After Us, The Deluge

The "G-Damn" Cross

I spent a majority of time with my fiancé's ex girlfriend. Ania was an architectural student from Austria doing her summer internship in Warsaw. She freelanced as an international model and spoke six languages. At only seventeen, her emotions exposed, it became apparent she had never gotten over her first heartbreak, and neither had Michal's parents. If this wasn't a dream she would have been a nightmare. Although she was the last person I wanted as company, I grew to cherish our long inane conversations. We would spend hazy days sitting in front of coffee shops and wander, exploring the city. We talked about nothing with my only aim to hear the curves of spoken English that I was deprived of.

It was with Ania I first saw the cross. Lazily ambling through the city we saw a riotous crowd gathering. In the center a group of women sat cross-legged with placid, beatific expressions. Clad in skirts, aprons, and scarves like yokes. They were the stereotype of the country I had formed in my head before arrival. They guarded a disappointingly simple wooden cross hung on dense wrought iron gates in front of presidential palace. The clicking of their bead carried above the shouting as they recited the rosary. Oblivious. Stoic and silent military guards partitioned the women. A crowd of supporters and curious onlookers surrounded them chanting and arguing. Camera crews filmed the sharp juxtaposition. Candles and flower surrounded the women as if they were holy relic and a shrine unto themselves.

It was becoming increasing blatant that I was not a welcome addition to this family. Everything Michal had valued about me they rejected. They saw my freedom as fecklessness, my dreams delusions. My art was a child pursuit, my nonconformity dangerous. My presence in the house became tense. I had taken a lighter from the top of the desk without asking. My opinions and habits were not appreciated. I slept too late. One night when I washed the dishes I heard Sylvia in the kitchen washing them all behind me. The days before my fiancé came were labored. I sat in silence. I walked into town to watch the cross. I became fascinated and obsessed. I wanted to feel it and leave my imprint. To scratch its face, so Warsaw would remember me. I wanted to care about something so desperately as those women did.

I attended a dinner party with a few of Piotr's business associates. I had come to know them well. I was constantly attending to Piotr's English correspondence. Editing and marking heavily. My only act of defiance and superiority. I took pleasure in correcting him once he told me how proud of his english he was. I was slowly unraveling, fraying and tattered. Disheartened and homesick. Everyone at the party spoke perfect English, but they refused to the night. As they laughed and shared jokes; I clung onto their voices like I did everyday to the voices on the radio. I would listen for the weather report, so pleased in my ability to recognize tone. Sometimes Sylvia would summarize, "He say Polish joke, you no learn." I would slump further into myself. I was the meal served on the table. The guests would take turns picking pieces off. " When we left I was giving the parting favor, "Emi, sorry, they do not care for the Americans."

Michal arrived the next day, tanned and beautiful. He had turned down the job in the name of our love. A grand gesture that would eventually carry no weight. I walked past him at the airport and he grabbed me before I came out of reach. His fingertips burning into my wrist. I wanted to tell him to run. Warn him. This place was mad and we needed to return to the safety of our nest in London. I was afraid, so I kissed him and let him greet his parents. "How are you liking Warsaw?" He asked. My English failed from lack of use. "There are a lot of snails." I answered. Knowingly, he took my hand.

That night I took him to see the cross. He had taken a walk with his father earlier and came back changed. He ranted for ten minutes on the fallacies of religion ending with the dismissive "Silly Peasants." I shuffled a bit trying to find the right words. "I think passion is pretty noble. It's kind of neat. The image is beautiful." He simply patted me on the head. "Little Bird, there are just some things you don't understand."

I wasn't privy to the hushed arguments between the family. They gradually became more violent and sometimes I could catch my name. I stayed in my room with it's haphazard decor feeling my fairytale slip through my fingers. Michal would return haughty and angry. Sometimes taking it out on me and other times reassuring me that nothing was wrong. Our love was infinite. Michal's parents would never leave us be. I could tell they feared me. We'd sneak out as night to graffitied back alley bars. I found in the underground that my Americaness was adored, my accent beloved. Everyone wanted to show off their English, their progressive views and their worldly knowledge. No one wanted to discuss the cross.

The day before I was set to leave we visited the Polish resistance museum. We were spending more and more time away from the house to escape the brutal regime and criticism. Michal was fidgety and upset. We entered a room wall papered with letters. A placard explained that the boy scouts would deliver the messages secretly to the soldiers during the resistance. I sat in that room for hours. I made him read me the letters. There was so much love and fear. Words that endured so much longer than the sender. We came upon a little night shirt with a tiny rusted hole above the heart. It had a single name and age, ten. "It makes you think. We've never cared about anything enough to die for." I said. Michal started to cry. I made him dance with me on the roof of the museum surrounded by the buildings that stood as placeholders for the wrecked city. It was the last time he really kissed me. Desperately. The buildings disappeared and I saw Warsaw for what it was. Bombed. Destroyed. Crumbling.

At the airport the next day Piotr proclaimed, "With my dying breath, Emi, I will fight this. I will not let the enemy invade my home." I narrowed my eyes and said, "The cold war is over." Michal looked on silently. For nine hours I was imprisoned on that plane; trapped in my thoughts and pain. I tried to wrap my mind around my experience but it was too close. One can't see the whole skyscraper when you're only standing an inch away from it. It wasn't until I focused on the swirling knots of the cross I fell asleep.

When the plane landed I clapped.

I never saw Michal again. He caved to family pressure and the threat of disownment. It took months for him to come to the realization that he didn't care enough about me to die for. If I wanted his love I would have fought. I would still be sitting in front of the cross. My body eroding.