Among the things Hania brought back from Poland Sunday – jewelry, ceramics, vodka – was my secret police file, which she obtained at the beautifully named Institute of National Memory. The file makes for very dull reading, which I have to take most of the blame for; my two and a half years in Warsaw were more queue-and-tutor than cloak-and-dagger. But reading one official document after another I have come to the conclusion that the disintegration of communism in Eastern Europe was partly the result of a collective sense of boredom.
Overnight flight from Miami to Frankfurt, sitting in the last row of the next-to-last section, just by the galley where, when the flight attendants weren't banging carts, passengers were stretching their legs and vocal chords.
9 a.m. breakfast in Frankfurt - all the tables around us held tall glasses of beer, delivered by a cheerful waitress from Thailand.
Arrived in Warsaw at 1:30. Hania's new brown suitcase was the first to fall onto the luggage carousel. It had bright new ribbons I assumed were tied by TSA after they opened it and found nothing suspicious inside.
Her cousin Jurek and his wife Monika took us to their apartment in Muranow, a block from the new Jewish museum. I carried Hania's heavy suitcase - no elevator - up to the third floor. We were shown around the apartment, then Hania went to get something from her suitcase which, it turned out, was not her suitcase. So I carried the heavy thing down two flights of stairs and we all drove back to Chopin Airport as if having quickly decided Poland wasn't for us.
Inside the airport we explained the problem to the man at the information booth. With a wry smile, he gave us a number to call. Shortly, a man in a tie appeared and walked us through a passageway that led back to the luggage carousels. He disappeared into the lost luggage room and reappeared with Hania's suitcase. We gave him the one we had taken.
The next morning we woke up to sunshine, turned on the radio, and heard a man singing: "Vamos a la playa."
I was going to write about my trip this week but I've been too mesmerized by Wimbledon. The commentators have rightly pointed out the novelty of an all-Polish men's quarterfinal (Jerzy Janowicz vs. Lukasz Kubot) while failing to mention that the women's semifinal (Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Sabine Lisicki) will also be between two Polish speakers (Lisicki's parents emigrated from Poland to Germany in 1979). For at least one tournament, Polish has replaced Russian as the language of the practice courts. To dobrze.
I should mention, before leaving Lincoln Road, that the buildings aren't the only things of beauty on it. Saturday I was reminded of walking the streets of Warsaw in the early '80s with their impressive array of beautiful women. (There in the reportedly drab, grey Soviet Bloc.) But different from South Beach, in Warsaw, in January, the faces were encased in sheepskin coats, fox collars, wool scarves, nutria hats. And the best of them were not just beautiful but interesting.
Budka Suflera, the top Polish rock band of the 1970s, played the Miccosukee Resort and Casino Sunday evening. The concert fell on Polish Independence Day, so the crowd of several hundred that had gathered to hear hits from their student years had to sit through speeches, folk dances, a slide show covering the history of Poland from 966-2012, and clips of movie stars (Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe, etc.) giving their impressions of the country.
After which it was announced there would be a 10-minute break.
When the band finally appeared, people made their way up to the front of the stage, swaying, raising their arms, singing along - doing what people do at concerts. But there was more than enjoyment; there was also meaningful emotion. Rock was the music of rebellion everywhere, but especially in countries ruled by communists.
"We listened to Led Zeppelin," my friend Krzysztof said to me during the folk dances. "Then Budka Suflera came along and showed us: Hey, we can do this too."
Sunday night Budka Suflera transported Poles from the state of Florida back to the days of their accelerated youth.
Thirty years ago today (the Feast of the Assumption) I wandered about the monastery of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa. The day before I had arrived in the city with thousands of other pilgrims from all over Poland. The majority of us had walked from Warsaw, covering 150 miles over nine days, and we had been greeted on arrival like a liberating army. Poland was under martial law in 1982, and the annual religious rite took on a strong political significance.
High atop the fortress walls I came upon a young man who told me that things would have to change now; the government could not last when almost the entire population was against it. I thought he was being overly optimistic; the government had already survived nearly 40 years of unpopular rule, who was to say it couldn't double that?
But the young man was right. By 1990 the government was gone.