Primeval and Other Times

THE TIME OF PAWEŁ

As the tomb still wasn’t ready, Paweł buried Misia next to Genowefa and Michał. He thought she ought to like that. He himself was fully occupied with building the tomb, and kept giving the workmen more and more complicated orders, so the work dragged on. That was how Paweł Boski, inspector, kept putting off the time of his own death.

After the funeral, once the children had left, the house became very quiet. The silence made Paweł feel uneasy. So he switched on the television and watched all the programmes. The national anthem at the end of broadcasting was his cue to go to bed. Only then did Paweł hear that he was not alone.

Upstairs the floorboards creaked under the trailing, heavy footsteps of Izydor, who never came downstairs any more. His brother-in-law’s presence got on Paweł’s nerves. So one day he went upstairs to his room and encouraged him to go into the old people’s home.

“You’ll have proper care and hot meals,” he said.

To his surprise Izydor didn’t argue. The very next day he was packed to go. When Paweł saw the two cardboard cases and the carrier bag full of clothing, he felt pangs of conscience, but only for a moment.

“He’ll have proper care and hot meals,” he now told himself.

In November the first snow fell, and after that it kept falling and falling. A smell of damp arose in the house, and Paweł fetched out an electric heater from somewhere, which was hardly able to heat up the living room. The television crackled because of the damp and cold, but it did work. Paweł followed the weather forecasts and watched all the news reports, though he wasn’t at all concerned about them. Some governments changed, some characters appeared and disappeared in the little silver window. Just before the holidays his daughters came and fetched him for Christmas Eve. He told them to take him home on the second day of the holiday, and then he saw that the roof of Stasia’s cottage had collapsed under the weight of snow. Now the snow was falling inside, covering the furniture with a fleecy layer: the empty sideboard, the table, the bed in which old Boski used to sleep, and the bedside cabinet. At first Paweł wanted to save the things from the cold and frost, but then he thought he wouldn’t be able to drag the heavy furniture out on his own. And what did he need it for?

“Dad, you made a shoddy roof,” he said to the furniture. “Your shingle has rotted. My house is standing.”

The spring winds knocked over two walls. The living room in Stasia’s cottage changed into a heap of rubble. In summer nettles and dandelions appeared in Stasia’s flower beds, with brightly coloured anemones and peonies blooming despairingly among them. There was a smell of strawberries gone wild. Paweł was astonished to see how quickly decay and destruction progress. As if building houses were contrary to the entire nature of heaven and earth, as if erecting walls and laying stones on top of each other went against the current of time. He found this thought appalling. On television the national anthem stopped and the screen turned to snow. Paweł switched on all the lights and opened the wardrobes.

He saw neatly folded piles of bedclothes, tablecloths, napkins, and towels. He touched their edges, and suddenly his entire body was filled with longing for Misia. So he took out a pile of duvet covers and buried his face in it. They smelled of soap, cleanliness and order, like Misia, like the world as it used to be. He started taking the entire contents out of the wardrobes: his clothes and Misia’s, piles of cotton vests and pants, bags full of socks, Misia’s underwear, her slips that he knew so well, her smooth stockings, suspender belts and bras, her blouses and sweaters. He took the suits off their hangers (lots of them, including the ones with padded shoulders, could still remember the war), trousers with belts trapped in the loops, shirts with stiff collars, dresses and skirts. He spent a long time examining a grey woman’s suit made of thin woollen fabric, and he remembered buying that material, then taking it to the tailor. Misia had demanded wide lapels and inset pockets. He took hats and scarves from the top shelf, and handbags from the bottom shelf. He plunged his hand into their cool, slippery insides, as if gutting a dead animal. A pile of things grew on the floor, cast about in disorder. He thought he should distribute it all to his children. But Adelka had gone. So had Witek. He didn’t even know where they were. Later, however, it occurred to him that only dead people’s clothes are given away, and he was still alive.

“I’m alive and I don’t feel bad. I’ll manage,” he said to himself and went to fetch his violin out of the grandfather clock. He hadn’t played it for ages.

He took it outside onto the front steps and began to play, first This Is Our Last Sunday, then In the Trenches of Manchuria. Moths came flying down to the lamp and circled above his head – a moving halo full of tiny wings and feelers. He kept playing until the stiff, dusty strings snapped, one after another.