Cold Sea Stories

The Fifteen Glasses of Gendarme Polanke

IN THE YEAR 1909 or 1910 golden dust was falling on the Wilderness, slowly and idly, heralding a severe winter. Gendarme Polanke was riding his horse across the fields, but before he noticed the strange woman, he was thinking back to yesterday’s visit to the chief official, the Landrat. This matter could brook no delay. Squire Gulgowski, ‘that damned Pole’, had been riding about the local villages ever since he arrived from Danzig, distributing some sort of news-sheets and leaflets to the peasants, as well as the landowners (of whom there were not in fact many hereabouts). Polanke did not actually know the nature of these publications, for each person interrogated on this circumstance had held his tongue and shrugged his shoulders, but there could be no doubt it was a political matter, which he, Polanke, must immediately report to the Landrat. All the more, since the police station at Wiele was not trustworthy. Corporal Szulc took no notice of any reports at all. It was a known fact that instead of demonstrating a spirit of vigilance, Corporal Szulc held intense carousals every night, in which Kosterke the butcher and Blum the shopkeeper also took part. If only Polanke had access to a search warrant and several men to help. Meanwhile ‘that moustachioed Pole’ had set the dogs on him. But he, Polanke, had not failed to notice the plaque above the threshold, which was not there before, saying: ‘No entry for German cockroaches or any other vermin.’ That was what was written there. In Polish. If only the Landrat would wish to give it his consideration… Polanke gave a deep sigh. He adjusted his helmet and took in the reins. That was when he noticed the strange woman. He could tell at once that she was not local, and immediately spurred on his horse to cut across her path at the roadside crucifix, from where a path led off to Herr Knitter’s cottage. It did not take long.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked in German. But the woman did not take the slightest notice of him. ‘Can’t you hear what I’m saying to you?’ shouted Polanke, blocking her way. ‘Are you deaf?’ But at once he regretted his words and his insistence. The stranger stopped half a pace in front of the horse and looked up, staring at Polanke. In her eyes there was something that prompted instant anxiety. The gendarme did not know how to define it, but somewhere in the small of his back he felt an unpleasant tingling. ‘Only witches look at you like that,’ he thought, ‘or criminals.’ But he didn’t say that, of course, because the moment was dragging on unbearably and her gaze, not his, demanded a response. There they stood facing each other, she in shabby rags, he in his shiny helmet with the black eagle, she with a bundle tied on a stick of pine, he with his Mannlicher rifle slung over his shoulder; the golden dust continued to fall on the Wilderness, heavy rain clouds were drawing in from over the Water, and high overhead they could hear the cry of a hawk. Today it is hard to say who spoke first. But the main thing is that the words that followed – for they did say something to each other – were uttered in a harsh, grating language which Polanke did in fact know, but found repulsive: the dialect of fishermen and shepherds. He burst out laughing when she said she was looking for work and a place to stay. The work was out there, in the north and in the west, in the cities or at the houses of the vulgar rich, but not here, where not even potatoes could flourish in the sandy soil and where the only thing not in short supply was stones.

‘Admit what you have stolen at once,’ he said, leaning out of the saddle. But she answered that she hadn’t stolen anything. ‘In that case you’ve run away from your husband,’ he said even louder. She replied that she had never had a husband. At this point Gendarme Polanke adjusted the strap under his chin, sat up straight and delivered a speech – about the fact that wherever the imperial authority reached, no crime would ever escape justice. And as he, Polanke, was the natural extension of that authority in the local area, all vagrants and suspicious types who appeared in the Wilderness, in Zabrody or by the Lake should be on their guard. The gendarme turned his horse towards the Zabrody inn and without a word of farewell, without even looking at the stranger, rode away. Meanwhile the woman set off in the opposite direction. A few moments later she was standing at that point on the plateau where the view opens onto the thatched roofs of Zabrody, hidden among the hills, and further, as far as the eye can see, to the great Water cut across by the contours of islands and the woods on its borders. Here she halted beside a field - stone marking the way. She sat down and extracted a piece of dry bread from her bundle. Now she was tearing at it with her teeth, steadily working her jaw to chew it up. There was no more golden dust in the air, because the sun had dropped low behind the woods. As Gendarme Polanke approached the inn, the woman finished eating. She gathered all the crumbs from her skirt, scooped them out of her cupped hand with her tongue and set off straight ahead, along the road to Zabrody. And she surely would have found room in an abandoned barn or a fishing shed right on the Lake, or maybe she would even have been offered a warmer corner to sleep in at one of the cottages, if not for the sudden wind that fell on the Wilderness from all directions, driving in clouds heavy with rain and cold. She had to shelter anywhere she could, and at the edge of the scrubland it was not easy. She ran on, until at a turn in the road she came upon a thick clump of broom. She hesitated, wondering whether to flee further, but then the wind, raising twigs and leaves into the air, almost knocked her off her feet, so she crawled into the tangle of roots. As she tucked her head into her arms to hide from the lashing rain, Gendarme Polanke was knocking back his first glass of anise. In the dark chamber of the inn, empty and lit by a tallow candle, Gasiński the publican was leaning over his guest, telling him how two days ago Mr Samp and Mr Skórzewski had been coming home this way along the road to Juszki. They had been to the moustachioed Pole’s place in Wdzydze, but not for a name-day party or a family celebration. They had stopped a while at the inn, to give the horses a rest, had each drunk a glass of vodka and chatted in hushed voices, over there in the corner. Only a few words had reached the publican’s ears, rather odd and devious ones; oh no, it wasn’t a conversation about business – these words did not concern leasing, taxes, buying or selling. Then the gentlemen had parted and each gone his own way. Polanke downed the second glass of anise. Yes, he would very much like to know what sort of words they were. But Gasiński did not remember them well, so the gendarme drank a third glass and remembered the strange woman on the Wilderness. At the very thought of the look in her eyes, a shudder ran through his body. No, she had not come through this way, or at any rate she had not called at the pub. Gasiński laughed and shook his head. He didn’t give credit to beggars and tramps – he’d have sent a woman like that to the four winds, and that was that. What could she be looking for here?

‘That’s no ordinary beggar,’ said Polanke after a pause for thought. ‘Vagabonds don’t have that sort of look in their eyes.’ After the fourth and fifth glasses, which the gendarme downed in quick succession, he tried his best to explain to the publican what that look was like. But he said nothing specific. If that woman had stared at him for longer, she could certainly have driven him to an attack of fury. A look like that deserves a smack across the face, or to be locked up in jail. For not only does it go against imperial power, it is also an affront to the entire order established by the Creator. Gasiński sighed understandingly. He guessed the woman had said something offensive. Yet in any case he did not ask for details, he merely poured the next glass of liquor. Before Polanke had managed to tip it down his throat, there in the doorway, dripping wet, stood the bearded Hersz, a travelling salesman. Usually, if night caught up with him on his way to Zabrody, he stayed here and set off at first light across the Wilderness. Today he wanted to go further. If Gasiński had any business in Zabrody or Wiele, where Hersz would be heading the next morning, let him say quickly, for time was short. Although Gasiński had no business for the people of Zabrody or those of Wiele, he did wish to invite Hersz in; he poured the Jew a drink and encouraged him to stay, especially in weather like this. Why put your wagon and your goods at risk? No more than three weeks ago some robbers had attacked Czapiewski as he was coming back to Wieprznica from the city. They had taken all his money and his watch. Hersz nodded. Water was dripping from the brim of his felt hat and from matted wisps of his hair. He agreed that Gasiński was right – it was dangerous to travel at night in such a bad storm. On the other hand, if it were God’s will, not a hair would fall from his head. But then if it were His will, the horse would bolt in broad daylight and Hersz would break his neck in the nearest ditch. It was all predestined, up there on high.

‘But which God is Hersz talking about?’ asked Polanke, raising his head from the table top. The Jew was already approaching the door, but he did not want to show the gendarme any disrespect.

‘That’s not the right question,’ he said after some thought. ‘But there is another question, on that topic, that is the right one.’

‘Well?’ said Polanke, knocking back his sixth glass, which he hadn’t yet emptied, ‘so how would it sound?’

Hersz put his hat straight. ‘The right question,’ he said, ‘is the question: which person does the Lord God forget about? And why does He forget about him?’

Once Hersz had left the inn, Polanke shrugged. Why should he care about the salesman’s pearls of wisdom? His licence was in order. Now, as the Jew drove his two-wheel trap towards Zabrody, and the strange woman huddled in the broom bushes, Gendarme Polanke was devising a plan to ensnare Squire Gulgowski. The wind was raging over the Wilderness, casting waves of rain onto the land, the scrub was plunged into darkness, and the publican Gasiński had put a bottle of vodka and some snacks on the table. Before the salesman reached the turn in the road where the thick, tall broom bushes grew, a little more time went by. Polanke was already surrounding the house at Wdzydze with a cordon of iron helmets, the rifles were cocked and the whistles were at the ready. The seventh glass kicked off the start of the action. At the eighth Hersz cracked his whip, and Squire Gulgowski was already behind bars in the local lock-up. As the Landrat himself was delivering his commendation, Hersz was passing the stone marking the way. At the ninth glass, which was like a judicial seal on the verdict, the salesman slowed his horse down a bit, because here the road dipped and the wagon was bouncing dangerously in the potholes. The tenth glass was heralded by fanfares. The gendarmes’ orchestra played the anthem as the Landrat pinned a shining medal on Polanke’s chest. That was just when Hersz all but fell out of the trap, and almost paid for that moment with his life. His heart was in his mouth and the reins nearly fell from his hands. If he had seen the glittering knives of bandits or the barrel of a handgun facing him he could not have been more terrified. Out of the thick bushes on the roadside something black came crawling, something that wasn’t an animal, but wasn’t human either. Then this something grew to human dimensions, and stood there, evidently waiting for him, Hersz, who was only a travelling salesman, who respected the Lord God and had never cheated anyone. If it is the dybbuk, he thought feverishly, I am lost. For there could be nothing worse than the spirit who wanders the roads and lurks in wait for human souls. A ghost returning from the world beyond could enter his body, and from then on Hersz would no longer be Hersz, but someone completely different. Nevertheless, as though another man’s mind were guiding his hand, Hersz reined in the horse and, shouting loudly at it, stopped the trap. What he saw calmed him down at once – he might have been afraid of spirits, but not of a woman who was lost and needed help. Streaming wet and shivering with cold, there she stood in front of him, in a black headscarf which covered her hair, so haggard and wretched that Hersz, who had seen plenty of poverty in the world, felt a sharp stab in the region of his heart.

‘Where do you want to go?’ he asked, shouting over the wind and rain. She said nothing, as if his words were incomprehensible. ‘Well, where were you going to?’ he went on shouting. ‘Where were you trying to get to?’ There was no need to be afraid of Hersz. Not even children were afraid of him. But she gave no reply. The salesman could see her face and her eyes, fixed intently on his person, and suddenly he felt fear embrace his soul. For if the creature he was addressing would not speak, she might in fact be a spirit or a phantom. Just to make sure, he decided to touch her arm, against his better judgement – and once again something strange happened. Instead of retreating or disappearing, the woman took a step forwards and slumped to the ground, right at Hersz’s feet, making the mud splash. He leaned over her face and asked again where she was going and what she was called, but even when he shouted right into her ear, ‘Who are you?’ and shook her shoulders, she did not offer a single word in answer. Only now did Hersz notice that the strange woman’s brow was burning and her body was being consumed by a high fever. He picked her up and laid her in the trap like a child. He swiftly fetched a travel rug out of the box and covered her body with it so she wouldn’t be drenched a moment longer. Now he was racing at top speed to Zabrody, without sparing the whip or the exhortations. As he passed Herr Knitter’s cottage, at the point where the hamlet began, Gendarme Polanke was already on his thirteenth glass of anise and, propped up by the publican, was entering the imperial palace to receive a special nomination from the hands of the Kaiser himself. The guardsman in the sentry box gave a formal salute, and in the corridors and halls that followed he could hear the whisper of the courtiers, most pleasing to the ear: ‘Here’s Polanke! The very same! What Polanke is this? The Polanke who keeps the eastern provinces in check! Is he really that Polanke? No other - he’s the one going to see the Kaiser!’ As Hersz lashed his horse next to the Konkels’ house, for Dutch courage before his audience with the Kaiser, the gendarme knocked back his fourteenth glass. And as the salesman drove up a small rise, and at the spreading oak trees turned into the Zabrodzkis’ manor, the doors opened before Polanke and His Imperial Highness himself, Kaiser Wilhelm, rose from his armchair, waved a hand benevolently and from a crystal decanter, as a mark of his regal benevolence, poured his guest the fifteenth glass, with fine strips of gold floating in it. Before Polanke had managed to stand to attention and drink it, Hersz had driven up to the porch, which had brick foundations and small wooden columns crowned with a gable roof. The barking of dogs and the shouts of people were drowned in streams of rain as Mr Zabrodzki gave the farmhands some swift instructions, the women prepared hot water and a herbal spirit, Hersz waddled about in the hall, the wind roared over the Water, and Gendarme Polanke swallowed the contents of the fifteenth glass, threadlike slivers of gold and all. This time however he did not put down his glass, though the butler held out a silver tray, which was dancing around him like mad. The glass fell from his hand and hit the floor with a crash, and although Polanke saw it happen, he could no longer hear a sound. For a terrible thing had happened. The Kaiser’s face quivered into a familiar grimace. The monarch’s moustache was growing more and more like another moustache, well-known and hated. Yes, it was not the Kaiser, but the squire from the sandy farmlands, Gulgowski, who was standing in front of Polanke as large as life, handing him a cigar, and laughing in a genial bass. Suddenly everything went quiet and Polanke was falling into a deep chasm, where there was no more Kaiser, Gulgowski, sand, stones, Landrat, shepherds’ and fishermen’s dialect, Corporal Szulc, reports, or silent conspiracy by the local residents. It is possible that Polanke was falling into the abyss of the lake, deep and unfathomable, until finally he settled at the very bottom, down where there is no longer any memory or anything at all. The publican laid his massive body on a bench in the alcove, rested his rifle and helmet against it and, stooping over the flickering light of the tallow candle, browsed with interest through the gendarme’s latest reports, written in sloping, calligraphic Sütterlin script. At the very same time Mr Zabrodzki was chatting to Hersz about grain prices, the approaching winter, and what they were saying in the papers nowadays. Next door in the kitchen, where the fire was roaring away, old Mrs Zabrodzka was rubbing the unconscious woman with spirit and, with Hanka’s help, was wrapping her body in a heated sheet. Once they were ready to call the men, and once they had carried the insensible stranger to a side room, old Mrs Zabrodzka sat down on a stool and gazed at the fire. The woman was young and lovely. The mistress at Zabrody had never seen such a beautiful girl before. This thought stabbed at her heart like an invisible pin.