Poland - "Endlessly" (Part II)
VI
The dull light of the small tavern did little to brighten his spirits, although the musical performance on that tiny, improvised stage managed to steal a few laughs from several partisans. The performer was, in one word: extravagant. Poland spared him a glance and wondered just where the hell he had managed to get all that makeup when even fucking paper was rationed. The four-foot high wig was the first thing he noticed, then the ultramarine shade applied over very masculine eyes. After taking a swig of his drink, Poland could almost start seeing that as humorous. Almost. Especially because the man was German, or at least, he attempted to sound German.
Smoke from cigarettes swirled over their heads, turning into a hazy mist that made their eyes redden, itch, and most sniff. If the stench of tobacco hadn’t been so strong, then a bored poet could even have enough inspiration to associate the smoke with storm clouds unable to make it rain.
Men discussed furiously, their voices hushed only by the rumble of tanks on the streets above and men like geese marching.
“Do you find that entertaining, Fełek?”
Poland shrugged as he continued looking at the man with stiffly painted eyebrows arched in comical surprise, the perfect smile drowned in red lipstick just above a trail of graying stubble, and the skintight dress.
Oh my queen; you know you've hit rock-bottom when even drag is a drag.
Poland crossed his leg and licked his lips as he considered his choice of words. The three young men sitting with him looked at him with varying levels of interest.
“It’s not only about entertaining, I suppose, if it’s like, meant to say something, yeah?”
“Yeah, Zośka!” said one of the three young men as he punched said companion’s shoulder, “And it’s at times like these when we all need a little bit of over-the-top artistry!” Poland chuckled with them as their glasses clinked with the serving of a second round.
“I suppose… it’s just that I don’t find exaggeration quite as thrilling as you guys do.” Zośka turned to look at the stage and his face was darkened with a frown. “It’s almost like propaganda.”
“And here I thought you were all about freedom of thought and expression.” The other two young men: Alek and Rudy, respectively, shared knowing looks.
“Regardless of what you think, Zośka, what the guy is doing is dictating a statement. That’s what the performing arts are all about, yeah? Statements and criticism and body language. The point is that in its ridiculousness it is smart. Exaggeration is, at best, the heart of satire and social criticism.” Alek -handsome and loud- smirked triumphantly. “It’s just another method of finding one’s identity, that’s all. Knowing where you stand.”
“And damn good will it do him.” Rudy -quick mouthed, with bags starting to form beneath his eyes- laughed as Zośka shook his head and answered back passionately like when they were naive boys discussing politics huddled in Alek’s backyard with only a candle to light their faces, and before any of them joined the Armia Krajowa. Before they met Poland.
Zośka -clever and direct, as always- continued: “It all depends on points of view. Everything, even our very reality is controlled by them. Politics are driven by them too, you know that.”
“Yeah, but look where those fucking ‘differing visions’ have led us to: nightly bombings, raids, and deportations.”
“Not to mention that ghetto.”
They remained silent for a moment in quiet respect before Zośka talked again; a determined look changed his features and hardened him into the loyal member renowned in the Underground State.
“I don’t mean to seem unpractical. I’m not denying any of that. What I’m saying is that everything concerning this war, these… bloodbaths is lead by the soldier’s position and therefore his political agenda.”
“I say… soldiers don’t have a point of view. It’s just too easy to pull the trigger and take a life. There are no opinions or statements, no time, just boom.”
“Yes and that senseless trigger-happy attitude creates only mass murderers! Are you kidding me?”
“Oh, really? What makes a murderer fit to be called that, then? Are those fucking politicians not mur-”
“That’s not the point! You’re not listening! What I’m saying is points of view shape people. Just like good and evil, yes? Our definition of “goodness” is, essentially, a point of view and-”
“You can’t deal in absolutes, much less in war.”
“Um, actually you can. In war, it makes it easier for the soldier.”
“Aha, so thanks for just backing up my point about the nature of the soldier, Rudy.”
“You’re a soldier for crying out loud! You can’t just say that!”
“Absolutes are for fascists, Zośka. You can’t define the world by its political and economical system like capitalists versus reds. It’s just more complicated than that. Everything is always more complicated.”
“Well, then how does that work? How doesn’t that apply to our current situation or in our search for a definite solution, Rudy?”
Poland wasn’t listening to their discussion. His amused smile suddenly faltered, turned into a pained grimace and his face was frozen with shock. His face paled and his eyes were lost, seeing past the curtain of cigarette smoke, past the layers of unending makeup ready to state an opinion, and past the burning buildings of his Warsaw...
He is running down a track, huddled against a dark smelly corner, pressed until he is out of breath by bodies that push and eating themselves in the shadows. The stench is so strong it makes him swoon and his body, his very bones shake with the freezing winds that seep through cracks on the walls.
The train (because by then he is sure it is one) stops with a lurch, vomiting its insides as Poland is pushed out into the violet haze of the stark, raw cold of a winter morning. In his ears there is an unending buzzing that makes him moan and hit himself trying to make it stop but it just won’t. The sound hurts his ears and makes them tremble and ache. His eyes sting with unshed tears as he walks numb and dazed with the others, forming a shaky line. He feels the stinging in his face as he is slapped by the wind and leather gloves. He hears growling, that very animal sound that is stuck in one’s throat before it springs out to devour him. He prays silently, hoping there are no wolves nearby. Liet used to keep them away from the horses. It stung where one bit him on his ankle once.
They are made to strip. Brutish hands tear his clothes from him and he grunts in protest, angry that his marks can be seen by unworthy eyes. He shakes with cold and hates with all his might, with all the fire that is Warsaw, how fragile and weak he seems. But he can’t do much as the buzzing in his ears becomes too unbearable and he whines. His lips move without forming words but the prayers flow through his veins, like the pumping blood of his children drawn from their homes; blood that gushes from their necks and between their eyes in the wake of a Luger‘s thunderous strike; blood that sparks with the bombs and stirs hot and angry, chanting in echoes between white and red splattered flags: “Za wolnosc Wasza I Nasza!”
He is kicked to the ground. He can’t feel his legs because they are frozen and his toes are already turning blue. A black smudge, yellow on the edges like rotten, smelly cheese spreads like an ink stain over his heel and surrounds the old crescent-shaped scar on his ankle. He breathes and when he does it’s as if a part of him -a vital part- is escaping from his body. Slowly… slowly… just like his body heat.
He wonders why he feels such hopelessness in here, and as he loses himself, thinking what is leaving him, what part of him is separating itself, how he is being partitioned again, he doesn’t notice when someone roughly lifts him up and pushes him inside a crowded chamber. The artificial lights wake, like an unsteady pulse, and hum as light pours all over the shaken and beaten bodies that cower against each other in fear. Fear of waiting. Poland is in the middle of all this and the noise in his ears has dulled, turned faint, until it finally vanishes. He is sure his ears are bleeding and every colour is muted and toned down into a caricature of his flag.
Red and white everywhere.
He is pressed against a bald man whose eyes he can’t read and who can’t, in his terror, recognize him. Poland is shaken by the look in his eyes, by his fish-like open mouth, blubbering incoherencies that sound very much like a Biblical passage. He wants to stretch his hand and touch his cheek, feel he’s alive, reassure his child even when he has no way of knowing what is coming or what is happening. It’s in a Nation’s nature to be the mother, the protective parent and defender of its children. Even practical, detached Germany feels that. Poland wants to whisper and kiss this man’s brow, tell him he is safe as long as he is held in his Nation’s arms but he can’t move because there’s no space and he feels how a shoulder is jabbed against his rib in a nervous flutter of movement from the crowd.
He loses sight of the man and as he turns upwards toward the blinding lamps he sees he’s inside a shower room. The showerhead is fixed just above him. He blinks, white light makes his face colourless, unreal, he becomes a phantom like the others and the light hurts his eyes. His sight begins to blur and the noise and chaos that are the people murmuring and crying is muted by the whirr coming from the showerheads. Under the white light, Poland drowns in a spark of Prussian blue…
When he awoke, merely blinked, Poland felt as if he had been splashed with cold water. He gasped for breath as the acid smell of cigarette seeped into his lungs and smothered him. He was soaked but not from canon-balling into a lake. The rush, the shadows, the eyes that were not his were gone when his heart skipped a beat. Alek, Rudy, and Zośka look at him intently. They know what he saw because it had happened before. Many times.
Their eyes shimmered with a fierce light Poland couldn’t name but knew that it’s the same glint that he had whenever a wz. 28 was in his hands and the swastika close enough for him to pull the trigger enough times to shred it. Breathing heavily, Poland ran a hand through his damp hair and took a long drag of his almost burnt cigarette. His shaky fingers smelt like tobacco and the ashes had fallen like snowflakes all over his lap. He didn’t care. Suddenly the laughter seemed far away and overdone and the shiny, skimpy outfit mish-mashed with sickening colours and feathers hurt his eyes. Whatever the performer wanted to say got lost in translation and Poland shook his aching head, trying to remember just one thing that hadn’t been completely lost in this time period.
Oh, right. His identity.
He smirked and rubbed his eyes, trying his best not to show his tears to his companions. Before he knew it, Zośka’s hand was gently yet firmly placed over his ash-covered fist and Rudy held his shoulder with a kind and steady grip. Alek looked directly at Poland’s eyes, his mouth was a thin, concerned line and the three held him with that silent understanding that only brothers in arms could hope to share.
“Hang in there, Polska.” One murmured but he couldn’t see which. Words were starting to blend into an unrecognizable slur. “You will live. We will make sure of that.”
Despite this, despite their kind words, the visions didn’t stop.
-
PART III - http://mase992.livejournal.com/9206.html
The dull light of the small tavern did little to brighten his spirits, although the musical performance on that tiny, improvised stage managed to steal a few laughs from several partisans. The performer was, in one word: extravagant. Poland spared him a glance and wondered just where the hell he had managed to get all that makeup when even fucking paper was rationed. The four-foot high wig was the first thing he noticed, then the ultramarine shade applied over very masculine eyes. After taking a swig of his drink, Poland could almost start seeing that as humorous. Almost. Especially because the man was German, or at least, he attempted to sound German.
Smoke from cigarettes swirled over their heads, turning into a hazy mist that made their eyes redden, itch, and most sniff. If the stench of tobacco hadn’t been so strong, then a bored poet could even have enough inspiration to associate the smoke with storm clouds unable to make it rain.
Men discussed furiously, their voices hushed only by the rumble of tanks on the streets above and men like geese marching.
“Do you find that entertaining, Fełek?”
Poland shrugged as he continued looking at the man with stiffly painted eyebrows arched in comical surprise, the perfect smile drowned in red lipstick just above a trail of graying stubble, and the skintight dress.
Oh my queen; you know you've hit rock-bottom when even drag is a drag.
Poland crossed his leg and licked his lips as he considered his choice of words. The three young men sitting with him looked at him with varying levels of interest.
“It’s not only about entertaining, I suppose, if it’s like, meant to say something, yeah?”
“Yeah, Zośka!” said one of the three young men as he punched said companion’s shoulder, “And it’s at times like these when we all need a little bit of over-the-top artistry!” Poland chuckled with them as their glasses clinked with the serving of a second round.
“I suppose… it’s just that I don’t find exaggeration quite as thrilling as you guys do.” Zośka turned to look at the stage and his face was darkened with a frown. “It’s almost like propaganda.”
“And here I thought you were all about freedom of thought and expression.” The other two young men: Alek and Rudy, respectively, shared knowing looks.
“Regardless of what you think, Zośka, what the guy is doing is dictating a statement. That’s what the performing arts are all about, yeah? Statements and criticism and body language. The point is that in its ridiculousness it is smart. Exaggeration is, at best, the heart of satire and social criticism.” Alek -handsome and loud- smirked triumphantly. “It’s just another method of finding one’s identity, that’s all. Knowing where you stand.”
“And damn good will it do him.” Rudy -quick mouthed, with bags starting to form beneath his eyes- laughed as Zośka shook his head and answered back passionately like when they were naive boys discussing politics huddled in Alek’s backyard with only a candle to light their faces, and before any of them joined the Armia Krajowa. Before they met Poland.
Zośka -clever and direct, as always- continued: “It all depends on points of view. Everything, even our very reality is controlled by them. Politics are driven by them too, you know that.”
“Yeah, but look where those fucking ‘differing visions’ have led us to: nightly bombings, raids, and deportations.”
“Not to mention that ghetto.”
They remained silent for a moment in quiet respect before Zośka talked again; a determined look changed his features and hardened him into the loyal member renowned in the Underground State.
“I don’t mean to seem unpractical. I’m not denying any of that. What I’m saying is that everything concerning this war, these… bloodbaths is lead by the soldier’s position and therefore his political agenda.”
“I say… soldiers don’t have a point of view. It’s just too easy to pull the trigger and take a life. There are no opinions or statements, no time, just boom.”
“Yes and that senseless trigger-happy attitude creates only mass murderers! Are you kidding me?”
“Oh, really? What makes a murderer fit to be called that, then? Are those fucking politicians not mur-”
“That’s not the point! You’re not listening! What I’m saying is points of view shape people. Just like good and evil, yes? Our definition of “goodness” is, essentially, a point of view and-”
“You can’t deal in absolutes, much less in war.”
“Um, actually you can. In war, it makes it easier for the soldier.”
“Aha, so thanks for just backing up my point about the nature of the soldier, Rudy.”
“You’re a soldier for crying out loud! You can’t just say that!”
“Absolutes are for fascists, Zośka. You can’t define the world by its political and economical system like capitalists versus reds. It’s just more complicated than that. Everything is always more complicated.”
“Well, then how does that work? How doesn’t that apply to our current situation or in our search for a definite solution, Rudy?”
Poland wasn’t listening to their discussion. His amused smile suddenly faltered, turned into a pained grimace and his face was frozen with shock. His face paled and his eyes were lost, seeing past the curtain of cigarette smoke, past the layers of unending makeup ready to state an opinion, and past the burning buildings of his Warsaw...
He is running down a track, huddled against a dark smelly corner, pressed until he is out of breath by bodies that push and eating themselves in the shadows. The stench is so strong it makes him swoon and his body, his very bones shake with the freezing winds that seep through cracks on the walls.
The train (because by then he is sure it is one) stops with a lurch, vomiting its insides as Poland is pushed out into the violet haze of the stark, raw cold of a winter morning. In his ears there is an unending buzzing that makes him moan and hit himself trying to make it stop but it just won’t. The sound hurts his ears and makes them tremble and ache. His eyes sting with unshed tears as he walks numb and dazed with the others, forming a shaky line. He feels the stinging in his face as he is slapped by the wind and leather gloves. He hears growling, that very animal sound that is stuck in one’s throat before it springs out to devour him. He prays silently, hoping there are no wolves nearby. Liet used to keep them away from the horses. It stung where one bit him on his ankle once.
They are made to strip. Brutish hands tear his clothes from him and he grunts in protest, angry that his marks can be seen by unworthy eyes. He shakes with cold and hates with all his might, with all the fire that is Warsaw, how fragile and weak he seems. But he can’t do much as the buzzing in his ears becomes too unbearable and he whines. His lips move without forming words but the prayers flow through his veins, like the pumping blood of his children drawn from their homes; blood that gushes from their necks and between their eyes in the wake of a Luger‘s thunderous strike; blood that sparks with the bombs and stirs hot and angry, chanting in echoes between white and red splattered flags: “Za wolnosc Wasza I Nasza!”
He is kicked to the ground. He can’t feel his legs because they are frozen and his toes are already turning blue. A black smudge, yellow on the edges like rotten, smelly cheese spreads like an ink stain over his heel and surrounds the old crescent-shaped scar on his ankle. He breathes and when he does it’s as if a part of him -a vital part- is escaping from his body. Slowly… slowly… just like his body heat.
He wonders why he feels such hopelessness in here, and as he loses himself, thinking what is leaving him, what part of him is separating itself, how he is being partitioned again, he doesn’t notice when someone roughly lifts him up and pushes him inside a crowded chamber. The artificial lights wake, like an unsteady pulse, and hum as light pours all over the shaken and beaten bodies that cower against each other in fear. Fear of waiting. Poland is in the middle of all this and the noise in his ears has dulled, turned faint, until it finally vanishes. He is sure his ears are bleeding and every colour is muted and toned down into a caricature of his flag.
Red and white everywhere.
He is pressed against a bald man whose eyes he can’t read and who can’t, in his terror, recognize him. Poland is shaken by the look in his eyes, by his fish-like open mouth, blubbering incoherencies that sound very much like a Biblical passage. He wants to stretch his hand and touch his cheek, feel he’s alive, reassure his child even when he has no way of knowing what is coming or what is happening. It’s in a Nation’s nature to be the mother, the protective parent and defender of its children. Even practical, detached Germany feels that. Poland wants to whisper and kiss this man’s brow, tell him he is safe as long as he is held in his Nation’s arms but he can’t move because there’s no space and he feels how a shoulder is jabbed against his rib in a nervous flutter of movement from the crowd.
He loses sight of the man and as he turns upwards toward the blinding lamps he sees he’s inside a shower room. The showerhead is fixed just above him. He blinks, white light makes his face colourless, unreal, he becomes a phantom like the others and the light hurts his eyes. His sight begins to blur and the noise and chaos that are the people murmuring and crying is muted by the whirr coming from the showerheads. Under the white light, Poland drowns in a spark of Prussian blue…
When he awoke, merely blinked, Poland felt as if he had been splashed with cold water. He gasped for breath as the acid smell of cigarette seeped into his lungs and smothered him. He was soaked but not from canon-balling into a lake. The rush, the shadows, the eyes that were not his were gone when his heart skipped a beat. Alek, Rudy, and Zośka look at him intently. They know what he saw because it had happened before. Many times.
Their eyes shimmered with a fierce light Poland couldn’t name but knew that it’s the same glint that he had whenever a wz. 28 was in his hands and the swastika close enough for him to pull the trigger enough times to shred it. Breathing heavily, Poland ran a hand through his damp hair and took a long drag of his almost burnt cigarette. His shaky fingers smelt like tobacco and the ashes had fallen like snowflakes all over his lap. He didn’t care. Suddenly the laughter seemed far away and overdone and the shiny, skimpy outfit mish-mashed with sickening colours and feathers hurt his eyes. Whatever the performer wanted to say got lost in translation and Poland shook his aching head, trying to remember just one thing that hadn’t been completely lost in this time period.
Oh, right. His identity.
He smirked and rubbed his eyes, trying his best not to show his tears to his companions. Before he knew it, Zośka’s hand was gently yet firmly placed over his ash-covered fist and Rudy held his shoulder with a kind and steady grip. Alek looked directly at Poland’s eyes, his mouth was a thin, concerned line and the three held him with that silent understanding that only brothers in arms could hope to share.
“Hang in there, Polska.” One murmured but he couldn’t see which. Words were starting to blend into an unrecognizable slur. “You will live. We will make sure of that.”
Despite this, despite their kind words, the visions didn’t stop.
-
PART III - http://mase992.livejournal.com/9206.html