Ryszard Kapuscinski by Artur Domoslawski

Author:Artur Domoslawski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2012-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

29

On Love and Other Demons

A woman is anticipation. Hence the highest embodiment of this attitude is Penelope.

Ryszard Kapuściński, Lapidarium III1

‘Did you ever cry into your pillow?’ Teresa Torańska asks Alicja Kapuścińska.

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘I don’t think so. You’re asking me for too many details. A person has to adapt to the situation. Life went on, and that’s all. He had his work, I had mine.’2

Alicja is a highly regarded paediatrician. For thirty-five years she has worked at the Medical Academy hospital on Działdowska Street, from her first internship until her retirement. There are two kinds of employment there, academic and hospital. The academic jobs bring a higher salary, a shorter working day and a longer holiday, but also the obligation to become a specialist and to pass exams for academic degrees. Alicja has the ‘worse’ form of employment, a hospital job. Yet she also gives student classes; even without the compulsion imposed by an academic job, she takes first and second speciality degrees.

One time Alicja’s boss, director Kajetan Kaliciński, says to her: ‘Surely you don’t live on what I pay you here?’

She replies: ‘I have a husband, and he gets a salary.’

‘So you just come to the hospital to practise your hobby.’

‘You could put it like that.’

‘And what’s more we pay you.’

They had a laugh about it, and that was that. After all, Alicja’s salary did not depend on the director. She says she was ashamed to admit how much she earned, even to her own father.

Years later she does a doctorate on celiac disease – gluten intolerance – in children. Her work is awarded a distinction. Wearing a gown and a mortarboard, she collects her degree at the Wielki Theatre. Ryszard sits in the second row, proudly watching her. She feels satisfied, thinking: You see, I’m no worse than the others.

The others:

[H]e came into the Czytelnik café and all the girls gazed at him.

And he favoured them with a smile. They must have been in love with him. I know they were. But what was I to do? I thought: let them be.

Didn’t your heart ache?

Oh dear, sometimes it did, but it stopped whenever I saw that I did in fact matter to him.3

Women are attracted to him. He doesn’t have to set out to conquer – instead, the lands to be conquered come sailing up of their own accord, offering an invitation to the conquistador. He can take his pick. He stands quietly to one side at the banquet, reception, or presentation; the social hub is somewhere else entirely, but his magnetism keeps working nonetheless.

What is it about him? It really is magnetism – the look in his eyes, his voice, his subtle manner – a very masculine subtlety, the incredible stories and the aura that surrounds a traveller who has toured dangerous countries, seen wars and revolutions. It is sex appeal. That smile.

Ryszard Frelek recalled how he used to charm the girls with stories about his hometown, Pińsk.

He used to stir their sympathy, because he had a theory that that was the most important thing to do.

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