A Love Story

When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you, yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you, believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams, 

As the north wind lays waste the garden.

—Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Part I: The Man Who Came To Dinner and Stayed for Almost 60 Years

This is a true story, though you may not believe it.  It began in Berkeley, CA, spring of 1958.  My ex-husband, Norwegian political scientist Christian Bay, who happened to be in Berkeley as a visiting professor, told me he might start “courting” me again.  I invited him to dinner.  He asked if he could bring someone.  I assumed he would bring Juanita, his live-in girlfriend.  I said, “Sure.”  But instead he brought Andrzej Brzeski, a Polish economist, whose talk about conditions in communist Poland he had recently heard.

André, as I called him, was much shorter than Christian, but much livelier.  He was blond and thin, moving like an athlete.  His little hazel-green eyes were twinkling.  He was smoking cigarettes constantly, and talking constantly.  A resonant, manly voice with a thick, Polish accent.  Christian had told him I was of Hungarian ancestry.  He said, “Poles don’t like their neighbors, but they like Hungarians!” I could tell that he liked me.

I was a wearing a simple, blue and white cotton dress, with an apron, since I was the cook.  I made chicken and polenta with tomato sauce, which they seemed to enjoy.  After the first course, Christian asked if he could bring Juanita to join us for dessert.  I said, “Sure.” 

When he was gone, I pulled out the lowest drawer of my chest of drawers and showed André my Siamese cat, nursing 6 tiny, squirming newborn kittens.  I picked up one of them, kissing and caressing it.  When I put it back in the drawer, André boldly put my arms around his neck and said, “Why don’t you caress me like that?”  We kissed and made love.  That was the beginning of a bonding that lasted almost 60 years. 

Part II: Three Days Too Soon

We lived together for 1½ years.  Every Wednesday night and every weekend he spent in my cottage, surrounded by tall Eucalyptus trees, with a view of Wildcat Mountain. 

He told me his mother died when he was 12 years old.  A great loss.  He escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto at 15.  The rest of his family: his father, younger sister, grandmother, aunt and the hunchbacked man who loved her all died in Auschwitz. Several of his boyhood friends also died during the war. “Survivor’s Guilt.”

As a homeless orphan he got several jobs in the countryside, pursued by the Gestapo.  He slept with a gun under his pillow for years.  He spent two years in a Soviet slave-labor camp located between Moscow and Leningrad.  He had been harassed and interrogated by the Polish Secret Police for several years.  They wanted to recruit him.  He was full of rage, which burst out frequently. 

He told me that he had a wife in Warsaw.  I found out later about the pretty, 6 year-old daughter.  He had a one-year fellowship from the Ford Foundation and a one-year visa, which he hoped to extend. He often woke up screaming.  He used to say, “Will you hide me under your bed if they come to get me?” (In the ‘50s such things actually happened.)  I said, “I won’t let them take you away from me.”  I asked my former therapist if I should buy a gun.  I was prepared to do so. André said he imagined me with a big, black beard and a flaming sword.  I thought that was very funny. 

It was a most unusual relationship, something like a wild roller coaster ride.  Moments of passionate lovemaking followed by his fierce verbal attacks, which had a devastating effect on me, a bipolar person.  Having lost my father at an early age, and having survived a broken marriage, I couldn’t bear to lose him.  We came from different worlds; different nationalities, different classes, different ways of perceiving things.  But we were bonded from the first day.

We were born in the same year, 1925, he in Warsaw, I in New York City.  We were 33 years old when we met.  After living together for 1½ years, I gave him an ultimatum; either we get married or we part.  I was finally ready to settle down and start a family.  He called his Polish wife, Jadwiga and told her.  She was crying.  Then he spent 6 lonely weeks in Reno, living there to qualify for a divorce. After working all week as Departmental Secretary in the Scandinavian Dept. at the university, I took a bus to Reno every other weekend, to be with him.  One day he called me and told me he felt as far away from Berkeley as from Warsaw.  I wrote to him, “If you want to go back to Warsaw, just go.  Don’t come to Berkeley to say good-bye.”  He immediately called and said, “You can’t get rid of me so easily.”  

October 3, 1959 was the date set for the civil ceremony in Reno.  We intended to drive back to Berkeley afterwards, to have the celebration. 

I invited my mother and stepfather from Pittsburgh, PA. and my aunt and uncle from NYC. My mother and my aunt came.  I also invited 20 of my best friends.  All of them, except Christian had warned me not to marry him because of his abusive outbursts.  My art teacher and my therapist also warned me not to marry him. Nevertheless, I ordered a 3-layer wedding cake, a photographer, lots of champagne and party food.  I was very happy.  

The night before we intended to drive to Reno, the phone rang.  It was André’s lawyer.  He said he hadn’t realized that October 3 was a holiday.  All offices would be closed.  We would have to get married on October 6.  I flew into a rage.  All of my preparations were in vain.  I could see Mother motioning to me to calm down.  I’m sure she feared that he would walk out on us and never be seen again.  Then I got my bright idea: we’ll have the reception anyway!  I had seen La Traviata often enough to know how to play Violetta.  Then we would get married afterwards.  Who cares?  We had been living together for a year and a half.  So that’s what we did and no one ever knew.  But I felt I would have preferred a quiet wedding in a Unitarian Church, presided over by a Unitarian minister, since I was brought up as a Unitarian.  When I said that to André just before we signed the papers in Reno, he said, “Forget it.  It’s too late for that.”  That night in bed I said to him, “If you were happy, I would be the happiest woman in the world.” He said, “Today was Jadwiga’s birthday.”  

Epilogue

Eventually we had a girl, Eva and a boy, Jan who turned out remarkably well in spite of the stormy environment in which they grew up.  

We travelled a lot. André belonged to 3 international organizations whose meetings we attended in Italy, Slovenia, London, Spain, South Africa, South America and elsewhere. We also visited Australia, India, Japan, Hong Kong and southeast Asia. I made albums of all those trips, which I hope will be of interest to our children and grandchildren. 

When we were 84 years old we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in Paris, Venice, Oslo and Davis. A big surprise party in Davis, organized by our daughter Eva.  

One afternoon just before André died we were having a rest in what used to be Eva’s room, then the “Computer Room”. We were lying close together in the big bed where we used to lie when Jan and his family visited us. (I gave them the whole upstairs) The bed was much more comfortable than the narrow hospital bed in the Sun Room, where I lay with him for a while after dinner every night, before going upstairs to what used to be our bedroom. We also had more privacy there than usual, with the door ajar, the caregiver seated some distance away.

He said, “Your beautiful little face! I love you now more than I ever did.” He kissed me. I said “I love you too.” Those were the last words he said to me before he died.