Once, when I was a very young girl in Poland, I got lost walking with my aunt in the forest. “Are we in America?” I asked her. America was the farthest place on earth for a child my age. Little did I know that 15 years later, I would arrive in the real America: a young, sheltered, naive person, full of dreams and aspirations, ready to start a new life with my new husband.
After a teary goodbye with family and friends, I boarded a freight ship that would bring me to New York. On the way, the ship stopped in the cities of Le Havre in France, Antwerp in Belgium, and Bremen in Germany. To a person who lived most of her life in a medium-sized city like Wałbrzych, Poland, the experience of being in these places in Western Europe were akin to visiting Disney World.
From eyeing a selection of hundreds of cheeses at a French market, being called “ein schön puppe” (a pretty doll) by a prostitute in a red-light district of Antwerp, and especially to seeing black-rimmed newspapers announcing the killing of President Kennedy, I absorbed it all. Finally, after a rough crossing of the Atlantic, I arrived in Brooklyn, New York, in the early evening on the sixth of December 1963.
The view of Manhattan with the gradually appearing lights was mesmerizing. So was the Verrazano Bridge, so dramatic and majestic looking. I heard that it was built by Indians who supposedly had no fear of heights. Finally, after two and a half years of absence and longing, I was back with Marcel and felt safe and uplifted in his embrace.
After picking me up in a white Ford Falcon, the smallest American car, which I described as a limousine, we arrived at a hotel near the Hudson River. Manhattan made an unforgettable impression on me. The wide streets, the height of the buildings that almost causes whiplash when you look up at them, the constant movement of throngs of people creating excitement. I was dizzy but mesmerized.
All my senses including taste were involved in taking in Manhattan’s sights and sounds. My first dinner was in a Chinese restaurant, where we ate shrimp in lobster sauce, neither of which I was familiar with but enjoyed nevertheless.
For entertainment, we went to the Radio City Music Hall. While the hall itself was grand and the concert beautiful, I was most impressed with the opulence of the ladies room with gold knobs and marble basins. The toilets were very sophisticated. I was frantically looking for the usual rope hanging at the top to flush the toilet, but it flushed itself. Just a first taste of technology.
All these positive experiences disappeared because of the theft of my luggage from the trunk of the Ford. Gone were the china coffee set, down bed cover, famous Polish crystal, and even the vodka. When we reported the theft to the police, we were told coldly that since nobody was killed or injured, there is no problem.
Finally, we left Manhattan. On the way to Maryland we stopped at Howard Johnson’s for dinner. The food was rather mundane except for the side dish of the green peas. In Poland, the green peas are of a greenish gray color, while in front of me were the most vibrant green peas. Between the magnificent toilets and the truly green, green peas, I knew there would be great things in store for me.
In Maryland I stayed with Marcel’s aunt and uncle until the wedding. They were very hospitable and warm except for some reason the aunt, who came from Czechoslovakia, encouraged me to eat stale bread. Later, I found out that in Czech the word for fresh (čerstvý) means stale in Polish (czerstwy).
After three weeks in the United States we got married. Soon we will be celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary. I am no longer young, sheltered, or naive. I am still in awe of what this country offers if you are educated and work hard: a nice house in the suburbs, possibility of traveling to places near and far, and tickets to a concert of any famous classical musician. None of these things were available to me in Poland.
I was finally, fully, with both feet, in the real America, no longer just in a Polish forest.
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