On the Hill of Roses

by Stefan Grabinski

  ‘That evening, sitting here by the table, I haphazardly threw' a glance to the curtain - and I saw it... At first I thought it was a hallucination of an imagination continually focused on one scene. But, as the days went by, I became convinced otherwise; I became convinced that the shadows were actually reproducing the scene of the fratricide. The shadow on the left is faithfully depicting Zbigniew’s profile, while the shooter gives the most exact details of my younger son. That’s the way they both looked at that particular moment. Even Zbigniew’s falling motion, the way he convulsively grabbed at his heart - everything is reproduced with photographic exactness. A mad, unbelievable affair, yet true, horribly true

  The old man became silent again, and his sad eyes wandered about the curtain. Prompted by an irresistible urge, I asked:

  ‘This is indeed very puzzling. Have you ever observed anything like this before?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘So these objects were not throwing off shadows?’ ‘Of course they were, but the shadows were not arranged in that atrocious scene.’

  ‘They how do you explain this? You must have changed their position after that night, rearranged the furniture in the room?’

  ‘Not at all. I didn’t move them. To what purpose? I was so apathetic that I just sat mindlessly in this chair for hours upon hours.

  ‘No - I think, rather, that the changes in the arrangement of these objects, and their shadows, came precisely at that critical night, a portion at the very moment of the fratricide, another portion immediately

  afterwards. For when I examined certain pieces of furniture, I noticed damage that had not been there before. It seems that the first shot, the one that missed, when it went up broke one binder in the leg of that bronze spider, then cut out those strange zigzags on the side of the cupboard and knocked over that cardboard on top. From these effects, the newly created combination of shadows outlined the figure of the dead man. On the murderer’s silhouette were gathered the shadows of the articles hung up by his own hand after the execution of his act. I remember that when he was changing his clothes before he made his escape, he left his weapon, together with his shooting jacket, on the pegs of the coat rack. Everything has remained that way to this day. I haven’t even touched the rifle that he had used to kill his brother: it hangs to the side, as it did years ago...

  ‘And so the physical causes of this terrible vision are fully explained,’ he added timidly.

  ‘Yes,’ I reflected, ‘this is strange. Something of the

  kind can shake even the most balanced mind - a crazy affair

  ‘Perhaps now you’ll understand, my young man, why despite everything I don’t want to move these objects. I simply don’t have the courage. Some type of fear paralyses my hand when I stretch it out toward that aim. It’s as if one wanted to break a law of nature.’

  The old man raised himself laboriously, and straightening his withered figure, he added with madness in his eyes:

  ‘Listen! I’m afraid of some unexpected, dark vengeance should I change this image - I’m afraid of... damnation... I cannot change it, I don’t have the strength. I am connected with this picture till the end of my days. When evening falls something overpowering draws me to this room, some mysterious command forces me to light the lamp and stare at the tragedy of those final moments.

  ‘At time, forgetting myself, I instinctively stretch my hands out to Wladek, pleading with him not to kill his brother, and then, once again, I fall into my chair tired and exhausted, until sleep closes my heavy eyelids...’

  He finished. It was four in the morning. The lamp, making its last flicker, died out. The sinister shadows disappeared.

  I breathed out and opened the window. The deep-blue brightness of dawn started to quietly enter the room, the brisk scent of trees flowed in from the woods. Somewhere on branches, tiny birds fluttered dew off themselves and chirped morning complaints; the wind was waking up to the drudgeries of the day...

  I went over to Zrecki. In silence he gave me his hand. Strangely moved, I kissed it.

  Then he embraced me as he would a son, and laying his palm on my head, he began to whisper softly...

  At the Villa by the Sea

  Circular, airy cloudlets of smoke emerged leisurely from the lips that formed them, floating up in furrowed wavy rings to disappear into the azure background of the sky. The cigars were splendid. The delicately rolled leaves glowed fragrantly, letting out their rich, succulent contents. We smoked slowly, puffing away with the skill of connoisseurs. Richard Norski had first-class Havanas.

  Slightly sleepy from the lunch hour, I closed my eyes and with pleasure pushed myself backward into the arms of the rocking chair. I felt good and comfortable here.

  We were sitting on a marble terrace of a villa built high above the seashore. From here I could see the water was if it were in the palm of my hand. The lustrous, mosaic-ornamented terrace, upon which stood our little tables with black coffee, was on the same level as the wall that surrounded the villa.

  The sea slumbered. The unbroken emerald billows appeared dark, as if a compact mass not stirred by the wind. Once in a while, the expansive sea, in a lazy reflex, climbed up with a splashing caress to the coast and, washing the rocks of the shore, returned inertly to the seabed. At times winged fleet barges and plumed boats escaped from the prison of the nearby port and, waving their cochineal colours, they moved quickly through the gentle waves. At times a lithesome leisure yacht flitted by along the horizon to disappear in the distance, trailing after it a long cylinder of smoke.

  The port’s activity congealed in the scorching heat of the midday sun. The work on the docks stopped, the whistles died down, the albatrosses furled their wings of steam and stood anchored, silent and empty.

  Here, a weather-beaten sailor wandered onto a deck and, sitting down on the coil of lines, crooned the immortal ‘La Paloma’; there, a tugboat moved like a shadow among the black hulks and, taking a craft by a chain, disappeared into the depths of a terminal.

  Otherwise, somnolence and quiet. The midday hour.

  I turned my eyes, languid with sweet laziness, from the sea and they stopped at an area near the terrace. With pleasure, my eyes travelled about the silky chests of roses, they glided lightly over the colourful branches of magnolias, oranges. In my imagination my caressing hands roamed over the slender waists of thuja hedges.

  ‘It’s delightful at your place, Richard. You live like a king. I don’t want to move from here. Everything here is intoxicating and bewitching.’

  He smiled with satisfaction under his thin raven-black moustache.

  ‘You like it then? That’s good. In truth, it’s not a bad little place for the summer.’

  He spoke slowly, apparently as languorous from the heat after the lunch hour as I.

  I had been staying at his villa for a week already, getting together with him after not having seen him for a good many years. Richard Norski was my distant cousin and old school chum. After we completed secondary school, we parted ways. We resumed our relationship as mature men. By then, he was already a widower. Once, I knew' him very well. He was ambitious to the point of madness. In fits of jealousy he could be terrible. When one of our friends wrote about the spring season better than he, Richard struck him across the cheek and, from the duel that followed, wounded him grievously.

  Richard’s ambition in regard to his literary reputation was especially pronounced. Already on the school bench he dreamt about having the renown of a great writer. Did his aspirations have a rationale basis? I am not qualified to say. Apparently he was not without talent. Besides, I did not keep track of his progress in this area, taken up with my own profession. But from time to time I would hear from acquaintances that he was writing and publishing.

  Then he married into wealth and apparently happily.

  In her time Lady Roza Norski belonged to the beauties of the capital. The most eligible young men in the country vied for her favours. Norski captured her. Did she marry out of love
? No one knew Various stories were heard about a deep relationship she had with a certain poet, apparently an acquaintance of Norski, before she got married. Why she gave her hand to another is to this day a mystery to me. Perhaps that other one was too proud to take for a wife such a rich woman as this Roza of the Wrockis; perhaps she had been the one to decide the fate of the relationship.

  Matters unknown to me, and already a long time past. They say she was an eccentric woman and had her moments. She became Richard’s wife.

  The considerable wealth that she brought with her allowed Norski a life of luxury, without a care in the world.

  He travelled a lot, and spent his autumn and winter months always in the south. Upon her death, Lady Roza left him a son, Adam, and a great fortune.

  After fifteen years I found a man in the prime of his life, tall and burly. I liked him, and with pleasure I arrived to visit him for an extended period of time. We were connected by an appreciation of beauty and a refined style of life, and I was enticed by my high regard for his intelligence and the quality of his mind. Besides, he had been my friend in my younger days and was related to me. It is possible that something else drew me to his place, something I couldn’t explain, some type of force that exerted itself unconsciously from a distance, some special circumstance. I don’t know...

  He brought a cup of black coffee to his bright red lips, drank it half down, and then removed from a silver case a new cigar.

  ‘Where did Adam go?’ I asked, remembering the boy who a moment ago had been frolicking nosily about the lawn.

  ‘He must be somewhere around the arbour again.’

  And rising from his armchair, he called out rather sharply to his son.

  Almost at the same moment, from a side path, a thin ten-year-old boy with fair hair falling down in curls to his shoulders dashed in and stood on the steps of the terrace. The dark sad eyes of the child looked with a certain fear at his father’s face.

  ‘Where were you? Why are you always hiding about corners?'

  ‘I was in the arbour, father, reading a book.’

  ‘Why are you always looking around in there? I told you a thousand times that I want you to play here, in the sun. You are a naughty boy, Adam.’

  A shadow of sorrow dimmed the pale, nervous face of the lad. He silently kissed his father’s hand and withdrew inside the house.

  ‘I don’t understand why you forbid him to play in the arbour?’ I asked him after a brief silence. ‘The cooler there is very pleasant, particularly in light of today’s sweltering heat.’

  ‘I’m afraid that it may be too chilly for him in that area. There’s a hidden dampness in that comer. And, as you can see, he is rather sensitive to such things.’

  He talked quickly, avoiding my glance and seemingly displeased at my intervention. Noticing his annoyance, I didn’t press the matter further and changed the subject. We began to discuss literature, its newest currents and foreign influences. Richard perked up and enthusiastically acquainted me with his most recent literary acquisitions, not forgetting to mention his own work. Finally he asked me if I would like to hear some of his own writings. I consented with great enthusiasm. In a moment, he brought from inside a bundle of manuscripts and began to read from them.

  They wrere poems. In truth, I am not an authority on poetry, but once upon a time I did read a considerable amount of it and felt its effects quite deeply. Richard’s creations awoke within me a particular impression. The form was without fault. The perfect sestinas rolled smoothly, rhythmically. The content was predominantly reflective. A peculiar thing, however: It seemed to me that I had heard similar verses somewhere before.

  Richard’s poems seemed as if a continuation, a development of themes I was familiar with from somewhere else. They were not the same, but something like a stylistic continuation.

  Yes, I expected that the first poet would be someone I had read some time ago. Yet a fundamental difference existed between these two persons: That one, whose name I could not recollect at the moment, wrote with his heart, and it was from there that his lyrical reflections arose; Richard’s writings, how-ever, glittered like a diamond blade with a brilliance that was ice cold. From his poetry issued a polished coolness. A completely different person. But who was the other one?

  My desire to remember was so strong that despite myself I stopped paying attention to the poetry Richard was reading and focused my entire mind on remembering the name I had forgotten. Suddenly it flashed on the hazy screen of the past in red lettering: Stanislaw Prandota.

  Yes, it was he!

  The emergence of this name from murky forgetfulness shook me to the core, calling forth to my mind his untimely death.

  I was introduced to Prandota through Richard; it seems they were connected by friendly relations. Refined, full of high culture, the mind of this young man surprised me even then and indicated that a great future lay in store for him. He knew most wonderfully how to reconcile a propensity to philosophical reflection with deep, sincere emotion, which looked out from eyes filled with melancholy.

  The last time I saw him was at Richard’s, years ago, the day I was taking leave of my cousin. Afterwards, we never saw each other again. Within a month he had drowned during a storm at sea, aboard the Jasoltyi', a steamer heading to the coast of South America. His name had been placed at the top of the passengers’ list, left at the port by the captain of the ship. In truth, as the newspapers later reported, a couple of individuals did not turn up in time on the deck of the Jasoltyi, but their names were not reported. Regardless, from that time on no one had seen Prandota anywhere. The most obvious, nearly certain assumption was that he had drowned at sea during the storm. The newspapers were also of this mind.

  He died young, awakening universal sorrow among those who were able to discern the seed of an exceptional talent residing in his initial works.

  I myself do not know how it happened that Richard and I never shared even a word about his tragic death. After all, I should have heard from Richard not a few' things about Prandota, particularly as the latter had gotten aboard his ship at the port nearby after staying at Norski’s villa.

  Richard paused in reading his poetry, and taking advantage of this, I turned to him with the question:

  ‘When did you last see Prandota? Wasn’t it shortly before the Jasoltyi tragedy? Apparently he had boarded from the port here?’

  Norski tore his eyes violently from the manuscript and burrowed them into me with a peculiar expression. The question had apparently taken him by surprise, and at first he didn’t understand from whence it arose. But he got his bearings quickly and then strange, puzzling glimmers flashed along his marble-like face. What these wild lines undulating suddenly along his muscles meant, what respective emotions were underneath - it was difficult to tell. But this change lasted only a split second. With a great exertion of his will, he mastered himself and returned to his usual inscrutability, with the exception of a slight paleness that remained on his face.

  ‘Yes, your supposition is correct,’ he replied sadly. ‘In truth, he visited me before his departure aboard the Jasoltyi. He even

  He paused, as if considering if he should finish what he was about to say. But soon his hesitancy withdrew, and, almost defiantly, he answered:

  ‘He even - you won’t believe this - dropped in here for an hour before he boarded his ship. We both ate a light meal, after which I accompanied him to the port. Poor lad! The small sapphire-coloured kepi, which he wore with fanciful flair for the trip, suited his complexion so well.’

  His last words sounded a bit strange to me. What did a stylish kepi really have to do with Prandota? That is why I couldn’t repress from underlining the subject of our talk.

  ‘A lamentable loss. I am thoroughly convinced that from this good, bright-eyed lad an exceptional poet would have arisen one day. What sincerity, what depth of feeling!’

  In Richard’s eyes smouldered a yellow light.

  Noticing my observation of him, he closed
his eyes gently and, letting go of a thick puff of smoke, drawled out calmly:

  ‘That’s possible. It seems to me, however, that you are exaggerating. Though he was my comrade at heart, I never placed his talent that highly. He was a bit too sentimental. Would you like to go for a little walk along the beach before the sun sets? The hour is beautiful now'. We have some time before supper.’

  He finished smoking his cigar and, flicking ash

  from it, threw' the butt to the pearl interior of a shell.

  Though I was somewhat perturbed, I pretended nevertheless that everything was fine and with renewed energy I got up to leave with him.

  When, by evening, we returned to the house, he was in the best of humour and during supper he joked around with Adam. And yet I noticed that from time to time a fleeting shadow would pass across his handsome, manly face, and a couple of times I noticed his gaze resting on me with special attention.

  A couple of weeks went by since that afternoon.

  On the surface, nothing had changed between Richard and I. As before, I engaged in long talks with him, took strolls with him and boat rides on the sea. And yet both of us felt that something had come between us, that a shadow had fallen as a wedge and was separating us more and more. Sensing this, I felt it was proper for me to take my leave of him and depart the villa. If I didn’t do this then, it was probably due to a special connection I had with this person, who for a long time had been a mystery to me and difficult to figure out.

  And, apparently, my presence in the villa was a burden to him, though he tried to strenuously mask any trace of ill feeling. Yet I saw this well in the expression on his face, his glances, and in the talks he held in an affected and careful manner. In general, Norski had changed much these last couple of weeks. Frequently he would be lost in thought, to questions he responded unwillingly, and he continually avoided certain subjects. Since that aforementioned day we did not speak of Prandota at all. We also did not broach literary subjects whatsoever. When by chance I would turn the conversation to his forthcoming projects, he would deftly move over to matters loosely connected to literature, after which he would eagerly distance himself further and further from the sensitive subject.