Jerzy Pilch

by A Thousand Peaceful Cities

  “Here’s the proof, Chief.” Mr. Trąba flattened the sheets and calmed his breathing. “As I approach the end, I have decided to put my experiences in order and to write down my opinions, at least the most radical of them. I also wanted to produce my biography and a memoir about my honorable ancestors, but I abandoned that idea. After all, as you have correctly observed, all my life I was in the clutches of addiction, and I owe all I have attained in life to that addiction. But writing about this presents a problem, and also shame. Not so much shame before future readers of this worthless copybook as before myself. Similarly, I am uncertain whether my Papa, God rest his soul, would wish that it be made public that he too, for his entire life, was caught in the clutches of an addiction—and there is no way not to make this public, since my Papa was occupied with nothing else. And my Mama, God rest her soul, was caught, and both grandparents, although allegedly Grandpapa on Mama’s side got caught late in his life. In any event, on account of a certain, so to say, aesthetic monotony, I abandoned the idea of memorializing my honorable forebears. I also left out my autobiography, and I decided to content myself with recording my most radical views. But here, too, I was unsuccessful. I began with an appropriate invocation. I scrutinized it, since something in these few lines ineffably vexed me, troubled me. I analyzed them word for word, and I was horrified . . . And I abandoned it, since I understood that I had such little time left that there was no way I’d be able to fill up even a sixteen-sheet graph-paper notebook . . . Listen, Chief.” And Mr. Trąba opened the notebook to the first page, and, in a trembling voice, and with no concern for punctuation, he began to read:

  “To the glory of the Lord and all His works, I begin to intone this ominous song. To the glory of the barn swallow on the windowsill; to the glory of Buffalo Mountain on the horizon; to the glory of the morphinistes; to the glory of hair and to the glory of shampoos; to the glory of the ink pot and to the glory of blotting-pads; to the glory of the candle lighting my way; to the glory of the pencil with which I write; and even to Thy glory, my hateful little graph-paper notebook . . .”

  Mr. Trąba unexpectedly broke off, looked at Father, and asked, according to the ritual: “So what do you say, Chief?”

  “A beautiful apostrophe, and worthy of a fitting reward. But you didn’t say much in that fragment, Mr. Trąba. I’d say that you broke your quill sooner than I would have expected.”

  “I said quite enough. Or rather, quite enough was said through me here to make your hair stand on end.” In Mr. Trąba’s voice I heard the distant hoof beats of evil forces. I felt an icy shiver run down my spine.

  “I don’t really understand.” Father stuck to his trivializing tone.

  “Did you note the phrase ‘To the glory of the barn swallow on the windowsill?’”

  “To the glory of the barn swallow? . . . Well, yes . . . To the glory of the swallow . . . A beautiful phrase, poetic, and worthy of reward.” Father glanced in the direction of the sideboard.

  “Chief, let’s stop rewarding me for formal artifice, especially since it wasn’t I who was directing my own hand. Have you ever seen a barn swallow on a windowsill?”

  Father stared hard at Mr. Trąba.

  “Have you ever seen a swallow on a windowsill? You haven’t, because you couldn’t have. It isn’t the habit of those birds, who, you must admit, move awkwardly when they aren’t flying, to alight on windowsills . . . With the exception of my windowsill. Do you understand? Every day, at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, I see barn swallows on my windowsill, swarms of barn swallows. They go pit-a-pat, they peck, they flap their wings. Time and again they seem ready to spring to flight, but no, they don’t take off. They stay put. There seem to be more and more of them. New ones must be landing there all the time, although I never see them in the air. I only see them on the windowsill, barn swallows on the windowsill, hundreds of swirling barn swallows on the windowsill. Any minute the windowpane will vanish, and they will begin to swarm all over me . . . Do you understand? And do you know what is happening on the balcony? Whoever sees a swallow on his windowsill should demolish his balcony—this is the imperfect piece of Solomonic wisdom I have to offer you, Chief.”

  Mr. Trąba’s trembling hand moved like a chess-piece knight on his horse, or perhaps it moved on the trail of other elusive animals.

  “To the glory of the salamander? To the glory of the toad? To the glory of the grasshopper? To the glory of the vulture and the iguana? To the glory of the rat and the swallow?”

  Father gulped.

  “And what do you do then? Do you run away?”

  Mr. Trąba shrugged.

  “I employ the simplest method, after which they disappear without a trace. At least for the moment.”

  He glanced once again at the invocation written in a wobbly hand and at the poetic introduction to a litany of radical views that would never be immortalized, and he shook his head in disapproval.

  “That bit about the morphinistes didn’t come out right either: ‘to the glory of the morphinistes’—a hurried tribute paid to extemporaneity, although there is a strong literary tradition of that type. Do you know, Chief, Charles Baudelaire’s poem ‘To a Passerby?’”

  “I don’t,” Father muttered.

  “Even if you don’t know it, I hope that you believe me, that you believe me now, that my brain, pecked to shreds by delirious fowl, is getting ready to meet the Other World.”

  Father was silent. Mr. Trąba’s voice was unexpectedly cheerful.

  “I’ve been thinking a long time, Chief, a long time, and I know more or less what I should do for humanity with my last deed. Except that my knowledge is general, and my deed must be concrete.”

  “Mr. Trąba, if I were in your place . . .” Father’s voice echoed with a gravity and a puffed-up didacticism that I couldn’t stand. “If I were in your place, and if I truly knew, let’s say, that I would die the day after tomorrow, I would live tomorrow just the same as yesterday. I would eat breakfast, I would seek out the truth between the lines in The People’s Tribune, I would work in the garden . . .”

  “I appreciate the beauty and nobility of the idea of living tomorrow like today or yesterday, but that sort of beauty and that sort of nobility have nothing to do with me. From birth, Chief, I have lived my life under constant pressure for change. For as long as I can remember, I have promised myself that tomorrow would be different from yesterday, next week different from the past. For as long as I can remember, my today is always supposed to be a caesura between the old and the new life. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying, every day, to change something. And now, when an unavoidable change is approaching, when my presence will quickly change into my absence, I intend to do something for the world as long as I’m still here, something which—I won’t hide the fact—will relieve the monotony of the final act of my existence on this vale of tears, with respect to both form and content.”

  “What exactly will you do, Mr. Trąba?”

  “Well, what can you do, when nothing is to be done, when it’s clear that I won’t build a house, I won’t establish a family, I won’t raise a child, I won’t put my opinions in order and write them down, I won’t render the proper respect to my forebears, and I won’t even give up my addictions? What can you do, when a terrible lack, a void, a road drowning in Asiatic grasses, a precipitous bank, nothingness, and nausea suddenly declare themselves? What remains, when nothing remains? . . . Kill somebody—that remains.”

  Father impatiently shrugged it off.

  “A pathetic joke, Mr. Trąba, and if it isn’t a joke, then you really must be suffering significant losses in the lateral occipital lobes.”

  But Mr. Trąba had plunged wholeheartedly into the inexorable logic of his own deduction.

  “Kill somebody—that remains. Kill somebody, whose killing will be for the good of mankind. Who? Obviously one of the great tyrants of mankind. As of today, the situation with the great tyrants of mankind looks as follows: Adolf Hitler—passé, Jose
ph Stalin—passé. Who remains? There remains, irrefutably, Chairman Mao Tse-tung.”

  Father exploded in artificial, affected, overly ecstatic laughter.

  “I hope, Chief, that your laughter is not derisive laughter, but rather the laughter of a person enchanted . . . no, the laughter of the demiurge enchanted with his own deed, the laughter of God. After all, everybody is different, but you of all people, Chief, will appreciate the dark beauty of the idea of killing Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Weren’t you debased by Moscow? Yes, or no? You were debased,” Mr. Trąba answered his own question, “you were irrevocably debased in the morals department. And since morality has gone by the board irrevocably, let’s at least go into raptures over the pure beauty of our demise. ‘Enough has been given to morality; now comes the turn of Taste and the Fine Arts,’ as a certain criminal Englishman said in his disquisition On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts. Yes, Chief, the murder of Chairman Mao can be fine art, and this is irrefutable reasoning. The expedition to the Middle Kingdom itself will be a source of unparalleled aesthetic experiences. Just consider the hypothetical path of this murderous journey.”

  Mr. Trąba began to trace the map of the continent in the air, with sure and frequently practiced motions.

  “It would be simplest, of course, to travel to Vladivostok by the Transsiberian Railroad. There, in the vicinity of Vladivostok, to cross the Chinese border, retreat a little to Harbin in order to gain the support of the local Polish emigration—mostly I am thinking of dry rations, but also of moral support—and then, from Harbin, like a flash, through rice fields, avoiding Changchun, Mukden, and Anshan, to reach the capital of the Peoples’ Republic of China. Without a doubt this would be the most economic variant, at least as far as time is concerned. I am, however, in possession of precise information that, in reaction to flagrant intrusion upon Soviet territory from the Chinese side, the border in the vicinity of Vladivostok is so carefully guarded that a Chinese fly cannot fly over it, a Soviet mouse cannot scurry across it. And so we ought rather first go to Moscow, then from Moscow, by trains and busses, through Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Petropavlovsk, Novokuznetsk, finally to Irkutsk, and further by foot in the direction of the Mongolian border. It will be best, as I have discovered, to cross the Russian-Mongolian border around Kyakhta, and then to proceed from there by horse and cart to Ulan Bator, and then all the way through the steppes, the steppes, to Peking itself.”

  “Through the steppes to Peking, you say,” Father repeated, in venomous simulation of deep thought, “through the steppes to Peking . . . And in Peking? And in Peking—then what?”

  “What do you mean ‘In Peking—then what?’” said Mr. Trąba, suddenly angry. “You will forgive me, Chief, but sometimes I have to treat you like a small child. What do you mean ‘In Peking—then what?’ In Peking we will have to take a look around.”

  “As I understand it, we will have to look around for Chairman Mao. But when we catch sight of him, when the Chairman turns up, when he himself comes into our grasp in some Peking alleyway, then . . .” and Father moved his hand across his throat in the classic gesture.

  “We will have to look around,” now it was Mr. Trąba’s turn for venomous simulation of Stoic calm, “we will have to look around for the road leading to the Palace of the All-Chinese Assembly of the People’s Representatives. It is somewhere in the very heart of Peking, between the Eternal City and the Imperial City, right in the vicinity of the Forbidden City.”

  “Yes, and then what? We reach the Palace of the All-Chinese Assembly of the People’s Representatives, and then what?” Father said ostentatiously, with the tone of the cynical psychiatrist conversing with his agitated patient.

  “Then we find out whether the Chairman is inside, and if he is in a nearby teashop, we wait for nightfall. Mao, like the majority of despots, leads a nocturnal life, which means that it is more difficult to catch him sleeping, since he sleeps during the day. And besides, as you know, Chief, there’s no honor in killing a sleeping man.”

  •

  “Oh, I’ve seen this scene, Chief, perhaps a thousand, perhaps even two thousand times. I’ve seen it in my delirious dreams, and I’ve seen it in my hungover waking. I’ve seen it in malignant fever and in unimpaired consciousness. The swallows, the barn swallows gathered and carried in their beaks a giant screen on which I saw myself—how I deceive the guards, how in the deepest Peking night I suddenly find myself in the Palace of the All-Chinese Assembly of the People’s Representatives, an edifice carpeted with unbelievable rugs. I look into the successive offices furnished with Far Eastern ostentation. Nowhere is there a living soul, although you can hear the tapping of a typewriter. Behind one of the successive doors I see the astonished face of a Chinese secretary or guard, perhaps it’s even Mao’s concubine. She’s wearing a dark skirt, a white blouse, and a red scarf carelessly tied at her neck. That nonchalant carelessness testifies clearly to the intimacy that must connect her with the Chairman, who—I smell this with the unfailing nose of the hunter of despots—who is now near. He is behind the doors that are covered with scales of cracked varnish. I press the brass handle. I enter a cave filled with the murmur of his dragon breath. An identical secretary, guard, concubine, in an identical blouse and skirt, with an identical scarf carelessly wrapped around her neck. She is handing him a crystal chalice filled with, I don’t know, perhaps it’s just milk. Mao, dressed in a white bathrobe, is sitting on a low stool upholstered with a special satin. In both hands he holds the scroll of an ancient Chinese papyrus. He raises his head in the direction of the servant woman bending over him, and he notices me, the black-winged angel of execution, and immediately, in the twinkling of an eye, he understands the entire situation. He knows that I, Mr. Trąba, am a delegate who has come to the Forbidden City in order, in the name of humanity, to do what must be done. And that massive, fat, seventy-year-old Chinese rushes with a hideous squeal into panicked flight. I chase him, I fly after him, I take flight with the lightness that occurs in rare dreams. The white flaps of his bathrobe flutter. His inhuman and inarticulate squeal, inarticulate even in Chinese, guides me. We fly through one corridor, a second, a third. Behind me I hear the patter of pumps on flat heels. Secretaries, guards, and concubines hurry to his aid. I come nearer and nearer. He looks back at me. In his slanted eyes, always full of lavish Bolshevik arrogance, I see black despair, and in normal human terms, simply in normal human terms, I feel sorry for him.

  “‘Comrade Mao!’” I call as gently as I can. “‘Comrade Chairman Mao, surrender, I beg you, comrade. Any further resistance is pointless. Stop, comrade, and surrender yourself peacefully into my hands. You have no other choice, Comrade Mao. I won’t give up, I won’t surrender, and I won’t renounce the execution of the assignment entrusted to me by mankind. Anyway, just consider, comrade, the forces and means that have been invested in your execution. After all, I alone, simple Mr. Trąba, have crossed all of Asia on my own two feet. I crossed borders illegally, I avoided patrols, I swam across the Volga, the Irtysh, the Yenisey, the Lena, the Amur, and the Huang Ho. At great risk, comrade Mao, at great risk have I made my way to you . . .’

  “And in mid-flight, as if hearing and understanding my appeal, Mao slows down and stops. I slow down too. I approach him at a normal gait. Although terribly out of breath, I wish to say something conciliatory before I destroy him.

  “‘The idea of universal happiness in Communism has perhaps a certain beauty as a literary notion, but brought to life it leads to crime and murder’—I am about to utter that hackneyed and ultimately false sentence. What beautiful idea are we talking about here? The idea itself was crime and murder. Guided, however, by the ritual gallantry that the executioner must maintain toward his victim, I am reconciled to the lie. Let it be a lie, if it will somehow sweeten his last moments. And with this argument I overcome the moral resistance I harbor for lies. I open my mouth, and I place my hand in conciliatory fashion on his shoulder, when suddenly he turns to face me with violent speed. He disto
rts his features in a hideous grimace. In a flash he thrusts a long tongue, pointy as the spear of a Ming dynasty warrior, out of his mouth, and he begins to scour the air with this tongue, which is coated with layers of green mold. The tongue of Chairman Mao writhes and creeps as if leading its own reptilian life. It writhes and creeps, and patently makes obscene and filthy gestures in my direction. ‘Down with Communism,’ I scream hoarsely. He produces yet another squeal, but this time an especially triumphant one, and he rushes to the next stage of flight. He flees to a dangerous distance. Once again, off I go; off I go on the track of that squeal. We fly through numerous corridors, deeper and deeper. Out of the corner of my eye I see pictures hanging on the walls, painted by ancient emperors depicting the garden of universal happiness. The flaps of the white bathrobe flutter and are clearly in the Chairman’s way, for he attempts on the run to throw off the garment that is hindering his movements. One sleeve, another, Mao slips off the snow-white vestment and throws it at me, but this missile of wadded silk presents no obstacle. On I rush through the more and more intricate labyrinths of the Palace of the All-Chinese Assembly of the People’s Representatives, while Chairman Mao flees before me, naked as a Turkish saint. Inevitably, we head toward the library in the subterranean vaults. Shelves appear on the walls; they’re filled with the yellowish papyri. Naked and hairless, with the lack of respect for tradition that is characteristic of revolutionaries, Mao makes a weapon out of these rolls, which are in fact reminiscent of huge sticks of dynamite. Time and again ancient Chinese epics, novels, treatises, and dynastic histories fly past me. As Mao Tse-tung throws them, they unroll in mid-air and glide at me like parchment dragons. Sharp papyri, hard as sheet metal, fill the corridor. The tide of classical manuscripts gradually rises. First it reaches my knees, then my waist. My movements become slower and slower, and my sight drowsier and drowsier, but this is the end now, the end of the adventures, the end of the labyrinth, and the end of Chairman Mao. I finally run him to ground in a bend in the corridor, in a small room that may be an abandoned guardroom, or perhaps an inoperative telephone exchange. I run him to ground. I see the sandy, Asiatic sweat on his shoulders. I run him to ground. I stick out my hands, and with my bare hands, with my bare hands, Chief, with my bare hands . . .” Mr. Trąba burst into sobs and awoke from his narrative trance.