“Well then, between four and six, four and six in the evening.”
His voice trembled with the anxiety of a parting lover.
2
EVERY TIME I OPENED MY EYES IN THE MORNING AUNTIE was already on her feet. Humming in her low alto voice, she bustled around the stove, preparing our breakfast. The simplicity and good nature of this woman was too much of an everyday occurrence to make any impression on me. Nevertheless, from time to time, there were moments it moved me, though more often recently it irritated me. Auntie earned her living as a sort of middleman in the local wool trade or some such business; I was never really interested in that. She worked like a dog.
Apart from myself, a twenty-one-year-old loafer, Auntie also provided for her old mother and her crippled sister. Both lived in a remote small town in the mountains. They visited us more than four times a year. I hated those visits. When Granny, wrapped up in black frocks, her ears all smeared with some white pasty medicine, sat at the table, it was revolting. I felt even more disgust toward her daughter – a young apathetic hunchback with coke-bottle spectacles. They were both very devout and crossed themselves eagerly before every dish. Auntie, once a beautiful and worldly woman, with them suddenly remembered which church she belonged to. The dinners were better then, and that was the only upside to those visits.
Auntie maintained that she would like to have her old mother and her crippled sister live with her but it was impossible because our flat was just too small. And she had to keep her eye on me while I was studying. It wasn’t true. I have no doubt she preferred to share the flat with her favorite nephew than with her half-dead mother and blockhead sister. I was the only person Auntie truly loved. She liked it when I whistled during my morning shave in the bathroom, or polished off her scrambled eggs with gusto. She knew I had to finish my studies and she spared no effort making sure I did. However, there was a limit to how much effort she could spare, and that limit was not far off.
Auntie had reached the point when she needed quiet recuperation before the terminal advance of old age. And yet still she worked like a horse. She carried big packs of merchandise, went on business trips, often sleeping on the train. She paid for it with her heart, her liver, varicose veins. She was trying to cure them, visiting doctors and following their orders. But often life made this impractical. So Auntie suffered on, now and again letting out with a groan or a sigh, and who knows — perhaps that was the cause of the whole affair. Normally she bore her illnesses and old age with gallant heroism. She took care of herself, was not above a discreet touch of makeup and generally kept her spirits up, waking me up almost every morning with a joke. Truly, when I look back at those times, I have to admit she was indeed a very, very good woman.
Certainly, the cause of this whole situation could not lay in the small misunderstandings that naturally took place between us. In fact, if I remember correctly, no such incidents occurred that day. It was March, the frost still held fast. Auntie had to breathe on the windowpane to check the temperature on the outside thermometer. It was about ten o’clock. The snow glistened on the metal windowsill. But inside the room it was actually warm. I remember that when I was putting my slippers on, Auntie made some chirpy remark, which irritated me. Without hurrying things, I put on my trousers, a shirt and a sweater. I ate my breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread and tea with appetite. Auntie asked me what time my lectures began, to which I replied that they started at ten and therefore I had plenty of time. After breakfast Auntie asked me to hammer a nail into the wall so she could hang a mirror. This new task gave me a certain satisfaction. The hammer especially proved to be an oddly pleasant tool to handle, something I had not paid any attention to before. When the nail was hammered in, and I sat sprawling lazily on the stool, I was still holding the hammer in my hands. I was playing with it.
Auntie was getting ready to go out. She looked into the room, opened and closed the sideboard, checked the gas and bent down to pull on her boots. Then I walked up to her from behind and with all my strength I whacked her twice on the side of the head.
There was no doubt Auntie was a corpse. She lay still, a small trickle of blood pouring out of god knows where, as there was no visible wound. I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her face up. No, there was no doubt – she was a corpse.
“Corpse,” I pronounced half out loud. “Corpse, corpse, corpse …” I sort of sang to myself, and felt uneasy.
Auntie’s eyes were opened wide; her moist teeth peered out from behind parted lips. And the blood – from her nose, mouth, ears – flowing in tiny rivulets into puddles on the floor. This fleshy, ripened body ceased to be fifty-four years old, ceased to feel pain, suffer illnesses, to enjoy itself. The shapely though overworked hands were now wooden. This body was so alien to me that I found it impossible at that moment to feel any pity or regret.
I became a little nauseous. I went back to my room and lay on the bed. I felt my hand sticking to the sheets. It turned out that both hands had blood on them; god knows how it happened, as there wasn’t really that much blood, and I hadn’t been touching it. So I went to the bathroom. It angered me to see I was leaving bloody marks on the tap. It struck me as too literary. Washing my hands, all the time I felt in my stomach and in my throat the morning’s breakfast: sweet tea and peppery scrambled eggs. And before me – Auntie’s corpse. I bent over the toilet bowl, pushed two fingers down my throat and vomited. After I threw it all up, once more I thoroughly washed my hands, rinsed my mouth and drank some water. Then carefully examined my face in the mirror.
I looked bad, but that could be put down to vomiting. At any rate, I saw in myself nothing of a murderer. I still had the same lock of hair on my forehead, lips, nose and the gray good-natured eyes of a luckless boy who at twenty-one was still just an awkward teenager. I took out a cigarette and smoking, walked to the kitchen, where I sat over Auntie’s corpse. As I smoked the fear began to rise. It was making me sweat. I was cold and nauseated. My fingers, by now burned by the cigarette, seemed so weak and helpless I could hardly believe what they had been capable of.
And yet they were capable. I felt pride, which alas was immediately soured by icy, slimy fear. It seemed there was nothing left for me but to go down and make a report at the police station, or simply stop the first policeman in the street and bring him in here. The policeman: red face of the common man, matter-of-fact, unbelieving tone – I was gripped by spasms of terror. I dragged myself back to bed and tried to calm down. I was talking to myself in a half-voice, as any fully spoken sentence would have been drowned out by the pounding fear.
“Calm down, my boy, calm down … Everything will be all right. We’ll manage … Ha ha, we will …” Something broke loose inside me. “Never mind, it’s nothing. I know it sounds paradoxical. Never mind, it’s nothing. You’ll live … We’ll get out of it … Remember,” I raised my finger, “you’re twenty-one years old. You have to live. Your whole life is ahead of you. Women, travel, work, adventures. You are twenty-one years old. Twenty-one. You are young, young …”
I was telling myself this and believed it all, though I did not at all feel twenty-one years old, let alone that it was a good reason I should live, and pleasantly at that. This does not mean I felt physically weak. I could have gotten up and lifted that heavy chair off the floor with my left hand. But why? What for? Don’t move, calm down.
I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock. I still could make it to the lecture. The thought of getting out of the flat filled me with energy. I put my boots on, but as soon as I laced them up I changed my mind. This special day called for some little celebration. Devil knows why I thought that by turning up at the lecture I might be tempting fate. I unlaced my old skiing boots, took them off and put on my slippers again. I carried out these small tasks with precision and diligence. I was terrified but my movements were calm now. I began to consider ways of disposing of the corpse. It seemed child’s play. I’d chop the body up, flush some parts down the loo, burn some, take others away
in parcels and throw them in the river or bury them. Bury them where? Ah, it’s a trifle. I know a quiet place in the woods on the outskirts of town.
I felt light-headed and carefree. I decided to carry out the plan without further ado. I went into the kitchen with an open penknife. I started with a finger. It turned out to be not that simple. The blade was blunt, the flesh gave in with difficulty, chafing and tearing. The bone just would not cut. I put away the penknife and fetched an axe. I swung it and the finger sprang off. Meanwhile, the tip of the thumb struck me in the eye. I picked up the finger and dropped it down the toilet bowl. It floated in the yellowish water like a pale sausage. I flushed the loo. The water gushed, snatched the finger and sucked it into the black void, but after a while the finger floated back to the surface. I yanked the chain. The pipes rumbled deeply, the water rose and filled the bowl. The finger disappeared. I took a piss. The finger resurfaced. The water subsided slowly. I fished out the wet finger and held it hopelessly between my own two fingers.
Apparently, that was not the way. It became clear to me that disposing of this hefty, one hundred and fifty pound body, depriving it of its full, overripe figure and its bale of fresh skin was not going to be as easy as it seemed to me, fed on the literature from the “time of contempt.” The corpse defended its individuality, its natural right to biological decay. Somewhat embarrassed, I returned to the kitchen and laid the hacked-off finger on Auntie’s breast.
There was something of a gesture of reconciliation in that.
3
AROUND MIDDAY I WENT OUT. THE STREET WAS FREEZING cold, hostile. The sun, which in the morning lit the snow on the windowsill so beautifully, had disappeared. It was gray and cold. I felt hungry. Up till now, Auntie had cooked lunch at home. If she was away I ate at any old place. I stepped into a third-rate bar on the corner. It was full. There was one free table in the middle of the room but I retreated. Sweaty, yellow-brown lacquered walls, stuffy stench of the room, trivial faces of the eaters – all that disgusted me. I walked on. I was approaching the town center when it came to mind that a day like this could be honored with a good meal at a first-rate restaurant.
In the window an enormous salmon on a bed of red caviar lay in a wreath of parsley. From behind the matted glass peered lush leaves of exotic plants, creating the impression of a perfect refuge from the freezing street. I pushed the door open and headed for the cloakroom. The cloakroom lady was very tall and very big. Much bigger than Auntie. I assessed her at some hundred and seventy-five pounds and thanked god it wasn’t her corpse I had in my flat. I was about to unbutton my coat when I saw the waiter standing at the entrance to the room. The waiter was a black-haired man of about thirty-five. Dressed in routine waiter’s garb: slightly wide black trousers, white apron, white shirt. He was playing with a napkin, looking in my direction. I felt I was afraid of waiters. At that moment I thought of one thing only: avoid a situation where he could come near me and say something. I walked back to the cloakroom lady.
“Can I make a phone call?”
Straight away I realized what a stupid idea that was; I could have asked for a pack of cigarettes, even those expensive ones, foreign, which could not be gotten anywhere else. But it was too late. I picked up the receiver and under the cloakroom lady’s unfriendly gaze I dialed a fictitious number, which nevertheless began with a five, like all other telephone numbers in our town. I heard a woman’s voice.
“Hello,” I said calmly. “May I speak to Andrzej, please?”
When told “Wrong number,” I apologized and thanked the woman sincerely.
Back on the street I was hit by sharp wind. I thought of my flat and happily turned toward home. Home sweet home. When at last I reached home, still dressed, in my coat and hat, I looked into the kitchen.
Auntie had not changed, except for the blood around her and on her face, which had dried into a blackish, brown scab. I took my coat off and, smoking a cigarette, I began to devise a plan of action. Without question, I had to remove the corpse from the kitchen and make some lunch. The gas was weak so I decided to light a fire under the kitchen stove and cook myself a proper meal. In the sideboard I found a couple of red cutlets, bread, frankfurters, butter, eggs and potatoes in a basket. There was also tea and even a bottle of Hungarian wine, which Auntie must have hidden there for some special occasion.
I started peeling the potatoes. I was no good at it. Until now I hardly ever peeled potatoes. Auntie always prepared our meals and I helped only when my manly strength or my manly height was called for. By the second potato I cut my finger. The wound was not big but deep and bled profusely. Clumsily pulling up the shirtsleeve with my other, healthy but dirty hand, I ran to the sink. The tiny wound hit by a stream of cold water began to smart. I put my finger into my mouth and sucked it. The pain abated but every time I took the finger out of my mouth, the pale, barely visible slit began to fill with scarlet blood. I went to the cupboard with the first aid kit and rummaged through it, finding some gauze, bandages and iodine. There was no other disinfectant. It took me a long time before I managed to dress my wound and tie a nice tight knot on the finger.
I sat at the kitchen table miserable and worn out, nursing my wounded finger in my fist. Hunger and cigarettes pressed on my brain like a heavy gray substance. I had no strength left to finish peeling the potatoes. I’d have frankfurters with scrambled eggs and bread. Absentmindedly I dragged myself to the sideboard to fetch a saucepan. Suddenly something tripped me up. I struggled to keep my balance and, desperately clutching at anything, I banged my head right against the edge of the sideboard.
“Fuck!” I cursed, loudly and angrily.
The object that tripped me up was Auntie’s corpse. Overwhelming pain paralyzed me briefly. Yet hungry and exhausted, I found in me new layers of strength. I was able to refrain from ignobly taking it out on the inanimate object that had caused me pain. The cause of my frustration had to be pacified so that in the future similar accidents could be avoided. I went about it with blunt angry assiduousness. I wrapped my hands under Auntie’s shoulders and lifted her. She was very heavy. As I pulled her along I smelled an unpleasant odor coming out of her open mouth. I turned my face away. Suddenly I felt the body putting up an insurmountable resistance. I pulled with all my strength but it would not budge. It turned out Auntie’s foot was hooked around one of the sideboard’s legs. I had to lay her down and unhook the damn foot. I tried a different hold. I grabbed her by the wrists and began pulling her across the floor. This was not easy either. The hands were stiff, unwieldy and difficult to steer with. Still, I managed to gain some ground. After a while her head hit the threshold. The first part of the job was behind us. Now I raised the head, then the shoulders, and pulled them over the threshold.
The hallway was narrow and cluttered. The bathroom door was hung in such a way that the body had to be turned around 180 degrees. This required a well thought-out plan and precise execution. First thing to do was remove all possible objects that stood in the way of the body. So I took down the bowl from the small chest standing by the wall, then the box full of wool, and put them away. Then, with some effort, I lifted the chest and put that away too. Slowly, I was forgetting my hunger and fatigue. I felt good, like with any noble manual labor, not the perfunctory kind but labor requiring a creative element. Bit by bit, carefully, I was pushing the corpse over the threshold, trying to position it so that in a minute I could easily pull it inside the bathroom. Now and again I spoke to myself, giving myself warnings, praises, reprimands and words of encouragement:
“Well done. Yes … No, no, no, we won’t get anywhere this way. Wait … Wait, my friend. Now. Yes, that’s it. See?”
Suddenly the doorbell rang. The sharp, short sound cut through the soft shuffle of my work and my effortful panting. Crouching by the corpse, I froze. I held my breath. The floorboards at the opposite end of the hallway creaked gently. I remembered that Mazan, a fellow student from my year, was to visit me today. Always with his nose in the books. At the s
ame time it crossed my mind that the room was dark and the kitchen windows faced the courtyard, so the light should not betray me. I realized all this very quickly and the intruder soon began to bore and irritate me. I was not scared at all; he was simply disturbing me. Mazan rang the doorbell again, waited a bit … then tried knocking. Then the door rattled and I heard something like muffled rapping and scraping. Mazan was writing me a note. Finally he finished writing and walked away with a loud clank of his skiing boots, which I somehow missed when he first arrived. I was very tempted to read his note. After waiting a good while, I quietly opened the door and picked the note up off the floor. “Jurek, I came to see you at 6. Come to the lectures tomorrow, we’ll need you. Ciao. Tadek.”
“Ah, there we are,” I said aloud. “There we are …”
This was just what I expected. And I was not disappointed. I knew too what they would need me for. My friends were organizing tea with dancing, and wanted me to help. I couldn’t care less, but I couldn’t afford not to get involved.
I returned to my work. Pulling the corpse into the bathroom turned out to be easier than expected. Loading it into the bath was not so easy. The body was falling through my hands, resisting me. Now the head, now the feet knocked against the floor tiles. At long last I managed to fit it in. The legs stuck up in the air and the skirt slipped halfway down the thighs. Automatically I pulled it over the knees, only to realize the pointlessness of the gesture, as sooner or later I would have to strip the corpse naked anyway. I found the prospect rather embarrassing. I had never seen Auntie naked. Only once, in passing, I’d seen her bare buttocks, and for the rest of the day felt weird in her company.
I returned to the kitchen and on the gas stove made scrambled eggs, which I covered with cold frankfurters and bread. Luckily, by now the gas was working better.
Killing Auntie Page 2
