The Goddamn Cross
Love is the last fairytale we choose to believe. I ended up in Europe in a dream. Swept up in the atlantic tides and landing in London devastatingly in love with a handsome solicitor I had met briefly. Michal presented me with trite promises of eternity. In innocence I handed myself over to him naked and in entirety. I was already defeated by the time I had flown into Warsaw. I had been able to convince my fiancé to turn down a job in Bangkok and eternity seemed so much shorter. I was leaving to stay with his family while he was on an interview in Madrid. When the plane landed in Warsaw everyone clapped, the physics of flight were apparently viewed as sorcery in Poland and I began to see how far I was from home.
Sylvia and Piotr, Michal’s parents were waiting for me just past customs. When I tried to hug Sylvia she lurched away as if burnt by fire. I toned down my optimism and kissed their cheeks the customary three times. “We have never met American before, so this is different lesson for us.” Piotr said. Sylvia and I could barely communicate. I learned early how to listen to her sighs and arm movements.
We went straight from the airport to Powzaki cemetery. Hidden behind bullet riddled walls on the outskirts of city. It was endless. A gray mist hung low, dark and dense. White moths fluttered between ornate and looming figures stood watch over stone coffins. No one was underground. I saw thinning sandstone boxes eroding beyond recognition. “Emi, eternity costs money. The more you spend the longer your memory lives on. This is important, yes?” We took a silent drive home. I grasped for conversations but could never get past a simple, “Yes, very pretty.”
I felt an instant bond with Warsaw. I had grown up in a decomposing city that had also been destroyed by war. Warsaw had been devastated in a few short days once Hitler realized he was about to be defeated. In a tantrum he leveled it, killing millions. Communism and now capitalism had rebuilt it, but it looked like plaid patches sewn onto a paisley shirt.
The summer was total. Perfection. There should have been an overwhelming beauty to it, but I rejected that. Everyone celebrated the days while I was slapped by the suns reflection bouncing off steel and glass. The sky sweated in bursts of breif rain showers. Primary colored trains carried people making dinner plans and making out. I understood nothing. They talked through me. My accent marked me. No one laughed when I asked for jogurt. The only word I knew was “przeprazam”, I’m sorry.
In the center of these moments stood the “Goddamn Cross.” My host would snap his newspaper in disgust as his portly wife chopped, cooked, stirred and served. ‘Emi, this goddamn cross is going to be the death of my country.” I gathered bits and pieces before I became a witness. A few months before almost every single head of state had been killed in a plane accident. The President had been aligned to the goddamn Catholic’s party. He was beloved by peasants and hated by anyone with brains in their head. Catholicism was prevalent in Poland since the days of WW2 when the priests and churches helped the broken country and nursed it back to health and into their power. The presidents twin brother was now running for the open seat and was an avid proponent for the goddamn cross.
Supporters had erected it in the presidents memory in the hectic aftermath. Members of parliament wanted it removed, but little old ladies had adopted the symbol and wouldn’t budge. They tied themselves to it and guarded it. Parliament offered to erect a proper monument and relocate the goddamn cross to a local church. It didn’t matter. They stayed to protect it, grasping tighter as the president’s brother lost favor in the polls. I gathered this from photos and fragments. This information was tarnished by an incredible ability to ignore my hosts and the general apathy of youth to anything that didn’t directly involve myself.
I spent a majority of time with my fiancé's ex girlfriend. Ania was an architectural student from Austria doing her summer internship in Warsaw. She freelanced as an international model and spoke six languages. At only seventeen, her emotions exposed, it became apparent she had never gotten over her first heartbreak, and neither had Michal’s parents. If this wasn’t a dream she would have been a nightmare. Although she was the last person I wanted as company, I grew to cherish our long inane conversations. We would spend hazy days sitting in front of coffee shops and wander, exploring the city. We talked about nothing with my only aim to hear the curves of spoken English that I was deprived of.
It was with Ania I first saw the cross. Lazily ambling through the city we saw a riotous crowd gathering. In the center a group of women sat cross-legged with placid, beatific expressions. Clad in skirts, aprons, and scarves like yokes. They were the stereotype of the country I had formed in my head before arrival. They guarded a disappointingly simple wooden cross hung on dense wrought iron gates in front of presidential palace. The clicking of their bead carried above the shouting as they recited the rosary. Oblivious. Stoic and silent military guards partitioned the women. A crowd of supporters and curious onlookers surrounded them chanting and arguing. Camera crews filmed the sharp juxtaposition. Candles and flower surrounded the women as if they were holy relic and a shrine unto themselves.
It was becoming increasing blatant that I was not a welcome addition to this family. Everything Michal had valued about me they rejected. They saw my freedom as fecklessness, my dreams delusions. My art was a child pursuit, my nonconformity dangerous. My presence in the house became tense. I had taken a lighter from the top of the desk without asking. My opinions and habits were not appreciated. I slept too late. One night when I washed the dishes I heard Sylvia in the kitchen washing them all behind me. The days before my fiancé came were labored. I sat in silence. I walked into town to watch the cross. I became fascinated and obsessed. I wanted to feel it and leave my imprint. To scratch its face, so Warsaw would remember me. I wanted to care about something so desperately as those women did.
I attended a dinner party with a few of Piotr’s business associates. I had come to know them well. I was constantly attending to Piotr’s English correspondence. Editing and marking heavily. My only act of defiance and superiority. I took pleasure in correcting him once he told me how proud of his english he was. I was slowly unraveling, fraying and tattered. Disheartened and homesick. Everyone at the party spoke perfect English, but they refused to the night. As they laughed and shared jokes; I clung onto their voices like I did everyday to the voices on the radio. I would listen for the weather report, so pleased in my ability to recognize tone. Sometimes Sylvia would summarize, “He say Polish joke, you no learn.” I would slump further into myself. I was the meal served on the table. The guests would take turns picking pieces off. “ When we left I was giving the parting favor, “Emi, sorry, they do not care for the Americans.”
Michal arrived the next day, tanned and beautiful. He had turned down the job in the name of our love. A grand gesture that would eventually carry no weight. I walked past him at the airport and he grabbed me before I came out of reach. His fingertips burning into my wrist. I wanted to tell him to run. Warn him. This place was mad and we needed to return to the safety of our nest in London. I was afraid, so I kissed him and let him greet his parents. “How are you liking Warsaw?” He asked. My English failed from lack of use. “There are a lot of snails.” I answered. Knowingly, he took my hand.
That night I took him to see the cross. He had taken a walk with his father earlier and came back changed. He ranted for ten minutes on the fallacies of religion ending with the dismissive “Silly Peasants.” I shuffled a bit trying to find the right words. “I think passion is pretty noble. It’s kind of neat. The image is beautiful.” He simply patted me on the head. “Little Bird, there are just some things you don’t understand.”
I wasn’t privy to the hushed arguments between the family. They gradually became more violent and sometimes I could catch my name. I stayed in my room with it’s haphazard decor feeling my fairytale slip through my fingers. Michal would return haughty and angry. Sometimes taking it out on me and other times reassuring me that nothing was wrong. Our love was infinite. Michal’s parents would never leave us be. I could tell they feared me. We’d sneak out as night to graffitied back alley bars. I found in the underground that my Americaness was adored, my accent beloved. Everyone wanted to show off their English, their progressive views and their worldly knowledge. No one wanted to discuss the cross.
The day before I was set to leave we visited the Polish resistance museum. We were spending more and more time away from the house to escape the brutal regime and criticism. Michal was fidgety and upset. We entered a room wall papered with letters. A placard explained that the boy scouts would deliver the messages secretly to the soldiers during the resistance. I sat in that room for hours. I made him read me the letters. There was so much love and fear. Words that endured so much longer than the sender. We came upon a little night shirt with a tiny rusted hole above the heart. It had a single name and age, ten. “It makes you think. We’ve never cared about anything enough to die for.” I said. Michal started to cry. I made him dance with me on the roof of the museum surrounded by the buildings that stood as placeholders for the wrecked city. It was the last time he really kissed me. Desperately. The buildings disappeared and I saw Warsaw for what it was. Bombed. Destroyed. Crumbling.
At the airport the next day Piotr proclaimed, “With my dying breath, Emi, I will fight this. I will not let the enemy invade my home.” I narrowed my eyes and said, “The cold war is over.” Michal looked on silently. For nine hours I was imprisoned on that plane; trapped in my thoughts and pain. I tried to wrap my mind around my experience but it was too close. One can’t see the whole skyscraper when you’re only standing an inch away from it. It wasn’t until I focused on the swirling knots of the cross I fell asleep.
When the plane landed I clapped.
I never saw Michal again. He caved to family pressure and the threat of disownment. It took months for him to come to the realization that he didn’t care enough about me to die for. If I wanted his love I would have fought. I would still be sitting in front of the cross. My body eroding.
Old Town
The Goddamn Cross
