My father, moj ojciec, the youngest of four brothers, alone survives them into his 87th year. Gone are Hank, Dick (Kashek), and Ed (Edzio). Three of seven sisters, JoAnn, Lu, and Theresa, likewise the younger ones, carry on to the present—and “carry on” is the operative verb—though now on stainless steel knees and with the aid of pharmaceuticals. The original tongues and wits remain essentially intact, the tongues especially. Dear people on the whole, and from this pool my Polish blood flows to the Baltic.
Moj ojciec, Norbert, has written extensively of his early life; and revisiting his Reminiscences this Father’s Day, I nod in recognition and in memory and smile. Though not self-consciously Polish, which probably makes him forever more Polish than I, he exhibits the many signs, like Catholicism and a special attention and devotion to Aunts, cioci. I had thought that my own high regard for my father’s seven sisters owed completely to their incredibly agreeable singularity and collectivity and my own good sense and sensitivity. And now, in First Reminiscence, 5:1, I read again, “Aunt Sophie! Dear, sweet, gentle Aunt Sophie,” as she soothed his troubled First Communion conscience—had he actually received the host in a state of sin? damn you, Norbert!—in the ample pillow of her breast. On the next page appear these very cioci, the “Fun Aunts,” the four Betlejewski sisters (and my grandmother), a gorgeous progression from pleasing plumpitude to cheerfully morbid obesity, a perfect diet of amitular dumplings. Happy, so happy!
This aunt theme read familiarly, resonated, and I traced the original note in the echo chamber of my mind to the contemporary Polish poet Adam Zagajewski’s Two Cities, page 11, “My aunts . . . More important than my uncles.” [his ellipsis] Though his aunts in Communist Poland were characterized less by good nature than maternal ruthlessness, I consider the difference purely circumstantial. What matters here is the importance of those women—as well as the relevance and sagacity of Zagajewski, a Polish Pole. The hint here of a national character trait, blood-borne.
This past May, the New York Review of Books carried two poems by Zagajewski, the second dedicated to his father, “Now That You’ve Lost Your Memory.” It fondly remembers a moment they shared in the lantern of a lighthouse high “above the Baltic.” The son wants “to help,” but laments in the last line, “I can’t help you, I have only one memory.” (I heard him read with resigned longing this poem in October, 2009, in both English and Polish, that is, before I knew a word of Polish.) While I don’t think I have ever shared with my old man, stary ojciec, quite such a transcendent moment, despite that, I will be able to help if he ever loses his memory. I have his Reminiscences. Dziekuje, Pop.
