“So what was I meant to do? Leave him in the field, stupid?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
When Kaytek wakes up again, he can feel them dressing him. The clothes feel unpleasant, hard. Kaytek tries to defend himself, pushing them away. He just wants to lie in peace.
“Come along now. You’re going back to your dad.”
“Ow, my head. Stop. That’s enough.”
They carry him outside. He’s on the move again.
At last he opens his eyes. He recognizes some tall houses. He recognizes a policeman.
“Where do you live? What’s your name?”
He tries to smile but he can’t.
They pick him up again. They fetch him off the cart. They carry him. Put him down. Undress and dress him again. That’s how these wizards torment you.
He has opened his eyes again. This time he can’t see a policeman or any houses, just a white room and a lady dressed in white.
“A witch?” wonders Kaytek.
“Yes, a witch.”
“White. Clean.”
“Yes. White. Clean. Go to sleep.”
“And are there dwarves?”
“Yes, there are. What’s your name?”
“I don’t know.”
He’s not called anything at all. It’s all the same to him. He’s lying in a white bed. It’s warm, it’s hot – and it’s all right.
He coughs.
“It hurts!”
“He’s more conscious now,” says the hospital nurse.
“So tell us, why did you run away from home?” asks the doctor.
Kaytek turns his back on them and covers his head with the quilt. He doesn’t like this man who keeps tapping him and listening through tubes.
“Tell us, what were you doing in a ditch at night? Did some wizard take you there?”
The doctor forces Kaytek to sit up.
And then suddenly his father comes into the room.
“Antek, what happened to you?”
Kaytek doesn’t know if he can really see his father, or if he’s just imagining it.
He doesn’t listen to their conversation. Thank goodness they’ve left him in peace.
“I’d rather take him home,” says his father. “He’s my only child. Is he seriously sick?”
And then he says: “I’ll take a cab and carry him carefully. I would be extremely grateful.”
The doctor says: “You say you take good care of him, but he ran away from home. He must have been up to mischief and was going to get a beating.”
“No, I never hit the child. Perhaps the other boys persuaded him. Did you run away, son?”
With a trembling hand, Kaytek strokes his father’s face.
“Water!”
He has a drink.
“Do you want to stay here?”
He doesn’t know how to answer. All he can think is why hasn’t his father shaved?
“Three days,” thinks Kaytek in amazement, and repeats in a whisper: “three days, three days.”
What does it all mean?
Who was found in a ditch? And who found him?
* * *
*Copernicus (1473–1543) was the founder of modern astronomy who first discovered that the Earth revolves around the sun. There is a famous statue of him in Warsaw holding a round device called an astrolabe, which is a model showing the relative positions of the planets in the sky.
**The Egyptian Dream Book is an ancient Egyptian text containing the interpretations of dreams. The Kabbalah is a philosophy concerned with the mystical side of Judaism.
Chapter Seven
Kaytek is well – A failed spell – A miracle – Some big spells – A fuss – The foreign guests – A special supplement
Kaytek is home now. He’s well. He’s already walking around the room. He has even been outside once by now.
His father is at work, his mom is doing the housework, and his grandma has gone to visit his uncle.
“Why has she gone? When will she be back?”
“She’s not coming back, Antek,” says Mom.
She hasn’t told him the truth – they didn’t want to upset him because he was weak after his illness.
Grandma has died.
“How, why did she die? What’ll happen now? Why did the doctor let her die?”
Kaytek has guessed that when they spent the whole night looking for him, and it was raining – that was when Grandma caught a bad cold.
“So it was because of me . . .”
“No. She’d been feeling ill for ages. She’d been in bed for a whole week. Don’t you remember, Antek?”
Mom is trying to console him. He remembers, now he remembers everything. He knows.
“It was because of me.”
He knows. He has remembered that he is a wizard. The month was over long ago.
He goes to stand by the window; why should Mom have to see his tears?
I demand . . . Lilliput . . . I demand: make Grandma appear to me.
At once he sees Grandma’s face on the window pane.
She’s smiling at Kaytek. She always used to smile like that whenever his dad got mad at him, whenever he got up to some major mischief. She’s smiling on the window pane, gazing at him gently with her gray eyes, and then she vanishes.
“I’ll bring Grandma back to life. Yes. This spell has to work.”
He’ll go to her grave, wake her up, and bring her home with him. They’ll be amazed. It’ll be a big surprise.
After all, there are cases where someone is asleep, and they think they’re dead. He’s just forgotten what that kind of deep sleep is called.
Sometimes miners survive being buried in a coal mine if they’re dug out in time. He read about it in the paper.
“Mommaaaa . . .”
“What?”
“I’m going to the cemetery.”
“All right. Don’t cry, Antek.”
“But I’m going now, right away.”
“That’s impossible. It’s too far. I haven’t the time now.”
“Well, exactly – I’m going by myself!”
“You don’t know where it is. And it’s too cold today.”
“I do know where it is. And it’s warm!”
“You can’t. I won’t let you. Tomorrow.”
“I’ll go without your permission! Today!”
And then Mom agrees because she knows Kaytek well. He’s not stubborn, he can be persuaded or begged not to do something. But sometimes, though rarely, you have to give in to him. Because that’s the way he is: he takes after his grandpa. There’s no alternative.
So – she gives him money for two trams and a scarf to go around his neck, and does up all his coat buttons.
She tells him where Grandma’s grave is. She does try again to stop him:
“You won’t find it. Better wait until tomorrow.”
“I’m off now.”
“Just come back quickly.”
He goes to the cemetery. There are graves and crosses.
Kaytek walks at a confident pace. He’s absolutely sure this is the right way. He passes some old avenues, and then he stops in the right place among the fresh graves.
He reads out the inscription on his grandma’s grave.
He stands there for a long time, staring with a penetrating gaze, reaching deep under the ground with his sight, all the way down to the coffin.
He takes a deep breath; he has felt a pain in his chest. Then it happens a second time, and a third, and there’s a roaring noise in his head. Then a fourth and a fifth time – he’s gasping for air and his heart is aching.
I want and I demand! I demand and I command: make Grandma wake up and come out of the grave!
Silence.
&
nbsp; A butterfly settles on a small flower, fanning its wings. The grass begins to ripple.
I demand by my wizardly power. I, Antek, Antek. I, Kaytek the Wizard.
Silence.
A cloud shields the sun, casting a shadow on the grave.
With a fierce thought he cries:
Make Grandma wake up!
Suddenly . . .
Suddenly an invisible hand slaps him twice in the face, on the right and left cheeks.
He’s swaying on the spot.
The butterfly has flown away.
There are red spots and circles before his eyes.
No one has ever hit Kaytek in the face before. It’s the first time.
He stands there feeling rebellious. He’s clenching his fists. That’s what usually happens when he starts fighting with some boy.
“Just you wait, I’ll pay you back for that!”
An old timer comes up to Kaytek.
“I can see you’re upset, my boy. You’re upset. Here, have a drink: this will give you strength.”
Kaytek reaches out, takes the silver cup the man is offering, and drinks from it.
It tastes good. The liquid is cool and sweet.
The old man fills the cup again.
“Have some more.”
He drinks it.
“Thank you. Here you are, Granddad.”
And he gives the old man a gold coin; he doesn’t even wonder how it ended up in his hand.
He doesn’t even look at the stranger’s face.
He bows his head toward the ground and walks fast, as if he’s in a hurry.
As he speeds along, his rage and rebellion are receding.
He feels a cheering warmth and a strange lightness inside him, as if he has risen into the air. And his heart is beating fast.
He passes the cemetery gate.
He starts walking home – he doesn’t take the tram.
He goes down the first, second, and then the third street.
It’s a narrow street.
There are two ladies walking in front of him. One has a case under her arm, and the other is wearing perfume. She’s holding a handkerchief to her face. Does she have a toothache, or what?
Kaytek wants to pass them, but one of them keeps pushing and obstructing him.
He grows impatient. He thinks: Make them go backward.
He barely has time to get out of the way, because instead of walking forward, now they’re going backward. Just like crabs. They haven’t turned around, they’re just moving their feet backward.
People are staring in amazement, but the women are chatting as if nothing has happened.
Have those dames gone crazy, or what?
“It’s the latest fashion. In Paris all the rich ladies walk like that,” jokes a cyclist.
But when they bump into a baker’s boy who’s carrying a tray of cakes on his head, he instantly hurls abuse at them: “You freaks, you oafs, you broads!”
Terrified, they flee for their lives – backward – to the other side of the street.
But there’s a car dashing down the middle of the road.
The driver tries to brake, but it’s too late.
“He’ll run them over!”
Kaytek thinks calmly: Change into an airplane . . .
He says it to the car.
And at once it flies into the air because it has grown wings.
The two ladies, the one with the case and the one holding the handkerchief to her face, have crashed into the wall of an apartment house and stopped. No one is looking at them now – they can stay there.
Everyone is craning their necks upward. The people in the car are screaming with fear like madmen.
But now the flying car has vanished behind the roof tops.
At once a policeman appears. And a man from the newspaper.
“What happened here? Who was run over?”
“No one was run over, it’s just some new American trick.”
Each person tells it differently. The man from the newspaper has taken out his pen and is writing.
“How did it start?”
“Oooh, it was those two ladies standing over there. They were walking backward. Over there, by the wall.”
There are more and more rubberneckers. They’re pushing and shoving. The policeman is trying to break it up, but he can’t cope.
“What a stupid crowd,” thinks Kaytek.
And walks on.
He stops at an advertising pillar* because he wants to see what is playing at the movies. And on the pillar there’s a big yellow poster saying a professor’s going to give a lecture.
“A lecture on politics and economics.”
“What’s that?”
Kaytek doesn’t know that a group of foreign visitors has come on a special trip to Warsaw. They’re rich guys, and they’re going to found a bank. They’re going to lend Poland some money.
The professor is going to talk in French especially for the foreign guests, so they won’t be afraid to lend the cash; there’s a financial crisis,** but Poland is rich and will pay back the loan one day.
“A lecture. What a waste of time. Politics and economics.”
Sometimes Kaytek likes words he doesn’t understand, and sometimes they annoy him.
“A lecture.” What a waste of time. Make it say:
Professor Pootle
Is going to tootle
On his flootle.
He’ll turn a cartwheel,
Swallow a sword,
Crow like a cockerel,
And dance the polka.
And it’s exactly as Kaytek has ordered – on all the advertising pillars in the whole city, all over Warsaw.
Kaytek feels like having something to eat.
He takes a cab to a fancy street. He gets out at a restaurant.
It’s an expensive restaurant, top class. Through the large shiny windows he can see tables covered with white cloths; there are flowers on the tables.
“Should I go in or not? How much does dinner here cost?” he thinks.
He reaches into his pocket – he has a hundred zlotys.
Good. He goes in.
By the door there’s a doorman in a red coat with gold buttons. And he won’t let him past.
“What do you want? What are you doing here?” he says.
“I’m hungry,” says Kaytek.
“You can’t beg in here.”
“I’m going to pay.”
“Get out, I tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because I say so. Or I’ll grab you by the scruff of the neck and throw you out.”
“All right, just you try to move,” says Kaytek.
The doorman tries to stretch out his hand – but he can’t. He tries to shout – but he can’t. He just rolls his eyes, as if he were choking. And Kaytek walks across the carpet into the dining room and sits at a table.
There are two gentlemen and a lady sitting at one of the tables. There is an officer at another one, and a lady and a boy in a sailor suit at a third. Finally, there is a jolly group of actors and actresses who perform at the theater.
Kaytek has sat down on his own and is looking at the actors, and they’re looking at him.
“What does that little scruff want in here?” one of them says.
“Wait, we’ll see in a moment,” says another.
“Look, he has muddy shoes.”
“And a dirty collar.”
“His nails haven’t been trimmed.”
Well, yes. Kaytek is poorly dressed, like a carpenter’s son. He got muddy at the cemetery. He doesn’t like cutting his nails.
He tucks his feet further under the chair; he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
“Waiter,” c
alls the actor, “there’s a new guest wanting to be served.”
“What kind of a guy is that? Who let him in? Get out of here at once.”
Everyone has stopped eating and they’re all staring in curiosity.
The doorman rushes up.
“I told him he wasn’t allowed in here,” he says to the waiter.
“But he still came inside. Can’t you deal with a small kid, you idiot?”
Then the boss arrives, the owner of the restaurant in person. He’s as fat as a barrel.
He bows to the officer: “Hello.”
He bows to the gentleman: “Good day, Your Excellency.”
Suddenly . . . he growls at Kaytek: “What do you think you’re doing?!”
“I’m having some dinner, please, that’s what. I have a hundred zlotys and I’ll pay for it.”
“Bravo! Well done, boy! He has a hundred zlotys. Don’t give in,” the actors egg him on.
“You bet I won’t.”
There’s going to be a fuss.
“Momma, let’s go. I’m scared,” says the little boy in the sailor suit, and starts to cry.
Kaytek sticks to his guns. “I want to eat,” he says. “I’ll pay. How much will it be?”
“You stole that money. Get out of here.”
“I stole it? Just you wait.”
“Call a policeman.”
Kaytek gets up. He mutters something. He stares.
Suddenly the windows open wide, and plates, knives, bottles, roast chickens, bowls, and tablecloths all start to fly away.
The waiters start reaching out to grab Kaytek.
Buuuuut . . .
Instead they fly up to the ceiling. Now they’re stuck to the ceiling by the hair and are waving their legs about as if they were dancing. So is the fat owner.
The actors have started to applaud in delight.
Kaytek commands: Make them stay there until I’ve gone.
Kaytek thinks bitterly:
“The saying ‘It’s not the clothes that make the man’ is a lie.”
He touches his clothes with a single finger, and at once there’s an elegant young fellow walking along the street.
He goes into a café. He drinks a cup of chocolate and eats four cakes.
He pays. He adds a tip.
He gets in another cab.
“To the Royal Park, please.”
Kaytek the Wizard Page 8
