“But what am I to do with this Skuziak?” he exclaimed. “Who is to be his judge, I ask you? Who is to sentence him? Do we have the right to lock him up? Well and good, we didn’t hand him over to the police, that would have been impossible—but we can’t hold him in the pantry for ever!”
He broached the subject with Hipolit the next day but got only a wave of his hand: “No point worrying about it! Not worth bothering one’s head with it! Hold him in the pantry, hand him over to the police, or whip him and release him, let him go. It’s all the same to me!” But when Vaclav tried to explain that Skuziak was his mother’s killer, Hipolit got annoyed: “A killer? A shit-head kid, not a killer! Do what you want with him, leave me alone, I have other things on my mind.” He simply didn’t want to hear about it, one had the impression that the murder was important to him from one end—Amelia’s corpse—but trivial from the other, the murderer. And besides, he was clearly preoccupied with another worry. Suddenly something occurred to Fryderyk, who was standing by the heating stove, he moved as if to speak, but he only murmured: “Ohooo! …” He didn’t say it aloud. He murmured it. And since we were not prepared for a murmur it resounded more than if Fryderyk had spoken with a full voice—and thus murmuring he stood there with his murmur while we waited for him to say something more. He said nothing. Then Vaclav, who had already learned to follow the slightest change in Fryderyk, asked: “What is it, what do you mean?” The accosted man looked around the room.
“Well, yes, it doesn’t matter about that one … we can do whatever we want … whatever anyone wants to.…”
“With which one?” Hipolit exclaimed, with inexplicable anger. “With which one?”
Fryderyk tried to explain himself, somewhat disconcerted.
“With the one, well, it’s obvious which one! With him—it doesn’t matter. Whatever one wants to. Whatever one feels like.”
“Wait. Wait a minute. You said the same thing about my mother,” Vaclav suddenly interjected. “That my mother could actually have … with a knife … because …” He fumbled over his words. To which Fryderyk said, with obvious embarrassment: “Nothing, nothing, I just … Let’s not talk about it!”
What an actor! One could clearly see the seams of his game, he wasn’t hiding them. But it was also noticeable how much it cost him, how he truly paled and trembled in its clutches. To me at least, it was obvious that he was trying to impart to the murder and the murderer the most drastic character—but perhaps he wasn’t trying, perhaps this was a necessity stronger than he was, to which he was succumbing in pallor and fear. It was, of course, a game—but it was a game that was creating him and also creating the situation. As a result everyone felt awkward somehow. Hipolit turned and left. Vaclav fell silent. Yet the blows struck by the player reached them just the same, Józek in the pantry was becoming more and more difficult, and the atmosphere in general was as if poisoned with a particular yet obscure intention. (I knew to whom it pertained, at whom it was aimed …) Every evening Józek’s wounds had to be washed, and Fryderyk, who knew something about first aid, did this—with Karol’s assistance, while little Henia held the lamp. This was, again, an intervention as significant as it was degrading, the three of them bending over him, each with something in hand, which justified the bending over—Fryderyk held the cotton wool, Karol a bowl and a bottle with alcohol, and Henia held the lamp—but the bending of the three of them over the wounded thigh was somehow tearing itself free from the objects they were holding, it was simply bending over him, while the lamp shone. Afterward Vaclav would lock himself up with the boy and question him—in a conciliatory way or by threatening him—but the boy’s inferiority and his darkness, together with his country origins, made him behave like an automaton, he kept repeating the same thing, that she threw herself on him, that she bit him, so what was he supposed to do? And, having become used to the questions, he felt at home with the answers.
“Her ladyship was bitin’ me. Here are the marks, can’t y’ see?”
When Vaclav would return from the interrogations, exhausted like after an illness, Henia would sit next to him and stay with him quietly, faithfully … keeping him company … while Karol set the table or looked at the pictures in some old magazine … and as I looked at her, trying to see her “with Karol,” I rubbed my eyes, unable to find those thrills that were no longer thrilling me—I was renouncing my frenzy. There was nothing between them, nothing, nothing! She’s only with Vaclav! But in that case, oh, how insatiable she was! What an appetite! What an awful craving! How greedily she was trying to take him in hand, like a man a young woman! Forgive me, I don’t have anything bad in mind, I just want to say that she was after his spirit with an unrestrained lasciviousness—she desired his conscience—his honor, his moral accountability, his dignity and all the suffering connected with it were the object of her craving, she was a glutton for all of his seniority to the point that even his baldness was more alluring to her than his little mustache! But all this was, of course, in a passive way peculiar to her—she merely absorbed his seniority, cuddled up to him, kept him company. And she would surrender to the caress of his masculine hand, nervous and refined, already matured, she—the one who was also seeking seriousness in relation to the dramatic death that went beyond her young, corporal ineptness which was clinging to someone else’s maturity! Accursed one! So, instead of being splendid with Karol (which she was capable of), she preferred to be a slut and to whore about with the attorney, cuddling up to his pampered ugliness! Whereas the attorney, in his gratitude, was quietly stroking her, while the lamp was shining. Thus a few days passed. One afternoon Hipolit informed us that a new person is expected, a Mr. Siemian, who will come for a visit. … And he murmured, looking at his fingernail: “He’ll come for a visit.”
And he closed his eyes.
We took note of this information, not asking any unnecessary questions. The glum resignation in his voice did not attempt to hide that behind the “visit” lurks a net that is enveloping us all, tying us together, and at the same time turning us into strangers to each other—a conspiracy. Everyone could say only as much as was permissible—the rest was a painful, brooding silence, and insinuations. But, in any case, for the past few days a palpable though distant threat was already disturbing the uniformity of our emotions after the tragic events in Ruda, while a heaviness, the heaviness that had been crushing us, shifted from the recent past to an immediate future that was dangerous. In the evening, in the rain, the kind that changes from fine to gusty and lashing and then into an all-night slosh, a cabriolet arrived, and, in the hallway door inadvertently left ajar, a tall gentleman loomed in an overcoat, hat in hand, he stepped forward, preceded by Hipolit with a lamp, and headed for the stairs to the second floor, where lodgings had been prepared for him. A sudden gust of air nearly knocked the lamp out of Hipolit’s hands, a door slammed. I recognized him. Yes, I already knew this man by sight, though he didn’t know me—and I suddenly felt in this house as if in a trap. I happened to know that this guy was now a big shot in the underground movement, a leader who had on his record more than one instance of breakneck bravery, and that he was wanted by the Germans. … Yes, this was him, and, if it was so, his entry into this house was the entry of recklessness, why, we were at the mercy of his good or bad graces, his bravery was not only his personal business, by endangering himself he was also endangering us, he could pull us in and entangle us—and indeed, if he were to demand anything we would be unable to refuse. Because the nation was uniting us, we were comrades and brothers—but this brotherhood was as cold as ice, here everyone was the tool of everyone else, and one was allowed to use everyone else most ruthlessly, for the common goal.
This man, then, so close to us and yet so dangerously a stranger, passed before me like a looming threat, and from now on everything bristled and became suppressed. I was familiar with the danger he was bringing here, and yet I couldn’t free myself from a distaste for this whole scenario—action, underground, leader, conspiracy
—as if taken from a bad novel, like a belated embodiment of a bad, youthful daydream—and I truly would have preferred to have anything but this as a spoke in our wheel, at this moment our nation and all the romanticisms connected with it were for me an unbearable concoction, as if contrived intentionally, out of spite! Yet it wouldn’t do to pick and choose and to disregard what fate was dishing out. I met “the leader” when he came down to supper. He looked like an officer, which he actually was—a cavalry officer, from eastern Poland, from the Ukraine perhaps, over forty years old, his face dark from shaving and dry, he was elegant, even gallant. He greeted everyone—it was obvious that this was not his first time here—he kissed the ladies’ little hands. “Oh, yes, I know, how unfortunate! And you gentlemen are from Warsaw? …” From time to time he half-closed his eyes, giving the appearance of someone who’s been a long time traveling, traveling by train. … They seated him at one of the farther places, supposedly he was here in the capacity of a technician, or a civil servant for cattle administration, or for planning crop planting—this was a necessary precaution because of the servants. As far as we, seated at the table, were concerned, it was at once apparent that everyone was more or less informed—though the conversation dragged sleepily and listlessly. But at the end of the table strange things were happening, namely with Karol, yes, with our (young) Karol, who had been thrown into an intense, willing obedience and eager readiness by the newcomer’s presence—and, consumed with loyalty, his wits sharpened, suddenly he found himself close to death, a guerrilla, a soldier, a conspirator about whose hands and shoulders roamed a murderous yet quiet power, who was at Siemian’s beck and call like a dog, obediently adroit, technically skillful. He wasn’t the only one, however. I don’t know whether it was his doing, but all the paltriness, so irritating and dreamy-eyed a moment earlier, was suddenly restored to health, in our banding together we arrived at reality and power, and at this table we were like a squad awaiting orders, already thrown into the possibility of action and battle. Conspiracy, action, enemy … this became a reality more powerful than our everyday life and blew in like a refreshing wind of sorts, Henia’s and Karol’s irksome otherness disappeared, we all began to feel like comrades. And yet this fraternization was not pure! No … it was also tormenting, even disgusting! Because, in God’s truth, weren’t we, the elders, a bit comical and somewhat repulsive in this battle—as happens in the case of love at an advanced age—was this appropriate to us, to Hipolit’s bloating, to Fryderyk’s skinniness, to Madame Maria’s debility? The military unit that we formed was a unit of reservists—and our alliance was an alliance in decay—and despondency, surliness, abhorrence, and disgust hovered over our fraternization in fight and fervor. Yet at times it seemed wonderful that our fraternization, our fervor, were possible in spite of everything. But also, at times, I felt like calling out to Karol and to Henia, oh, separate from us, don’t associate with us, avoid our dirt, our farce! But they (she included) were clinging to us—and pressing into us—and wanting to be with us—and surrendering to us, they were at our command, at our beck and call, ready to stand in our stead, for us, at the leader’s beckoning! So it went all through supper. This is how I sensed it. Was I the one who sensed it this way, or was it Fryderyk?
Who knows, perhaps one of mankind’s darkest mysteries—and the most difficult—is actually the one that pertains to this “uniting” of age groups—the manner and course by which youth suddenly becomes accessible to older age and vice versa. The key to the puzzle was in this case the officer, who, being an officer, had by this very fact a leaning toward a soldier and a young one at that … which became more apparent when, after supper, Fryderyk suggested to Siemian that he should check up on the killer in the pantry. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t believe this was a random suggestion, I knew that Józek-killer-young-fellow’s sojourn in the pantry had began to exert its pressure and became intrusive from the moment Karol surrendered to the officer. We went there—Siemian, Fryderyk, I, Henia, and Karol with the lamp. There he was, in the little room secured with bars, lying on the straw—curled up and asleep—and when we stood over him he moved, and in his sleep he covered his eyes with his hand. Childlike. Karol shone his lamp on him. Siemian signaled with his hand not to wake him. He eyed him as Madame Amelia’s murderer, and yet Karol lit him up not as a murderer—but rather as if he were showing him to the leader—not so much as a murderer but as a young soldier—as if he were showing him as a colleague. And he was lighting him up almost as a recruit, as if this were a conscription … while Henia stood right behind Karol and watched as he was lighting him up. This struck me as something singular and on all accounts worthy of attention, that this was a soldier lighting up a soldier for an officer—there was something collegial and brotherly between them, the soldiers, yet cruel as well, yet giving him over as prey. And it seemed even more significant that it was a young one lighting up another young one for the older one—though I didn’t quite grasp its meaning. …
In the pantry with its barred window a mute explosion of those three occurred around the lamp and in its glare—they exploded noiselessly with an unknown meaning, discrete yet eager. Siemian imperceptibly encompassed them with his gaze, it was only a moment, but long enough for me to learn that all this was not entirely foreign to him.
IX
Have I already mentioned that four small islands, separated by canals green with duckweed, made up the farther extent of the pond? Small bridges had been thrown over the canals. A lane at the very end of the garden, winding through a thicket of hazelnut bushes, jasmines, and arborvitae, allowed one to cross this archipelago, soggy with standing water. Walking there I imagined that one of the islands was not the same as the others. … Why? … a fleeting impression, but the garden had already been pulled into play too much to ignore this impression. … However … nothing. The day had been hot and it was teatime, the canal was almost dry and glistened with a crust of slime with its green eyes of water—brush was overgrowing the banks. Given our situation, any strangeness had to undergo immediate inspection, so I worked my way to the other shore. The little island breathed with heat, the grass was rampant, green and high, abundant with ants, and high above were the crowns of trees with their own, closed-off existence. I crept through the thicket and … Wait a minute. Wait! A surprise!
There was a bench. On the bench, she was sitting with her incredible legs—one of her legs was shod and in a stocking while the other was bare all the way above her knee … and this wouldn’t have been so incredible, were it not for the fact that he, lying down, lying in front of her, on the grass, also had one leg bare and his pants leg pulled up above his knee. His shoe was nearby, a sock inside it. Her face and eyes were turned sideways. He was not looking at her, his arm around his head on the grass. No, no, all this would not have been so shocking, perhaps, if it had not been so incompatible with their natural rhythm, it was frozen, strangely immobile, as if it did not belong to them … and those legs, so strangely bared, only one from each pair, shining with their corporality in the humid, hot dampness interrupted by the splashing of frogs! He with a bare leg and she with a bare leg. Perhaps they had been wading in the water … no, there was more to it, this was beyond explanation … he with a bare leg and she with a bare leg. Her leg moved slightly, then stretched. She rested her foot on his foot. Nothing more.
I watched. Suddenly my total stupidity became apparent. Oh, oh! How could I have been so naive—and Fryderyk too—to think that “there was nothing” between them … to be seduced by appearances! Here I had a flat refutation right in front of me, like a blow to the head! So it was here that they had been meeting, on the island. … A gigantic scream, liberating and satisfying, resounded silently from this place—as their contact was maintained without motion, without sound, without even a gaze (because they weren’t looking at each other). He with a bare leg and she with a bare leg.
Well and good … But … This could not be. There was an artificiality about it, something disturbin
g, something perverse. … What was the origin of this torpor, as if a spell had been cast? Where did the chill in their passion come from? For a fraction of a second I had a totally crazy thought that this is how it should be, that this is how it should be between them, that this is more real than if … Nonsense! And right away another thought came to me, namely, there’s a funny game hiding here, a comedy, perhaps they had somehow found out that I’d be passing through here, and they were doing this on purpose—for my benefit. Because indeed this seemed to be for my benefit, exactly cut to the measure of my shame, of my daydreaming about them! For me, for me, for me! Spurred on by this thought—that it’s for me—I tore through the bushes, disregarding everything. And then the picture became complete. Fryderyk was sitting under a pine tree on a pile of needles. This was—for him!
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