Cosmos

by Danuta Borchardt

  The emergence of the other through this house was importunate—and it was also sick, completely and terribly sick—but not only sick, it was also predatory—and I thought, it can’t be helped, let it be, this constellation, this form, this configuration and system cannot be overcome, one can neither break away nor work one’s way out of it, it’s all too much. It is. At this point I simply walked across the meadow, and Ludwik asked me for a razor blade—of course, you’re welcome to one!—and (I thought), it is insurmountable because any defense against it, any escape, entangles one all the more, just as if one were to fall into one of those traps where every movement ensnares you further . . . and, who knows, perhaps all this assailed me simply because I was defending myself against it, yes, who knows, perhaps I became overly frightened when Katasia’s lip attached itself in my mind to Lena, and this was the cause of the paroxysm, that first paroxysm that had seized me, and which was the beginning of it all . . . I wondered if my defense preceded the assault? . . . I wasn’t sure . . . In any case it was too late now, a polyp had formed along my perimeter, a falsity had arisen between us, and the more I tried to annihilate the polyp the more it asserted itself.

  The house ahead of us looked bitten by dusk, to its very core, weakened . . . and the valley was like a false chalice, a poisonous bouquet, filled with powerlessness, the sky was disappearing, curtains were being drawn, closing, resistance was rising, objects were refusing to join in, they were crawling into their burrows, disappearance, disintegration, finality—even though there was still some light—but one was affected by the malicious depravity of vision itself. I smiled because, I thought, darkness can be convenient, while not seeing one can approach, come closer, touch, enfold, embrace, and love to the point of madness, but I didn’t feel like it, I didn’t feel like doing anything, I had eczema, I was sick, nothing, nothing, just spit, spit into her mouth and nothing.

  I did not feel like it.

  “Look!”I heard the pig talking to her Dearest, her One-and-Only, quietly yet ardently (even though I didn’t look at them I was sure it had to do with the shades of purple on the horizon). “Look,” she said sincerely and sublimely with that mouth organ of hers, and right away I heard in a deep baritone, a sincere “I see.” So what about the priest? What about this priest with his paws?! What’s happening in that quarter?

  Near the house Fuks and Lukie challenged each other to a race to the front door.

  We went in. Roly-Poly was in the kitchen. Leon leapt out of the next room, holding a towel.

  “Ready, get set, mangium,* scrub me till I shine fiddle-dee-dee, hey mangium yum yum, no time to pee, let’s eat, hey ho, hey brother mountain men, give me a tart, gulp, gulp, old fart, O God, fill us up!”

  Ludwik asked once more for the razor blade—and then Leon nudged me, would I loan him my watch, he didn’t trust his. I gave it to him and asked why he was so keen on accuracy, and he whispered back, it must be to the minute! Ludwik returned a moment later and wanted me to also give him a piece of string, but I didn’t have any. I thought: a watch, a razor blade, a piece of string, one person after another asking for something, what is this, was there something brewing from that direction? . . . How many themes could be taking shape at the same time as my own, how many meanings maturing independently of mine—barely emerging, larval, or deformed, or disguised? And, for instance, what’s with the priest?

  The table was already partially set, the dusk crawling out of the house had deepened, it was night on the stairs, and yet up in our little room, where Fuks was combing his hair in front of a hand mirror propped against the window frame, there was still some light—nonetheless, the blackness of the forest on the mountain slopes, a couple of miles away, was crawling through the window, like a thief. The trees by the house rustled and a low breeze rose. “Well, it’s just too much, oh brother!”Fuks was meanwhile going on. “Their minds are made up, no doubt about it, you saw it, you have no idea what was happening during our walk, scandalous, but you could bust your gut laughing, whenever they set their sights on somebody, God have mercy, still, I must admit I’m not surprised . . . the worst of it is, that Venomie is so . . . so moved . . . please hold the mirror . . . actually I’m not surprised at Lulu’s behavior, the way Venomie treated herself to such a strapping fellow in exchange for her father’s money is a bit annoying, and on top of that for her to be going after someone else . . . It’s a little embarrassing for Lena, they are her guests after all, they are both her girlfriends, besides, she doesn’t know how to cope with it, she’s too quiet, and Ludwik is a total zero, a strange guy, I’d say the type to just go about his job, a neatly dressed functionary, how did he come by someone like Lena, that’s strange too, well, people choose each other by accident, that’s the devil of it, three little honeymoon couples, just let it go, can’t stop nastiness from developing, on the other hand, one must admit that too much too soon isn’t healthy, I’m not surprised that Lulu was in the mood for revenge . . . She caught Venomie with Lukie, you know . . . ”

  “What do you mean, caught her?”

  “I saw it with my own eyes. During breakfast. I bent down to pick up some matches, and I saw. He had his hand on his knee, while Venomie’s hand was right next to it, an inch away, in a position that wasn’t quite natural. The rest you can add up for yourself.”

  “You imagined it.”

  “It’s a fact! I have a nose for such things. Lulu must have guessed it too . . . I could tell by the expression on her face . . . So now, she and Lukie are both furious at her . . . ”

  I didn’t want to argue, it was too much for me, how could it be, and yet why not, could Venomie be like that, why couldn’t Venomie be like that, oh, surely if push came to shove a thousand reasons could be found to account for her being exactly like that . . . yet why couldn’t Fuks be mistaken, he must have imagined it . . . perhaps he was fabricating it for reasons unknown to me . . . I was sick, I was sick, I was sick. And I was afraid that hands were resonating and exerting their pressure, fear made my own hand contract. So many dangers! Meanwhile he chattered on, he was changing his shirt, sticking out his carroty head, he gabbed in his carroty way, the sky was sinking into nothing, and downstairs Leon “wifie feedie daddie,dee, dee!”I asked sharply.

  “And Drozdowski?”

  He became morose.

  “Hell! You’re reminding me, you bastard! As soon as I realize that in a few more days I’ll have that wretch Drozda in front of me, for eight hours, eight hours with that duffer, that man makes me puke, I don’t understand his talent for irritating me . . . if you could only see how he sticks out his leg . . . Puke! But what of it, carpe diem, it’s a righty riot, so snappy to it, as Leonum says, whatever fun there is, it’s mine, am I right or wrong?”

  From downstairs Roly-Poly’s voice “please come to the table, have a snack”—a wooden voice, even stony. The wall by the window that I had in front of me was, like all walls, quite varied . . . little veins and a round red dot, two scratches, a flake, little threads disappearing, not much, yet it was there, accumulated over the years and, sinking into this net, I asked Fuks about Katasia, I’m wondering what Katasia is up to and whether anything new has happened, what do you think? I listened intently to my own question . . .

  “Why should anything have happened there! Do you want to know what I think? In my opinion, nothing at all would have happened if we weren’t so bored during our holiday at the Wojtyses. The eyes of boredom, old buddy, are bigger than those of fear! When you’re bored, God only knows what you might imagine! Let’s go!”. . . It was almost black downstairs, but mostly cramped, the alcove was awkward, and on top of that, the table had to be in the corner because there were two benches recessed into the walls, some of the company were already getting settled there—giggling, of course, “it’s dark and cramped, just right for little honeymoon couples,” suddenly Roly-Poly brought two kerosene lamps, creating something like a sediment of light. After a moment, when one was placed on a shelf and the other on the cupboard, the l
ight improved, and as we sat around the table the slanting rays transformed our corporeality into gigantic beings, making it all fantastic, trembling clouds of enormous shadows brushed the wall, the radiance brought sharply to the surface segments of faces and torsos, all else vanished, the crowding and cramping intensified, it was a thicket, yes, it was thick and becoming thicker, and amidst hands, sleeve, necks expanding and becoming more powerful, everyone was reaching for the meat, vodka was being poured, and there loomed the possibility of a phantasmagoria with hippopotami. With mastodons. The lamps also brought out the thickening of the darkness outside, and its wildness. I sat next to Lulu, Lena was sitting between Venomie and Fuks, and farther away, on the other side, in a fantastic spectacle, heads were uniting, a branching of hands stretching to the platter merged on the wall. There was no lack of appetite, they helped themselves to ham, veal, roast beef, the mustard was circulating. I was hungry too, spit into the mouth though, spitting got in the way of my eating. And the honey. I was poisoned, along with my appetite. Venomie ecstatically allowed Tolek to serve her various salads, and I wracked my brains whether it was possible that she could be not only the way I thought of her but also as Fuks had said, this was not impossible, she could have been like that, with the organ of her mouth and with her ecstasy, because everything is always possible, and in the billions of possible causes there will always be justification for every combination, and the priest, what about the priest who said nothing, eating something or other as if it were merely noodles, or gruel, he ate listlessly, and the manner of feeding himself was like that of a poor peasant, meager and in some way crushed underfoot, like a bug (but I didn’t know, I didn’t know anything that well, I was looking at the ceiling), so what about the priest, was there something forming in that quarter? I was eating well enough, though with disgust, but it was I who was disgusting, not the veal, what a pity that by spoiling I spoiled things, I spoiled everything for myself . . . yet I wasn’t too worried, what could have worried me, being so distant? Leon also ate as if at a distance. He sat in a corner where the benches joined, his pince-nez protruded and glistened like two drops below the dome of his skull, his countenance hung over his plate, he cut the bread and ham into small pieces, and his procedure of impaling them on his fork began, lifting them to his mouth, shoving them in, savoring, chewing, and swallowing, it took a long time for him to be done with each morsel. Strange, he was silent, and that’s probably why hardly anyone else at the table said anything, they just tucked in. He gratified himself by eating. He masturbated by eating, which was rather tiresome, especially since Venomie’s satiating herself by the side of her cavalryman, though not similar, was similar (“gratify yourself with yourself ”), and besides her eating there was also the priest’s eating, chewing like a peasant, befouled by something. And “eating” was connected to “mouth,” and in spite of it all, “mouth” began anew, spit into the mouth, spit into the mouth . . . I was eating, even with appetite, but my appetite was a rather awful evidence that I had become at home with that spitting of mine, yet that terror did not terrify me, it was remote . . .

  I was eating the cold veal and the salad. Vodka.

  “The eleventh.”

  “The eleventh is on Tuesday.”

  “ . . . silver-plated fixtures underneath, not bad . . . ”

  “ . . . to the Red Cross, but they said . . . ”

  Chitchat. Miscellaneous words, here, there, “or little nuts, the salty ones,” “why not, have some and be done with it,” “the law moves on, relentlessly,” “whose?” “last night” . . . the thicket grew, and, I thought, the thicket is rolling on unceasingly, I was in a rolling swarm where something constantly surfaced, who could remember, grasp, so much, so much, from the very beginning, the iron bed, but the bed on which she lay with her legs was somehow missing, lost along the way, then farther on the cork, for instance, the little piece of cork in the dining room, the cork had also somehow disappeared, then the pounding, or Roly-Poly’s countess for instance, the chicken that Ludwik had mentioned, the ashtray with the mesh, or even the stairs, yes, the stairs, the little window, the chimney and the drainpipe, my God, the odds and ends under the whiffletree, and next to that, great God, the fork, the knife and the hand, and the hands, her hand, my hand, or ti-ri-ri, great God, Fuks, all that with Fuks, the sun for instance, through the hole in the window shade, or our moving, for instance, along the line of the broomstick, the little stakes, or our moving along the road in the sweltering heat, O God, O God, all the tiredness, the smells, finishing one’s tea . . . and how Roly-Poly was saying “my daughter,” O God, penetrating behind that root, I don’t know, the soap in Katasia’s little room, a piece of soap, or the kettle, her gaze withdrawing, mimosa-like, the wicker gate, the details on the gate with the lock, with the padlock, great God, merciful God, all that by the window, in the ivy, or switching the light off, for instance, then, in her room, the branches,my climbing down, or even the priest on the road, and those imaginary lines, those extensions, O God, O God, the suspended bird, Fuks taking off his shoes, and his interrogating us in the dining room, stupid, stupid, also our departure, the house with Katasia, or the porch and the doors that first time, the sweltering heat, and the fact that Ludwik worked in an office, or the position of the kitchen in relation to the house, a yellowish pebble, and the key to the little room, or the frog, what about the frog, where had it been mislaid, part of the damaged ceiling, and those ants, there, by the second tree, by the road, and the corner we went behind, O God, O God, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, there, the tree on the promontory, and that spot behind the cupboard, and my father, the troubles with my father, the wires of the hot fence, Kyrie eleison . . .

  Leon lifted a little salt to his mouth on his finger, placed it on his tongue, stuck out his tongue . . .

  “ . . . they were forced to keep brushing it away until they”. . . “the regions of the Bystrzyca River”. . . “on the second floor, actually”. . . a congestion of words like the congestion on the dirty wallpaper . . . on the ceiling . . .

  He finished eating and sat with his face fastened to his domed skull . . . that face as if suspended from the skull . . . They probably talked so much because he was silent. His silence was creating a gap.

  He pressed the salt with his finger so that it would stick, and he raised his finger—watched it—stuck out his tongue—touched the finger with his tongue—closed his mouth—savored it.

  Venomie was impaling slices of cucumber on a fork. She wasn’t saying anything.

  The priest, bent over, with his hands under the table. The cassock.

  Lena. Sits quietly, meanwhile a phase of minor activities came upon her, she straightened the napkin, moved a glass, brushed something off, pushed a glass toward Fuks and smiled.

  Lukie jumped up: “Wham!”

  Roly-Poly enters, she stood a moment, pudgy, looked at the table, returned to the kitchen.

  I’m noting facts. These facts and no others. Why these? I look at the wall. Little dots, eczema. Something is emerging, like a figure. No, the figure disappears, it’s disappeared, there is chaos and dirty excess, something about the priest, what’s happening with Fuks, the honey and Venomie, where is Ludwik (because Ludwik wasn’t here, he did not come to supper, I thought he was shaving, I was going to ask Lena, but I didn’t ask), what about the mountain folk who brought us here? Entanglement. What can one know? Suddenly, boom, it strikes me, just like it did there, outside, outdoors, the terrain with all its variations all the way to the mountains and farther, beyond the mountains, the highway winding in the night, painful, oppressive, why did I strangle the cat? Why did I strangle the cat?

  Leon lifted his eyelids and, though lost in thought, looked at me attentively, straining even—and reached for a glass of wine, raised it to his mouth.

  This labor of his, his attention, affected me too. I raised my glass to my mouth. I drank.

  His eyebrows twitched.

  I lowered my eyelids.

  “To our bachel
orhood!” “You monster, how dare you, what bachelorhood is there on a honeymoon!” “Alright, so to our ex-bachelorhood!” “Pour him something, let him drown his sorrows!” “Lukie, what are you up to!” “Lulu, what are you up to!”

  His pince-nez glistening under his skull, Leon stretched his finger, stuck a little salt on it, shoved it into his mouth—kept it in his mouth.

  Venomie raised her glass to her mouth.

  The priest emitted a rather strange, gurgling, sound. He moved. A small window . . . with a latch.

  I drank.

  His eyebrows twitched.

  I lowered my eyelids.

  “My dear Mr. Leon, why are you so pensive?”

  “My dear Mr. Leon, what are you thinking?”

  The Lulus. Then Roly-Poly asked:

  “Leon, what are you thinking?”

  She asked this fearfully, standing in the door to the kitchen, her hands by her side, she did not want to hide her terror, she asked as if she were injecting fear into us with a syringe, while I thought, I thought most deeply, most intensely, but without the slightest thought.