On America, Airborne Taxis, and Events We Just Cannot Foresee

I wasn’t raised on the cult of America, nor did I ever feed on the American myth, although I understand and, in my own way, admire it. I know people who have landed on their feet across the pond, but also those whose American dream ended in a sudden and unpleasant awakening. That’s life.

Never have I considered America my place on the planet. And as much as I may be a frequent and eager visitor, after a time I am invariably pulled back to Poland.

 

America is like infinity, defined very imaginatively as a chest stuffed full of tissues, yet always capable of squeezing yet another one in. Much, if not everything, has been written about America, yet people keep writing about it, and will do so as long as this world keeps on turning. Some will write good things, others bad, with love or with hatred, with admiration or with fury. In all sorts of ways. As varied as America itself.

 

As for me, I too fancied snatching a part of that American sky. For myself and for those who were to fly in my air taxis. That’s how my friend and business partner and I referred to the small passenger planes intended to transport people, based on the principle that time is money.

Lawyers, physicians, artists – they all need to hop from one location to another as swiftly as possible. A lot of money is at stake in these professions, which naturally translates into time. My friend and I intended to make the lives of moneyed Americans a little easier.

 

The concept was excellent and, if the business failed, that was hardly due to the concept. Rather a case of unforeseeable circumstances. That’s how things turn sometimes, and you even need to factor in events conspiring against us, however infinitesimal the likelihood of their occurrence.

 

The granting of the licence dragged on and on. And so two years passed. Plenty of time. My partner and I had counted on tying up all the formalities within two, at most three, months. Not a chance.

Time played to our disadvantage. We were unaware that identical regulations apply to any aircraft, regardless of its size. There we were, waiting with the planes we had leased gathering dust in the hangars.

Then the crisis hit and everything began to change. Even the elite began to tighten their belts another notch, and all of a sudden no one needed air taxis any longer.

 

My American taxi adventure taught me one thing: I realised that I don’t know how to run a business from long distance. My business temperament requires me to be on the spot, seeing to every detail, watching the situation develop up close, and reacting immediately to any worrying symptoms.

 

The failure didn’t cast any shadow on the friendship with my aviation partner. After all, we had been on the same bandwagon that lost its wheels, and we’d both lost our money with them. But money is not everything, and in the hierarchy of values it should never hold the highest rank. Failures are an inalienable part of life. Together with successes, they are simply pieces of the same great jigsaw puzzle. The real art is to know how to pick yourself up from every failure, and learn from it. This, too, is a gain.

 

Years ago, I was doing – or perhaps trying to do – business with a Canadian. He kept pulling the wool over my eyes, cancelling meeting upon meeting. Plus he behaved like a schoolchild, always coming up with a new and ever more fantastical excuse for his failure to turn up to a lesson. Yet I kept in touch, hoping for some future business together. One day, we made an appointment in Warsaw. He was supposed to fly in from New York the following day, when, standing at the window, I picked up the phone.

“Janusz, I’m so sorry! I am so very sorry! I’m not coming, because the airport’s closed down! Airliners are flying into buildings! Can you imagine? Inconceivable! Into buildings!” This was too much. I was curious what his next excuse could be. I opted for alien abduction or a new civil war. But no! He wouldn’t make anything else up, as there wasn’t going to be another time!

Even as I got into my taxi, I was mumbling the most inventive wishes for the fate of my unreliable partner.

We were cruising through sun-drenched Warsaw. The driver turned on the radio. There was a surprising tremor to the speaker’s voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is 11 September 2001. We are interrupting our programme to bring you an important announcement…”

All I could do was to stare pensively through the window. I recalled images of the area, the WTC towers themselves, and the offices situated therein I had last visited but three months earlier. Warsaw’s skyscrapers reflected in one another’s great mirror walls, and the tree boughs bore their dusty municipal greenery. On the surface, everything seemed to be what it had been before. But it was at this point that the shape of the world was changing before our eyes.