11

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT’S LECTURE hall was packed with scholars and government officials. Professor Dombrowski, temporarily freed from his domestic difficulties, introduced Nathan, in Polish and English, in a warm and highly laudatory manner. To much applause, Nathan ascended the steps, grasped each side of the wooden podium, and addressed his respectful listeners.

“The great American philosopher Morris Rafael Cohen once said, ‘No man can stand in front of an audience without pretending that he knows more than he does.’” He waited a beat, with an expectant smile. “And I am no exception.”

The audience tittered politely. Nathan leaned over his prepared text like an athlete warming up and launched into his theory of constitutional genesis and the paradigms for progress, aware of the appreciative sounds that punctuated his remarks. He focused briefly on the first row, where an impressionable-looking young woman, seated on the aisle, was making a point of showing off her superb calves. She needn’t have bothered for Nathan’s sake. He was merely using eye contact to assert his dominion at the lectern. His wife, Marion, was the only woman who’d ever really succeeded in gaining his sexual attention. And even she suspected that his devotion was almost as much out of gratitude for the way she protected the sanctity of his study and helped him battle his dyslexia, as for love.

Nathan transitioned smoothly into his discourse on the principle of separation of powers, implied limitations on government, and the fundamental rights outlined in the American Bill of Rights. The microphone hissed. He tapped it. “Let me say, in conclusion, that for a Polish constitution to survive in a new Polish democracy, the common man must believe it is a living document, not a relic to be paraded around for state occasions.” He watched with satisfaction as scores of hands furiously scribbled his advice, marvelously unaware that the man who they subsequently applauded had spent his youth pushing garment racks down Seventh Avenue by day so he could take classes at City College, the poor man’s Harvard, at night.

A breeze floated through the hall, rustling papers, causing feet to shuffle. Nathan collected his notes and sensed an unusual charge in the atmosphere. He felt a bit off center, as if one of his ears was filled with water. When he pulled on his earlobe to clear it, he heard what sounded like a far off voice humming an indistinct tune. Dombrowski stepped up to the podium and shook his hand. People crowded the front of the hall to meet him. But the eerie sensation and the voice lingered and robbed him of his customary post-lecture high.

A faculty member proposed a project between Harvard and a multidisciplinary group of Polish scholars. He tried to look interested, but he couldn’t shake the fluttering sound in his ears. Disturbed, he made his excuses and left the hall, hoping to escape further contact with the Poles until he could reclaim his sense of equilibrium.

“It seems my colleagues were highly impressed with your constitutional paradigms, Professor Linden.”

The deep, rolling voice, directed at his back, gave Nathan a start. He turned. The sounds in his ears stopped when he saw Stanisław Załuski standing at the exit door of the lecture hall. Feeling immediately improved, he regarded Załuski with the confidence of a man who’d just bested his enemy. “I guess not everyone shares your belief in the dark side of human nature,” he said.

Załuski squinted into the sunlight and lit a cigarette. “Laugh if you like at my way of expressing my opinions,” he said, approaching Nathan, “but it is my duty to speak frankly because you are a man of some influence, and I am a man who loves his country.”

Flattered and slightly curious, Nathan waited for Załuski to continue.

“You are a Jew, Professor Linden.”

An electric sensation stung Nathan at the back of his neck. He clenched his jaw. “What of it?”

Załuski’s smile creased the corners of his heavy eyelids. “They say we Poles have a sixth sense about Jews. We always know. So let us understand each other. It is not wartime, after all.” He took another drag of his cigarette and gave Nathan a meaningful look. “A Jew should understand what I say. A Jew knows he has reason to fear man’s dark impulses.”

Nathan went taut with fury. How dare Załuski presume he was a Jew before he was a scholar, as if he, Nathan Linden, had some primitive tribal obligation to represent the Jews.

“In March 1968 this country went into something of an anti-Jewish madness,” Załuski continued evenly. “Extremists openly said Jews were German sympathizers during the war. Three million people were responsible for their own deaths, they said. They pushed Jews from their livelihoods. Some they beat, some they robbed. The Jew was used as an excuse to brutalize students who demonstrated for more democracy on this campus.” He pointed his finger at the spot where they stood.

Nathan was upset to hear this. But he did not trust where Załuski might be trying to lead him. He cleared his throat. “I certainly remember there was trouble in Poland during that period, but I wasn’t under the impression that things were quite as serious as you say.”

The lines on Załuski’s face deepened with irritation. “Then let me inform you, that when it was over, twenty-five thousand, including almost all the young Jews we had left here, had packed their bags and run. Some of our best minds went out the door that year.”

His voice, thick with emotion, attracted the attention of passersby, but he ignored the scene he was creating. “None of this,” he said vehemently, “could have been accomplished if it were not for the willingness of an enslaved nation to embrace its dark and ancient hatreds rather than reflect on what they had seen with their own eyes during the war, the genocide against the Jews.”

Flushed, he took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled sharply. “It has been my life’s work since that time to say to anyone who will listen that if the Poles don’t begin to question themselves they will always be slaves, downtrodden and spiteful. I say this, you understand, out of love for my people. They don’t know it, but to be rid of this mania about Jews would be a relief.”

Nathan was at a complete loss. “What does this have to do with me?”

Załuski’s face hardened. “We are at the beginning of a new era in Polish history. We have achieved sovereignty. This we paid for with our blood and centuries of unimaginable suffering. You, Professor Linden, were invited here to speak to us about creating a constitution. But what I say to you is that we don’t need Utopian schemes that will send us back into the grip of the tyrants. We need someone who understands that the Poles’ dark impulse to lay the blame outside enslaves them. Build individual responsibility, a presumed duty to reflect, into every corner of your constitutional paradigm and we will have something useful from you, a real contribution to history.” He took a long, uneven drag on his cigarette.

Nathan knew what Pop would say to this. He’d say, “Listen, Mister College Professor, a Pole is a Pole. You can’t do nothing with him unless he’s a socialist. Then he’s a brother.” Pop had a whole arsenal of truisms like this, one more obscure than the next.

“So, until tomorrow then?” Załuski said.

“Tomorrow?”

“I am to give you a tour of the city.”

“Actually,” Nathan said, hoping to conceal his distaste for the plan, “I think I’d rather get out of the city and take a look at this country of yours. Can you arrange for me to have a car and driver for the day?”

Załuski smiled. If he’d been surprised or disappointed by Nathan’s request, it didn’t show. “If you would prefer, I’m sure this can be arranged,” he said with a slight bow. “I’ll call you with the details later this evening.” Then he headed off in the direction of Kazimierz Palace, smoke fanning out behind him like a cloud.