Free Dobryd by Ann Charney

exquisitely made reproductions were being admired during the Sunday promenade.
    â€œSometimes during the Sunday walk, people would stop for refreshments in one of the several cafés along the way. The Café Imperiale was the most elegant and popular of these meeting places. The walls were of black marble, illuminated by bracketed candelabra. The tables were marble as well, and around them were armchairs of deep red velour. The adults usually ordered strong coffee which would arrive with a thick coating of cream. For the children there were delicate, chiffon-light pastries with cream fillings, and coloured ices. Everyone drank mineral water, which was always served with small crystal plates of fruit preserves. Dear God, just talking about it makes my mouth water.”
    My aunt stops. It is getting dark, but I guess that her eyes are filled with tears. I don’t press her to go on. I know that sooner or later she will return to the story on her own. She is as caught up in it as I am. We both sense it is best to break off before my mother and Yuri come home. Their disapproval spoils our pleasure and so we try to keep our pastime secret.
    Sometimes, however, my mother noticed that my aunt had been crying. She would be angry and scold both of us. She would take me aside and tell me that I mustn’t ask for stories constantly, that it wasn’t good for my aunt to live in the past so much. But I didn’t believe her. I knew how my aunt’s face changed when she told her stories. How young and proud and gay she looked for the time that the story lasted. The next day, when she started where we left off, we returned to the past with the urgency and pleasure derived from forbidden pastimes.

IV
    My aunt and I are seated in her kiosk. It is early in the morning and there are few customers. We have all the time in the world to continue the story of Dobryd. There is a small stove in the corner and we sit close to it for the warmth. Occasionally we fill our cups with tea from the kettle that we keep hot all day. When someone comes to visit my aunt, they will take my place next to her and I will run off to look for my friends. For the moment, however, we are alone together, separated from the rest of the marketplace by the images my aunt evokes for us.
    â€œI told you that Dobryd was never a dull or sleepy place. Whatever was happening in the big capitals sooner or later found its echo in Dobryd. Good and bad, it all came here. The young people of the town adopted ideas that were fashionable with young people everywhere at that time.
    â€œI remember when the anarchists were in the news in Vienna and Berlin; Dobryd too had its little band of zealous followers.
    â€œWho were they? Well, mostly they were idle young men, rebelling against their fathers by pretending to challenge all order. I remember they marched a lot and they carried a huge black flag. Occasionally they would get into fist-fights with the police, but mostly they were a nuisance rather than a serious menace. Once however, one of their pranks got out of hand. There was a bomb and some people were injured. It was written up in the Warsaw Gazette .
    â€œPsychoanalysis was becoming fashionable then as well. One of the town’s brightest young men went off to Vienna to study with the master. We all read about it. I understood little of what I read, and even that seemed highly outrageous to me, but I tended to side with those who were most enthusiastic. The students in Dobryd were divided into two groups: the followers of Freud and the followers of Marx. Of the two I preferred the first group, perhaps because your mother and her friends belonged to the other side. I found them humorless and very naive. In our group it seemed to me we were closer to reality and we enjoyed ourselves more. In any case, the ideas, the books were there and we brought to them the same passion that kept young people awake late into the night in all the large European