eighties, and with my own grandmother gone, the role of mother-in-law and grandmother somehow conflated. But aside from her mother, who passed away in late March, Izabela had almost no relatives, so my Polish family was destined to remain small.
It wasn’t until last summer that I met Halina, and my already wild family tree underwent a careening transformation I hadn’t anticipated. Izabela and I had known each other for almost three years by then, and I had been hearing about Halina, her ex, ever since we met. It may not sound surprising that Halina and I hadn’t been introduced, but under the circumstances, it bothered me. She and Izabela had been together for ten years, and continued to share an apartment for the following two until we left California. I supported this arrangement, partly because I wasn’t ready to be a live-in girlfriend, but mostly because they appeared to rely on each other in certain essential ways. Both had emigrated from Poland, and they seemed to be all the family each other had even though they were clearly broken up.
Izabela, whose English was better by far than Halina’s, had helped her to find work, researching job possibilities and filling out applications. Halina, in her turn, had paid the bills while Izabela was earning her doctorate, leaving her the space she needed for thinking and writing. I might not have met Halina in real life, but I knew her as a catalogue of the images from Izabela’s stories: Halina making jellied fish on Christmas Eve, Halina and Izabela buying fabulous decadent sushi, ice-cream and alcohols, Halina rousting Izabela out of her room to carve pumpkins on Halloween, Halina drinking and unhappy within her isolation, but a warrior at heart, battling with phantasmatic digitalized enemies at her computer, Halina, a physical therapist turned caregiver, attending to elderly clients with expert tenderness, Halina making sandwiches of Izabela’s favorite cheese for her to take on our flight to New York. The way I saw it, Halina too had been Izabela’s family of one once upon a time. Halina was, in part, the keeper of Izabela’s past, and probably her present. She would always be important. I was curious. I needed to know her for myself.
Izabela, encouraged by my pleading, tried to persuade Halina to meet me. But Halina was having none of it. We once found ourselves and Halina at the same Valentine’s dance in Oakland, but still she wouldn’t come over and say hello. In one way I was disappointed, even though, in another way, I understood. I was the new girlfriend. It wasn’t Halina’s problem that I was curious, that I already thought of us as connected, if distantly, through Izabela.
Then, in July, when I returned to Oakland after my first year in Poland and ended up subletting a studio only two blocks from Halina, things changed. Izabela, who had arrived in California before me, was staying with her and persuaded her to come along on a late-evening visit. Even though Izabela had told me Halina would be coming with her, I couldn’t quite believe this was really happening. Halina had agreed to meet me! Still, from what Izabela had said on the phone, Halina was none too sure about this. “If she’s not ready, no big deal,” I said. “We’ll have years ahead for her to rethink.”
At first when I opened the door, I thought only Izabela had come in the end. When you can’t visually detect people, silence is synonymous with invisibility. Izabela was talking away about Halina’s being angry with her. At last, when Halina finally spoke a few seconds later, I jumped.
“I’m not staying. I’m just bringing Izabela over to say goodbye. Then we need to leave so she can finish packing.”
“I’m done packing already,” said Izabela who indeed was scheduled to fly back to Poland in the morning. “Can’t you just stay for a glass of wine?”
“Yes, please do. You can have wine, tea, whatever you prefer.” I was gabbling. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I held out my hand. Instead of taking it, Halina said something in Polish. Later Izabela would tell me that Halina had been looking right at me when she spoke, that even in that first instant she was, in Izabela’s words, taken with me. But back then I assumed Halina was ignoring me.
“She’s saying she doesn’t want to shake hands over the threshold,” Izabela explained.
“Then please come in.” But she wouldn’t budge. I was utterly confused. Later on Izabela told me about the Polish superstition that if two people shake hands on opposite sides of a doorsill, they will quarrel. I haven’t risked it since.
Now I felt myself shaking, a mixture of resolve and nervousness making my hands go cold and my mouth go dry. I thought Haline would turn around and run. But I wasn’t going to let her get away so easily, not after all the time I’d spent waiting while she eluded me.
Still, this woman was more than twenty years older than I. She’d known Izabela a lot longer. She was hostile. And I felt silly—a naive, overly cheerful girl with a too big smile making a ridiculous attempt to persuade a wild creature to like me, to trust me, to let me lure her in just because I was young and sincere. What kept me standing there, telling her how glad I was to have her there and entreating her to come in, were the images I’d stored up from Izabela’s stories of her.
Halina did step inside, but just enough for the handshake to be carried out safely. Her grip was warm, firm and surprisingly strong. She hovered in the apartment’s narrow hallway, the entrance door still wide open behind her so she could escape in a flash. Not knowing what else to do, I walked down the hall and into the kitchen to join Izabela, who was already busying herself with bottles and glasses for the two of us. “I really hope she’ll stay,” I said as if Halina wasn’t within earshot.
I returned to the door. “Halina,” I said, “I’m so glad you’re here, and I’d really love for you to have a glass of wine. But I can’t continue to have a conversation with you standing in the doorway like this. So please, come all the way in and let me close the door.”
She stood still and silent another moment. Then, slowly, she took a few steps further into the hall. “I don’t understand why you want me here,” she said.
“Because I’ve been wanting to meet you for so long. I know you’re angry with Izabela because you think she made you come here, but really I’m the one who was so anxious for it to happen.”
“But why?”
I was prepared for this. As I washed dishes earlier that night it had become almost a fantasy—finally getting to answer this question directly. “You’ve been good to Izabela, and that means a lot to me. She doesn’t really have any family other than you and me, so as bizarre as this may sound, I feel that we’re connected somehow. I understand you might not agree with that, but you’re an important part of her life, and I would really appreciate the chance to know you even slightly.”
After a moment’s pause, she answered. “All right. I’ll have one glass of wine.”
Our conversation was polite but halting. Halina and I, both curious, were still treading carefully around each other. I asked her about her work as a caregiver, and she asked me how I liked Polish food, and if I’d gotten along with Izabela’s mom. Only Izabela seemed at ease. She had taken a seat on the bed, having no other choice since Halina and I occupied what chairs were available in the small studio. Izabela reached behind her and lifted my ancient stuffed bear down from the pillows.
Ted, at twenty six, is unlike any other bear I’ve seen, boasting an expensively designed hand-knitted wool sweater, an unusual amount of character and humanity in his face, and the imposing air of an elder statesman. She introduced him to Halina, just as if adults introduced stuffed animals to each other every day. “Ted is a magical creature,” she said. “He’s traveled widely and had amazing experiences.”
Inwardly, I was horrified. Ted was indeed well-traveled, especially for a stuffed bear, and having remained with me through countless moves and other personal dramas, he was a wise and consistent part of my life. Still, great as he was, I didn’t generally introduce Ted to virtual strangers. What if Halina, still skittish, deemed me strange and infantile?
But Halina gazed at Ted with interest. “How old is he?” She reached out to take him from Izabela. “He has a long tail for a bear.”
It was true. Ted’s tail, once a button-shaped puff of fur, had thinned and lengthened so that it resembled the tail of any other animal.
“The tail confuses people,” I told her. “This poor guy is often mistaken for a rat or an otter.”
Halina handed Ted back to Izabela, but she was clearly impressed. In the end Halina stayed for over an hour, leaving only when the wine bottle was empty. I wish I could say it was my innate finesse and sweet smile that made this happen, but really it was Ted who did the trick.
Izabela left for Poland the next day, and a few weeks later Halina returned to my studio, bringing wine and pizza for the two of us. The first thing she did when she came into the high-ceilinged main room was to walk to the window. “You have the most beautiful bamboo tree out here,” she said. I joined her at the window and we stood, contemplating the tree that no one before her had mentioned to me.
Apart from Jadwiga and Halina, my Polish family didn’t expand much beyond Izabela. That was fine with me, but when we met Pavko, it was as if our world, small in that first year of living here, had doubled in size. It was late August, and we still hadn’t found a good place to dance. Izabela had seen an ad online for a new gay club in Sopot, and we decided to go by and check it out. It was off the beaten track, hidden at the end of a street sporting huge, well-kept villas. At first we thought we came to the wrong place until we heard a distant thrum of music, the only hint of partying audible from the street.
We rang the bell, feeling like we were being admitted into a secret society. The lock clicked, and a tall, willowy, dark haired man opened the door. With his beard, and the colossal jewels on his fingers, the impression he gave was that of a dashing and jovial Spanish pirate.
“Witam,” he said with an expansive smile that included both of us. His eyes lighted on Izabela and his pleasure grew even more. It turned out that they had been on the same discussion panel together not long before, hailing the work of a young gay photographer who documented darkrooms in gay clubs as places of resistance. Pavko knew all about Izabela as a writer, and was thrilled to have her in his club. He took our coats and ushered us up the steep staircase, talking all the time as we made a circuit around the club that was clearly his pride and joy. “Elton is for you,” he kept saying.
I was as ecstatic as he was. This man spoke English, adored us already, and wanted us to dance the night away. It didn’t take long before we’d asked him how he would feel about our holding dance classes at Elton. Again, he was overjoyed. “That’s just what Elton needs,” Pavko said. “I’ll take the classes too, and maybe I’ll even meet the love of my life."
Pavko had named his club after Elton John, who had been an important figure for the Polish anti-communist resistance movement. On our first visit to Elton, Pavko told me that in the early 80’s, Elton John denounced martial law in Poland and advocated strongly, on an international level, in favor of the Solidarity movement. Because he was an international celebrity, his voice mattered to the point that his support for the underground movement embarrassed the communists then in power. He, like the pope, was one of the important figures in the world who spoke out in support of the anti-communist movement. “A few years ago,” Pavko said, “he was invited to Sopot for an anniversary of the Solidarity people--no longer oppressed but members of the ruling party in parliament by now. These were the same people endorsing the homophobia and hate speech embraced by our government. He looked out into his audience and said: ‘Leave the gays alone.’ This made these ultra-conservatives very uncomfortable. Now they would do anything to forget that they ever relied on his support.”
The club itself had a bizarre enough history. Pavko told us that before it became Elton, it was once run by the mafia. Apparently pani Ewa, the bartender, had worked there in mafia times and had amazing stories to tell of Elton’s previous life as a club full of gangsters. “There was so much bad energy in here that we had to perform a sort of exorcism when we took over the place,” Pavko said laughing.
We soon decided that Pavko was the most positive person we knew. He was Buddhist, believed in signs, the power of songs, and love. When he and I danced together during class we pretended we were the two transvestites, or “ladies,” from Little Britain, our favorite TV show. Pavko gloried in being gay, or queer as he, Izabela, and I like to call it. His favorite color was pink, which, according to him, represented queerness, light, and joy. He festooned the walls of our Facebook profiles with dazzling comments on our photos, funny and beautiful posters advertising our dance classes, and notices for whatever blasts Elton was planning. After having no one around who understood the magic of dance the way we did, it felt like we’d entered a new, more promising phase with Pavko urging us on. Izabela and I were addicted to his energy, and counted the days until Friday, when we taught Night Club two-step at Elton and then, when class was over, sat down for a beer and a long chat with Pavko about love, dance, and new ideas.
Still, Pavko had another identity, which he wore during the day with equal aplomb. He was an architect, and had designed Villa Antonina, a lavish Sopot hotel built to resemble a French castle. I pictured my mom coming to Poland for a visit and staying in the decadent Marie Antoinette suite Pavko had designed, and being impressed as only a Napa valley realtor with an impeccable sense of style can. She would sit down with Pavko, Izabela, and me over wine and sushi, and would glow in the presence of Pavko, who would adore her charming, relaxed approach to classy artistic people, and even make her laugh – a rare and wonderful occurrence. Pavko was the perfect balance between fun and business — someone who knew how to host a glorious event, write a contract, and remember that fine line between business and friendship. Izabela asked his advice when she wanted to run for the city board, and I took his opinion on my outfits seriously.
It wasn’t until after knowing Pavko for some time that we discovered he had a twin brother. We pictured a second Pavko, and marveled at the idea that there could be two of them filling up the world with their pink energy. “We’re actually nothing alike,” Pavko told us when we voiced our amazement. “In fact, we aren’t even speaking at the moment.” We were sorry to hear it, but never dared to ask questions.
In December Pavko changed his Facebook profile, and a glance told us that he was born on August 24th. This may be hard to believe, but Izabela and I have the same birthday, and, even more amazingly, ours is August 24th, too. Pavko was as excited by this news as we were. “We’re twins,” he kept saying.
Literal minded person that I am, I at first insisted that we were triplets. “There are three of us,” I said. “We can’t be twins.” But in the end I decided Pavko’s word made the most sense. We were connected, we adored each other, we needed each other. “He’s right,” I said to Izabela. “And we’re not even fraternal twins like he and his brother – we’re identical.”Photo copyright Mona Blank
Due to the combination of snow and rain, with the beginning of December, the city transformed into one solid architectonical barrier. Even before the winter officially began, ice and snow had mounted barricades as hard and solid as rocks in place of uneven curbs, adding whimsical patterns to the geometry of the city. We decided to visit only the places which boast underground parking lots. This put us on friendly terms with local malls.
Luckily, our part of town is blessed with several of them built in close enough proximity to serve the inhabitants of fifteen floor high, multi-entranced, inhospitable high-rises built in the nineteen seventies. Tiny neighborhood stores set up like rows of match boxes hunker down, but their clientele of today consists mostly of retirees.
The malls are something else. The moment I allow myself to be carried to the first floor by the escalator, I enter a safe space filled with lights, synthetic music, designer stores, and overall kindness. No sign of global crisis remains where shops are filled with fantastic goods and customers, eager to grab them all day long. The mall surrounded by the ice fields looks like the Titanic where people love to dress up in the hours proceeding catastrophe.
Pani Krystyna, our cleaning lady, arrives on Thursdays after ten. We can afford her and the mall shopping, as well as a flat with a dishwasher and underground parking courtesy of Lilly-Marie’s Fulbright.
Normally we should be at the university on Thursday mornings, but our school break began only the day before Christmas Eve and continued into the week preceding the New Year. We have an extra Thursday off in accordance with the law passed by our government last year, and that’s Three Kings Day on January 6th.
Lilly-Marie is put off by our holiday schedule. For a person raised in the US, the season of celebration begins in the second week of December, with enough time for shopping, visiting friends, eating out, listening to The Messiah at church, seeing a Nutcracker performance in the city, or going to an evening of Italian madrigals at the museum. As a student, Lilly-Marie used to leave for her Christmas break around December 8th, which gave her enough time to succumb to the joys of family visits, cookie baking, eggnog tasting, and overall holiday preparation.
Our Polish students, however, are kept in classrooms until they barely have time to pack, as if having them return home early, so they’d be useful running errands for their mothers, would infringe on the secularism of the university amidst the deluge of equally strict piety.
But then once the holidays begin, they drag on. And why not? With the ice age creeping over parking spaces in the city, we could just as well fall into a winter slumber.
With pani Krystyna already in the kitchen, we take advantage of the free morning to call an art center in London. We had called them once before the New Year, but they were on vacation, and the woman on the emergency line suggested we try back after January 4th. They are back now, all refreshed with New Year’s resolutions. The young man who answers the phone and takes down Lilly-Marie’s name wouldn’t guess in a hundred years that we are not on the same schedule.
We end the call, and pani Krystyna has something to tell us.
“I heard you were planning to go to the mall. Don’t be surprised if you find it closed.”
“Closed? Why?”
“Because the government just passed this law curbing all social activities on holidays, starting this year. Three Kings is the first holiday of the year, so no one really knows how it is going to be.”
“We don’t have to shop,” I say because we mostly planned on getting out of pani Krystyna’s way. “Wouldn’t a cafe be open?”
“Perhaps it would,” she says with doubt in her voice.
“But why not?” I’m puzzled. “Aren’t cafes part of holiday entertainment?”
“I think small stores and family businesses may be open around town, but that’s all.”
I look at Lilly-Marie who is all dressed up to go, then back at pani Krystyna.
“The law doesn’t forbid these places to stay open,” she says. “But it forbids anyone to employ other people, so they wouldn’t be deprived of their right to have a holiday.”
We put our coats on and, as we take the elevator, I abbreviate in English what pani Krystyna said to Lilly-Marie: “The government wants to make sure that businesses respect their workers’ rights to a day off.”
“What about their workers’ right to have money?” she asks.
“I think the government would answer that values are more important than money.”
“Isn’t money a value?”
“The government would say that moral values are worth more than money.”
“And that’s from the people who don’t mind partaking of the EU grants?”
We leave the parking lot and drive through the gate into the street where single cars dart here and there, between barricades of ice. It’s ok that there is no traffic, I say to myself. It’s only 11 o’clock in the morning on a day free of work.
I turn into the closest mall, notice randomly parked cars in the underground lot, and find parking right by the door.
“It looks open,” I say.
But when I push the entrance door, they don’t yield. With the light left on inside, the entrance to the mall looks eerie, as if a mysterious weapon swept out all its inhabitants.
“What do we do now?” Lilly-Marie asks.
I take us back to the car.
“Unrepentant schopaholics don’t give up,” I say. “Let’s visit another mall.”
She laughs. “This is what Becky Bloomwood would do. She wouldn’t give up.”
I maneuver to the exit among the sparse collection of cars.
“So these cars kind of live here,” I say. “People from the neighborhood must prefer to park in the mall's garage. Better than in the street with ice and snow.”
“And it’s free.” Lilly-Marie adds.
We pass an abandoned gas station, as we turn into the street. I get a creepy feeling of waking up in a Stephen King's novel.
“Not a soul there.”
At the intersection, I notice an approaching tram with relief.
“So city transit works today.”
A bus passes by.
“Ha! And what about the police,” I wonder. “The police don’t give their people the right to have holidays, either.”
“Call and talk to them about it,” Lilly-Marie says. “Hi guys, are you working today?”
We drive into Alpha Center, two blocks further down – our favorite mall. I glide into the parking garage where a few cars can’t help but stir my hope.
We approach the entrance door and it yields this time; we step onto the escalator enveloped by music and light. On the upper level all stores are closed. We pass them to step onto another escalator which brings us yet another floor up, to the restaurant level. But the restaurants, like stores, have a deserted look of places occupied not long ago, whose inhabitants fell victim to a mysterious disease.
“We could crash on their armchairs if we really want to,” I say. “We could get a tab bear from their counter.”
But instead we discover another escalator to the top floor whose existence we’ve never guessed until now. There are people here, some of them behind counters.
“That’s movie theater!” I say. “It’s open! And they have a café.”
We come closer.
“What do they have?” Lilly-Marie’s eyes are wide open.
“Pepsi… Popcorn… Coffee…”
A young man looks at us kindly from the behind the counter, and I ask him if we can get a latte.
“Yes,” he says, “but only in paper cups. If you want coffee in glasses, why don’t you go over there.” He motions us to the right.
Another cranberry-black counter hides behind the columns. At the table, we ogle the menu: fancy coffees and ice-cream deserts.
“Well, the government will have to note this omission,” Lilly-Marie says, “and make sure to close down movie theaters as well by next year.”
For now, we are pleased with our amaretto and cardamon lattes, Perrier water, a martini glass of decadent ice cream and a box of popcorn. As soon as we start on it, more people come up the escalator with relieved and complacent looks on their faces, and soon all tables are taken. Kids are running around and shouting out their favorite flavors. Adults smile at each other and engage in leisurely chatter.
“I feel like I’m in Berkeley,” Lilly-Marie says. “Doesn’t this place remind you of Berkeley?”
We are on the top floor of the mall. A snow-covered flat roof with mysterious tin constructions, which must be ventilators, shows through the window. But inside the atmosphere continues to be warm and friendly.
“That’s because people are happy to be together,” I say. “They appreciate what they have more than usual.”
A family with kids sits on the tall bar stools because all tables are already taken.
“What’s the name of this place?” Lilly-Marie asks.
“Helios, just like the movie theater.” Ands then it dawns on me. “Helios is the pagan sun god.” So that’s the key to the mystery. “They are pagan; they are open.”
We spend a Berkeley afternoon in Helios; we drink lattes, eat ice-cream and write.
I text to pani Krystyna: I believe we’ve trespassed the law by employing you. I’ve already texted most of our abbreviated journey to her, so she knows we’ve found our hideout in Helios.
We can live with trespassing the law once a year, she texts back.
“You know what I think?” I tell Lilly-Marie once we are back home, where the sink and the floors are as pristine as if we’ve never lived here. “In the States we start the Christmas celebration early, so in a way all holidays blend together.”
“Oh yes, there is Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, and Christmas, and they say, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Chrismas…”
“But here, with Christmas pushed so far into January, there is no way Christians and Jews could ever celebrate together.”
Lilly-Marie stops with her glass of leftover champaign in hand to consider this. “Do you think they do it on purpose?”
“Oh no, at least not consciously. This government maintains strong ties with Israel and pumps tons of money into funding the Jewish Museum in Warsaw.” My mind seems to be processing at top, champagne-accelerated speed. “Still, the end result of this new holiday is that Hannukah and Christmas will never blend.”
Half an hour later, it takes facebook to make me burst out laughing. “We are going to Elton tomorrow.”
Elton is not a person but a friendly queer club in Sopot; it’s owner, Pavko, reminds me of a pirate due to his unruly black hair and a penchant for sparkling black rings.
“Why so?” Lilly-Marie raises her eyebrows.
“Pavko has an event called Three Queens.”
Whenever he decides to shave his beard, Pavko likes to perform in sequined dresses and high heels.
“Ok, I guess we’ve got to go.”
I forget for a moment that Elton would have to move into the mall for us to do this because the streets all around it, together with their parking places, turned into an ice palace, for the snow queens to play in.
Photo © Beata Sosnowska
