Riding the Iron Rooster

The merchandise in the shops looked substandard—the clothes, the radios, the pots and pans, even the food: it looked unappetizing, the fresh food somewhat wilted and dusty, the canned food dented and with faded labels. And in every shop, my arm was tugged and the same question whispered, "Change money?" Poverty can make people look bowed down and beaten, but just as often it can make them shameless, fearless, predatory and dangerous. I found all these apparent lawbreakers rather worrying, but when I mentioned it to one man he said, "Don't worry—it's a double morality. Everyone does it."

This look of bankruptcy in Warsaw was also a facial expression: stricken, demoralized, lonely and a bit desperate, a look of suffering on some, cynicism on others. It is surprising that people so victimized can have such dignity and can also be so polite and friendly. It is a good thing, too, because that courtliness takes the curse off their other side—the hunger that makes them food bores, the poverty that makes them seem grasping, the deprivation that has made them appear materialistic, and the economic policies that have turned them into religious nuts.

The bar of my hotel, the Forum, was crowded and smoky, so I wandered around, dropped into the Habana Nightclub and watched people jitterbugging. As I watched, a voice whispered in my ear, "Change money? Seven zlotys for one dollar."

"What would I do with all those zlotys?" I said, and turned.

A plump girl in a black dress was smiling at me. Perspiration had given a stickiness to her orange makeup, and there were little sooty flecks on her eyelashes.

"You can buy Polish vodka, you can buy curios. Poland is famous for amber. You can buy. Or stamps. You are staying at a hotel?"

"Yes, I am."

"I can visit you in your room. We make love. Fifty dollars."

"What about this amber?"

"Bursztyn," she said, explaining that it was the Polish word. "It is lovely. It comes from under the sea."

"My problem is that I have zlotys but not many dollars."

"I prefer dollars," she said. "We need dollars. In Poland it is impossible to do anything without dollars."

"Where do you get the dollars?"

"From you," she said.

"Not tonight."

I left, looked at the gloomy shop windows, marveled at the wide, empty streets, and went back to the Forum.

My challenge the next day was first to withdraw some Polish zlotys from Bank Handlowy—royalties that I could not take out of Poland; and then to spend them all before the train left. The bank opened at nine-thirty, the train was going two hours later. I estimated that I would have about an hour and a half to spend whatever amount I withdrew. In New York it would not have been difficult. But this was Warsaw.

I knew only my account number. The bank was in a modern building, a steel and glass tower, the top of which was wreathed in fog. It was a rainy day, and it seemed to me that I was on an absurd errand. But it would have been more foolish to leave my Polish money where it was and not try to withdraw some. I had vowed that I would never give it to Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement, because he had once publicly boasted that he had never read a book in his life. The last thing that man deserved was my book royalties.

I entered the bank. The entire ground floor was an open-plan office—hundreds of employees tapping on computers, calculators, typewriters, or else pushing stacks of tattered money around. Just looking at the enormity of the operation made me feel I didn't have a chance.

At the marble counter I explained to the woman that I had an external account and wanted to make a withdrawal.

"Please write your account number."

I did so on a scrap of paper.

"Passport, please."

I handed it over.

Without hesitating, and without leaving the counter, the woman stretched out her arm and fished a small wooden box, like an old cigar box, from beneath the marble slab. She glanced at my account number and plucked another scrap of paper out of the small box.

"How much do you want to withdraw?"

"How much have I got?"

"Two hundred and sixty thousand zlotys."

"I'll have a hundred thousand."

Six hundred dollars at the official rate.

The woman passed the scrap of paper she had initialed to the clerk, who called me over and counted out the money. The whole operation had taken less than five minutes.

My pockets were now bulging with Polish money.

"You could buy half a car," Gregory the taxi driver said, when I told him my problem. "You could buy a hundred thousand kilos of ham."

Gregory spoke perfect South Jersey English—he had worked for an Ocean City trucking company for two years. But then he had returned to Warsaw. He explained, "Warsaw is miserable, yes, but Warsaw is my city. My father was born here, my grandfather was born here, and so ... and so..." He shrugged. "You like this song?"

A bouncy little ditty crackled from his car radio. I said yes, it was melodious.

"I sing it for you."

I thought, forget it.

Cry, little woman, cry!

Go ahead and cry!