Chapter 2

I love Warsaw trams. The old, boxy ones, where nothing is powered, except for the tram itself. The heavy sliding doors have to be opened by hand, so most of the time they remain ajar, with boys and young men jumping in and out while the tram is in motion. That way you never have to pay for your ticket. During rush hour people stand on the steps of the trams, hanging onto handrails or each other, sometimes two or three layers deep, so that the trams resemble bread baking pans with the rising dough spilling out.



My favorite spot is right behind the tram operator, himself standing at a wooden console with nothing but a huge brass crank. I watch him turn the crank left and right, each turn producing a series of metallic clicks, like a gigantic watch being wound up. I have no idea what the crank does, but it must be important, because there is a barrier separating the operator from the passengers, so that he always has enough room to operate, no matter how crowded the tram gets.

The tram features in my dreams. A recurring nightmare has me riding the tram stark naked, trying to act as if this was the most natural thing in the world. All the passengers are staring at me while I can't wait to go home, put some clothes on.

My maternal grandmother lives only a few blocks away - no need to waste money on a tram ticket, but I'm too young to walk there alone, so I don't go there often. Only a few blocks and it is a different world. The street is cobblestone, not asphalt. There are fewer cars and no trams. The house looks different, smaller. Wooden staircase, no elevator.  There is a guy playing harmonica next to grocery store.  He has no arms or legs - just a torso with head. The torso sits on a wooden wagon, like those used to sell vegetables at a market. Out of his military issue jacket come two wires to which a harmonica is affixed, so that he can reach it with his lips. I'm scared of him.

The third floor apartment has two rooms, one with a small balcony, and a fairly large kitchen. Altogether perhaps 500 square feet. The house has no central heating or gas, so a large, white-tiled stove sits between the two rooms. There is a coal burning oven in the kitchen as well. Once a year a large lorry stops in front of the house. It is pulled by a strong, dirty horse. Sometimes there is a mountain of coal on that lorry, and I wonder how is that possible that a single horse can pull that much coal. Two very dirty men, faces blackened by coal dust, carry large wicker baskets full of coal down a narrow staircase into the cellar. Some chunks of coal are as large as a human head. My grandmother gets upset when there are a lot of those large chunks, because she has to break them with a hammer. She also gets upset when there is too much useless coal dust in those baskets. "You have to watch them like a hawk", she says, pointing toward the lorry.

In winter she will carry the coal in metal buckets, up to the third floor. It's more like a fourth floor, if you consider that it comes from the cellar. Getting the fire going is a multi-step process with several points of possible failure. You start with crumpled newspaper and a few pieces of kindling. You set that on fire and a short while later you check whether the wood is ablaze. If it is, you add a few chunks of coal and leave the cast iron door open just a crack. You wait and then add more coal. When all of the coal is aglow you close the door completely, so that it will burn slowly, releasing heat. The tiles can get so hot you can't touch them, and a couple of hours later the whole apartment is toasty warm.

There are four people living in that apartment: my grandparents and their younger daughter - my aunt Ala - with her husband Witek, and later their son. They occupy the smaller of the two rooms, but when their son is born, they will swap the rooms with the grandparents, and will stay in that larger room until their divorce a few years later. My sister and I come for some weekends throughout the year, and for holidays. It is a one hour trip by tram, because we're now living in our own apartment on the other side of Warsaw.

The building where my grandmother lives was erected before World War II to house laborers with families. It was cheaply built, with plaster-covered straw serving as insulation. Thankfully, it has plumbing, but not enough to provide a toilet for every apartment, so some apartments have to use communal toilets. We are lucky: our grandparents have their own water closet. There are no bathrooms in the house - all ablutions and small laundry are done in the kitchen; there is a communal laundry room in the basement for washing linens.

There is housing shortage in Warsaw, so people tend to stay in the same apartment their entire lives - sometimes two or three generations. You get to know your neighbors pretty well - that's why most of the neighbors in my grandparents' house are called "aunt so-and-so" and "uncle so-and-so". They have survived the war together, including one large German bomb at the beginning. The bomb, having gone through the roof and three floors, wedged itself right above the cellar, but did not explode.

Chapter 1

It is overcast and rather chilly, but not too cold. A pretty normal day, weather-wise, for late September 1965 in central Poland. What is not normal is that I am six years old, walking behind a white casket with the body of my mother inside. That's what I had been told: that that's my mother there. I did not see the body, and I don't remember much of my mother. She was only eighteen when I was born. A child, really. Small surprise, perhaps, that she did no last long in her premature role as wife and mother. Three years later she gave birth to my sister, and soon thereafter disappeared from our lives. Fell in love with a guy, moved in with him, into a rented studio apartment in Warsaw. It was the owner of that apartment who found them. My mother - naked in the bathtub filled with water. Her lover - sitting on the floor by that bathtub. Fully dressed. Empty bottle of wine. Cause of death: gas poisoning from the water heater in the bathroom. Accident? Suicide? Who knows. In the catholic Poland people had always been trying to cover up suicides. Or bribe the priest. Otherwise, no place on the consecrated ground of a Christian cemetery - the suicides are buried outside the wall.

Of course, I did not know all that. Not until many years later. I never asked. Or asked and was told something absurdly evasive, like, "Lord Jesus decided to call your mother to his side", so I stopped asking. Decided that nobody would ever tell me, and besides, I did not really want to know. It was my inquisitive and maddeningly persistent sister who pried pieces of this story out of our reluctant grandmother Bronia - who blamed my mother's girlfriend for introducing her to the guy for whom she would give up her kids. That woman - my grandmother referred to her as "Czarna Baśka" ("Black Barb") - was the reason behind my mother's tragic death at 25. According to Grandma.

I do not remember much from the funeral. One of my aunts holds my hand as we walk and walk through the expansive Bródno necropolis in Warsaw. Six men - hired, I suppose - in front of our small procession carry the casket on their shoulders. I wonder how heavy it must be, requiring six grown men. We arrive at a big hole with a pile of dirt next to it. A priest says something - a prayer? - in Latin. Perhaps a short eulogy in Polish. Nobody else says anything. The six men use wide belts to carefully lower the casket into the hole. Some of those gathered come near, take handfuls of dirt, throw them into the hole. There is a thud whenever a handful or a stone hits the casket. I am told to do the same, so I do. There is no thud. Some people start crying. I do not cry, but the sadness all around seems to have touched me with its black wing.

There are only two blurry memories of my mother. One: my parents and I are visiting some friends or relatives. We're sitting around a table on a large veranda, when suddenly my mother falls off her chair. There is a frenzy of activity and the adults are very agitated. Much, much later I am told that my mother had a seizure that day - apparently, she suffered those from time to time. Two: my mother and I are lying on a large bed in my paternal grandmother Marysia's apartment. She asks me about all kinds of things, and about what I would like for Christmas. I tell her about the battery-operated toy machine gun I've been dreaming about. I will get that gun. It will make noise and the tip at its muzzle will flash red.

I'm staying at Grandma Marysia's two-room apartment, with Grandma, my aunt Iza, and her husband Staszek. My parents must have been separated by then, because I don't remember my mother being there, except for this toy gun conversation - and that must have been only a visit. I don't remember my father, either, but he might have worked long hours. After the funeral I'm still at that apartment. My Grandma takes me to school every day and brings me back home. We take a streetcar and there is a bit of a walk from the tram stop to the school.

When my grandma talks to other people about me, she calls me a "half orphan", which does not sound too bad. "Orphan" seems sad and mildly pejorative, like "cripple", but "half-" seems to be taking that edge off it. I'm only halfway there, which makes it sad but not freaky. Like a mythical creature, half person, half beast - kind of special.

One day my grandma is late, so I let a classmate talk me into going to his apartment to play. A large window in that second-floor apartment overlooks the sidewalk to the tram stop, so I can watch for my grandma. This, predictably, I forget to do, concentrating on his toys. Only a chance glimpse at the window some time later reveals my grandma, bewildered with worry, wandering the sidewalk back and forth, loudly calling my name. Mortified, I run down the stairs to meet her. She seems more angry than happy. I will never play with that boy again.