Hospital of the Transfiguration

ACHERON

Stefan was coming back from a walk. Fluffy gold filled the roadside ditches, as if Ali Baba’s mule had passed, spilling sequins from an open sack. A chestnut tree burned against the gray sky like an abandoned suit of armor. In the distance, the forest seemed to be rusting. As Stefan walked, the leaves thickly layered underfoot were alternately yellow and brown, like musical variations on a red theme. Twilight smoldered orange at the end of the path. Faraway orchards faded against the horizon. Leaves blown into a hissing cloud raced among a herd of tree trunks. Stefan was still dazzled by the colors when he entered the library to pick up a book he had left there.

Pajpak was standing at the telephone on the wall, pressing the receiver so hard that his ear had turned white. He was hardly saying anything, just mumbling, “Yes… yes… yes.” Then he said, “Thank you,” and replaced the receiver with both hands.

He stood there, still holding the telephone, and Stefan hurried over.

“My dear, dear colleague,” Pajączkowski whispered, and Stefan’s heart went out to him.

“Are you feeling weak, professor? Do you want some coramin? I’ll run to the medicine room,”

“No, it’s not that. I mean it’s not me,” the old man mumbled. He stood up straight and guided himself along the wall like a blind man until he reached the window.

The autumn red, laden with the smell of mold and speckled yellow among the leaves, broke against the window like a flood tide.

“It’s the end,” he said abruptly, then repeated: “The end.”

He lowered his gray head.

“I’ll see the dean. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. What time is it?”

“Five.”

“Then he’s sure to be… home.”

The dean was always home.

Turning as if he had just noticed Stefan, he said, “And you’re coming with me.”

“What’s going on, professor?”

“Nothing so far. And God will not allow it. No, He will not let it happen. But we’ll… You come with me as a witness. It’ll be easier for me that way, safer to talk, because you know how His Excellency is.”

A spark of Pajpak’s humor shined in his use of the dean’s ceremonial title, then disappeared.

Going to a doctor’s apartment was one thing, but going to the dean’s was another. The door was plain and white, like all the others. Pajączkowski tapped too softly to be heard inside.

He waited and tried again, louder. Stefan was about to knock himself, but the director skittishly pushed him away: You don’t know how to do it, you’ll screw it up.

“Come in!”

A powerful voice. It was still reverberating as they entered.

Stefan had seen the room before, but it looked different in the sunset light. The white walls had taken on a fiery color. It looked like a lion’s den. The old gold on the spines of the books seemed like some exotic inlay. The sun tinged the veneer of the sideboard and shelves with a deep mahogany. Pools of light shimmered in the grain of the wood; sparks glinted in the dean’s hair. He was behind his desk as always, leaning over a thick book, staring at Pajpak and Stefan.

Pajączkowski stammered through his introduction. He apologized, he knew they were interrupting, but vis maior—for the general good. Then he came to the point.

“I just had a telephone call, Excellency, from Kocierba, the pharmacist in Bierzyniec. At eight o’clock this morning a company of Germans and Cossack police—Ukrainians—arrived in the village. They were ordered to be silent, but somebody talked. They have come to liquidate our asylum.”

Pajpak seemed somehow diminished. Only his crooked nose moved. He was through.

The dean, as befits a man of science, questioned the reliability of the pharmacist’s information. Pajączkowski spoke in his defense.

“He is a solid man, Excellency. He has been here for thirty years. He remembers you from the times of the servant Olgierd. You wouldn’t know him, because he is a little man”—Pajączkowski measured out a modest height above the floor—“but he is honest.”

He took a breath and said, “Excellency, this news is so terrible that I would prefer not to believe it. But it is our—I mean, it is my obligation to believe it.” Now came the hardest part of his speech. However humble and unsure of himself, he realized how cold their reception had been: the dean had not even invited them to sit down. Two chairs by the desk stood empty, shadowed in the gold reflection of the setting sun. The dean sat waiting, his large, veined hand resting on his book. This meant that the entire scene was an interlude, an interruption of more important business beyond the ken of his guests.

“I have learned, Excellency, that these soldiers are commanded by a German psychiatrist. In other words, a colleague of ours. A Doctor Thiessdorff,”

He paused. The dean was silent. He merely raised his gray eyebrows as if to say: I don’t know the name.

“Yes. A young man. Member of the SS. And though I realize what a thankless undertaking it is—what else can we do? We must go see him in Bierzyniec today, Excellency, because tomorrow…” His voice failed. “The Germans have notified Mr. Pietrzykowski, the mayor, that they need forty people for a labor detail tomorrow morning.”

“This news is not entirely unexpected,” the dean said quickly. It was strange that such a big man could speak so quietly. “I have anticipated it, though perhaps not in this form, ever since Rosegger’s article. Surely you remember it.”

Pajpak nodded vigorously: he remembered, he was listening, he was paying attention,

“I do not know, however, what my role in all this might be,” the dean went on. “As far as I know, the staff and the doctors are in no danger. Whereas the patients…”

He should not have said that. Accustomed as he was to preparing his words well in advance, he must not have been thinking this time.

Pajączkowski appeared no different, but though his thin hand was still an old man’s hand, it did not tremble as it rested on the comer of the desk.

“These are times,” he said, “in which human life is losing its value. These are horrible times, but Your Excellency’s name should still be able to guard this house like a shield and save the lives of one hundred and eighty unfortunate people.”

The dean’s other hand, which had remained behind the desk as if not taking part in the discussion, now intruded in a vigorous horizontal gesture where meaning was clear: Silence.

“I am not, after all, the director of this institution,” he said. “I am not even listed as an employee. I hold no position here. My presence is entirely unofficial, and I believe that serious problems may arise for me—and for you—on that account. However, I will remain here if you so wish. As for my mediation, the Germans have already evaluated what services I have performed. In Warsaw. And you know to what effect. The wild young Aryan who, as you say, intends to kill our patients tomorrow is following the orders of an authority that respects neither age nor academic reputation.”

Silence fell, a change coming slowly over the room. The last rays of the setting sun moved across the cabinet by the window in a red, weeping stain so delicate that Stefan, though riveted by the conversation, could not help following it with his eyes. Then a blue veil dropped over the room like clear water. It got darker, and sadder, the way the lighting announces a new scene in a well-staged play.

“I am going there now,” said Pajączkowski, who stood erect and looked quixotic with his small beard. “I thought that you would accompany me.”

The dean did not move.

“In that case, I’ll be off. Good-bye, Excellency.”

They left. In the corridor, Stefan felt very small beside the old man. The tiny, withered face bore a great deal of pride at that moment.

“I’m going now,” he said, as they stood at the top of the light-dappled staircase. “I trust you will keep everything you have just heard to yourself until I return.”

He put his hand on the rail. “The dean has been going through a difficult time. He was thrown out of the laboratory in which he laid the groundwork for electroencephalography. His work was important not only in Poland. Still, I didn’t think…” Here a shade of the old Pajpak returned, but only for an instant: his beard trembled. “I don’t know. Acheronta movebo

“You want me to go along?” Stefan suddenly asked. Fear swept over him. He felt stunned, just as he had when the German kicked him, and he took a step back.

“No. What could you do? Only Kauters, perhaps.” He added, after a long pause, “But he wouldn’t go. I’m sure of that. The scene in there was enough for me.”

He started down the empty stone staircase with strides so firm that it was as if he wanted to refute all the rumors of his poor health.

Stefan was still standing at the top of the stairs when Marglewski appeared. The scrawny doctor was in bubbling spirits. He grabbed a button of Stefan’s shirt and drew him to the window.

“Have you heard that the priest is saying Mass tomorrow? He needs altar boys and I promised Rygier that I would find some for him. You know who’s going to serve? Little Piotr from my ward! You know who I mean?”

Stefan remembered a small blond boy with a face like a Murillo angel and a shock of gold hair. A drooling, retarded cretin.

“It’ll be out of this world! Listen, we absolutely have to…”

Stefan sacrificed the button, shouted that he was in a hurry, and left Marglewski in mid-sentence. He ran out of the building and down the road to Bierzyniec where Pajączkowski had gone. As he flew downhill, barely seeing the road, he heard a sound above the crunching of the leaves. He stopped and looked up. It was a motor. Someone was driving up the hill. A cloud of dust drew nearer behind the trees. Stefan could not help shivering, as if an icy wind had blown over him. He turned back quickly. He had almost reached the stone arch with its worn inscription when the engine roared past him. He leaned against the pillar.

It was a German military vehicle, a slab-sided Kübelwagen, rocking as it climbed in second gear. The driver’s helmet showed dark behind the windshield. The vehicle turned and stopped at the gate with a clatter.

Stefan walked toward it.

A big German was standing at the wall, wearing a camouflage cape, dark goggles pushed up onto his helmet, and black gloves with embroidered labels. Patches of mud were drying on the folds of his cape. He was saying something loudly to the gatekeeper. When Stefan heard his question, he answered in German: “Unfortunately the director is not here at the moment. May I help you?”

“Things have to be straightened out here,” the German replied. “Are you the vice-director?”

“I’m a doctor here.”

“All right, then. Let’s go inside.”

The German walked in decisively, as if already familiar with the place. The driver remained behind the wheel. Stefan noticed that he kept his hand on an automatic pistol lying on the seat beside him.

Stefan led the German into the main office.

“How many patients are here at present?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know if…”

“I’ll decide when you should apologize,” the German said sharply. “Answer me.”

“About a hundred and sixty.”

“I must have the exact figure. Let me see the papers.”

“That is confidential.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” answered the German. Stefan took the book off the shelf and opened it. The hospital population was 186.

“So. You’re sure you’re not lying?”

Stefan’s cheeks felt numb. He couldn’t take his eyes off the German’s sharp chin. His cold, sweaty fingers were clenched into fists. Those washed-out German eyes had seen hundreds of people strip naked at the edges of ditches, making meaningless movements as, understanding nothing, they tried to prepare their living bodies to tumble into the mud. The room spun—only the tall figure with the green cape thrown over his shoulders remained fixed.

“What a disgusting backwater this is,” the German said. “Two days hunting down those swine in the woods. A special committee is coming here. If you hide one single patient, that’s it.” No explicit threat, no gestures, no expression. Yet Stefan still felt numb inside. His lips were dry. He kept licking them.

“Now show me all the buildings.”

“Only doctors are allowed in the wards,” said Stefan, barely above a whisper. “Those are the rules.”

“We make the rules,” said the German. “Enough stalling.”

He pushed past Stefan, staggering him. They walked across the yard at a brisk pace. The German looked around, asking questions. How many beds in a given ward? How many exits? Are the windows barred? How many patients?

Finally, on his way out, he asked how many staff and doctors there were. He stopped at the broadest stretch of lawn and looked both ways, as if taking its dimensions.

“You can sleep easy,” he said when they got back to the vehicle. “Nothing will happen to you. But if we find a bandit here, or a weapon, or anything like that, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

The vehicle started as the German settled his enormous bulk into the backseat. Only then did Stefan realize two peculiar things: he had seen not a single doctor or nurse, even though they were usually out walking in the evening, and he had no idea who the German was. His cape had covered his insignia. He remembered nothing of his face, just the helmet and dark glasses. The man might as well have been a Martian, Stefan was thinking when the sound of light footsteps ended his reverie.

“What was all that about?” Nosilewska, her eyes more beautiful than usual, stood before him, flushed from excitement and from running. She was not wearing her medical smock. Confused, Stefan explained that he did not know himself—a German had wanted to look around the hospital. Apparently they were scouring the woods for partisans, so he had come here.

He was careful not to mention Pajpak.

Nosilewska had been sent by Rygier and Marglewski, who, though they had watched from an upstairs window as the vehicle left, did not want to come out. Nor had they let her come downstairs earlier: they were playing it safe.

Leaving her rather impolitely, Stefan started back down the path.

He looked at his watch: seven. It would be getting dark soon. The German had spent almost half an hour there. Pajpak should be back soon. Everything seemed strange, alien in the gloom. He looked at the asylum. The dark contours of the buildings rose against clouds which, backlighted by the moon, looked as if they had lamps in them.

He had gone several hundred steps when he heard someone coming toward him through the leaves on the opposite side of the road. It was dark; the clouds obscured the moon. Stefan, guiding himself by sound, crossed the road, and recognized the director only when they were just three steps apart. “There was a German at the hospital, sir,” he began, but broke off.

Pajączkowski said nothing. Stefan walked beside him, now a little ahead, now slightly behind. They reached the gate and went to Pajpak’s office. “This is it,” the professor finally said, unlocking the door and going in. Although they both knew where the furniture was and the switch, they bumped into each other three times before turning on the light. Then Stefan, who had been burning with questions, stepped back in fear.

Pajączkowski looked yellow and parched. His pupils were as wide as buttons.

“Professor,” whispered Stefan. And then louder: “Professor.”

Pajączkowski walked to the cabinet and took out a small bottle with a worn cork—spiritus vini concentratus. He splashed some into a tumbler, because there was no proper glass, drank it, and choked. Then he sat down in an armchair and held his head in his hands.

“The whole way there,” he said, “I kept going over what I would say. If he told me the deranged were useless, I was going to appeal to the work of two deranged Germans, Bleuler and Moebius. If he talked about the Nuremberg legislation, I would explain that we were an occupied country and our legal status would not be clarified until a peace treaty was signed. If he demanded that we turn over the incurables, I would say that in medicine there is no such thing as a hopeless case. You never rule out the unknown: that is one of the obligations of a doctor. If he said that this was an enemy country and he was a German, I would remind him that he was a doctor above all else.”

“Please, professor,” whispered Stefan, pleading.

“Yes, I know you don’t want to hear this. When I got there, I don’t know if I said three words. I was slapped in the face.”

“What?” croaked Stefan.

“The Ukrainian on duty told me that Obersturmführer Hutka had gone to the asylum to check on the population and work out the tactical plan. That’s how he put it. I hope you gave false numbers.”

“No, I… I mean, he saw them himself.”

“Yes, I see. Yes, yes.”

Pajpak poured himself some bromine with luminal from a second bottle, drank it, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he asked Stefan to summon all the doctors to the library.

“The dean too?”

“What? Yes. Well, maybe not. No.”

The lights were already on in the library when Stefan entered with Nosilewska and Rygier. Then Kauters, Marglewski, and Staszek appeared. Pajączkowski waited until they were all seated. Tersely and without the usual digressions he announced that the German and Ukrainian unit that had pacified—in other words, burned and slaughtered—the village of Owsiany planned to exterminate the patients of the asylum. The Germans had organized a labor gang for next morning, since they had learned from experience that mental patients—unlike peasants, who would usually dig their own graves—were incapable of organized tasks. He had learned all he needed to know from his attempt to approach Doctor Thiessdorff.

“Barely had I informed him of the purpose of my call when he slapped me. I wanted to believe that he was outraged at my slanderous suggestion of his intentions, but the Ukrainian duty officer informed me that they had already received orders: they are getting extra ammunition today. This duty officer seemed honest enough, if that word has any meaning under the circumstances.”

Pajączkowski concluded by explaining the true purpose of Obersturmführer Hutka’s afternoon visit.

“I would like you, ladies and gentlemen, to think all this over, to make certain decisions, and take steps… I am the director, but I am simply… simply not man enough to…”

His voice failed.

“We could release the patients into the woods and let them get away by themselves. There’s a local train to Warsaw at two in the morning,” Stefan began, but stopped when he met dead silence.

Pajpak shrugged. “I thought of that. But it seems unlikely to work. The patients would be rounded up easily. And they would never survive in the forest anyway. It would be the simplest thing, but it’s not a solution.”

“I believe,” said Marglewski, his tone categorical, “that we have to yield to superior force. Like Archimedes. We should leave, just leave the hospital.”

“With the patients?”

“Just leave.”

“In other words, escape. That, of course, is one way out,” the old man said softly, strangely patient. “The Germans can hit me in the face, throw us out of here, do whatever they like. But I am not just the director of this institution. I am a doctor. As are all of you.”

“Nonsense,” Marglewski muttered, resting his chin on his hand.

“Haven’t you tried… any other method?” asked Kauters. Everyone looked at him.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Well, some sort of appeasement.”

Pajączkowski finally caught on. “A bribe?”

“When will they be here?”

“Between seven and eight in the morning.”

Marglewski, who had been squirming strangely, suddenly pushed his chair back, leaned forward, his hands spread wide on the table, and said, “I regard it as my duty to preserve the scholarly work that is the common property of everyone, not only mine. I see no other course open to me. Farewell, ladies and gentlemen.”

Head high, he walked out without looking at anyone.

“Wait a minute!” shouted Staszek.

Pajączkowski made a gesture of helplessness. They all looked at the door.

“So,” Pajpak said in a fragile voice. “He works here for twenty years, and now this. I didn’t know, I never would have supposed—I, a psychologist, a specialist in personalities…”

Then he screamed, “We must not think of ourselves! We must think of them!” He struck the table with his fist, and began to weep, coughing and shaking.

Nosilewska led him to a chair, and he sat down reluctantly. The light struck her hair in golden streaks as she bent over the old man and discreetly held his wrist to check his pulse. She hurried back to her chair.

Suddenly everyone began talking at once.

“It’s still not certain.”

“I’m going to call the pharmacist.”

“In any case we have to hide Sekułowski.” (That was Stefan.)

“And the priest too.”

“But wasn’t he discharged?”

“No, that’s the point.”

“Well, let’s go to the office.”

“The Germans have already checked the numbers,” said Stefan dully. “And made me—I mean all of us—responsible.”

Kauters maintained his silence.

Pajączkowski, now calm, stood up again. His eyes were red. Stefan approached him. “Professor, we have to decide. Some of them must be hidden.”

“We must hide all the patients who are conscious,” said the director.

“Maybe a few of the more valuable ones could be…” Rygier hesitated.

“Perhaps we can let all the convalescents go?”

“They have no papers. They’d be picked up at the station.” “So which ones do we hide?” asked Staszek with nervous boldness.

“I’m telling you, the most valuable ones,” Rygier repeated.

“I cannot make decisions about value. Just as long as they don’t betray the others,” said Pajpak. “That’s all.”

“So we are supposed to make a selection?”

“Gentlemen, please go to the wards. Doctor Nosilewska, you will want to inform the nursing staff.”

Everyone headed for the door. Pajpak stood off to the side, leaning with both hands on the back of a chair. Stefan, the last to leave, heard him whispering.

“Excuse me?” he asked, assuming that Pajączkowski was speaking to him. But the old man did not even hear him.

“They’ll be so afraid,” he was whispering almost breathlessly.

No one slept that night. The selection yielded dubious results: about twenty patients, but no one could vouch for their nerves. The supposedly secret news somehow spread through the hospital. Young Joseph ran around in an open robe, not leaving Pajączkowski’s side.

In the women’s ward, a half-naked crowd danced in a blur of limbs amid a thin, relentless wailing. Stefan and Staszek nearly emptied the stock of drugs in the space of two hours, dispensing the carefully hoarded luminal and scopolamine right and left. To the amusement of Rygier, who was guzzling pure alcohol, Stefan took two swigs from the big bottle of bromine. Marglewski was seen heading for the gate lugging two suitcases and a knapsack crammed with his index cards on geniuses. Kauters disappeared into his apartment before midnight. Chaos mounted by the minute. Each ward howled in a different voice, creating a random, polyphonic scream. Stefan passed the dean’s room several times in hasty and needless trips up and down the stairs. A sliver of light showed under the door, but there was no sound from within.

It seemed impossible to find a place to hide patients on the hospital grounds. Then Pajączkowski presented the doctors with a fait accompli; he took eleven schizophrenics in remission and three manics into his apartment. He moved a wardrobe in front of the door to conceal them, but it had to be taken away temporarily when the healthiest-looking schizophrenic had a sudden attack. A big chunk of plaster was chipped off when the wardrobe was hurriedly replaced, and Pajączkowski covered the spot with a curtain. Stefan looked in several times. Under other circumstances he would have been amused at the sight of the old man, his mouth full of nails, teetering on a chair supported by Joseph, putting up a curtain rod with a neurological hammer. It was announced that only those with at least two rooms could hide patients. That meant Kauters and Rygier. The latter, now thoroughly drunk, agreed to take a few. Stefan went to the ward to bring out the boy sculptor. He opened the door on a storm of screaming people.

Long strips of bedding whirled around the few remaining light bulbs. Crowing, whistles, and a repetitive hoarse chant of “The Punic War in the Closet!” rose above the general roar. Stefan groped along the wall unnoticed. Twice he was kicked by Paścikowiak, who paced back and forth with long, vigorous strides, as if trying to break free of gravity.

Patients blind with madness spun in demonic pinwheels, threw themselves against walls, and crawled by twos and threes under beds from which their jerking legs stuck out. Stefan at last reached the boy’s room. Once he found him, he had to use his fists to try to clear a path to the door. The boy resisted and dragged Stefan into a comer. There he took a large canvas bundle from under a straw pallet. Only then did he let himself be led out.

When they reached the corridor, Stefan stopped for breath. He was missing several buttons and his nose was bleeding. The wailing behind the doors rose an octave. He handed the boy over to Joseph, who was helping to arrange a hiding place in Marglewski’s apartment, and went back downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs he noticed that he was holding something: the bundle the boy had given him. He tucked it under his arm, reached for a cigarette, and was frightened at how his hands shook as he struck a match.

After the third attack among his stowaways, Pajpak gave each of them a dose of luminal. Dawn was breaking as the last of thirty drugged patients were closed into an apartment.

Pajpak, who seemed to be everywhere at once, was personally destroying files, ignoring Stefan’s warnings. Wiping his hands after burning papers in a stove, he said, “I’ll take the responsibility for this.”

Nosilewska, pale but composed, shadowed the director. A fictional post, “chaplain,” was created for Father Niezgłoba, who stood in the darkest comer of the pharmacy praying in a piercing whisper.

As he ran aimlessly through the corridor, Stefan bumped into Sekułowski. “Doctor,” the poet cried, clutching Stefan’s smock, “perhaps I could—why don’t you lend me a doctor’s coat? After all, you know I’m familiar with psychiatry.”

He ran along with Stefan as if they were playing tag. Stefan stopped, gathered his wits, and thought it over. “Why not? It hardly matters at this point. We took care of the priest, so I guess we can do something for you. But…”

Sekułowski did not let him finish. They ran to the stairs, shouting back and forth. Pajpak stood on the landing giving the nurses final instructions.

“I say we should just poison them all!” cried Staszek, red as a beet.

“That’s not only nonsense, it’s criminal,” said Pajączkowski. Large drops of sweat ran down his forehead and glistened in his bushy gray eyebrows. “God might change everything at the last minute, and what then?”

“Ignore him,” said Rygier contemptuously from the shadows. A bottle peeped out of his pocket.

“You’re drunk!”

“Professor,” Stefan joined in, Sekułowski shoving him toward the old man, “there’s one more thing.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Pajpak, when he heard Stefan’s suggestion. “Why don’t you want to come to… to my apartment?” He wiped his forehead with a large handkerchief. “All right, of course. Right away. Doctor Nosilewska, you know how to arrange it.”

“I’ll falsify the records right away,” she said in her clear, pleasant voice. “Come with me.”

Sekułowski went with her.

“Now, one more thing,” said Pajpak. “Someone has to go to see Doctor Kauters. But I can’t go alone, it’s too awkward.”

He waited for Nosilewska to come back from the office. Sekułowski was bustling around the building in Stefan’s white coat, and had even appropriated a stethoscope to adorn his pocket. But when he came near enough to the door of the next building to hear the gathering howls, he retreated to the library.

Stefan felt weary. He looked around the corridor, waved his hand, peered through the window to see if it was morning yet, and walked to the pharmacy to take some more bromine. As he was putting the bottle back on the shelf, he heard someone come in.

It was Łądkowski, wearing a loose black suit.

The dean seemed unhappy to find Stefan there. He stood awkwardly in the doorway.

Stefan thought that perhaps Łądkowski was not feeling well. He was pale and seemed not to want to meet Stefan’s gaze. He hesitated as if about to leave, even putting his hand on the doorknob, but turned back and came close to Stefan. “Is there any cyanide here?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Is there any potassium cyanide in the pharmacy?”

“Well, yes,” mumbled Stefan, unable to collect his thoughts. In his amazement he dropped the bottle of luminal, which shattered on the floor. He bent to pick up the pieces, but then stood and looked expectantly at the dean.

“The key is hanging right there, Excellency. Yes, that one.” The cyanide and other poisons were kept under lock and key in a small cabinet on the wall.

Łądkowski opened a drawer and took out a small glass tube that had contained piramidon. Then he took a jar off the shelf, uncorked it with tongs, and carefully poured white crystals into the tube. He corked it and put it in the upper pocket of his coat. He locked the cabinet, hung the key back on its nail, and turned to go. But he stopped and hung the key back on its nail, and turned to go. But he stopped and said to Stefan, “Please don’t tell anyone about this…”

He gripped Stefan’s hand, squeezed it with his cold fingers, and said in a half-whisper, “Please.”

He hurried out, closing the door softly.

Stefan stood leaning on the table, still feeling Łądkowski’s fingers on the back of his hand. He looked around, went back to the cabinet to pour himself some bromine. With the bottle in his hand, he froze.

He had caught a momentary glimpse of Łądkowski’s frail old chest through his unbuttoned shirt. It reminded him of a fairy tale about a powerful king, a story that had once obsessed him.

This monarch ruled an enormous kingdom. People for a thousand miles around obeyed him. Once, when he had fallen asleep on his throne in boredom, his courtiers decided to undress him and carry him to the bedchamber. They took off his burgundy coat, under which shined a purple, gold-embroidered mantle. Under that was a silk robe, all stars and suns. Then a bright robe woven with pearls. Then a robe shining with rubies. They removed one robe after another until a great shimmering heap stood beside the throne. They looked around in terror. “Where is our king?” they cried. A wealth of precious robes lay before them, but there was no trace of a living being. The title of the story was “On Majesty, or, Peeling an Onion.”

The conference in Kauters’s apartment lasted an hour. In the end the surgeon opted for nonintervention: he would know nothing, do nothing. He would admit to familiarity with the operating room alone. Sekułowski would pose as the doctor on his ward. When Nosilewska told Stefan about the discussion, she mentioned that Sister Gonzaga was in Kauters’s apartment, sleeping on two armchairs pulled together. Sister Gonzaga? Stefan no longer had the strength to be astonished. He felt numb. He saw everything through a light fog. It was almost six. He saw Rygier in the corridor sitting in a special wheelchair used to transport paralytics. Rygier put the bottle on the floor in front of him and delicately kicked at it, as though delighted by the pure sound of glass.

Stefan was struck by the tension on his face, which seemed to presage an outbreak of tears at any moment. He did not dare say anything, but Rygier suddenly started hiccupping.

“Do you know where Pajączkowski is?” Stefan asked.

“He went out into the garden,” said Rygier, hiccupping.

“What for?”

“He’s with the priest. They must be praying.”

“I see.”

Sekułowski emerged from the library and spotted Stefan.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m all in. I think I’ll lie down. We’ll need our strength in the morning.”

Sekułowski seemed heavier in the white coat. The belt was too short to tie until he added a length of bandage.

“I admire, doctor. I couldn’t do it.”

“Don’t be silly. Come to my room.”

Stefan noticed a bundle on the radiator in the stairwell. Then he remembered that the boy had given it to him. He picked it up and, curious, unwrapped it. He saw the head of a man wearing a helmet, submerged to the upper lip in a block of stone. The eyes bulged and the cheeks were distended. The invisible mouth, lost in the stone, seemed to scream.

He put the statue on the table in his room, pulled the blanket off the bed, moved the chair, and fell onto his pillow. At that moment, Rygier burst in.

“Listen,” he said. “Young Pościk’s here. He’s taking six patients through the woods to Nieczawy. Do you want to go along, Mr. Sekułowski?”

“Who is it?” Stefan moved his lips voicelessly.

But his whisper was drowned by the poet’s questions: “Who? Which patients?”

Stefan raised himself from the bed, fighting sleep.

“Young Pościk, who worked at the substation. He came over from the forest and is waiting downstairs.” Rygier was sobering up. “He’s taking everyone who didn’t get luminal from the old man. Do you want to go or not?”

“With the lunatics? Now?” the poet asked, getting out of the chair. His hands were shaking.

“Should I go?” he said, turning to Stefan.

“I can’t give you any advice on this.”

“After curfew, with the lunatics,” Sekułowski calculated half aloud. “No!” he said decisively, but when Rygier reached the doorway, he shouted, “Wait!”

“Make up your mind! He can’t wait. It’s two hours through the woods!”

“But who is he?”

Sekułowski was plainly asking questions to stall for time. His hand was on the knot of the belt around his coat.

“He’s a partisan! He just got here and had an argument with Pajączkowski about the way those patients were doped on luminal.”

“Is he reliable?”

“How should I know? Are you coming or not?”

“Is the priest going?”

“No. Well?”

Sekułowski said nothing. Rygier shrugged and left, slamming the door. The poet took a step to follow, then stopped.

“Maybe I should go,” he said helplessly.

Stefan’s head dropped back on the pillow. He murmured something.

He could hear the poet pacing and talking, but could make no sense of the words. A paralyzing somnolence rose within him.

“Lie down,” he said, and fell asleep almost immediately.

A bright light woke him. A rod of some kind was digging into his shoulder. He opened his eyes and lay motionless. He had drawn the blinds the night before and the room was dark. Several tall people were standing at his bed. Groggy with sleep, he shielded his eyes: one of the men was shining a powerful flashlight in his face.

“Wer bist du?” Who are you?

“He’s all right. He’s a doctor,” another voice, somehow familiar, said in German. Stefan gave a start. There were three Germans in dark raincoats, automatics slung over their shoulders. The door to the hall was open. He. heard the heavy tread of hobnailed boots outside.

Sekułowski was standing in the comer. Stefan noticed him only when the German shined the light in that direction.

“Is he a doctor too?”

Sekułowski replied in rapid German, his voice breaking. They left one by one. Hutka stood in the door. He left a young soldier in command, ordering him to bring the doctors downstairs. They took the rear staircase. In the pharmacy they saw Pajączkowski, Nosilewska, Rygier, Staszek, the dean, Kauters, and the priest, all guarded by another soldier in a black uniform. The soldier escorting Stefan and the poet entered, closed the door, and took a long look at them. The director stood near the window with his back to the others, his shoulders hunched. Nosilewska sat on a metal stool, Rygier and Staszek in chairs. The day was cloudy but bright, the white of the clouds showing through the rusty leaves. A soldier blocked the door. He was a peasant with a dark, flat face and a crooked jaw. He breathed more and more heavily, and finally shouted in Ukrainian, “Well, doctors, what about you? The Ukraine lives, but you’re finished!”

“Please do your duty, as we have done ours, but do not speak to us,” said Pajpak in Polish, his voice surprisingly strong. He turned nimbly, drew himself up, and looked at the Ukrainian with his dark eyes.

“You!” murmured the soldier, raising his lumpy fist. The door flung open and hit the soldier in the back.

“What are you doing here?” growled Hutka in German. “Out!” He was wearing his helmet and held his automatic in his left hand, as if about to hit somebody with it.

“Silence!” he shouted, though no one had spoken. “Stay here until you get further orders. No one leaves. I repeat: if we find a single patient hidden, you all pay.”

He looked at them with his watery eyes and turned away. Sekułowski called out hoarsely, “Herr… Herr Offizier!”

“What now?” snarled Hutka. His dark brown face showed under his helmet. His hand rested on the doorknob.

“Some patients have been hidden in the living quarters.”

“What!? What!?”

Hutka rushed toward Sekułowski, grabbed him by the collar, and shook him.

“Where are they, you bastards?”

Sekułowski began to groan and tremble. Hutka called in the duty officer and told him to search all the apartments. The poet, still held by his coat collar, whined rapidly in Polish, “I didn’t want all of us to be—” His sleeves were pulled so tightly that he could not move his arms.

“Herr Obersturmführer,” shouted Staszek, deathly pale, “he’s not a doctor, he’s a patient, a mental case!”

Someone sighed. Hutka was stupefied.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the German retorted. “What’s the meaning of this, swine of a doctor?”

Staszek, in his poor German, repeated that Sekułowski was a patient.

Niezgłoba slouched toward the window. Hutka looked around at them, beginning to understand. His nostrils flared. “What bastards these swine are, what liars!” he wailed, pressing Sekułowski against the wall. The bottle of bromine on the edge of the table teetered and fell, shattering and splashing its contents over the linoleum.

“Well, we will straighten everything out. Let me see your papers!”

A Ukrainian—apparently a senior aide, because he wore two silver stripes on his epaulets—was called in from the hall to help translate the papers. Everyone except Nosilewska had them. A guard accompanied her upstairs while Hutka stood before Kauters, examining his papers at great length and seeming to calm down.

“Ah,” said the German. “Volksdeutsch, are you? Excellent. Why did you get mixed up in this Polish swindle?”

Kauters explained that he had known nothing about it. He spoke harsh but correct German.

Nosilewska came back with her Medical Association identity card. Hutka waved her away and turned to Sekułowski, who was still standing by the cabinet against the wall.

“Komm.”

“Herr Offizier… I’m not ill. I’m thoroughly well.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“Yes—I mean, no, but I really can’t—I’ll…”

“Komm.”

Hutka was now completely calm—too calm. He stood still, nearly smiling, his raincoat rustling with every movement. He signaled with his index finger, as one would to a child: “Komm.”

Sekułowski took a step and fell to his knees.

“Mercy! Please! I want to live. I’m not insane.”

“Enough!” Hutka roared. “Traitor! You betrayed your poor, crazy brothers.”

Two shots rang out behind the building. The windowpanes rattled and the instruments on the shelves trembled.

Sekułowski, wrapped in the folds of his doctor’s coat, fell at the German’s boots.

“Franke!” Hutka called out.

Another German came in and jerked Sekułowski by the shoulders so powerfully that the poet, tall and fat though he was, snapped upright like a rag doll.

“My mother was German!” he squealed in a falsetto as he was dragged to the door. He grabbed frantically for a handhold, squirming and gripping the doorframe but not daring to defend himself against the blows. Franke raised his rifle butt and methodically smashed Sekułowski’s fingers.

“Have mercy!” howled Sekułowski in German, and then “Mother of God!” in Polish. Fat tears rolled down his face.

The German lost his temper. Sekułowski now had hold of the doorknob. Franke took him around the waist, leaned into him, tensed, and pushed with all his might. They flew into the corridor, Sekułowski falling to the stone floor with a thud. The German reached back to close the door, giving the doctors a last glance at his flushed, sweaty face.

“Disgusting!” he said and slammed the door.

A large clump of bushes blocked the pharmacy window. Further on, beyond scattered trees, a blank wall rose. The cries of patients and the rasping voices of the Germans were distinct, though muffled. The crack of rifle shots seemed louder, somehow solidified. First there was a thick volley, then a sound like soft bags falling. Then silence.

A strident voice called in German: “Twenty more!”

Shots trilled off the wall. Sharp, melancholy whistles marked the occasional ricochet. At one point an automatic rifle barked, but generally it was small arms. Another silence was followed by the scraping of many feet and the now monotonous cry: “Twenty more!”

Two or three pistol shots, high-pitched and terse, sounded like corks coming out of bottles.

One inhuman penetrating scream rang out. There was a sound of crying from above, as if coming from the second floor. It went on for a long time.

The doctors sat motionless, their eyes glued to the nearest objects. Stefan felt stuporous. At first he had tried to cling to something: perhaps Hutka, who made the decisions, might somehow… there was life even in death… but a German shout interrupted his last reflection. There was a crashing of broken branches, red leaves fluttered outside the window, and breathy sobbing and the sound of boots on gravel were heard quite close by.

A shot rang out like thunder. A scream rose and collapsed.

Fast-moving clouds, their shapes changing constantly, filled the fragment of visible sky. The shooting stopped after ten. A strange sense of torpor set in. A quarter of an hour later the automatic rifles chattered again, the ensuing silence filled with the howling of the sick and the raucous voices of the Germans.

At noon the doctors heard heavy footsteps moving around the building; a dog barked and a woman squealed briefly. The door suddenly opened and the Ukrainian soldier came in.

“Everyone out! Fast!” he shouted in Ukrainian from the doorway. A German helmet appeared behind him.

“Everyone out!” he repeated, shouting at the top of his lungs. Dust and sweat were mixed on his face; his eyes looked drunken, trembling.

The doctors filed out. Stefan found himself next to Nosilewska. The corridor was empty except for a heap of crumpled bedding right outside the door. Long black streaks on the floor led to the stairs. A great mass lay propped against the radiator at the bend in the corridor: a corpse bent double, a black icicle protruding from its smashed skull. A gnarled yellow heel stuck out from under the cherry-colored robe. Everybody stepped over it except the German bringing up the rear, who kicked the foot with his boot. The shapes walking ahead of Stefan danced before his eyes. He took hold of Nosilewska’s shoulder. He was still holding on when they reached the library.

Piles of books had been thrown to the floor from the two bookcases nearest the door. The pages fluttered as the doctors stepped over them on the way in. Two Germans waiting by the door entered last. They sat down on the comfortable sofa, upholstered in red plush.

Everything seemed to waver in Stefan’s eyes. The room throbbed and turned gray, then collapsed like a burst blister. He fainted for the first time in his life.

When he came to, he realized that he was lying on something warm. His head rested on Nosilewska’s knees; Pajpak was holding his legs up.

“What happened to the nurses?” Stefan asked distractedly.

“They were all sent to Bierzyniec this morning.”

“What about us?”

No one answered. Stefan stood up, staggered, but felt that he would not faint again. Steps approached from outside; a soldier came in.

“Ist der Professor Lonkoski hier?” he asked.

There was silence. At last Rygier whispered, “Dean. Your Excellency.”

The dean, slumped in his chair when he heard the German’s call, slowly straightened. His large, heavy, expressionless eyes moved slowly from face to face. He grasped the arms of the chair, raised himself up with an effort, and reached into the upper pocket of his coat. He felt for something with a movement of his flattened hand. The priest, in his black cassock, stepped toward him, but the dean gestured categorically and walked to the door.

“Kommen Sie, bitte,” said the German, and graciously allowed him to go first.

The rest sat in silence until two shots roared thunderously in a closed space very nearby. Even the Germans, talking as they sat on the couch, fell silent. Kauters, bathed in sweat, stretched his Egyptian profile into a notched line and wrung his hands until his joints cracked. Rygier twisted his mouth childishly and bit his lip. Only Nosilewska—bent forward, elbows on her knees, her chin resting on her fists—seemed calm. Calm and beautiful.

Stefan felt something swelling in his stomach, his whole body seemed enormous and slick with sweat, a hideous trembling crept over his skin, but he thought that Nosilewska would be beautiful even in death, and he took a perverse satisfaction in the thought.

“It seems that… that we, too…” Rygier whispered to Staszek.

All of them sat on the red chairs except the priest, who stood between two bookcases in the darkest corner, Stefan rushed over to him.

The priest was whispering.

“They’re killing…” said Stefan.

“Pater noster, qui est in coelis,” whispered the priest.

“Father, it’s not true!”

“Sanctificetur nomen Tuum.”

“You’re wrong, Father, it’s a lie,” Stefan whispered. “There’s nothing there, nothing! I understood it when I fainted. This room, and us, everything, it’s only our blood. When that stops flowing and the heart stops beating, even heaven dies! Do you hear me, Father?”

Stefan pulled at his cassock.

“Fiat voluntas Tua,” whispered the priest.

“There’s nothing, no color, no smell, not even darkness…”

“It is this world that does not exist,” the priest said quietly, his ugly, pained face looking back at Stefan.

The Germans burst out laughing. Kauters suddenly stood up and went over to them. “Excuse me,” he said in German, “but Herr Obersturmführer took my papers away. Would you happen to know whether…?”

“Be patient,” answered a stout, wide-shouldered German with red-veined cheeks. He turned back to his comrade and spoke. “You know, the houses were already on fire and I thought everyone inside was dead. All of a sudden this woman comes running out through the flames, heading right for the woods. She’s running like a madwoman, holding onto a goose. Unbelievable! Fritz wanted to take her out, but he was laughing so hard he couldn’t shoot straight.”

They both laughed. Kauters stood motionless in front of them, then suddenly his face twisted up strangely and he forced out a reedy “ha ha ha!”

The storyteller’s expression darkened.

“What are you laughing at, doctor?” he asked. “There’s nothing for you to laugh at.”

White spots appeared on Kauters’s cheeks.

“I…” he croaked. “I am German!”

The German looked up at him carefully.

“Are you now? Well in that case go ahead and laugh.”

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, powerful and hard, instantly recognizable as German.

“Father, do you believe?” Stefan asked with his last ounce of strength.

“I believe.”

A tall officer they had not seen before came in. His uniform fit as if it had been painted on, and a dull sparkle showed on his epaulets. His bare head was long, with a noble forehead and chestnut hair speckled with gray. Light flashed in his steel-rimmed glasses when he looked at them. The surgeon approached him, tensed, and held out his hand.

“Von Kauters.”

“Thiessdorff.”

“Herr Doktor, what has happened to our dean?” Kauters asked.

“Don’t worry about him. I’ll take him to Bieschinetz in my car. He’s packing his things now.”

“Really?” Kauters exclaimed.

The German blushed and shook his head. “Mein Herr!” Then he smiled and said abruptly, “You must believe what I say.

“Why are we being held here?”

“Come now. You were in real trouble before, but Hutka has calmed down now. You’re under guard so our Ukrainians can’t do you any harm. They go for blood like hounds, you know.”

“Really?” asked Kauters, amazed.

“Oh yes, they’re like falcons: you have to feed them raw meat,” the German psychiatrist said with a laugh.

The priest came over and spoke in broken German. “Herr Doktor, how has this come about? Man and doctor and patient, the people who have been shot. Death!”

At first it seemed the German would turn away or raise a hand to shield himself from this black-clad interference, but he suddenly brightened.

“Every nation,” he answered, his voice deep, “is like an organism. Sometimes the body’s sick cells have to be excised. This was such an excision.”

He looked over the priest’s shoulder at Nosilewska. His nostrils flared.

“Aber Gott, Gott,” the priest repeated.

Nosilewska sat silent and motionless, and the German spoke more loudly as he looked at her. “Let me explain it to you another way. In the days of Caesar Augustus there was a Roman viceroy in Galilee who reigned over the Jews. His name was Pontius Pilate…”

The German’s eyes were burning,

“Stefan,” Nosilewska said in Polish, “please tell him to let me go. I don’t need anyone’s protection and I can’t stay here any longer, because…” She broke off.

Stefan, deeply moved—it was the first time she had called him by his first name—went over to Thiessdorff. The German bowed politely.

Stefan asked if they could leave.

“Do you want to leave? All of you?”

“Frau Doktor Nosilewska,” said Stefan, rather helplessly.

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course. Once again, you must be patient.”

The German kept his word. They were released at dusk. The building was silent, dark, and empty. Stefan went to his room to pack a few things. When he turned on the light, he saw Sekułowski’s notebook on the table and threw it into his open suitcase. Then he saw the sculpture next to it. He felt sick when he realized that its creator was somewhere quite near, buried under dozens of bodies in the grave that had been dug that morning.

For a moment he fought the pain tearing at his stomach, then fell on the bed and sobbed briefly, without tears. Then he was calm. He quickly took what he needed, knelt on his suitcase to close it, and locked it. Someone came in. Nosilewska. She carried a briefcase. She handed Stefan a long, white object: a sheaf of papers.

“I found this in the hallway,” she said. When she saw that Stefan did not understand, she added, “Sekułowski lost it. I thought that since you took care of him… It’s—it was his.”

Stefan stood with his arms at his sides.

“Was?” he said. “Yes, it was.”

“It’s better not to think about it now. Don’t,” said Nosilewska, in a physician’s tone. He picked up his suitcase, took the papers, hesitated, and finally slid them into his pocket.

“We’re going, aren’t we?” she asked. “Rygier and Pajączkowski are staying overnight. Your friend is with them. They’re leaving in the morning. The Germans promised to take their things to the train.”

“What about Kauters?” asked Stefan without looking up.

“Von Kauters, you mean?” Nosilewska replied slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe he’ll stay here.”

When he looked at her, puzzled, she added, “This is going to be an SS hospital. I heard him talking about it with Thiessdorff.”

“Ah, yes,” said Stefan. His head was starting to hurt, from temples to forehead.

“Do you want to stay? Because I’m going.”

“I admire your composure.”

“There’s not much left. It’s just about used up. I have to leave. I have to get out of here,” she repeated.

“I’ll come with you,” he said suddenly, feeling that he too would be unable to touch equipment still warm from the touch of those now dead, or to inhale air in which their breath seemed still to hang.

“Let’s go through the woods,” she said. “It’s shorter. And Hutka told me the Ukrainians are patrolling the roads. I’d rather not run into them.”

When they reached the ground floor, Stefan hesitated. “What about the others?”

She understood what he meant. “It might be easier for us, and for them too. All of us need different people now, different surroundings.”

They walked toward the gate: above them dark trees soughed like the surface of a cold sea. There was no moon. A large dark shape suddenly loomed in front of them.

“Who goes there?” a voice asked in German.

The white beam of a flashlight fell on them. In the reflection from the leaves they recognized Hutka. He was patrolling the yard.

“Go,” he said, waving them on.

They passed him in silence.

“Hey!” he called.

They stopped.

“Your first and only obligation now is to keep silent. Understand?” His voice held a threat. Maybe it was because of the glaring, shadow-sliced light, but he seemed somehow tragic walking in the long coat that fell to his boots, a seam of teeth showing in his face.

Much later, Stefan spoke: “How can they do such things and live?”

They were on the damp road, past the stone arch with the faded inscription black against the sky, when light shined around them again. Hutka was waving farewell with wide swings of the flashlight. Then all was blackness.

They veered off the road at the second bend and slogged laboriously through the mud, heading for the forest. Trees, ever denser and taller, surrounded them. Their feet sank into dry leaves that babbled like water at a ford. They walked for a long time.

Stefan looked at his watch. By then they should have been at the edge of the woods, from which they would be able to see the railroad station. But he said nothing. They walked on and on, bumping into each other; the suitcase felt heavier. The forest sighed steadily. Through the branches they caught rare glimpses of a ghostly night cloud. They stopped and spoke in front of a great spreading sycamore.

“We’ve lost our way.”

“So it seems.”

“We should have taken the road.”

They tried in vain to figure out where they were. It had gotten darker.

Clouds covered the sky, forming a low backdrop to the leafless branches that stirred in the wind. The breeze rattled the twigs. Then rain began to fall, and dripped down their faces.

When they stopped to rest, they noticed a squat shape nearby: some sort of barn or cottage. The trees thinned out and they walked into an open space.

“This is Wietrzniki,” Stefan said slowly. “We’re nine kilometers from the road, eleven from town.”

They had walked in a broad arc in the wrong direction.

“We’ll never get to the train in time. Unless we find horses.”

Stefan did not answer: it seemed impossible. The people were long gone. A few days ago the Germans had burned the neighboring village to the ground, and everyone had fled.

They climbed over a low fence and tapped at the windows and door. Dead silence. A dog barked, then another, and finally waves of steady barking rang through the area. An isolated cottage stood on a little hill above the village. A glow appeared in one of the windows.

Stefan hammered on the door until he shook. He was about to lose hope when it opened to reveal a tall, rumpled peasant, the whites of his eyes shining in his dark face. A white unbuttoned shirt peeked out under the jacket he had thrown on.

“We’re… we’re doctors from the hospital in Bierzyniec, and we’re lost. We need a place to sleep, please,” Stefan began, sensing that he was saying the wrong thing. But anything he said would be wrong. He knew peasants.

The man stood immobile, blocking the entrance.

“All we’re asking for is a place to sleep,” Nosilewska said, quiet as a distant echo.

The peasant did not move.

“We’ll pay,” Stefan tried.

The peasant still did not speak. He stood there. Stefan took his wallet out of an inside pocket.

“I don’t need your money,” the peasant said suddenly. “What people like you need is a bullet.”

“What do you mean? The Germans let us leave. We got lost, we were trying to make the train.”

“They shoot, bum, beat,” the peasant continued in a monotone, stepping out across the threshold. He pulled the door shut behind him and stood, tall, in the open. The rain was coming down harder.

“What can you do?” he said finally, shrugging.

He walked away from the house. Stefan and Nosilewska followed. There was a thatched shed in the yard. The man turned the simple latch on the door. The inside smelled of old hay and aromatic dust that tickled the nose.

“Here,” said the peasant. He paused for a moment and added, “You can sleep on the hay. But don’t crush the bundles.”

“Thank you very much,” said Stefan. “Will you take something after all?”

He tried to press a banknote into the peasant’s hand.

“That won’t stop a bullet,” the peasant said dryly. “What can you do?” he said again, more quietly.

“Thank you,” Stefan repeated helplessly.

The peasant stood there for another moment, then said, “Good night.” He left, turning the latch.

Stefan was standing just inside the door. He stretched out a hand like a blind man: he always had trouble finding his way in darkness. Nosilewska shuffled about on the straw. He took off the cold, heavy jacket that had stuck to his back; water dripped off it. He would have liked to have taken off his trousers too. He bumped into some sort of pole and almost fell over, but steadied himself on his suitcase. Then he remembered that he had a flashlight inside. He pawed at the lock. Along with the flashlight he found a piece of chocolate. Setting the light on the ground, he looked in his pockets for Sekułowski’s papers. Nosilewska scattered straw on the dirt floor and covered it with a blanket. Stefan sat down on the blanket’s edge and unrolled the sheets of paper. The first one contained several words. The handwriting fluttered between the ruled lines as if caught in a net. At the top was Sekułowski’s name, and below it the title; “My World.” Stefan turned the sheet over. It was blank. So was the next one. White and empty every one.

“Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing.”

A fear so powerful came over him that he sought Nosilewska’s gaze. She sat bent over, the plaid blanket draped over her. From under it she tossed out her blouse, skirt, and underwear, all heavy with moisture.

“Empty,” Stefan repeated. He wanted to say something, but it came out a hoarse groan.

“Come here.”

He looked at her. Her hands brushed back the dark waves of her hair.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t think. That boy. But Sekułowski… It was Staszek who…”

“Come here,” she repeated, gently, almost sleepily. He looked at her in wonder. Extending her arms from under the blanket, she stroked him like a child. He leaned against her.

“I’m bankrupt,” he said. “Like my father.”

She held him and stroked his head.

“Don’t think about it,” she whispered. “Don’t think about anything.”

He felt her breasts and her hands against his face. The only light came from the flicker of the fading flashlight, which had rolled into the hay. Shadows laced its feeble illumination. He could hear the slow, peaceful rhythm of her heart, which spoke to him in the old language, the language he understood best. He was still wondering at that when softly, without breathing, she kissed him on the mouth.

Darkness covered them. Hay crunched under the fuzzy blanket and the woman gave him pleasure, but not in the usual way. At every instant she controlled herself and she controlled him. Later, exhausted, holding her beautiful body without a trace of passion but with all the force of despair, he cried on her breast. When he calmed down, he saw that she was lying on her back, slightly above him, and her face, too, was so calm in the last light. He dared not ask if she loved him. To offer yourself was like giving a stranger your last bit of food: it was more than love. It suddenly occurred to him that he knew nothing about her; he could not even remember her first name.

“Listen,” he whispered quietly.

But she put her hand over his mouth, gently yet decisively. She picked up the edge of the blanket and wiped away his tears, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

Then even his curiosity faded, and in the arms of this unfamiliar woman he became, for an instant, as empty and blank as at the moment of his birth.

Kraków, September 1948