There goes that girl from Lepowiec,
Her rump wiggling like a ewe,
“What have you got there, pretty maid,
“What have you got under your apron?”
“Do not ask me what I have got,
“Come this evening, I will show you.”
Evening came, but she did not,
She just laughed at him.
But that wasn’t the most important thing. What was important was that in that village he had learned first to spell and later to read and write. There had been a boy there, not much older than Błażej, who had been sent to the city, to schools, to study for the priesthood. Błażej had become good friends with that Jasiek Lipa. To tell the truth, it was Jasiek who chose Błażej as a friend, and Błażej who surrendered slowly and cautiously at first, then totally, with all his heart, even though he did not realize at the time the strength of this friendship. Had Jasiek not come forth first, had he not taken the first step, Błażej never would have dared. More likely, he would have stood to the side jeering. But the other one came first and said: “I’ll teach you, Błażek.” Mother had fussed that no one had that kind of money to pay for lessons. But the other one cared nothing for money. He was full of the things they had stuffed into his head. He wanted to talk, to share, and he chose Błażej. Was it because Błażej was taller and stronger than other boys, or was it because he was an orphan and his stepfather was quick with the belt? No one knows. Mistrustful, but proud to be chosen, Błażej went to Jasiek, and they became like a pair of scales unequally weighted. Strangely, something made them balance one another to perfection. Jasiek would say, “Just you wait, Błażek. Come fall, you’ll be able to read and you’ll write me a letter, too.” And Błażej would reply, “Some day I’ll pay you back. I’ll thank you some day.” He did not know that he was already repaying and thanking Jasiek by giving him his trust.
Jasiek returned to the seminary, and Błażek left the village. Other, more important events rushed by. Youth burned out quickly, and Błażej saw no sense in poking in the ashes. He forgot about Jasiek and about the village and its affairs, too. He was no longer “Błażek” but “Mister Blaise Twardowski.” There was no room in his new life for the village or Jasiek Lipa—or even a memory of them—or any remembrance of that gratitude of long ago or of that feeling of trust, once coaxed into life and now buried forever in the ashes of an abandoned fire.
“What did anyone ever give me there?” Błażej would say. “An empty belly, that’s what. There was nothing to eat there. You couldn’t buy a pair of shoes.”
There was only Błażej Twardowski, the steelworks, and Broad Street. Broad Street, the line of Life on the open palm of the city. It begins near the bay, where Błażej had landed. First it runs straight and even, then it rises, climbs higher and higher, passes by the Polish Home and its restaurant, past the bank and the pharmacy. If one should climb to the top floor or, even better, to the roof of St. Stanislaus Church, one could see the steelworks from there. Walking along Broad Street Błażej would think: “This is where I used to take the bus, on this corner. But the guys that rode with me, they’re not here no more. They went away or died.” At the steel mill, Błażej had worked at sheet rolling. It took a strong man, but the pay had been good.
Just beyond the pharmacy, Broad Street rises steeply. Błażej never went past that point. He would grow short of breath, tire easily, and, anyway, why should he go there? Past that point Broad Street lost its familiar face. The city comes up from the left and gobbles it up greedily, and the hospital guards it on the right, squatting firmly, clinging to the street and barring any personal feeling, any special pacts between Błażej and Broad Street. Błażej always avoided that section of the street, though he knew that some day, helpless against the city’s greed and the hospital’s stony indifference, he would have to travel the whole length of the street. At the very end of Broad Street there is a cemetery. Its gravestones, half a century old, glow white from afar, if one has time to look that way in passing, when there are so many other things to look at, things far more important.
Błażej had no home, just a squalid little room in a garret. Broad Street was his home. He ruled it like a squire. He’d come to the bar at the Polish Home and say:
“Hey, you there, lock the door. I pay today. Only those I want here can come in.”
On those days, if anyone Błażej did not like dared to barge in . . . with a kick in the pants, out he went. Błażej liked to fight and he was very strong. There was a man to look at! Later, when Wieniawski first met him, Błażej had changed. But one could still sense in him a tremendous strength, though now faint and subdued with age. His shoulders were still broad, but they were like two wilting leaves ready to fall with a stronger gust of wind, terribly tired of fluttering and of feigning a life that was no longer in them, though they still clung to the branch and seemed to draw its sap.
Broad Street was Błażej’s home. He knew it by heart and could recognize in the dark all the uneven places on its sidewalks, all the cracks, the rough walls of the aging houses along the street, the dark hallways, and smelly courtyards. In the middle of Broad Street, where the commercial area gives way to the harbor district—to shady dives, dingy bars, and rooms for rent sheltering the scum of the city—there stands a rectangular wooden barn, an old firehouse perhaps, now turned into a food market. During the day it is full of life and the moist smells of fresh vegetables, freshly baked bread, and Polish smoked sausage. At night it becomes a shelter for tramps, where drunkards lie on the fish and meat counters until a policeman’s nightstick chases them away. Błażej liked to go there and always bought something—a chicken (but only if freshly killed) or a loaf of bread—ever mindful not to overpay. To tell the truth, he would go there more to look and to talk than to buy. They knew him there.
“Ho, lookee . . . ,” they would say. “Here comes Twardowski.”
And the butcher would say, “Any sausage today, Twardowski?”
“Yahh,” Błażej would grunt. “And how much would you want for that tiny little piece over there?” And no matter what price the butcher quoted, he would clutch his head in distress.
“All that money, all that money . . . ,” he would shake his head, which, despite his age, had not a white hair on it. He refused to buy. He did not want to spend any money on himself.
“Why be so stingy, Twardowski?” they would say.
“It does me no good. I can’t eat it any more,” he would answer. He went to the food market to talk and to look. Others might go to a museum, to an art gallery, to the theater, or to the movies. Błażej went to Broad Street. He knew the story of every house and every store on his stretch of the street the way a museum custodian knows his exhibits.
Błażej was a conservative. He had no patience for changes and innovations. He was the first to object to Wieniawski’s new office. That afternoon he picked his way down the uneven stairs of the hallway and out to St. Agnes Street, as he had daily for the past ten years, ever since he had retired from the steel mill. He stretched, yawned, and his feet carried him as if of their own will onto Broad Street.
. . .
Jan Wieniawski could not get used to Broad Street. It galled and irked him, and its steep incline seemed to him a symbol of his own downhill slide. “If anyone had told me before the war that I would have to earn my living on Broad Street, I would have slapped his face or hanged myself,” he often exclaimed.
To tell the truth, it was all talk and nothing else. Were it not for Broad Street, what would he do? Anyway, Wieniawski was a grumbler. He would have grumbled no matter where in the world he found himself, except, perhaps, in the old country or among understanding friends. But here he was alone, damn it, completely alone. He grumbled more to bemoan his own loneliness than anything else, and Broad Street just happened to be there to provide a handy target for his abuse. He thought it squalid, noisy, stinking, and tawdry. He deplored having to live in such degradation amid uncomprehending strangers. Wieniawski’s life had begun and developed in the old country. Unlike