by Frank Wynne
SILVER RAIN
Paweł Huelle
Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Paweł Huelle (1957–) is a novelist and author of a volume of verse. He has also worked as an employee of the “Solidarity” press office, university lecturer, journalist, director of the Gdańsk Polish Television Center and, most recently, as a columnist for Gazeta Wyborcza. Huelle has found enormous success as a writer and been honored with many prestigious awards. As a young boy, he and his friends would scavenge for unexploded German bombs and take them apart to turn into fireworks.
To Zbigniew Z∙akiewicz
Anusewicz was no great believer in prophetic dreams, Sibylline oracles or palmistry. And yet, when he woke up that day bathed in sweat and gasping for breath he felt that something must be going to happen. Nina, aged twenty, beautiful and alluring, had been dancing in a meadow, as if specially for him. He walked towards her slowly, feeling the soft blades of grass tickling his feet. They embraced passionately, suddenly naked like Adam and Eve under the apple tree. He felt an intense spasm of pleasure as he pressed his lips to her full breasts. Straight after that, God knows why or what for, Father Wołkonowicz had appeared in the meadow. In a patched cassock and shabby shoes, with drops of sweat on his brow, he was roaring and thundering the words of Isaiah about the Earth and its immoral inhabitants being burned to ashes. But why a moment later had all three of them ended up in a palatial ballroom? And what was the military band in German uniform that was playing to them from the courtyard supposed to mean? Now wearing a starched shirt front and an impeccably cut tail-coat Father Wołkonowicz was waltzing with Nina, dressed like a bride, while he, Anusewicz, went after them, also to the rhythm of a waltz, through deserted halls and galleries, down corridors and staircases.
The dream had no clear end. For some time Anusewicz gazed at the ceiling, and he wasn’t sure if it was his flat, or that strangely empty, unfamiliar palace. As soon as he got up and caught sight of himself in the mirror, he felt profound disappointment. In the meadow his body had been supple and agile. In the real world to which he had returned, it offered a rather discouraging sight. His sagging pot belly, the grey tufts of sparse hair on his head and his drooping shoulders were a pitiless reminder of the years gone by. The magical, rejuvenating power of the dream appealed to him very much. Over breakfast it occurred to him that he hadn’t felt desire for several years at least. But why Nina? And why Father Wołkonowicz? The Russians had deported her right at the start, in 1939. The Germans had shot Father Wołkonowicz as a hostage three years later. In fact, all trace of Nina had been lost. Had she died in a camp? Had she left Siberia with Anders’ Army and ended her days many years later in London, or in sunny California? What could it matter nowadays… Where were they now?
As he left the house, Anusewicz kept repeating this question over and over, and it caused him pain. He did in fact believe deeply in the immortality of the soul, but did that automatically entail the resurrection of the body? Was it really quite so certain? If a body that had crumbled to dust could return to its former shape, he might not only see Nina again one day, but that entire long-dead world. Vistas through the pine trees at dawn, sheets spread to dry in the meadows, the larch-wood beams of the house at Rudzieńszczyzna, his father in riding boots, or a snowflake on his mother’s fur collar. But does God bother with such trivia? There was plenty to imply that He had a hundred times more serious troubles, from hurtling, disintegrating galaxies, via endless wars, to volcanoes and common floods.
Anusewicz passed the brewery, and in the passage under the electric railway tracks he bought three purple roses. As he boarded the tram he felt sure his dream hadn’t appeared by accident. The presence of Father Wołkonowicz was proof of that. A cleric, no matter what his denomination, always means some sort of change. Perhaps when he got home from the theatre he’d find a letter from Nina in the post box? That would be a surprise. ‘I’m coming in a month and I must see your grandchildren.’ Some miraculous escapes, years of hunger and hoping against hope; yes, they’d have something to talk about over a carafe of dogberry vodka. But as he got off the tram not far from the Uphagen mansion, he came to the conclusion that he wouldn’t want to see Nina old and wrinkled, not even with an American set of false teeth. The Nina he had seen in his dream was immortal and happy. The one he would greet on the threshold of his flat would only be a poor copy, an imitation of that one. But he had no time for further reflections. As ever, he presented the flowers to Miss Andruszkiewicz, and as ever, she gave him the key to the storeroom.
In pitch darkness Anusewicz felt for the spotlight switch, and a focused stream of light shifted along the shelves and pegs, picking the puppets’ immobile heads and bodies out of the darkness. Sindbad the Sailor had his glassy eye on Alice, Dratewka the Cobbler was curled up next to Big Ears, a sad Ali Baba was leaning his chin on Grandpa Utopek the lighthouse-keeper, and a Little Owl with floppy wings was perching on Pinocchio’s nose like a roosting hen. Anusewicz had brought their gestures, their trials and tribulations and their funny little catchphrases to life many times, lending them his voice and hand movements. Now that he was retired, he came here once a month, and in the total silence he acted out his own improvised scenes with them. Sometimes the Wicked Stepmother spoke the words of Lady Macbeth, or Johnny Dunderhead waved his arms about and spouted the same twaddle as the old and new politicians.
Without a second thought, Anusewicz took a white-armed, sheet-wearing Grim Reaper from the rack. He untangled the strings, adjusted the fastening of the silver scythe and made him patter to and fro, as if on stage. He snapped his great big teeth just as he should, and rattled his scythe like mad. But Anusewicz wasn’t happy with something. Only when the Grim Reaper started tap dancing to the rhythm of the swing he was softly whistling, did he smile at him and say:
‘Now I can see it, old man, you’ve got a great future ahead of you.’
The Grim Reaper spread his arms and bowed politely to the invisible audience. But that was all. No new idea, no improvisation or funny sketch occurred to Anusewicz. He usually spent an hour here, sometimes more, without looking at his watch, but this time every minute was dragging on unbearably. On top of that he had an unpleasant feeling, as though in the darkness beyond the bright shaft of the spotlight, four eyes were watching him: those of Nina and Father Wołkonowicz. When he put on the overhead lamp, he didn’t feel any better, because there was another thought that wouldn’t stop pestering him – that someone connected with this morning’s dream was waiting for him at home, while he was wasting his time here to no purpose.
‘Better cut it short,’ he said out loud. ‘The worst thing is uncertainty.’
Somewhat surprised, Miss Andruszkiewicz packed the Grim Reaper in a plastic bag for him and, without the usual chat, he set off for the tram stop. What was he going home for? A dream was just a dream, nothing but a stupid nightmare. He could easily stay at the theatre. The inspiration would come at the right moment, yes, it was sure to.
And indeed, the letterbox was quite empty, there was no scrap of paper shoved in the door, and without his wife bustling about or his grandchildren’s hullabaloo the flat seemed unnaturally quiet. Anusewicz shambled into the kitchen, and then, as he drank a cold Elbla˛g beer he stood the Grim Reaper on his desk. Among the family photographs, books and notes, without any scenery or spotlights he looked quite harmless. Anusewicz’s fingers took hold of the strings again, and sounding suitably strident, he recited:
O my noble ancient Sire,
The world makes noise ’til it doth tire,
The young man can, the old must try
To bolt, or else he’ll choke and die.
The Grim Reaper made his robe rustle, rapped his scythe and sang the next couplet in a different, maybe slightly Belarussian accent:
My crown and sceptre I’d concede
If from death’s dance I could be freed.
What bitter tears an old man weeps
As death’s grim ballet
jumps and leaps.
The big wooden boots tapped on the desktop. Anusewicz purred in satisfied agreement, but the next couplet remained unspoken. This was because of Mr Winterhaus, who just at that moment knocked at the front door. With the Grim Reaper resting on his arm, Anusewicz rather reluctantly opened it, and for a while both gentlemen stood looking at each other in silence.
‘I am Vinterhaus,’ said Winterhaus. ‘May I please talk vith you?’
‘Naturally,’ replied Anusewicz, and led his guest into the dining room.
But there was nothing natural about it.
‘There’s a bit of a problem, as there alvays is vith this sort of conversation,’ sighed Winterhaus, ‘but I couldn’t put it off any longer. You know? I’ve been up these stairs three times before und run avay. I vas afraid.’
‘Of me?’ asked Anusewicz in amazement.
‘Of the situation. You know? I used to live here. Until the end of the var.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Anusewicz. ‘That’s interesting.’
The man didn’t look like the typical German, though his well-groomed grey hair combined with his gold-rimmed spectacles, not to mention his accent, spoke for themselves.
‘Do you want to take some pictures?’ asked Anusewicz, after an awkward silence. ‘Look round the rooms? There aren’t many of the old things left. The mirror in the bathroom, the shoe cupboard, nothing else. You must know,’ he went on, a little irritated, ‘I wasn’t the first tenant. There was a clerk from the Poznań area here before me, and before him there was a tailor, a Jew. The tailor moved out in 1947, to some suburb of Wrzeszcz, the clerk got a promotion to Warsaw, and then I moved in. It was, just a moment, let me think… yes, it was in 1949, in May. What else do you want to know?’
‘This is no ordinary matter,’ said Winterhaus hesitantly.‘I don’t vant any photographs or souvenirs, nothing. I came here because of my father. I kept having the same incredible dream. You know? He left treasure in the kitchen dresser that stood next to the stove. All his life he kept saying: “Helmut, it must be there.” But I did not believe him. Und ven he died, every night I dreamed about the dresser und the coins. Every night. Und then I suffered from Schlaflosigkeit, und the doctor told me: “Vhy don’t you go there, Herr Vinterhaus, and make sure there’s no dresser, no treasure, nothing there.’”
Anusewicz wiped the sweat from his brow. He couldn’t remember a kitchen dresser. The stove, of course, with the metal hotplate, stood in the kitchen for many years until the gas was connected. But a dresser? The only dresser had been in the dining room, here, where the storage unit now stood and the television. He had sold it for a song, in 1971 or 2. It had cloudy glass doors and scratched veneer in an awful cherry colour. But the question of the coins interested him greatly.
‘So was there a lot of it?’ he asked. ‘Gold, I guess?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Winterhaus. ‘You know, he collected those coins that vere minted in Danzig — that is, in Gdansk,’ he corrected himself, ‘vithout letting my mother, me or my brother know about it. He vas alvays increasing his collection. The more of them he had, the greater his fear that she vould find out he kept spending money on them. Und he vas so afraid that ven the time came to escape, he couldn’t get them out, because she vould have seen vhat he’d been spending money on for so many years. You understand?’
‘I do. But did you ever see the coins?’
‘Never.’
‘What about your mother? Or your brother?’
‘They never did either. Und aftervards no one vould believe him. It was only this dream of mine, und then the doctor, as I told you.’
‘There are all sorts of dreams,’ said Anuscwicz. ‘Today for instance I dreamed I was in the meadow at our Rudzieńszczyzna. I’m sure you don’t know where that is.’
‘No.’
‘In the East,’ sighed Anusewicz. ‘It’s in Belarus now.’
Winterhaus nodded sympathetically. But he didn’t look upset, at least not for that reason. He followed his host into the kitchen and was happy to accept a beer. He showed where the dresser had stood and described exactly what it had been like.
‘Oh!’ cried Anusewicz. ‘You said the dresser, the dresser, but it was a kitchen cupboard – in three parts, right?’
‘Right.’
‘And which one were the coins hidden in?’
‘In the middle bit, the biggest. That’s vhat my father said. Und that’s vhat I dreamed.’
‘Benek!’ exclaimed Anusewicz. ‘Oh yes, Benek! But has he still got it?’
And before Winterhaus had had time to say another word, Anusewicz had put on his shoes, thrown his jacket over his shoulders and commanded:
‘Let’s go, Mr Winterhaus, quickly.’
At this point there was a slight controversy. Winterhaus suggested they take a taxi, and that he would pay. But Anusewicz refused to agree to that, and doggedly insisted on taking the tram, which – as always in such cases – didn’t come for ages.
‘Who is Benek?’ asked Winterhaus at last.
‘He’s Bernard, my brother-in-law, my wife’s brother,’ explained Anusewicz.
Then he added that the cupboard in question, or to be precise, its biggest, middle bit, had long since been given to Bernard, who had got married to Barbara and needed furniture.
‘He’s either thrown it out, or he’s got it somewhere in the cellar,’ Anusewicz pondered aloud. ‘But what if he found it?’
At this point Anusewicz remembered how Bernard had surprised everyone a few years ago by suddenly buying a car. Where had he got so much money from out of the blue? But he didn’t mention it to Winterhaus. In the crowded tram the conversation flagged, and when they boarded a bus near the Upland Gate and headed towards Orunia, Winterhaus said in a hushed tone:
‘You know vhat? I’m not concerned about the money, the property. I just vanted to check if my father vas telling the truth or not. Und that dream, if you please. Do you believe in dreams? Und then the Schlaflosigkeit – er, insomnia.’
‘Hmm,’ mumbled Anusewicz, ‘some dreams portend something, they tell us something. Others are meaningless, just idiotic. And who’d know the difference?’
The bus stopped by the Radunia Canal, in the shade of some old trees. As they got out, to their right the old Jesuit church rose from the hills, while to their left the gently sloping upland declined more and more slowly into a completely flat depression, cut across by canals and a patchwork of fields. They headed left, passing some poor, rented apartment blocks, some small factories, warehouses and railway tracks, until finally, under the shade of some chestnut trees, the cobblestones came to an end, and they went into a field road.