The pre-march gathering in front of the Collegium Novum, under the eyes of Copernicus, already told the story. More participants, far more than expected, showed up to walk in the sunlight and be seen. It was a quarter past four, Friday afternoon, and the Marsz Tolerancji, the march of tolerance, the first gay-lesbian march to take place in Cracow, was, in spite of all the forces working to prevent it, about to begin. Men and women arriving on the square, young for the most part, looked for familiar faces, found them, shook hands, embraced, took up placards and banners and waited anxiously, nervously, for half past four. Many of us, maybe all of us, were making a silent effort to overcome fear of one thing or another. On the sidelines, clusters of vociferous women, identifying themselves as Christian mothers, joined ranks with men, visibly agitated or drunk or both, men identifying themselves as normal, men and women both making an effort to chuckle naturally as they flung insults at the rapidly growing throng. The insults need no repeating, they've been heard often enough, seen often enough on the walls of public toilets. Aggressive as they were, these words were received with calm, or in a few cases with a laugh, but a laugh that was genuine - lack of wit, especially when it's loud, can be truly ludicrous. We made no attempt to exchange insult for insult. We countered mostly with, "Come and walk with us!" Those insulting us, with their forced insolence and swagger, appeared desperate, in a panic, losing their grip on something. But unlike many of us, none of the heated hecklers seemed to take hold of a hand for comfort or strength or even as a gesture of solidarity among themselves. Instead, they took hold of raw eggs, or stones, and waited for their chance.

The chance was not long in coming. Hardly had the procession got under way than the eggs came flying. It was only one egg at a time at first, and at irregular intervals, thrown by invisible hands from behind the front lines ("Where are the police?" you could hear people say); which meant that if you constantly looked up as you walked, you were likely to spot each egg in flight in time to dodge it. But we hadn't come here today to spend our time looking up at the sky. We were determined to look forward. So we marched, looking forward, and down came the eggs, one by one, some finding human targets, some not. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves on the many trees on either side of us, which made for an eerie contrast with the sporadic smashing of eggs on people and the pavement. And if there were so many trees on either side of us, trees for egg-flingers to hide behind (and trees to provide shadow for terrorized would-be marchers), it was because the march, orginally planned for city streets where you see lots of people and lots of people see you, had been transferred by the municipality to the green park-belt surrounding the city center, the "Planty", where strollers usually stroll and sparrows peck at breadcrumbs under benches. We were the ones strolling now, en masse, one and a half thousand of us, strolling-marching targets. If you got hit by an egg, there were a number of things you could think: "The bastard!" for example, "If only I could get my hands on him (or her)!" Or: "They may not realize it, but they're really throwing these at someone else." Or: "It just happened to land on me, mustn't take it personally." Or simply: "How degrading." This last one was the worst, because you knew it wasn't true, but it affected you nevertheless, and this was probably just what the person who flung the egg was counting on. So in your frustration you reverted to, "The bastard! If only I could..." which was also what the bastard was probably counting on. But that was just the point, that thought was precisely not the kind we had come here today to think.

At the Barbakan, a rather populous point roughly half-way along the route of the march, we came to a stop. Zealots up ahead had planted a holy cross in our path and were kneeling in demonstrative prayer. Suddenly catapulted into the Middle Ages, the mass of marchers simply had to stand and wait for their return to the century. You can't just go marching through, or even around, people kneeling in prayer, can you. So, with our rainbow banners fluttering in the breeze, we waited. And we waited. This tactical use of the Crucifix and the knees on the part of politically organized opponents very effectively made a cheap hocus-pocus out of something as noble and intimate as prayer, and the foreign television cameras certainly didn't miss the colourful "sequence", filmed live in the city of the Pope.

Someone eventually gave a signal, and again we were on our way. As our itinerary was in principle limited to the park space surrounding the Old Town, we hardly interfered with normal city traffic at all. Only occasionaly did we find ourselves crossing a street. At one such crossing, however (the name of the street is Dominikanska), a decision had to be made quickly: either we had to stop to let the tram go by, or the tram had to stop for us. It was the operator of the tram who made the decision, and he stopped. No sooner had he done so than from behind the tram appeared a group of rowdies (not skinheads, but loud), urging the driver to plow on ahead, right through the demonstrators, "Go ahead! Go ahead! Mow them down!!" they shouted, as they fanned the air with their arms. With so many people slowly crossing the tracks, and with this powerful, big, blue and white machine just waiting for the throttle to lunge forward, the image of what could possibly happen was enough to send chills down your spine. But under the circmstances the scene actually became funny, and many of us had to laugh. The boys were shouting, "Mow them down!!" but the tram, like a trained animal, wouldn't budge. The boys wanted blood, they said, but the machine wouldn't give it to them. Whatever the driver thought in his heart, the city tram was not going to give them satisfaction. That loaded image was no doubt what made us laugh so spontaneously with relief. What made the scene even lighter, brighter, despite the implied violence, was the impression that these shouting boys themselves found it funny. For a split second, you could see them laughing too at the uncooperative tram, a split second during which all of us, on both sides, were together.

Soon enough, though, we were pulled apart.

On the map, the historic center of Cracow is shaped roughly like an upside-down pear. At the very bottom is Wawel Hill, with the fortified royal castle and the cathedral looking down onto the city. On the Vistula side, at the foot of the wall, is the city's mascot: the dragon, that is, not the creature himself, but a bronze, fire-breathing likeness, guarding the entrance to his mysterious cave, the Smocza Jama. That point was the one chosen by the organizers of the march (the Kampania Przeciw Homofobii / Campaign Against Homophobia) to be our destination, the idea being, basically, to march all the way around the historic city and to end with an historic symbol. By about a quarter to six, we had reached the bottom of Grodzka Street, where we were at last within full view of the castle. But here, again, the movement came to a halt. A lot of whistling up ahead signalled trouble. Policemen, suddenly very visible, rushed forwards grabbing their truncheons. Elbowing your way through the crowd and standing on your toes, you could see what the problem was: there it was, right in front of us, you had almost managed to forget for a while that it even existed - the enemy. Nameless people, total strangers, individuals you'd probably be polite to in the shop, here mobilized, marshalled into a belligerent force by organizations that do have a name (the Liga Polskich Rodzin / League of Polish Families, and the Mlodziez Wszechpolska / All-Polish Youth especially), massed together and now facing you, you, whom they've never met or even heard of, waiting for their cue, waiting for their chance to attack, to attack you! Up to this point, on our peaceful march we had had to contend with isolated attempts to provoke us, attempts to discourage us, an egg here, an egg there. But this sudden appearance of a legion about three hundred strong, standing as a wall of defiance blocking our path, not only determined to stop us, but eager to get at us, a hostile mob separated from us only by a cordon of police in riot gear, this was something quite different. We hadn't come out today to use the word "enemy", but "the enemy" had created itself. Itself, not themselves. A thing. And that's just it: "the enemy" had made itself a thing. Now, overshadowed by this thing, the mood of the march changed radically. An immediate physical threat, and no longer an ideal, was now governing our thoughts and actions. Continue? Give up? Advance? Retreat? Suddenly there were nothing but questions, strategic questions, questions of safety that left little if any room for thoughts about tolerance or homosexual love. "The enemy" had made sure of that, and you, like everyone else, were now caught up in things that belong to a sad and violent world... but watch out! Eggs! Stones! Run! Take cover! Eggs! Stones! Eggs! Stones! A hail of eggs, stones and bottles, a hail of hatred in the shadow of the cathedral tower, only steps away from the crypt and Poland's poets and kings. In spite of our superior numbers, we depended now on the police for protection from this massive thing. And it has to be said that here, on what was threatening to become a real battleground, the police provided it quickly and effectively. The mob of "normal men" and their allies, the "Christian mothers", were eventually brought under control by the police, but they continued nevertheless to pelt us with words, in unison: "Faggots to the gas chambers! Faggots to the gas..." And this we were hearing in Poland.

The entrance to the dragon's cave was now just around the corner, but given the risks and what little was to be gained, there was no sense trying to force our way through the mob. After about twenty minutes of lingering and deliberation with the police, it was decided to call it a day, and the marchers peacefully dispersed.

If you read about it all in the papers the next day, you learnt that very soon afterwards, on the Main Market Square, some of the frustrated ruffians had it out with the police. You learnt that about 20 of them were arrested. You also learnt that one policeman got acid thrown in his face and had to be hospitalized. And finally, you learnt that the oganizers of the counter-demonstration, the mobilizers of the mob, were calling the day a victory for their cause.

The epilogue is brief. We, the marchers for tolerance and the freedom of choice, had come out in the sunlight, and we had come out in large numbers. We had marched peacefully and in good cheer around this beautiful city, all the way from Copernicus to the poets and the kings. Along the route there were not only egg-flingers, but also people who smiled and cheered us on. And if we didn't quite make it as far as the fire-breathing dragon, those last 100 meters or so can be saved for another occasion. For lovers, perhaps, gay, lesbian, hetero, who cares, just lovers, strolling - without fear - in the moonlight some night. Someday.

Shawn Bryan