Transnational Aspects of Postmemory
in Third-Generation Fiction
on WWII and the Holocaust
The (Contrapuntal) Cases of
Piotr Paziński and Erwin Mortier
AFTER MEMORY. CONFLICTING CLAIMS TO WWII
IN CONTEMPORARY EASTERN EUROPEAN LITERATURES
Berlin, ZFL, 6-8 Nov 2015
[email protected]
Warsaw 2010
Amsterdam 1999
° 1973, Poland
°1965, Belgium
“Schulz-derivative literature” - Bruno Schulz (1892-1942)
“Schulz-derivative literature” - Bruno Schulz (1892-1942)
° 1973, Poland
°1965, Belgium
Mortier
“That boy [Marcel],” she said, “has been lying
there all alone for so many years now. I
remember him in my prayers every day. He
saved us from Bolshevism.” I thought she was
referring to yet another mysterious disease. (M
16)
Paziński
She [Mrs. Marysia] was not ashamed of
the number, but she did not allow to touch
it, although it tempted me. I was curious
how it was done. Dark dots somewhere in
the skin, or what? (P 41)
Paziński / Mortier
I once snuck into the men’s bathroom to see this
secret world. (P 40)
I slunk to the corner between the wardrobe and
the wall, sank to my knees and vanished under
the sewing table. (M 31)
Paziński
Through the crack I can see Mr. Leon , or
perhaps Mr. Chaim , in a robe of coarse material
in white and grey stripes. A striped pyjamas
[pasiak]. Do not say that, it is a very bad word ,
Mr. Chaim would be sorry if he heard! A
forbidden place. Not for small children. (P 39)
Mortier
“They picked on Maurice [a convicted collaborator]
just to make themselves look better. Every single textile
firm made money of the Germans. Good money, too.”
[the grandmother said.]
“All those little men in the camps on television,” Stella
blurted, “where d’you suppose the material for all those
striped pyjamas came from? Am I right, Andrea?”
“Whenever I see those old films,” the grandmother said,
“I think: there goes the Flanders rag trade. And who
gets the blame? Maurice. Or me.” (M 32)
Mortier
Mondays were devoted to pattern drawing, design
adjustments and the strategic deployment of pins
so as to hide unwanted folds of the body. “A good
garment,” she [the grandmother] affirmed with
deeply held conviction, “both conceals and
reveals.” (M 24)
Mortier
At the end of each working day the snippets of
dress material and tangled threads lying in
frivolous anarchy on the floor were swept into a
heap for the rag-and-bone man. (M 21)
Paziński
They collected everything that remained after the
war. (P 23)
One more collector. In this house everyone
collects and hoards something for eternal times.
(P 86)
Paziński
Mrs. Tecia stood in the middle of her kingdom.
(...) A domestic archive, dusty piles of yellowed
papers, stored wherever possible. Important
articles! An entire life of gathering. Porcelain
tableware. Treasures never used. (P 19)
Paziński
Rags in bags, sorted: flax and cotton, various types of
nylon. For sewing, and the inferior materials for
carding. (…) And yarn for sweaters, the habitat of
moles which silently flew out of these multicolored
clusters, made some nervous circles above the storage
room and immediately returned to their woolen
headquarters, deterred by the stench of mothballs and
twigs of swamp. Objects more alive than people.
Now abandoned. Who will bury them, so they will
not wind up on some garbage heap? (P 19)
Paziński
I sat there probably an hour, while ignoring Mrs.
Tecia and trying to decipher the contents of the
subsequent packages. The room was getting
darker, and I did not want to get up and switch
on the chandelier. The letters in these letters,
which were anyhow almost illegible, melted into
the darkness. (P 24)
Paziński
In any case, only single words remained,
scattered here and there. It is hard to read
anything, as if it was written not with ink but
with onion juice. (P 23)
Paziński
Mrs Tecia’s package was very heavy, as if I was
not carrying old photographs, but stones. I was
not even curious about my room, I just quickly
dumped the contents of the bundles on the table
and began to arrange some kind of solitaire. (P 43)
‫לדור ודור‬
ll’dor vador
Paziński
I wanted to run away, but I felt some power holding me
back, drawing me to the place and not allowing me to
move (...).
“I am coming to you!” I cried.
“No, no, why do you say that, where did you get that
idea from?”
“It’s our forest and we don’t need anyone here!”
“It’s Bronka’s grandson. Where will he go now?” (...)
The last of the generational links, attached to the very
end.
It was deep night, when I got to the station. (P 134-135)
Paziński
“No, no, why do you say that, where did you get that
idea from? He’s gone mad, simply gone mad! What
nonsense he’s talking!”
“It’s our forest and we don’t need anyone here!”
“It’s Bronka’s grandson. Where will he go now?”
“And where was he back then? Or maybe he was not
there at all?
The last of the generational links, attached to the very
end.
It was deep night, when I got to the station. (P 134-135)
Mortier
I considered my options: count up to ten
thousand, say, or do some more praying, or
pretend that fairies really existed and I could
make any wish I pleased. What if it worked?
What if all the stuff that fell off the table were to
band together? A strip of suede. A tuft of fur.
What if all the snippets of serge joined forces
with a couple of buttons? They could enlist the
tangle of basting threads on the floor, and bribe a
dozen thimbles while they were at it.
Mortier
They could invade the table drawer and conspire
with the lame zippers. Murder in reverse. A new
perspective. A more bearable tomb. So he
[Marcel] would stop roaming the house in his
stockinged feet, all the way from attic to
basement, pausing at my door, deathly quiet (...).
(M 77-78)
Mortier
I stuffed the bundle into the tin and pressed
down the lid. (…) I had no time to lose. I set the
biscuit tin at the foot of the rowan tree and seized
the trowel. (...) I started digging furiously.
Rooms aplenty in the earth. (P 118-119)
Mortier
„About that letter. You keep it to yourself, mind.
It’s not for anyone else’s eyes. Do you hear?” (M
115)
• „
Paziński
Is there nothing more to see? (...) I knew this
would happen. (...) It has been lying here for
such a long time! And that’s the whole story of
the family! And your grandmother’s too. And
your uncle’s. Adam, my nephew, was supposed
to make copies, but he never has time to do it. It
is worth bringing it to the archive, but there it
will certainly get lost, it is better that here ... (P
23)
Paziński
Familiar figures looked up from the photographs
scattered on the table. (...) I put them back into piles.
The grandmothers, the uncle Simons, granddaddy,
relatives and in-laws, friends of the family. Maybe it
was time to leave them here? The best place they will
ever have. When I will be gone too, the figures on these
paper prints will become nothing but a distant,
unknown crowd, a collection of strange, indistinct faces,
like those portraits sold for a penny on an antique fair.
Paziński
Or I’d better bury them in the ground, at the bottom of
the ravine where Mr. Leon and I went to look for
dinosaurs, which were supposed to bring us fame. There
certainly no one will find them, the fluffy sand will
cover them and put them to sleep. That is where I will
take them. (P 126)
Bereishis...
“In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth”. (Genesis 1: 1)
“In the beginning were train tracks. In the
greenery, between heaven and earth.” (P 5)
„In the beginning
was the war.” (3)
“In the beginning
were train tracks.”
(P 5)
McGlothlin 2006
The metaphor of sewing is particularly apt for
the project of second-generation writing, not
only because (…) it defers the drive toward
totality with its inherent incompleteness, its
gaps between the stitches, but because the act of
sewing is itself also a form of marking, a repair
that, with the stitch, leaves visible traces. (11-12)
Transnational Aspects of Postmemory
in Third-Generation Fiction
on WWII and the Holocaust
The (Contrapuntal) Cases of
Piotr Paziński and Erwin Mortier
AFTER MEMORY. CONFLICTING CLAIMS TO WWII
IN CONTEMPORARY EASTERN EUROPEAN LITERATURES
Berlin, ZFL, 6-8 Nov 2015
[email protected]