Border control
Some lines should never be breached; others, we are destined to cross
Standing at the summit of the Harenda ski slope in the Tatra mountains, near the Polish-Slovak border, the jagged skyline tells everyone its own story.
Don’t ask me what my one is. It’s complicated, although hopefully not too distorted, in the way so many historical truths too often get drowned out by the voices of liars and, by extension, the father of all lies.
Having almost careered off the mountain onto a dangerously icy off-piste section on the other side of the slope (thanks to a disastrous dismount from the ski lift that I can partly blame on some over-enthusiastic young Scots, but will not elaborate on any further), I take a few deep breaths and scan the horizon.
It is mid-February and the late morning sun is bright, but not warm enough to restore feeling into my fingers that are five minutes away from developing frostbite. It is time to put the ski gloves back on. The mountains are confusingly patched with areas of green and brown; only their peaks are really covered in snow. A recent heatwave has created the disorientation and meant the off-piste skiing season, for now, at least, appears to be coming to a rapid and premature conclusion.
Brother Anthony, the hermit from my latest novella, would instantly recognise God’s work: the beautiful vista testament to His creativity and His Holy Will, which keeps it in existence at every conceivable moment. Albert Poniatowski, the private detective from The Fragment from the Shroud, would perhaps exhale a long sigh, looking at the edge of a kingdom taken from his ancestors. He would take a brief moment to remember a people downtrodden and silenced by invaders over the past 200-odd years or so. Their culture, beliefs and very existence in that period first threatened by three land-hungry aggressive neighbours; then briefly enough by the German National Socialist oppressor and then tragically by another evil tyrant, the hammer and sickle. The lost young man from I Must Stay at Home, a keen historian, would look further into bygone days. He would muse over how the landscape managed to protect the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the kingdoms that preceded it from marauding Mongols and Mohammedans. And Prez, the criminal turned wannabe vigilante from Redemptio, would no doubt try to imagine what sort of freedoms and opportunities lay beyond the mountains that he was never able to get anywhere near to as a child.
*** To know what some of my other characters may have thought about the view you will have to read my works of fiction (The Gaff, The Dojang, and Through Open Doors) many times and study them with Aristotelian-type vigour [what?!?! Good plug anyway, sort of, I guess — Ed]. ***
A few days before this I smile at the lady border guard at Kraków airport and greet her with an enthusiastic “Dobry wieczór”. She does not reply and barely recognises my existence. Evidently, there is nothing good about this evening.
She demands to know why the youngest child has no stamps in his passport.
“I guess because it’s a new passport,” I say, wondering if I am going to be arrested for having never properly settled or closed an old Polish bank account some 22-odd years ago.
She pushes the passports back to us and looks down at her paperwork, having not made eye contact with me or any of the family even once. I remind myself that Clint Eastwood probably considers joviality to be a clear indication of weakness [what?!?!?! — Ed] and that the border guard is therefore probably simply carrying out her job role requirements to the letter.
“She was very welcoming,” jokes the Wife.
We both view appalling customer service as one of Poland’s charms. A charm that may be slowly disappearing as we discover later on in some settings, where Americanised waitresses wish us a “nice day” — a both disarming and alarming tendency to place customers up on pedestals, where quite frankly, most of us do not belong.
Things improve on the customer service front (i.e it gets much worse) when we visit various supermarkets and convenience stores.
One shop assistant gets so fed up with the Wife scrambling around for the exact change to pay for seven chocolate bars, three packets of crisps and one can of beer that she takes matters into her own hands, demanding that the Wife gives her all her coins so that she can speed the process up. In another store, two ladies a very few full moons shy from permanent retirement do all they can to pretend we do not exist. After a few minutes they realise we are not going to leave without purchasing some frivolous items and decide to serve us. This involves scanning each trivial item in silence before stating the amount to be paid in a manner that is reminiscent of a jaded judge at Poland’s heaviest cucumber championships (what the actual heck?!?!?!?!?!? — Ed).
At a cafe in Kraków, I once again mention the existence of a nut allergy within our party. The waitress gives me the sort of look that suggests if I ever utter the word ‘nut’ again, then she will stab me in the eye with a fork and fetch a vat of boiling pork lard from the kitchen and pour it over my head. A day earlier, at a doughnut booth near the bus station, when the subject of a nut allergy is brought up again, the server looks at me with incredulity and says '“there are no nuts in these doughnuts”, no doubt ending the sentence in her head as follows: “you utter cretin with your stupid hat, weird Polish accent, bizarre grammar and ridiculous trousers”.
I want to tell her that we have returned from the slopes and not had time to change out of our ski gear, but I realise this would be an exercise in total and utter futility.
The Wife and children get to train with two ski instructors who have a much better grasp of basic civility than Poland’s shop assistants.
Rafał, the first instructor, warms to me due to my a) Outstanding prowess as a skier b) Encyclopedic-knowledge of Polish highlander jokes and wisecracks c) natural charm and abounding bonhomie (you’ve got yourself mixed up with a doppelganger again — Ed).
The Wife is concerned as Rafał has left his car at an unusual angle in a no-parking zone next to a VW camper van (full of a rogue group of mafia-like looking skiers from Bulgaria) and a police car.
“Our passports and all our money is in boot of that car,” she says.
“I’m sure it will be fine dear,” I reply, attempting to fasten the buckles on my ski boots, while slightly tearing my left hamstring in the process.
Rafał also has a soft spot for the family, probably because they are related to me. After an intense first session where the children stand on skis for the first time however, he is rather unimpressed at their lack of stamina and inability to squat 300 kg on one leg.
‘Marek, they need to eat a proper breakfast,’ he tells me.
Yessir!
Paulina, instructor no.2, is more forgiving of the children’s inability to display Herculean-like Polish highlander strength over the next three days. This is partly because the Wife distracts her from properly teaching them with an endless supply of biscuits.
Nevertheless, she manages to get them skiing down the slopes and making turns (at times) with relative ease by the end of the week. The Wife makes splendid progress and is easily a fully-fledged intermediate skier by the time the sessions are over. I suspect I may have had something to do with this as well. After all, the Wife has been studying my own incredible textbook technique throughout the skiing portion of our holiday.
The children are less secure in their execution of basic skiing moves, but I am confident that they know enough to ensure they will not plough into bystanders at the bottom of any slopes or take out too many fellow learners on their way down.
***A BRIEF INTERLUDE***
Forthwith ladies and gentleman, I provide you with a list of Poland’s top 5 dishes:
Rosol (chicken soup)
Pierogi (any type out of cheese and potato, meat, and mushroom and sauerkraut)
Chicken breasts coated in breadcrumbs
Bigos (hunter’s stew made with various types of meat cuts, sausage, and cabbage)
Beetroot soup and ‘little ears’ (tiny dumplings filled with mushroom and sauerkraut)
***PLEASE NOTE THIS LIST IS NEITHER OPEN TO DEBATE NOR QUESTIONING OF ANY SORT.***
The Wife is on high alert as it is breakfast time and we are right in the middle of the throng at 8:11 a.m.
Not only does she have to fight past hordes of stern-looking Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and bemused English people, in order to secure some waffles for the children, she also has to mentally register every single food item on offer at breakfast and then attempt to try them all. On top of that, her most important task is to observe every single soul who has sat down for breakfast.
“Everyone is wearing sliders. We should have brought sliders.”
“That man with the huge belly and pink shorts has piled his plate full of sausage and scrambled eggs. His belly is absolutely rock hard.”
“I saw an Englishman almost lose his rag just now. The waffle machine has run out of batter and he had to ask one of the staff to refill it about three times. They ignored him each time he spoke.”
“Can you hear what language they’re speaking? Are they Russian? Italian? Are they from Croatia?”
“That woman has absolutely huge nipples. She wears the same clothes every morning for breakfast. Those nipples need their own postcode.”
“We need to get into this slider action. They’ve got the right idea. Why put shoes on to go to breakfast? Just put your sliders on.”
“That aggressive Russian-looking woman just pushed in front of me to get to the cheese! I was working out what to get and she got right in there and took loads of cheese from right under my nose!”
“Are you going to try the hummus and some of those cheese strings?”
“That English family looks absolutely bewildered at this whole set-up. They look completely battered as well. Have you tried the pastries yet? This is my seventh one. Will you eat this salami? I can’t eat any more.”
You have to respect borders when you ski down a slope.
A more experienced skier should not, for example, weave in and out of a group of learners. Equally, a novice should not head up to the top of a red run and hurtle down it, putting themselves and everyone else in danger.
You should never cross into a path of an incoming fellow downhiller. You should never block up the area where people get off ski lifts. You should never distract or shout at a moving skier, unless they — or someone else — is in danger.
Alfie has no qualms about breaking any of these unwritten rules. He has the technique of a donkey on ice and the bravery of a highlander hunting bears. He lies in the middle of the slope in a crumpled heap. I stop to try and help him put his skis back on.
“Ah forget it,” he says in a strong Scouse accent. “I’ll walk down.”
“You can’t walk down mate. Come on, listen to what I tell you and we should be able to get these skis back on.”
After much huffing and puffing Alfie gets his skis on, thanks me and speeds down the slope, only to hit a bump and go flying again, narrowly missing a couple of elderly skiers.
Alfie cannot be a day older than 14. I have no idea where his family is.
He probably doesn’t either.
On a very gentle slope I make a decision. I will help the youngest child get on a button seat ski lift.
I mean, how difficult can it be? Other ski instructors have been doing the same thing all day. You position yourself behind the child with your skis apart in a veritable “V” shape. You lean forward to place the child in the correct position. Turning your torso to the right, you grab an incoming pole, shove it in between the chid’s legs and then await your turn to proceed up the hill behind them, all the while looking effortlessly cool. A Clint Eastwood of the ski slopes.
As I approach the end of the queue to the lift, I am supremely confident. I place the youngest child in the correct position, tell him to get ready and turn around to grab a pole. Everything is set up perfectly. My neck is not giving me gyp. I have myself well balanced. I grab the pole and attempt to manoeuvre it into place. However, something goes catastrophically wrong. I face palm the ground and eat fake snow. The lift operator helps me up. Children and adults behind me look at me aghast.
The lift operator helps the youngest child to get on the lift and he is away.
I wait for the next lift, grab it, somehow smash my shin with it and barely manage to hold onto it as it drags me up the hill.
On my way down, the Wife is recording me as she goes up on the lift. She calls out to me. I wave. I lose control of a ski and am thrown forward. I pick myself up and drudge back up to recover my lost ski.
Putting it back on, I slowly glide to the bottom.
When it comes to the cocksure, the mountains are a great leveller.
The Wife and I join the other couples and some of their more enthusiastic children on the dance floor.
We have not digested our traditional Polish meal, but now is not the time to ensure optimal energy performance levels or robust gut health. The band is playing and moves have to be made. I twist the Wife around and shuffle my feet with what I believe to be expert precision. The Wife is able to gracefully glide across the floor, despite every part of her body aching after a good 5 hours on the slopes.
“It’s all very civilised this, isn’t it?” she says, sweeping her gaze across the dance floor and the tables of families beyond it, with waiters and waitresses — wearing outfits that would not have been out of place 200 years ago — drifting in between them.
Yes, I think to myself. It is. And it is wholesome. And nourishing.
Inside a bookstore in Kraków we are pleasantly surprised to see an English copy of the brother-in-law’s book Myths of Geography .
In it, he stresses the fact that many borders are not in place because of geographical features. “The drawing of borders is often accompanied by immense violence and ethnic strife,” he writes. Elsewhere: “Borders can be arbitrary with unpredictable consequences. They can appear and disappear, and the world is full of reminders that even the most imposing walls eventually crumble and crack.”
Definitely worth checking out.
After seeing the book, memories trickle back of a trip to Norwich to see the brother-in-law promote his work at a literary festival. The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist stands out, in particular.
In Kraków’s main square, another magnificent church building stands tall, the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
We hear a trumpeter play the city’s famous bugle call from one of the basilica’s towers. Its abrupt ending brings history to life for the city and its visitors. An echo through time of when the Tatars invaded Poland in the 13th century and a bowman shot a trumpeter dead when he tried to warn Kraków’s residents of the impending danger.
It is also a reminder of how Poland has seemingly always been under attack. How her borders have been breached, violated, wiped off the map. How her culture, language and traditions have been trampled on and defaced, by the various iterations of avant-garde political progressive movements throughout history.
We are unable to enter the small church where my father received some of the Sacraments.
The doors are locked. Have they always been locked outside of Mass time? Or is it a precautionary measure against thieves and vandals, who have again risen in a number, as we move into another chaotic ebb of history? I am not sure.
The Wife, thankfully, almost a week earlier, was able to spend some time in the church and think a bit about her father-in-law, who once taught her a little bit about skiing, and spent many weeks with me as a child speeding down various European mountains.
It would have been nice to tell him about our trip, but he has already crossed over the only real border we have ever known. And will all have to pass through, eventually.
PROGRESS REPORT
I have written 4,335 words of my new novel The Suspended Fourth (working title).
I have written 510 words of the next instalment of my series of stories about the private detective Albert Poniatowski, who is descended from the last king of Poland.
It is not a good idea for me to try and write both at the same time. Well, that’s my thinking right now.
Take it easy. And thanks for reading.
Another fabulous read! You really should write scripts for an idiot abroad! 😆
My fave part has to be “…This involves scanning each trivial item in silence before stating the amount to be paid in a manner that is reminiscent of a jaded judge at Poland’s heaviest cucumber championships” - I have absolutely no idea what it means but I love it! 😆