I decided to leave. Of course, that decision was made not all at once but a little at a time; it was the product of innumerable insignificant details, a gradual sliding that resulted from the games of hide-and-seek that I played with myself. But this time it's final: I'm on my way to the Dutch embassy.
As I walk along Marszakowska Street towards Unii Lubelskiej Square, I keep wondering if it's obvious. I stare at the passers-by in an effort to find out if they recognize me, if they know that I'm a Jew who has decided to get out. No, it didn't seem to be apparent yet. Perhaps that was because I hadn't decided completely yet, perhaps at that point I still believed in miracles, still believed that I would awake from this nightmare, that Gomulka would be removed—how can I say now what I was thinking then? All along the way I continued asking myself questions. Am I a coward for submitting to this, for asking permission to leave? Am I not betraying my friends, who want to continue the struggle? By asking for an emigration visa to Israel, am I not aligning myself with the Zionists? By agreeing to go through official channels, am I not placing myself on the side of people of whom I disapprove? And will it not seem that I am embracing their convictions, condoning their past actions?
I remember my first reaction to the speech Gomulka delivered on March 19, 1968 in the Congress Hall. When I saw those thousands of people jeering, whistling, screaming out their hatred of “Zionists,” booing Gomulka because he seemed too soft for them; and when, as Gomulka divided the Jews into three categories and announced that the authorities would permit those who expressed the desire to leave to do so, I heard the whole room chanting “Let them get out today, today!”—at that moment I vowed to myself that I would never agree to give them that pleasure.
And now here I am, determined to leave. Oddly enough, the fact that I've capitulated doesn't trouble me especially, and I'm frankly more curious than anxious about what will happen next. Here I am at Rakowiecka Street. Suddenly fear seizes my guts; the Dutch embassy is located exactly opposite the Ministry of the Interior. I had thought that going to give my name at the embassy would be a simple formality. Now I realize that this first step is in fact decisive, and that it won't be possible for me to turn back now. I imagine, no, I see, behind one of those windows a nameless agent clicking the shutter of his camera as I make my way stealthily up the little staircase that leads to the offices concerned with consular affairs. I have been placed on file, catalogued, classified, betrayed, found out. Before I came up those stairs, I was a Pole like any other, even though some people knew I was a Polish citizen of Jewish nationality. (Official terminology in Poland makes a distinction between “nationality”—which is taken to mean ethnic origin—and “citizenship”: but whenever I had occasion to fill out questionnaires, next to “nationality” I wrote “Polish” and no clerk ever said a word to me about it.) Now here I am not only on file but—as if that weren't bad enough—placed in the worst of categories, that of Zionist. Well, that's that! With a determined step I walk into the waiting room of the embassy.
There are two lines, or rather, two ways visitors may go. A window marked “Visas for Holland” and a sign which reads “No Admittance.” I can guess (probably everyone can) which way leads to the “office in question.”
I enter and see a veritable recapitulation of the whole latter-day history of the Jews in Poland. There is the Party militant, one of those women referred to as “aunts of the revolution,” one who's been through it all, jails run by Polish colonels before the war, then the prisons of Moscow, or the French or Belgian or German camps: one of those women who are currently being let go, kicked out of that same Party to which they have sacrificed everything.
There are a few students, blond, the kind to whom the word “Jew” means nothing, or if anything is just a synonym for “conservative”; the kind, perhaps, whose parents told them a few days ago that they were Jewish, told them the way one tells people that they have cancer or smallpox; the kind who, after a moment of incredulity, decided to make a display of their origins, who now devoured whatever they could find about the history of the Jews and who had decided to go to Israel.
And there are some artisans from the provinces. Where they came from they were the only Jews in a one-hundred mile area, and they had just been laid off work, excluded from Che Party or summoned to the police station, where they had been accused of fomenting Zionist plots and conspiracies. At one time these artisans had believed they could escape their fate by blending into the population, and although they still spoke Polish with a Yiddish accent they were very proud of having sent their children to the public high school, then on to the university.
And also waiting here are a number of civil servants, easily recognizable because each carries a copy of Trybuna Ludu—the official organ of the Party—under his arm. Seeing everything come crashing down around them, finding themselves, overnight, without work, without friends, and without hope, they decided abruptly to start from scratch, to begin their lives all over again in Israel, in that country where Zionism serves as ideology: that same Zionism Which they have been fighting all their lives.
And there are also several “operators.” They have always been able to take care of themselves and for them the idea of leaving isn't troubling in the least; they're already exchanging tips. (“In Vienna, you know, you've got to get in touch with So-and-so. And listen, don't, under any circumstances, give your travel permit to an agent, because if you do you're screwed, you'll wind up in Israel. If you can, get to New York: there are organizations there which. . . .”) They regard the people around them with a somewhat ironic expression, especially those people who are talking about what awaits them in Israel.
And yet there is clearly something that makes all these people feel united: despite their differences of extraction, class, and motivation, they all examine each new arrival with the same inquisitorial eye. They scrutinize him silently and then, depending on who he is—or isn't—they either accept him into the group or send him over to the “Visas for Holland” window.
For three hours I await my turn, all the time feeling a strange tingling sensation at the bottom of my heart.
_____________
My turn. I rush headlong through the doorway. On the other side, a corridor. I enter a tiny room. Two desks. Behind the one on the left sits a woman with graying hair; behind the one on the right, the one nearest the door, a plumpish man with a worn-out look and a sympathetic moustache. I explain the purpose of my visit to him. I would like to leave the country. No reaction on his part. He picks up a form and asks me a few questions: last name, first name, last name and first names of parents, are they still living and if so where, do I have any relatives in Israel, any friends, what is my profession?
That's all. In two weeks I will be receiving assurance of a visa, at home, by registered mail. When I have received that assurance I must make an appearance at police headquarters, that is where I have to go to obtain the necessary visas and ticket, and that will be all, sir, if you need anything further please drop by and see us, we are at your service, thank you, thank you, so long now. . . .
I leave the office and walk through the waiting room. On my way out I mumble a polite thank-you but nothing else and here I am again on the street. I glance over at the Ministry. Screw them!
Okay, that's that. Too late to turn back now. I'm going to get plastered.
I'm going to get plastered like a Pole—or rather, like a Polish citizen of Jewish nationality. And just to prove my resolve I hurry over to the State department store, where—for a price—one may obtain a bottle of Pejsachowka, that prune brandy which the Jews drank during Passover before the war and which Poland currently exports to Che United States, each bottle bearing a little sticker with the signature of a rabbi from Wroclaw.
I go home by taxi: the hell with being miserly. For the moment I don't want to think about all the expenses in store for me; I don't want to think about what's going to happen When I find myself out of work, when I get tossed out of my apartment because I've decided to leave. I'm beginning to feel sorry for myself, for my friends, for Poland, for this bitch of a life. . . .
Pejsachowka is one-hundred-forty proof. Consequently, at the end of an hour I feel sufficiently in form to announce the step I've just taken to my wife. She kisses me. She isn't Jewish—she doesn't feel what I feel. She couldn't. Of course, she's been pushing me to leave for a long time—she wanted the two of us to leave. Even before “the events of March,” before Gomulka's speech and the campaign in the press which touched off student demonstrations the following day. She asks me for a large glass of vodka. We drink. We don't say anything. Then we put on a record. It's a record of Jewish religious music which we bought two day ago at the Czechoslovak Cultural Center. The Czechs had taken out their entire stock of old Hebrew and Yiddish records again: the word travelled fast in Warsaw and everyone who had been feeling, well, concerned ever since the events of March rushed over to buy a few. Not only Jews, mind you. A lot of Poles, too. It's kind of funny: I never spoke Yiddish in my life, I never felt Jewish, and yet today, listening to El Mole Rachamim sung by three cantors who were survivors of the concentration camps, I felt moved. What asses we are capable of making of ourselves. If we hadn't been so drunk I'm sure we would have roared with laughter at that record.
The next day we both wake up with awful hangovers. At first I wonder what has happened; then I remember our decision. We were going to work as if nothing had changed—easier said than done. I am consumed by the desire to let my fellow-workers in on everything, to ask their advice or simply to throw it in their faces: “I'm getting out.” Just the idea of this latter possibility fills me with joy. But my wife and I have agreed not to say anything until we have received assurance of a visa from the Dutch. Not a word to anyone. Out of fear? No, just so as not to tempt fate.
_____________
* * * *
One day when I come home from work around four o'clock I open my mailbox and find a plain brown envelope, registered mail, with no return address. What charming discretion! It is the promise of a visa we've been waiting for. My God! This time it's really happening. I wait for my wife, who's working late tonight. It's not until almost ten o'clock that I tell her the news. We cancel all our plans for tomorrow. Now matters have become serious: every day, every minute is precious. There are so many things left to do. First of all, go to the headquarters of the military police in Warsaw, then to the passport office in the Mostowskich palace, to pick up all the proper forms. I'm the one who'll take care of that.
Ten a.m. The corridor of the passport office is packed. Just out of curiosity I look around to see if I can spot anyone who's going where I am. I see a few people: their features tell me, as well as a certain indefinable combination of fright and superiority in their expressions. I go over to the information window. “Two application forms, please.” (Whenever a Pole wants to travel out of the country he has to request a passport—a request which is not always granted.)
“To travel where?”
I think for a minute—no, not really: I hesitate, I'm ashamed, I'm afraid.
“To Israel . . . to emigrate.”
I spit it out, crimson with shame. But then I feel relieved. The girl at the window doesn't bat an eye. She hands me two questionnaires and two application forms.
“Fill out these questionnaires just as you would for any ordinary departure. As for the two application forms, they must accompany your formal request addressed to the Council of State asking that your Polish nationality be declared forfeited: just fill them out completely and attach them to your written requests. In addition, you will need an affidavit attesting to the fact that you have no debts to the State. . . . And another certifying that you pledge to leave your apartment to the city. . . .”
My mind wanders as I listen to her. It's been a long time since I knew what the procedure was for leaving the country, a long time since my friends explained to me how. many certificates, affidavits, requests, questionnaires, forms I have to file with “the proper authorities.”
I leave, carrying those four pieces of paper on which our future depends. I look them over. The questionnaire seems quite ordinary, actually; the application form, however, is extremely brief. “I, the undersigned ___________, by reason of my permanent departure for ___________, request that my Polish nationality be declared forfeited. Warsaw, the ___________day of ___________, ___________.”
We spend all evening filling out our questionnaires. I hesitate once for a moment when I see the rubric “nationality.” Ordinarily, of course, I would write “Polish.” But friends of ours who have already left have warned us that when the clerk in the passport office sees the word “Polish” written in that blank he forces people to cross it out and write in “Jewish.” And since anyone who wants to go to Israel has to go through the same office in Warsaw, and has to deal with the same clerk, there's not much point in having any illusions on that score. Besides, one must learn to accept one's responsibilities.
_____________
During the days that follow, while we both continue working, we manage to collect the necessary forms and affidavits. At first, when I go for instance to the People's Council in the area to request a certificate indicating that I owe no back taxes, I blush again when the clerk asks me why I want it. But as time goes by, as I make the bureaucratic rounds, that feeling of embarrassment and shame disappears (besides, I would have had a hard time providing evidence for its existence).
After a few days I appear at the local military command office. A very pretty girl lets me in. With a smile, she asks what she can do for me. I smile back and tell her that I need permission to leave the country. Certainly. She winks and hands me a form to fill out. I fill it out. In the blank next to “destination” I write “Israel.” I hand the form back to her. She looks it over and her smile disappears. Erased. Now she looks disappointed, as if she had been deceived. Pity; she really wasn't bad. . . .
Two weeks later we have ail the necessary documents. Now the chief thing remains to be done: we have to have our application forms signed by our employers. We haven't told them yet that we've decided to leave.
_____________
* * * *
I ask to see my boss. He hasn't had this job for very long: he replaced my former boss, who was dismissed right after the events of March. Need I say that my former boss was Jewish, that he had been a member of the Party for thirty years, that he had paid his dues in Spain and in the jails of Poland before the war, that during the war he had lost his entire family—and that now he had been excluded from the Party by the “young wolves,” not one of whom had been in the Party for more than ten years but not one of whom was Jewish?
But up until now my present boss had not impressed me as especially committed to the anti-Zionist campaign. Obviously it is thanks to his connections with the Moczar people that he got this job, but he seems to fall into that category of individuals referred to in Warsaw these days as “nice guys”—that is, they won't hurt the Jews if no one orders them to.
He sees me right away. Good firm handshake. “Good morning, good morning, how are you?”
“Okay, thanks—or rather, no, not okay.”
“What's wrong?”
“Everything. I've decided to go to Israel.”
“What?” He seems so surprised that I'm almost ready to believe he doesn't know I'm Jewish.
“Yes, I'm up to here with what's been happening. I'm sick of seeing those placards on television every day: Yids Go Home to Dayan. I'm fed up with reading anti-Zionist articles, and I don't want to live as a second-class citizen.”
“But listen, all this will pass. There have been a few mistakes—but you know that can happen sometimes. And besides, nobody's pointing the finger at you. No one's accusing you of anything.”
We talk for twenty minutes. He seems rather troubled, but he doesn't want to acknowledge that I'm right. Still, every now and then I sense that he's giving in, and he's unable to come up with a reply when I remind him of a speech given by the Party first secretary in our own establishment, in the course of which the secretary stated that the approximately thirty thousand Jews who lived in Poland constituted a serious threat to the Polish people, just as two million Israelis constituted a threat to the Arabs.
Ah, if only his damned office wasn't bugged, then perhaps I would find out what he really thinks. But as it is, all he can manage to say to me finally is that he regrets my departure and wishes me good luck.
Just as I'm going through the door he tells me that for the time being I can continue working, at least until the heads of the main office have pronounced on my fate.
I return home, relatively satisfied with myself. I'm curious to know how things went for my wife. She's already there, on the verge of tears. She tells me what happened.
As soon as she arrived at work she had gone to see her boss. She had informed him of her decision to leave. For ten minutes he had looked at her without saying a word. In order to break this awkward silence she had begun to explain her reason for leaving. He had interrupted her by pointing out that all that had absolutely nothing to do with her (meaning that she wasn't Jewish). He had also told her that she would never be able to return and work as a journalist again in Poland. At which point she had observed that if she ever were to return to Poland it would be because things had changed, and in that case she would certainly be able to work as a journalist again.
And that was all? No, not completely. A half-hour later her boss had told her that she was fired, effective immediately.
My wife had been working in the same place for eight years. She had a lot of friends there. Or so, at least, she thought: because within the space of a few hours a void descended around her. And when, the following day, I appear at her office to make the final arrangements for her departure, I am taken over to one side by her fellow-workers, who say to me, verbatim: “If you want to leave, leave, but let her stay—after all, she's Polish.”
_____________
* * * *
The next day is a big one. We go to file our applications at Warsaw military headquarters. We don't have to wait too long—about an hour; then we go in together. A desk, a round table, a steel cabinet, and a civil servant in his forties. We hand him our applications. He checks to see that all the accompanying documents are properly attached, then he asks us if we are Party members.
“No.”
He asks my wife whether she is aware of the situation of Polish women who have married Jewish men and gone to Israel. She answers that she is. He asks her to make out a written declaration to that effect and tells her what to write:
I, the undersigned—, declare that I am aware of the situation of mixed couples in Israel. . . .
Without even cracking a smile my wife copies out what he dictates and then signs it. A few months ago every Polish applicant had to sign a statement that he had seen a television program devoted to the tragic lot of Poles in Israel (racial persecution, isolation, insults, beatings, etc.).
We walk out onto the street. Instinctively, we take each other's hand: we've just taken another step.
Now there is no longer any reason to conceal our decision from our friends. We expect a reply within a few weeks, or two months at the latest. We divide up the work left to be done. My wife will take care of sorting out all our personal effects, making up the list of books (in triplicate, each copy containing the publisher, date and place of publication of each book), and—most important—the list of things that we want to take out of the country (also in triplicate). As for me, I'll collect all the necessary authorizations and take care of all the formalities. Up until this point most of the people who have left have received their travel permits. Once the permit was received one had, on the average, about three weeks to get out of Polish territory, which means that one had to hurry.
But before I do anything else I immerse myself in the study of official government publications, to find out what I can take with me and what regulations cover it. For books published before 1945, the permission of the National Library is required. For works of art the permission of the Commissioner of Monuments of Warsaw. I am refused permission to take a French edition of a book of Mussolini's out of Poland. The Commissioner is stricter: he prevents me from taking out a not very valuable icon (but I had been warned in advance that this would happen) and an African saber that I purchased years ago at a sword exhibition. So after all I don't feel that I've been pushed around too much.
Unfortunately, and I mean unfortunately, I've forgotten about customs.
Alarmed by the rumors that have been circulating around the city, I call up the central customs office to ask if the decree of October 1, 1965 by the minister of Foreign Commerce is still in effect, the decree concerning reduced tariffs and restrictions on imports and exports. “Theoretically,” is the reply: that is, customs officials retain the right to decide in each individual case what may and may not be taken out of the country. I am going to learn, at considerable expense, just how great their power is.
For beyond this one declaration there are no rules governing the question. I am therefore reduced to picking up bits of information from people leaving. In this way I find out that taking newspapers out of Poland is forbidden. Similarly, it is forbidden to take out manuscripts, notes, addresses, and letters. One can, it is true, submit such things to the customs officials for approval some time in advance of appearing before them, but the experience of some people I know who have already left causes me to decide against that.
_____________
What with my job and the things I still have left to take care of—I have to arrange for a French visa because we now intend to go first to Paris—and nights that get more and more sad, more and more wild, nights spent drinking and talking with our friends, time passes quickly. Then all at once it ceases to pass at all. We've been waiting for a reply for two months now and it still hasn't come. The tension in our household is beginning to mount. My wife is heading slowly for a nervous breakdown. She hardly goes out at all anymore. Ever since she announced her decision she hasn't seen her friends from work. Only a few friends have the courage, and it really takes courage, to call her or visit.
We no longer have any money, so we decide to sell our furniture. Then we begin selling our books. We've been waiting for three months now. I'll have to request certain documents all over again, since the old ones have expired by now.
In the meantime, more and more alarming news. “It appears” that one can no longer take foreign currency out of Poland. (Taking out Polish currency is also forbidden.) I check on this and it turns out to be true. Only for Jews, of course: the new ruling does not apply to other persons leaving the country permanently. A few months ago Jews were no longer allowed to buy the five dollars which the State sells to those citizens who are leaving to travel abroad; now they can't even take out money that's been sent to them, or that they've brought back from other countries. We'll be leaving without a cent.
That is, if we can leave at all. Anxiety is really beginning to take hold of us. “They say” that emigration is going to be stopped. “They say” that more and more travel permits are being denied. And if we don't get ours? Without jobs and marked with the infamous sign of the Zionist—we'd rather not even think about it.
_____________
* * * *
We've been waiting for almost four months now. Every day I go to the passport bureau on Koszyhowa Street. I'm beginning to recognize some of the regular “customers” who come here like me for some news. We exchange our impressions. Sometimes there's good news: “You know So-and-so, who's been waiting for three months?” “Yes?” “Well, his came yesterday.” Every day I receive the same answer: “Still no reply.”
As soon as I find out that someone I know has received his travel permit (some people get theirs very quickly—especially people with nice apartments), I pounce on whatever bit of news I can get: “Well, how did it go?” I'm particularly interested in details about the customs inspection. It's not that I'm planning to sneak anything out of the country, just that lately the customs officials have been becoming more and more vicious. The incidents of abuse have become more numerous and farcical. For instance, someone finds himself obliged to sew on his sewing machine in front of the jeering customs clerks, just to prove to them that the old Singer that he wants to take to Israel with him is really “professional equipment.” And some other friend discovers that he's not allowed to take his son's bicycle along because his son doesn't have a license for it. And when he explains that his wife never permitted the boy to ride the bicycle anywhere but in the courtyard, the chief customs inspector demands that he bring his son so that he can ride the bicycle around the customs area to show that he really knows how to ride a bicycle.
Books have also been confiscated. I found out that all of Gomulka's works are seized, as well as all the issues of Nowe Drogi, the Party's theoretical review. And every once in a while the customs officials just let themselves go. At such times they are inclined to pull the soles and heels off shoes, bore through the legs of furniture, tear the covers off books.
_____________
* * * *
Just before the Party Congress we went through a long period of apprehension. Many people who had applied for permission to leave the country thought that the Congress was going to suspend emigration. Fortunately, however, the Congress did nothing about it.
But for us the anxiety continues. Are we going or aren't we? I no longer really know whether I want to go. I start to fall back into my old illusions. Gomulka has remained; Moczar seems to have been defeated. Perhaps things will change. And what about my friends? The ones who are staying here; the ones who can't leave because they aren't Jewish. How I envy them. Every now and then I slip into an excess of mysticism. I start carrying on about my Polishness. I go around justifying myself to my friends. I try to figure out how many centuries my ancestors have lived in Poland. I suddenly have a desire to visit my uncle's grave: he's the only member of my family who was buried and not gassed. He's buried at Palmiry, in a wooded area on the outskirts of Warsaw where the Germans murdered several thousand Poles. A friend of mine takes us there by car. I'll never forget that cemetery, those long rows of graves in such an idyllic setting. I walk along trying to make out the inscriptions. From time to time there is a stone displaying the star of David. I go through the whole cemetery from end to end, but his name isn't there. He must be in one of the graves marked “Unknown.” All at once, an insane desire takes possession of me: I want to be buried here in this cemetery.
We drive back to Warsaw. All the way back, the road ahead of us is deserted.
_____________
* * * *
Several of our closest friends leave in rapid succession. We go to the railroad station with them. The train for Vienna leaves at five p.m., but at this time of year it's already dark by then. In the snow the Danzig station takes on a rather ominous aspect, with its long, desolate platforms. A few months ago, when a well-known writer left, one of his friends, slightly pie-eyed, ran up and asked what platform the train for Treblinka left from.
The weather is getting colder and colder. It's a good thing we haven't sold our winter clothes. Then one morning as I'm on my way out of the house I open the mailbox and find the notice we've been waiting for for so long. It's a form letter. “The military command informs citizen __________ that his request for a passport to Israel has been granted.” To obtain the necessary travel permit, the applicant must present a certificate from the municipal authorities concerning the return in good order of his apartment, a certificate of employment (or rather, in this case, of unemployment), etc., etc., and 5000 zlotys ($1.00 = 25 zlotys; the average monthly salary is about 2000 zlotys, or $80.)
I expected to jump for joy. Nothing. I just feel tired, very very tired.
_____________
The final lap has begun. We now have three weeks to leave Poland. I have to go and arrange for the customs inspection. The customs official whom I speak to seems nice enough. He asks me my profession, my wife's profession (to determine whether or not we can take a typewriter with us), how many rooms there are in our apartment (we're allowed one rug per room). When I ask him what we are permitted to take with us he answers that the customs bureau will decide. I hand over, for his inspection, a small case containing photographs and papers, as well as a few travel maps and road atlases; as I leave I notice that more than half of these items have been seized.
Next, I hurry over to the City Hall, where I find out that an investigating committee will stop by in a few days to examine my apartment and to determine the cost of renovating it.
The delegation appears: one man and two women. They look the apartment over, measure the wall space, check the condition of the doors, locks, faucets (two of which are leaky: “They'll have to be replaced,” one of the women says). As for the renovation of the apartment, we will have to consult an expert about that. Where can we find one? The man in the delegation agrees to get us one. He shows up at our door the next day, this expert. Just a friendly, informal little arrangement. The job, he tells us, is a big one, and just making up an estimate of the things to be done will take a long time. The estimate is drawn up in an hour. In exchange for a sizable consideration he agrees not to bleed us for too much—about 5000 zlotys.
We go and pick up our travel permits: in exchange, we hand over our identity papers. Now we are officially stateless.
My wife finds someone to take care of moving our baggage (a whole little industry has sprung up this way). And as soon as we begin to move, a procession of interested customers appears: “You're moving? Do you want to sell anything?”
I pick up our visas: French, Belgian, and West German. Then I go to buy our railway tickets, which I pay for in cash thanks to our friends in France who sent us the money. Up until now you could get. the change from the ticket in cash (we have six dollars coming to us) and take it out of the country as pocket money; now not even that money can be taken out. The Minister of Finance made a ruling on the question—applying only to Jews.
Similarly, in the past one could pay in zlotys for the shipment of one trunk as accompanying baggage. That rule is still in effect, but not for Jews. Consequently, we're going to have to come up with about thirty dollars somehow.
_____________
* * * *
We no longer sleep more than three or four hours a night.
I find out that no family is permitted to take out more than fifty phonograph records: duty must be paid on all records in excess of that number, duty calculated according to the list price of the records when new.
I also learn that one cannot take out more than a total of ten paintings and prints.
It gets colder. The thermometer goes down to fourteen degrees.
We are leaving in a week. I write to all my friends, in France and elsewhere, to let them know. My telephone is no longer working very well. I can't call Paris and when my friends in Paris try to call me they're told that my phone is out of order.
_____________
* * * *
The big day arrives. We appear at the customs office. It's nine a.m.; five degrees out. Very early this morning our “shipping agent” came by to pick up our baggage, and he warned us that we were going to have some trouble with our “works of art” and probably also with our books (we had about eight hundred). But despite everything, we were looking forward to this day with a certain confidence.
Two young customs clerks: very “efficient.” They decide to begin with the books. They go through them page by page. Every now and then they put one over to one side, on a little table: “Our chief inspectors will decide about that one.”
Our works of art (three rather crude paintings and a fourth, unsigned, of no great value) also find their way onto that table. Then three lithographs. Then an icon mounted on plywood, three knives, two ebony elephants, an old clothes iron, a framed reproduction, and other “objects of art” of the same type. And six Nikifor drawings. It's so cold in the little concrete shed where this inspection is taking place that we are literally freezing. Then some laborers come by and offer us a glass of one-hundred-eighty proof alcohol. Fortunately. It can't be any more than ten degrees in here.
We've been here for five hours now and we're still going through the books and little odds and ends. At last the investigating committee arrives: four “high officials.” They look over our works of art and our books for a long time. Then they step off to one side; one of the young customs clerks goes with them. Long consultation. The young customs clerk comes back. We may select three paintings and one Nikifor drawing: the rest does not leave Poland. I am stunned. The Commissioner of Monuments gave us permission to take these things out. But these aren't works of art. I try to protest. The young clerk shrugs his shoulders and directs me to his superiors. I feel like crying. And this cold. . . .
We have to come back the next day because there are still a great number of things to be examined (each object is closely scrutinized, the pockets of every article of clothing carefully searched). We immediately go to the apartment of some friends, and there, I explode. As my body gradually regains its normal temperature I begin to feel the effects of this humiliation, of my impotence in front of four petty clerks—who retorted, when we tried to protest their seizure of our belongings, “But you've been living in an art gallery, not a normal house, with all these paintings. . . .”
Yesterday I still had my doubts. I wondered if we were really doing the right thing by leaving. Now I haven't any doubt at all. And I am surprised to discover in myself a feeling very much akin to hatred. For years we've worked like slaves and now they prevent us from taking the few things we have. . . .
All right, that's it: we've taken care of everything. We're leaving tomorrow. Our room is hopelessly empty. We invite a few friends over tonight to have a parting drink with us: sixty people show up. We drink—and talk—until three o'clock in the morning. Some of my wife's friends are in tears. As for us, we hold up all right.
_____________
It's eleven o'clock. The train for Paris leaves at noon. Some of our friends come by to drive us to the station: Danzig Station, which is fast becoming Farewell Station. It's cold, a couple of degrees below zero, but the sun is shining. We've only reserved two seats, but I've been counting on finding a berth in the Moscow-Paris second-class coach. Unfortunately, the conductor wants too much for it.
So we settle into our compartment. What with our suitcases, flowers, boxes of chocolates, bottles of vodka—all passed through the window by our friends—the compartment soon gets pretty crowded. It's still fearfully cold, and a trainman passing by tells us that the heating system isn't working. We have a twenty-four hour ride ahead of us before we get to Paris. One of our friends brings us a bottle of Russian champagne and two glasses: well, at least that will be well-iced.
We've only got a few minutes left. We say our last goodbyes. About twenty friends have come to see us off and our departure has been so nerve-wracking so far that I haven't had time to realize that 1 may never see any of them again. It's only now that we are finally on the train, talking to our friends through the window, that I understand that I am in the process of leaving my country for good.
As the train pulls away, my wife bursts into tears, So do I. We make no effort to hide it. There's no reason to be ashamed. I try to get one last glimpse of the faces of those friends who made it possible for us to hang on till the end, who helped us. And who are staying behind. And as the platform flashes by, as their silhouettes recede further and further into the distance, I suddenly feel that I'm a coward, that I'm running away. I take my wife in my arms. The bouquets of flowers which surround us suggest a burial rather than a send-off for a trip abroad.
For half an hour, we don't say a word.
_____________
* * * *
Finally, after a series of painful negotiations, the Soviet conductor agrees to sell us two places in the second-class sleeping car—for 500 zlotys each. So we move all our stuff. To kill time—and more than anything else to keep from talking—we start playing cards. Three hours go by. We arrive at Poznan. The customs officials come on board, along with several border guards; the passport inspection begins.
An agent comes through and asks to see our travel permits. He looks them over, checking to see that all the visas are attached; then he hands them back to us. “Dowidzenia,” he says: “Goodbye.” We cross the border. From then on no one speaks Polish.
Now we are without a country. I open up the bottle of champagne. It isn't very bubbly. Which is understandable. There's no reason it should be.
