394
PARTISAN REVIEW
attended only high mass, carrying a black prayerbook in her right hand
and a genuine calfskin handbag in her left.
They lived trapped in a cage, in a second-rate Dutch painting, in a
cramped apartment, in spite. I was a student then, attending lectures;
everything seemed open, possible. I rushed out of that fourth-floor apart–
ment and instantly forgot the two women's tragedies and hatreds. I paced
the path to the neo-Gothic university with rapid steps. I strolled beneath
the lush trees of the Planty gardens. At times I pitied the two women,
caught once and for all within their little fates. It wasn't fair: infinity was
humming right beside them, the stars came out at night. Everything was
possible. I heard lectures on Husserl, on Descartes, who'd had his
epiphany one night, on Pascal's fire. Some books took flame while oth–
ers held only straw, clay, feathers. I knew I wouldn't stay long at Mrs.
c.'s place, although there were in fact moments when I too took part in
the women's dull pain, when their ill humor captured me. These were
only moments, though, and I shook them off quickly. But the women
were chained to their misery, their inferno; they couldn't break free of it.
Was it naive to think of them this way? Yes, it was. The jaundiced
Mrs.
C.
couldn't suddenly run from the house and become a young girl
yearning for knowledge and revelation. Helena probably couldn't
escape the center for rat control.
No, it wasn't naive. They didn't want a great life. Yes, it was naive.
A great life had been snatched from them forever, for all eternity. Figur–
ing out crossword puzzles-I glimpsed this once completely by chance–
was Mrs. c.'s secret. Not a cross, just a crossword. The words marched
up and down, but they didn't make sense; they were powerless, cruci–
fied. A great nation's capital on a small river. Champagne for children.
An African city.
And it had come to this. Mrs.
C.
had three tenants-two students and
a tall old man, already half-dead. Hard of hearing, he listened to the
radio for days on end with the volume turned up so high that the walls
shook. Of course, he listened only to Radio Free Europe. He moved cau–
tiously, as slowly as possible, shuffling his slippers across the floor. It had
come to this: a few pennies in rent, a pension, a cleaning woman's pay.
No, it wasn't naive, since life is for each of us, for everyone.
I
LOST TWO HOMELANDS
as a child. I lost the city where I was born, the
city where countless generations of my family had lived before my birth.
But the onset of Soviet-style rule meant I also forfeited my easy, natural
