A Voyage to the Coast of Dalmatia (an excerpt)

Summertime, when almost everyone I know leaves our little town, in the blinding whiteness of dust and sun glare one can hear the beating of its heart and blood pulsing in in the veins of its streets. In the silence of emptied squares, around school buildings, in the humming stillness of houses and gardens, on highways leading into unknown territories, there in the absence of the most important inhabitants wanders the spirit of our town. So, while the folks are somewhere far away, separated, literally not metaphorically, by lands and seas because they don't go just anywhere but travel fabulously to most fabulous countries, there emerges the true face of this settlement in the American Midwest, and bits of its dwellers’ fates soar above the entire terrain like souls let free from the body.My friends and colleagues are not here during summers. They are in Paris, in Belgrade, in London, in Poznań, and even in Johannesburg. I can perfectly imagine them there, how they just fit in, as these summer months constitute their true life while the rest of the year, work, home, school for children, even their enthusiastically arranged, festive yet discreet parties, is just an addition to summer. That's when they truly live, and in the interval tell each other about their voyages, comparing one to another, ranking, and evaluating. I sit and keep silent, having nothing to say on the subject. A long time ago I put my passport in a drawer, I don't remember which one, in the desk or perhaps the dresser. Besides, why force myself since I don't plan to go anywhere. Trips bore me terribly. Those grand places, vacation paradises, health resorts, all those presumably marvelous and fantastic sights cannot even begin to compare to our Midwestern small town. No, I am not trying to be fancy or a local snob, it is true. But if some readers of these words suspects that I'm only teasing them, and yet they would still like to be persuaded about the superiority of our place over other more famous ones, oh well, I have what it takes to win over such skeptics. Let them just wait for what I intend to describe, and they would realize that I'm not trying to make fun of them, that there is no sense or reason to go anywhere else.Among countless evening lectures at our university the one which stays in my memory was by a speaker who talked about student and faculty exchange with Yugoslavia. The day for that lecture happened to be ill chosen, say Friday before a longish holiday, or something similar. Hence the attendance was small; I counted about ten, relatively enthusiastic about the offer, faculty members and three or four students who probably wanted to find out if they could go to Yugoslavia for free, but when they heard that the recommended excursion would be quite costly and require additional exams, they stopped hiding their yawns. True, I could've been wrong about their motivation to attend. It's possible that they came out of honest politeness and obligation toward their professors. And the lecture was mercifully short, no complaints. At one point the speaker said that one week free from study could be spent on the coast of Dalmatia. The coast of Dalmatia, he raved, is so beautiful that regardless of what one does there and what the excuse for the trip, the sheer beauty of that shore cancels out all other goals in life. He said this as if in jest, or perhaps I didn't quite hear. But then the listeners exchanged conspiratorial glances and smiled with identical conspiratorial smiles, their faces reflecting the glories of the coast, the blueness, the mists, the sun sets, the red and the purple. . . I squinted to savor the full view. “Don't sleep,” Jurek, my Polish colleague from the economics department whispered to me. I shrugged and reluctantly opened my eyes. Jurek didn't understand that I was in effect traveling to the coast of Dalmatia and coming into an instant conclusion that although it indeed is quite nice there, nowhere else could be as beautiful and above all as interesting as our small Midwest university town, where one can genuinely find everything and where people arrive from all over the world. I admit, though perhaps I shouldn't, that I've never physically met a Polish antisemite. Of course, this does not mean that I endorse an absurd opinion that there are no antisemites among the Poles. It only attests to the fact that antisemites do not cross my path, do not demonstrate their views in front of me. On the other hand, perhaps my social contacts are rather limited. In intellectual circles antisemitism is out of fashion and I move mostly in intellectual circles. Although the politics of the People's Republic of Poland, as of late officially antisemitic, seems to contradict my theory that among the intelligentsia antisemitism is outmoded, these matters are so complicated that I should not try to pass judgement. It might take too much time and space. Besides, this happens Back Home, and when it comes to export, efforts are made for proper impression. Enough pondering, better to avoid comments on what I couldn't know, something or other. And I can only speak for myself. I, the “I” pronoun underlined, a person of impaired social abilities, never encountered a Polish antisemite who would admit to this worldview. Therefore, when I was told that such an individual, a visiting professor from the People's Republic of Poland, not only would not hide his antisemitism but, on the contrary, proudly declare it, I was startled.Not that I personally met him, all I knew was second and third hand but from believable sources. I collected quite a few tidbits, the oldest, the most tired slogans, Jews are guilty of it all—it is a shame to even repeat it. My astonishment turned into outrage, not just because of the root and origin of these slanders but because of their consequence. In a surge of patriotism, I told myself that this man compromises Polishness before strangers, going around the world and advertising Polish antisemitism, which doesn't need any advertisements. That he is hurting the Polish cause. That we will burn with shame. And so, as he mouthed the time-worn callings to beat up the Jew, I on the other side was also reaching to the arsenal of similarly time-worn arguments, from Mickiewicz to Kaden-Bandrowski, measuring up to him with the same weapon—banalities. All this, of course, as a mental exercise. It took me plenty of time and effort while no one, least of all my adversary, had the slightest idea about our duel.For the source of my daily news, I found a perfect one. Ours, I repeat, is a small town. Living not far from my place is a woman married to a professor in the chemistry department, the same that hosts the villain. I often see her in our supermarket, dressed in slacks, hair in curlers, ever ready to gossip. I used to avoid her, but now, my shopping days and hours have changed to match her schedule. I chase her in the aisles. “Well, yesterday he again told my husband that it's all the Jews’ fault,” the professor's wife spoke obligingly over stacks of produce. She was bored and might prefer to gossip with someone else, but I wouldn't let go: “And then, what?” The woman tried not to yawn and I too, to be honest, was bored stiff, but never mind I'd prevail. I needed to find more said. She looked around to see if there was any shopper she knows, but no, at this hour the supermarket is almost empty. Good, she deserves it, why doesn't she shop on sacramental Friday afternoons like most do, she wouldn't have to put up with me. I cunningly suggest that she should invite him over, give him a break from being stuck with only the other Poles on the campus—all this out of the blue, but she didn't get a clue. Nothing pleases an American more than a chance for a good deed. It worked. She took my suggestion and invited him once, twice, three times. Eventually she stopped. She found him to be a bore. But by that time, I'd learned enough—everything. My mental duel reached its sharpest point. One can only compare it to Włodyjowski's duel with Bohun. And let us add, not for some private gain but for the Polish cause, for the good name of Poland and the Poles. I was very proud of myself.Still, I ran here and there to gather additional material to feel armed enough to crush the enemy. I avoided other Polish professors like the plague, not an easy exercise on the campus. My Polish colleagues seem to constantly multiply, doubling and tripling, trotting from building to building to take care of various business likely connected with their summer travels. Above all I avoided Jurek from the economics department, the very same person who interrupted my reveries during the lecture about Yugoslavia. An avowed traveler, he had already been everywhere but was ever eager for more. I avoided them because I was too busy, had no time for anybody and anything. I neglected my lectures, didn't know if anyone noticed. Once I even called the Department's secretary to tell her that the Polish literature lecture was cancelled, send the students home. What's Polish literature compared to the entire Polish cause! This happened at the time when I needed to urgently go to the supermarket to find out what he said at one of the parties the night before. Of course, once again: it's all the Jews’ fault.Finally, I decided I was ready to attack, that is to make my complaint to Jurek who apparently saw this character almost daily, on a professional basis. I prepared the speech, what I was going to say and how to say it, not a problem given my daily practice. I chose to call Jurek and deliver my speech by phone. For congenitally shy people I strongly recommend the telephone. I dialed. First, I talked with his wife. No rush. Then I asked for him to pick up the phone. When he did, I recited word for word what I had prepared. I was in excellent form, didn't once stumble though I spoke for quite a while. I stressed, particularly proud of the idea, that for an average American any Pole is just a Pole, that I, and Jurek, and the antisemite from the People's Poland, are all the same. Therefore, could he at last, since as I hear they see each other all the time, gently point out to him the impropriety of his conduct and explain to him that his version of patriotism is off the mark, hurts the Polish cause around the world, and especially does harm to the said cause in our small but nevertheless important college town in the Midwest.I finished. Silence. Even the usual static in the wiring seemed to cease as if holding its breath at the gravity of my mission. I got nervous though I knew that Jurek was there on the other side, that he heard me. Perhaps he is wondering about how to put it out to that fellow, how to best do it, how to convince him. Or maybe he still wanted to discuss it further with me. Maybe I didn't make myself altogether clear? I was about to open my mouth when he spoke: “That's why I live here and he lives there.” He said it in a cheerful, forbearing tone of someone who cannot grasp that the other person doesn't understand such a simple matter. And then, suddenly, as if touched by a magic wand, my interest in the visitor from the Republic of Poland vanished completely. Gone. True, he lives there, and we live here, and why should I care what he prattles around us.Sometime later, a Polish friend who used to know our former visitor during their university years in Kraków mentioned to me that he was an orphan and grew up in an orphanage. He had told her that because he'd never had family, everything he had and knew he owed to the People's Fatherland that raised him, gave him education, put him on his feet, and in every respect was generous to him. If the fatherland thinks Jews are responsible for all evil, then he also thinks so. Of course, if the fatherland ever changed its mind, he too would adapt to such change. I thought then if by any chance he were a Jew, as I had often instinctively wondered about backgrounds of people, approximately his age, who grew up in postwar orphanages. I, myself, during the war was in an orphanage, and wouldn't say that there weren't some unwitting “Aryan” orphans mingled with the rest. Nobody would deny the possibility. It was only a little thought, almost like from a novel, a flicker of an idea. I just couldn't understand how I lost my head over that man, kept running after an idiot in curlers, once even missed a lecture on his account. That had all faded in my memory, and the feelings connected to my distant turmoil completely evaporated.Another year passed. Once I was at a party hosted by our local grandee who traveled widely, even to Poland where he had extensive contacts. He asked if I knew our former Polish visitor, not here anymore. I answered politely that I only knew him from hearsay. Then I remembered the orphanage and my idea that he could be Jewish. “Do you know anything about this man's origin?” I asked offhand. “Yes,” he said, “he is of Jewish origin.”I didn't ask for details. Often life clumsily imitates art, laying it on thick and spoils subtle story lines with its crude interpretations. Even the biggest kitsch can't compare to the triviality and banality of life's truth. At any rate, some silly movie could be based on this scenario.We have sunsets at our prairie also, and though they may be less spectacular than sunsets by the sea, it is after all a matter of what you are used to. I for example lived in California for several years, where every day the sun rolled down into the Pacific with cinematic splendor. We, inhabitants of that coast, were used to it, so we were not greatly impressed. Anyway, it is unlikely that on the coast of Dalmatia I could meet people more interesting than here in our town. So why would I sit in a stuffy airplane, ride on crowded trains, drag suitcases, pack up and unpack, be nervous about making connections. . . Forget it.Not far from us there is another small town, called Abilene, where Eisenhower is buried. He had been everywhere all over the world and look, he wanted to be buried just here. Although he no longer sees the sunsets or the plains merging faraway into horizon undisturbed by any obstruction, during his lifetime he could believe that some of it would seep into his tomb, since we are never able to fully visualize our not being. And perhaps some of the prairie really flows into him. One thing I know, he most certainly does not dream about the coast of Dalmatia.