Today, in spite of this controversy, the General’s public standing is better than the president’s brothers’! For years, opinion polls about whether the Poles believe his justification for martial law have been roughly split down the middle, suggesting that at least one half of Poland’s citizens accept it. They don’t think that it is necessary to put the General on trial. After all, although most Poles did not choose to live under Communism, they just went along and lived under Communism, accepting the military regime as reality. It is not in their interest to go back and wash their own dirty linen. The other half of Poles, however, would like to “purify” society of its Communist remnants. They prefer a fresh start, a sharp division between past and present, between totalitarianism and democracy. For such purists, Poland was divided into Communist supporters and the opposition, with nothing in between. To them, the trial of the General represents an act of revenge. “A traitor is not a victim of circumstances,” they say. But this is a moral statement, and it is not helpful with the trial. I personally would hesitate to belittle the possibility that the General was acting out of patriotism — but I might be prejudiced about him. Because I ask myself, Does the fact that he was a Communist exclude his patriotism? I think not.
“Down with the enemy!” barks Napoleon incongruently when I — out of sheer pity — tell him about the pros and cons of the trial. Sometimes, as an intellectual, I do feel the responsibility of keeping him informed. But what can such a poor creature think when I ask him, Who are them? except that I am showing off.
The truth about the General is that he did indeed proclaim martial law on December 13, 1981. The truth is that, as a consequence, the Solidarity movement was banned, its members were persecuted and jailed, censorship was introduced, freedom suspended, and fifty-six people were killed in the year that followed — that is all true. The General does not dispute any of this. The truth is also that in his political career, he made other wrong decisions that inflicted pain upon the Poles. Even when he was not acting on his own but as a member of the ruling political elite — for example, when dispatching Polish troops to Prague in 1968 as part of the Warsaw Pact invasion. Or when there was the shooting in Gdansk in 1970 in which forty-four protesters were killed. The truth is that he was a political leader who had accumulated too many functions (prime minister, minister of defense, president, head of the Military Council of National Salvation), logically leading him to assume dictatorial power.
I understand all this. Maybe this is the moment to stress again that I am sentimental, that I would like to defend the General. However, while I am on his side in my heart, I try to keep a clear head: I don’t want to defend him from the truth — blind faith is his dog’s defining trait, not mine.
Sir, before I take you any further, you should bear in mind my special position. I have a chance to observe the General from a very privileged perspective, being the one who sits in his lap most often. Napoleon is too big. And, thank God, we don’t keep horses in the house yet, except in pictures. So, he caresses me. He speaks to me. He trusts me, I would say. You see, I am small and elegant, and I try not to be obtrusive. Sometimes I purr, just to make him feel good. Usually I simply sit there quietly in order to watch and listen. Like any “real” psychiatrist would.
He is bony, and to sit in his lap is not very comfortable, to say the least. But boy, is he warm, and that counts for a lot when you are not so young yourself. And he strokes me, which I found out is good for my back. He does it somewhat absentmindedly, because he does it while he reads, and he reads a lot, or listens to the news on the radio — he almost never watches TV — in his small studio on the first floor of the house. I let him do it — I mean, rub me and read at the same time. You can’t take away all the fun from an old man, now can you? It wouldn’t be nice of me. Meanwhile, I ponder subjects of my interest.
My real interest is not politics, it’s psychology. Being, well, a semiprofessional, in human terms, I don’t judge people. You may think that I need to study the psyche of the General because I depend upon his will. Or because I need to know my enemy. I would not go that far; the General is a good cat-keeper. He does not taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects, as other humans do. I get far better treatment than Napoleon, who is extremely jealous of my privileged position, grumbling stupidly that it is not fair. As if life were fair! In return, I listen and try to understand the General. I also try to understand humans as such, with their strengths and weaknesses. I am essentially fond of your kind of primate! I find you as a species interesting, often puzzling, mostly not very intelligent — but worth observing. You perhaps do not fully trust the observations of a feline psychiatrist without adequate formal education? But please consider that I am in a position to closely scrutinize how human beings behave for the simple reason that I do nothing but observe them full-time.
Now, I am well aware that you might harbor a certain suspicion that I am subjective, i.e., prejudiced in favor of my keeper. But let me assure you that my subjective feelings do not stand in the way of my professional findings about the said human being. On the contrary, I treat him like any other patient of mine, like, for example, his wife (a very nice lady, loved by her students!) and his darling only daughter. The pet daughter! Yet, there is no competition between the two of us — she has far too little time and patience for the old man. No, I am certainly able to keep the necessary distance between the object of my study and myself. In fact, the General doesn’t even know that I am writing this letter. I had to do it behind his back, because he would strongly disapprove of it, maybe even scold me. I only worry that Napoleon, in his simplicity, might bark something to him. But he barks pretty incomprehensibly, and the General is a bit deaf, so I am not really nervous about it.
Please allow me to make a digression here. I am afraid that I have to use this opportunity to make you aware of an injustice in your domain. I am convinced that I qualify as a character witness at the General’s trial. I personally volunteered to tell the court that he is a good man. I have sent enough obvious signs of my intention. I also sent a letter to the judge. Believe it or not, the response I received was rejection on the grounds of my species! A judge of the criminal court rejected me as a character witness with these words: “We hereby inform you that, as a rule, our court does not accept witnesses of alien origin.” First and foremost, I am not an “alien.” E.T. is an alien. I am a cat! Disregarding this display of ignorance on the part of the said judge, where does your law make this stipulation? He did not even bother to cite the clause that would forbid me to testify, a grave mistake for someone who is responsible for the law.
I ask you now, Sir, who is really harboring prejudices here, not to use the word discrimination or even racism for the view expressed by the judge? Should I have responded by demonstrating exactly the same kind of prejudice toward your own species and saying that he is only a primate!? I do have my feline pride, you know (although, as I mentioned before, some call it arrogance)! If this judge of yours were a true Polish gentleman in the first place, he would never have allowed himself to offend a lady.
But let us put this distasteful issue aside. After all, I am not the subject of this letter. I feel that it is my duty to tell you more about the General. So, let me tell you now, if I may, about the crucial moment in the General’s life, about the moment of his decision of December 1981.