Even bad times are good - ebook

THE 1970S

Across the cabbage field

We meant it to be a short “get away from it all” trip to Masurian Lake District. There were three of us in the car, a so-called small Fiat, or “Maluch”, and Maryla’s mongrel dog, Lobo. It was well after 2 p.m. because it took us longer than usual to leave Warsaw, and we were driving along a winding road, to a lovely spot by a lake we remembered from our summer sailing adventures.

Les, who took turn to drive, was whistling some tunes of “Jolka, Jolka,” a trendy song everyone knew, I was sitting half-asleep in the rear seat of this tiny car next to the restless dog, and Maryla seemed to be counting tall trees on the right of the road. I was just beginning to float off into a dream when I heard a high-pitched scream: “Stop!!! Stop immediately!!!”

Les braked with a screech of tires and looked at Maryla with amazement, his face pale.

“Why? Why on earth did you want me to stop?” he uttered.

“Not you! Him!!!” she pointed at Lobo busy with a pillow trying to make love with it. She grabbed the sinner and dragged him onto her lap.

“We can drive on now,” she said in a sweet voice, pressing the dog hard, so he could not escape her grip. “He will calm down soon.”

“You are lucky you bought the new tires, otherwise we might have skidded off the road and crashed into that tree.” Les remarked in a gloomy voice and pointed at an enormous oak tree at the side of the road.

“But we didn’t. Let’s go.” And off we went.

Les was right to mention the tires. In the 1970s and 1980s, buying new ones bordered on a miracle. If you wanted to face the challenge, you had to do a lot of detective work before the purchase. It was a must to call all car accessories stores to find out where and when there would be, say, twenty tires on sale. Next, if you belonged to the farsighted ones, you might fetch a blanket and a pillow, (some would even take quilts) and spend a night in your car in the car park in front of the most likely store you decided to choose. When you noticed other cars parking next to yours, it meant your choice was good. At around four a.m., the sleepy shoppers would emerge to the open and form a queue so everybody could see them well and no one new could dare cut in a line in front of them.

Maryla and I met all the requirements and managed to buy two sets of Fiat 600 tires, one for each of us. However, I was not proud of them for a long time. One night, at around 2 a.m., I went to the kitchen to get a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and I looked through the window. To my horror, I saw four individuals, their bodies crooked, busily unscrewing the wheels of my Fiat.

I dashed onto the balcony yelling, “The police are on their way! I know who you are.”

“Shut up, you bitch,” one of the thieves roared. They must have known the police were nowhere around. However, the noise woke my neighbors up, who, one by one, appeared on their balcony or in the window, dressed in pyjamas and nightgowns. Seeing so many eye-witnesses the robbers thrust the two wheels they had already unscrewed into the boot of their van and drove away, leaving me with a more serious problem I had had before. The task was buying new wheels.

We hit the road again. It was early September, and the days were already shorter than in summer. The day was cloudy, and we wanted to get to the lake before it got dark.

“Sophie, pass me the map, please,” Les said to me “It’s behind you, by the rear window.” He studied it for a while and then had an idea.

“Look, girls,” he pointed to a dotted line on the map, “There is a good short-cut here. We’ll get to the lake in no time at all.”

“Are you sure you know what you are doing?” Maryla asked.

“Sure, I do. Don’t you worry, woman,” was the reply. Les used to call her “woman” when he wanted to get on her nerves.

The short-cut appeared to be a narrow field path which led to a huge cabbage field and made its way across it. Also, the field spread down a hill and seemed endless, contrary to the path which ended abruptly somewhere in the middle of the cabbage kingdom. We immediately realized we got stuck in a miry place, between the two rows of green heads with weeds growing between them and blocking the way out. We could not go backwards to the main road because it was too far and the grooves we had made got filled with water, we could turn nowhere, so we had to drive on.

“A nice short-cut,” Marla murmured maliciously, “I wish I had never met you.” She added with disgust.

“You should’ve stayed at home instead of going to the wine-vault.” Les smiled with satisfaction.

“You’re right. I should’ve gone anywhere, but not there!”

I put an end to their happy chatting for fear it might turn into a row.

“You’d better look at that house over there,” I said in a quiet voice, “They’re bound to notice us any moment now and chase us with pitchforks.”

We got in and started struggling across the rest of the field, destroying some cabbages on our way, with the car tilting to the side like a yacht on a stormy sea.

“Dear ladies,” I caught a twinkle in Les’s eyes in a rear-facing mirror, “We are going to roll down the hill so beware of breaking your neck.”

“Don’t even dare, you bastard!” Maryla went red in the face, “Drive faster! Now!!!”

And he did. Somehow, it worked, and we left the field, undisturbed by its owners, leaving a trail of mud on the asphalt road across the forest, all the way to the lake.

It was dark when we turned left onto a narrow path which led to the turquoise lake we remembered from our last year’s summer holidays. We put up a tent feeling happy that we had found the quiet spot we wanted, next to the water and far from the civilization. Hoping to see the swans and ducks at sun-rise, we crawled into our sleeping bags with Lobo lying on his back between Maryla and me, his four paws up, halfway to the tent roof.

No sooner had we fallen asleep than we heard someone unzip the tent with no scruples, or mercy. The intruder searched the inside of our shelter with his torch and wheezed:

“You’re right in the middle of the round-the-lake path! Get out of here, or I’ll call the police!”

He was a forester on his morning patrol-walk.

Ways to purchase Fiat 126p in the 1970s

The history of Fiat 126p in Poland dates back to 1973. The government launched mass production of a friendly priced family car in Bielsko-Biala and Tychy. I meant it to be the car everybody could afford. The Polish license version of the Italian _centoventisei_ became the most popular model on the roads until September 2000, when the last vehicle left the factory assembly line. Recently, Tom Hanks visited Bielsko-Biala factory and got enchanted by the Fiat 126p story. A few weeks later, when he was back home in California, he received a present from Poland. One of Bielsko citizens, Monika Jaskolska, had raised the money to buy Tom a Fiat. The famous actor became the owner of a white compact car tied up with a red ribbon during the event which took place in the residence of the Polish consul in Los Angeles at three p.m., on December 2, 2017.

There were four ways to become the owner of this dream vehicle. The lucky ones could get a voucher from the management of the company they worked for as a reward for doing a good job. The rich ones had no problems because they could pay in dollars without waiting for their turn for months. The rest of those willing to drive had an option to purchase a second-hand car in open-air markets. Choosing this option meant they agreed to pay at least twice as much as the official price for a used car was, with no guarantee it was safe to drive. And finally, the last way one could take was to earn enough money to buy one.

As it was highly unlikely for young people in Poland to afford to buy a dream car in their country, thousands of job seekers rushed to Western Europe to try their luck. However, they had to take part in a long-distance obstacle race before they put their foot on a foreign land.

Getting a passport was Obstacle One. There will be more about it later because it is a long and complex story. In those days, Poland belonged to the countries behind The Iron Curtain which was the imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas. In order to leave it, you had to have an invitation from somebody who was a citizen of France, the UK, or any other western European country, had a permanent job and declared to cover all the expenses and the cost of medical help if needed. If you were lucky enough to have such a friend, and if they promised to give you accommodation, you were half-way abroad.

Money was Obstacle Number Two. You needed to have much over one hundred and thirty American dollars you could legally buy in a bank. In order not to be penny-less in a foreign country, you had to smuggle your fortune or take some products you hoped to sell. This obstacle was too difficult to overcome for many of those who were not risk-takers. Obstacle Three was finding your first job abroad.