A Wind of Change

by Josephine Higgins (Italy)

I didn't expect to find Poland

‘Have you heard about Hel-net?’ His Slavic accent is pure Bond-Villain. Alas, there is nothing ‘Hollywood’ about this bundled together ski-trip, booked in the last manic weeks of December with the threat of another family Christmas at my in-laws looming. Our choice of location, Zakopane–a town in Southern Poland that hosted secret meetings between the Soviet NKVD and the Gestapo during WWII–has been based solely on the casual recommendation of a notoriously frugal Dutchman. So here we are, two snow-virgins on the way to our first ever ski lesson, hurtling along jack-knife mountain roads in an Estate-model FSO Polonez the color of seaweed and shaped like a hearse, sweating nervously inside our new ski suits, our borrowed skis stashed behind. The driver-instructor repeats the question louder, turning his head a quarter of an inch more to the left in order to project his booming voice further into the rear of the car. We can’t ignore him any longer. ‘Hell-net?’ I say, glancing at my boyfriend’s tight jaw, ‘What’s that?’ ‘Helnet,’ he says pointing out the window to the sage green hills slick with rivulets of melt-water pearling down to meet the tyres of our car with a cheerful splash, ‘Is the warm wind that’s been melting all the snow.’ I hadn’t expected to find global warming here, impacting my life, threatening my Christmas ski fantasy. The serious dearth of the white stuff had not escaped our notice. Indeed, upon landing in Krakow the young man behind the car-rental desk had laughed when we asked about snow chains. In t-shirts we arrived in the wooden-chalet fronted heart of old Zakopane. It felt as if we were driving into the very center of the sun itself. Our gaze falling on the ominously clear roads–everywhere piles of shoveled snow oozing and weeping and people bareheaded, ungloved in light rain jackets. The car slithers to a stop at the side of the 1129m high Mount Gubałówka. A scraggly five-O-clock shadow of stubbly vegetation pokes through the thinnest layer of fake snow. My stomach tightens. The grey clouds hover. I read that concentration camp internees were forced to quarry for stone at a site near here. The force of the wind makes getting out of the car difficult. With skis clipped on we must cling to the roof racks of the car so as not to be blown off the edge of this precipitous mountain road. Naturally, there are no other cars in the lot. The wind is more a gale, with each roiling blast it rushes down the mountain causing the car itself to become a giant sled. With the next break, our instructor gives us the signal to march. We literally crawl onto the training zone and watch as he runs through the ABC basics. It looks simple. We fall over and over again, hard and raw on the unforgiving ice–and my boyfriend who has generally a much more developed kinesthetic awareness than I–is on his knees for perhaps the hundredth time. The instructor’s huge body seems impervious to the tearing winds though. He reminds me of a mighty dolmen–standing legs apart, unflinching. ‘Had enough?’ he asks. He hasn’t moved since this episode began 40 minutes ago and shows no sign of rescuing my boyfriend from his current tangle. ‘Gimme one last try,’ I say. I shuffle off with extreme caution, 15 seconds I’m still on my feet, another 15 seconds, 5. I relax and just let go . . . I am skiing! I lean a fraction too far forward. I am gaining speed and the barrier is getting closer–both men are now shouting at me. I remember that Zakopane means ‘buried’ in English. The dolmen aborts my plunge. I find myself dangling like a broken doll between his legs. Humiliation rides with us back to our Air BnB. That night–Christmas Eve–is when the storm blows in the upstairs window and out the power lines, my boyfriend begins to pack. The dream is dead. At first light we roll down the icy street and out of town while Hel-net howls like a fractious child of global-warming, refusing to be quelled.