Primeval and Other Times

THE TIME OF RUTA

Ruta was even ready to love Ukleja. She could treat him like a large, sick animal. But Ukleja didn’t want her love – he wanted power over her.

Sometimes Ruta felt as if the shaggy Bad Man were sitting inside Ukleja – he lay on top of her the same way as the Bad Man lay on her mother. But whereas her mother let it happen with a smile on her face, it made Ruta feel anger and hatred that grew and swelled like dough. Ukleja always fell asleep on top of her afterwards, and his body gave off a stink of alcohol. Ruta would slide out from under it and go into the bathroom. She would fill the bathtub with water and lie in it until the water went cold.

Ukleja would lock Ruta in the house alone. He left lots of good food for her in the kitchen, from the “Cosy Corner” restaurant: cold chicken, pork knuckle, fish in aspic, vegetable salad, egg mayonnaise, herrings in sour cream – whatever there was on the menu. In Ukleja’s house she lacked nothing. She went from room to room, listened to the radio, changed into her dresses, and tried on shoes and hats. She had two wardrobes filled with clothes, a casket full of gold jewellery, about fifteen hats and dozens of pairs of shoes, so she had been given everything she wanted. To begin with she really thought she would be able to walk about the streets of Taszów in these outfits and parade outside the church in the market square, hear the sighs and catch the glances full of admiration. But Ukleja never let her go out alone. She could only go out with him. And he took her to see his pals and lifted her silk skirts to show off her thighs. Or he took her to the Boskis’ house in Primeval, or to play bridge with the lawyers and secretaries, where she got bored and spent hours staring at her nylon stockings.

Then Ukleja took possession of a camera on a stand and some darkroom equipment from a photographer who owed him money. Ruta soon realised what taking photographs involved. The camera stood in the bedroom, and before getting into bed, Ukleja always set the automatic shutter release. Then in the red light of the darkroom Ruta saw Ukleja’s mounds of flesh, his backside, genitals, and fat breasts bulging like a woman’s, covered in black bristles. She also saw herself crushed and fragmented into breasts, thighs, and belly. So when she was left alone, she put on her dresses and stood perfumed and elegant before the eye of the camera lens.

“Click,” said the camera in admiration.