Balloon trips. Kapuściński — a review of "Nobody Leaves: Impressions of Poland"

Author: Stanisław Zieliński source: “Nowe Książki” no. 15 date: 1962-08-15

Review

author: Stanisław Zieliński title: Wycieczki balonem. Kapuściński source: “Nowe Książki” no. 15, 15 August 1962

Three reasons decided my choice of reading for a frosty July evening. I like authors who betray an interest in the world outside the café; I remember Kapuściński’s reportage published in “Polityka”; and the author does not wear a beard. From my point of view an essential and important detail, because some beards, seen close up, present a very squalid appearance.

Busz po polsku contains twenty short pieces which the author calls chance stories. Strictly speaking they are not stories but storylets, a few pages each. But a considerable row can arise even out of a trifle, out of a very short story or piece of reportage. The story (or fictionalised reportage) “Sztywny” (“The stiff”) has acquired a particular notoriety. Readers of the literary and daily press have had the chance to acquaint themselves with numerous opinions on “Sztywny” and its derivatives. The question of plagiarism will be settled by a court. I have no idea what the verdict will be or whose hands will be found clean. Of one thing I am certain: a re-reading of “Sztywny”, together with the supplementary reading mentioned above, must be counted among instructive occupations that — as one lightly says — give one much to think about. At grammar school other people’s texts very often saved me from a terrible disaster crowned by a merciless fail. Anyone who would not let you copy, who covered his exercise book with his hand, hissed a warning and applied other obstructions, condemned himself to a wretched existence outside the society of the class. In our class there were no such selfish little wretches at all.

One turned up once, but he lasted barely six months. Then his parents took him away and placed him in some other school. I was told later that the lesson had not been wasted. The egotist grew up into a normal person. Unfortunately that was a very long time ago. Schoolboy views on a sharp eye and a well-exercised ear have undergone radical change. Nowadays I incline rather to the old-fashioned principles which hold that one should not make use of another person’s toothbrush or another person’s texts without the owner’s express consent. Even in the case where someone has spread the rumour that the author was eaten by savages with béchamel sauce, far away in the bush. The author’s miraculous return then gives the signal for a monstrous fit of hiccups. Thumping the back with the palm does not help. That, among other things, is what makes it monstrous. One has to resort to more effective methods, tiresome and exhausting. To enumerate all of them, or even the most commonly practised, would take up too much space and time. Besides, who could count them?

There was once talk of a mutual aid association bringing together plagiarists of all ranks and grades. The scheme apparently collapsed for want of suitable premises. A solid bunker would presumably have been the most fitting accommodation. Leaving the accommodation problem in peace, let us return for a moment to the wild people living in a bush knocked together out of planks. If those worthy cannibals were to compose their menus according to the plagiarists’ notions, they would soon die out from terrible overeating. What confusion would arise in the statistics! It is frightening to think of. Consumption per head of population in the bush would leap up to the green ceiling of the jungle. The most carnivorous nations would then be put to shame. A joke? Of course. A poor one? That too is the honest truth. But everyday life has the property of running a mile ahead of jokes.

Not long ago I was told about a gentleman (with a name, a date, a place — in short, a hundred per cent certain case) who did not resist the charms of another person’s published prose. He copied a piece out of a newspaper, signed it as one does, and sent it to the appropriate address. As luck would have it, the masquerade was discovered. The plagiarist did not deny it. He explained that he had acted in good faith. “I had heard,” he said, “and I have witnesses to it, that the author of this piece was killed during the war. I was misled. I would never have borrowed anything from a living man.” To the end of the conversation, conducted in an atmosphere of a certain embarrassment, author number two could not understand why the publisher was sulking and taking offence. And indeed — can one be angry with a man deceived by others? Ten give their word that someone is “dead as a doornail”, and the eleventh demolishes the assurance by saying “fit as a fiddle, lives one floor down”. Try to be wise in that situation and put it back, because somebody was missed by a bullet.

Everything pales, however, beside the traps that plagiarist-narrators set for trusting and simple-hearted listeners. The wolf pits and elaborate trapdoors used in hunting big game seem innocent toys beside them. It usually begins like this: “I had an extraordinary adventure a few years ago…” says the P-N (plagiarist-narrator), naming without hesitation the place, the date and the witnesses ready to testify on oath that it all really happened. Then follows a colourful tale larded with effects, supported by gesture and by expressions studied in front of the mirror. The listeners groan with excitement. Finally (and this is what the P-N is waiting for) somebody’s nerve breaks and he asks: “Might one make use of your experience? Real life is always more colourful than the invented kind. So — may I?” The victim has swallowed the hook. The P-N spreads his hands good-naturedly. “By all means, please do. Of course; I don’t write, after all…” The matter is settled; the victim fidgets on his chair.

On the slightest pretext he leaps up from the table and rushes home to write the whole story down while it is hot. After a while a brick falls from a cloudless sky. The thing comes out: the P-N was not telling a story from his own life but from someone else’s not very well-known book. The talkative plagiarist has long since vanished from the horizon, and the victim is still writhing in impotent fury. Truly, it is better to get tangled up with real cannibals than to spend a holiday in the company of an experienced P-N. A seasoned P-N has eyes as innocent as lilies. You will not catch such a man out with a sudden question or an ironic aside: “I’ve read that somewhere…” Against a less practised P-N one can defend oneself by a search sprung on him without warning. A beginner P-N, before he has trained his memory properly, carries about with him the texts he uses. Rummaging through his suitcase serves as reconnaissance before battle. The rest is only a matter of patience and speed on one’s feet.

When the P-N gets into his stride, you interrupt him politely: “The swine has a wonderful memory.” At that moment you should open the book he is quoting at the right page and shove it under the P-N’s mangy nose. Then the listeners jump up and shout “Fly-by!” and kick the P-N beyond the parish boundary. In large cities the final scene requires a considerable physical effort. Many P-Ns, exploiting the poor condition of the opposing side (for it happens that a participant in the “Fly-by” feels no hunger for kicking, just as a professional cyclist feels no hunger for a bicycle), escape by taxi or by hitching a lift. That is as dishonest as using a knife or counter-arguing with a broken bottle. “The legs of justice” (a technical term; see the rules of the modern “Fly-by”) should be accepted without objection, as one accepts a bitter but necessary medicine.

The far-sighted plagiarist usually takes shelter under the protective wing of an aunt, an uncle or some other suitably powerful protector. Then the game moves to a higher pitch. Kicks are delivered through a counter-protector. A well-aimed indirect kick successfully replaces a dozen direct ones. There is a sufficiently rich literature on the subject. There is no point, then, in repeating it all from the beginning. Before we write the plagiarists off, let us look into Twain. “The fight against plagiarists is hard, for it demands cunning and cold blood… All the same, I advise nobody to put too much heart into it. Chasing a fly, you can fall out of the window, and not everyone is lucky enough to live on the ground floor. The blood-curdling screams that make a stay in hell devilishly unpleasant are uttered by plagiarists. I know something about it, but in Jenny’s presence I shall not say another word…” Yes, no sort of life at all. On earth the “Fly-by”, in hell the worst cauldron, attended by seasonal, that is contract, devils.

They are hired out from purgatory during the infernal peak season. The pitchforks fall from their hands. They cannot keep the temperature up. And they drink. They fill hell with smoke, mess the place up, work off their bad temper on the plagiarists’ hides, and that is all the comfort one gets from them. They came, they went, they cleared off upstairs. Meanwhile in the cauldrons… Just a moment, what were we talking about? There you are! The subject took advantage of the confusion and dived. A little gurgling and spreading rings on the surface. Another moment and it is a stone in the water. Send for the divers, brother… Since cauldrons have come up, radiators deserve a few words. Because of the cold! Outside the window, in the light of the fluorescent lamps, a snowman made of July snow is turning blue. July snow, July honey, a disastrous year for bees… And so on and so on, until the heart of the matter is completely submerged. Nothing doing. Foreseeing this and that, I tied the subject to a strong rope in advance.

We were speaking of “Sztywny”. A short and simple story. Nicely told. It begins like this: “A car races along the road. Amid the dusk the pupils of its lamps peer out for the finishing line. Yes, the line is close now: Jeziorany, 20 km. Another half-hour’s drive and it is over. The vehicle presses on to its destination, but this is driving on trust: the old machine cannot take a long route.

On the floor of the lorry lies a coffin.”

And this is the ending: “In the end we went on. Dawn met us. The sun warmed us. We walked. Our legs buckled, our arms went numb, our hands swelled, but we did carry him to the cemetery, to the grave — that last harbour of ours in the world, into which we put in only once and from which we never sail out again — this Stefan Kanik, aged 18, killed in a tragic accident, during blasting, by a lump of coal.” Such are the clasps of this story. Between the clasps: the lorry’s breakdown, a listless discussion, a sudden mad idea, the march with the coffin to a cemetery fifteen kilometres away, night, a rest by the lakeshore. I have no intention of frightening you with further detail. Why not? Oh, just in case.

This modest little volume consolidates one’s liking for the author. Kapuściński — as one could tell from reading his reportage in the press — knows how to look and how to tell. The field of observation, Poland, is broad enough. A little imagination and independence protects one from the sad necessity of splitting an idea like a pre-war match into four. And one can avoid the crush, too, because this is not the department store people come to on outings as if to a museum.

Kapuściński — this must not be passed over — wins the reader by his passion. That is perhaps the most important thing. Kapuściński is moved by the affairs of the people he writes about. I forgot to add that he is genuinely moved. We have any number of successful simulations of feeling. They are not to my taste. A plastic nose is a sad last resort.

I lost myself in Busz, and meanwhile the weather changed abruptly. In front of the house, where the snowman had stood like an oak, a wretched puddle is rolling its eyes at the moon. I glance at the book. The last words: “a strange world, this one”. Precisely; very strange indeed.