Relatives seen only on this occasion, distant to varying degrees — this was the essence of the grotesque: "new" Uncles revealing themselves each year, or unexpectedly effusive "Auntie-Grannies." Moved to tenderness by my astonishing developmental progress, particularly compared to the state they had previously noted somewhere around October 1977: "Child, if only Dzidziu could see you now..." An endless procession of faces, social niceties, and affection that was sometimes cloying.
Children viewed at intervals of no less than twelve months can be a source of many surprises, even to themselves. In times when no one nightmared of "gender" under the November Polish sky, I grappled cyclically with a crisis of sexual identity, triggered by long eyelashes and the rather unisex winter wardrobe of mid-1980s communist Poland: "Good Lord, has little Jadwisia grown so much?!... No, Auntie, it's Janek, say hello to Auntie Bożenka, son." I think I would have preferred to be "non-binary" in that situation, but back then, fortunately, no one had invented that yet...
Radically winter clothing, as this was a key trait of the holiday — by the first of November, winter had usually arrived, snowy and freezing, which happened to be the better version of events. In the "hard" variant — typical November slush, snow mixed with rain and furious wind, which combined with sub-zero temperatures caused frostbite on noses, hands, and feet, regardless of how many wool socks one managed to cram onto a foot jammed into oversized relaxy*... The woolly hat alone for this occasion weighed at least two kilograms, not to mention the rest of the clothing straight out of Siberian exile memoirs. This was built into the cost, however, in exchange for adults' tacit permission to play with the wax in the votive candles. The growing pain of frozen little toes remained largely my private secret, as did the critical state of bladder endurance — there was no option to return home anyway, and "who ever heard of peeing in the frost, and besides, where? on the graves?!" Heaps of "spruce boughs" from forests clear-cut for the occasion, obligatorily covering the tombstone entirely, constituted a kind of compensation for the inconveniences. They provided unlimited fuel for pyres built on the votive candles in secret from Parents performing their gymnastics in yet another wooden conversation with "acquaintance" mourners circulating in regular rhythm. This ritual had its hierarchy, script, and celebrants; no one abandoned their post for trivial reasons, much less because of a singed mitten…
Later, somewhat older, I quite consciously subjected my body to the tortures of frost — the game was worth (nomen omen) the candle. I knew what I was signing up for accompanying Grandma on her annual pilgrimage to the graves in the Zagłębie** region. This was a challenge bordering on survival; the honor guard lasted a minimum of four hours there, a brief break for a meal, then another round until dusk and the last black breath of the stearin crematorium. We traveled for a very long time, by local train, a so-called "chicken coop", the only connection available, passing through what was then Poland's longest railway tunnel, our luggage consisting mainly of votive candles that Grandma had been collecting for this occasion since November 3rd of the previous year. The reward for our hardships was a ride in a Dacia*** (!) from the station to my Uncle's home and the wonderful atmosphere of a Family that was, all things considered, quite distant. An idolatrous sabbath of people communing together, regardless of which side of reality they inhabited. Happy and mournful simultaneously, because at the centre of attention was still the grave, the dead, and Their Holiday. All Saints had to wait their turn…
Grandma, surrounded by loved ones, revived, grew younger, and emboldened despite the cemetery provenance of the gathering. Frozen to the marrow, I wouldn't even consider retreating from my post! — that would have been an embarrassing sign of weakness in the face of this Fragile Woman's fortitude. And yet it was the warmest "frost feast" of my life. I returned full of impressions, gifted with artifacts that inflamed a boy's imagination to incandescence. The head of a monstrous pike and a stock book full of beautiful Soviet space stamps were lost somewhere in the turbulence of fate. The Prussian bayonet I still have to this day. A unique piece, its blade oxidized during renovation at the Dąbrowa steelworks — or was it Katowice...? Uncle was an engineer specializing in thermal treatment of metals…
Then the time of rebellion came, pimply negation of everything. Grandma transformed from companion of exciting adventures into a walking fossil. Guardian of the old, obsolete order of things, unshakable in the face of clumsy provocations: "son, don't talk nonsense, just recite your prayers." But she was temporarily losing to adolescent uncritical rapture — though she, least of all, was truly defeated. A wounded, know-it-all brat with emotionality outgrowing an already overgrown ego, plowing fallow ground. I greedily swallowed the nonsense about the lack of necessity for any necessity, whispered by prophets of modernity, while in cemetery gates and before churches, naive pinworms**** like me multiplied, proudly plastered with hearts of the Great Cause. Our entire generation swallowed it; some still haven't managed to vomit it up after that collective force-feeding.
At the time, though, I believed I had a duty to go to war with a world that had already collapsed around me. So it seemed. Grandma patiently, Sisyphean, pieced together her shattered microcosm from the gathered fragments of salvaged constancy, and continued collecting votive candles. Except now also those meant to burn on Her Daughter's grave... We all had to somehow reassemble ourselves anew; the frosts and blizzards gradually softened, but on that vast, boundless "new" cemetery they could still make themselves felt. The honor guard, however, endured.
Then others left too, heedless of my pocket rebellions, quietly, consistently, methodically — they left definitively. Just like November's winters and our childhood. Outside, the world grew warmer while inside the heart — a cold that neither a cup of tea nor a basin of hot water for soaking stiffened feet could heal... Almost none of Those I mentioned remain. It finally filled with substance of regret and longing the Frost Feast.
The Baltic greeted us with a gentleness hard to experience in summer, let alone November. The sun warmed the sand and cast magnificent long shadows, the world beautifully golden, pearly, and yellow, warm. The water...! smooth and transparent, not the slightest breeze dared disturb the idyll. No "votive candle traffic control operations" or "drivers in a post-consumption state", no working ATMs, shops, or fish fry dives. The Spit in its retirement/500+***** variant.
We drove there against the current, greedily, with each kilometer distancing ourselves from the graves of Loved Ones, from the clamor of the "feast of the dead," just to get away, toward silence. Meanwhile, the warehouses of lidls, ladybirds, and other discount "Hollywoods" were hastily filling with Christmasy-Santaclausy decorative trash.
Dropping coins into the electric candle vending machine by the side altar, the boys struggle to contain their emotions. "Dad, got another one?" An orange spark struck with a penny, as reward for an hour of patiently enduring boredom. They can still succumb to such childish joys...
It's Halloween, so trick or treat: "Dad, can we each eat a chocolate eye? Get some for our little sister too, the sweet tooth!... Mom, tomorrow are we going to see the ivan border? And we'll throw them a stick, or some stones, yay!... We're going to the sea again this evening too, right guys! Okaaaay, but we'll buy Fanta at the bar, deal?... We need to take a torch, watch out for each other because there are boars running everywhere here. I have a stick for the boars!!! Okay, okay, mittens and hats, now!"...
***
On the monument at Stutthof, a dozen or so votive candles, some slowly dimming. In the window of the camp commandant's villa, grotesquely warm, orange light—probably museum staff. Cold and foggy, the children somehow quieter than usual...
"OK, run to the car, we still have a long way home, and tomorrow is school. Yes, sweetie: and preschool. Come on now, shoo because it's cold, you'll all catch cold on me."
Frost Feast******.
***
Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.
+++Amen+++
