I spent time in the Polish country, a village, a town, a cabin by the lake. I drove from place to place in a car nicknamed “the iron,” as in ironing clothes. The proper name, pill box for all I know. I drank vodka from shot glasses by a speed only eastern Europeans could pour. I was stared at by woman of broader girth and sterner faces than my own and managed to stifle my laughs. I saw old men ride bicycles across the biggest lake in Poland. Balloons were blown up and popped in their own time. Rockets were set off in the air. A bonfire was lit – I was told it symbolizes rebirth, the old with the old and in with the new. I danced in my green pants and sang out ABBA with a room of Polish friends turned dancers for the evening.
Now that you have a hazy picture of my holiday, let me start at the beginning.
Loaded down with bags, gifts of cognac bought after sampling from a plastic spoon and plus-sized calendars, Anna and I left the Ochota apartment and walked to the bus stop. Three buses one after another stopped, bang, bang, bang.
“Fuck, look at the traffic…We’re not gonna make it.”
I agreed with Anna. It was bad. Cars smashed tightly together, and these cars were not being too friendly to our bus at this time. I heard a cat meowing, a phone ringing off the hook, and three women at the front of the bus acting like they owned the holiday. Their perfectly hair-sprayed bobs bounced with each finger point and “what the hey?” they gave the bus driver.
“The woman wants to be left out…she’s telling the driver how he should be driving…she has a bus waiting for her and wants to run.”
When the bus finally did stop, which took awhile, the ladies gave each other knowing looks and sighs, laughs and head shakes. Oh, if they had been driving, what would have been. Oh, if only.
The walk to the train platform was long. We were taking the train from Warsaw to Ciechanow. The platform was a short hike in freezing weather past shakcks and retired, rusting train cars that I’d live in if homeless. We made it, just in time, at least we thought. As did everyone else at the platform.
The minute that the train was to arrive past, and everyone remained waiting, getting a little ancy. I started swaying and quickly spotted some young man to stare at. Anna and I both started stepping with our feet and swaying back forth. We reminisced about New Kids on the Block. The train still didn’t come. People checked the times and came back. A train from the other side came and went. I took some pictures, and then, after 40 minutes, the train came. Empty.
The ride passed, people coming in and out, sitting next to me chatting on their phone, fidgeting with their gloves and scarves, and I stayed in Henry James world and let him tell me Isabel Archer’s story. The last stop, our stop, Ciechanow. We got out and walked to our waiting car, Anna’s father was there. We had time. Two hours. Anna and her family hadn't eaten all day. But they would, there would be a feast of herring and cabbage and mushrooms and vodka and coffee and sweets to the sky. So Anna's family plus me loaded up to the car. Off to grandmother's house we go.
There Christmas began. Wesolych Swiat! as they say.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
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