Tailor of Inverness, The (6 page)

By 1976, I was seventeen and full of the narcissistic
preoccupations
of a British teenager. During the previous year, I had been on an exchange trip with my school to Augsburg, the Bavarian city which was twinned with Inverness. The exchange was with a girls’ convent school and I’d carried out a postal romance with one of the girls ever since. As usual every two years, my parents planned to drive to Poland, but I was eager to return to Augsburg with my friend, Tom Morrison. They agreed to give Tom and me a lift to Germany, taking a more southern route to Poland in order to leave us closer to Bavaria. They dropped us off in Mannheim on the river Rhine and carried on to the West-East German border at Herleshausen
near Eisenach and on through Thuringia and Lower Saxony to Lesna. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I wouldn’t return to Poland until 1989. From the late ‘70s until then, I was occupied with the business of becoming an adult, going to university and immersing myself in the world of my chosen profession, trying to make my way as an actor.

There was one time, ach aye, I was just wee, was in the winter, and we went into town, it was not far, just a few kilometres. We were on the sleigh. Sleigh and the horses. Two horses and the sleigh, you see. And at night on the way back I heard a wolf howl.

‘Did you hear the wolf, Dad?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.

A few minutes later, a pack of wolves came running out of the darkness behind us. It was very frightening.

‘I can see them, Dad! They’re chasing us!’

We usually had torches, pitch torches, flaming torches to ward them away. But that time we didn’t have any.

‘Take the shovel!’

We had a shovel for the snow on the sleigh, so I took it in both hands, ready to clout any wolf that caught up with us. Father stung the backs of the horses with his crop. The horses pulled very fast.

‘Faster dad, faster! Come on! Come on!’

He kept at the horses with the crop. The wolves were closing, clouds of steam from them, panting away. Closer, and closer. I gripped the shovel and shivered. The nearest one was
only 
about five or six metres from us. But he couldn’t get any closer, stayed with the others, racing after us, for maybe half a minute. Felt like half an hour! The horses pounding on, the snow flying up. Then the wolves began to tire and we pulling away. ‘They’re giving up!’ And they did. They knew they couldn’t catch us. They slowed down and were swallowed up in the darkness. Outran the wolves. I didn’t have to use the shovel.

The wolf would never attack you when he’s alone, just always in the pack. One or two would never attack you but when he’s in the pack, would attack, you see. They were hungry of course. Lots of sheep been carried away by the wolves, even wee calf been attacked you know, yes. By Jove we charged home fast! Aye.

The village was small, I don’t know, maybe four, five hundred of us. Gnilowody. Not far from the town. The town of Podhajce. School start from seven years of age, and before that I was always on the farm, have various things to do. Maybe to look after the chicken or geese or ducks and ting like that.

It was a reasonably big farm …ten, twelve heads of cattle, four working horses and two riding horses you see. A mass of geese and ducks. I don’t know how many… geese chasing me many a times because geese quite vicious sometimes, oh chase you! Many times I been bitten by the geese…the hens… about a hundred anyway…and land, it was about two hundred and fifty hectares. And, well, we children, it was nothing like a modern music nowadays, cinema or any thing like that, we have to make our own entertainment.

Used to make swings from the trees, from the rafters in the barns and ting like that. And make our own toys, like a man jumping up and down when you press the wee ladder on the bottom you know. I still know how to make it. Even playing cards we made from a piece of cardboard. One time, Kazik – Kazik was a bit older and he decided to make a set of dominoes and he cut the bits of wood and now to get the eyes 
on, so we burned the eyes on with a piece of wire, heat it in the stove and burn the eyes on. Took about a week but we have a set of dominoes!

Father always got a weekly gazette, the Citizen, Obywatel and sometime he bought magazine and that was where we got to know the various way of playing cards or the dominoes and ting like that.

Marvellous summers we had, it was always very hot. We grow tomatoes outside and all sorts of vegetable that doesn’t grow here in Inverness grow there. Grow prolific. Nobody looked after them. Father used to plant them and they just grow and a mass of tomatoes without any care because the ground was very fertile you see, not need much manuring because the black earth you see?

There was a burn running through the village and in the middle of it, there was a mill. The wheat and barley was all ground on a great big stone driven from the water wheel, and we used to watch how it was, slowly, slowly and grind and grind. Sometime a hundred kilogram sack of wheat took a day to grind! Ground non-stop all the time you see?

Reasonably good life we had, you know. We never went hungry in those days. To sell our produce father had to travel quite a few kilometres to different towns to see where the price is better. We were self-sufficient, so we didn’t need to go to town to buy this, buy another. We didn’t need to do that, were self-sufficient completely.

We ate all sorts of things. There was some meat. We used to kill a pig or a bullock you know, it was salted and cured and all that. I was involved in the curing yes, but the killing no, father used to done that with some friends and made the sausages from the pork and things like that. But mainly it was vegetables and floury ting like noodles, like macaroni. Mother made herself of course. And potatoes, turnip, beetroot, cabbage. Was barrels of cabbage, pickled cabbage.

Polenta was often cooked, you know, the cornflour. And it was very tasty, mother used to make it with cream and sometime even with the fried bacon. We drank milk, the children and the adults. But sometime father made beer. He tried to make vodka once, but didn’t come out right, and he abandoned the idea ‘cos they weren’t drinkers. He says I’d rather buy a bottle. Juices, from a brambles, blackcurrant, redcurrant and cherry. Into the jars with sugar and just left there to ferment in big containers, about 25 litres. Sugar was expensive, comparison with other tings. The juice was quite strong. One time when I was wee I took a cup and I slept for about two days yes, I did. I didn’t realise it was so strong. Mother and father, they give me a row like anything. If you misbehaving you got a belting and that was that. Here! Lie down! One time, how was it…och we nearly set the house on fire.

During the First World War, there was a front in our area, you see? And each time you dug anywhere you always found a bullet or a grenade or an artillery cartridge. And they were still perfectly sound. So one time, me and my brothers
dismantled
them. We had quite a heap of gunpowder and started hammerin’ with a hammer to make a spark. And the damn ting made a spark all right. And it went off with a bang! Adam was wounded in the hand that time, he still have a scar there.

Oh, I gotta such a belting. Father was chasing and pulling and I got a battering like anything you know. A lot of boys in that area were blinded, lost the arms, lost the fingers because of that you see?/ Somehow I was lucky. I know a chap, he become a musician, he play a violin, lost his eyes because of that. Marcin, Marcin something, I just don’t remember his surname you know? Blinded, but he still played the violin, you know, played with the band, travelling band.

There was organised maybe once a month in the summer, a barn dance on somebody’s farm. Round dances, waltzes an’
polkas. Songs and storytellers from the village. There was a specially old woman there, Laska was her second name, she was a great storyteller. We used to gather around her an’ she tell you such a stories. About the eagles and a princess and the giant and the princess again and the man that turned into the frog, those kinds of things. Fairy tales.

Every village had characters. Like Stefan Bobik. He was supposed to be village idiot, but he wasn’t that daft, he just played the goat. He got a good laugh wherever he went. There was a sort of general store where they sold drink too. He always got a drink for nothing, for telling a joke or make some stunt. Sleight of hand. He would make things disappear, and they say he was daft! He wasn’t daft at all!

He told us once that in the fields near Kotusow, ‘I seen such a big cabbage, they had to use oxen to pull it from the field! They made enough sauerkraut to fill five thousand jars and from the centre of it, the joiners made a new wheel for the mill!’

And of course, we went to the school. Of course the teachers were disciplinarians. We always got a cane if we not done anything right, or a ruler on the hand. But I quite liked school. One time I burned the hand of one boy. You know you not realise these things when you small. The stove burning to heat the school and I grabbed the poker and say to the boy, here, pull, to see who would pull each other over, you know? Didn’t realise that poker was hot the other end! Never think, you see?

The teachers was man and wife. Very nice people. He was an officer from the First World War, he fought with Pilsudski’s army. He have no leg, lost his leg in the war. They been in the village for years. When the Russian came in the Second World War, they were deported to Siberia because they weren’t desirable characters, according to the Russians. I don’t know what happened to them at all.

I have plenty friends. Everyone was a friend. There was one Wladyslaw Zajac, no relation at all. There would have been some connection very very far back. He was the same age as me, a tall, strong boy. We always went together, sung the songs, climbed the trees, trapped the rabbits, chased the fox in the winter, oh what a chase it was. You see the fox, and you round with the horse and the sleigh. Circle it, fox, all around and join the circle. If fox not run away before you close the circle, you have him because he would not cross the circle. And you go smaller and smaller circle and smaller circle and then bang, you got the fox. Aye. We caught a few that way. Need to be mighty fast because the fox they are clever trying to get out of the circle before you join it. He’s out of the circle, its finished, he’s got away.

Heaps of girls in the village, of course. Och, I have number of girlfriends! There was Milanja, there was Michalina, and Maria… they just lived a couple of houses from us… Oh, Saucuk! Maria Saucuk. They were Ukrainians, Greek Orthodox, you know. The village was mixed, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and the odd Lutheran. The school was mixed too. There was a family of Jews who went to school too, was two boys, Lipko and Muinka, that’s Menachem and Lippe in the Hebrew.

There was no religious conflict in the village. Everyone treated the same! We grew up with Jews, we grew up with Ukrainians, was no animosity between anybody! When they appeared, when all the conflict start to show its ugly head – when Hitler came into power in Germany – it spread so quick, there start discriminate against this religion, against that, oh he’s a Jew and he’s a Ukrainian and he’s a Pole! Don’t buy from him because he’s a Jew. We never heard that before. There was no such a Nazi movement or anything like that. There was in the west of Poland, but in the east of Poland, no. Not until after Hitler came into power. The propaganda, it spread like a wildfire you
see? You see?

But with us there was not even think of that er, any
discrimination
, you know. Like, with us, was all services in one church! The Greek Orthodox priest was having a service, the Roman Catholic was having a service in the same church, alternative Sunday.

And we celebrated two Christmases! The Catholic and the Orthodox. Perfectly in order! Oh Christmas, tremendous celebration it was. The preparation went on for a week
beforehand
. The great pleated doughnut been made, the special kolacz, and when Christmas come, we have Christmas Eve supper after the sun set. Usually carp and kucza, the poppy seed and wheat boiled so that it opens up, very tasty. And a poppy seed and a honey, about half a dozen courses, and then father used to have a bottle of vodka and that home made wine so we got a wine and they got a vodka. It was, oh tremendous and the celebration went on for about three days.

I remember when I was little my older sister got married, the man that played the trumpet was blind and the man that played the violin was blind. Two blind men. I was four years old and I remember that to this day. And the preparation for the wedding went on for weeks. Baking, cooking and preserving and when the wedding day came in it was so many people! I never seen so many people before in one spot! Nobody took much notice of me and I cried most of the time!

My sister. Of course she is dead now, aye. Milanja. She was the oldest. 1906 she was born. That’s where my mother was, living with her in Gnilowody, behind the Iron Curtain where we come from you know. Milanja got married to another farmer. And she moved about kilometre or two away. Smaller farm than ours. But we didn’t know she had a heart condition. She died of a heart trouble, she was quite young, about 50-odds when she died and Pawel, her husand, och he lived about twenty years after that, looked after mother of course. And well he’s dead now too. There you are. They had a boy, exactly 
the same age as Adam, but during the war, he disappeared, don’t know what happened to him…he was too young to fight, just like Adam. What happened there, nobody knows, he might have got mixed up with some underground organisation. Some people say that he was shot, by the Germans. Some people say that he was shot by the Russians. So there you are.

He was their only boy, so there’s nobody from that side now. He was very very clever boy. He was so bloomin’ good he practically spoke German before the war! You know, when he was little, there was a village of Beckersdorf, not far from us, German village from the time of Czarina Katerina. They were Polish citizens but they still retain German language, German culture you see? And he got mixed up with those boys from there. Well, they spoke German obviously. So did he! He spoke German just like them! Before he was twelve! Very clever boy he was.

There was a lot of jealousy because if you see the village, I’m picturing now. When you enter that German village, the building were sort of symmetrically built, they were so clean, there was a gates and a hedges and this and that. And you got other village was everything sort of a haphazard you know? Was not any discipline or symmetry to anything but with them it was. Discipline was there, you see! So there was a lot of jealousy towards the Germans. I wouldn’t say they were richer but they were more efficient to make use of what they had. Better than the Poles or the Ukrainians or the…so. And a, well, I don’t know…