Kaytek the Wizard

by Janusz Korczak

  Kaytek has noticed the rose he once gave her, such a long time ago. The rose has withered, but she has kept it as a souvenir; it’s standing in a small vase on a shelf.

  “Yes, doggy. I wanted to be a teacher and spend my time with children, but now it’s just that I haven’t any choice. Nowadays I’m happy when it’s Sunday or a holiday; I don’t long to be at school anymore. Why should I make an effort if the children couldn’t care less? I’m sad about Kaytek, I liked him very much. I tried so hard to help him improve. But it’s not easy to improve a person. Yes, doggy, there was a time when I was happy, but these days I’m sad.”

  She holds Kaytek under the chin and presses her face against his head. He can tell she’s crying.

  But there’s an ancient wizard law which says:

  When a human changed into an animal by magic,

  drinks human tears of complaint against humans,

  he will be changed back into his human form.

  That law dates from the year 1233, so it’s seven hundred years old.*

  * * *

  *Kaytek the Wizard was originally published in 1933 in Poland.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kaytek changes into a willow tree –

  Among foreign races – At the bottom of the sea –

  At the North Pole – Be disciplined

  The ancient law says:

  When a human changed into an animal by magic,

  drinks human tears of complaint against humans,

  he will be changed back into his human form.

  Yes! As the teacher presses her face against Kaytek’s head and cries, he licks up her warm, salty tears of complaint against the children.

  And suddenly he feels as if his bones are breaking and bending inside him, he feels his veins stretching, his heart beating differently, his lungs breathing, and his skin bursting.

  He struggles, hunches up, leaps free, and jumps to the door, then pushes it open with his paws and runs into the hall.

  He races down the stairs and hides behind a fence.

  And his transformation has taken place.

  Kaytek is on human legs again. He feels wobbly, but now that he’s a person he has regained his magic powers.

  With his first command he satisfies his hunger.

  With his second command he recovers his Cap of Invisibility.

  With his third command he anxiously asks to know the fate of Zofia, his companion.

  I wish, I demand, I command!

  “Here I am!”

  And at once he sees a strange messenger from his fairy godmother, her secret envoy – it’s a real life dwarf, peeping out from behind the fence. He clumsily climbs onto a board, shakes his white beard, winks his left eye and says:

  “Zofia is waiting to be rescued, O Great Good Wizard.”

  “Why do you call me a good wizard?”

  “Not for yourself do you summon up favors.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will understand after the trial.”

  Oh yes. He still has the trial ahead of him.

  He has forgotten all about it, but the chief wizard’s trial still lies ahead of him, and Zofia too. No!Zofia will not go to trial.

  “I will go alone. I alone will be brought to trial.”

  And he gives his fourth command since regaining his powers.

  To Zofia’s home, in my seven-league boots and my Cap of Invisibility.

  No sooner has he spoken than Warsaw disappears from sight.

  In moments he has made the journey that cost him such an effort only a short time ago.

  He stands at the window of the familiar house and looks inside.

  He sees Zofia’s mother sitting in an armchair holding a newspaper in her hand, but she is not reading. He looks more closely and notices that her hair is turning gray.

  And there is Zofia, sitting on her mother’s lap, excitedly sniffing the air and pricking up her ears.

  She has recognized him.

  “Come on, doggy, off you run,” says her mom.

  Zofia jumps off her lap and runs to the door. Her mother opens it.

  “I’m here,” says Kaytek, full of emotion.

  “I know,” replies Zofia.

  “It’s me, Kaytek.”

  “I recognize you.”

  They walk along, Kaytek at a human pace, and Zofia taking small dog steps.

  They go through the garden, out the garden gate, and down the road across the field into the woods.

  They look around; there’s no one in sight, so Kaytek takes off his Cap of Invisibility.

  “Antek, how did this happen?”

  He strains his eyes to stare hard at Zofia, takes three deep breaths to clear his mind and lungs with forest air, and crosses his hands on his chest.

  Speaking slowly, clearly and solemnly, he repeats twice:

  O Fairy Godmother cursed by an evil spirit, by my secret powers and wizardly command I release you forever and ever from the order to stand trial. I alone will stand trial before the hostile forces. By my supreme indisputable right I guarantee you freedom and a permanent place at your mother’s side. No evil enchantment and no vengeful spell will have the power to change my order, my will and command.

  A dull thunderclap rings out.

  Wearily, Kaytek leans against a tree. Zofia looks at him anxiously and waits.

  Kaytek breathes in deeply, once, then again, and a third time. He clears his mind and lungs with forest air.

  Then he speaks: I demand and I command! By my might and power I decree. I call on the sun, the sea, and the mountains, on air, fire, and water to assist me. Return to human form! Become a person again! Return to human form!

  He closes his eyes. His lips have turned white. His arms drop to his sides.

  “You are a great wizard,” whispers Zofia and smiles, as she tidies her tousled hair.

  He has fulfilled his duty. He has freed her from the spell.

  Now he’s in a hurry.

  “Be well and happy,” he says.

  “Stay here. I’m frightened for you, Antek.”

  But Kaytek has already gone.

  Kaytek has written two letters.

  To his parents he wrote:

  My dearest darling Mom and Dad,

  You are sad. Although I wish I could come home, I don’t know if I can. Please be patient. I have suffered a lot. Happiness doesn’t come easily. Not everyone reaches his goal by a straight road free of danger. Forgive me, although it’s not my fault. I kiss your hands and I miss you.

  Antek

  And to the teacher he wrote:

  Please do not be mad at the dog who ran away so suddenly, and to whom you provided the greatest possible service that one person can provide to another. Please go on being good to the children. They are not to blame. You don’t know how much we want to improve and how hard it is for us. A person isn’t always master of his own deeds. And not everyone travels a quiet path to his goal. Our minds are full of trouble and we don’t always believe things can get any better. Please be patient.

  He addresses the envelopes, sticks on stamps, and tosses them in a mail box.

  “Either I’ll be victorious or I’ll die,” he thinks.

  There are three days left until his trial. He is running out of time.

  He’ll have to hurry to find out, but he longs to rest.

  Kaytek has his quiet corner among the bushes on the River Vistula. He has had it since way back when. That was where he used to go whenever he felt sad. Down there on the riverbank was where he learned to read, and it was where he first practiced his magic spells. He connects his love of the river with his love for Poland, his homeland.

  Children don’t only like running around. And the more of a scamp a child is, the more he longs for peace and quiet, though he
doesn’t even know it himself.

  So Kaytek has his corner among the bushes by the river where he tried to improve himself and start a new life, and where he used to think about the days when he was very little, because children have past memories and keepsakes too. It’s not just grown-ups and old people who remember past times.

  “When I was very little, when I wasn’t yet born . . .”

  So Kaytek goes to his quiet corner. He sits down on the sand and gazes at the water and the trees. It’s so quiet, so good to be here. The silence is so refreshing.

  He gazes – his eyes are open, but his mind is asleep; he’s so very tired. Because it really has been too much and too difficult . . .

  And suddenly he hears voices in the distance, and sees some boys approaching. He realizes it’s a school outing, and they’re coming this way. Any moment now they’ll accost him and start asking him questions. But he wants to be alone – he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.

  He glances at a clump of trees and remembers what the forester said: “To a timber merchant a tree is a commodity, not a living being.”

  Well, yes, a bush sprouts from a seed, it is nourished and it grows, it thirsts for food and water just like a person – and it also falls sick, grows old, and dies. Maybe it feels joy and suffers too?

  I wish, I demand . . .

  And Kaytek changes himself into a tree. What an amazing initiation into life on this earth he has achieved! His roots grow deep into the ground. Hard bark protects his outside. His arms lengthen and fork, and he is wrapped in a coat of green leaves. The wind gently rocks and strokes his branches.

  He breathes greenery and drinks cool water from the earth. And in a rustling whisper, his sister the willow tells him it’s good to be alive and to enjoy the world.

  The boys reach this spot. They’re running around, calling to each other.

  One of them stops next to Kaytek.

  “I’ll break off a stick for myself,” he says. And he seizes Kaytek by the branch, trying to bend and break it off.

  “That hurts!”

  The branch cracks and hangs helplessly. The boy yanks at the broken piece and rips it off.

  “That hurts a lot!”

  But the boy can’t understand the broken tree’s groaning, because it’s hard to interpret a plant’s complaints.

  But his friend says: “Leave that. Let’s keep going. You can find yourself a straighter stick than that one.”

  And they’re off. Their voices fade away. All that’s left behind is the damage to the injured tree.

  It hurts, and Kaytek feels ashamed. Hasn’t he done things like that in the past? He never thought about the fact that a tree hasn’t any legs to help it run away, or arms to defend itself, or teeth, horns, or claws. Any old coward can attack it. It is defenseless. Totally defenseless!

  Kaytek remembers how one time he threw a stone at a dog. And his pal Stefan said: “Don’t you think a dog is a person?” Stefan was trying to say that a dog has feelings, just like a person, that dogs and cats and frogs feel pain too.

  But what had Kaytek done? He told everyone in the yard and at school. They all laughed at Stefan and teased him, saying: “You’re the dog’s uncle!”

  Stefan had cried.

  “Crybaby!” they shouted.

  How thoughtless and cruel a person can be if he doesn’t stop to think. And if he realizes he’s in the wrong but doesn’t want to admit it.

  Some kids prefer to go everywhere with a pal. Not Kaytek – he’d rather be alone. He’s always been like that.

  He’s walking along the street, looking at something over here, stopping for a moment over there. He keeps seeing something new. One thing he understands, another he finds interesting, and yet another amazes him.

  He’s walking along slowly and aimlessly when he sees a policeman escorting a man he has arrested. The man’s face is pale and gloomy. They’re going to lock him up in jail.

  Kaytek remembers his own captivity in the wizard’s fortress. He knows what torture it is to be locked up for hour after miserable hour.

  In the past, Kaytek used to like watching arguments in the street and arrests. He liked to read about fights and robberies in the papers. He liked conversations about thieves and bandits. And adventure movies.

  In the past he felt curiosity, but now he feels sympathy.

  Sympathy!

  I wish and I command! I want to visit a prison.

  No sooner has he spoken than he’s walking down a gloomy corridor wearing his Cap of Invisibility. He makes a tour of the condemned men’s dismal cells.

  There are old guys and young guys. What about the poor children of these men who have been locked away for years on end? How are they to blame?

  “My dad’s doing time!”

  Kaytek knew a boy at school who wasn’t good or nice. But is that a surprise when, in every quarrel, at once the other kids said: “You’re the son of a thief! You’ll end up in handcuffs just like your dad!”

  There really is a lot of distress and disorder everywhere, among grown-ups and children too.

  A lot of distress and a lot of disorder.

  Kaytek has understood it and felt it.

  He leaves the jail, and breathes the air of freedom once again.

  He walks from one street to the next.

  Just then a siren starts to wail, and an ambulance comes speeding toward the hospital. Kaytek jumps onto the running board.

  The ambulance is taking an injured man to the hospital. It stops outside, and the paramedics carry the man in. A doctor examines him, and says they’ll have to do an operation.

  They take off the man’s blood-stained clothes and lay him on a wheeled stretcher. In his Cap of Invisibility, Kaytek goes into the operating theater and stands very close.

  They stick a needle into the injured man to give him an injection of medicine. They put a mask on his face and pour drops on it to make him go to sleep. They tell him to count: “One . . . two . . . three . . . four.”

  “That’s it, he’s asleep. Let’s get started.”

  The doctors wash their hands very thoroughly. They cover the injured man’s chest with a cloth, and then the surgeon cuts his skin with a scalpel. In a spot where blood appears, he clamps the bleeding with a pair of pincers. One young doctor helps him, while another passes them the instruments. No one says a word, but they can understand each other without talking. Each of them makes the right move at the right time. They cut and sew a live person while he sleeps.

  It’s not magic, it’s science.

  Still invisible, Kaytek goes into a hospital ward. There are two rows of beds. One patient is moaning, another starts coughing, and a third one is chattering.

  Suddenly Kaytek hears laughter in the corner by the wall. There’s a boy sitting on the bed, laughing and describing his accident.

  “. . . So after the tram ran me over, I started trying to get away, because I saw a policeman. I was so scared it didn’t hurt much. I would have high-tailed it out of there, but some people stopped me. They said: ‘Look, you idiot.’ And there was blood sloshing in my shoe, and my foot felt hot, though it didn’t hurt yet. It only hurt later, when they carried me into a store.”

  “You shouldn’t have tried jumping onto a moving tram.”

  “Yeah, I know. If Dad was alive, I wouldn’t have to be out selling newspapers. But what can I do when there are four of us at home, and the little ones are bawling because they’re hungry? I gave my mom two zlotys and just had a slice of bread and some soda water for myself because my throat was dry from shouting.”

  “Cold water’s not good for a warmed-up throat.”

  “I know. They were going to cut my foot off because the doctor said the wound wouldn’t heal because my shoe was dirty. But it did heal up. I’ve only lost two toes. It’s nothing.”

  Kaytek wanders t
hrough the hospital wards.

  “There’s a lot of distress and disorder in the world.”

  Suddenly he thinks: I want to see the world. I want to see the whole world. I want to know what there is on the earth, under the water, and in countries where there’s eternal ice and winter. I want to see the lives of Africans, cowboys, and the Chinese . . . I want to see it all.

  No sooner has he spoken than a whirlwind carries him away to the wild land of Africa.

  He sees tall palm trees, strange animals and birds, and people with black skin. They live in poor tents or mud huts and have miserable bits of junk for utensils and equipment. They have weird decorations in their ears and lips. When you study history, it’s incredible to think that white men lived just the same way as them, a long, long time ago.

  Next the whirlwind carries Kaytek to the ancient land of the Chinese. He remembers what he learned at school – these amazing people were printing books, producing glass and beautiful silk cloth when Europeans hadn’t yet learned to do anything.

  “Why did they let themselves be overtaken? Why have they fallen into slavery? Why are there so many lame people and beggars here?” thinks Kaytek. “Don’t they have any doctors? Why don’t their compatriots help them? Poland shouldn’t and mustn’t let itself get overtaken. People have to study and read books, they have to work and help each other, including the Chinese and the Africans.”

  Kaytek walks along the streets of a Chinese city, thinking hard.

  “I was a bad student. I wrote sloppily. My exercise books were a mess. I wasted so much time. I kept falling out with my classmates, I quarreled and had fights. I was a bad citizen.”

  I want to see what’s at the bottom of the sea! says Kaytek.

  No sooner has he spoken than he’s wearing a diver’s helmet and has weights attached to his feet as he plunges deep into the ocean.

  Through a green curtain of water he sees a whole new world, hidden from human sight. Startled fish dart away in all directions. On the sea bed lies the black wreck of a ship resting against a large rock. He sees the transparent veils of jellyfish, the tentacles of octopuses, snail shells, starfish, crabs, sponges, and corals.