My First Suicide

All the Stories

I

In the environs of the little Austro-Hungarian town in which we performed our Socialist Student Workers’ Traineeship there prowled a Silesian vampire, and from the very beginning the girls from the local Dressmakers’ Technical College looked upon us with fear. They would turn tail, pick up the pace, respond badly to even the most sophisticated attempts at striking up a conversation. And we really knew how to strike up a conversation — not all of us, of course; not all of our five-man brigade knew how to strike up a conversation — but Wittenberg and I had an innate expertise. We strove for the maximal effect, elaborated on the plenitude of possibilities, turned cartwheels to construct tempting persuasions — all for nothing. The splendidly dressed misses from the clothiers’ school wouldn’t even pretend that they were making a date, that they would come for coffee, that they would say yes to an invitation to the dance. Not even as a form of good riddance would they say that they would see, they would make an effort, they would give it a try, and if they could find a moment, they would drop by.

Every day, after knocking off work, we would go to the local dive called Europa and one of seven indistinguishable local alcoholics would tell us the next in the series of stories about the vampire; we would each drink two beers and then go over to the Technical College building, which was beautifully situated in the depths of a park that had run wild. These expeditions were conducted in vain. Almost all the windows were closed, in spite of the September heat wave; the massive crowns of the oaks, and the equally massive clouds were reflected in the panes — and not a living soul.

Out back, on the playing field, there was no one; in the residential wing — no one; in the quite visible corridors — no one. Not a trace of a figure running by, not a shadow of shoulders, hair, feet. No billowing frock, cast off scarf, brooch, bracelet, ribbon. There was the barely perceptible scent of perfume — but even this might have been a pious wish. No song, no laughter, no giggles. Once, it seemed to us that we heard the murmur of a hair dryer; but this could just as well have been the distant drone of a biplane flying south. Other than that, neither hide nor hair. A complete void, wilderness, and, what follows from this, the complete absence of civilized customs.

It goes without saying, Poland at that time—anno Domini 1971—was under the Muscovite yoke, but regardless of the yoke, and regardless of the political system, it is accepted in all of human civilization that when, outside a woman’s boarding house, school, dormitory, workers’ hotel, convent, or even, for that matter, prison, there stands a group of starving men, and even if they are not granted entrance, they will at least receive an answer. Sooner or later, a window is cracked, and at first in the cracked window, and later in the wide open window, the boldest of the inhabitants (usually the chorus leader of middling looks) appears, and the exciting dialogue — although usually full of every sort of idiocy — begins.

“Are the gentlemen seeking something? Have they perhaps lost something?”

“We haven’t lost anything, but we are seeking.”

“If you haven’t lost anything, you can’t be seeking it.”

“We are seeking in order to find it.”

“I wonder what that could be? What do you wish to find?”

“We can’t say it out loud.”

“If you can’t say it out loud, you can’t say it at all.”

“If you can’t say it quietly, you don’t say it out loud.”

“Too bad. Either out loud, or not at all.”

“OK. In that case, we’ll say what we are seeking.”

“But we no longer care about that. We are no longer interested in what you are seeking. Seek and ye shall find. Farewell.”

“Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

“Well my, my! Which of you is so pious?”

“We are all pious.”

“Girls! We have a group of pilgrims under our windows!”

“Don’t ridicule our faith, sister. We have among us one who has felt the calling and intends to enter the seminary.”

“Girls! We have pilgrims under our windows! With a future clergyman!”

“Sisters! Receive the weary wayfarers under your roof!”

“We can’t today, because we already have a group of pilgrims spending the night with us. But give it a try again tomorrow. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. But not on the first try.” Etc., etc.

Wittenberg and I were experts at such dialogues. We had tens, and perhaps hundreds of balcony scenes under our belts. We had spent tens, and perhaps hundreds of hours under the walls of castles conducting unending conversations with imprisoned virgins. We knew how to put on performances like these and how to play them out. With the virtuosity of old actors, making skillful pauses for applause, we foresaw at what moment more and more numerous giggles would begin to emerge from within, gradually turning into generalized laughter; and after which line beautiful little girls’ heads would begin to appear in the windows — at first bashfully, but then more and more boldly and en masse. It was always obvious, more or less, when other voices would join the voice of the leader of the chorus, and when we could begin to establish eye contact with the chosen beauties who would relentlessly stand in the windows. (The rule is this: you must establish eye contact with those who disappear every little bit and return after a moment; it is common knowledge that they disappear to put their hair in order, remove their glasses, throw a flattering shawl over their shoulders. This is the group from which the final recruitment will be made.) Even then we had all this knowledge at our fingertips, and every day, with dull stubbornness — like a person doggedly turning a broken television set on and off in the hope that it will repair itself — we would traipse over to the deserted Dressmakers’ Technical School, expecting that finally a window would be cracked, the saucy leader would appear, and the ritual spectacle would begin. And yet, day after day, nothing, nothing, nothing. It seemed that the Silesian vampire had indeed murdered all the girl students, or as if, in a total panic, they had all fled into the depths of the forest, into which the park was gradually being transformed.

II

Personally, I didn’t make a tragedy of the thing, nor did I even complain very much. I was madly in love. To be sure, I traipsed over to the Technical School with full conviction, and — with deep faith — I looked for a miracle. When some young lady would make an appearance in the Austro-Hungarian lanes — thereby irrefutably proving that they nonetheless are, that they live, that they exist — or rather a couple young ladies from the clothiers’ school (they always went to town in groups of no less than two), with eager enthusiasm, by myself or with our entire five-person brigade, I would set off following her, and I would attempt to strike up a conversation — masterfully, although fruitlessly. I reacted intensely to the strong bodies of the four female bricklayer’s assistants who worked with us, hidden though they were under overalls stiffened from lime. Thousands of temptations and licentious scenes swarmed in my head. The most important, however, was Gocha.

Our love had erupted in the second year of the lyceum, lasted through the third and fourth, and now, after the matura and the entrance exams (Gocha had passed the exam for the school of dentistry), it not only lasted and lasted, but it exploded more and more forcefully, with a volcanic force unknown in our latitudes. Gocha. Gocha of Gochas. Gocha like the Lausanne Lyrics! Gocha like a flowering poem! Gocha like the Duino Elegies! Gocha like The Shadowy Drink! Almost every day I wrote letters full of quotations, plagiarisms, and every sort of amatory graphomania, and every weekend I rode up into the mountains to see her. Those trips, like everything in life, required me to deceive my folks.

III

Anno Domini 1971 was the nineteenth year of my life, and, in that year, telling my forty-year-old Mother and my forty-five-year-old Father that I went to see a girl on Saturdays and Sundays was out of the question. Even worse, I had to head off an attack on their part. For a few months by that time, my folks had been in possession of the first and — as it would later turn out — only car of their lives, and there was a permanent threat that they would drop by and make an unexpected visit. My old man was the worst driver in the world, but his pathological pride wouldn’t allow him to turn the driving over to Mother, to say nothing of me. By taking thousands of additional lessons, by paying thousands of złotys extra, and by practicing changing gears for hours at a time with dry runs, he passed the driving exam with the greatest difficulty. He hated driving, and he hated the car — a Fiat 125 purchased, with difficulty, using money borrowed from Pastor Kalinowski — and, it goes without saying, he drove with heroic perserverence. Reproofs of instruction are the way of life. Every trip was an inhuman torture and humiliation. In addition, every trip had to have some definite and edifying geographical goal. The possibility that one might drive a car solely for the purpose of improving their driving technique, and without a destinational, geographical, or, best of all, geo-historical reason, didn’t come into consideration. A Lutheran — even if he is driving solely for the purpose of perfecting his driving technique — must drive somewhere. And not just somewhere, but to some fundamental, or at any rate useful, place. To drive who knows where, to take who knows what turn — this is impossible. There is no such thing as a sudden hankering for a left or a right turn. Sudden, and unfounded hankerings are beyond the Lutheran anatomy.

Before every training excursion, my old man pored over the road map of the Krakow environs, and he scrupulously laid out the route so that it would contain as many cognitively useful monuments as possible — ruins, churches, castles, or, at worst, factories, bridges, or tributaries of rivers. A drive to the little Austro-Hungarian town in which we were performing our Workers’ Traineeship was a dream route: on the numerous straight sections he had perfect opportunities to practice changing lanes; he could bring me the cake that Mother had baked; he could take my dirty laundry back home; and above all, he could propose to at least part of the brigade — all of them, unfortunately, would not fit — a drive around the environs.

“Gentlemen, I propose a small expedition around the environs. I am at your service in the role of free driver and guide. And not entirely free, for if, after the trip, we make a rest stop at a certain well-known local confectioner’s, I will be counting on a large ice cream! Ha! Ha! Ha! I know that the gentlemen would prefer a large beer, but nothing doing today. We set forth without delay! Contrary to appearances, there are several things in the vicinity worth seeing! A young man, especially a freshly minted student of Polish literature, in other words, a man of letters in spe, should constantly be looking around in the world! You are certainly aware that the great Polish writer, the Nobel laureate Władysław Reymont, had a photographic memory! Whatever he saw was fixed in the head of that writer of realist epics, and with all the details! He had a great gift! And more importantly, he constantly perfected and developed it! Every gift, every talent must be perfected! Even the greatest perfect their gifts! Reymont perfected his! He instructed his memory and his gaze! We will take a trip together through the environs, and we will train the realism of our gazes! Reproofs of instruction are the way of life!”

The closer the weekend came, the more severe the nightmare became, the more distinctly I heard the bombastic voice of my old man. Quite often I didn’t so much imagine as see, with terrifying realism, how he would barge into our billet, which was full of empty bottles and reeked of cigarettes; how he would pale and stand stock still from horror, but not betray any of this; how, full of pride in the art of self-control, which he had mastered to perfection, he would smother the spirit of fury, summon the spirit of gentlemanly courtesy and Lutheran humility, and get down to putting things in order; how he would hold a manly conversation with our landlady and request — categorically request — that she keep him up to date about everything that is going on, and to this end, he would leave certain funds to cover the costs of telephone calls. And I saw how he would return and get down to making the beds, to a highly ostentatious — like in the army — making of the beds, and I heard Wittenberg’s laugh, which was full of savage derision, and I saw the spirits of humility and courtesy evaporate like steam from Father, who became stupefied and as pale as paste, and I saw him attack my best friend with orgiastic relief, subject to the black spirit of a white-hot rage, and I saw Wittenberg, strong as a tiger and a judo expert, grab my old man and either first break his back and then smash his head against the wall, or the other way around. I couldn’t let it come to this. Before every weekend, I called home, and I said that I had an obligatory excursion to the dam in Porąbka, to the camp in Auschwitz, or to the Błędów Desert.

IV

When, not long ago at all, on the occasion of my folks’ sixtieth wedding anniversary, I delivered an embarrassing speech, into which — who knows why, probably at the instigation of the devil — I wove in those old lies, both of them, Mother and Father, stiffened.

Theoretically, they had another reason to stiffen, since I had appeared at the celebration in the company of a certain fledgling singer who was dressed in a lizard-green dress with a daring décolletage — but my folks had been stiffening for those sorts of reasons for so long that they were by then almost nonchalant about it.

I just couldn’t resist, and I invited and brought to Wisła, for all of the most exalted of family events, each successive woman of my life. I always introduced them as ambitious television journalists, who were collecting material for a documentary film about Lutheran customs. Only such a fiction — uniting elements of work, mission, proselytizing, a laudable interest in our exceptionalism, and the hope for television fame that would satisfy Lutheran pride — gave them the chance of legitimization. On the whole, hand on my heart, I don’t know whether or how that worked. Supposedly everything was in order, supposedly my folks took note of it, supposedly they accepted it, but how it was in truth — I don’t know. Perhaps they were putting a brave face on it? Perhaps they expected that one of these times I would settle down, and they weren’t ruling out the chance? Perhaps they hoped that one of these Venuses would indeed turn out to be a reporter interested in the Lutheran life? Perhaps they took them for specters? Shrugged it all off? I don’t know.

My tragedy is the fact that I always nurture serious intentions. Granted, I like to have a woman near me, whose sight even Lutherans find breathtaking, but, after all, it is not because of such snobbery that I drag these unfortunates up to Ram Mountain. I take them because I love them. I want to be with them to the end of my life. I want to live with them in a house eternally buried in snow, feed dogs and cats, keep the stoves burning, watch movies in the evenings on HBO, drink tea with raspberry juice, etc.

And that is how it was this time as well. Everything went like clockwork. I introduced the fledgling singer in her lizard-green dress as an ambitious journalist who was collecting material about our customs, my folks put a brave face on it, took her for a specter, shrugged it off, or whatever. At her sight, the gathered Protestants had their breath taken away. She greeted everyone politely and modestly, she bowed and curtsied, which, given her décolletage, was something straight out of Babylon, but for my co-religionists a proper girl’s Kinderstube makes a thunderous impression, even if a tit surfaces in the process. Then my current love began to converse with this one and that one, and — so it seems to me — she didn’t even especially make a fool of herself through a lack of substance. True, I heard her ask Mr. Trąba, who was sitting next to her, whether Lutherans celebrate Christmas, and if so, when. But without any hysteria — this wasn’t any sort of exceptional or especially bloody faux pas. The majority of the alleged experts on, and enthusiasts of, Protestantism that I brought there posed similar questions.

Besides, Mr. Trąba began to answer, favorably inclined — in my opinion, excessively inclined. He began to answer eagerly, but chaotically, which was no wonder — the visible range of her solarium suntan shattered not only his concentration. Even Father Kalinowski had problems with the welcoming homily. At least he didn’t get tripped up on the Our Father.

The first hymn was sung, food served at the table, glasses filled. Eat and drink, and make merry, brothers and sisters! Quickly the company began to raise toasts based on cheerful biblical citations and deliver speeches composed on the model of sermons. I was delighted. I was delighted by the entire event. I was delighted by the speeches and the toasts. I was delighted by the fledgling singer in the lizard-green dress. I believed deeply that we would remain forever in my parts, and that in the evenings, in a house buried in snow, we would drink tea, watch films on HBO, etc. I was totally moved, and I was crazy about the absolute grandeur of the thing. When my turn came, or when I had the impression that my turn had come, I was close to tears from emotion. I tapped on my glass with the knife, I stood up, and I let ’er rip. It seemed to me that I was speaking incredibly fluently, that I was master of the form, and that I was faultlessly making my way to the conclusion, and I was simultaneously conscious that some force beyond my control was leading me astray, and that at any moment I would say something I shouldn’t, but which, at the prompting of the darknesses gathering in me, was becoming necessary.

At first, I told them some bullshit from my childhood. Then I began, with bootlicking servility, to assure everyone present that all my life I had emulated my folks, that I had striven to live as they do — according to God’s commandments. And even when it happened that I sinned, it was also — a paradox, but nonetheless — in emulation of them. And here I veered off into muddiness, or more precisely, I got carried away in absolute muddiness. I really must have heard Satan’s whisper, since I suddenly began to blather embarrassingly about how, after passing the matura, at the threshold of my university studies, I didn’t go to the dam in Porąbka, or to the camp in Auschwitz, or even to the Błędów Desert, but to my girlfriend at the time… to my girlfriend at the time… to my girlfriend at the time… I got flustered, since I sensed, after all, how terrible it was. I glanced in the direction of the fledgling singer, who was like a half-naked and emerald-winged angel among the Puritans enshrouded in their blacks; I glanced at her, and I didn’t want to say what I was just about to say; I didn’t want to say what I said, but my speech was now coming like a hemorrhage, as if I had been shot through the head. I didn’t go then to the dam in Porąbka, or to the camp in Auschwitz, or to the Błędów Desert, but to my girlfriend of the time, and my current wife. I added this unexpectedly, and I bowed in the direction of the fledgling singer, who sat quietly and didn’t even laugh; quite clearly she was thinking that it had to do with some Lutheran custom that was unknown to her — and my current wife, with whom I have been for nearly thirty years now, and with whom, I trust, I will live to see an anniversary like yours, dearest parents. Amen. God help me! God hear me! God forgive me!

I strove for grandeur, but I flew down into the depths of the abyss. I raised my glass, I turned toward the venerable celebrants, and, no amazement on my part, I saw a couple of elegantly dressed oldsters, frozen in horror (he in his best steel gray suit from the seventies, she in a fancy navy blue dress from the eighties), their heads hanging low, almost on the table cloth. Everyone, it goes without saying, grasped at once what a truly terrible gaffe I had committed, and no one — not even Father Kalinowski — hastened to smooth the situation over or to give me some sort of light-hearted support. I instantly understood what was going on. I returned to lucidity. I stood for another moment like the typical class dunce, who is still standing, although he ought to have taken his seat long ago. I stood for about another half a minute, and finally, in deathlike silence, I sat down on my chair. Copious sweat appeared on my forehead — I knew that I would have to suffer punishment.

The cooks brought in the second course, but the beef roulades and the veal cutlets were not salvation, they signified only a delay full of torment. Anyway, I didn’t have to wait long. My old man didn’t even try the second meat dish, he chewed a bit of the first (in other words, the roulade), stood up from the table, and went to change into his work clothes. A first, a second, a third slamming of doors reached us from the depths of the house, and after a moment the rhythmic pounding of a hammer resounded from the garage. The Lutherans, who were gathered around the table, relaxed a bit, began to glance at each other with recognition, and they smiled with pride: it is well known that when something bad happens, when the demons come, the best thing to do is to get to work. In spite of the horror of the situation, or perhaps on account of that horror, the question suddenly began to torment me: What sort of task had my old man set himself, and what was he so rabidly hammering?

Mother bustled over to the kitchen. I flew after her, I stood by the window, and I glanced at the snow-covered garden. “Mama,” I said quietly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” She turned toward me, a monstrous fury — all the more monstrous, because it was silent — contorted her face. She began to threaten me in silence, to make signs — toward the garage, in which my old man might die any moment from overwork; toward the dining room, in which the guests now sat, left to themselves — and she threatened me with all her might. For a good two, three minutes she didn’t say a thing; in the end, however, she couldn’t stand the pressure of the silence; she stood on tiptoe, and she hissed: “How could you lie! How could you lie about going on an excursion to the dam in Porąbka, to the camp in Auschwitz, or to the Błędów Desert, when you went who knows where!” “Mama,” I said with a trembling voice, “that was more than thirty years ago.” “And what if something had happened to anyone, how were we supposed to let you know? Where were we supposed to look for you. What if someone had died? What then? Everybody at home is certain that you are at the dam in Porąbka, in the camp in Auschwitz, or in the Błędów Desert, and you are who knows where! Alone to boot! And what if something had happened to you? Where did you go? To the mountains? By bus? But we had a car! Father would have driven you everywhere! I would have been glad to go myself! But you, you arrogant egotist, preferred to go alone! By bus! In the crush! Paying money for it! Instead of comfortably and for free! An entire life of worry!”

Mother covered her face with her hands and tried to summon up tears of despair — she wasn’t having much luck. The hubbub in the dining room was increasing. I didn’t have to be there to know that the fledgling singer in the lizard-green dress was beginning to figure out that something wasn’t right, that she was getting up from her place, that the remaining guests were interpreting this gesture as a demonstrative desire to leave the dinner, and they are attempting to stop her almost by force, that the amber suntan of my current love is turning pale as paper, and suddenly the terrified girl begins to assure them spasmodically that she doesn’t know what is going on here, and that she doesn’t know where she is at all; or what it is about; and she doesn’t have a clue where, and to whom, I travelled after my matura, because it certainly wasn’t to her! Perhaps I didn’t travel to the dam in Porąbka, to the camp in Auschwitz, or to the Błędów Desert, but it wasn’t to her either, because she wasn’t even born then! And she hasn’t been with me for thirty years, because she is only twenty-four years old, and why these absurd lies? Lutheran customs are one thing, but absurd lies are quite another matter!

Through four, five, and perhaps even six walls you could hear that the fledgling singer in the lizard-green dress was beginning to cry, that the Protestants surrounding her in ever tighter circles are first seized by agitation, but they immediately begin to calm down, and they attempt to calm her, too, and they defend me with all their might. They assure her emphatically that I hadn’t lied, and that I’m not lying, because Lutherans never lie, but that I speak the truth, and I pray for the truth, because what I had said was a prayer for truth, the prayer of a person who had strayed in a moment of weakness from the path of truth but prays for a return to that path, and my prayer was heard, and it became the truth. And through the walls I heard my current love’s scream, full of animal fear, and, on my word, I absolutely intended to return there as quickly as possible, and to explain everything, perhaps even to defuse the situation with some sort of joke — although I didn’t yet know what sort. But first I had to run to Father. I left Mother, who was still having difficulty — this was altogether odd — trying to get a good lament going, and in a sprint, skipping two, three steps, I flew to the garage.

At first, I was horrified in good earnest, for it seemed that Father had gone utterly mad on my account. In canvas pants lowered to his knees, he stood next to an enormous oak table, which served him as a workbench, and he pounded — extremely methodically — an enormous steel nail into the table-top. He pounded it in methodically, but very shallowly — a half centimeter — then he tore it out, furiously and with superhuman effort, moved it over some three centimeters with incredible precision, and pounded it in again, and again tore it out, and again moved it over. Terrible was my horror, and equally great the relief, when I realized that my old man had not gone mad after all; rather, as normally as could be, with all precision and solidity, he was pounding extra holes in the pants belt that was lying on the table. I stood in the doorway. The table was high, and what is more it was outfitted on two sides with a slat that stuck up above the table-top, so that screws, nails, and all sorts of miniature elements wouldn’t fall on the ground, and quite simply — and my agitation was not without its significance here — at first I hadn’t noticed the belt carefully laid out on the table. “Papa,” I said in a panicky attempt to pretend at being matter of fact, “can I help you with anything? Or can I bring you something to drink?” Father stopped pounding extra holes and looked at me the way he was accustomed to look at all intruders and spongers who interrupt his work — motionlessly and heavily. The hammer hung in the raised hand equally motionlessly and equally heavily, while the belt, as if the spirit of a snake had entered it, began slowly, then ever more quickly, to slide off the table. With an elemental reflex, I jumped up. I was unable, however, to grab it in flight. It fell on the cement floor. I bent over to pick it up, and again I was unable to do it, for I felt a light — I emphasize—very light blow to my head.

The fledgling singer claims to this day that she found me lying under the table, unconscious and covered with blood, but this is rather a schoolgirl’s and — if I may say so — non-ecumenical and typically Catholic hysteria. Father had tapped me very lightly also because, at his age, he was simply incapable of tapping forcefully. In addition to that, he was standing there — I remind you — with his pants down, and it is well known that a man with his pants down is totally self-conscious, and all his movements, including movements of the hands, are self-conscious and limited. (A man with his pants down — to forge a dazzling aphorism on the fly — has no other goal in life than to pull his pants up.) True, an insignificant splitting of the skin and some bleeding, incommensurately abundant for the small wound, had ensued, but all the further results — that is to say: the trip to the emergency room; the examination; the obstinacy of the mean-sprited doctor, who stubbornly insisted that, as a result of the blow to the head from a blunt instrument, I had received a concussion; the narrow-minded phone call to the police; the arrival of the policemen at home; Father’s arrest and detention at the police-station for forty-eight hours—these were all absolutely unnecessary things.

Although, on the other hand, maybe they were necessary. In some non-superficial and — if I can put it this way — deeply familial and genuinely communal sense, perhaps they were downright indispensable. For after that, whenever I would meet with my parents, we would laugh ourselves to tears over those events. We especially split our sides over the memory of the guests, a portion of whom — upon hearing that Father had murdered me with a hammer in the garage — couldn’t measure up to the demands of Lutheran toughness and rushed into panicky flight. While the other portion — Father adored precisely that episode, and when he recalled it, he cried, in the strict sense, he cried from laughter; for the portion of the guests that didn’t rush into panicky flight, but rather remained at the post of Lutheran toughness, true, they did meet those demands, but — give me a break, for I myself will die laughing — they, in turn, did not meet the demands of the Lutheran ethos, as they all got blind drunk and came out looking like corpses. “Those corpses!” Father would laugh. “The corpses! One corpse in the garage! But in the dining room…! In the dining room, so many corpses! Nothing but corpses lying like trophies of the chase. Mr. Trąba — a corpse! Young Messerschmidt — a corpse! Doctor Granada and Kohoutek — corpses! Master Sztwiertnia and Father Kalinowski — both corpses! Even Małgosia Snajperek — a corpsette!” Supposedly all of them truly — I wasn’t present for this, I lay with a bandaged head in the clinic — absolutely all of them had fallen fast asleep, and they slept not one, but many hours, until the break of dawn. “Instead of keeping watch and praying for the removal of suffering, we fell asleep like the Disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane,” said Father Kalinowski, when Mother finally managed to wake him at daybreak. “I myself, overcome with wine, fell asleep like Christ in the tomb, and if it weren’t for you, Mrs. Engineer, I would not have risen from the dead.” With lightning speed, according to Mother’s tale, he braced himself; to her horror, with a shameless motion, he reached for the unfinished bottle of cherry vodka that was standing on the table, and he took a hefty swig straight from the bottle. Then he fell into a pensive mood for a moment, and after a while, with a gesture well known from the pulpit, he raised up his hand and said: “But both the sleep of the Disciples in the Garden, and His sleep in the tomb — although they were needless events that to this day arouse opposition — would turn out to be, in fact, unusually necessary and, in God’s plan, irrefutably needful!”

V

In September of the year 1971, I knew perfectly well which events are, both in life and in God’s plan, irrefutably needful, and which are completely needless. Without giving it a second thought — especially, I would say, without giving it any theological thought — I would call up my folks, and I would tell them that our entire brigade had, on the coming weekend, an obligatory excursion to the camp in Auschwitz, to the Błędów Desert, or to the dam in Porąbka, and every weekend I would make the trip to see Gocha in the mountains, and those were unusual trips.

First of all — crouching down the whole time and ready the whole time for the sudden drop that would render me invisible — I would take the local bus to Krakow. With my eye, with the corner of my eye, glued the whole time to the glass in utmost vigilance, looking to see whether my folks’ white Fiat wasn’t crawling along in the opposite direction like a tortoise. The attack had been forestalled, the telephone call had been placed, but there remained unforeseen circumstances to be foreseen. To tell the truth, when it had to do with my folks, you always had to — you had nothing else to do but—foresee unforeseen circumstances. It could always happen that my incredibly convincing story about an excursion to the dam in Porąbka, to the camp in Auschwitz, or to the Błędów Desert would seem to Mother somewhat odd. My folks could always come up with the idea that they would manage to drop off something to eat before my departure, if only a couple sandwiches with home-made butter, which strengthens the eyes. They could always come to the conclusion that I must have a cold, because I speak in such a dreadfully hoarse voice on the phone, and if I go on the excursion I will fix myself for good. They could always make the desperate attempt to drive over in the early morning with a note, written in advance in their own calligraphy, a justification of the absence of our son from the tourist activities. Always, always, always. I was never able to foresee everything. Beginning in the deepest depths of childhood, I practiced decoding the unpredictability of my folks. I was really not bad at this. I could foresee practically everything, but, all the same, they always managed to surprise me.

I sat in the bus, crouching and ready to drop, and I quailed at the sight of every white Fiat, and at the sight of a white Fiat that was traveling somewhat more slowly than the rest — my heart stopped beating. Two times or so, I was certain it was them. On the first Friday one, on the second Friday a second white Fiat barreled along in the opposite direction on the deserted chalky road at wheelchair velocity. In hallucinogenic panic, I saw the silhouettes of my folks inside: Father frozen in a catatonic stupor over the steering wheel, Mother thrashing about with incessant exhortations to slow down. I knew that as soon as they got there, and didn’t find me, they would set out in hot pursuit. First, it goes without saying, by requests, threats, force, money, whatever they could muster, they would extort, that’s right, they would extort—even from Wittenberg, they would extort — a confession of where I was, and immediately thereafter they would set out in hot pursuit. I looked around me for some time to see whether, from behind, from beyond a white hill, from beyond a sandy turn, they would appear with lights and sirens blazing, but these were already much too surrealistic visions.

The closer I got to Krakow, the more the apparitions faded, and once I got there, at the bus terminal, they vanished completely. A biblical throng teemed there. The voice of God, roaring as on Mount Sinai, announced the next departures. An azure pillar of exhaust fumes rose to the heavens like the sign of an accepted offering. I didn’t have any luggage, and probably that advantage allowed me to make my way through the throng every time. God knows by what miracle, standing on one leg, in an exceptionally reckless position, but every time, suddenly I would find myself on the regional bus to Zakopane — crammed beyond human endurance — and my soul sang. Actually, I know by what miracle. In a couple hours, my body would be clinging to Gocha’s dusky body, and on the face of the entire earth there wasn’t a bus so crammed full that I wouldn’t get on it in order to reach her.

Over the Zakopane High Road, the September air grew dark. Not even for a moment did I forget that I was a young poet, and with all my might I watched for the moment when the low clouds would turn into high mountains. I never managed it. Just as in childhood I attempted to grasp the moment of falling asleep, and I always fell into a dark sleep as into a deep well, so now, always, after the next glance at the horizon, the clouds were already gone, and there were the Tatras.

In the darkness I would reach the gigantic garden that had gone wild like a desert island, which surrounded the pension that Gocha’s parents rented out. I would sit on a bench hidden in the hazel groves. I would light a cigarette and wait for the moment when, in the second window from the left, a sepia-toned light would flash, and a supple, long-haired shadow would appear. The shadow would appear, Gocha would open the window, look around, disappear for a moment, then she would appear again and give the sign. Off I went. The massive, and, at the same time, light house designed by Witkiewicz père had to it something of the sailboat scudding over the waves, and something of the fortified castle. I swam across moats, I climbed over walls, I confused the guards. Well, no need to exaggerate here about the guards — Gocha’s parents were quite advanced in years and lived as if in a half-sleep. It sometimes even seemed to me that they had died long ago, and it was their indistinct specters that were wandering about the pension, but most of the time just sitting in wicker chairs on the veranda.

Sometimes the impression that one is dealing with the dead, or that the dead are still living in their former apartments, which are now deserted or have been occupied by others, is as disabling as an attack of madness. When it comes over me, it often seems to me that I myself have been dead for some time, and that, in the empty apartment on Sienna Street, the traces and scents left by me take on my shape, the shadow of my shape. Or, for instance, I am absolutely certain that my folks, even though they haven’t been there for a long time, continue their spectral vegetation in the two rooms on Syrokomla Street. Through the smudged window, which probably hasn’t been washed in a year, you can see Mother, in the pleated skirt, now worn and frayed, which she had once bought in Cepelia, cooking mushroom soup with home-made noodles in the icy kitchen; Father, in a track suit that is as transparent as a spider web, assembling on the ruined balcony a system for watering flowers based on the principle of communicating vessels.

Gocha’s parents could be specters, spirits, phantoms — fine by me. The main thing was that they not notice how, in the late evening, I flit through the lobby illumined by the cadaverous gleam of the television, and then climb the creaking steps and slip into their daughter’s room. For some time, I had fancy thoughts that they noticed me, but that they took me for a specter. Today, I think that they noticed me — and that they just shrugged it all off. Perhaps they weren’t the only specters in the pension. Perhaps this was, in general, a pension of specters. I never left the room. I had a heightened sense of the oneiric quality of what was going on beyond the walls. It seemed to me that the waitresses gliding along the corridor, the chamber maids, the cleaning women — that all of them move extremely somnolently, that they speak indistinctly as if they are asleep, and that they are constantly surprised at something, as if they had been rudely awakened.

Even Hela, who was friends with Gocha and privy to our affairs, and who brought me dinners from the kitchen — in spite of the fact that she carried out a conspiratorial assignment that demanded quick wits and physical dexterity — made the impression of a somnolent ghost.

She was pretty, white-skinned, white-haired, and most certainly soft, very soft, to the touch. As soon as she had flitted from the kitchen to our room with an abundantly laden tray, the hurry was gone. She would sit drowsily on the bed, her carelessly braided tress would come undone, the carelessly buttoned sky blue blouse would come open. Gocha would sit next to her and say something in an undertone. I would eat in silence, and quickly—I wanted Hela to take the dishes and go away as soon as possible. But when I had finished, when I hastily drank the rest of the compote, and even when I demonstratively gathered up the plates and utensils — nothing changed. Hela would sit there, Gocha whispered, I waited. As time passed — and I have a great desire to write that such siestas lasted for hours—Hela would sit there more and more drowsily, with now, I suppose, hair completely unbraided and blouse completely unbuttoned. As time passed, Gocha would whisper more and more tenderly and quietly. As time passed, I didn’t know what was happening, and maybe I wasn’t there at all. Finally, Hela would get up with complete indifference, without consent — but also without objection — to the fact that she had to get up. Just as women do after amatory frenzies, she would stand before the mirror, button up her blouse, put her hair in order. With a perfectly neutral voice, without a hint of irony or ambiguity, she would ask me whether it had been to my liking, and she would collect the tray with the dinnerware. Gocha would see her to the door and stroke her back in farewell.

We would then remain alone, the air over the mountains would lighten and darken, we practically didn’t sleep at all, we would embrace until the last spasms, to the last drop of sweat, to the first pain. Our bodies and our voices said much to each other, not a word was ever uttered on the topic of Hela. Nor did I ever notice later on that Gocha would see any girl to the door and tenderly stroke her back in farewell.

VI

On Sunday, I would set off on the return trip in a night bus that was usually entirely empty. The Jelcz, so corroded that it was as if it had been moulded out of rust, drove along unknown dirt and side roads. Frequently, it seemed that it flew straight across the hill tops. Sometimes it would halt at strange stops, in secret places, doubtless agreed upon in advance. Someone perfectly well known to the driver would get on or off the bus there. Time and again we would arrive at village courtyards, as if they were important stations, at which peculiar nocturnal commotions were in progress — wedding feasts, festivities, hog-slaughterings. The band was playing, campfires were glowing, drunken girls in stained wedding dresses knocked on the pane over which my unconscious head rolled — take me with you, they would whisper. With a flash of the headlights and a wail of the horn, we would set off further. Except for the camp-fire circles, an absolute silence reigned. Black forests, brown, unmown grain, mouldering haystacks, God knows where the road led. And yet, I would awake unexpectedly from the next slumber, filled with a scent as thick as slime, in the very heart of the little Austro-Hungarian town. The driver would smile broadly, say that he hadn’t even gone that far out of his way. Every week, I would search for some small change; every week, it seemed too little to me. He would count the coins scrupulously, and always at the end, with a consciousness of the aphoristic gravity, he would say: “It isn’t a lot, but sometimes that’s everything.”

VII

The road from the station to the billet led through the center of town, then across the castle hill — on both sides, forests and darkness. Every week I attempted to believe that I felt upon me a wild, phosphorescent glance — bull crap. Surely he could be lying in wait among the trees, in the high grass, along the path leading to the stream. It was there, in any case, that the bodies of his victims were most often found. But I couldn’t fully believe in his presence. I was sort of afraid, but I didn’t believe. Fear without belief counts for little. On the other hand, in the high grass itself, but nearer, significantly nearer, I imagined every time that I saw a longish, dark, coffin-like shape. On every return I saw the same body lying on the side of the path, the white shirt it had on was darker each time, the pillar of flies droning over the ripped throat thicker and thicker, the spread arms were arranged slightly differently each time. And the smell — the smell of a stuffy chamber full of flowers.

I tried to persuade myself that I was shaking from the cold, and I sprinted the last hundred meters to the unplastered villa in which we had our billet. I didn’t measure it, but my time must have gotten better with every week.

In the room rose the smell of an encampment, barracks, prison cells. In any event, such was the direction of the equally firm and subtle evolution of sensations: from dirty socks to foot cloths, from vodka and beer to moonshine, from brand-name cigarettes to ever meaner tobacco. And the profound slumber of my sleeping colleagues was ever deeper and ever more eloquent. During the first week, they slept the euphoric sleep of young poets who had everything ahead of them; during the second, you could detect the first disenchantment in their sleep; in the third — bitterness.

The number of books on Wittenberg’s bed grew; in the end, he slept under all seven volumes of Proust, under Eliot’s verses, under little volumes of Herbert, Grochowiak, and Szymborska, under a notebook with hand-copied Miłosz, under a copy of Trans-Atlantyk covered in The People’s Tribune, under Konwicki, Parnicki, Camus, Fromm, Freud, Jung, young Marx, late Mann, under Kołakowski’s Religious Consciousness and the Bond of the Church, under Michelet’s The Sorceress, under Frazer’s Golden Bough, under Bulgakov, Babel, Broch, Faulkner, under three one-hundred-page notebooks, in which he had the beginnings of two novels, full of the highest philosophical tension, and one poem, full of the highest linguistic temperament. And Wittenberg was covered with numerous other books, as with a blanket, or rather as with a net, for, from between the covers, his dark Levantine skin shined through. His right arm always hung from the bed, as if searching for the empty bottle that was standing there; the left rose in the direction of his head; his head rested in the proper place — in the center of the pillow — all around there were long, thick, curly locks, of which we were all madly envious. And with good cause. The hair style — a daring imitation and successful rival for the most expressive creations of Jimi Hendrix, who had been dead for a year at that time — exerted a magnetic attraction upon the girls’ gazes.

Unfortunately, it was as ineffective as it was magnetic. Everything indicated that on that weekend, too, the biblical/rock-and-roll magnetism of Wittenberg’s hair had attracted no Delilah. I didn’t have to look around too carefully to ascertain that the eternal hunger for a woman, felt not only by him, not only by us, not only during Workers’ Traineeship, but always and by all poets of the world, remained unsatisfied this time as well. In a room marked by each and every sort of transgression, once again all traces of any sort of female presence were lacking. Exclusively invisible muses were rising above the heads of the sleeping poets. No one from the Dressmakers’ Technical College had left a handkerchief, comb, lipstick, not to mention any more intimate sort of prop. There weren’t any extra cups, glasses, empty bottles of sweet wine. During the preceding evening, no girlish hand had cut elegant little wedges of yellow cheese on the copy of Literary Life that was spread out on the table. The nibbled pickle that was lying there, the hunk of bread, and the pyramid of cigarette butts created a sufficiently eloquent still life.

Clearly, not even the female bricklayer’s assistants, who were working with us, had been persuaded to join them. Already the week before, having grown impatient with standing around in vain outside the Dressmakers’ Technical College, we decided to approach our athletically built female comrades in labor and ask them: would they have a beer with us in Europa after work, and then we’ll see. We laughed at the idea, with alleged self-irony. With a vague sense of shame, we feared — as Wittenberg put it — loss of sexual caste. But in our heart of hearts, we rejoiced and were insanely excited. This seemed easy pickings, a sure thing, and — to tell the truth — ideal for our riotous and exclusively corporeal yearnings. And so, when the girls from the construction site reacted to our proposition unenthusiastically at first, and then began to try to wiggle out — saying that they probably couldn’t make it — we fell into a rather deep frustration. The girls from the clothiers’ school were almost entirely unattainable, and that, paradoxically wasn’t half bad: in the final analysis, we had no idea what we were missing. But here were walking, right under our noses, four female Titans, each carrying a sack of cement, as if it were a feather, on their Athenian shoulders, each in a blouse half-opened on statuesque breasts, each in canvas trousers draping a marble behind — painful and irreclaimable losses. In any event, the reclamation of four pairs of unbelievable tits dusted with lime powder, plus the rest, had not come about during my absence. I got undressed with the speed of lightning, I jumped into the marital bed, in the other part of which snored Wittenberg, overcome with vodka and literature, and I slept for three hours (which seemed like three seconds).

VIII

The next day, we sent our would-be mistresses first wistful, then scornful glances. They, as usual, carried cement and bricks, as usual they whispered to each other, as usual they giggled. Once we had knocked off work, we sat longer than usual in Europa. No one felt like going to the College. It was clear by now that nothing was going to happen. The traineeship was ending in three days, and with graphomaniac zeal we attempted to kindle the nostalgic mood of taking leave of the little Austro-Hungarian town, where, no doubt, none of us would again set foot for the rest of our lives. One of the seven indistinguishable local alcoholics (it’s quite a different matter that, in those days, unaware of the nightmare that awaited me, I behaved like a racist toward alcoholics: I made no distinctions among them, and I considered them half corpses, half animals) joined our table and began to spin the next version of the tale about the vampire. There was no reason to marvel at the abundance and vitality of this topic. The vampire (in those days the term “serial murderer,” to say nothing of “serial killer,” was unknown) had been murdering for years. Every few weeks — in the high grass, next to the path to the stream — the bodies of the next victims would be found, their combined number already allegedly reaching into the hundreds.

This time — if I may put it this way — it was the Party version. “All the stories about the vampire that the gentlemen students have heard up to now are not worth a hill of beans,” one of the seven indistinguishable alcoholics skillfully suspended his voice and performed the four ritual acts that the entire seven would repeat with identical precision during their own narrations: he adjusted his beret, drank a tiny sip of beer, wiped his lips with the back of his blackened hand, and lit up a Sport. “All the stories you know about the vampire are false; the true one is the one that I know. It is, if it please the gentlemen students, kept strictly secret for political reasons.”

One of the seven indistinguishable alcoholics exaggerated his own revelation. Either one of his brethren, or perhaps even he himself, had already, at least two or three times — at this same laminate table top always drenched with beer, in the same cadaverous glare of the fluorescent lamp hanging over our heads — told the version that asserted that the Silesian vampire was the deranged son of a Party secretary, that he has special protection, that the office of the Secret Police helps him pick out his victims, that the father, depraved by the exercise of power, but also desperate and broken-hearted, even in spite of the pressures exerted by Moscow, is unable to make the decision to have the degenerate locked up, and that, because of this, the blood-thirsty secretarovich will murder and rape who knows how long, perhaps even to the end of his life.

We knew this tale, and we listened wearily to the irrefutable pieces of evidence: that, namely, if the Party secretary looks bad when he appears on television and delivers a speech full of pessimism and veiled threats toward Moscow, this is an infallible sign that his son is again demanding victims, that he can’t hold out any longer, that any time now he will escape, that the members of the Secret Police who are watching over him, if they won’t help him, then they will certainly turn a blind eye, and that in a few days, in a week, two at the most, next to the path leading from the Castle Hill to the stream, the corpse of a girl will again be found.

At this moment — precisely at this moment, when the words “corpse of a girl” were uttered, and when one of the seven indistinguishable narrators made a pause and adjusted his beret, and drank a tiny sip of beer, and wiped his lips with the back of his blackened hand, and lit up a Sport — at precisely this moment, the doors of Europa opened, and there appeared not the corpse of a girl, but a living, flesh-and-blood girl in a yellow bouclé blouse and a sky blue Perlon miniskirt, and she crossed the threshold. And after her, there appeared a second and a third and a fourth. And all of them crossed the threshold, and all of them walked in our direction, and all of them sat down at our table, and all of them — amused by our absolute dumbfoundedness — each and every one of them, ordered a small beer with raspberry juice.

“The entire matter is a political game of the Party,” one of the seven indistinguishable alcoholics continued his tale, but by then we were entirely uninterested in listening, or rather — now reconstructing those events and moods precisely — we began to listen with a delight that invalidated what we were listening to, for the delight that seized us — that, after all, the girls from the construction site had come, and not only had they come, but they had come decked out in their best, sexiest outfits; that they had put on their shortest skirts and their tightest blouses — the delight that seized us at their sight was so all-encompassing, that we listened, delighted, to the next installment of the story about the vampire. We were simply delighted by the fact that an irrefutable link between the bad appearance of the Party secretary and the later attacks of the vampire — always one, at most two, weeks later — had been established. We were in seventh heaven over the fact that the Party faction that was opposed to the secretary was spreading rumors that his son was a serial murderer. It pleased us no end that the faction that favored the secretary didn’t deny that, granted, his son is mentally ill and dangerous, but the secretary did not succumb to the pressures from Moscow and did not have him locked up in the loony bin; what is more, the one and the other thing are provocations of former members of the NKVD. We were fired with enthusiasm for the former members of the NKVD. We bought the narrator — who was amazed at our unexpected applause — beer after beer. We ourselves lost all sense of moderation. Nor was it necessary to try to persuade the girls — the small beer with juice was a thing of the past. They put it away like they really did have some sort of Dionysian genes, they laughed at our every word, a constant neon light arrested the turning of the earth.

Just as delicately as could be, I glided my hand along the thigh of the Goddess of Large-Slab Construction who was sitting next to me, I felt the hint of lime dust that inhered in her skin, I plunged my mouth into hair that smelled of sweet flag and hop shampoo. If at that moment someone should have made me choose between Gocha and her, I would probably have chosen Gocha, but I would have been in a quandary. I would have chosen Gocha, but it wouldn’t have been easy for me. I would have chosen Gocha, but with a heavy heart.

To this day, I have a hard time distinguishing — or rather, to tell the truth, I simply don’t distinguish at all — between eroticism and love, let along back then. When I finally write a Dictionary of Erotic Superstitions, the superstition about the necessity of distinguishing sex from love will occupy a prominent position. There is no such thing. Sex without love makes no sense and is — at least in my case — impossible. Sex without love is an unnecessary event. And don’t let anyone try to tell me that I simply ennoble copulation in a comic and naïve fashion. As far as I am concerned, there is no copulation that is not noble. Copulation is love. Love can last for years, and it can be like a lightning flash, and let no one remain in the delusion that the first is worth more than the second. All the more because it is usually the other way around. Ergo, you must love all the women with whom you wish to go to bed. You must fall in love with them, and you must make them fall in love with you. Whoever should have all the women in the world, but have not love, will be as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. Even if you want to have a paid tart, you still have to love her, and it is no phony high-mindedness that speaks through me, rather a knowledge of the force of experiences.

Minute by minute, I was falling in love with the beautiful lady bricklayer sitting next to me. After an hour, two, or perhaps three — on the one hand, it is impossible to say precisely, since, as is well known, love stops, or perhaps even cancels time (after all, in writing metaphorically that the dead light of a dirty neon had stopped the turning of the Earth, I had already taken note of this fact); on the other hand, I think that I had fallen in love after more or less an hour — after two hours, that heroine of socialist labor was reciprocating my feelings; after three, we began to search for some secluded place. Actually, we didn’t have to make any decisions. Our feverish bodies and our intoxicated souls knew perfectly well by themselves that the most discrete place would be next to the path to the stream. The corpse that had been lying there for weeks had dissolved entirely and been eaten by the earth. Zero visibility, grass as high as a wall. Trembling bodies flowed into the depths of their own depths. The sky darkened over the dark brown globe, a red star flew in our direction, I felt the shiver of cold. “We lost so much time,” I said in a low voice, since, in spite of all, a whisper seemed to me too sentimental, “we lost so much time. The entire traineeship has passed… Why didn’t you want to go on a date with us earlier?” “We were afraid,” she said, smothering a laugh, and she hugged me by the neck, and she began, panting and laughing, to whisper into my ear. As she whispered to me, I recalled the beginning of the story, the first sentence, and the first day of the traineeship. We were driving to the construction site on an open truck. A fantastic, still summery day was rising. They sat across from us in a strange sort of tension, not saying a word. It was the beginning of a spectral September. In the environs of the little Austro-Hungarian town in which we performed our Workers’ Traineeship, a Silesian vampire was prowling, and at first the four female bricklayer’s assistants looked upon us with fear. Supposedly, of our entire five-some, the one who most looked like a vampire was Wittenberg (1953–1979).