Martial law Easter
Swick, Thomas R.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I lili illli I I lilill li OF TOMBS. BASKETS, & RESURRECTION IN POLAND Martial law Easter THOMAS R. SWICK H OLY WEEK IN POLISH does not...
...There's very little food...
...Martin's Church, on the next street over, displayed a . . . . . . . . . IIIIII I il ilill II I THOMAS R. SWICK, a free lance writer, lived serveral years in Poland...
...flowered vests and thick cloth skirts of bold red, green, and orange stripes...
...I prowled that hallowed quarter for awhile and, when I returned to the Cathedral, joined two small elderly ~ women who banged with undue ferocity upon the por~ls...
...I repeated my refusal several times, until the necessary holler, rebounding off the Gothic walls, penetrated the good man's eardrum...
...At the dismissal, we were asked to remember those who could not be with their families this holiday...
...The early April sky would turn dark with thunderclouds, sending down on us thick wet flakes of spring snow, then would open up to an intense, wintry blue...
...456 pp., $20.00 cloth, $12.00 paper Write for brochure or Order from PORTER SARGENTPUBLIsHERS, INC...
...At last a taxi approached and I waved it over...
...Warsaw is plentiful compared to S weibodzin," he said...
...Solidarity lives," said Marek, noticing my wonderment...
...Rows of priests followed...
...As often happens among Poles of different regions, they compared food stocks...
...Good day, sir, and Happy Easter to you...
...He invoked the customary wishes of the holiday, ending them with the unusual benediction (to me) of "Tasty eggs...
...Uncle Zbyszek fiddled with the dial of what looked like a prewar radio...
...at five to, we all moved into the adjoining room...
...One can find an occasional postcard'with a colorful woodcut of youthful peasants cavorting about a well...
...tall, thin wooden cross, from the left arm of which hting an anchor, symbol of the wartime resistance movement, and from the fight arm the chalk-written dates 56, 68, 70, 76, 80, with a space left for the inevitable one to follow...
...Business...
...At eight we sat down to bigos, a sort of hunter's stew...
...Joining us at the table was their son Andrzej, who was visiting from a small town outside Poznan...
...Beneath the canopy the bishop walked, bearing, with his elbows pointed outwards, the heavy gold cross...
...9 Boston, MA 02108 _9 USA 4 May 1984:277 though my wife, a few years back, had a small bottle of perfume emptied on her as she made her way to the tram...
...It's funny, isn't it...
...It's not a necessity," he said, then added laughing, " I f you don't eat, what do you need toothpaste for...
...Their leader carded a small basket of dried flowers, and every six or seven steps would turn and gamely toss the Cuttings at her charges, strewing the stone floor...
...One must get there early...
...For these days real," said Aunt Basia...
...A crown of thorns circled the column with three ribbons enwrapped in it, two of black and one long one red and white, the national colors, that trailed down to the floor to decorate the slain body of Christ...
...Mamet, who contradicts himself from interview to interview, told the New York Times (January 15, 1978) that Buffalo "is about the American ethic of business," and so it is, although it is about many other things including, most importantly, the connection between language and behavior...
...At breakfast when my wife mentioned casually that the broadcast was tonight, her aunt cried...
...It consisted of a plaster-white column topped with a gold cross, draped in black, atop of which sat the Polish eagle, crown intact...
...Commonweal: 276 "So early...
...All we have in the shops are shelves of vinegar...
...i was to hear it in the next few days as a common Easter greeting among friends, along with the even more improbable "Merry eggs...
...What about toothpaste...
...All was dark...
...The deal in this, the best of Mamet's plays, is a burglary which, given the playwright's preoccupation with losers, is going to be a fiasco...
...Teach says in Amerif f can Buffalo...
...No shampoo...
...Real Polish wartime bigos," he corrected himself, and executed a head bow in deference to his wife...
...It didn't matter that barely any news was reported (the announcer turned the segment over to a balladeer...
...We haven't seen it for awhile...
...In what other country do everyday objects become so quickly the stuff of history...
...REAT MONDAY is a holiday throughout Poland and, as on All Souls' Day, businesses and offices are closed...
...At one side restless altar boys stood behind tables laden with capsules of holy water...
...There is desperation in the successful salesmen as well as in the unsuccessful ones, as the intensity of the language indicates, and they are willing to feed on one another as obviously as they do on their customers...
...In this way we worked our way around the room...
...In Mamet' s new play, Glengarry Glen Ross, his most accomplished work since Buffalo, there is no doubt that "the American ethic of business" is a central subject...
...Most city people claim that the drenching is carded on now only in the villages, Workplace Democracy and Social Change Frank Lindenfeld Joyce Rothschild-Whiff Editors Workplace Democracy and Social Change examines one of the most significant movements of the past decade - - the creation of new systems of work and participation...
...A T FOUR O'CLOCK Sunday morning I went out alone to attend the Cathedral Mass...
...When that group dispersed we inched our way (how often one is in company in Poland) to the front and made our contribution to the table rapidly refilling with paschal offerings...
...In the evening we went to dinner at Uncle Zbyszek and Aunt Basia's in Mokotow, the southern borough of Warsaw which, though we had no way of knowing _9 then, was to enjoy the greatest reception of the broadcast...
...At the Warsaw Cathedral, a tomb featured Christ recumbent on the cold stone floor of a side altar, surrounded by potted geraniums and bathed in a blood-red spotlight...
...He and Uncle Zbyszek began checking their watches a good twenty minutes before nine...
...Inside we found solid commotion...
...From colleagues at work...
...Behind them came a group of six hoary elders in black suits, grey silk ties, and white gloves, each clutching the wooden pole of a six-pointed cloth canopy...
...I found the usage of an egg somehow gave an ingenuous appeal...
...The churches dominate these narrow, reconstructed streets of cobblestone, not only in size but number...
...At St...
...A brave voice emitting from a secreted and widely-hunted chamber had been transmitted clandestinely over the city' s air waves and spoken to the suffering of resurrection...
...For days after people talked not of what they had heard, but that they had heard (and how well they had heard), and not of what they would hear, but that they would hear, again...
...I had overestimated the difficulties of getting downtown, and I found myself locked out of the Cathedral on a blustery and ill-lit street...
...Its archival aspect was enhanced by the collection their son had established and proudly displayed on the lone lampshade of the living room, a collectionof badges and pins from the Solidarity era...
...The Mass lasted two hours and contained one hymn familiar to me, "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today," sung more slowly and with more solemnity than [ had ever heard it...
...Traditionally it is the day of Smigus Dyngus, when it is the custom for young boys to douse gifts with buckets of water...
...I found myself a pew not too close, nor, I thought, too conspicuous, until an aged ostiary approached...
...By the end of the first act, we have seen a star salesman devour a customer, watched a fallen star try to buy his way back to the board, and heard one salesman propose that another join him in burglarizing the office for the leads that can Commonweal: 278...
...At nine o'clock on frequency seven...
...The lines come in the middle of one of Teach's bursts of pseudorationality in which he uses loaded words to persuade Donny to abandon his young friend Bobby and make a deal with Teach...
...Anne's, from which point we could see queues for the other churches traced across the square below...
...Ha, real...
...Clandestinely and at great risk, Polish artists came every Great Friday of the German Occupation to decorate in a personal way the grave of Christ...
...Element...
...Solidarity wishes you faith and hope in these Easter days of 1982...
...On Great Friday afternoon, therefore, in the Year of Martial Law 1982, I went with my wife and our friends, Marek and Danuta, to visit the "tombs" in the churches of Warsaw's Old Town...
...and nearly ktoppled her tea...
...People approached the cross, stood for a minute or two in silence, and then passed o n . G REAT SATURDAY is the Polish day of "blessing the baskets...
...We took it to our neighborhood church, passing parishioners coming back with their own delicate, high-handled baskets...
...They were followed --- as winter then to spring -- by a dozen young girls in Mazowsze folk dress...
...When I confessed unfamiliarity with the program, he cocked his head closer, and I saw that he was greatly deaf...
...The girls, at each toss, would fall quietly to one knee...
...Then came a troupe of six little girls in white dresses and floral head wreaths...
...It was a time during which the Easter message of suffering and resurrection carried an irresistible meaning for Poles...
...Andrzej manipulated the antenna...
...There was a terrible burst of static ("Just like during the Occupation," said Uncle Zbyszek) before a female voice came through that we knew as "ours...
...The decorations in this war are getting one's name on the board, and not to be there is to be banished to the company of losers where one is assigned mediocre leads which give little possibility of sales that might rescue one from failure...
...My wife's aunt passed around a plate of quartered, hardboiled eggs...
...the driver asked...
...We had a view onto a back lot, so we could not gauge the response, though later we were to hear that the large ten-story apartment complexes to the south of us had twinkled like space stations...
...By Sunday, similar notices had appeared in most of the churches...
...Bribery and theft are not even a giant's step away from the hard-sell tactics of their trade...
...Workplace Democracy and Social Change F. Lindenfeld & J. Rothschild-Whitt, eds...
...The selections in this anthology include analyses by specialists in the social sciences as well as first person accounts by those who have helped to create some of these dynamic workplaces...
...if you have difficulty heating, blink them once...
...if you can hear moderately well, blink them twice...
...At his departure I reflected that of all that was to be said today in that great sanctuary, the first truly audible words had been mine, pleading benightedness...
...Like a kaleidoscope," the Poles say, and I remembered my wife's aunt's warning earlier in the week: "Whenever Easter and Passover coincide, the weather is miserable...
...Can I ask you, sir, to carry a banner in the procession...
...When each guest had a slice, he offered it to his neighbor, who took a bite, and then kissed the other back three times on the cheek (occasionally leaving a smudge of yolk) while extending all good wishes...
...Real Polish bigos," said Uncle Zbyszek, advertising the dish to the foreigner...
...As novel as it was for me to be queueing to look at church crafts, it seemed at the same time the most appropriately spent Good Friday I'd ever known...
...at the other a crowd surrounded a long table, presided over by a young, soft-spoken priest...
...BASKETS, & RESURRECTION IN POLAND Martial law Easter THOMAS R. SWICK H OLY WEEK IN POLISH does not possess the varied nomenclature of days that it does in English: they are each of them "Great," with no distinction, for instance, between "Maundy" and "Good...
...To the Resurrection...
...What a pretty sight that wicker basket of peasant fare was to someone brought up on synthetic green straw and pink marshmallow chicks...
...11 Beacon St...
...One read on that shade with a not yet ripened wistfulness such familiar slogans as "Soviet Tanks, No Thanks," "I love the Soviet Union," and the brash epithet that had been the hit of the previous spnng, ..,nta-~ociaaisu...
...From a distance the baskets had looked almost identical, but here, under closer examination, they were seen as truly varied, with eggs of diverse artistry, lace intricacies overlapping some sides, bright green shoots of dill, and the occasional lamb standing honorifically in the center...
...I took a spot midway between the tram stop and the bus stop in a vehicleless world...
...Andrzej ran to turn off all the lights, and then blinked them three times...
...We took our place at the end of a long queue stretching out of St...
...Then the five banner bearers, the banners like dusty sails atop their lengthy poles...
...She gave instructions: if you can hear well, blink your apartment lights three times...
...Mamet introduces his characters in three scenes, set in a Chinese restaurant, in which one of each of the three pairs is an almost uncontrollable voice washing over the relative taciturnity of the other...
...So that's where it is...
...Where did you get it...
...The same procedure is carded out on Christmas Eve, with a wafer...
...Then the receiver of the egg would offer part of his own, and the process was repeated...
...We made one up at home with the necessary ingredients: bread, kielbasa, eggs (painted), salt (on a little dish), with sprigs of dill and parsley planted throughout, and a white linen cloth to cover the top...
...Atop the piano i found a small slip of paper slightly larger than a postage stamp...
...his mother, seated in the comer, took up her knitting, my wife and I settled on the couch...
...The top half carried a black and white depiction of the pope, the bottom half the words...
...At the church's front doors there was a ceaseless flow of people entering and ex!ting...
...The words, coming through distant yet clear, had a mesmerizing effect on us, not so much by what they spoke, but simply by the fact that they spoke...
...The priest read a few prayers, took up the broom-like sprinkler, dipped it in holy water, and then waved it vigorously up and down the length of the table...
...Toothpaste...
...Anne's, the Academic Church which stands at the top of the entrance square, that the tradition of "tombs" began...
...Andrzej stood motionless in the middle of the room, his one hand extended in a gesture of silence, though no one had spoken for minutes...
...Anne's, we were led past the tomb, like mourners paying our last respects, after a half hour' s wait...
...Another formal gentleman hung on each arm in a posture of support...
...he replied, nonchalantly...
...Aunt Basia, a perennially dour woman, looked up from her knitting with a smile triumphant, and wordlessly we looked from one to another with marvel...
...Glengarry Glen Ross, which gets its name from a shady land development in Florida, concerns a group of salesmen in a sleazy real estate company for whom words are weapons -the blunt instruments of obscenity or the stilettos of lying locutions -- and victory is measured in psychological as well as material rewards...
...All were kept upright except for one slung over the shoulder of a white-robed, long-haired young woman...
...It was a news broadcast in which the biggest news was the broadcast itself...
...I walked through our silent, empty aeighborhood and had that rare sensation of feeling that I was the first person up in the city...
...It was led by a crucifer and a priest carrying a small statue of Christ standing...
...The procession, which I had come to see, was long and impressive...
...I swept my eye restlessly over that collective, vernal Easter spread...
...It was in St...
...As with so many Polish religious traditions, this one has not only continued, but flourished...
...E ASTER BREAKFAST was at Marek and Danuta's...
...Five men are needed...
...All weekend the citizens of Warsaw had been in expectation of another incarnation of sorts -- Solidarity' s. Walking in the Old Town on Saturday, we had seen a notice, taped to a wall, of the first underground radio broadcast, planned for this evening...
...They lived in a "Gomulka," as the tiny apartments are called that were constructed during his reign...
...I said...
...They opened shortly to take us in, unveiling an impassive young priest who commented: "You could have still slept...
...I I Hill II Stage REWARDING SALESMEN NEW FROM MAMET, OLD FROM MILLER ~ll~~lHAT ARE we saying here...
Vol. 111 • May 1984 • No. 9
