Next Sunday was the day for the Edendale oplatek dinner. Almost the whole of the Polish community would gather for the
o
event in the exservicemen’s club, the Dom Kombatanta. Grace knew that for Zvgmunt this would be the emotional high point
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of the year, more important even than Wigilia, the Christmas Eve celebration. This was the time when everyone began the year anew, but it was also a chance to reflect on their history and their plaee in the world. Most of the folk who would come to the dinner had not been born in Poland, of course. But since Solidarity and democracy, and the possibility of FU membership, some of those people had begun to talk more and more about their culture, their roots, their place in Europe. Not Zygmunt, though. Zygmunt didn’t talk much at all these da vs. When he did, it was about the past.
But still, there would be the dinner. Though the community celebration had drifted back into January, it was no less of an occasion and everything had to be done just right. Grace could taste already the beetroot soup, the poached pike, the carp with horseradish sauce, the mushroom-stuffed tomatoes. The ladies who organi/ed the dinner clung tenaciously to the traditions, no matter how much trouble the}- had to go to.
The stops had been pulled out for the family H’igilia, too, when all of them had sat down to the-traditional twelve meatless dishes, with the extra place set for an unexpected guest. First they had shared the oplatki wafers. The symbols of reconciliation and forgiveness meant more this year than ever. Of course, forgiveness wasn’t easy. Grace knew Peter was thinking of their eldest son in London, with no family around him to celebrate U’igilia, except some skinny bottle-blonde. They had sent an oplatck to Andrew as always. But whether Andrew had shared it with his blonde was doubtful. As far as Grace could gather, the apartment they rented in Pimlico contained nothing of relevance to oplatck, precious little that spoke of forgiveness.
The younger members of the family would change the traditions, if they had their way. Richard and Alice were embarrassed by the whole business. They would have made a meaningless ritual of oplatck just to get it over with quickly, so they could move on to the food and watch some American Him on television. But they knew better than to upset Zygmunt, not at this time of year, and particularly not in these last few months. It was the time for reconciliation, when they could forgive each
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other their faults and their mistakes over the previous year. It was not a time for arguments.
So Zygmunt, as the oldest, had taken the first oplatek and offered it to his sister Krystyna, blessing her and wishing her health and a good year ahead. She had then broken off a pieee of his wafer and offered her own oplatck in turn. And she had ga/.ed
I O
into his face as she carefully wished him health and happiness in the vear ahead, repeating the words as she was supposed to; but then her voice had broken and the old woman had begun to cry. Grace had edged her heelchair nearer and put her arm round Krystvna’s shoulders. But the old woman had looked as though she would go on weeping for ever, (or the whole twelve days of Christmas maybe, right through to the Feast of the Three Kings. The front of her best dress had got stained with her tears.
Zygmunt had simply frowned and waited for her to continue with the ceremony, until evervone had shared their waters with
each other, biting into the nativitv scenes moulded into the
1 t1
unleavened bread. And then, and only then, had they sat down to dinner, to the twelve meatless courses, one for each apostle. The family had visibly sighed with relief. Some of them had expected Zvgmunt to make a speech, to talk about the mistakes and the sins of the last year, as he said his lather and grandfather had always done, listing all the things the young people had done wrong before forgiving them and wiping the slate clean lor a new year.
If Zvgmunt had done that, it would have made things difficult. It was easier to pretend things hadn’t happened when they weren’t spoken out loud.
Grace took one last look at Zvgmunt, to assure herself that he was still breathing, and backed across the passage. Peter was in the conservatory, among his cacti and the pelargoniums. There remained a thin covering of snow on the glass panels of the roof, and the light beneath it was pale blue.
‘Is Dad all right?’ he said, without turning from his inspection of a spiky monstrosity on a high shell. His hearing was attuned to the sound of her chair. Even Zygmunt had acute hearing; Grace wouldn’t have been surprised if the old man had known she was there-, in the doorway of the room, all the time she had been
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looking at him. It would have been just like him to pretend hewas unaware of her. It was like Peter, too. She could imagine him being exactly the same when he was a decade or two older. They were stubborn and hot-headed in turns, immovable or living into tempers. His unpredictability had been one of thethings that had attracted her to Peter. But recently his temper had been kept firmly in check, corked up inside.
‘lie’s fine,’ she said. ‘lie’s been looking at the photo albums.’
It hardly seemed necessary for Grace to say it. The photographs had been in front of Zy^munt on the table where they stayed almost permanently. They were photographs of the family, the bits of the Lukas/ history pieced together as best they could be, given the gaps, the’ sudden ends to so many lives. There was nothing that could be said to explain the pageon vvhic’h a young man of eighteen stood smiling and full of life in one photo, while below it the rest of the page was blank but for an almost indecipherable shot of a metal plaque.
At tt’icjilia, there had been many quiet prayers as the Lukas/ family had tried to connect with their relatives overseas. They had been thinking mostly of Zvgmunt and Krvstyna’s cousins in Poland, but now also of Andrew . Everybody had spoken of him as Andr/ej in the presence of the old people.
Krvstyna said she always tried to conjure the memory of her dead parents back in Poland to strengthen the connection. Grace wanted to ask her if the prayers actually worked. But a glimpse of Krvstyna’s face in an unguarded moment told her what she wanted to know.
As always, there had been midnight Mass at the Church of Our Lady of C/estochowa on Harrington Street, under the images of the Black Madonna. Alongside the church was thePolish Saturday School, where a handful of pupils still kept the language alive, studying for their Polish GCSL exams, learning the history of Poland and the Catholic faith. It was the children of the Saturday school who would stage the nativity play at the oplatck dinner next Sunday.
In church they had all joined in the singing. Some of the men smelled of vodka, and even some of the women were flushed too. But they all tried to sing, nevertheless. The Poles never
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seemed to have good singing voices, hut they made up for it with enthusiasm. Even Zygmunt, in his
