Ryszard Kapuscinski. Artur Domoslawski

      INTRODUCTION

      The Smile

      More than anything, one is struck by the smile. Always the same smile, everywhere, as if that face were never sad, worried or angry. And if it wasn’t smiling, it was pensive or focused instead. Or sheepish. ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’ he would ask whenever, whether unheralded or even if expected, he dropped in at the newspaper office and stopped by someone’s desk or room. And there was that smile again: apologetic, very slightly embarrassed. It was a defensive smile that kept the door open for retreat.

      How many times did I hear him effusively greet a friend he had known for half a century, a female acquaintance he saw from time to time, an editor with whom he needed to negotiate, or a student he’d never met before who had come to show him her dissertation on his work – and always with that same smile on his face?

      ‘Oh, how modest he is.’

      ‘He always listens so carefully to what you have to say.’

      ‘Oh yes, we’re friends.’

      Everyone who ever talked to him had the same impression.

      And so at the start of this journey through his life I am surprised when some of his old friends struggle to fish the anecdotes and situations from their memories, and finish their story before the story I am expecting to hear has even begun.

      ‘Oh God, we knew each other for decades, but I know so little about him – nothing really. How sad!’

      They came away from every encounter feeling that they had had a fascinating, unforgettable conversation. Now they are realising that they did all the talking. He said nothing – he just listened.

      ‘The smile you mentioned was a mask that became natural to him over the years,’ says an old friend who really did know him well. ‘Modesty? That was a mask too,’ she says. ‘There are various things you could say about him, but not that he was modest. He had a high opinion of himself – he believed he had things to say that other people have no idea about.’

      We agree that his mild manner and friendliness, the fact that he was not full of himself, were taken for modesty.

      I say I don’t know where to start my account of him; perhaps it will begin with some impressions on the theme of his smile. Because when someone has the same smile for everyone, it cannot be just friendliness – there has to be more to it, doesn’t she think?

      ‘He used that smile to disarm the world when it could have done him harm. Those soldiers, who let him pass through prohibited zones in Africa, but who could have shot him. The Communist Party decision-makers who sent him out into the world. The potentially jealous people, who are all too common in the journalist’s profession. Why not try to find out if he learned that smile during a war? Did that smile ever save his life?’

      ‘Right,’

Скачать книгу