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‘Do you know what fills me most with
wonder?’ the Head of the Music School asked. ‘The
powerlessness of the police to do anything about it.’ They were
conspicuously absent at his funeral. And four months later they still
wouldn’t dare come within five hundred metres of the place.
We had spent early Monday evening
buying sheet music at a shop close to the Opera House where, the
previous Friday, we had been given presidential treatment in the form of
two front balcony seats to La Fille Mal Garde. Our host failed to
secure the benefits of privilege a second time. We missed a concert of
Mozart and drove north to the church or St. Stanislav Kostka. As we
parked in the square, candlelit faces were passing upturned green
benches behind the railings.
This
was the diocese of Father Jerzy Popieluszko. The church itself is modern, with twin
frontal towers reminiscent of a design by Borromini and Rainaldi,
surrounded by a little land, in one corner of which a kiosk sold
photographs and mementos. Nearby, candles burned before a fortress of
pine branches, an abundance of flowers lay on the mound of a recent
grave, which seemed exceptionally high. They must have either dug deep
or carried barrows of earth from elsewhere. On the funeral day, messages
from international Solidarity had pointed outwards, but within a short
time, notices of condolence began to replace threats of aggression. An
illegal anchor built of twigs rested against the railings,
no longer turned defiantly
outwards but inwards towards the church. The open boot of a Polish Fiat,
contained a Christ effigy, surrounded by three black shrouds hung from
sticks.
Visiting clerics were melancholic and
hopeful. A dismal silence and a mindless authority had been broken.
Within this protected area grayness lifted from faces, at once startled
by new words and phrases flowing into a long-interrupted conversation.
The shrine of Popieluszko is not a symbol. The Poles will not win their
democracy with symbols.
To the left of the church young men
wearing yellow armbands patrol the grounds. Inside a balconied
apartment – the home of the former incumbent – the lights are turned on. Within the body of the church, the congregation
overflows through the doors. Their eyes are burning with excitement. Electrified,
they realise that, despite the safety in numbers, if they close the
church now or if they extinguish the light, all might be lost. More candles
burn, new arrivals walk down the aisles, kneel and cross
themselves in silence. Not one cough is heard, or whispered prayer or lamentation.
No comment, word of greeting, welcome or sign of recognition. A
sense of fraternity creeps through this manifestation and steals
its anonymity. More people file past the open
doors while others return to the pitch black outside.
The following day, within sight of Lazienki,
compacted snow lies over the Botanical Gardens. Motorised ploughs push along
the arbours, dislocating floating eyes beneath their tread. Nuns from
the convent walk by wearing fashionable boots. They are young and
businesslike. Their looks thrive. Ahead of them the path comes out of
the wood and meanders alongside a lake. The island has not thawed out
and wild fowl huddles on its shelf. In the distance the roof of the
Music School is visible. Students return from a lecture and pensioners
walk their dogs. Where do they imagine is the ideal place to
live?
Before
a concert of chamber music at
the Palace a woman speaks loudly and writes something in a diary. She is
not a critic. The audience stares at this lonely figure, who hums the
violin part as the musicians continue to play. During the interval I
walk back to the old town. Fresh snow flurries in
my face. I pull up my collar and push against the blizzard. At the
entrance to St. John’s Cathedral two oil lamps burn behind a
window. I blow into my gloved hands. Dziekania Street is laden with snow. An
avalanche tips off the flying balcony that links the castle with the
royal stall in the cathedral chancel. The gutters in Kanonia Square are
frozen.
Above the Kamienne Schodki cafe plumes
grey smoke. I venture down the stone steps and wander inside the
bookshop, formerly a printers, where, in the eighteenth century, Warsaw’s first daily
newspaper, Gazeta Rzadowa, was published . My breath does not disappear. The temperature is fourteen below
zero and these little clouds just hang around my face. Inside the
bookshop, my friends browse as quiet as mice. An inner voice laughs in
delight. A candle flame leans back in surprise.
There is no such escape from exile. Unforeseeable laws govern
the globe. It is futile to complain: there is no distance, there is no
longer an inside or an outside. Is not the sail of every doctrine inflated with
revolution? Are there not basic laws within each of us about which
almost everybody would agree? An exile is a refugee from the community
in which he no longer lives. An alien is severed from his connections
and is repudiated by all. What are
we all, but aliens and exiles
too?
Popieluszko was hoping to contribute to
the growth of society.
Timothy Foster –
unpublished -1985 |