The Casualty

For young Marek Hlasko, 26, most gifted writer of Poland's restless postwar generation, life in West Berlin was a succession of binges. Ever since he refused to return to his Communist homeland (TIME, Oct. 20), he had been lionized in Berlin's literary salons. His blond good looks and his unpredictable James Dean moods made girls eager to comfort him. In a surge of euphoria, Hlasko would cry: "Writing is a wonderful occupation, almost as good as drinking!" Or, cryptically: "I can't dream about immortal fireflies, but I can fight for human freedom." Then depression would set in, and he would groan: "The devil -! I've lost Poland. Without Poland I go down. I've been thrown out; yet I love my country."

Time Barrier. The money he got from his West German-made movie, The Eighth Day of the Week, and from the sale of his books spilled from his pockets in expensive living and in generous loans. He had an affair of the heart with pretty Actress Sonja Ziemann, who had starred in his picture. But he said: "At first one believes in love. Then one crosses a border, a border of time. Then that belief, too, is lost." How long, someone asked, does it take to pass the time barrier? Hlasko answered cynically: "Five minutes."

His friends thought he would be safer in Munich than in Berlin. He enrolled for German and English lessons at the Munich Berlitz school (he speaks no English, and has barely one sentence of German, learned by rote: "The censor understands nothing of love."). A U.S. foundation arranged an American visit for him; the International Rescue Committee helped him get a visitor's visa. His movie was about to open in New York.

Loud Whistle. But things went wrong. Hlasko put in a long-distance call to his sick mother and sister in Warsaw. He reported to a friend: "My mother said she is afraid she will never see me again. What could I tell her?" He became bored with the language lessons and abandoned them. He became a dreaded guest at parties given by Polish emigres. At one he began whistling through his fingers like "a Warsaw hooligan." When another guest proved he could whistle louder, Marek furiously overturned the table, smashing liquor bottles and china. The U.S. foundation quietly backed off from so unstable a protege.

Abruptly, Marek Hlasko returned to West Berlin, reportedly approached the resident Polish military mission to ask about returning to Warsaw. After dropping out of sight for a lost weekend, he surfaced at Tempelhof airdrome with a flight ticket to Tel Aviv and an Israeli tourist visa good until March. Landing in Israel last week, unshaven and fatigued, Hlasko holed up in an obscure hotel for 24 hours before joining up with Jan Rojewski, an old Polish friend who now lives in an Israeli kibbutz.

Gulped Tranquilizer. Next day, obviously in deep inner conflict, Hlasko declared: "I will be here a month or so, and then I will go back to Poland. I won't write any more. I'll get a job." Gulping a tranquilizer, he went on: "A writer without his country is nothing. Whatever the consequences, I'm going back. Good or bad, it's my country. I don't know from experience what will happen to me. When it happens, then I will have the experience."

Some thought it possible that after a month's rest at the kibbutz, Hlasko might change his mind about returning to Poland. Actress Sonja Ziemann indignantly insisted he would never go back. But the consensus of Polish exiles in West Germany was that if brilliant, helpless, homeless Marek Hlasko does not go back to Poland this time, he will sooner or later.

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