Hi,

This week, I've translated a few short passages about Christmas in London from different years of Marek's life.

Before that, just a final reminder about the big Marek exhibition in Toruń. It's on until Jan 7th.

To mark the end of the show, I have 10 copies of the exhibition catalogue to give away 😎.

You can nab one if you use your personalised link at the bottom of this email to get a few people to sign up for this mailing list.

I've also added the e-book published last year, which you can get for a mere 5 referrals.

(For those of you who took part in the referrals competition in September, you'll be happy to hear your total is still valid so won't need many more referrals to win something!)

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Three Christmases with Marek

1937 (aged 29, one year after arriving in London and staying unplanned...)

The next thing I remember it was Christmas Eve 1937, the fallen wet snow turning to mud on the cobbles.

Oxford Street, like a huge canyon, became lost in an indistinct gloom. A ceaseless procession of people and cars.

And at the mouth of this canyon, at Marble Arch, a frost-bitten newspaper seller with a bundle of Daily Workers under his arm was chanting: “Don’t forget the men of the International Brigade fighting in Spain tonight…”

1979 (aged 71 with a young fiancée...)

Christmas will be here soon. The year is 1979.

London is about to fill up with seagulls. At ponds, pools, lakes, in all the city parks they will circle, watch and feed, tempted by the warm walls of human homes. But they are still alien to these houses. They still belong to the great sea that surrounds us.

“Come on, let's go see if the seagulls have already arrived,” I say. “We can throw them bread...”

But you, Maria, said no for no apparent reason. You often don't express your thoughts out loud. “I'm not coming.” This is one of the foundations of your freedom. We never split a hair into four. If you don't want to, then no. You must have reasons, but you don't have to tell me them. I recognise your right to remain silent. I respect the boundaries of your childish personality.

So I go to Regent's Park alone and look around. Its great broom-like leafless trees are black against the leaden sky. The grass is green, but the wind is scattering rusty leaves all over it. There's an early evening chill. Dogs dart across the iron-coloured path. Only a slight streak of pink can be seen on the horizon. A little boy on a yellow scooter flies through puddles reflecting the low sky - and disappears. The lonely streak of pinkness will change soon and also pass. Heavy clouds sail above, driven by the wind.

Lights flash on and off on top of the Post Office Tower. They are signals for the plane that's roaring through the depths of the sky, invisible.

Birds have flocked to the trees and scream in terror at the approaching night. I had been planning a romantic stroll when you turned down my company. So I'm alone. But these black clouds don't scare me. I belong to the species homo sapiens, which means I can imagine how tomorrow will likely be a new day. This, to some extent, calms me down.

But the crows' nests do scare me, like black tangled hair hanging on branches and swinging over the lake.

The smoke of burning leaves hangs in the air.

1983 (aged 75 with a 1-year-old...)

Christmas Eve. Adam got lots of toys from all our friends, who are invariably delighted with him. But he's only interested in their outsides.

He tears the colourful papers, looks at the boxes, of course, but mostly admires the transparency of the cellophane packaging. The toys themselves are usually thrown aside. One exception turns out to be a small tomato-shaped model of a phone. He turns the dial, dials numbers, puts the receiver to his ear, and squeals with delight. The telephone keeps buzzing.

He doesn't pay much attention to the Christmas tree that Marylka has decorated so beautifully. He wanted to grab a red bauble from it, but when it was clear it was impossible, he gave up and ignored the Christmas tree for the rest of the evening. On his high chair with its little desk, surrounded by papers, he reaches here and there, knocking everything to the floor, sometimes lingering longer over coloured strings and ribbons. He picks at them with great patience using two fingers - he is trying to untie the bows.

A small child does not treat play as entertainment. For him, this serves the serious and necessary function of getting to know the shape and structure of the visible world. From this he can determine the direction of his interests - and therefore his future.

Those were fairly light vignettes, but I hope you liked them. Next time round I'll be emailing something he wrote about New Year's Eve, the one before World War II broke out. It's a bit more intense...

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"The Greatest Sci-Fi Film Never Made"

That subheading's tagline was one used by Daniel Bird when writing about Andrzej Żuławski's On the Silver Globe years ago. It's now being used by a YouTuber in this new video essay about the film.

I could sense some of the research used was from this article, and was glad to see I was listed as a source at the end. It is quite amusing how, thanks to the many seeds planted by Daniel, the film goes on to have this continued cult status.

(One warning: the narrator's pronunciation of almost every Polish name should be patiently ignored 🙉)

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Many thanks for reading. Have a lovely Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Saturnalia, Yalda, Winter Solstice and/or Festivus 🤶

Adam

p.s. Before you go, check out this newly re-discovered Marek painting found on the reverse of another.

Adam Zulawski

TranslatingMarek.com / Other stuff