The Funeral of a Stranger

Mrs. Tarnowski, the mother of one of my private students, stood in her kitchen this morning, in her pajamas, unlit cigarette in hand, crying. I had merely asked her how she was, but the answer was inevitable. She, and the rest of Poland, was ill. Ill, of course, over the deaths of so many of their leaders in a place crash in Russia yesterday morning.

“There were so many good people on that plane,” Mrs. Tarnowski sniffled at me. “I mean, good, smart Polish people. How could we lose so many of our good people at once?”

Of course, I didn’t know what to say. I felt my nose start to tingle with the urge to cry, but I couldn’t let myself. I had no right, did I?

I made the short, twenty minute walk from my apartment to the Old Town yesterday afternoon. It’s a walk I’ve made many times this year, heading out to meet a friend for dinner or just getting out for an evening stroll. But this time I went out as a voyeur. I wanted to observe grief in action. I wanted to surround myself with Poles, watch them, and try to gain some understanding of what they are feeling. Unforgivable, I even took my camera.

I walked past the shops and restaurants along Nowy Swiat, Warsaw’s main drag, and I noticed many more people out than usual, all walking in the same direction. Some were stopping at makeshift vendors along the way to buy some flowers or a candle to place at the memorial in front of the palace. Parents brought whole families, teenagers shrugging along, babies in strollers, toddlers giggling helplessly, completely unaware. Elderly women labored slowly down the sidewalks, arms linked. If I hadn’t known where everyone was going, and why, I might not have imagined that something terrible had happened. It might have just been another national holiday.

But there was something in people’s eyes that said otherwise. As I made my way through the growing masses of people, I found myself looking deep into people’s faces. Strangely, they were looking back. Their eyes would search mine, looking for some kind of recognition. My eyes told people I was sorry, and theirs said the same. Never before have I looked into so many Polish eyes – they’re simply not that kind of people. They keep to themselves. But yesterday, strangers were sharing grief through their eyes.

Signs of a country in mourning were apparent in other ways. Taxis, buses, shops, apartments – all were slowly beginning to display the red and white Polish flag with a strip of black fabric attached. An old woman and man simply sat on a bench in front of the palace and stared into the crowd for over twenty minutes, their faces showing disbelief at this new burden they’ve been forced to add to their load.

I know that I do not understand this tragedy, but I am trying to imagine. The deaths of the people on that plane – it’s so much more to the Polish people than just lives lost. The destruction and death this country has had to endure over the last century – WWII, the Holocaust, Communism, Russian rule, Katyn. I don’t even know it all. I’m shamefully uneducated on the history of the country I’m living in. But I’ve lived among these people for eight months. I see how rough around the edges they are, how hardened they’ve become after the things they’ve endured. I can feel how new the country is to the modernism and capitalism that has slowly crept in since Poland’s independence from Russia. The progress that’s been made in this country in the last two decades is a source of real pride here, and now, this.

It makes me feel sick.

Over the last two days, I’ve felt like an intruder at a funeral. It’s the funeral of a new friend’s mother, maybe, and though she’s been a friend for several months and I feel I know her quite well, I never met her mother. I didn’t even know her name, come to think of it. But I go to the funeral, anyway. How can I not? I sit in the back row of the service, trying to absorb the tide of love and remembrances and intimacies, growing more and more uncomfortable. I don’t belong here. I didn’t know this woman.

So I’m writing. I can’t say I’m sorry. What does it mean? But I’ll write, and perhaps the Americans I know will share some piece of this grief with me and understand a little better what’s going on this side of the world. I fear Poland is an unknown spot on the map to most people. It was to me before.