A Long Long Time Ago And Essentially True

This summary section includes Chapter 40: “Juvenalia” and Chapter 41: “The End to End All Ends.”

Juvenalia is a May festival held in honor of college students in Poland and, specifically, at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where it was first observed in the 15th century. In addition to the public parade in the afternoon, students hold private parties in the evening. Magda is excited to get another chance to enthrall Sebastian, while Beata feels guilty about her secret romance but still doesn’t tell her cousin. Irena is angry that Magda is going to a party and worries that she’ll get involved with another worthless man, but Beata tells her not to worry. She secretly knows that Sebastian isn’t attracted to Magda.

The party is in full swing when the girls finally arrive. Sebastian is pleasant toward Magda but nothing more. When she tries to kiss him, he tells her that he’s involved with someone else. Magda is embarrassed but determined to have a good time despite this brush-off. She wanders off to join a group of partiers who are doing drugs somewhere else in the house. Beata sits outside in the courtyard, agonizing over her secret romance and not knowing how to break the news to Magda.

When Magda staggers out to meet her, Beata realizes that something is wrong. Magda has used cocaine and is having a bad reaction. She collapses, and Beata summons Sebastian for help. He refuses to call an ambulance and instead drives Magda and Beata to the hospital himself. Beata finally realizes that Sebastian is a drug dealer, and his apartment is a party house where people come to get high. He begs Beata to keep quiet about his business and slinks off after depositing Magda with the emergency room staff.

One night, Czesław doesn’t return to the flat, and Anielica fears he’s been taken by the secret police. She waits hopefully for weeks before realizing that he isn’t ever coming back. Knowing that she must think about her unborn child, she goes back to Half-Village but makes her brother promise to keep searching for Czesław in Kraków.

This summary section includes Chapter 42: “The End to End All Ends,”

Chapter 43: “Years Don’t Go Back; the River Doesn’t Flow Backward,”

Chapter 44: “Life As If,” and Chapter 45: “He Who Does Not Work Does Not Eat.”

Beata waits all night at the hospital, only to learn that Magda has died of a heart attack. She had an undetected heart defect, but this doesn’t make Beata feel any less guilty for letting her cousin use cocaine. Irena arrives with Stash but refuses to see Beata, who then leaves. She waits at the flat, but Stash calls to tell her that Irena would like her to move out. He explains that she doesn’t blame Beata, but the girl’s presence in the apartment carries too many painful associations with Magda. Racked with guilt, Beata stumbles blindly to Pani Bożena’s house, where the old woman takes her in.

After returning to Half-Village, Anielica gives birth to a daughter, whom she names Ania. She gets a job at the local post office, and life goes on, but Anielica remains mired in her past. She cherishes the one photo she has of her husband, knowing that he’s lost to her.

For nearly two months, Beata stays indoors at Pani Bożena’s house. The old woman is kind and capable and nurses her through the worst of her despair. Stash comes by to drop off the last of Beata’s belongings from Irena’s flat. He counsels her to have patience. Irena needs time to adjust to the loss of her daughter.

Anielica’s lot improves when she takes a job teaching at the local grammar school. The Soviets have eyes everywhere, and she’s disturbed when the government orders all crucifixes taken off the school walls. This action offends her deeply held religious beliefs, and she quits teaching. Now that the old postmistress is retiring, Anielica takes over managing the mail for the town. Six years after her return to Half-Village, Anielica receives an unexpected care package from the US containing luxuries like chocolate bars and coffee. The note inside is one of her one-line messages to Czesław during their courtship. This is a secret sign to tell her that her husband is still alive.

This summary section includes Chapter 46: “Where the Devil Says Good Night,” Chapter 47: “Solidaność,” and Chapter 48: “So That Poland Will Be Poland.”

By the middle of June, Beata is starting to recover when Bożena announces a visitor. Beata is stunned to realize that it is her grandfather, Czesław. Bożena lived in the communal flat with the Half-Villagers right after the war, so she has known the family for decades. Czesław explains that the secret police forced him to leave Poland. He couldn’t return until the communists were out of power and his name was finally taken off the blacklist. He now owns a construction company in New York, and all his sisters migrated to the US years earlier. Czesław stays in Kraków for a week and asks Beata to give him a tour of the city. Then, the two of them go on a road trip to Half-Village.

The war has taken a toll, and few inhabitants remain. The house that Czesław so lovingly repaired is now abandoned. When he sees the red blood stain on the floor where he killed the Nazi, he falls to the ground and begins to weep. Beata has always believed it was a stain from spilled beet soup but now learns the real story. Seeing his regret at not arriving in time to prevent his wife’s rape, Beata cries and lies down on the floor beside him, thinking of her own regret at not saving Magda: “We only lie here, restless, staring at each other, our eyes searching for plain acceptance of what we have said. Of what we have done. Of what we have failed to do” (328).

As they go through the house, they find Anielica’s hidden collection of books banned by the communists. Czesław cuts open the back covers to reveal all the letters he wrote to his wife over the years and also some money hidden away for Beata. He explains that he tried several times to bring Anielica to the US, but she wouldn’t leave her daughter or Beata behind.

After they return to the city, Czesław asks his granddaughter to come to the US, but she declines. She believes that she belongs in Kraków. However, she promises to visit him in New York. Once Czesław departs, Beata takes her video camera and goes to a local milk bar. She asks some of the elderly patrons if she might interview them. Several agree, and she captures their stories of the war years. Over the next month, she collects a total of 98 interviews, with Bożena as her last.

By summer’s end, Beata moves into a flat of her own and gets a job at a local production studio. She’s now interested in making a documentary from all her interviews. In addition, she has applied to the film school in Łódź for the following year. During this time, Beata receives an unexpected call from Irena, inviting her to Sunday dinner. When she arrives, the conversation is stilted. Stash is there, trying to ease the tension, and Irena says she has started painting again.

Just before she leaves, Beata gives Irena a short videotape that she made of Magda, and then she tearfully apologizes for not saving her cousin. The older woman breaks down, too: “Irena whispers to me what Magda could not, what Czesław could not, what Nela herself could not. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she says. ‘It never was’” (350). The women mend their broken relationship, and Beata finally looks forward to the future instead of living in the past: “I know, in my deepest deep, that we are all working for Magda’s Big Life now, for Tadeusz’s and Kinga’s and Nela’s and Poland’s, and we are only at the beginning” (352).