House of Day, House of Night

by Olga Tokarczuk

  the world from the Lutherans. He imagined the world - it was

  beautifu l , as in the icon he had gazed at for hours in the

  monastery. A gentle mountain landscape, sandy-coloured castles

  in the valleys, rivers on which little boats sailed by, strips of

  ploughed fields with neatly dressed peasants, a mill, a beggar,

  and some dogs. And there before his eyes sat not the Virgin

  Mary and the Holy Infant, but the Pope, a large, important man,

  a bit like Celestyn or the Bishop of Glatz.

  Paschalis had thought that if he stayed at the convent the nuns

  would treat him as their equal, dressing him in a habit, allowing

  him a place at their table and admitting him into their life. But

  they had shut him up in a cell and were treating him as if he didn't

  exist. They had told him to write the life of a woman he didn't

  know, and to collate her writings, which he didn't understand. But

  who will write my story? he thought. The next time the prioress

  came he told her he was giving up, and that he wanted to go to

  Rome and ask the Pope to recognize him as a woman, so that he

  could come back as a fully eligible nun. The prioress blinked and

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  said nothing. He pressed his lips to her hand. 'All right then,' she

  replied. 'I'll tell you why I allowed you to stay. When I saw you for

  the first time you reminded me or a fawn, a little wounded fawn.

  But in time fawns grow up into powerful stags. The day you

  asked me if you could stay here, I prayed to Kummernis because

  I didn't know what to do. And I had a dream - though it is rare for

  me to dream. I dreamed of a beautiful ivory carving that showed

  two animals, a stag and a lion. The stag was eating the lion and

  had already swallowed its head.' The prioress fell silent and stared

  expectantly at Paschalis. Then what happened?' he asked.

  'Nothing, that was all.' 'What does it mean?' he asked. She

  shrugged. 'I don't know what it means, but I do know that such

  dreams are unusual. You should stay here, write the history of the

  saint and take it to the bishop in Glatz, and then to the Pope himself in Rome, so that they may canonize her.'

  That evening Paschalis imagined the scene in Rome in detail.

  The Pope - who now resembles Celestyn - is moved by his

  work and his long journey. He lays his hand on Paschalis's head ,

  for which the bishops and kings envy the young monk. Then he

  turns to all those rulers, rich men and commoners gathered at

  his court and declares: Henceforth Paschalis is a woma n ! On the

  return journey Paschalis's body changes at every mile. H is

  breasts grow, his skin becomes smooth, and finally one night his

  male genitalia vanish irretrievably, as i f pulled out by the roots.

  All that is left is an opening that leads mysteriously into the

  depths of his body.

  G r a s s c a k e

  The Polish guard who had shifted the G erman's body on to the

  other side of the border used to patrol the local ,,·oods in winter.

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  His job was to make sure that the old road that led through the

  forest and into the Czech Republic remained blocked to stop any

  potential bootleggers or car smugglers from crossing the border.

  Each year in early spring the guards go there with a chainsaw

  and cut down a few trees so that they fall across the path. They

  use nature to defend the state border - with the permission of

  the forestry department, of course.

  The guard knew everyone in the district. He could spot a

  stranger immediately, and he would check his identity and call

  in to base. Vhoever the person was, whether a mushroom

  picker or a tourist who had wandered off the trail, the guard

  would watch him from above through binoculars until he

  moved away from the border and went on his way.

  He saw a great many people: individuals, some tottering along

  and some striding purposefully; couples who soon vanished into

  the bushes; groups of people bowling along in single file, their

  heads drooping under the weight of rucksacks; people with animals - dogs, horses, cows, or a basket of blind kittens for drowning; people with objects and machines, on bikes, in cars,

  on tractors (in fact only one person in the district had a tractor) ,

  with nets, with chainsaws, with plastic bags full of mushrooms,

  with half a litre of vodka bought on the black market . . . The

  guard had a sort of theatre laid out before him, with, unfortunately, a rather dull performance on show. He had to fill in a lot of the details himself, and he also had to know certain things,

  such as where Whatsisname was off to, pushing his bike along

  the track; what it meant when he saw a white Opel in front of

  the house below, or a dark blue bus; open or closed shutters at

  another house; sheep in the mountain pass rather than down by

  the forest; or an iron bedstead set out in the orchard. He had to

  know such things, or else he wouldn't understand what he was

  seeing - he would be looking, but not seeing anything.

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  Naturally enough , he was prone to falling into a mindless

  state quite often , staring at the world in front of him as if i t

  were a picture. Down below people walked along the asphalt

  road, herding cows; dogs were running, a man burst into

  sudden laughter, little bells tinkled on the sheep's necks; higher

  up a man carried a hare he'd poached, he waved to someone,

  smoke from the chimneys drifted into the sky, and birds flew

  blithely westwards. This picture goes on for ever; it seems to be

  eternal.

  In the afternoon of New Year's Eve this young border guard,

  with a face as ruddy and glowing as a freshly baked bun, was

  riding his huge motorbike slowly through the snow. The wheels

  kept sinking, and he had to be careful not to slip into the deep

  gully that ran along the roadside. He noticed a lot of footprints

  curving round, turning a full circle and running forward again.

  The bigger snowdrifts were imprinted with human shapes -

  someone must have got down in the snowdrift, rolled over and

  somersaulted, or lain down in the snow and waved their arms

  and legs to and fro, leaving the shape of a huge bird.

  He came across them at the pass. They wore silly, brightly

  coloured hats and definitely looked suspect. They giggled when

  he asked to see their identity cards, casting one another knowing looks and bursting out laughing. He thought they must be drunk, and felt like an idiot. After all, it was New Year's Eve. But

  the merrier they were, the more serious he became. The more

  they exuded mirth, almost floating above the snow wi th joy, the

  more firmly earthbound he felt and the deeper his feet sank.

  Their good humour irritated him.

  But they were just young. He found the girl beautiful and

  remote. She chewed the end of a wisp of fair hair, and stared

  enigmatically, as if she had just awoken from a pleasant dream,

  an erotic one perhaps.

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&nbs
p; They didn't have their identity cards on them in a border

  zone, so he couldn't even take down their details.

  ·our rucksacks are in the cabin,' they said. Like it or not, he

  would have to go back with them .. They took it in turns to push

  the motorbike through the snow. The boys knew all about

  motorbikes, but that didn't impress him at all. He had the feeling

  that he was comical and unimportant in their eyes, so he casually

  unbuttoned his jacket to show them his shiny leather holster.

  The inside of the cabin smelled of damp and the remains of

  autumn, dry leaves and hay. It also stank of mice and it was

  cold. He sat down at the table and copied out their details from

  their identity cards. They were all from Wrodaw. They lived

  in streets with metropolitan , worldly sounding names:

  Vienna Street, Vyspianski Embankment, Sienkiewicz Street,

  Cosmonauts' Avenue. He realized they had come here for New

  Year's Eve, to get drunk and fool around. They obviously weren't

  bootleggers and were no threat to the border whatsoever. But it

  didn't seem right now just to withdraw and say, all right, I'll be

  on my way then, I've got a party this evening too, my good suit

  is hanging on the wardrobe door, ironed and ready to go, the

  vodka's chilling in the fridge and the champagne's bubbling in

  the sideboard.

  Amid the intolerable giggling that made it so hard for him to

  write, the girl set a mug of tea before him. He drank it gratefully.

  l t warmed him inside and made him feel relaxed. He lit a cigarette. He ate a piece of dark, exotic cake that tasted of herbs and spices, a bit like gingerbread. Their laughter was aimed at his

  authority; he should either leave them in peace or issue them

  with a fine, then ride off towards the forest, return to the post to

  sign off duty and go home. But he sat and ate the cake that they

  had so eagerly shoved under his nose, exchanging more conspiratorial glances as they did so. They all watched him put it

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  into his mouth, chew it and swallow. It was as if their thought

  waves were connected and they were having a conversation that

  he couldn't hear; he alone was the stranger among them. They

  were the 'us' and he was the 'them', the outsider, on his own

  horne ground !

  Finally, he went outside and called base to say he was on his

  way back. It was already dark. They waved their hats after him

  and burst into gales of laughter.

  He drove off along the familiar road, but it seemed very long

  somehow. He should have been at the little bridge by now, but he

  had only just passed the last of the houses. He kept thinking

  about those young people, in fact he couldn't stop thinking

  about them, and they seemed to him like wolf people. My God,

  what a shocking thought. Wolf people. He stopped the motorbike, the lights went out and he found h imself in freezing darkness. In the distance he could see a village, its windows

  shining like square holes cut into space. Maybe he should turn

  round , go back to the cabin and tell them. But tell them what?

  He yanked at the motorbike and turned it round. He started the

  engine and set off, but soon tumbled into a snowdrift. The front

  wheel was buried in the snow. His hands began to tingle uncomfortably, forcing him to move his fingers around inside his gloves.

  Something had gone wrong with time. Hundreds of thoughts

  kept appearing in his head , torn, frayed and incomplete. Words

  came spilling out of them like flour from a burst bag. He started

  trying to gather them up, but it took so long. A whole hour may

  have passed while he went on tugging half-heartedly at the

  snow-bound motorbike. He glanced at his watch, but its face

  was dark, so he started searching for his lighter. He must have

  left it at the cabin where they were baking cakes made of hay.

  The smell of it came back to him and made him feel sick. He

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  rubbed his face with a handful of snow, but it didn't help. He

  stared at his motorbike, and it looked as if it had fallen asleep;

  he'd have to leave it like that until morning. He took off his

  jacket and covered its tired body. It purred gratefully.

  l Ie set off back towards the mountain pass and the dark

  houses in the village. He could still taste the cake on his lips and

  he felt unwell again. Un-well. Unw-ell. He lacked ell, something

  to do with food and warmth . For a moment the wave of time

  stopped Oowing, and the guard had the lucid thought that he

  had made a mistake in going to their cabin on foot without a

  jacket: he should hurry, because it was dangerous to walk about

  the fields at night. There were still wolves around.

  And just then he heard them: from somewhere high up in the

  forest came a distraught, piercing cry, a desperate rallying call.

  He had seen a wolf at the zoo in Wrodaw. It looked stuffed,

  although it was moving. Its fur was matted and unhealthy. It

  reminded him of a certain mongrel that had a daily ritual of

  chasing his motorbike and trying to grab h is trouser leg. But it

  wasn't exactly the same, because the mongrel had his set time to

  live, while the wolf was timeless. Wolves aren't born and they

  don't die. They even exist where there aren't any wolves. This

  revelation astonished the guard so much that he stopped and

  began to listen hard. The howling had fallen silent, but now he

  could hear the patter of small feet muffled by the snow.

  He was seized with longing for his lighter, as strong as the

  desire for a woman. He could use it to light his way and find out

  what time it was. That would explain a lot. By the light of its

  Oame he'd be able to drag himself up the hill, and go where he

  wanted. But right now he didn't know if he should go right or

  left, up or down . Either way, he kept on going, sliding smoothly

  across the snow as if he were on skis. He was enjoying it. He was

  doing well, moving towards the warmth and light, towards the

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  girl with the dream-like beauty and the wisp of fair hair. Behind

  him in the snow paw prints were silently appearing.

  He saw it. Not in front, or behind him, just somewhere out in

  the darkness. It was huge and powerful. The whiteness of its fur

  gleamed in the light of the snow.

  'Wolf, in the name of the Polish border I beg you to spare my

  life,' he said into the darkness.

  The wolf stopped behind him, wondering.

  A d re a m fro m t h e I n t e r n e t

  I was in a strange, deserted area. I knew I had lost my way. I

  wandered about this mournful wilderness in a constant twilight.

  Now and again l came across traces of myself: my footprints, my

  lost lighter, my hat and my camera, and it cheered me up to realize I was walking in my own tracks. Suddenly l was standing by a stream. The grey sky was reflected in it. l could see my own

  face - I fel t surprised, because it was a different face. My whole

  life l had thought l looked different. I started washing and l

  noticed to my
dismay that the water was washing the flesh away

  from my face. lt didn't hun at all. My face was melting as if it

  were made of wax, dissolving in the water. Finally to my horror

  l felt bare bones beneath my fingers. At this point the terrible

  truth hit me - I had died, and there was no way back.

  E p h e m e r i d e s

  Mana has one habit that l find particularly annoying - she

  stands behind me and watches whatever I'm doing O'cr my

  shoulder. l can hear her breathing: light, rapid and shallow - the

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  O l g a To k a r c z u k

  breat hing of an old person. And I'm aware of her smell; it's

  always the smell of bed-linen and sleeping bodies. Children

  sometimes smell like that. It's a smell that adults are eager to

  smother in perfumes and deodorants so that they smell like

  things, rather than people.

  �1ana stops and stands 0·er me, and whatever I'm doing, I

  start to do it wrong. If I'm reading, I lose the thread of the sentence. If I'm writing, I instantly stop having anything to say. I gently draw away from her, to avoid hurting her feelings, but I'm

  upset with her.

  The only time it doesn't bother me is when I'm reading

  ephemerides, which are infallibly precise tables showing the

  positions of the planets - maybe because there aren't any words

  or sentences in them, or even drawings that you have to take in

  visually. There are just columns of numbers, utterly impassive,

  unchanging numbers from, one to sixty, immune from misunderstanding, calculated and printed out in black and white once and for all, covering all the options for describing time. There

  are twelve simple symbols representing space, and ten more for

  the hea,·enly bodies - and that's it. By casting an eye over the

  ranks and columns, with a bit of practice you can take in

  the whole thing, see a subtle , temporary balance found only

  in the paper mobiles that my sister makes - carefully weighted

  three-dimensional constructions suspended on silken threads

  and set in motion by the slightest breath of air in the room. But

  mobiles are fragile, and it is much easier to destroy them than to

  create them, whereas the world expressed in ephemerides is

  wonderfully permanent, truly everlasting. That must be why

  nothing can disturb me when I'm looking at them.

  There was no sign of the comet in my ephemerides, however.