Primeval and Other Times

THE TIME OF IZYDOR

One day, when Izydor went to the post office with a wad of letters, the clerk in the shiny apron suddenly put her face to the window and said:

“The postmaster is very pleased with you. He says you’re our best customer.”

Izydor froze, with his copying pencil poised above a complaint form.

“How come? I’m always exposing the post office to losses. But it’s all in keeping with the law, I don’t do anything wrong…”

“Oh, Izydor, you don’t understand a thing.” Sliding her chair forward with a scraping noise, the woman leaned halfway out of the window. “The post office earns money because of you. That’s why the postmaster is pleased there’s someone like you at our office. You see, the way the contracts between countries work, for every lost international letter the postal services of both countries pay half the cost each. We pay you in zlotys, and they pay in marks. We convert those marks for you according to the state exchange rate, all in keeping with the rules. We make a profit, and so do you. Nor does anyone lose by it either. Well, aren’t you pleased?”

Izydor nodded half-heartedly.

“Yes.”

The clerk backed away again. She took Izydor’s complaint form and began to stamp it automatically.

When he got home, there was a black car outside the house. Misia was waiting for him in the doorway. Her face was grey and immobile. At once Izydor realised something terrible had happened.

“These gentlemen have come to see you,” said Misia in a wooden tone.

Two men were sitting at the table in the living room wearing light raincoats and hats. It was about the letters.

“To whom do you write letters?” asked one of the men, and lit a cigarette.

“Well, to tourist firms.”

“That sounds like spying.”

“What on earth would I have to spy on? Thank God, when I saw the car I thought something had happened to the chil-dren…”

The men exchanged glances, and the one with the cigarette gave Izydor an ominous look.

“Why do you need so many colour magazines?” asked the other one out of the blue.

“I’m interested in the world.”

“You’re interested in the world… What are you so interested in the world for? Do you know what you can get for spying?”

The man drew his hand swiftly across his neck.

“Your throat cut?” asked Izydor in terror.

“Why don’t you work? What do you live off? What’s your occupation?”

Izydor felt his hands sweating and began to stammer.

“I wanted to join the monastery, but they wouldn’t take me. I help my sister and my brother-in-law. I chop wood, I play with the children. Maybe I’ll get a pension…”

“He’s got a screw loose,” muttered the man with the cigarette. “Where do you send letters to? To Radio Free Europe, perhaps?”

“Only to car firms or travel agencies…”

“What was your connection with Ukleja’s wife?”

It took Izydor a while to realise they meant Ruta.

“You could say everything and nothing.”

“Leave out the philosophy.”

“We were born on the same day and I wanted to marry her… but she left.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

“No. Do you?” asked Izydor hopefully.

“None of your business. I’m asking the questions.”

“Gentlemen, I’m innocent. The Polish Post Office is pleased with me. They’ve just told me that.”

The men got up and headed for the exit. One of them turned around again and said:

“Just remember you’re under observation.”

A few days later Izydor received a crumpled, soiled letter with foreign stamps of a kind he had never seen before. On impulse he glanced at the sender’s name and read: “Amanita Muscaria.”

These words seemed strangely familiar. “Maybe it’s a German company,” he thought.

But the letter was from Ruta. He guessed as soon as he saw the clumsy, childish handwriting. “Dear Izek,” she wrote, “I am far, far away, in Brazil. Sometimes I can’t sleep because I miss you all so much. And sometimes I don’t think about you at all. I have a lot to do here. I live in an enormous city full of colourful people. How is your health? I hope my mama is well too. I miss her very much, but I know she couldn’t live here. I have everything I wanted. Don’t send anyone my love, not even my mother. Better they forget about me quickly. Amanita Muscaria.”

Izydor had a sleepless night. He lay staring at the ceiling as images and odours came back to him from the days when Ruta was still here. He remembered her every word, every gesture. One by one he brought them back to mind. When the sun’s rays reached the eastern window in the roof, tears rolled from Izydor’s eyes. Then he sat up and looked for an address: on the envelope, on the piece of paper, even under the stamp and in its intricate drawing. But he couldn’t find one.

“I’ll go to her. I’ll save up the money and go to Brazil,” he said out loud to himself.

Then he thought of an idea that the secret police agents had unwittingly suggested to him. On a piece of paper torn from an exercise book he wrote: “Please send me some brochures. Best wishes, Izydor Niebieski.” On the envelope he wrote the address: “Radio Free Europe, Munich, Germany.”

The clerk at the post office went pale when she saw this address. Without a word she handed him a form for a registered letter.

“And a complaint form, too, please,” said Izydor.

It was a very simple deal. Izydor sent a letter like that once a month. He knew it would not just never reach the addressee, but wouldn’t even leave the boundaries of the county. Every month he received compensation for the letters. Finally he put a blank sheet of paper in the envelope. There was no point asking for brochures any more. This was extra income, which Izydor put aside in an old unrra tea tin – for a ticket to Brazil.

The next spring the secret police agents in raincoats took Izydor off to Taszów. They shone a lamp in his eyes.

“The code,” said one of them.

“What’s a ‘code’?” asked Izydor.

The other one slapped him in the face.

“Give us the code. How do you code the information?”

“What information?” asked Izydor.

He was hit in the face again, harder this time. He could taste blood on his lips.

“We’ve checked every word, every square centimetre of the letter and envelope by all available methods. We’ve peeled the paper apart. We’ve checked the stamps. We’ve enlarged each one several dozen times. We’ve examined their serration and the composition of the glue under a microscope. We have analysed every letter, every comma and full stop…”

“We haven’t found anything,” said the other one, the one who had hit him.

“There’s no code there,” said Izydor quietly, wiping his bleeding nose with a handkerchief.

Both men burst out laughing.

“All right then,” the first one began. “Let’s agree to start again from the beginning. We won’t do anything to you. We’ll write in our report that you’re not entirely normal. Everyone thinks of you like that anyway. And we’ll let you go home. And in exchange you’ll tell us how it all works. Where did we go wrong?”

“There’s nothing there.”

The other man was more nervous. He brought his face close to Izydor’s. He stank of cigarettes.

“Listen, wise guy. You’ve sent twenty-six letters to Radio Free Europe. There were blank pieces of paper in most of them. You’ve been playing with fire. And now you’ve gone too far.”

“Just tell us how you coded them. And that’ll be it. Then you’ll go home.”

Izydor sighed.

“I can see it’s very important to you, but I really don’t know how to help you. There weren’t any codes there. They were just blank sheets of paper, nothing more.”

Then the second secret policeman jumped up from his chair and punched Izydor in the face. Izydor slid off his chair and lost consciousness.

“He’s a loony,” said the first one.

“Remember, pal, we’re never going to let you alone,” drawled the second, rubbing his fist.

Izydor was kept under arrest for forty-eight hours. Then a guard came for him, and without a word opened the door to let him out.

All week Izydor didn’t come down from his attic. He counted the money in the tin and found he had a real fortune there. In any case, he didn’t know how much a ticket to Brazil might cost.

“That’s enough of the letters,” he told Misia when he came down into the kitchen. She smiled at him and breathed a sigh of relief.