by Steve Weiner
“The work goes on!”
Poles stood.
“The Polish work!”
Poles carried hand drills and two-pound hammers down the tunnels.
Jacek inspected props. Lanterns bobbed. Mud splashed on his boots. An Austrian hydraulic wedge sprayed water. Ponies dragged tubs on narrow-gauge rails.
“Wicek!” Jacek said.
Wicek Szczesny was fourteen. He carried his umbilical cord in a leather pouch.
“What?”
“Take the ponies back.”
“Tak, Pan Gorecki.”
Wicek lighted a cigarette by wood boxes stenciled hoch explosiv. Jacek slapped Wicek and and stomped on the cigarette and match.
“Stupid Pole!”
Wicek crawled backward.
“Gowniarz,” Wicek said. “Shithead.”
Poles crowded around a leather helmet, black hair attached, stuck in a wet crack. The Poles crossed themselves. Jacek held up his Colza lamp. He kicked the head into a pond.
“Work!”
Wicek broomed pony excrement into a crevice.
“Gowniarz.”
At eleven A.M. Poles ate. Cups, bowls, salt and pepper were on stone shelves. Wicek blew on a rock so as not to sit on spirits. He ate bread, margarine, bitter cocoa, and cuttlefish. The tunnels moaned. Wicek stopped eating. Coal dust sifted down. Ilya Kronenberg, a Russian, looked up.
“Kobieta pierdolie,” he said, in Polish. “Woman fucking.”
Poles laughed. Lights flickered. Poles stood, put away their cups, and picked up hammers. Ilya walked with a hand on Wicek’s shoulder. Dew water and bog water dripped.
“Jest ciemno,” Wicek said. “It’s dark.”
“Yes.”
“Tak ciemno,” Wicek said. “So dark.”
“Complete dark.”
“Ze trudno sobiè wyobrazic cas cièmniejszego,” Wicek said. “How can anything be so dark?”
Ilya lighted a match. A pond was being drained, agitated by pumps. Formations that looked beautiful far away were slimy up close.
“Ilya—”
“Yes?”
“I’ve heard it said—”
“What?”
“That when a woman loves—makes love—she whispers the man’s name—it’s true?”
“Sometimes.”
Wicek whistled.
“That makes me dizzy!”
“But maybe you wouldn’t be good,” Ilya said.
“Why not?”
“You’re too big.”
Wicek laughed.
“Zrobie to bezbolesine!” he said. “I’ll do it painlessly!”
It echoed.
“Have you been to a burdel?” Ilya said.
“What’s it?”
“A house of women.”
“What do you do there?”
“Anything you want.”
“What do the women do?” Wicek said.
“Anything you want.”
Light shot around a corner. Jacek’s spectacles were bright. The air turned inside out and white.
“Stickdampf!” Jacek shouted. “Choke damp!”
Poles ran.
By two P.M. Poles had had enough. They walked back to the cage. The lock slapped. They went up. Blue flame licked slag. Wicek and Ilya went to the bath. Coal dust, falling into wounds, had made black tattoos. Wicek’s eyes oscillated under light.
They went to the office. Jacek deducted for tubs not filled, medical expenses, relief fund, water and coal for home fires and tunnel lamps. Wicek and Ilya signed the pay book with crosses.
“What happened to you, Pan Gorecki?” Wicek said.
“Me?”
“How can you be so mean? You’re Polish.”
“I am not.”
“Your name is Gorecki.”
“It’s not my fault.”
Jacek tore out the page and put it in the fossils cabinet. He held his head.
“But Pan Gorecki—”
“Auf Wiedersehen,” Jacek said.
“Do widzenie.”
Wicek walked home. Sewage steamed. Tubercular miners lay on cots, wrapped in blankets, on the porch of a turreted house. A trestle bridge crossed a ravine. Wicek went into a row house and slumped on a chair. His father’s rifle—a Pilsudski volunteer—hung on a leather strap. A painting of the Black Madonna stood on a parlor altar.
Wicek’s mother brought bread and buttermilk.
“Twelve tons to Prague,” Wicek said. “Five tons to Wroclaw. Seven tons to the North Sea. Poles work all their lives for Germans.”
“Poles work hard.”
“Es kotzt mich an,” Wicek said. “It makes me puke.”
“Do not speak German. It is the language of apes.”
“Zaraz zrygamsie,” Wicek said. “It makes me puke.”
Wicek’s mother rubbed his sores with obsidian.
“Poland is a great country, Wicek.”
“True.”
“Poland is no longer a German colony.”
“True.”
“Poland stands through anarchy.”
“Poland suffers,” Wicek said.
“Poland is the Christ among nations.”
Wicek trudged upstairs. The backyard was cluttered with mattress, chairs, wire, and tires. A bird pecked a frozen shirt. He took off his shoes.
“Zapusty,” he said. “Empty days.”
He woke at three-thirty A.M., dressed, and went out. It was dark. Lanterns bobbed on frozen roads. An elk, antlers two meters, lay dead. Railroads took coal to the Ruhr and Hamburg.
Shrove Tuesday: fat days. Jacek and his uncle left their green clapboard house.
“A cold spring,” Jacek said.
“Muddy.”
“Ice, too.”
The market was crowded. Poles ate doughnuts. Carnival masks moved down Krakowa Street: Karnawal, Death, Marzanna. A man sold a pig in a barrel of honey. A brass band played. English horses for the Polish cavalry snorted in a rope compound.
Stall sellers yelled.
“Beautiful milk!”
“Hot ham!”
“Little buns!”
An old man walked forward but leaned backward: Polish wodka. Polish paramilitary came by.
“Poland!” they yelled at the Germans. “A free country!”
“The Polish wehrmacht!”
“Poland saves Europe!”
Ilya and Wicek turned the corner. Ilya bowed to Jacek.
“Ebiono mat,” he said, in Russian. “Fuck your mother.”
Jacek and his uncle went back home. Wicek and Ilya strolled the stalls. They went into a café and ate bigos. Kamirniki—tenant farmers—played skat.
“Someday the Polish Empire will take Hamburg,” Ilya said.
“Wicek,” Ilya said.
“What?”
“Look—”
“Where?”
“Across the street.”
Wicek turned. A girl about fifteen stood by a purple door under an arcade. She had Slavic, Oriental eyes. She wore a green dress with purple smocking. She had long slender fingers.
“Zdzistawa Rolnik?” Wicek said.
“Why not?”
“She’s a strange one, Ilya.”
Ilya coughed a long time. He looked at his blackened handkerchief.
“It’s a big thing, Ilya?” Wicek said.
“What is?”
“Love?”
“Can be.”
Wicek smoothed his hair. He crossed the road. Zdzistawa turned. Her eyes narrowed.
“Dzien dobre,” Wicek said. “Good morning.”
“Dzien dobre.”
“How are you?” Wicek said.
“Good.”
“I’m glad we met.”
Wicek went back to the café.
“She’s conceited.”
“Ah—Bladey,” Ilya said. “Whores—all of them.”
Aristocrats—patriots, Catholic nihilists, erotomaniacs—rode into the market. They wore Italian capes and plumed hats and shot pistols on rearing ho
rses.
A plebiscite was called: Silesia Polish or German? There were strikes in Upper Silesia.
“Accidents” happened to German trains. Graves for Germans were dug in parks. Germans made a Pole eat salt herring and drink urine. Wicek caught a Jew at a toll bridge. He made him kneel.
“Pray!” Wicek said. “In the Polish-Christ way!”
It was sunset.
Wicek went to Zdzistawa Rolnik’s house. He went through a muddy birch copse. Zdzistawa stood at a pond. She pushed a wreath with a candle. She recited:
Who will I marry?
Who will I marry?
Who will I marry?
Wicek stepped out, boots muddy.
“I will marry you, Dzidka.”
Zdzistawa backed away, then ran to her house. She turned.
“If you had children, Wicek, they’d have three heads!”
Wicek went home. He lay in bed. He stared at rain. Shed, pails, timbers dripped and so did the trestle bridge. He opened a wodka bottle.
“We’ve known each other since we were children. Our parents were friends.”
He drank.
“The sun goes down … I take wodka to your house. Your father opens the door. He does not have your supernatural quality. I say: Has a goose wandered in? He winks and says: We have what you are looking for, Wicek. Come in.
“I go. Inside, it smells of red currant pies. Dzidka is by the wedding trunk, the skrzynia. Dzidka, you are shy but your eyes are sparkling bright. Those Slavic eyes! The mines are not so dark. Your father writes out the dowry: zlotys, boots, hat, chairs, table, lamp, radio. I hold your hand over the poppy seed cake your mother has baked. We laugh and say: A good poppy seed cake. We eat sausage, pickles, and pies. To the tavern! Pierogi! Wodka! Back to your house! More wodka! Musicians! The music never stops!”
Wicek masturbated.
“… Poklodziny—putting to bed … Dziewiczy wieczov … unbraiding the hair … Those eyes … Like lakes in the Tatras in moonlight. I have never seen the Tatras. But they must be like your eyes … Not so aloof now, Dzidka? … Like honey. Isn’t that what it’s like, Ilya? Nothing could be softer …”
Wicek Szczesny finished.
Poles stole rifles at Kattowitz, put on masks. They invaded the mining compound and beat Jacek’s uncle. The engineer escaped over the fence. Ilya and Wicek caught Jacek. They drove him to a Polish police station. Polish police beat him.
“Dance!”
Jacek danced barefoot on razors. Blood streamed.
“Dance for God!”
alleluja
Rain-veils came down the Tatras. Wicek carried wodka to Zdzistawa Rolnik’s house. He knocked. Pan Rolnik opened the door.
“Has a goose wandered in?” Wicek said.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“But I thought—”
“Good night, Wicek.”
Wicek went home. His mother had left a bowl of kutia. Wicek spooned it around and around.
“I hate Poland.”
Ilya stopped in the street. He was drunk. He looked up and shouted.
“Vsekh ne proebyosh,” he yelled, in Russian. “You can’t fuck them all.”
It was midnight.
Wicek went to Zdzistawa’s house. He slipped in. The house had an offensive odor. Blood-raspberry stains drooped down green wallpaper. He went up a stairwell. He opened her door. Zdzistawa slept.
“Do you see me?”
Zdzistawa’s head jerked.
“No.”
Wicek lighted a lantern and held it next to her face.
“Now do you see me?”
“Wicek Szczesny—!”
She sat up. She covered herself with folded arms.
“My nightgown,” she said, “is torn.”
“I know it. Who tore it?”
Wicek came closer.
“Dzidka, you’re dead, Dzidka.”
“Nie!”
She jumped. Wicek caught her. He banged her head into the wall. Sparks flew. Wicek dragged her around the room by the hair. Clumps came out.
Somebody fell behind a wall. There was a thrash of legs, arms. Then it was quiet. Wicek carried Dzidka downstairs. Her breath came warmly into his ear. He went out to the porch. Rain hung neither rising nor falling.
He dumped Dzidka in his basement, went to the cemetery, dug up his father’s coffin and dumped him.
“What’s dead is dead.”
He went back to his basement, put Dzidka in, nailed the coffin shut. He carried it into the street. It was red dawn. Winds stirred the smoke of Silesian factories in the valleys below. Wicek walked until the next afternoon. He crossed the Odra. Poles ripped clothes from German corpses. One of them had red suspenders and a broken red concertina wrapped around its neck.
“Dzidka! It’s Pan Gorecki!”
Wicek defecated.
“You see how it is, Dzidka. Germans and Poles. Poles and Germans.”
A bus to Oswicim blew white dust. Poles’ faces crammed the windows.
He carried Dzidka to the Tatra foothills. Villages had pink houses and blue doors. Zakopane’s post office still had the Hapsburg eagle. Poles with white beards and embroidered coats walked wood sidewalks. Women from Warsaw wore chic clothes. Wicek carried Dzidka out of Zakopane up a winding road. Wicek climbed the miedza—boundary of farmed land. Crossroads no longer had shrines, only stumps with Troubled Jesus.
A peasant slit a dog’s belly.
“No more puppies.”
A landowner stopped Wicek.
“Where are you going?”
“Over the Tatras,” Wicek said.
“Why?”
“It’s our honeymoon.”
“With whom?”
“My sweetheart,” Wicek said.
“Where is she?”
“In the coffin.”
“But she’s dead.”
“Not to me.”
The landowner rode away.
“Matko Boska,” he said. “Mother of God. Only in Poland.”
Spiders, gray and colorless, drifted over stones. A black pond mirrored the sun under crags. A Polish border station stood in snow.
A Polish aristocrat rode up with a Ukrainian erotomaniac and a Russian prince. The Pole wore an anorak cagoule. A French rifle protruded from his saddle. The Ukrainian count and Russian prince wore vestes en duvet and Russian fur caps.
“Are you lost?” the Polish aristocrat said.
“No.”
“Your lips are cracked. You’ve come a long way.”
“From Nowa Ruda.”
The Russian patted his black stallion.
“Who’s in the coffin?”
“My first love.”
“They’re so beautiful, aren’t they?” the Ukrainian said. “And it’s so hard without them, isn’t it?”
“O rany boskie,” the Polish aristocrat said. “God’s wounds.”
“Tell us, lost Pole,” the Russian said. “Was first love your most beautiful experience?”
“No.”
“What was?”
“Killing her.”
“Come with us,” the Ukrainian said. “You’ll freeze to death in the night.”
Wicek followed the aristocrats to a chalet. Inside, Siberian antlers stood over a fireplace. Crampons, hammers, etriers, piolets and karobiners hung from pegs. A Polish Christmas szopka was crowded with puppets: Death and Herod. German puppets, too, dangled from rafters: Jiethen the Husar-General, Graun the Court Kapellmeister, Schmettau the Austrian Lieutenant-Colonel, Schmuhl the Jew.
A triangular black iron gelding tool stood by the Christmas szopka. A decapitating tool for abortions leaned against the fireplace. Pornographic dolls with orange pubic hair stood penetrated on thin black poles. There was a black lacquer box embossed with the number 44.
A French woman with a boy’s haircut came in. She wore a Norwegian ski sweater and black ski trousers. Her eyes were black.
“Who is this boy?”
�
�We found him on the road to Kuznice,” the Ukrainian said.
“Is that a coffin?”
“He killed her.”
“Who?”
“His first love.”
“Poland is insane,” she said. “Poland must be the most insane place on earth.”
The Russian poured brandy into small glasses.
“In Polish,” he said, “death is feminine.”
The Ukrainian mixed hashish with Finnish vermouth. He served it in tall glasses.
“Drink, Polish boy.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s evil.”
“No. you will see eternity.”
Wicek drank.
It was night. Snow fell. The fire got hotter. Aristocrats practiced conatus—malignant will. The Russian jumped over a chair.
“Are we boring?”
“No!”
The Ukrainian mixed brandy and morphine.
“Drink, Polish boy.”
“No.”
“Eternity is coming.”
Wicek drank.
“Popoiki!” the Russian said. “Orgies!”
The French woman took off her clothes. The men surged forward.
“Bend over!”
“Lie down!”
“Truth in oral sex!”
In black windows: long arms, bent backs, gritted teeth, deformed faces, buggering.
“I am so sick!” Wicek said.
The Ukrainian mounted the woman. Puppets jumped in the air. Wicek ducked. Wargi—lips—labia—flew around the chalet. “Kurwa!”
“Whore!”
“Pizda!”
“Cunt!”
Wicek crawled.
“Help!”
Slavic tribes, Kujawy and Lachy, tossed torches. Filipki, children-frighteners—cows with frog’s head, swine’s teeth—grabbed Dzidka’s coffin.
“HELP!”
The peasant’s dog with a slit belly slouched in through a void.
O Wicek, poor Wicek
You’ll never love Dzidka now
How can you?
She’s dead
How can you love someone who oozes?
Wicek ran around the chalet, hands on head.
“Dzidka!”
Baba kurniawa, the blizzard witch, chewed a rabbit. A red mouse jumped on Wicek.
O Wicek, poor Wicek
What have you done?