Janina Fialkowska - A Note In Time

Contents

Imprint

All rights of distribution, also through movies, radio and television, photomechanical reproduction, sound carrier, electronic medium and reprinting in excerpts are reserved.

2021 novum publishing

ISBN print edition: 978-3-903861-97-8

ISBN e-book: 978-3-903861-98-5

Editor: Ashleigh Brassfield, DipEdit

Cover images: Ulrich Wagner

Cover design, layout & typesetting: novum publishing

Images: Janina Fialkowska; p. 346: Sgt Joanne Stoeckl, Rideau Hall OSGG, 2002

www.novum-publishing.co.uk

Dedication

For Harry

Acknowledgements

There have been a few friends who, with their memories, their enthusiasm, their patience and their expertise, have been of invaluable help in the writing of this book and Id like to thank them all. I think the greatest debt of gratitude goes to Nicola Schaefer who read the book right after it was first written and convinced me it was of some value. Since then, she has never stopped pushing, prodding and providing motivation until it was finally finished and sent off to the publishers.

Others who played a vital role are Judith Rice Lesage who helped me with all the foreign translations, Lady Annabelle Weidenfeld, my brother Peter, my cousin Alison Hackney, John Pearce, Linn Rothstein, Flora Liebich, Elaine Plummer and Jeffrey Swann.

And many thanks to my friends Richard Sauer and Josefine Theiner who got tired of hearing about the book as it gathered dust on my studio shelf, and found a publisher for me: Novum Publishing and the excellent and thoughtful Bianca Bendra who has expertly guided me through the entire publishing process.

Finally I would like to thank my husband Harry; quite frankly, without him, there would be no book.

Chapter 1

Whirlwinds of Snow (Chasse Neige) by Franz Liszt

My eyelids flickered as I slowly drifted back into consciousness. A pale, sickly blue light filtered through my damp lashes and, bit by bit, I became aware of my surroundings. There was an unnatural stillness. Sounds were muffled, distant. I knew that I was in a hospital recovery room, and the realization that I was still alive caused a smile to cross my face before more complex thoughts were generated in my brain, dulled by anesthesia. There was a numbness in my left arm and the peaceful insouciance of a drug-induced state was soon dispelled when, in a sudden panic, I attempted to wriggle my fingers under the bedclothes. But all was well; they moved as before: pianists fingers. My heart continued to thud at an alarming rate and cold sweat spread across my forehead.

The world eventually shifted into focus; lights brightened, sounds amplified, and I remembered: this was a cancer hospital and I had just lost a chunk of my left arm. I could see that I was not alone in my predicament, which was somehow reassuring. That day there were many of us, lying in our cots in three tidy rows, waiting for the surgeons to deliver their verdicts. Some patients were still unconscious while others were surrounded by family members speaking in low, encouraging tones. There were those who, like myself, lay silently with a knot of anxiety growing within, and those who seemed to find delight in calling out loudly and repeatedly for the nurses, unable to cope for even a few seconds on their own. The cries of the few who were in extreme distress were heart-wrenching; I felt empathy, pity, but mostly fear in the presence of such suffering. In the bed next to me someone was moaning softly, but although I tried to turn my body around to see, I found I was more or less tied down and couldnt budge. My left arm felt heavy and lifeless but, mercifully, I felt very little physical pain.

Nurses flitted efficiently from patient to patient, brightly cheerful, dealing briskly with the stress of a room vibrating with palpable anguish. The sounds of disembodied voices, machines beeping, curtains being pulled to and fro, wheels turning and oxygen pumping soon became exhausting. I was freezing cold and shivering so badly the bed was rattling. My body felt sticky and saturated with hospital stench, dried blood and disinfectant, and I had been pumped full of liquids during the procedure, so my bladder was constantly and painfully full and oh, how I loathed even the thought of bedpans! Also, like the sword of Damocles, the pending results of my biopsy hung perilously over me.

Presently a nurse, noting that I was awake, stopped by to ask how I felt. In a display of totally inappropriate fortitude, I reassured her that I felt fine when actually I felt quite dreadful, having suddenly been engulfed in waves of nausea. Minutes later I disgraced myself by being sick, mostly although not completely into the little basin conveniently stationed within reach.

From the clock on the wall opposite I calculated that I had already been in the hospital for nearly twelve hours. It was 6:00 pm on January 31st, which just happened to be Harrys birthday. Sitting miserably in a hospital was not the way I had envisaged my newly acquired husband celebrating his birthday, but it seemed as though greater forces had seized control of our common destiny, altering the course of our lives and steering us into dangerous whirlpools and eddies.

Up until that day my life had been a seesaw of the glorious highs and desperate lows typical of a performing artist with a demanding schedule. Nevertheless, over the years both body and mind had received quite a battering, which I had ignored. I had managed to bounce along unchecked, riding on my innate stubbornness, basic good health, and a large dose of childish naivety.

This time, however, the events leading up to the biopsy had been simply too much even for a tough campaigner. The camels back was succumbing not to the proverbial straw, but to a giant bale of hay. As I waited for medical science to reveal the next phase of my life, my mind, in a futile attempt to disassociate itself from the present, harkened back not to a happier distant past but to the past year, starting with another birthday and another life and death drama that had occurred eight months previously.

We should have been celebrating my fiftieth birthday, but the day was spent in transit from Knoxville, Tennessee, where I had been playing on tour, to Montreal, where my mother had been rushed to the hospital. I spent the next two weeks at her bedside watching her die. She had a virulent form of leukemia and had developed bronchitis, a fatal combination. I learned a lot during those two weeks about courage and dignity, about unconditional love and about the incalculable power of a sense of humour. My mother showed no fear, was invariably courteous and accommodating to the overworked nurses, and made witty comments to try to lessen my concern and grief, right up until the moment she slipped into a final coma. She had taught me how to play the piano with honesty; she now taught me how to die with integrity.

Shortly after, at the beginning of June, Harry and I were married in a private ceremony held in the Bavarian village where he had grown up. It had required the written permission of the Highest Court of Bavaria and an onerous, transatlantic quest to assemble all the correct and pedantic documentation (not helped by the fact that, fifty years prior, the wine at my christening must have been flowing quite freely, as the officiating priest had misspelled both my fathers and my names on the baptismal certificate). Considering the death of my mother only weeks before and given that neither Harry nor I had ever wished for a huge wedding, only Harrys mother and brother and a few of our closest friends were present. Everyone except me seemed to be shedding copious tears during the service. As for myself, I was intent on understanding what the nice lady registrar, who was marrying us, was saying. My comprehension of German was somewhat feeble at the time, and I was desperately trying not to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. However, in the end I managed a resounding Ja. at the appropriate moment, which was a colossal relief.