In Europe

flurries. Krawczyk strides through the neighbourhood, steps down to a cellar door, and we find ourselves in his favourite bar, an underground cavern where couples are kissing and a hefty blonde girl keeps putting brimming glasses down on our table.
    We talk about Solidarity. ‘That was our 1968, the struggle of our generation. Many of our fathers were generals, party bosses. My father, forexample, still can't revise his opinions, he's still a communist. And as you know, we all hate our fathers.’ About the church in Poland: ‘A new religious movement is on the rise here: Radio Maryja. For the ill, the lonely, the pensioners. Nationalistic, almost fascistic. The poor people's hatred has a way of growing very quickly.’ About Europe: ‘As a Western journalist, you can travel all over the place, you do as you please. But look at my coat. It looks fine, but I bought it second-hand. That's the way we intellectuals have always lived here. You people in the West can talk all you want about Europe, but we
are
Europe, just like the Czechs, the Hungarians and the Rumanians.
    ‘The new Czech ambassador once told me that he had had to deal with complete idiots, but we Poles had very intelligent communists. I tried to refute it, but I finally had to admit he was right. The repression here actually
was
much milder than in the rest of Eastern Europe. The Communist Party was never really big here, it never had more than half a million members. Gomulka was never anything but a dim-witted tyrant. And Gierek always kept the door ajar to you people in the West.’
    We talk about what came afterwards, about the differences between Poles and the rest, about how the misleading symbol of the Berlin Wall made it seem as though an abrupt end had come to communism everywhere at the same time. In reality, the old communist elites in Rumania, Serbia and Bulgaria remained in power for years, although they operated under a new, nationalistic flag. The Hungarians and the Poles, on the other hand, had done away with the old communism long before the wall fell. Hungary joined the IMF and the World Bank in 1982, the country had been living for years with a mixed socialist-capitalist economy. The Polish leader, General Jaruzelski, had been following the same line since 1981: first heavy oppression to put an end to the strikes and uprisings, then a gradual thaw and economic liberalisation. The state of emergency and the censorship were relaxed from July 1983; in 1986 Poland joined the IMF. After that the country became increasingly free. Krawczyk: ‘When I was twenty, I had no problem hitchhiking to Italy. And that was a real shock, let me tell you. Our reality was so drab. And suddenly there you were in that gleaming, colourful Venice. Horrible.’
    His girlfriend comes in – a beautiful, friendly woman – and for a littlewhile our table seems aglow. She works for the Soros Foundation, the Eastern European network that uses the Hungarian-American billionaire's money to help stimulate democratic processes.‘Because of her, I'm getting a divorce,’ Krawczyk says, and falls silent for a moment. Then: ‘We're all Soros’ whores. At least, that's what Radio Maryja says. The church, Poland, that's the only real Europe. But Soros superimposes his own Europe on top of that, the Europe of the liberals, intellectuals, Jews. Yes, I'm sorry, but that's the way those people talk.’ His girlfriend agrees, yes, that's the way they talk, but she cannot stay any longer. Her son has announced that he's going to try out vodka with Tabasco sauce, and she wants to be there when he does it.
    As the evening goes by, Krawczyk and I sink into a pleasant kind of melancholy.‘You people with your money. We're expected to accept whatever you people in the West say about us, but don't you ever wonder what
we
might have to offer? The assertiveness of the Poles, the circumspection of the Czechs, the perseverance of the Hungarian dissidents, the dilemmas the East Germans have been faced with? Isn't that exactly what the West needs? Things like that? Courage, principles, experience?’
    Eastern Poland is a frozen white plain of thickets, birch forests, little villages and the occasional smokestack giving off a courageous white plume. This is the land of Radio Maryja, of all those millions – a quarter of the population, according to Anna Bikont – who feel no affinity whatsoever with the new Polish society. The countless small farmers, for example, who operate on the