by Jerzy Pilch
“A thousand times I imagined that Wiktoria came to me; a thousand times I opened the door for her in my delusions; a thousand times I embraced her in greeting and farewell, and suddenly it turned out that one of those delusions wasn’t a delusion. Which of her phantasmagorical visits took place in reality? Was it the time when she came in a black jacket and a scarf, light blue like the Roman sky? Or the time when it was well below zero, and she came in a balaclava helmet? Or the time when she stood quite a while in the doorway and smiled mysteriously? Or the time when she ran in, literally burst into the entryway, and, with the exclamation—I’m about to pee my pants!—fell like a bomb into the bathroom, and immediately a bestial sigh of relief resounded from in there? When was she here? The time when she stood over my corpse and cried? The time when my corpse sat in an armchair and spoke to her. I don’t know. Everybody but me in K. knew—not me. Everybody knew all the details—not me. You understand that the consequences of such a stormy finale—with my participation, but without the participation of my consciousness—was my retirement. Moving out of K. was beyond my means. I thought about suicide, but those were weak thoughts, deprived of expression. I took up literary work, which had always been on my mind, and for which I now had ideal conditions. I was completely isolated, no one came to see me, no one called. Even the postman, the kiosk keeper, or the saleswoman in the store communicated with me—I would say—rather perfunctorily. I was in ideal solitude, ergo I had ideal conditions for writing. And I did not waste that gift.
“I could—and maybe even I ought to—end my story here, but like the debutant who is uncertain of definitive meaning, I will add an epilogue. I add it because it happened. The curator’s daughter got into drama school. Supposedly. Supposedly, with gigantic success. Supposedly, at the top of her class. Supposedly, the entrance commission, which was composed of nothing but actorly celebrities, was absolutely delighted. How those pieces of information came to me—I truly don’t know. I don’t recall any informer or any conversation that initiated me into new details. In K., for a long time, absolutely no one wanted to talk with me—and about Wiktoria, to this day no one will exchange a word with me. But I did find out. Apparently, in small towns pieces of news literally fly through the air. Further news appeared. The sparrows on the rooftops twittered triumphantly that the doom of my life was an unusually victorious student, that she was passing all the exams with bravado, that she was receiving exceptionally interesting and lucrative proposals. For the time being, however, she wasn’t accepting any; first she wanted to complete her diploma course, then she would make a choice. It wasn’t certain, however, whether the choice of the first serious role would be in the homeland or abroad.
“Do you understand? The curator and his wife, stupefied and hounded by the necessity of the success of their allegedly remarkable child, were close to bullshitting their neighbors that Hollywood was fighting over this complete loser! They continued without moderation in that fiction. The curator, whenever he set out for a meeting of the parish council—a glow radiated from him. The curator’s wife, whenever she bought cheese in the market—she assumed the pose of the mother not so much of Sharon Stone or Julia Roberts, because those names said little to her, but rather the pose, let’s say, of the mother of Gina Lollobrigida. She summoned up the pathos and the dignity, and her gestures were a bit hit or miss, but still she was called the “Mother of Gina Lollobrigida” in the more astute circles. In addition to this, there appeared the so-called highly eloquent detail. Very eloquent. So eloquent that it was much more than a detail. Namely, Wiktoria completely stopped showing up in K. She didn’t come for holidays, not even for Christmas Eve. No triumphal visits of the future, or already almost fulfilled, star in the hometown. Didn’t she have the strength for such shenanigans? Was she learning her parts, and since she was receiving nothing but Shakesperean roles, there was in fact no time for anything else? Was she slaving away—day in, day out, and nighttime, too? In my opinion—day in, day out, and nighttime, too—if there was anything Shakespearean about it, she was at best giving blow jobs in some Warsaw brothel. One way or another, I decided to get to the bottom of the matter. I decided to check on the course of her Shakesperean career with my own eyes and palpibly.
“After two years—when the storm around me had died down, when they had stopped following my every step, and when The Natural History of the Cieszyn Land had appeared in print, which had repaired my reputation a bit—I set off for Warsaw. In conspiratorial secrecy, it goes without saying, and skillfully laying a false trail. I confided in the kiosk keeper—who had become, with time, a bit quicker to chat with his customer—that I was heading to Krakow for a few days in order to do some digging in the archives of the Jagiellonian Library. In the course of a couple hours, or perhaps in the course of one hour, the entire city knew where I was going and why. The matters of the world are simple. I went to Krakow by PKS bus, from Krakow by the InterCity express train to Warsaw. I intended to stop in the Hotel Europejski, in which I had had the occasion to stay in the old days. Never mind in which years and under what circumstances.
“It was the beginning of April, and pathological heat waves prevailed. You know how, sometimes in early spring, when the snows have barely receded, there occur two, three scorching days. Sudden and deceptive surges of tropical temperatures. Blinding white air, sultry weather, women’s bared necks, a narcotic and basically perverse aura. I walked from Central Station, tired, slightly tipsy, because, of course, I had been drinking the whole way, incessantly, but very prudently. I was delighted with the masses of yellowish air that were surrounding me, and I was absolutely certain that right away, on Aleje Ujazdowskie, on Nowy Świat, at the latest on Krakowskie Przedmieście, I would run into Wiktoria. At first it seemed to me that every fifth woman on the street looked like her; then every second one; then all of them. Do you understand? I saw her everywhere.
“Was I still in love with her? Had I loved her at all? Is the story I am telling definitely a love story? Granted, there can be love without a single touch, for in the end I never touched even her hand, not even accidently. Granted, there can be love which is accompanied by barely two glances, or even a glance and a half; for I saw her grey eyes the second time when she was at my place, when she was lamenting my corpse. So the second glance was not only blurry, it was also partial. There are also loves that are more platonic, and more reserved. But were my delusions love? Was my breakneck love a real love? If love is a delusion, then I loved her. If what goes on in a severed head can be called love, then I loved her. I loved her, and I longed for her. And sick with love and savage longing for her, I went to look for her in Warsaw. That is to say, I went to meet her in Warsaw. I was absolutely certain that I needn’t do a thing—not a gesture, no telephone call, no need to help fate along. That any moment, she herself would come out to meet me with her dance step. She didn’t. This didn’t shake my intution, and it strengthened my certainty of her downfall. In the hotel kiosk, I bought a newspaper with the obvious classifieds, and having settled into my room, freshened up, taken a shower, and opened the bottle planned for the afternoon, I began to look for her. It didn’t take long. After a minute, I came upon the classified ad: “Slender student—privately,” and right away, all the words and all the letters of that offer shined with the green light of hope and began to flicker at me like an emerald neon. I called. Her voice had changed. I, too, pretended to be someone else. I didn’t want to frighten her off. Once she appears, it will be too late for flight. After half an hour, there reverberated a knock at the door. True, in the course of that half hour I had drunk a significant portion of the alcohol allotted for the entire afternoon, and yet, I was sober like never in my life. But even if I had been unconscious, I still would have known the taste of defeat. I still would have known the fiasco of my own intuition. It goes without saying: it wasn’t her. A massively built, gloomy young lady from the suburbs entered the room and asked what I felt like. What I felt like? An immediate return home. Immediate fli
ght, running like hell. Suddenly I saw, with crystal clarity, all my lunacies, all my childishness, suddenly I regained the fullness of my shaken cognitive powers. Suddenly I saw myself, a retired teacher in a brown suit, sitting in a hotel room in the company of a paid tart. Through the open window came the clatter of the hot city. You could hear the whirr of the jackhammers, the high creak of cranes, the murmur of cars driving by, foreigners were chatting in front of the hotel entryway, someone laughed, someone called somebody from far away. I was outside of all this. I was separated from everything by an impenetrable Chinese Wall. Suddenly I understood how horrendous and terrible my life was. Suddenly, in a deep and thoroughly existential sense, I sobered up, and in the flash of a second I understood that, as soon as I was alone, I would do myself in, I would hang myself on my belt or slit my wrists in the hotel bathtub, because I just didn’t have the strength any more. I didn’t have the strength to leave here, to return to the train station, to go to K. by the night train. I didn’t have the strength to do anything. I wouldn’t ever leave here. I would die here.
“Luckily, I’m a drunk, and we all know what a drunk does when he sobers up, especially when he sobers up in tragic fashion. Yes, sir: he starts drinking all over again. So I poured myself a drink then. The massively built, gloomy young lady from the suburbs didn’t refuse the refreshment. We sat, and we chatted about life. We went on living. The nightmares didn’t stay long. They came in through the window, they went out the door. It wasn’t bad. It already wasn’t bad. A pleasant chat with a Warsaw whore as a means for saving one’s life, and perhaps even a means for living. It goes without saying that I didn’t question her whether there wasn’t perhaps among her colleagues a certain failed actress named Wiktoria. I didn’t proceed to such shamelessness, but also—judging by her bored expression—there wasn’t any great innovation in my questions. I asked her why she did what she did for a living, when she had decided to do it, how it was the first time, etc. Supposedly, all her clients posed the same questions. Oh, why should I have been original? I didn’t worry in this case about my lack of originality. All the less did I worry about the fact that it was she who turned out to be the original. I would say, very original. ‘Why do you do this?’ ‘For the money. I need the money. I need quite a lot.’ ‘Do you have some serious expenses? Debts?’ ‘Debts, no, but expenses, yes. I have to put on my daughter’s First Communion in May. You need money for a good First Communion.’ Yes. The story is reaching its end. As you can see, my new acquaintance was not only not Wiktoria—she wasn’t even a Lutheran. In a sentimental reflex, I paid her a couple grosz more, and the next day I returned to K. From that time, which is to say, for the last two years, I haven’t budged from the spot.
“In a fundamental sense, nothing has changed here. The latest local news says that Wiktoria completed her degree with distinction, that she has accepted a role in an unusually popular series, and soon all of K. will be sitting down before their television sets in order to marvel at the pearl that our land has produced. Sometimes I think that if this had been true, I would have the punchline of all punchlines. A punchline that is light, edifying, comic, and surprising. But this is not very likely. Back then, two years ago, on the next morning, I dropped by the acting school on Miodowa Street on my way out of town. Besides, this was not far at all from the Hotel Europejski. For Warsaw—very near by. A person named Wiktoria Złotnica had never studied there, nor had anyone by that name been accepted in the program. We have few, desperately few surprises in life. Time for bed. You especially deserve it. Please forgive the intrusion. In any case, we have spent a pleasant evening, a remarkably pleasant evening. And now—however this might sound—I vanish without a trace.”
I awoke in quite good shape. I felt ill treated—it goes without saying—by the story I had listened to; with pathological clarity, I recalled my guest’s every word and every gesture, but I was not threatened with any interruption in my life’s story. I ate breakfast, packed, and turned in the key at the reception desk. Emil was also already moving about, barely, but still—he was moving. I didn’t ask about anything. I knew perfectly well that if I were to ask about the retired teacher in a brown suit, who knew the history, geography, and substance of every local square inch inside and out, I would discover that he was either an absolute lunatic, or a complete drunk, or both.
A Corpse with Folded Wings
I
Grandma Pech’s spirit doesn’t visit me. Nor do any other spirits. When I dream of the old house in the center of Wisła, it is always empty and lit. I walk through the swept courtyard, through the hallway, through the rooms. There isn’t anyone anywhere, but I hear someone’s steps ahead of me. I enter the kitchen, and sometimes someone is there. From time to time I see her. She sits at the enormous table covered with a sky blue oilcloth. On her head she has a carefully tied scarf with a pattern of black roses, on her shoulders a brown Silesian jacket. She sits at the table, but she is dressed as if she were going somewhere right away. Somewhere far. Not to Wojnar’s to go shopping, not even to the market. Somewhere far, and at an unusual time. In my dream, it is always a late hour. The majolica clock over the door to the hallway says that it is almost ten, and she is setting off somewhere. Someone is supposed to come for her. The gate is wide open, you can hear the rattle of a britzka crossing the bridge. The yellow light of the kitchen window makes a regular rectangle on the river stones of the courtyard.
Whenever we came late, and the gate was closed, we would look through the slits to see whether the light was on the stones. It usually was. It always was. We would knock on the window, or we would bang at the front. Grandpa Pech would come through the hallway and open the door. Suddenly the day, which was already over, gained extra hours. The evening, which was already almost night, became early evening. A fire burned anew under the cooled stove. Supper was long past, but we were just sitting down to supper. It was dark all over Wisła, but at our house the lights were on for a long time yet. I loved late arrivals and prolonged evenings—later on, it was never possible to outwit Time so easily.
For years now, the gate has been gone, as is the light on the river stones, the kitchen, the hearth, the table covered with the sky blue oilcloth. All are dead now, and their spirits do not come. They don’t come when I’m awake. They come in my dreams—but that is vanity. The dead came to Grandma Pech, both when she was asleep and awake, both day and night. Now there is complete stagnation—no one comes. Not she herself, or Father, or Uncle Ableger, or Janek Nikandy. They won’t come, although I focus like hell on them and on their other worlds. They don’t come, although I pray that they come. I summon them with biblical demagogy, and I even blaspheme against their memory in the desperate hope that, if in no other way, they would at least drop by to give us a little scare. But nothing. Neither hide nor hair. Is Warsaw too far away for them? A deadly joke, but I don’t cross people off the list for being dead.
Last evening the door bell rang. I was already certain that my old man had finally—exactly ten years after his death—made up his mind, and he was dropping by to pay a spectral visit. Nothing of the sort! The usual street fraud, claiming that supposedly her purse had been stolen and she didn’t have enough money to get home. Even a rather nice looking babe. I gave her five złotys. Not so much out of desire, as anger that it was she, and not the spirit of an ancestor. They don’t come. Although sooner or later someone will come. A destroyed city, an empty apartment, absolute twilight, complete solitude—ideal conditions for the dead. Eventually, they will come. At the worst, they will say of me that I went crazy.
Grandma Pech conversed with the dead. That’s an understatement. Well before someone died she often started to receive signs from the heavens. When Mila from Wierchy died, a half year earlier God struck the kitchen oven so forcefully that the pots almost fell. I was there. They were sitting at the table, drinking tea with rum, and suddenly it sounded like a stone quarry in the stove. They looked at each other for a fraction of a second and right away began to fi
nd thousands of reasons: wet coal was crackling in the hearth; a cast iron rib had cracked; the metal plate on one side had become completely bent; the badly positioned stove damper had fallen off; we have to throw away the old tea pot, because it’s going to pieces with a horrible bang; there’s something in the courtyard; something at the Nikandys’; something in the heavens.
