I Went Home And Cried
Haresh Shah
Sitting across from me in a small windowless meeting room of the Holiday Inn in Warsaw is stunningly beautiful Beata Milewska. She is dressed in a conservative grey dress with the sharp U shaped neckline, trimmed with black satin ribbon. Underneath the geometric U are black brass buttons that run down to and below her breasts. Blonde, she wears fashionably shorter hair, reaching down just a little above her neck. Her eyes are sparking blue and smiles are amused but slight and measured. I guess her to be in her late twenties or the very early thirties.
Sitting next to her is Tomasz Raczek – supposedly to translate from English, but Beata herself is quite proficient in the language, so other than some whispered consulting, Tomasz is there more as an observer who would eventually be the editor-in-chief of the Polish edition. On my left is our Hungarian Publisher Deszo Futasz and on my right is Rolf Dolina, the man who has gotten us together in hopes that I would be positively impressed by Beata and her ability to gather a qualified team of professionals to create the Polish edition of Playboy.
After landing in still the old and the dilapidated Warsaw-Okecie Airport, as we drive into the city, I witness the remnants still of the city heavily bombed first by the German Luftwaffe in 1939, and then by the Russians in 1944 to quell the Warsaw Uprising. Both sides of the road are lined with the communist era’s drab and dark harsh apartment blocks. Making them further sinister is the shroud of the cold and the cloudy month of January. I cringe at the thought of the lives lived and of deaths and destruction and the dismay that still must permeate the day-to-day lives of its citizens. After all, it’s just little over a year since the fall of the Berlin wall.
Up until then, this is what I know about Beata. She is from Danzig – once the autonomous city state on the Baltic Sea, Gdańsk, nearby to the port of Gdynia . She is currently publishing a woman’s fashion magazine, Bea, in the image of Germany’s Burda Moden, named after its editor and publisher Aenne Burda – likewise she has named the magazine after herself. It speaks of her definite self confidence. Beata is publishing her magazine with very limited or no resources at all. Rolf has come to know of her through his regional manager Wlodzimierz Trzcinski. Beata had approached Wlodzimierz in hopes of selling ad pages to Fuji in her magazine. Instead, Fuji offers to supply all the films Bea needs in exchange of the byline that would say: shot on Fuji films. Not exactly what she is looking for, but the money she would save on films is still substantial – a sort of win-win situation. Rolf is impressed by this young, tenacious and hard working “businesswoman,” – as much as he is with her looks, smarts and sophistication.
The meeting proceeds well. With exception of the others present making their small contributions here and there – it’s basically Beata and me interacting while the rest look on. As we go through issues of Playboy page by page, me explaining and defining them, then throwing questions at Beata. She answers them with earnestness and precision. She seems not only to understand and know the nuts and bolts aspects of building a magazine from cover-to-cover, but also has a genuine feel for the product and its target audience. She has studied various editions of the magazine and has given serious thought to what kind of Playboy she would help create for her country.
As relaxed as the meeting seems, with Tomasz and I drinking beer and everyone else sipping on their coffees, the general air in the room is somewhat tense. Like that in an examination room. Me playing the part of a serious academician conducting orals to Beata’s doctoral candidate. While I am being my natural professional self as I a try to make important points, I am equally as aware of the fact how attractive the woman sitting across the table from me is. She exerts a certain aura that blends in well with her professionalism and very serious business woman demeanor. Her total attention to the every word I utter and her precise responses to my questions and the comments are refreshing. She has certainly done her homework. I can’t help but admire this young woman.
As much as we try to be discreet, frequent eye contacts are inevitable. Every time it happens, I see in her eyes a certain spark and a purple burst of light rays flashing across the table like from the old fashioned revolving flash cubes of the Kodak Instamatic camera. And yet, I know, and Beata is well aware that whether or not we would do Playboy with her hinges upon if I am impressed by her and her answers and have positively gauged her ability to pull it all together.
At the end of our meeting, that lasted a little over two hours, I feel drained. But I still have a long day ahead of me – a quick visit to Rolf’s Fuji operation in Warsaw. Have initial chat with the rep of another Polish prospect, Jerzy Mazur, who has flown in from Gdańsk. Rest of the day, I spend with Deszo and Rolf, have dinner with the Fuji crowd and by the time I return to my room late in the night, I am totally and positively wiped out.
As I hit the sack and think of the busy busy day and the people I have met, is when I realize how impressed I am with Beata. And how I am also taken by her overall beauty and the intelligence – what keeps flashing in my mind is the sparkles of her eyes and their penetrating gaze piercing through mine. As if we two were alone in that room shrouded in the darkness like that of the double apertured camera obscura with twin cones of lights rushing towards each other and colliding mid stream in a fusion. I suddenly feel spent by the undercurrent of the intensity of those two hours.
●●●
In Rolf’s opinion, Poland has the potential of being the bigger and the better market than already existing Hungary and soon to be launched Czechoslovakia. But we are in no hurry to move yet. This is January of 1991 and we have ahead of us the launch in Czechoslovakia. And Rolf’s focus is still to first strike an accord with the Czech license holder Vladimir Tichý. We have actually snuck out of Prague for a day just to get a feeling.
Now months later, smitten and encouraged by the success in Czechoslovakia, Rolf and I once again begin to talk Poland. In the meanwhile, on a quick visit to Gdynia in October with Rolf, I have a chance to see Beata again and meet her partner Tomasz Zięba, whom she would eventually marry. I feel quite comfortable with them. Once again, should we go with it, through his Autraco Holdings, Rolf would bankroll the edition. This time around, now I no longer remember, but believe at Rolf’s suggestion we discuss and for the first time Playboy agrees to go into a joint-venture with Autraco Holdings as one of the two major share holders – Beata and Tomasz would manage the company and would also become its minor shareholders. All the logistics in the place, we begin to work on creating the Polish edition.
Of all the editions I have been a part of launching, the early days are the fun most. There are no pretentions, no pressure. No real deadlines. Something I always insist upon – it’s a NO GO until we are well and ready. I want us to work simultaneously on three issues. Agree on the details and the definitions of the contents, assign the contributors, make dummies and then revise everything. Plan promotions and advertising campaigns, work on the launch details. This is the time when I excel in my role as the teacher and this is when the team is its most enthusiastic. This is when the adrenaline flows and the creativity takes place. This is when I am hardest on them. The suggestions turn into heavy discussions and the discussions into serious arguments. All work for the good of the magazine, because when we’re ready to launch, almost everyone is in sync. Nothing is more satisfying than the feeling that we have done the best that we could. We have created something we all could be equally as proud of.
This is when we all spend most of the time together, we bond or not, crowd the restaurants and taverns. Brain storm all the while. Still in the formative stage, we barely have proper offices. The publisher finds a space, a few desks and a couple of phone lines, a fax machine and we begin to buzz.
What they have found as our offices is a quaint single family row house on a quiet curved street away from the hubbub of the city center. The two story house is renovated with wood paneled sky lighted loft and exposed beams and the brick walls. The roof is red tiles. The admin offices are on the main floor and up above is editor-in-chief Tomasz Raczek’s office, which is where I am usually parked. Frequently joined by the celebrated artist and the art director Andrzej Pągowski. I love the cozy homey ambience. Once in a while I would climb downstairs and talk with Beata and Tomasz Zięba and their associates about the details of the launch.
Intense, and yet, they would be nice and easy days. The afternoon I still clearly remember as if it were only yesterday is when Beata and I are sitting at the edge of her desk, oblivious to the hurried steps crossing the hallway outside her office door, we are talking in whispers. Not exactly the business. And somewhere along the line we are holding hands, not unlike lovers. We have developed a special kind of rapport in which I wrote in my journal during one of those early days – we are becoming to be good friends – buddies if you may. Now she has longer hair that billow over and caress her shoulders. She is dressed in casual slacks and a loose fitting top. Her face wears her usual friendly and seductive smiles. Things are moving along fine and we’re relaxed – sitting side by side on the edge of her desk. We are reminiscing about that first time when we had sat across the table from each other at the Holiday Inn conference room, now a year and a half in the past.
‘Do you remember still?’ Beata asks.
‘How can I forget? I had immediately fallen in love with you, you know? I was so taken by how beautiful you were! And the blinding sparkle of your blue eyes! But I had to maintain my professional demeanor and concentrate on doing my job.’
‘While I was a nervous wreck.’
‘I know, it was tense. But nervous?’
‘And then your intense gaze! As if you were looking right through me. Your deep dark brown eyes, penetrating like two sharp arrows. It was difficult controlling myself.’
‘No!!!’
‘Yes.’ She responds. And then there is sudden silence between us.
‘I came home and cried!’ I hear her whisper.
© Haresh Shah 2015
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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Next Friday, February 27, 2015
ONCE BITTEN FOREVER SMITTEN
Yup! That’s the power of cuddly Bunny for you. A story of the young man’s falling in love with the idea of publishing Playboy in Poland, while having no clue what it really takes to create a magazine. But when you’re in love?
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Those Eyes..yes always in every ones life are those eyes to remember….and sometimes out of knowledge of the person, who has those eyes.
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