by Frank Wynne
Slowly Bolesław turned his own twisted face towards his brother. Staś noticed that the right corner of his mouth kept dropping abruptly of its own accord. In the end he had to hold a hand to his face to get control of it. His teeth flashed between his lips.
‘So what am I up to here?’ Staś asked again waywardly, though he could feel the blood draining to his legs and had to sit down for a while. He was feeling weaker and weaker, and wanted the conversation over as soon as possible.
‘That trollop,’ uttered Bolesław throatily.
‘Don’t be so moralistic, you know perfectly well I haven’t taken an oath of chastity.’
‘Yes, but in my house.’
Stanisław laughed heartily. ‘What an extraordinary thing to say. What on earth do you think? Do you really think a young chap like me can stay celibate? What a daft idea!’
‘Well, what about me?’
‘What do I care how you manage? Do as you wish – I’ve had quite enough abstinence in the sanatoria, thank you.’
Bolesław seemed to relent, removed his hand from his face and took a few paces about the room. He stopped at Staś’s side. ‘It might do you harm.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. Don’t be so concerned – nothing can ever hurt me again.’
The scene appeared to be ending calmly. Staś was smiling almost amicably, but he didn’t yet feel strong enough to get up from his chair. He cast his brother an ironical glance. ‘You’ve been spying on us,’ he said.
This ironical glance was a mistake. Bolesław scowled again and suddenly started stamping his feet in the middle of the room in a fit of helpless rage. This stamping was answered by a powerful bolt of lightning that struck in the forest somewhere very close by; then an intensive onslaught of sheets of rain laid siege to the windows. Staś stared in helpless amazement at the madman, who was glaring again and had started spouting incoherently.
‘You go gadding about, you’re always gadding about with her … you’re everywhere … at every turn … today … always … everywhere … today … by the pond …’
Staś was slowly getting a grip on himself, feeling ever greater disgust. He would long since have left the room and fled to his own if it weren’t for the strange heaviness he could feel so sharply in his legs, and which was still rising up his body. He looked at his brother with pity almost, quite unable to understand his state of mind. ‘There was no need to spy on us. Why should it bother you?’ he said.
‘Why should it bother me?’ exploded Bolesław, more coherently this time. ‘How could your behaviour not bother me? One day you tell me you’re dying, and next thing you’re running after trollops night and day, every single day …’
‘Once and for all I’m telling you it’s none of your business!’
‘Yes, but I know more than you do, I know things you don’t. I know things you wouldn’t even guess.’
Staś felt colder; he was gradually going numb and the thoughts that were flashing through his head were not comforting. Finally, by making a superhuman effort, he stood up and took a few steps towards the door of his own room. But his legs refused to obey him. He stopped and leaned against a small table by the door.
‘Wait, wait, I have to tell you what I saw this evening just before the storm. I saw her kissing Michał – more than kissing.’
Staś’s view of the world had gone hazy and he could no longer hear the intermittent thunderclaps; it had all fused together into one great crashing in his ears. With the greatest effort of willpower he spoke very calmly, separating each word with long pauses. Even to himself his voice sounded alien. ‘What – do – I – care – what – the – girl – gets – up to? She’s – not – my – wife – so let – her – kiss – Michał – if – she – wants.’
Bolesław clenched his fists in front of his face and staggered. That was the last thing Staś saw, as the lamp, jolted by his brother’s hand, fell suddenly to the floor and went out with a clatter.
‘Thank God it didn’t catch fire,’ said Staś normally. But at that moment a flash of lightning illuminated Bolesław’s face as he stood leaning against the wall. In the blaze of light he looked very pale. Staś noticed that he was holding a black object. Suddenly the strength came flooding back to him, and at a single bound he was beside his brother, had seized him by the hands and spread-eagled him against the wall. With all the fingers of his left hand he squeezed Bolesław’s wrist. ‘Let go,’ he hissed, ‘let go of it. You’ll be the one who’s sorry.’
The revolver fell noisily to the floor. Another flash of lightning illuminated both brothers, but by now they had let their muscles slacken and were slumped. Bolesław gripped Staś’s arm and whispered in his ear: ‘I saw them, you know – there was no one else at home, Janek’s in the forest, the old woman’s gone to the church fair, and Michał’s been waiting all day for her to get back from you, then she came, and it was already dark, so he lit a lamp, I saw them, I did!’
‘It’s not true,’ said Staś, suddenly falling into his brother’s tone of voice. ‘It’s not true, you can’t see anything from down below.’
Bolesław’s whisper was barely audible. ‘I climbed up,’ he said, ‘I climbed up a pine tree, you know, there are pines there, opposite the windows. I saw everything, clear as day, they didn’t put the light out …’
Staś pushed his brother away. ‘You spy. It really does bother you.’
He set off for his own door, but his legs turned to lead again. Once he had found the chair he sat down in the darkness, but the heaviness had passed higher up his body, to his heart and lungs, obstructing his breathing. He coughed and suddenly felt relieved, too much so, for his head felt light as a vacuum. He pressed his handkerchief to his lips, but it proved a poor defence as the blood poured through his fingers.
X
For the next few days Staś lay semi-conscious in his room with the windows shaded. Katarzyna and Ola looked after him, taking regular turns at feeding him ice-cream and taking his temperature. Meanwhile, in Bolesław something had snapped; he couldn’t even turn to face his brother’s room. Worse than that, he found it very hard to speak, and in reply to his daughter’s questions he emitted noises resembling animal grunts through tightly clenched teeth. On the first day he didn’t go to work at all, but sat without moving at a little table in his room. The daylight was reflected in his clear pupils, which had contracted like a cat’s eyes; he saw nothing and was aware of nothing. Twice he was sent for to come to the forest, but he didn’t go. Only in the afternoon did he drag himself from the hard stool; he didn’t touch the lunch left out for him, but went straight to the forest clearance. To the young forester who had been waiting so long for him he simply whispered, ‘My brother’s very ill,’ without further explanation. Nor would he have been able to say more, or maybe it really was the truth for him at that moment. He instinctively felt the seriousness of the illness as an excuse for the rage and impotence which, tangled up inside him, had so completely drained him of strength that he could hardly take a step. He sat on an excavated tree stump, told the forester to do as he wished, and with head hanging waited for evening to set in. He was greatly astonished at the humiliating acts he had so recently performed; he had always regarded himself as a noble sort and it was hard for him to take in the fact that he had actually sat in a pine tree opposite the lighted window of the servants’ quarters and with eyes wide open watched Malina and Michał making love.
He had wanted to climb that tree before, but it had seemed a bit inaccessible. However, that evening before the storm he had spotted some knots, which had got him up to the level of the window in a trice. He had been convulsed with fury ever since he had discovered Staś and Malwina’s love-making by the lake; in the blazing heat he had crept after them, keeping at a close distance because, confident and carefree as they were, they never looked round once. By squinting a bit, through the network of trees he could clearly see their slowly moving shapes – the tall, thin stooping figure of Staś, and Malwina’s yellow headscarf
. There they went, hiding among the grey tree trunks, sneaking about among the bushes and low forest undergrowth, while he went after them with a feeling in his heart which he had never felt before. He had gripped the revolver in his pocket, and that was when it first occurred to him that he might make use of it. Anyway, he thought now, it turns out one wouldn’t need a revolver to kill Staś.
His feelings when perched in the pine tree had not been so simple. He was watching not only his brother’s lover, but also Michał, towards whom he had lately developed some ill-defined feelings and strange suspicions. Of course he couldn’t, nor did he want to substantiate these suspicions, but he regarded him with a certain curiosity. In any case he couldn’t identify these feelings. They were like the storm, which had suddenly taken hold of the tree he was in and had bent it violently towards the ground.
Now he squeezed his eyes tight shut and kept repeating, ‘It’s terrible, terrible!’ These words, however, referred chiefly to the unlikely capacities that he had discovered in himself.
Three more days of relentless dread lay ahead of him. He couldn’t get enough of a grip on himself to issue a single word in a normal voice. The simple instructions he gave Katarzyna were squeezed out through his teeth with the greatest difficulty, and it was just as impossible to speak to the forester or the workmen. He kept his mouth clamped shut all the time, and as much as possible, his eyelids too.
On the third day he ran across Malwina in the forest. She was picking mushrooms, which had sprung up after the storm and were lurking under the bushes in great abundance. He was walking across a spinney, entirely divorced from his surroundings, when suddenly Malwina’s purple-and-white striped apron came into view. He stopped and stepped back abruptly, but she smiled placidly and invitingly. Without a word, she drew herself up among the hazel branches and was soon standing tall and slender. Then she showed him her basket full of milk-white mushrooms and said, ‘Look how many there are this year, sir.’
Bolesław had never seen her so close up, or on her own before. He kept staring at her straight nose, the perfect arch of her brows and her low forehead. She really was very beautiful. He went on staring at her in silence until finally she blushed and looked down at her basket of mushrooms.
‘They’ll be for supper tonight,’ she said. ‘Ola loves them.’
He saw the blush spread to her forehead, covering her entire face; he went on staring, until with an effort she turned her head away, not even looking at the mushrooms now. The simple country girl was embarrassed. She couldn’t bear that cold, relentless, cat-like stare.
Suddenly Bolesław spoke, but still with great difficulty, in a strangled voice. ‘Master Stanisław is very ill.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she replied, ‘Katarzyna told me. I don’t know, should I come and look after him?’ she added uncertainly.
At first Bolesław said nothing, then he spluttered out: ‘You cannot go on meeting.’
The blush turned a deep purple, she looked away and swung her basket feverishly.
‘There’s only Michał left now,’ Bolesław pitched in.
She bridled and gave him a hard look. ‘And what’s it to you, sir?’
She leaped up and started to make a run for it, but Bolesław didn’t want to let her go. He rushed after her, suddenly feeling the suppleness of his legs. He kept shouting, ‘Stop! Stop!’, but she was off, and ran headlong into a clearing, in the middle of which stood a single old pine. She leaned against it, breathing heavily and laughing open-mouthed, as far as the heavy breathing would let her.
‘Oh, I’m so silly,’ she said.
Bolesław, no less exhausted, stopped right beside her. He felt as if he should throw himself on top of her, throttle her and shut that trap of hers. But gradually his fury passed, and his breathing became regular; he stretched out his hand and touched her body. It was warm and silent in the forest. Then he leaned over and kissed her, and turning around suddenly walked off towards the work site at a calm, steady pace.
All his malice was gone; he spoke with ease, imparting some valuable instructions to the young forester, then sat on a stump, lit a cigarette and whistled softly. His eyes didn’t close tight, they just blinked a bit.
That same evening he called in at Staś’s room. It was the third day since the haemorrhage and Staś had recovered a little strength now, but he could hardly move and his pale white face remained impassive at the sight of his brother. It was already dark and the candles were burning. Bolesław walked about a bit by the piano. Staś took no notice of him. Bolesław wanted to keep moving, but he was arrested by the indifferent, aloof expression on the face lying on the pillows. The only thing apparent in Staś’s compressed lips was pain; that alone gave his face a semblance of life. The fact that his brother was suffering and wasn’t indifferent drew Bolesław to him with a sudden sense of communion. Neither of them spoke, and it seemed just as difficult for either of them to do so.
At last Staś raised his eyelids and gave his brother a dull stare, in which there was so much perspicacity that Bolesław looked away. It was a terrifying stare, lacklustre and final. Merely raising his deathly heavy eyelids was enough to make speech impossible. But Bolesław did feel capable of speaking; he thought it was the last time he would ever be able to talk to his brother on equal terms, his last chance to ask him some vital questions.
Resolutely he stepped up to the bed and put his hand on Stanisław’s prominent collarbone. Meanwhile Staś had looked away, closed his eyes and turned his stare inward; he was back to being lifeless and indifferent.
‘Do you know something about Basia? Something I don’t know?’ asked Bolesław quickly, keeping his hand where it was.
Staś raised his eyes again in pure amazement. ‘About Basia?’ he just managed to whisper.
‘Yes, because you said … you don’t have a wife, that a wife …’
‘How could I know anything about Basia?’ said Staś more confidently. ‘I just said that, because … that’s what one says, … because I don’t have a wife.’
For a while Bolesław went on standing over his brother, waiting for him to say more, but nothing happened. He leaned a touch further forward, but Staś was silent; finally he opened his eyes and said quietly: ‘Off you go now.’
Confused and distressed, Bolesław retreated to the door. Only from there did he see that under the piano, squeezed in against the wall and hidden behind the lyre-shaped pedal, sat Ola. Her blonde hair was sticking out like ears of corn around her little head, gleaming in the shadow of the instrument. Bolesław called to her, then felt shocked that she had been there all the time. But she calmly scrambled out from under the piano, clutching her inseparable doll. Bolesław took her by the hand and left the room, crossed the hall and went out onto the veranda. The evening was warm, damp and fragrant. Only now did he sense how very stuffy it was in Staś’s room, and how pervasive the sickly smell of illness.
They stepped down from the lighted veranda and into the night, into the darkness, which suddenly enveloped them. In the darkness they could sense the trees they were passing, and it also felt as if a gentle, joyful breath of earth were fanning them, cloaked in black but watching over them. They crossed the familiar road and for the first time in many days stood at Basia’s grave. Ola noticed that everything had changed greatly since they were last here. She no longer felt afraid, or bored – on the contrary, she enjoyed repeating the words after her father. Ever since Uncle Stanisław had arrived and told her so many important things the world had grown larger, and ever since Michał had been coming to play his accordion the world had grown beautiful.
Indeed, as they stood there among the birches they could hear the sound of his music nearby. Ola felt her father’s hand tremble, then he fell to his knees and she heard him weeping with all his heart.
XI
Staś found Bolesław’s question about Basia disturbing, though he had no wish, nor was he even able, to let it show. Having fallen into a weakened state of consciousness he just lay still,
calm and silent. All he could hear was a loud buzzing, as if a swarm of bees had built their honeycombs in the bedstead. For lack of shutters or curtains the windows were draped in large headscarves, and there he lay in the dark, conscious of nothing but his own pain. His entire intake of life had suddenly been arrested, and everything external had ceased to exist; suddenly left to himself Staś had realised he was nothing but a wretched scrap of humanity, not even fit for death. Everything he had ever done was a pointless hullabaloo, and now only one thing really mattered: how to conceal the pain and reach oblivion. It all reminded him of the piano which he used to play so loud.
On the fourth day of his illness the piano had in fact been taken away; its owner had died, her heirs wanted to realise their property as soon as possible, and without a word of warning, one fine morning they drove up in front of the lodge. Bolesław tried in vain to explain about his brother’s illness, but they didn’t want to know. He had to agree to give up the instrument. The porters brought the daylight into the sick man’s room; the scarves on the windows were lifted and Staś was surprised to see how fine and beautiful it was outside. Then Janek came in too, and all together they encircled the piano, mustered their strength and with a concerted effort lifted it into the air. Slowly they shifted the black box towards the door, tilted it upright and carried it out of Staś’s sight, like a large black coffin … ‘Mine won’t be that big,’ he thought. He was sorry to lose the piano. He had been feeling the urge to drag himself out of bed one of these days to strike up the Hawaiian song again, which might allow him to feel once again the staggering mass of all the things he would never see. It was easier to evoke that sea of things and to look down into the sweet abyss of the unknown to music. It made him feel a bit drunk, it made his head spin. But now, as he stared at the open door through which the piano had disappeared, he felt a flood of other things – the conclusive ending of everything that was not fear or pain.
