Swans Are Fat Too (14 page)

They crossed the meadow and a field and were at the end of the village. Hania saw that Maks was seated by the road with two of his friends.
Pani
Ola walked on toward her house, and Hania strolled over to Maks. Kalina had said that her brother had been allowed, for two years now, to run about the neighborhood unattended. Still, freedom for an almost seven-year-old was all very well, Hania thought, but they really shouldn't be this close to the road. She was going to speak rather severely, but when she got near she saw that the children had three small containers full of mushrooms. Maks jumped up when he saw her.

"We sold two containers already!" he shouted.

"You haven't been selling them?" said Hania with horror, taking in the scene. The Polish roads were full of mushroom pickers selling their gatherings, but Maks ––Maks knew nothing of mushrooms. Or did he?

He looked up in surprise at her tone. He had obviously expected her to be pleased. "Yes. We sold two, like I said. We're going to split the money. Look." He pulled two crumpled
złoty
bills out of his pocket. "We have to sell one more so we can share it evenly." His two friends nodded, eyeing her warily, sensing her alarm and prepared to flee already.
Boże
, he couldn't do simple math and he was selling potentially fatal commodities. She looked at the mushrooms, lying in a heap. They looked like the last ones
Pani
Ola had hesitated over. Like the ordinary mushrooms found in grocery stores.

"We picked them in the woods," one of the boys offered. "They're good."

"Do you know?" Hania asked hopefully. Maybe, young as he was, he had some expertise. "Do you really know which ones to pick? Did someone teach you?"

"No. But I think they're good." He added, as if that clinched the matter. "The people who bought the other ones thought they were good."

"How many people have bought them?"

"Just one car stopped," said Maks with disgust, "and we've been sitting here a long time."

Hania fought down a moment of hysteria. What was she supposed to do in this situation? Somewhere there was a car full of people, who were going to eat mushrooms that might be poisonous. Did she call some health department and ask for a bulletin to be broadcast? "People in a blue Lancia who passed through Żabia Wola at approximately 3:00 p.m.––don't eat those mushrooms!" She quailed at the thought. But she had to know.

"Maks, were all the mushrooms like these? Just like? It's important. You have to be sure."

Maks and his friends both nodded. She compared them to the ones she had picked with
Pani
Ola. They looked the same. She would hurry home, she decided. She would eat them, and if nothing happened, well and good, she would assume that the purchasers were safe too. If not, then at the first twinge she would call the authorities.

She walked home fast, cooked at top speed and ate, forcing each bite down and thinking she was soon going to lose all interest in food of any kind. In the revolted wake of this hasty meal, she set about typing to take her mind off the consequences.

…
When Zygmunt August died without an heir at the end of 1572, both Polish and Lithuanian, Protestant and Catholic parliamentarians gathered in Warsaw in January to ensure that the existing order of tolerance was not disturbed: They swore that although they were 'dissidentes de religione,' they would 'keep the peace…and not spill blood for the sake of our various faith and difference of churches.' A suitable king was sought, but the options were not encouraging: it was between Ivan the Terrible of Russia, a Habsburg prince, and the King of France's twenty-two-year-old brother, who had just helped orchestrate the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants. This French prince, Henri de Valois, was eventually elected by a gathering of 50,000 noblemen in Warsaw, and came reluctantly to Poland, where he was unimpressed by the noblemen's jewels, their clothing, their Latin speeches, their large, cold palaces, and their strange, quarrelsome politics. He was supposed to marry the late king's sister Anna, who was over fifty––and he was polite, but made no move to do so. He retired to his room and played sick until word came that his brother's death had left the French throne empty. Then he jumped on a horse and raced for the border, threatening to knife anyone who tried to stop him. (A few months later he was crowned King of France in Reims, and two days after he was married to a princess whom he had chosen for completely non-political reasons. They were hours late for their wedding because he was busy dressing her hair.)

More weddings, thought Hania. But at least this too had been a case, apparently, of inclination overcoming convention. Curious that Henri, who was a weak and not particularly worthy character, had managed it––she would have to ask Konstanty if the marriage had been happy.

In his stead came Stefan Bathory, a Hungarian nobleman of no particular means, who had been in the diplomatic service of various rulers, and had once been imprisoned for three years on the pretext that he had lost his mind. In prison he spent his time reading Julius Caesar, and in 1575, at age 43, was elected to the Polish throne. Considered one of Poland's better kings, he duly wedded Anna, fought with Russia over Livonia, abided by the constitution, and died in 1586...As frequently then at a royal death, there was some thought that he might have been poisoned.

Probably just ate mushrooms, thought Hania, looking down at her empty plate beside the laptop, and wondering how she was going to feel shortly.

The next king was Zygmunt Vasa, son of a sister of Zygmunt August and the King of Sweden. A fervid Catholic, he spent his reign working against religious toleration and trying to reclaim the throne of Sweden, with the result that, having avoided the religious turmoil of the 16
^th
century, from the next century on, Poland was constantly involved in warfare and internal troubles. 

Of course, she reminded herself, she shouldn't giggle at the word 'internal troubles,' when what she was writing about was Poland's descent from its golden age into misery as a result of human narrowness. But a couple of hours had passed and nothing had happened. She thought she must be safe, so she sent the pages off to Konstanty, with a humorous account of her adventures, and got her reward in his reply:

Respected Madam,…Your conscientiousness is admirable, and your devotion to our project in such circumstances beyond the call of duty.

She read these words over and over: 'Admirable.' He had called her 'admirable.' And he had written 'our project.' Of course, she reasoned with herself, it was just politeness, a trained manner of being civil and charming, and he spoke in this fashion to many people. And yet, she didn't think he would say something he didn't mean at all; there must be some element of truth in it. Still, she couldn't really take it personally, so to speak. She knew this, and yet she opened the email repeatedly.  

She kept a closer watch on Maks after this incident, but several days rolled by uneventfully. There were mornings when Hania woke early to the sound of church bells and rose to find mist hovering over the meadows. Afternoons when they walked through fields trimmed with blue chicory and red poppies, purple vetch and tall-growing cow parsley to the river, where the water ran shallow and cold over small, round boulders.

There was always, thought Hania later, in remembering this pleasant bucolic interlude, a lull before the storm. It broke one morning. The phone rang. Who would be calling? Maybe it's Wiktor or Ania, thought Hania, leaping for the receiver. It was a girl's voice, asking for Kalina. Hania looked about: no Kalina.

"Kalina's not here right now, could I take a message?"

The caller hesitated, and then said, "Please,
pani
, could you tell Kalina that I can't get into the building because they fixed the intercom?"

"I don't understand."

"It doesn't matter. Just please tell Kalina that Paulina says they fixed the intercom and she can't get into the building. Goodbye."

Maks was watching her. "Who was it?" he asked.

"How strange. Someone named Paulina says to tell Kalina she 'can't get into the building because they fixed the intercom.' Do you have any idea what it's about?"

But Maks was already gone; he was out the door crying, "Kalina! Kaliiinaaa!"    

From the sounds of altercation that ensued, Hania guessed he hadn't had far to look. She followed Maks to the back door. Kalina was lying in the chaise longue with a blanket over her head, fending her brother off with moans and attempts to kick him with a languid leg.

"Leave me alone, Maks. Leave me alone. I feel sick."

"But Paulina says she can't get in. What about Bartek? He'll die." He shook his sister, "Kalina! He'll die!"

"She'll die," mumbled Kalina from under the covers, "Go away, Maks, I'm sick. I'll think of something later."

"We have to go back…," said Maks, breaking off when he saw Hania.

"Go away!" whined Kalina.

"Kalina," said Hania, coming to the girl, "are you worse?" Good heavens, the girl wasn't usually this prostrated. Suppose she had to get her to a doctor––and here they were so far from everything. She didn't know anything about illnesses, she realized with a sinking feeling. Not a thing.

Kalina appeared to make an effort to pull herself together. "I'm all right," she said wanly. "I just want to sleep." Hania felt her forehead. She didn't seem to have a fever. That was a good sign. If there weren't any symptoms it was probably psychological, as she had suspected before. So that was okay––well, not okay, but not a case for a physician.

"Where do you hurt, Kalina?"

"I'm all right, I said. Just leave me alone," Kalina snapped irritably.

Thus rebuffed, Hania went back into the house and turned on her laptop. Should she ask Konstanty's advice? But in spite of the fact that the tempo of their email exchanges had reached two or three a day, and covered topics as varied as the people they'd spoken to and their ideas on Prus, she still didn't feel she was on those terms with him. She put Kalina and Maks out of her mind.

Respected Sir,…we were discussing Wokulski. Have you ever noticed that there are no––or at least very few that I can think of––love stories written by men that end happily?
She could write to him about love because she knew it had nothing to do with herself; it was just an abstract question, like the change from
ut
to
do
in musical notation. All she could hope for––rather desperately––was his friendship
…Actually, if one leaves aside the chevaleresque tradition of the Middle Ages, men rarely write love stories, do they?––It's almost always about something else, while the love element is just a vehicle––and if they do write about love, it usually ends with the woman being left or dying––Dido, Manon Lescaut, Anna Karenina, etc. I wonder what that says about men's relations with women? (This is a rhetorical question, I'm just throwing it out like that, you needn't answer.) I'm working on the…

Respected Madam,…I don't know what to answer. I hope you're wrong, but I note in my own reluctance to touch the question that you may have a point…I have read that the part of the brain that is most unused is the part relating to emotions
,
which is strange because it always seems to me that emotions get too much play in directing human affairs, but perhaps it's the better kind that don't get enough use...

Hania, typing about one dreary episode after another, thought he was right:

...In 1648 there was a rebellion, called the Khmelnytsky Uprising, against Polish rule in the Ukraine. One of the catalysts was a personal injury. Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a Ruthenian officer of Cossacks who quarrelled with a Polish nobleman named Czaplinski and whose estate was then raided, his son injured, and his fiancé kidnapped. (Khmelnytsky got her back, had her marriage to Czaplinski annulled, and married her himself, only to have her executed later, some sources say, for unfaithfulness). Finding the Polish king unwilling to help him in the matter of Czaplinski's predations, Khmelnytsky turned the Cossacks
––
who were angry that peace treaties between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire would prevent their usual raids on the Empire
––
against the Commonwealth and convinced the Tatars to join them. Although the Ruthenian nobility was Polonized, the mass of Ukrainians felt oppressed by the rule of the nobles, the harshness of the Jews whom the nobles used as middlemen, and by the effects of the Counter-Reformation in an Orthodox country. Khmelnytsky roused the peasants against Poles and Jews both…fifty thousand to several hundred thousand Jews died; Polish men, women, and children were put to the sword wherever they were found; and the Polish army committed atrocities in return. The Ukraine east of the Dnieper passed from Polish into Russian hands, while Poland suffered the Deluge, a string of invasions from all quarters.

Hania contemplated the passage. How horrible and stupid. Why were people so often horrible? With a vague feeling of the disquiet she always felt on reading about wars, she looked about, not able at once to revert to the everyday world where people were safe, and children played in the yard...And speaking of which, where was Maks? 

As if on cue, Patricia and a group of her cohorts appeared at the open door. "Please,
pani
, where's Maks?

"He was here..." A minute ago, she was going to say, and then realized it was longer. She rose quickly. If he wasn't with the other children, where was he? She walked quickly through the house. No Maks. How long had it been since she last saw him? Half an hour, an hour? She'd lost track of time. Her uneasiness growing, she hurried into the backyard and shook Kalina awake.

"Kalina have you seen Maks?"

"I was sleeping." She closed her eyes again.

Hania walked from one corner of the house to the other, and scanned the distance in every direction. A minute ago, she thought, I was typing. A few minutes ago perhaps a tragedy was happening and I wasn't paying attention. The frog pond was fifty meters away. Gooseflesh began to crawl up her arms. She ran over to the water. It was only a meter deep, perhaps, at its deepest, and he had promised to stay away from it…but still. She pushed through the reeds and stared at the stagnant pool. The water was motionless, the surface broken only by skittering water insects. If he was in there, it was too late, she thought, the beginnings of panic rising within her. A frog plopped off a lily pad and made a little splash. It was a frog. It wasn't Maks, making one last effort to rise to the surface. She had to be sure. She plunged into the water, waded to where the sound had come from, and felt about in the murk with hands and feet. No small submerged body met her fumbling limbs. She pushed the hair out of her eyes, and bent over the water, peering down, her wet dress clinging to her bosom. "Maks!" Nothing. The water cleared slowly. She couldn't see the bottom but she felt sure there was nothing there. Almost sure. She waded in a circle, bent over, felt around, straightened.