House of Day, House of Night

by Olga Tokarczuk

  He ushered her into the hall ahead of him. The girl went into

  the kitchen and started clattering about with the coalscunlc -

  she clearly knew the house already. He was finding it hard to get

  used to the idea, so he sat down at the living-room table and lit

  a cigarette.

  'What's your name?' he asked, just for something to say.

  'Agni,' she replied.

  'Short for Agnieszka I suppose.'

  She didn't deny it, but just smiled broadly. She had fine, even

  teeth. He could hear her bustling about the house , which was

  getting warmer and cosier. While she was in the bathroom he

  poured himself a shot of vodka and gulped it down, then pretended to be sorting papers at his desk. She brought him some hot stew and a cup of tea.

  'If you like, tomorrow I can come earlier and cook something. I know how to make stuffed cabbage leaves,' she said, smiling, and sat clown beside him as he ate.

  'How did she find you? Where do you come from?" he asked

  with his mouth full of food.

  'Oh, it was a coincidence. It"s compl icated.'

  He noticed that she had a smooth, childlike complexion without a single wrinkle or freckle. A vivid image of her slender.

  naked body stretched out on the bed Oashcd t h rough h is mmd.

  and he felt shocked. He said he was t i red and was going to bed.

  She reminded him about the key ami d isappeared into the

  kitchen. As he listened to her washing the dishes he kit unct-.· :

  he lifted the telephone receiver, tumed the crank h.utdle .md

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  O l g a To k a r c z u k

  asked to be put through to the hospital in Wrodaw, but no one

  was answering. Til call tomorrow from work, I'll call tomorrow

  from work,' he kept telling himself. As he heard the front door

  slam shut below, he stopped on the stairs and felt the weight fall

  from his shoulders. H e s ighed and went back down to the

  dining-room, where he poured himself a vodka and switched on

  the radio. There was a play on.

  'We can't be friends,' said a man's voice. 'You know it's true,

  Anna. But whether we're going to be the happiest or the unhappiest people alive is in your power alone. I only ask one thing of you: please don't take away my hope, please don't let me go on

  suffering like this. If that's impossible, then just tell me to disappear and I'll disappear for ever.'

  'I don't want to drive you away,' replied an emphatic female

  voice.

  Just don't change anything. just let everything stay the way

  it's been till now. Ah, here's your husband . . .'

  He switched off the radio and went to bed. For the first time

  in years he had an erotic dream. He dreamed about the girl; it

  was the war again, and they were hiding from the Germans in

  some sort of factory. Water was pouring on to them from

  broken showers. They were naked, and she huddled up to him,

  her hair smelling of water. They seemed to make love, but it

  was strange - he couldn't feel i t physically, he just knew i t was

  love.

  In the morning he called the hospital and spoke to his wife,

  but her voice sounded flat and metallic. She asked him to come

  for her on Friday. He quickly worked out that that was in three

  days' time. She also told him something about an operation, but

  he didn't understand properly and didn't want to think about it.

  He went horne early and had a bath, then put on a clean shirt

  and waited, without knowing what for.

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  263

  The whole thing happened as if it had been planned. Agn i

  came in, wearing the same trousers as yesterday and hold tng a

  large cabbage. He stood behind her awkwardly as she was l ighting the stove, feeling absurd. He said something but was more

  ,

  concerned with looking at her hair and her naked feet in plimsolls. He simply couldn't move away from her - it was like in h is dream, as if they were hiding from a hostile world, though he

  had no idea who that world was supposed to represent . She

  asked him to pass her a knife, and with that knife in h is hand he

  went over to her and simply cuddled up to her slender body

  without warning; she didn't defend herself at all, but was soft ,

  tender and languid, like a rag doll. He placed her hands on his

  shoulders and kissed her face. He expected her to resist, to say

  'no', but all he could hear was her breath, which smelled of

  cucumbers, of something green and fresh, somet hing he had

  always longed for. He laid her on the sofa, pulled off her ridiculous trousers and made love to her, even remembering not to get her pregnant.

  This sort of thing does happen to people, she told herself a ...

  she planted marigold seedlings in the borders. A person changes

  and outgrows old situations, like a child growing out o f i t'->

  clothes. Time goes by and changes everything. There arc big

  and small wars - the big ones change the world , the small one'->

  change a person. That's the way it is; I'm not doing anything

  wrong, she thought, I'm not hurting anyone - at worst, I'm only

  hurting myself, by waiting and waiting like t his

  To her the world looked as if it had woken up. Its centre had

  now shifted from the house and ga rden to somewhere cl-,c. not

  to any specific place, just somewhere out there. As she plan ted

  the marigolds she suddenly fel t imprisoned at home. She "tood

  up and shook the dirt from her hands. She went indoor" . .,;I I at

  the round table in the living r

  -

  oom and began to leaf t h rough

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  0 I g a To k a r c z u k

  women's magazines in search of her favourite fashion page, but

  it no longer impressed her - it no longer gave her a thrill to look

  at beautiful, ephemeral clothes that would be gone with the next

  season. She had always associated new fashions with a sense of

  anxiety and urgency - sometimes she went straight to the fabric

  shop on the marketplace and bought the material most like the

  one in the magazine. Then she'd be off to the tailor's to place her

  order and even pay in advance, just to be sure she'd have that

  garment, otherwise she would fall out of step with time, slip

  from 'now' into 'then', into the realm of twilight and extinction.

  All she saw were drawings and black-and-white photos of

  new dresses fitted on the waist and wide at the bottom, but they

  left her cold. She pushed away the magazines and went to have

  a bath. She examined her body and felt sorry for i t - it was a soft,

  fragile thing, fallen prey to both inner and outer forces that were

  tossing it about like a tempest. All she could do was wait.

  From early morning she waited anxiously, pacing from

  window to window in her dressing-gown, scanning the gaps

  between the garden railings. Sometimes Agni would appear,

  other times he would not - there was no rule. She had tried

  asking him questions about what he did, where he slept and so

  on, but he had just smiled in such a predatory way that she felt

  weak, and had to lean against the door with her eyes half shut.

  To her, the relationship wasn't to do with sex, rushed intercourse

  while imagining a thousand times over tha
t just then her husband would appear in the doorway with his briefcase, like in a farce. She felt that Agni was healing her. His gentle caresses were

  like a cool compress, his kisses were like a hot drink; thanks to

  him her body was getting stronger, and not yielding to decay. It

  was plain to see. Agni laughed at the idea that she had filled out,

  went straight to the kitchen to eat up her food, and then vanished, simply vanished. She didn't even know where he lived;

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  maybe that was a good thing, because sooner or later she'd haw

  gone there. And he had a sort of instinct - he always knew when

  to return, as if he knew the timetable of her life, her husband's

  work schedule, and could even read her mind, because whenever she was alone at home and though t o f him he would appear, first darting past the railings, then quickly running up

  the steps, where she'd be waiting for him. 'Can you read my

  thoughts?' she asked him. 'Yes,' he replied. 'And I can teach you

  how.' Naturally she didn't believe him. 'You have to i magine

  your lover's face really hard, until you feel as if you're wearing it,

  as if it's your face. Then all her thoughts become yours.' 'And

  that's what you do?' 'Yes,' he said, and stared into her eyes. She

  could feel his gaze deep inside her body. 'You're not who you say

  you are,' she said.

  The peonies were in bloom now, their petals droppi ng softly

  to the ground. The jasmine was still desperately pouring out

  fragrance, but was clearly at its end. A few days before going into

  hospital she went to church, but didn't dare enter the cool, dark

  Gothic chamber, because it didn't feel right , so she went into the

  graveyard, made sure no one could see her, kneeled down before

  a cross and prayed hesitantly, without conviction. In t he eveni ng

  she snuggled up to her husband, but his body felt too soft and

  smelled of cigarette smoke and machine oil. l ie wanted to make

  love, but she said no, because she felt as if she had already begun

  to die.

  She thought of Agni as solid. His physical deter mination

  astounded her. His body knew exactly what i t wan ted, it \Tn t

  straight t o the point, a s if passing right t h rough her. h u t "·it b o u t doing h e r any harm. I t was pleasan t a n d good I l is wuch mesmerized her; she couldn't find words to express 1 1 . l ler husband knew how to be more sensi t ive , to wai t lor her. look her in the eye and drink i n the pleasure from her face . But g

  .

  n i wa-.

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  self-absorbed, and that meant he was entirely real. He was sli m,

  muscular and rugged . When she touched her husband's body

  afterwards (which she had once loved so much) she was surprised how soft and tender it was, like a fluffy pillow, a soft calfskin bag, an overripe peach, or her own flaccid belly. Her

  husband was herself; their touch ignited no spark, it produced

  neither heat nor frost. The only word that their similarity could

  engender was 'no'.

  She saw him off across the hospital park to the entrance,

  where she stopped as if she were bewitched and could no longer

  cross the invisible line between the gate posts.

  'Better not come and visit me,' she said. 'Ask Mrs Lisowska to

  do the cleaning; they make better food at your office canteen

  than I do.'

  She felt tired. Why should she be worrying about the cleaning

  and his meals? He absolved her himself, by saying, 'Don't worry

  about me.' He was going to ask her about Agni, but she seemed

  to have forgotten. The thought of the girl made him feel anxious.

  'Go now,' she said. He kissed her on the cheek and the hand,

  but she averted her gaze. 'It ought to be fair. They ought to cut

  your balls off too,' she said.

  He felt as if she had hit him. He tried to move his lips, but

  words failed him, so he left. She watched him walk away, staring

  after his tall, broad-shouldered figure in an elegant summer suit.

  He must have felt her gaze on him, because he fumbled with his

  hat and disappeared around the corner.

  The house was dark, silent and chilly. The office was bright,

  heated and full of people. There he buzzed with energy, spoke

  fast and loud, walked with a spring in his step and knew what he

  wanted. At home time slowed down, and everything else with it;

  there his belly sagged, his feet froze and his voice died down.

  There was no one to talk to or give instructions to. The border

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  267

  between home and office ran somewhere across the marketplace, along the lines between the Oagswnes, and each day he had to cross it twice. This ritual became rather painful, so he

  wok to pulling off the moment by going to a restauram for a

  glass of vodka. His first thought was to go to the Lido puh, as it

  wasn't far out of his way, but he realized that he would he hreaking his own rules if he were to sit down at a wet, syn thetic table-top among unwashed men from the suburhs, hreathing in

  the fumes of beer and cheap tobacco. So he started dropping in

  at the Tower, still empty at that time of day, where the elderly

  waitress knew him and served him a glass of vodka and a plate

  of herrings in sour cream without taking an order. There he sat

  and gazed out of the window at the sleepy, small-town street. He

  couldn't fool himself - he knew he was looking for Agni among

  the passers-by. He wondered what else she did when she wasn't

  with him - if she really existed, if she had a bed of her own, a

  wardrobe for those funny trousers, or a bathroom where she

  kept her toothbrush. He didn't even know her surname. l ie

  could always check up on her, he could make enqui ries - after

  all, the town wasn't big and everyone here knew everyone else.

  'Who are you? Where do you come from? Do you have parents?' he asked her one evening as she cuddled up to him, smooth and dry as a lizard.

  Vhatever she replied, he knew she was making it up. She was

  totally alien, as if she'd been moulded from another son of clay.

  and this alien quality of hers drove him mad .

  'And who are you?' she answered with a quest ion. '\'here do

  you come from? Where arc your parems?'

  He told her about himself more readily than he would haw

  told anyone else. He found that he also lea rned about him..,elf

  from his account, and he was surprised to hear h imself ..,a,· that

  he had always been the victim of one coi ncidence or annt hcr. ol

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  chance encounters and chaotic upheavals. He wondered about

  this afterwards at the Tower restaurant, as he drank his single

  vodka. These conversations in bed, as they lay exhausted by

  sex, were an alternative sort of lovemaking, even a more exquisite one. They didn't require any flirting, tactical manoeuvres or courtship, just the opening of a sort of floodgate i nside himself;

  it was like unblocking a dam and letting the words pour out.

  And those words already knew what to do, what sentences to

  form, what stories to create. He was grateful to her for lying

  there and listening. But what if she wasn't really listening? In

  that
case all he needed was her presence: her boyish body sunk

  into the pillows, her warm, steady breathing and the fragrance of

  fresh cucumbers.

  One day he measured her waist with his hands and, next time

  he was in Wrodaw visiting his wife, he bought her a trendy

  gathered skirt with a wide belt at a department store. He could

  see she was pleased with it, because she spent a long time

  inspecting every detail of i ts simple cut, as if it were the first time

  she'd seen anything like it. When she tried it on he lifted her hair

  on top of her head and tied it in a ponytail, and that was how he

  saw her later, through the restaurant window, running along the

  street with the grey skirt swirling around her long legs. Before

  he'd had time to pay and leave she had vanished, but he knew

  she'd be back in the eveni ng as usual.

  He went to see h is wife the day after the operation. He was

  shocked by her pallor, and the thought passed through his mind

  that she would die. It wouldn't be right to die now, amid all this

  confusion and silence. He was terrified that she would do it and

  leave him at the most dangerous moment - when he had already

  shed one skin, but hadn't yet grown a new one. He held her

  hand and called her name until she opened her eyes. She smiled

  weakly, and he was so moved by this sight that he felt like

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  269

  crying. If they had been alone he would have let himself cry, but

  only a metre away stood beds, and on each one lay a woman's

  body, a soft, broken, perishable machine designed lO transfer

  the generations through time, a Oimsy little boat that sails from

  one shore of the night to the other, as people spill out of it. So he

  just bit his lip, and for a while his vision was blurred w it h tears.

  'How are you coping?' she asked.

  He nodded reassuringly.

  'Apparently they've taken the lot out,' she said.

  Unintentionally, he glanced at the spot where her stomach lay

  beneath the quilt, for some reason expecting to sec a hol low

  there. He kissed her long, white fingers. He sat there for a while

  longer, until the ward rounds began and he was told to leave. He

  said he would come the day after next.

  That was the day he bought the skirt for Agni.

  There was no way to hold back the thoughts about the future