The artist Marek Zulawski, translation & Polish-British culture

Hi,

This week from my father's autobiography, a chance meeting with a homeless man. I hope you enjoy my translation of the story.

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I used to run half-naked through the ancient Forest of Dean

Market scene lithograph by Marek Zulawski

I met him on the Strand. In a polite, indifferent tone, he asked me whether I might possibly give him a sixpence for tea. I looked at him.

He was dressed in picturesque rags and carried the inevitable bundle of his belongings. Tangled red hair fell in matted locks onto his shoulders. Two worn coats were tied with a sturdy leather strap, and he had solid shoes. And there was a piercing gleam in his eyes. His unshaven face showed intelligence. He could have posed for Leonardo da Vinci as Judas.

“Tea? Good idea,” I said, intrigued by his appearance not only from a painter’s point of view. “It’s almost teatime anyway. I wouldn’t mind a cup myself. Lead the way. I’ll pay.”

He took me to a cheap little café in the market. You know the type — or rather, you don’t know, since such places no longer exist: a gloomy room painted green, brown tables covered in oil paint, a tired Italian waitress in a black dress, the smell of fried bacon and chips...

“Spaghetti bolognese three times!” she shouts in a hoarse falsetto into the depths of a kitchen dumbwaiter, from which steamy vapours rise like from Dante’s Inferno. A moment later she's tossing down steaming plates before the noses of silent derelicts of both sexes. On the tables: bottles of patented sauces, salt, pepper and mustard.

I ordered tea and sandwiches. He ate and thanked me. No, he doesn’t live anywhere. So we talked about life under the open sky.

I recalled my memories of mountain campsites and nights spent at a yacht’s helm, when from beyond the horizon in the east a mystical light floats up into the sky, extinguishing the stars, one after another, while on the western side the blackness of the sea and sky continues to dwell. A cosmic blackness, before which the waves chasing the yacht bow down. 

He knew these things differently. He knew when the city falls asleep, empties, closes its eyes for a brief moment before the streetlamps lose their glow and the first car, the first turbine, the first stirrings of the awakened day begin.

That’s when you have to rise from that bench on the Embankment, from the hollows of the walls, from the stairs of the Underground, from beneath a monument in Hyde Park — because the policeman will shine his flashlight into your eyes, before he mercifully walks away for a moment to give you time to gather yourself and put the newspapers you slept on into your sack.

Ah, the embarrassed looks of those young lads in their navy blue uniforms, which melt into the blue dusk of the stars. They return a moment later to calm the consciences of the guardians of safety, who know all too well that no one can be forced to sleep under a roof, who understand the difference between the dismal interior of a lodging house and the glorious splendour of the open sky overhead.

Let it pour even — a transparent plastic sheet like an enormous condom can give you shelter from the damp, if you wish. Although sometimes even that's too much, and sometimes it is just so good to put your face and hands into the rain, as it washes, soothes and absolves like holy water. Raindrops run down closed eyes, down unshaven cheeks, down a curly beard and fingers with broken nails — like an anointing balm.

I knew this too from the yacht, and from hikes in the mountains. I too once wore a beard, I say, and felt closer to nature in those moments.

I used to run half-naked through the ancient Forest of Dean, where I rented a little summer house during the war. Running aimlessly — just to gallop through the woods, for the sheer joy of leaping over rough ground, for the joy that my legs carried me and my heart did not fail me — running like that with that purposeless purpose, I felt I was a part of nature.

He knew it too, but from another angle. Scouring dozens of concrete streets on foot, he had come to know human nature and human madness. The madness of haste. As well as the secrets of the heart and of character. And his judgment was kindly.

“There are gentlemen among men,” he said. I laughed.

“You are using, my friend, strangely outdated nomenclature,” I said. “That’s not a sociological term. 'Gentleman' means nothing today — it doesn't correspond to any real social category.”

He objected. In the silence that suddenly fell between us, one could clearly hear the rumble of vans leaving the marketplace.

“So what does ‘gentleman’ mean to you?” I asked after a pause, not expecting a sensible reply. But I was wrong. From beneath his bushy brows, his blue eyes lit up with self-assurance.

“A gentleman,” he said, “is a man who treats all people the same way.”

So you see, Maria, I know what I am talking about. Since that conversation in that dingy café in Covent Garden, I have been using that word consciously, invoking the authority of a beggar-philosopher, sanctified by a thousand years of tradition.

Self-portrait as Judas by Marek Zulawski

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'Poland B' explained for the UK

Like most people under 50, I get my news from the Internet. Recently, an Internet news show popular in the UK called TLDR News (TLDR stands for 'Too Long, Didn't Read') made a video about Poland B.

Poland B is a well-known concept within Poland itself, but I hadn't heard any UK-based media talk about it before. It's a good explainer for the uninitiated and worth a watch, especially since it's tiring hearing recently about Poland being an economic marvel - in the country itself, the reality is that there's lots of bickering and inertia, and this video gets to part of the reason why.

P.s. You can stop the video at 7:55, as the last two minutes are an ad for TLDR's magazine.

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That's all for this week. Many thanks for reading. If you want to support the newsletter, please forward it to a friend or donate here.

Adam

Adam Zulawski

TranslatingMarek.com / TranslatePolishMemoirs.com / Other stuff

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