Marie (Part VI)

When I returned home, we decided to go to the post office. Marika nervously waited for me because she wanted definitively to telephone her father and check the poste restante. 

When we were approaching the post office, she was just telling me something and when for a moment I turned my head, I suddenly realized that she disappeared. Like a dummy I started to look for her, going in larger and then smaller circles. She wasn’t anywhere to be found. 

Dizzy after a more than two hour search I returned home and when I opened the doors to my terrace, I heard a joyous HELLO. Despite the darkness Marika sat in a beach position on the deck chair. 

Apparently while approaching the post office with me she nearly stumbled upon her husband, who knew from his in-laws that she would definitely show up there for her remittances. 

She evaded him at the last moment, so we decided from here on she would telephone from another place, and the money could wait, because for now anyway it was not necessary. 

The next day I was very sleep deprived, because when at midnight on the American radio for the American soldiers played as every night the American hymnal, I, wanting to hear the report about the weather, turned the radio to the RIAS Berlin station, which was simulcasting from the Baden-Baden station Joachim-Ernst Berendt, as for four hours he presented a retransmission of a famous Lionel Hampton concert, already some time ago, in Pasadena, California, and at which performed some of jazz’s biggest stars. 

Marika fell asleep quickly; good music always did that to her. 

In the morning, this time from another post office, she quickly called collect. The whole time asking about Jankowski, Marika’s father said that immediately after their first conversation he wired two thousand złoty so that she could return home. 

Marika steadfastly demanded another two thousand because near the post office where the money waited constantly loitered her actually soon-to-be former husband, who she did not want to lay eyes on after what he did to her. 

She said that she did not have any intention of returning home until a lawyer was hired who could, when she decides on it, file immediately for divorce. She was very sure of herself, and I felt satisfaction that I had my own large part in this, even if only because I gave her an amazing refuge. 

The next day she telephoned again and it began again with questions about Jankowski. Her father simply suspected that she wanted to leave her husband because she had taken up with some Jankowski. 

She found out also that her husband after his futile search very begrudgingly returned this morning to Bielsko. 

We quickly hit both post offices, where Marika picked up in sum four thousand złoty. This was a large amount of money. At the same time another matter came up: that her parents rented in Sopot for a month, beginning on 15 July, an apartment with a view of the bay and an exit to the beach and told her she had to go there, insisting that her husband would not join her. 

For some time I felt a little guilty for the mix up I caused, and taking advantage of the fact that we found ourselves just at the post office, I told her that I would like definitively to clear up the case of Jankowski for her. 

I took Marika to the wall, on which hung framed examples of how to fill out various postal forms properly, directed mainly at the uneducated simpletons, meaning, anyway you look at it, most of the country. I pointed out the sample telegram: COMING THURSDAY SEND HORSES TO THE TRAIN STATION – JANKOWSKI. 

“You see,” I said, “this is stronger than me, but whenever I send some telegram, I’m compelled to add this phrase.” 

“You’re an idiot,” she said and began to laugh hysterically, after which she kissed me a couple of times and ordered an express telephone to Bielsko.