ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI Two Cities Deer zai soso rend morro eta herd ey fr i pr of Sey seq a tasers teeter eee Be rr ce oe pes eee [oe egies eplagee ioe Insane toner dc ago wine aera ear es ge ge la eee De Fer fee Serres poeta ey oe ie aay ase ann atta nearer ae ekenrm Zonsenbew alesis the athor of rover books of poetry netaing Tremor and Mysc fr Begrners. aswel athe prose book Anche Beaty (Georg), He divides hs me between Pri nd Houston, where he is onthe Facuty of te Creve Woting Program atthe Unversity of Houston. “As the pars of [Zapewski] Me story bpin ofl nto place an ron nd sad epentry unr sa Yet he nor al gloom and dooms aan anny, snd es hurl i srong virtue” — Boots “Zagsjowsld ea rapturous septic an ecstatic ris whoa moments of reat scentivenes, fly divine, absorbs, ard aceaps the wold yer so teaches us ‘to queston everything abou ie His ez his poem glow witha myer. ‘ule and | know of no writer hare or abroad we so Srila iluminates ‘the spaces beswsen the maginstion and hitary.the ner fe of pooty and the external crf ofthe word eel” Edvard Hirich “uo esi tour ofa wonder mind Adam Zagaows ca wise ard luminous an necessary a prose writer 2s he s 2 post” —Susan Sontag “A parative wonder Only such recent irenes can so eloquent persuade, nly such learned fidence so hilariously corwines...The pot Zagjenshs Seca ight Howe’ “This ina wonderful book” — Jolin Ashbery The Times Literary Suplement The University of Geordia Press Atnens Seorga 39602. ‘Cone ra wat tsitteamcracdene HU gh Come dn by En KewDwele s ON EXILE, HISTORY, AND THE IMAGINATION, Teemon: Seiecte® Poe (185 Setivaniry, SouTuse (ant 1a ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI TRANSLATED ay Litciam Vier202 the Us Cag Pre ets, Conia 2 Tassos 195 ty ian ater ‘Alsip ened abby angen wit a Sr ad GLC. ied nd bond by Cry tig Sern Thapape ne bck cider fees inl bio ey Croce Patton Cuan tsk Lage ae Caunilea Liban Resco, Pinan Coe Libor Compe Cage iin Dia api de 1065 [Bnet Eo “Twoie-enene itn te mapnatn Ans “ans ted by Lili lle bh ISHN ORD tok poe ouas7i—iedl outset dete ile Dts Fo bie nthe Und Sh 95 by Bia Sra an Can ConreNts TWO CITIES 1 OPEN ARCHIVES 469 Been 81 ‘A Suni NaTION WAITS A LttERT2 GoD TS mine THUNDLStOR 124 THe Chainnan’s Secaet Seton 1 THE NEW LITTLE LAROUSSE 159 Two boos 16! crscow 166 Ie Linear 172 Tre Unro.o Crmtisn oF Foerey 78 Tut Dooewan 185 THE Two DeFErs oF Uren e186 Lecture on Mester 187 Yea, 18 Ensremasn 16 THE Won Is Toms 190 CCeureaEutore 191 Heiuto Hiner 198E195 Drowontee ANO THE WonD 196 Muroee 205 eaten nots. 208 erty AND Ion 209 Bacernexs 210 Cums me Eas? 200 Reaowic ron BaP Dave. 227 San Peet's ReroRT 240 Hisromcatmaainarion 242 Foon 207 Kani Mane 28 Ewrnness 207 Iw Derenee or ADiecrnes 259 Inwocenct ano Exrenence 265Two Cities ary PEL ron four days. Heavy, dity clouds drifted over the city, hurried and impatient as unending cargo tains trans potting the ocean tothe east Finally the sun broke and the rooftops, damp and teaming, became instantaneous mirror shining carefce and trium- phant people are divided into the sted, the emigrants, and the homeless, then I certainly belong to the third eategory,al- though I understand it very sobeily, without a shadow of sen- timentaltyorselé- pty: Settled people die where they were born; sometimes one sees country homes in which muliple generations ofthe same family lived. Emigrants make their homes abroad nd thus make sure that at least their children will once again belong to the category of settled people (who speak another language) An emigrant, therfore, isa temporay link, a guide who takes future generations by the hand and leads them to another, sale place, or 50 it appears to him ‘A homeless person, on the other hand, is someone who,by accident, caprce of fit, his own fault, or the fault of is temperament, did nat want—or was incapable in his chilé- hood ot early youth of forging—close and affectionate bonds with the surroundings in which he grow and matured, To be homeless, therefore, docs not mean that one lives under a bridge of on the platform af a lest frequented Metro station (as for instance, nomen omen, the sation Europe on the line Pont de Levallois Callen it means only thatthe person bav- ing this defect cannot indicate the streets, cites, or community that might be his home, his, as one is wont to say, miniature homeland, Tn my case a certain (perhaps too simple, too cbvious) ex planation suggest itself, for I spent my childhood in an ugly industrial city, 1 was brought there when 1 was barely four ‘months old, and then for many yeas afterward Iwas told about the extraordinarily beautiful ety (Lvov) that my family had to leave, So it iy not surprising that [looked upon real houses and sects with semicontemptuous air of superiority end that T took from realty nly the bare necessities, ‘And this is why—at least ths is why it seems to me—I ‘became notoriously homeless m tying to say this in a way that does not elicit pity, but, t the same time, neither do I ‘wish to pride myself on this peculiar characteris) ‘My patent’ life was eut in two: befoe they let and after they lef. And my life, #0, except that my four months spent in that breathtaking city could in no way equal the experience ‘of many years of mature exitence. Yet na matter where one. ‘cuts and divides life, one cus and divides it into two halves. fT had lived only eight months, mathematicians would hhave been content. Because, however, evens took a cierent ‘tum, the mystics can be happy instead, because these fist four ‘unconseious months blaze withthe light of an epiphany Homeles, but not at all unhappy. Nevetele, the wore city offered me various humble ies, beginning with «roof over my head And sometimes there were even more generous gifs. Once, foc example was probably round siten atthe ime—one of my classmates sold me some records he had lied fom a student club ora song. (This clu had been patlydstoyed by aire, so:my classmate wasn't exactly aul of thet.) These were Detche Grammophon Geselschaf recordings and they contained the following works. Igor Stavinsky’s Pereuc, Beethoven's Sting Quartet op. 59, no. 3 (be lst of three Auartets dedicated to Rascumosly), Mozart's Piano Concerto 100.25, and “Spring,” part of Haydn's oratorio The Seasons The selection of records was arbitrary. I imagine tha, though he was not exactly thief, my clasmate must have been ina hurry when nabbing the records, For me, however, this completly random collection of works became the bass ‘of my musieal education Connoisseurs will undoubtedly ask But where's Bach? Mon- teverdi? Whereis Gregorian chant, Schubet, and Warner? Unfortunately they were notin the student club. And besides, Wagner had compromised himself poitclly. There weren't many clasical records inthe sores It sems that Wladylaw GGomulla, the mas running Poland tthe time, placed no peat value on music (vhic tek is toll his governing was ighly enmasia, No there was no Bach or Monteverdi among he recordings. ‘But there was the brazen, sais, challenging trumpet of Pe trouchk, there asthe meditative wealth ofthe cpus 59 quae tet there was oe of Mozart at piano cone and, finally, there was Haydn’ paran to the ca opening up spring Thave one ofthe records to this day adit ibefore me: theThird Rasoumovsky Quartet. Is parts 1. Andante con moto Allegro vivase, 2 Andante con moto quasi Allegretto, 3. Menuetto: Crazicso, 4. Allegro mato. Performed by: the Koccket Quartet. Yellow label on an ebony disk “Music was created forthe homeless because, ofall he ars, itisleast connected wth place. Ii suspiciously cosmopolitan ‘Why do sections of « musical work have Taian names? Why was Beethoven born in Bonn and why eid be die in Vienna? Why did he dedicate thie violin quartets to a Russian ats- tocraf? Why do the Chinese play Chopin’ nocturnes? Why «id Handel go to London and Rossini to Paris? Painting isthe at ofa settled people who enjoy contem- plating their native haunts. Portraits confirm the settled in their convietion that they are really alive because they are visible) Only sil lifes—and not ll—reveal the absolute in- difference of things, their cynicism, lack of local patiotsm. ‘The pitcher painted by Morandi have nothing in common with Bologna they ae fei thin, an fll fit. In Vermeer’ printings, the inteios belong to Delf, but the windows open ‘upon nothingnes that i light). Poetry, meanwhile, is befiting emigrants, those mucky ‘ones who stand over an abyss—between generations, between ‘contnents—with their miserable belongings. Tei ips move somelimes—some of them grind out awful curses, others po cic stanzas Sociological, my family is entvely representative ofthat chimerical socal stratum called the intelligentsia: it devives fiom the pety gentry, which lati property lon, long ago and foralmost the last two hundred years hasbeen undergoing the most diverse metamorphoses and experiments, mest fre- quently ending up 2s notaries or schoolteachers, who keep traces of their noble ancesty—coat of arms and the name of the last rermnants of thei etate—in the very bottom drawer. In addition to this, my father was raised in 2 home where Josef Klemens Pilsudsh, the socialist, was admired, while my ‘mother grew up in fil that was loyal to Roman Dmows, the nationals In October 195, our foursome, that i, my parents, my sinler, and I, endured a two-week journey from Lvov to Gli ‘wice, The family graves stayed in the east, The household spirits probably hesitated before they decided to accompany us ‘on that uncertain journey na catle ca. The spits of notaries, schoolteachers, doctors, dfunet gentry, most often leading an ‘uncertain existence, eating someone else's bread. ‘Some emigrated, seeking their fortune in Western Europe —foresample, the one who was nota notary ora schoolteacher but a potter and who sited in the bilingual Swiss town of ‘BieVBienne and opened a tle factor: My grandmothers cousin, Leopold Zborowski, emigrated to Paris and became an art dealer. Soutine and Modigliani ‘were among his painters he had the reputation of 2 dealer who took tender cate of his artists and did not exploit them. He was probably also a poe, Ina museum in Houston hangs 4 portrait of him by Modigliani itis not his best painting). ‘The museum note informs the viewer that the portrait is of Leopold Zborowshi, “a Polish poet. He wae » handeome man, He lived beyond his means and died young and bankrupt, in spite ofthe fact that the artists hhe promoted entered the history of world painting. He was ‘one of the belter-knowa personages in Mentparnase. In one photo an elegantly dressed Zhorowski sts at a café table in Southem France, absorbed in reading the news; the photo isblack-and-white, but one fees the prosence in it of Provencal sunlight, softened by a canopy of plane trees. brief moment of peace, rest, and also 2 brief moment when it seems the subject af the photo is saying, “But of course, | Delong to this ‘moment, the light ofthe south is my light, the leaves of the plane res are my favorite sunshade, and Lalways earn about the world from this newspaper.” tis hard to know how to evaluate human earees and des tinies. Does longevity count, or the number of ofspring, or 1 bank account, o the traces lft on the face of the earth? If ‘one considers that Ist citerion, Leopold Zboronskican hardly complain Sometimes just one trace remains: for example, my grand fathers brother, Emil, died very young, bu he lefta pamphlet in which he discuss the problems of education, This pam- phlet can be found in many libraries i sa feail monument to my ancestors because most of them were teachers, in ele mentary and secondary schools, trade schools, and gymnasia in Luov and the vicinity, Stanislawow, snd Sniatyn (Emil lived in Preemys) Itis dificult for me to imagine how thes homes, famitur, and gardens looked. Sometimes I wonder what the atmosphere oftheir lives was like and what sort of moral air they inhaled. T think that offen it was an atmosphere of unfulllment dis rupted carers in a partitioned countsy, an uncertain future. But perhaps it wast lke that at all. Ruling the empire was robust Franz Joseph, who lived so long he almest became a faeak of nature, like tn ancient linden tree, My ancestors were schoolteacher, so they lived modestly but securely, and its likely that throughout their careers they knew what sort of retirement pension they were due ‘They were able to hang on to what remained of thir old homes and furniture through war and deportation: a wicker armchair, Polis highlander kim, wateeolors and paintings, and photographs that depicted ladies in enormous hats and beloved, long-dead eats and dogs. The farmly was close-knit they liked their Sunday and, specially, holiday dinners and suppe's, duting which they were able to secrete 2 peculiar hormone of fanaa], fatemal warmth, intimacy, and trust ‘They discussed matters of heath and county. During these neverending meals, all that was distant and alien became insubstantial; only the familial and intimate existed. Owing to the properties ofthe Polis language, whose specialty is ex- quiste diminutives, they bore double fst names. To the world at larg, tothe authorities, thei names were Jan, Boguslaw, Wiadyslaw, Tela, Teresa, or Maria, but, infact, only the endearing family diminutive really counted—As, Myszka, Masia, Renia, Adrio, Tolo, Bogus. It was a ifthere were two currencies, two languages, two sjstems of denctation: one for ‘outsiders and one for the fil. Families, bastions of fraternity and self-help, were the real fiames of reference; familial clans embarked upon relations with one another or competed with one another, high up in aristocratic spheres as well as much lower, in the spheres of the modest intelligentsia, It was dificult for strangers to be sccepted into these citcles, Around 1910 one of my grand- other's cousins married a lovely, intelligent, and energetic woman wh hailed from a family of Jewish intellectuals. The process of accepting her into the clan lasted for decades. She Aid reveive a family diminutive, Auntie Busia, bt a consid- cezable segment ofthe clan boycotted her in the beginning, ‘And even her own family censured her and broke ofall =Tations. She lived to be almost a hounded years old. I knew hher well, visited her offen in Cracow, where she lived fist, with her hushand, my Uncle Jozio cousin to Eageniuse Kwiat owski, the prewar vice premier of Poland), and later, after his death, as a Toney, indomitable old woman. ‘When I praised the newly aisen Solidarity movement in 1981, she gave a hostile snort, saying, “What! Why, they're socials!” I realized that her potical opinions had been formed before the Fist World War, and I dropped the dis- She was proud, independent, self-reliant. Uncle Jozio re- rained completely in her care, And she was always in love with him because Uncle Jozi, «quiet, shy, and elegant bank oficial, was a gocd-looking man. In my family, one said, “Almost as gorgeous as Unele Jozio.” Even as a completely gray-haired man with a white beard, he was still handsome. People sid he had “the distinguished look of a senator.” “They spent the Ftst World War in Vienna, “justin case.” Auntie Basia told me that, when leaving their Lvoy apartment, she puta jar of apricot preserves on the table, inthe hope that the eventual trespassers who came toloot the apartment houses ‘would stop atthe apricots. Lalo know that when my auntand tunel returned from Vienna, the jar (and quite afew other things) was gone, ‘Dating the Second World War they hid in a village, for ‘obvious reasons, It seems that this time they did not ever. ‘consider leaving apricot preserves. Nor could Vienna be con- sidered a safe haven ‘When she was very old and unable to cate for herself the entire family diligently looked after her. Thus she was accepted ‘seventy years later. It wat easy to gt admitted toa clan, to ge family, even though it must be sad that membership inthis close-knit institution brought few special privileges; it didn't even give one access to material riches (what riches — ‘not manors but apartments; not grounds but gardens, curant bushes, raspberry canes) of to power, It all boiled down to diminutives and moments of intimacy, of peace, when after desert the talk ceased, bes bummed in the garde, teaspoons stopped their clinking, buries dazed on branches of line My aunts... Myruncles.. There was als a Protestant branch of the family—Pastor Kubaczka, who lived in Gole- som, neat Ciesz. ‘There was Aunt Betta,» music teacher. After the war she moved to Cracow, where she occupied a comer in the home of distant relatives who would allow her to unfold a cot in the kitchen at night but would net allow her to be there dating the day. She roamed the city wating for nightfall. She de- posited her oly treasure, @ piano, in a Cracow conservatory, because she certainly couldnt carry it around with her dating her endless walks along the streets ofthat city (My aunts... More important than my uncles. My uncles