House of Day, House of Night

by Olga Tokarczuk

  branches - which one would hold his weight? The bird went on

  screaming inside him, let me out, set me free, I don't belong to

  you , l"m from somewhere else. At first Marek Marek thought it

  was a pigeon, the kind his father used to breed. He hated

  pigeons with their round, empty little eyes, their relentless

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  mincing steps, their skittish flight, always changing direction.

  Whenever there was nothing left in the house to eat his father

  would make him crawl into the pigeon loft and extract the silly,

  docile birds. He passed them to his father one by one, holding

  them in both hands as his father deftly wrung their necks. He

  hated their way of dying, too. They died like things, like objects.

  He hated his father just as much .

  But once, by the Frosts' pond, he had seen another kind of

  bird: it had hopped out at his feet and taken off heavily, rising

  above the bushes, soaring over the trees and the valley. It was

  large and black, with a red beak and long legs. It gave a piercing

  scream, and for a while the air went on rippling in i ts wake . So

  the bird inside him was a black stork, except that it had fettered

  red legs and lacerated wings. It screamed and fluuered. He would

  wake �p at night hearing this scream inside himself, a horrible,

  hellish scream. He sat up in bed terrified. Clearly he wouldn't fall

  asleep again until morning. H is pillow stank of damp and vomit.

  He got up to look for something to drink. Sometimes there were

  a few drops left at the bottom of yesterday's bottle, sometimes

  not. It was too early to go to the shop. It was too early to be alive,

  so he just walked from wall to wall, dying.

  When he was sober he could feel the bird in every part of his

  body, just beneath the skin. Sometimes he even thought he was

  the bird, and then they suffered together. Every thought that

  touched on the past or the doubtful future was painful. This

  pain made it impossible for Marek Marek to think anything

  through; he had to blur and dispel his thoughts to stop them

  having any meaning. If he thought about himself, and what he

  used to be like, it hurt. If he thought about what he was like

  now, it hurt even more. If he thought about what he would he

  like in the future, and what would become of him, the pain was

  unbearable. If he thought about his house, at once he saw t he

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  O l g a To k a r c z u k

  rotting beams that would come crashing down any day now. If

  he thought about the field, he remembered that he hadn't sown

  it. I f he thought about his father, he remembered that he had

  beaten him up. If he thought about his sister, he remembered

  that he had stolen money from her. If he thought of his beloved

  mare, he remembered how after sobering up he had found her

  dead with her newborn foal.

  But when he drank, it was better. Not because the bird drank

  with him. No, the bird never got drunk, it never slept. But Marek

  Marek's drunken body and drunken thoughts took no notice of

  the bird's struggles. So he had to drink.

  Once he tried to make himself some wine. Angrily he tore up

  the blackcurrant bushes - the garden was full of them - and with

  trembling hands threw them into a demijohn. He sacrificed

  some of his cash and bought sugar, then set up his concoction in

  the warmth of the attic. He was glad he would have his own

  wine, and that whenever he started to feel thirsty he'd be able to

  go up there, stick in a tube and drink straight from the demijohn. But without even realizing, he'd drunk it all up before it had fermented properly. He even chewed over the must. He had

  long since sold the television and the radio and the tape

  recorder. In any case he couldn't listen to anything - he always

  had the flutter of wings in his ears. He sold the wardrobe with

  the mirror, the rug, the harrows, his bicycle, his suit, the refrigerator, the icons of Christ wearing his crown of thorns and the Virgin Mary with the heart on the outside, the watering-can,

  the wheelbarrow, the sheaf-binder, the hay-tedder, the cart with

  rubber wheels, the plates, the pots and the hay - he even found

  a buyer for the manure. Then he went wandering about the

  ruins of the houses that had been abandoned by the Germans

  and discovered some stone troughs hidden in the grass. He sold

  them to a man who transported them to Germany. He would

  H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t

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  gladly have sold his tumbledown house to the devil, but he

  couldn't - it still belonged to h is father. H is best days were when

  by some miracle he had managed to save a little alcohol until

  morning, so that as soon as he woke up he could take a slug

  without even getting out of bed. It made him feel blissful, and he

  would try not to fall asleep and lose that state of mind. He would

  get up dizzily and sit on a bench in front of the house. Sooner or

  later Whatsisname always came by on his way to Nowa Ruda,

  pushing his bike. 'You stupid old tramp,' Marek Marek would

  say, raising a shaky hand in greeting. Whatsisname would

  bestow a toothless grin on him. The socks had been found. The

  wind had caught them and blown them into the grass.

  In November Whatsisname brought him a black puppy. There

  you go,' he said, 'no need for you to go on grieving for your

  mare, though she was a fine horse.' At first Marek Marek took the

  dog into the house, but it drove him mad by pissing on the Ooor.

  So he set up an old bathtub outside the house, turned it upside

  down and propped it up on two stones. He hammered a hook

  into the ground and tied the puppy to it by a chain. This was his

  ingenious makeshift kennel. To begin with the dog kept whining

  and howling, but eventually it got used to it. It wagged its tail at

  Marek Marek whenever he brought it some food. With the dog

  around he felt better somehow, and the bird inside him calmed

  down a bit. But then in December the snow fell and one night

  there was such a bad frost that the dog froze to death. He found

  it in the morning buried in snow. It looked like a bundle of rags.

  Marek Marek shoved it with his foot - it was completely stiff.

  H is sister invited him for Christmas Eve, hut he quarrelled

  with her immediately because she refused to ser'e vodka with the

  dinner. 'What sort of a Christmas Eve is it, for fucks sake, without vodka?' he said to his brother-in-law. He put his coat hack on and went out. People were already on their way to midnight

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  mass to make sure the}' got good seats. He hung about near the

  church, staring at the familiar faces in the darkness. He bumped

  into Whatsisname - even he was stumbling his way across the

  snow to the village. 'What a winter, eh ?' he said, smiling broadly

  and clapping Marek Marek on the shoulder. 'Get lost, you silly

  old fool,' replied Marek Marek. 'Yes, yes, quite,' said

  Whatsisname, nodding, and went into the church. People kept

  walking past Marek Marek, bowing to him coldly. In the vestib
ule

  they shook the snow off their shoes and went on inside. He lit a

  cigarette and heard the fluttering of tattered wings. Finally the

  bells began to ring, the congregation fell silent and the priest's

  voice rang out, distorted by a microphone. In the vestibule Marek

  Marek let the tips of his fingers skim the cold surface of the holy

  water, but he didn't cross himself. A fter a while the smell of

  steaming furs and festive overcoats dragged out from God knows

  where made him feel sick. Then he had an idea. He pushed his

  way back through the vestibule and went outside. The snow was

  falling hard, as if trying to cover up all the tracks. Marek Marek

  headed for the shop. On the way he stopped off at his sister's shed

  and took a pickaxe. He used it to break down the shop door, then

  stuffed his pockets with bottles of vodka, shoving them under his

  arms and down his trousers. He felt like laughing. They'll never

  bloody well catch me,' he said to himself and spent the whole

  night pouring vodka into the water tank by the stove. He threw

  the bottles into the well.

  It was the best holiday of his life. As soon as he felt the slightest bit sober he knelt down by the tank, turned the tap, opened his mouth and vodka poured down his throat straight from

  heaven.

  j ust after the holiday the thaw began; the snow turned into

  nasty rain and the world looked like a sodden grey mushroom. The vodka was finished, too. Marek Marek didn't get

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  2l

  out of bed. He felt cold and ached all over. He kept trying to

  think where he might find something to drink. He got it into

  his head that old Marta might have some wine. Her house

  was empty because she always went away for the winter. In his

  mi nd's eye he could see her kitchen with bottles of homemade wine standing under the table, although in fact he knew that old Marta never made any wine. But maybe this year she

  had, maybe she'd made some blackcurran t or plum wine and

  hidden it under the table. To hell with her, he thought, and

  tumbled out of bed. He walked shakily, because he hadn't

  eaten for several days and his head hurt, as if it was going to

  explode.

  The door was locked. He kicked it open . The hinges gave a

  nasty creak. Marek Marek felt sick. The kitchen looked as if old

  Marta had only left the day before. The table was covered with a

  checked oilcloth that reached to the floor. On it lay a large bread

  knife. Marek Marek quickly peered under the table and saw to

  his surprise that there was nothing there. He began rummaging

  in the cupboards. He looked in the stove, in the wood basket,

  and in the chest of drawers where the bed-linen lay neatly piled.

  Everything smelled of winter damp - of snow, wet wood and

  metal. He looked everywhere, feeling the mattress and eiderdown, even thrusting his hand into some old gumboots. He had a clear vision of Marta in the autumn , before she left, packing

  away bottles of home-made wine. But he didn't know where.

  'Stupid old bitch ,' he said and burst into tears. H e sat at the

  table with his head in his hands, and his tears fell on the oilcloth, washing away some mouse droppings. He stared at the knife. When he left he propped the door shut with a wooden

  stake because he liked old Marta and didn't want the snow to get

  into her kitchen. That same day the police called on him. '\'c

  know it was you, anyway,' they said, adding that they'd he hack

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  O l g a To k a rc z u k

  Marek Marek lay down again. He felt cold, but he knew he

  wouldn't be able to keep hold of a hatchet for long enough to

  chop firewood. The bird was fluttering inside him, and the fluttering was making his body shiver.

  Dusk fell suddenly, as if someone had put out the light outside. Freezing rain struck against the window-panes in steady waves. If only I had a television, thought Marek Marek, as he lay

  on his back, unable to sleep. Several times in the night he got up

  and drank water from a bucket; it was cold and horrible. His

  body kept turning it into tears, which had started flowing that

  evening and went on till morning, filling his ears and tickling his

  neck. At daybreak he fell asleep for a while, but his first thought

  on waking was that there was no more vodka in the water tank.

  He got up and peed into a pot. He started looking in the

  drawers for some string. When he couldn't find any he tore

  down an old faded curtain and pulled out the cable it had been

  hanging from. Through the window he saw Whatsisname pushing his bike to Nowa Ruda. Suddenly Marek Marek felt blissful; the rain had finally stopped and grey winter light was pouring in

  through all the windows. The bird had gone quiet, too; maybe i t

  was already dead. Marek Marek made a noose out of the cable

  and tied it to a hook by the door on which his mother used to

  hang frying-pans. He felt like a smoke and started looking for a

  cigarette. He could hear the rustle of every scrap of paper, the

  creaking of the floor, and the pitter-pat on the floorboards when

  he spilled some pills. He couldn't find a cigarette, so he went

  straight up to the hook, placed the noose around his neck and

  slumped to the floor. He felt a massive pain in the back of his

  neck. Briefly the cable grew tighter, then it slackened and slipped

  off the hook. Marek Marek fell to the ground, not realizing what

  had happened. Pain radiated throughout his body and the bird

  began to scream again. 'I've lived like a pig and I'll die like a pig,'

  H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t 23

  said Marek Marek out loud, and in the empty house it sounded

  like a challenge. His hands were shaking as he tied the cable to

  the hook again. He knotted it, tangled and twisted it. The noose

  was now much higher than before, not so high that he needed a

  chair, but not so low that he could sit down . He placed the

  noose over h is head, swayed backwards and forwards on his

  heels for a moment, and then suddenly threw himself to the

  ground. This time the pain was so great it made his head spin.

  His mouth gasped for air, and his legs scrabbled helplessly for

  support, though that wasn't what he wanted. He struggled,

  amazed at what was happening, until all of a sudden he was

  seized with such great terror that he wet himself. He looked

  down at his feet in their threadbare socks, kicking out and slithering in pools of urine. I'll do it tomorrow, he thought hopefully, but he could no longer find any support for his body. He threw

  himself forward again and tried to prop himself up on his hands,

  but just then he heard a crash in his head; a bang, a shot, an

  explosion. He tried to clutch at the wall, but his hand just left a

  wet, dirty mark. Then he stopped moving, because he still hoped

  that everything bad would pass by without noticing him. H e

  glued h i s eyes t o the window a n d a vague, fading thought

  occurred to him: that Whatsisname would come back. Then the

  bright rectangle of the window disappeared.

  D r e a m s

  Last year I placed an announcement in the Lower Silesian

  Exchange saying that I collect dreams, but I soon went off the

&nbs
p; idea, because people tried to sell them to me. 'Let's agree a price,'

  they wrote. 'How about twenty zlotys per dream? That's a fair

  price.' So I gave up; I would have gone bank rupt on other

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  O l g a To k arc z u k

  people's dreams. I would have been afraid that they'd made them

  up for the money. Dreams by their very nature have nothing to

  do with money.

  But I did find a website where people record their dreams

  voluntarily, for free. Each morning new items appear there, in

  various languages. People record their dreams for others all

  over the world, for reasons that aren't really clear to me. Maybe

  the desire to relate your own dreams is as strong as hunger,

  stronger even, for people who switch on the computer as soon

  as they wake up, before they've had breakfast, and write, 'Last

  night I dreamed . . .' Soon I too plucked up the courage and

  added, to start with, a small, quite trivial dream. This was my

  passport to reading all those other people's dreams. I soon got

  into the habit of opening up new worlds on the computer each

  morning - in winter when it was still dark and the coffee was

  percolating in4the kitchen; and in summer when sunlight was

  pouring through the windows, the hall door was open on to

  the terrace, and the dogs were already back from touring their

  territory.

  If you do it regularly, if you carefully read dozens - hundreds, even - of other people's dreams every morning, it's easy to start seeing the similarities between them. I've been wondering for ages whether anyone else has noticed this too. There are nights when everyone seems to dream o f running away,

  nights of war, nights of babies being born, nights of dubious

  love-making. There are nights spent wandering in labyrinths in hotels, stations, student hostels, or the dreamers' own flats.

  Or nights spent opening doors, boxes, chests and cupboards.

  And there are nights full of travel, when the dreamers negotiate

  stations, airports, trains, motorways and roadside motels, lose

  suitcases, wait for tickets, and worry that they won't make their

  co nnections on time. Each morning you could string these

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  dreams together like beads and end up with a unique and beautiful necklace. Based on the most frequently recurring motifs, you could give the nights titles. 'The night of feeding the weak