Chapter 14

More choices await me - now a proud licealist - at the start of the school year. What should be my concentration? Again, I am presented with three choices: History and Literature, Math and Physics, or Biology and Chemistry? I won't even consider the second one; I am naturally drawn to the first, but I reason that the future belongs to the third, so it seems like the more "practical" option, and that's what I pick . (Unfortunately, that kind of deeply flawed sense of what's "practical" is to become the bane of my existence.)

What do I select as the Western language to study - English or German? English, of course! Sorry, English classes are already full. Students get to choose in alphabetical order, and since your last name starts with W, you are out of luck... Damn - I so wanted to learn English!

That little setback aside, there is so much to love about my school! The building is old, with crumbling plaster and peeling paint, but it has character.  It has a real assembly hall on the top floor, with wooden floor, a stage, and a heavy curtain - even a large balcony outside. Graffiti in foot-long, black letters proclaims outside, "Michal Drewnowski, break both hands and a leg!", and will be there when I graduate four years later, with nobody bothering to paint it over. (The school lore has it that a jilted girlfriend of said Michal painted this curse; since he already had one leg broken in a ski accident, she had the good sense to wish this only for his still intact limbs.)

Above all, I am smitten with my fellow students. Not so much my classmates, but the nine-graders in the Math-and-Physics class. A friend from the elementary school introduces me to that bunch, and they are the coolest, smartest, wittiest people I have ever met. Good looking, too. And well-off (some of them).  I know I do not belong in that crowd, but I hang around them like a groupie. There is this girl, Iza - flat-chested, with dark, braided hair, olive skin, and permanently chaffed lips - she looks like a squaw from a western movie, and so I fall madly in love.

Me among my fellow ninth graders

Trouble is, I fall deeply, madly in love with every girl I find attractive, if she so much as smiles at me once. Thankfully, I am too shy to go beyond daydreaming about them, and so there is no chance that we will develop a relationship that I would then need to maintain or break. It is all very safe and innocent, until one day, at the beginning of the second semester, a girl walks into our class. She is transferring from the math-phys concentration to our class. Since there is an empty chair at the desk where I sit, she is told to sit next to me.

Her name is Gosia (diminutive of Małgorzata). She is pretty, petite, with thick, dark-brown hair. Two small breasts raise the front of her blouse just enough to announce their presence. She appears apprehensive and vulnerable, in need of protection, and I can provide that protection. I will take her hand and guide her safely through the many dangers of high school life and life in general.

The first occasion to earn my mantle as the knight protector of this fair maiden is offered to me on a plate just a couple of weeks later. Gosia reports feeling sick and the teacher excuses her for the rest of the day, but requests that someone accompanies her home. What better choice than her desk mate! I don't think Gosia is particularly thrilled with that choice, as it will prove quite embarrassing, but she is too miserable to protest. She has enough presence of mind to ask me to keep at least a 5-yard distance between us as we walk the two miles to her home, because every 100 yards or so she is stopped by a powerful urge to puke.

I would like to comfort her, but my every attempt to come closer, maybe put an arm around her, is met with a stern, "Stay away!". Her experience of this walk must be close to what Jesus felt, dragging his cross among the jeering onlookers.

Gosia stays home the rest of the week, recuperating,  and asks me to bring her homework and news from school, which I'm very happy to do. On my second visit she is still in bed, but sitting up in her pajamas. We gossip about our classmates and teachers, and I notice a small shape under her left arm. Without thinking twice, I ask, "What's that, a hot water bottle?", and give it a firm squeeze, only to realize with horror that I'm squeezing her right breast. I try to cover my embarrassment with an awkward laugh, but my reddening face betrays my true feelings. Strangely, that moment of awkwardness brings us closer and we start hanging out more and more. I have my girlfriend now.

Gosia and I at a party

Chapter 13

I'm in eight grade now - the end of elementary school. These are good times. The teachers go easy on us, treating us more like equals, pals even. Many of us ignore the requirement to dress in school uniforms, with the school emblem on a sleeve, and change our shoes for the hated juniorki - ugly canvas footwear supposedly with orthopedic benefits. Even the locker room ladies give us a pass, looking the other way as we sneak past in our tennis shoes.

We are the cool kids now. The age difference between us and those first- and second graders is so enormous (seven years!), that we don't even acknowledge their existence. They, in turn, ignore us as well, keeping to themselves at a safe distance. This is a chasm that's impossible to breach. The kids closer to our age - 6th and 7th graders - look at us with awe and jealousy, salivating at the thought that it will be their turn next year to be the masters of that particular universe.

It is also a terrible time, full of anxiety and doubt. At the age of fourteen I am expected to make a choice that will likely determine the rest of my life. There is no question that I will have to continue with my schooling - only complete losers or peasant kids stop at the elementary school - but which path to choose? There are three: vocational school, technical high school, and liceum. The first two options are seen by many as failure - that's where the academically weak kids go.  After two or four years in those secondary schools you end up a working stiff at some factory, perhaps clawing your way to a managerial position later on - if you join the communist party and make the right friends.

Kids with brains, or those who want to please their parents, choose liceum - the more prestigious the better. Ironically, that is the choice that severely limits your options afterwards; a diploma from that type of school is virtually worthless - you can't get a decent job with that, unless as a paper pusher in some office, with a pitiful salary. It only makes sense for those who plan to go to a university - and that's most parents' dream. Which is strange in a country that pays coal miners and some factory workers much better than doctors or university professors.  And yet, a university degree is a cherished prize that parents will push their kids to aim for, sometimes paying tutors or bribing admissions officials.

That choice, however, means that I will have to stay in my parent's apartment for eight more years, sharing the bed with Maciek and suffering whatever other indignities those cramped living conditions are bound to beget. This prospect is as scary to me as going to a two-year vocational school, where I will be turned into a semi-skilled laborer. I'm leaning toward the technical high school, but those have pretty strong math curricula, and math is my Achilles heel... Besides, all my friends are going to one liceum or another - some to the prestigious "16", to which I have no illusion of being admitted.

I am a mediocre student. My grades in math and physics are weak C's. Only thanks to Polish and Russian, where I get easy A's, my grade average climbs to a respectable level. I'm worried that I will flunk the math portion of the entrance exam; the only one from among my peers to be so humiliated. This prospect gives me nightmares, but I feel I have no choice but to submit my application to a liceum. I choose the "1" - a school that bears this number due to some mysteries of system-wide planning, and definitely not because of its rank among other schools in Warsaw. In fact, it is reputed to have lower academic standards and, most importantly, is easier to get into. It is a school for those less talented, less hardworking, less ambitious - should be a perfect fit. In fact, I do get in. I have never been so happy in my life.