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spark could set off an explosion. Helena would give her oppressor
notice, slam the door, run out of the house, come back, slam the door
again, and scream, "I've had it! Why is it always me, me, me, always just
me." Because of her daily streetcar rides and her contact with people,
Helena had a better grasp of what was actually happening in Krakow
and the country. She was the one who sensed the city's shifting moods;
she was the one who read the paper, even though she only read the crime
column. In theory, she should have gradually gained the upper hand in
the household; Mrs.
C.
would then have been reduced to the role of a
British sovereign, forced to approve automatically all decisions taken by
the government. But Mrs.
C.
demanded absolute power; she refused to
accept reforms. Her reign was not founded on education or a grasp of
modern life. Her right to rule was underwritten by a certain style, a cer–
tain manner of speaking and dressing (she liked white blouses, washed
and pressed by Helena), a certain fussy way of puckering her lips, her
four words in French. Knowledge was beside the point. Mrs.
C.
had no
interest in current events. What had to happen had already happened.
The notion of following changes in Communist policy and ideology
never entered her mind.
If
someone had told her that there was a real dif–
ference between Communism's most brutal year, say, I952, and the
Gomulka period in the sixties, she wouldn't have believed it for a minute.
No, she would have refused even to listen.
Helena's rebellions never got off the ground. Mrs.
C.
didn't suppress
them, she simply waited them out. She locked herself up in her little par–
lor as if it were a fortress, fasted, and patiently waited for the storm to
pass. And the storm always did pass. Helena always relented and returned
to her endless duties. For a time she would be cross and tight-lipped, but
resigned. She would snort angrily and mock everyone who spoke to her,
but finally this routine bored even her, and shrugging, she'd regain her
usual good nature. Sometimes she took it out on us, the tenants.
She was a magpie, a snoop. I suspected her of regularly rummaging
through our things and once left a card that said "Please don't look here"
in my desk drawer. Helena took offense and didn't speak to me for several
days, and then, when her anger had subsided, she reproached me bitterly:
"How could you even think such a thing? So you don't trust me at all."
These two aging women, ugly, taken from a second-rate Dutch pa int–
ing, hating and tolerating each other by turns, forgiving or forgetting
the differences between them, truly existed; brisk, nimble Helena and
phlegmatic Mrs.
c. ,
pursing her lips. They both went to church on Sun–
day, but never together. Helena preferred the early mass, while Mrs.
C.
