Necessary Lies. Eva Stachniak

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СКАЧАТЬ God. Bastards!”

      The first images on the ABC morning news showed the Polish TV screen. General Jaruzelski, his eyes hidden behind his dark sunglasses, was sitting at his desk, behind him a huge Polish flag. “Citizens of the Polish People’s Republic!” he was saying in a strained but steady voice. “I turn to you as a soldier and the chief of government! Our fatherland is on the verge of an abyss!” When the speech ended, and before it was repeated, the screens showed pictures of flowery meadows, still background for the music of Chopin.

      The state of war was declared at night. The declarations posted on street corners were printed in the Soviet Union — American and Canadian commentators stressed — to preserve the secrecy of the operation. Poles were informed that all schools, theatres, movie theatres were closed, that public gatherings of any kind were forbidden, that no one could leave his place of residence without official authorisation.

      Anna kept switching the channels, hoping to learn more. By midday came the first shots of grey tanks slowly rolling in the Polish streets. One shot, in particular, appeared over and over again, at every television station, the neon signs of the Moscow cinema in Warsaw announcing “Apocalypse Now.” The tank that stood by the entrance had its turret aimed at the street.

      Anna walked around the room, in circles, avoiding the stacks of plates, leftovers of the party. She noticed that someone had spilled beer on the beautiful art book William kept opened on the coffee table, and now the pages were swollen with dampness. A feeling of panic, so strong that she had to stop herself from rushing somewhere, anywhere, spread all over her body. Her hands were cold and she had to sit down to catch her breath. William followed her into the living room, silent, picking up the plates, emptying ashtrays, taking them all to the kitchen, grateful to have something to do. He had run to the store and brought her papers, The Gazette, The New York Times, Le Devoir, but the news seemed all the same to her.

      “It’s still too early,” he tried to calm her down. “We’ll have to wait.” He brought her a glass of water and a piece of toast, but she only shook her head. Then he began making coffee, and she shuddered at the grinding noise of the coffee mill. The phone rang. “Yes,” William said. “I will. You can imagine how she feels. Yes. Thank you. I will.”

      She dialled the operator.

      “Sorry, Ma’am. All lines to Poland are cut off. I’m really sorry. Please try again later.”

      In the evening, exhausted from crying, her mind unable to sift through reports that called the events in Poland everything from utter betrayal to the choice of a lesser evil, she let William take her out to dinner. She was silent the whole evening, staring beyond him, her eyes aimlessly recording the shapes of wainscotting, the maze of squares on the wallpaper. He looked at her, and then looked away. “I don’t know what to say,” he said.

      She didn’t say anything. William’s face seemed to her too sharp, too finely chiselled, the way the world looked on the days in her childhood when a fever hit her. Trees had sharp, spiky branches, clouds stood out from the blue of the sky, the stocky, dark houses had sharp roof tops and red wavy tiles. Now it was William’s face she saw as if cut out of paper; the edges, if she ran her fingers over them, capable of slashing her finger, a thin shallow wound painful to heal.

      “Don’t cut me off like that,” he pleaded.

      It was her own body she concentrated upon, following the trajectory of each shiver, hands folded, pressing against her thighs. The food she had forced herself to swallow lodged itself against the walls of her stomach, a hard, sour lump, refusing to dissolve. She was trying to steady another surge of panic, the urge to stand up and run, blindly, fast, the fastest she could. She took a long breath and drank the wine William placed in front of her. She thought that the force of her pain disappointed him; the resurgence of old ties diminished the new. She didn’t care.

      He ate fast, watching her all the time. He tried to reason with her, to plead for her patience, for time. “It won’t be too bad. At least it’s not the Soviets, Anna. Communists won’t dare to do anything too drastic. They can’t afford it.” She nodded but did not listen. “Tell me what you are afraid of,” he asked, but she only shook her head. How could she tell him about shame? About blaming herself for her selfishness. In the last four months she had come to believe that she had the right to think of herself. Thought herself brave, even. Until the moment when she saw the images of tanks in Polish streets, telling her that what she did had nothing to do with her new freedom. It wasn’t courage, she thought, it was betrayal “I haven’t really known you, have I?” Piotr had asked.

      “You cannot change anything, darling,” William kept repeating. “Would you rather be there now? How would that help?”

      “I want to go home,” she said, and rushed out of the restaurant. The door swung behind her. William’s car was parked nearby, but she kept walking through the streets, her feet slipping on the frozen pavement. She didn’t even turn back to check if he followed.

      The news flew fast. There were accounts of massive arrests of Solidarity activists; the lists, rumours had it, had been prepared months ahead. There were reports of strikes, of tanks crushing the entrance gate of the Lenin Shipyard in Gdask. Striking miners were dying in the Wujek coal mine, in a losing battle with the ZOMO forces. The arrests of Walsa, Kuro, Michnik were confirmed; Frasyniuk was reported to be on the run. On the walls, defiant graffiti, “Winter may be yours, but spring will be ours.”

      It was not hard to imagine how it would go: Loud knocks at the door. The old, worn platitudes. You’re under arrest. Don’t try any tricks. Piotr would flash his defiant smirk, lips folding as if he were getting ready to spit in their faces. Would she love him more for it had she stayed? Would nothing else matter to her, too? Anna didn’t know any more. She had lost the certainty of her judgments. She was floating in between worlds, unanchored, weightless. Could it be that her love for William was nothing but an infatuation after all? Love misplaced, uncertain, already tainted by her shameless desire for peace, for comfort. What had she done then?

      William, she thought at times, was getting tired of her tears. She could hear him slip out of the house in the morning. “Do what you want,” she whispered to herself, “Why would I care?”

      She spent her days waiting for news, flipping through TV channels, listening to short wave broadcasts. Her eyes were permanently swollen; there were red, sore patches on her nose and face. At night she turned her back to William and stayed close to the edge of the bed. She watched him with suspicion, collecting all signs of his indifference. He frowned when he looked at her. He locked himself in his study for the whole afternoon. He put a record on too loud, to drown the static of the short waves. She was provoking him, too. She left him to do the dishes, shopping, laundry. “You go,” she said when they were invited over to Christmas parties. And all the time, she watched what he would do. He waited.

      The Christmas cards that arrived a few days later, forwarded to her from Rue de la Montagne, had been mailed before her call to Piotr. We wish you a Happy Christmas, your first so far away from us. We love you and think of you all the time, her mother wrote. Words that by now, she was sure, would have been taken away. Piotr scribbled his wishes in rows of small letters. I miss you. It will be a sad Christmas, and the last one apart. I shouldn’t have let you go. From now on it is either together or not at all, right? I’ll be thinking of you on the 24^th. Love you, Piotr.

      She sat down on the living room sofa and let the cards СКАЧАТЬ