STANISLAW BARANCZAK
435
still aren't that bad in Poland - a typically Polish consolation - but
even here, in our country, the line does begin to symbolize our soci–
ety.
It
is a society in which everyone is wronged equally but sees no
chance of improvement, even through collective action. Hence, the
people transform their frustration into aggression or, simply speak–
ing, begin to hate one another.
Konwicki manages to pinpoint the paradox of our society with
striking accuracy. The writer, the worker, the plainclothesman , the
private entrepreneur, the student, and a professional queuer hired
by some pensioner, all enjoy equal rights in the line for Soviet gold .
To make the situation all the more funny and real , the author has
them joined by a group of Soviet tourists who seem to have come to
Poland for the sole purpose of purchasing Soviet goods . Thus, Kon–
wicki gives us a full range of social classes and strata, with a national
conflict to top it all off. Yet , the animosities that arise between the
characters do not come from differences of class or nationality. Each
would-be customer, whether he is wealthy or belongs to a privileged
group, is victimized equally; there simply are no goods to acquire.
Nothing can justify our everyday pains , humiliations, and hustles .
Not only are higher goals absent-they have been long forgotten–
but also the simplest, most palpable things desired, the material
goods, are gone . What remains is hatred for anyone who, in this
senseless queue, has a better place in line, and even more for anyone
shrewd enough to bypass the line altogether.
The most delightful, if this word is appropriate, of Konwicki's
inventions is his story of Kojran and Duszek. Immediately after the
war, the narrator, Konwicki, who has just converted to a new
socialist-realist faith , is tailed by Kojran, who plans to carry out a
death sentence passed down by a resistance organization . Meanwhile,
Kojran is followed by Duszek, a State Security agent who finally ar–
rests and tortures him. "You might say we were walking Indian file ,"
states Kojran. When I say this dismal plot is "delightful," I mean it
gives the purely esthetic delight of watching Konwicki develop this
motif to the utmost. All three end up standing in line for gold, Kon–
wicki, Kojran, Duszek, in that order, single file . With their places
saved, they go to have a drink together. Years of struggle, assassina–
tions, prison sentences , and torture are put behind and blotted out .
Kojran has served his seven years; and Duszek seems to have rejected
his past; in any case , he doesn't like to talk about it. Today, they are
almost friends. Three sharp human profiles blur, after years, into
one nonentity. The values that once motivated them no longer mat-
