Kawiarnia Kresy

March 8th, 1939 - Leon Zabielski

In a barrage of overlapping limbs, I snatch my coat, counter the coat rack arcing down towards my head, and swing open the apartment door. Warm air squeezes past me, inexplicably desperate to leave the wood-paneled cocoon where I’d much rather stay. I’ve not even left and I’m sweating through the first of many wool layers. I make a mental note: Don’t rush in the winter.

I function better in the milder months, I think, and at milder paces too. Warsaw sometimes offered the first, but never the latter. I couldn’t linger on that, though. Despite the bustle, I knew a tram engineer leads a life devoid of purpose in the countryside. Chuckling at the image of me frantically placing rails on a muddy country road, I started down the stairs. Sinewy clouds of breath hung in the still air behind me. 

Outside, the city calls, bells, sings, and shifts amidst the falling snow, turning it into a gray sludge. Just 10 kilometers away, it formed neat piles under the forest’s birches and alders. I shake off my longing and set off towards Nowy Świat, the restaurant-lined street where I’m meeting Lena. We’d known each other since childhood, our fathers having worked together, and she was in town for the weekend. As usual, she knew a place. 

I stop, as I frequently do, in front of the nearby cukiernia. Hands pocketed and face buried in my scarf, I gaze at the rows of fresh pastries in the window. One stuffed with warm blueberries and topped with crumble. Another offers a gentle vanilla pudding in a pastry ring. My favorite, perched on the top shelf, promised decadent baked plum preserves, tucked away inside an unadorned pastry. The door to my left opened, spilling the bakery’s incandescent glow onto the street.

A wise-looking (shrivelled up, gently speaking) old woman shuffles out of the store, continuing a conversation she was having with the young clerk. The clerk, meanwhile, is already checking out the next customer. She arranges her bags of bread and sweets as the door shuts, all the while quipping to herself. “Only for show? What do you know about ‘for show’.” I break away from the window, passing by as she decides where to turn. I overhear a mocking tone under her breath as she starts in the other direction. 

This, to me, was the bitterness of this city. This woman had seen much of the 19th century and would likely see half of the 20th. Had she never left Warsaw, she would have lived under three regimes, through numerous uprisings, and the Great War. Yet she spoke, unheard, into the cold air. How much human experience here was wasted on loneliness, indifference?

Turning onto Nowy Świat, I swivel my head, scanning the rows of boutiques, cafés, and restaurants. I pull out the scrap of paper Lena had given me. Kresy at 15:00. I realized I’d heard of the café from a friend who, like most of their clientele, was the artistic type. I chafed slightly at the thought of invading this bohemian (read ‘pretentious’) space. Lost in thought, I was roused by a rapid succession of warbling knocks. 

To my left, seated and framed by lace curtains, Lena smiles at me through the café window, still rapping her knuckles against it. Seeing the barista scowl at the back of her head, I laugh and gesture toward the door. I brush the snow off my coat as I step inside, then peel off my layers as Lena stands in front of me, waiting impatiently to be greeted. Hanging my blazer, I turn to hug her, but find her already under my chin. “Leonku!” she says pulling away. Her smile turns instantly to a furrowed pout “What have I done to make you despise me so? It’s been far too long.”

Before I can push the air out to form a word, her pout morphs into a grin “I’m joking.” Slapping my arm, she turns to the bar. I stand behind her, mouth agape, still figuring out how I should say hello. I scoff with a smile, breaking the trance. 

I approach and the barista looks at me expectedly. “Just a cappuccino please,” I say. Lena turns to me and waves her hand “Hold on, there’s a reason I chose this place. Trust me.” I shrug “It’s your word on the line.” 

We settle into our table by the window, dry and warm with the radiator by our feet. Snow had gathered in the corners of the window, forming a vignette around the passersby and sleek cars puffing white smoke. I watch a lamplighter make his way down the street. At a streetlight, he reaches up with his pole, which flickers to life almost instantly. I turn back to Lena, who is also soaking in the ambience. 

Most everyone looks distinguished gazing outside a snowy cafe window, but Lena exceeds even those expectations. She has trim yet rounded features: cheeks which bunched up with her smile, and small lips which were strikingly full when pursed. She certainly met a long-dead Greek man's mathematical definition of beauty. She also had, as long as I had known her, the most striking eyebrows I had ever seen. They were noticeably darker than her hair, and frequently executed startling choreographies above her eyes, often independently of one another. They betrayed her every emotion, although her words usually conveyed them first (with conviction). 

“Leonik,” Lena said, turning her attention to me. “I’ll skip ‘How have you been’ because I trust you’re doing well.” I nodded. She had a knowing, possibly mischievous grin I couldn’t quite read. “Instead,” she continued, “I want to tell you about a development in my own life.” I raised my eyebrows, “Do tell.” 

The barista brings over a tray and places two steaming drinks on our table. “Two hot chocolates.” We thank the waiter, and Lena immediately brings the cup up to her lips. “Best in the city,” she says over the viscous, nearly black drink. I take a sip, and the chocolate's warmth descends into my core, where it settles, seemingly without cooling. I feel like a provincial house with a hearth at its center. 

Lena watches this experience excitedly, always one to glean pleasure from someone else’s. She sets down her drink and looks at me with the corner of her mouth upturned. “Leonku, I am to be married,” she says matter of factly. There is a hint of humor in her delivery. 

I’m sure my face is a picture of bewilderment. Married? Last I saw her, romance was little more than a subject in her university-assigned literature. “To whom? I mean, congratulations first of all!” I stumble. 

“No congratulations are in order just yet” she says, “What I mean to say is, my parents have decided that I am to be married, and soon.” 

Unexpectedly, I feel relieved. I have no time to sit with the implications of that reaction before she continues. “My father says that with my studies ending, I need to begin looking for a suitable match.” Lena sighs as she lifts the delicate porcelain cup “At the very least he’s leaving it up to me. For now, at least.”

I lean back in my chair. This was wildly out of character for her, although I’m certain she’s glossing over a great deal of protest. The traditionalist approach was certainly not out of line for her family, however. 

She came from Szlachta, Polish nobility living at various levels of comfort off of lands or fortunes. Her family ranked lower, but she grew up well-fed, well-clothed, and well-educated. Relatively few women had the means to pursue degrees in linguistics and literature, and fewer still chose to. 

“Leonik, I’m not telling you this to catch up.” She looks up from the chocolate, half finished. “I’m going to be in Kraków for a while after the end of my last term, and I’m back here in September. When I’m back in Warsaw, I’d like to meet again. And perhaps again after that.” She laughed, her cheeks bunching up, rosy with abashment. “Leon, what I’m saying is, I think I’d like to get to know you more.”

That chocolate hearth at my core rears up to a fervent glow. I will see you in September, Lena.

May 3rd, 1945 - Lena Raszewska

I’m pushed out of the still-moving train as soon as the doors open, stumbling as my foot hits the stationary platform. I catch myself and straighten out my spring jacket as people begin streaming past me. For the first time since leaving for my last term at Jagielloński, I was back in Warsaw, back home. Only my home was gone. 

I stood on the makeshift platform, searching for any signs of the city I knew. Around me, I saw only rubble. Hills of broken bricks, between which train passengers walked a worn down path to the train station across the city, headed west. A handful of others stood on the platform, looking out toward the horizon. A horizon which shouldn’t be visible. My home was gone. I grab my suitcase by the handle and join the procession to the western station. 

People walked mostly in silence, but the sound of hundreds of shuffling feet overwhelmed me almost as much as the dust they kicked up. Delving deeper into the former center, we saw more life. Lines of people cleared rubble from the ruins and roads. A Soviet army truck was unloading building materials. Pallets of bricks as tall as me, dwarfed by the sea of broken ones around them. At that image of futility, a stiff laugh jumps into my throat, becomes stuck, and pushes out tears instead. I weep onto the dry dust beneath my feet. 

For time unknown to me, I walk with my head down, lost in the absence of thought. My head is numb, my brain brushed over with static. I have felt this detachment for years. I worry what it will turn into as the war recedes into the past. The war in the past. 

Calling it ‘the war’ feels odd. It became the status quo. People had forgotten peace. Many children never knew it. 

The path turns and the crowd snakes with it. Here, some buildings stand at least partially. For the first time in a long time, I was in a familiar place. Nowy Świat! 

The buildings were torn and marked by shrapnel, but the street was here. I scrutinize each building we pass, recalling little memories tied to each one. The beautiful antique vase I bought for my mother at a store here, which I promptly dropped upon leaving. A dinner I had with girlfriends from liceum after graduating, and the morning after when I first learned the price paid for a heavy pouring hand. I glance left and feel my eye drawn to a broken window. It spells only part of a hand-painted word. Kre-  

Kresy! 

I halt my march and recall my last day in Warsaw. An ending I thought was a beginning. Leon. As was the case with many friends, Leon and I lost contact when the war broke out. I fled Kraków, joining my family at our home in the eastern countryside. We had no way to write letters, as few stayed where they started, and many went where they had not been. 

Leon. This man, and this thing which I thought could turn into love, were parts of a life I lived in a completely different world. Leon lives nearby. 

I take a step out of the column. I look around at the partially intact buildings. I see people picking through the rubble, searching for memories. Leon lives nearby. 

I remember his building, but not exactly where it is. I walk in the rough direction, hoping a landmark would direct me. Lest I forget, the landmarks are gone. I turn street after street, past ruin and rubble, waiting to see the handsome little building. I turn another corner.

Leon lives here. Fire had stripped its paint, and an explosion had shorn off one of its corners, but it stood. Leon lives here. 

My old life, for the first time, was real again. I knew this place. Staring at the scarred building, I see a woman place a small chair outside the front door, adding to a pile of miscellaneous objects. I start toward her.

“Excuse me!” My voice is breathy, clearly unused. She turns and I clear my throat to go on. “I’m sorry, did you live here?”

“Some of my family did, yes. Can I help you?” She asked me this kindly. Kindness had become rarer in recent years, but when it came, it was honest and it was weighty. “I’m looking for someone,” I say.

My stomach suddenly felt as though it was filled with helium. I’m honestly not sure why. “Do you know a Leon? Leon Zabielski? He lived in this building.”

Her face was tired, as many were, but it slowly adopted a soft smile. “I’m Leon’s aunt” She wiped the dust off her hand and outstretched it “I’m Zofia.” I took her hand in mine and shook it. I could see his face in hers. This was the kind of chance occurrence that seemed oddly commonplace in wartime. 

“I’m Lena. I’m old friends with Leon.” She smiles again and nods. There is a pause before I realize she’s waiting for me to say something. “Do you know where he went from Warsaw?” 

“Lena, my dear, he never left Warsaw.” 

I catch my breath as my heart begins racing. He’s here? Before another thought enters my mind, I feel Zofia’s hand on mine. I watch as she places my hand between her own, and tightens her grip. I look up at her. 

She smiles at me, a smile I’ve seen many years before. My eyes well up before meeting hers. Her eyes threaten tears too. I see her smile again, and I see empathy and sorrow. I see Leon. “I’m sorry dear.” 

I nod but have nothing else to say. I glance up again at Leon’s building. Unsure how I’d missed it, I see that the missing corner is his apartment. The war had taken from me for the last time, after its demise. Leon never left.

I grab the handle of my suitcase and turn back to the worn-down path.