Agata Tuszynska - Vera Gran: The Accused

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Translation copyright 2013 Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Originally published in Poland as Oskarzona: Wiera Gran by Wydawnictow Literackie, Krakw, in 2010. Copyright 2010 by Agata Tuszynska, copyright 2010 by Wydawnictow Literackie. This English translation is based on the French edition, originally published in France as Wiera Gran, LAccuse by ditions Grasser & Fasquelle, Paris, in 2011. Copyright 2011 by ditions Grasser & Fasquelle.

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Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tuszynska, Agata, author.

[Oskarzona Wiera Gran. English]
Vera Gran : the accused / by Agata Tuszynska; translated by Charles Ruas from the French of Isabelle Janns-Kalinowski.
pages cm
eISBN: 978-0-307-96239-3
1. Gran, Wiera. 2. Women singersPolandBiography.
3. ActressesPolandBiography. 4. JewsPolandWarsawBiography.
5 World War, 19391945JewsPolandWarsaw.
6. Warsaw (Poland)Biography. I. Title.
ML 420. G 81 T 8713 2013
782.1092dc23

[B] 2012036281

Jacket photograph courtesy of the Archives of Vera Gran
Jacket design by Kelly Blair

v3.1

for those who know the taste of ashes

What is fate?
Its the traps we set for ourselves.

I. B. SINGER

S he picked up the receiver but didnt speak at first. She breathedwith increasing difficulty, and more loudlyas time passed. She was expecting curses and insults. She waited; they will track her down, they will find her, theyll finish her off. She wont give in. She concentrated all her energy on that.

Id like to see you, Vera.

I cant leave the house.

I can come to you.

Its not possible.

Please.

Out of the question.

Why?

Theyll break in and steal everything.

Who will?

Are you crazy or what? Do I have to explain it to you? Who am I dealing with? Shhhh keep quiet, please! Theyre listening in, and were being taped. You know very well who Im talking about. Theyre spying on me, they want to get rid of me. Im followed everywhere. The concierge is in cahoots with them. They are always breaking in, when Im in the bathroom or when I fall asleep. They carry off what they can, what is most valuable, what is dearest to me. They steal, they ransack, they burglarize me. Without any scruples. Theres no question of my leaving the apartment. They are always watching me.

HE is the most dangerous, whose name she never mentions. Sometimes she calls him the Brute.

I want to write a book about you.

Im not afraid. Theyve already made up so many lies about me. You have to think of me as Mister K., the one from Kafka

Madame K.

Madame, Madame !!! Its my skin we are talking about! You still dont understand, you cant understand anything. You numbskull!

Shortly afterward:

Vera is sorry. Very, very. Please please excuse me. When Im having a fit, I become an unbearable old lady!

After weeks of negotiation, in the spring of 2003 I was granted the honor of meeting her at the door of her apartment.

It was an elegant neighborhood of Paris, the sixteenth, around the Eiffel Tower. After climbing up one flight, I knocked. An inscription, in French, on the door: Knock Loudly! An old woman, not very tall, in a pink dressing gown, opened the door a crack. She didnt trust herself, nor me. A gray chignon coming undone with protruding wisps, a gleam in her eyes, and her right hand leaning on a crutch.

She opened the door a little more. She blocked the dark interior with her body. A chair had already been placed on the landing. She looked at me with suspicion. Her soft hands moved nimbly. I am casting a spell. I love casting spells. With these gestures she didnt arouse pity. She tried to bring out a second chair by opening the door as little as possible. The inside of her bunker, dark and disturbing. A hideout. On the right, I could see written on the wall, also in French: Thief, thief, put back everything you took, especially the blue poncho I couldnt manage to make out any more at first glance. Her hair, parts of her dressing gown, and her hands quivered. She sat down. We both sat down.

)

She handed me a tape recorder, even though I had mine. She would keep warning me: Record it, or else you will forget what they are sayingor worse, what you yourself have said! RECORD IT!

Her confidences were dull gray, like ashes. Periodically the lights went out in the stairwell. Then my feelings of compassion grew until the lights came back on. A moment of lightthe harshest words, the most biting, the most sinister and revealing, until the poignant moment when the lights dimmed. There were several encounters like this, on the edges of darkness.

You want to reach right into my soul. Just like that. You think its normal, and that I should agree completely. Just because you feel like it. Because you thought of it. You have no conscience, no heart, you scribblers. Not a pennys worth of consideration. Contemptible!

You Polish girls, you are so insolent, its in your nature. You are odiously arrogant. Here she shows up, she wants an interview. And shes not the only one.

I dont ask anyone in. I see nobody. You are the only one, and afterward, I always regret it. I regret that youve seen what you saw. I dont have any confidence. You have a strange professional bias: cruelty, no compassion.

Thats what you think?

Yes, insolent. Insensitive, and not an ounce of compassion for your milk cow. You want to milk me, you take my milk. I cant even kick over the pail. Give it a good kick to spill everything out. Or take back my treasures. I would have liked that, but its already too late. Ive already spoken. Why did I allow this to happen? I dont know. Out of loneliness, perhaps.