“Mr. Trąba, I’m an atheist.” The Commandant was as pale as ashes, and drops of oily and icy sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Fine.” Mr. Trąba danced around his staggering opponent with the murderous lightness of a triumphant heavyweight boxer. “Fine. Just utter this one phrase without hesitation: ‘I’m not a Jew, I’m an atheist.’ Say it, toss out this stylistic pearl, and I will answer you, just as the Chief sometimes answers me.” Mr. Trąba bowed in Father’s direction. “Then I will answer you: ‘A beautiful phrase and worthy of reward.’”
Father, like a golem set in motion by a magic spell, stood up from behind the table, went up to the cabinet, and did what he always did: he extracted a bottle and glasses. Mother was carrying a tureen full of potato pancakes in sour cream. Thunder resounded, and black rains came crashing down with redoubled might. Mr. Trąba grew gentle and glanced thankfully to the heavens. Father continued filling glasses with juniper berry vodka in the fever of his robotic motions.
“Basically,” Mr. Trąba now continued in a conciliatory and almost amicable tone, “basically, it’s not a question of whether you deny it or not, Commandant. Don’t be angry, but, putting it in other terms, whether you had denied it or not—this is a trifle. Too many ties, ties of another sort, link us. As you correctly say, we are old friends, and I wouldn’t be wrong if I said that a step here, a move there, one gesture and you would join the conspiracy.” Mr. Trąba lifted up his hand and, without superfluous words, stilled the Commandant’s silent and, to tell the truth, none-too-distinct resistance. “Yes, you would join us, but that’s not the issue, nor is it a question of your Jewishness or of your Communism: don’t be angry, but, to tell the truth, those Jews and those Communists were quite different from you, Commandant. It is a question of general, as well as universal, truths. Of what Jews sensu largo are up to, and just what Jews they are!”
Mr. Trąba suddenly began to search his pockets, and after a moment he extracted a carefully folded newspaper clipping from his shirt pocket; straightened it out; nailed it to the table, which was covered with sky-blue oilcloth, with his index finger; bent over it; and began to read distinctly: “The world renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin, during his tournée of Israel, paid a visit to Prime Minister Ben Gurion. In the course of an informal conversation, both the artist and the politician stood on their heads, since both practice yoga . . .” Mr. Trąba panted hard, and apoplectic spots covered his face and neck.
“Chief, Commandant, gentlemen. A Christian cannot stand indifferent in the face of such things. Yoga, yes, OK, it can lead to salvation, but among the Mosaic prophets there isn’t a peep about yoga.” Mr. Trąba fell silent for a moment, and then he suddenly bellowed with a terrifying voice: “Convert them! Evangelize them! Show them the road to salvation!”
“Proselytism,” Commandant Jeremiah growled scornfully. “Common proselytism.”
“What proselytism, Commandant, what proselytism!” Mr. Trąba said with unexpected calm. “I swear on my nine prewar semesters of theology that there isn’t any question of proselytism here. It’s a question of the Biblical plan of salvation. If David Ben Gurion, who came fifteen years ago to stand at the head of the state of Israel, now stands on his head, this means one thing: a flaw has arisen in the Biblical plan of salvation, and we Christians, and especially we Lutherans, must hurry to the rescue.”
Mother placed the steaming tureen on the table and removed plates, knives, and forks from the cupboard. Sitting next to me, Commandant Jeremiah—in whose breathing, agitated gestures, and nervous huffing and puffing I sensed the firm desire for immediate departure—suddenly capitulated and cheered up. Father raised an empty vodka glass. It looked as if he wished to perform a pantomime entitled “The Flight of the Vodka Glass to the Light,” but the Commandant interrupted the performance with an imperial gesture, put the date book, which was still lying on the table before him, away in his pocket, and pointed to the sacred place on the oilcloth where the vessel, already taken down from the heights, but still shot through with spherical radiance, ought to stand. And it came to pass: Father placed the vodka glass before Commandant Jeremiah and filled it.
“If a miracle should happen, if the heavens should open up,” Mr. Trąba declaimed, “and if the Lord of Hosts should look upon my downfall and ask: ‘What can I do for you, Józef Trąba?’ If that should happen, with my certain death as my witness, I would say: ‘Lord, raise up my friend Jakub Lełlich from the dead, fashion him back again from the clay into which he has been transformed, breath life into him, and cause that we could at least once more have a chat about the superiority of the Jewish-Lutheran alliance to all other alliances.’”
Mr. Trąba chattered away indefatigably, but neither Mother, nor Father, nor Commandant Jeremiah paid much attention to him. They must have heard this story too, like the majority of his stories, many times over, but the great ideas of the Biblical plan of salvation were reaching my consciousness for the first time.
“It is irrefutable, irrefutable, that the rise of Israel was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zachariah and other prophecies. The Lord of Hosts foretold two-and-a-half-thousand years ago that he would deliver his people and lead them to Jerusalem. And this came to pass, and it must be so until the very . . . the very conversion itself.”
Mr. Trąba broke off for a moment, swallowed a significant piece of potato pancake, which had been amply sopped in sour cream, and continued, with a zeal that proved he had reached the very heart of his argument:
“This will come to pass, but it’s not the pagan path of yogists that leads here, rather the path of Jewish orthodoxy. Jews came to Jerusalem not in order to stand on their heads there, but in order to be confirmed in their Judaism. After all, only Jews confirmed in their Judaism can attain salvation. As the Scripture says: ‘For an Israelite to become a Christian, he must first eat his fill of his Israelitism.’”
“There isn’t anything like that in Scripture,” Commandant Jeremiah wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nowhere is it so written.”
“Not directly,” Mr. Trąba became impatient, “not directly, but it’s in the subtext, or rather in innumerable subtexts. Just recall carefully, Commandant, Paul’s Epistles to the Romans, Ephesians, not to mention Hebrews. And the prophet Isaiah, chapter eleven, verse twelve, and your namesake, the prophet Jeremiah, touches upon this topic in the sixteenth, and in the twenty-forth, and in the thirty-first chapter. Ezechiel!” shouted Mr. Trąba. “Ezechiel! Above all the prophet Ezechiel and the famous prophecy about the field of bones slowly taking on life!”
“I’ll investigate,” said Commandant Jeremiah in an unexpectedly police tone. “I’ll investigate.”
“I assure you that you can believe a person established in his faith and trained in Scripture. Yes,” Mr. Trąba suddenly fell into a dreamy mood, “that would be a worthy act, that would be an act worthy of my dying ambitions—the deed of conversion. But unfortunately there is little time, and this is the work of decades at least, and not within the abilities of one lonely Lutheran who’s caught in the clutches of addiction. Yes,” he repeated in a voice marked by strategic deliberation, “let them come to full bloom, even to the first signs of wilting. Let them people the streets and markets. Let us hear the murmur of conversations and the rustle of gabardines. Let synagogues be erected. Let the Sabbaths, Pesach, the Feast of Tabernacles, and Purim be celebrated.”
“Á propos,” Commandant Jeremiah interrupted Mr. Trąba’s visionary trance, “á propos Purim, did you, comrade, recently visit Mrs. Rychter and offer her and her numerous relatives help in preparation for the celebration of Purim?”
“I won’t deny it. I tried in my small way to do what I could in order to aid in the realization of God’s plans, but they didn’t avail themselves of my offer.”
“There’s nothing strange there. An old German family has absolutely no reason to celebrate Purim. And, by the way, I don’t wish to trivialize your motives,” said the Commandant, “I don’t wish to
trivialize, but I must note that, in the course of celebrating Purim, excessive consumption of alcohol is practically a religious obligation.”
“You don’t wish to trivialize, but you do trivialize!” shouted Mr. Trąba. “You do trivialize!”
“It’s you, Comrade Trąba, who trivializes. You trivialize both the Scripture and God’s designs.”
“But what’s at stake here, what’s at stake if not salvation? After all, as the eventual assassin of First Secretary Władysław Gomułka, I have no choice but to concern myself with the question of salvation. Of course, I would prefer not to murder him, and, instead of troubling myself with the question of my own salvation, help someone else to salvation. For example, the Jewish people. They who have been dispersed will be gathered in. They will regain their identity. They will be strengthened in their identity, and they will develop diversely in their Judaism. They will be converted. They will convert to Catholicism. And then, without fail, having become disgusted by Rome, they will convert to our Lutheran faith. What’s at stake? What more is at stake here? And I would undertake this deed as my dying act. I would truly do this for humanity. Truly. But, I repeat, it’s a question of time. And I don’t have time. I need something quick, something quick like the flash of a knife, like the flight of an arrow.”
“You know what, Comrade Trąba,” Commandant Jeremiah said with a phlegmatic, well-fed voice, “you know what? If you really do intend to convert the Jews to the Lutheran faith, of the two evils it would be better that you whack somebody, comrades.”
The Commandant raised his glass.
“Drink up, comrades.”
And when the men had inclined their heads, and then raised them up again, the Commandant said with dignity:
“For at least the last hour I have been off duty, but in spite of everything I want you, comrades, to be forewarned. I made a request of Comrade Station Master Ujejski. I made a request that he let me know if you comrades should suddenly wish to buy tickets. For instance, for the night train to Warsaw. I want you to know about this, comrades.”
Chapter IV
THE PARCHMENT MAP of the sky slowly took on life. Streams of deep blue air flowed across it. Golden sand poured from the planets. Within the large constellations you could hear music. I awoke in the middle of the night, and in the dark, gropingly, I recorded the word “occupation” in my notebook—in a moment someone would whisper it in the depths of the sleeping house.
In those days I was never parted from my pencil and notebook. The desire, stronger than anything else, to record words and sentences that had just been uttered, or would be in a moment, directed my every step, waking and sleeping. I would place the notebook and pencil on the nightstand, and when the golden-black grandfather clock in the entryway rang out the most terrible of hours, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, when the Antichrist himself touched my featherbed with a wet wing, when during every season of the year an infernal silence reigned, I would reach for notebook and pencil and record the word or sentence that brought relief. “Occupation,” I wrote, but I didn’t feel relief or consolation. Noises unusual for that hour were coming from the kitchen. Someone was moving a chair. Someone knocked delicately, probably at the window, since the panes rattled. Someone said something. Somebody answered. I lit the lamp, and Mr. Trąba’s voice became more distinct, as if intensified by the light. To this day I am absolutely certain that, throughout my entire childhood, I was awakened from sleep either by Mr. Trąba’s voice or by the sound of the Wittenberg bells in the church tower.
A few minutes before 6:00 in the morning, Sexton Messerschmidt would climb the wooden steps, and in the gray dawn of the fall, in the winter darkness, or with the summer radiance piercing the shutters, the cast-iron caps would begin to move more and more forcefully. In the morning, the sound of the bells was delicate like the slowly rising eyelid of a Lutheran confirmation-class girl. At noon, it possessed the fullness of a fire roaring under Evangelical stovetops. And at twilight, it was mannerly and pliable like the mixed forests on Buffalo Mountain.
•
Sexton Messerschmidt knew how to pull the ropes such that he could achieve all those effects at will—the effect of the eyelid, the fire, and the mixed forest.
“You’ve got to have it here,” he pointed to his palms. “You’ve got to have the divine spark here. The divine azure spark,” he added with an enigmatic smile. “Without the divine spark, azure like a gas flame, no bell will ring.”
We would leave our packs in the sacristy. The church smelled of the Sunday clothes of Protestants. Sexton Messerschmidt carefully examined our hands.
“Not a single divine spark, not a trace of ability, to say nothing of talent,” he would say with disapproval. “Oh well. Cripples have the right to praise the Lord too. Come unto me. Only the pious, only the most pious, will attain the grace of entry to the tower today. You, Chmiel, you, Sikora, you, Błaszczyk. Today it shall be given unto you. You won’t even have to put your hands over your ears, since, anyway . . . you are all deaf as posts.”
We followed him up the wooden stairs. Then with all our might we squeezed ropes that were fatter than our arms. The sweltering noon slowly began to smolder.
“Let the littlest bell sing,” cried Sexton Messerschmidt at the top of his voice, and he looked ironically upon our pathetic efforts. With seeming nonchalance he grasped the rope we had been straining at so ineffectually. “You gentlemen lack not only artistic talent but also physical strength. You are an absolutely worthless generation. When you grow up you will bring not only the Lutheran Church but also People’s Poland to ruin—which, after all, who knows, may be for the better.
“This is how it’s done. With your entire being, not just with your hands. We are in a holy place, therefore you gentlemen will magnanimously forgive me if I don’t suggest just what you can do for yourselves with nothing but your hands. In the profession—in the vocation—of the bell-ringer the hand is not an upper extremity but the extension of the soul. Let the littlest bell sing,” cried Sexton Messerschmidt, and at his call the littlest bell moved. “Tym’s bell-foundry in Warsaw,” Messerschmidt outshouted the first heartbeats, “Tym’s bell-foundry in Warsaw, bronze practically in statu crudi, bronze without alloy, which is why it has a pure sound, even if it doesn’t carry. As the story goes, this bell was cast by order of the enlightened protector of the Reformation, Mikołaj Radziwiłł the Black. It was hung by our Calvinist brethren in the church tower in Kiejdany. It served them faithfully, and with its pure voice it sustained them in the faith, which, although perfect, is after all also the correct one. Henryk Sienkiewicz mentions the church in Kiejdany in his Trilogy. Unfortunately, Sienkiewicz’s pen did not describe the sound of our bell, and it’s a pity, a pity. You, gentlemen, of course, haven’t yet read the Trilogy.”
“I’ve read it, I’ve already read With Fire and Sword, and The Deluge, and Pan Wołodyjowski. I’ve read it,” I wanted to call out, but I restrained myself and bit my tongue. My psychological instinct, not yet perfected, but already in place, whispered to me that demonstrating any sort of ability in the presence of Sexton Messerschmidt wasn’t a good thing. He was without a doubt a virtuoso, a virtuoso bell-ringer. Perhaps he was also a virtuoso in other arts, but above all else, he was the sort of virtuoso who feels like a fish in water among ignoramuses.
“But alas, alas, alas,” you could tell that Messerschmidt had perfected every intonational nuance of the story he was telling, “Mikołaj Radziwiłł dies too soon, and a few decades later the brother Catholics take away from the brother Calvinists their, that is to say, our church. Truth be told, they regain it, but from the great perspective of history, minor historical details are unimportant. What happens now, however, is a minor historical detail that creates great history, not only history in the historical sense, but also history in the epic sense. What happens now, gentlemen?”
Sexton Messerschmidt tore his hands away from the rope for a moment. Snatched upward by the swinging Radziwiłł rhythm, it danced
above us its desperate, violently jerky dance.
“What happens, gentlemen? Well, one dark Kiejdany night four gentry-men—history hasn’t recorded their names, we only know that they were three Calvinists and one Lutheran—one gloomy night that heretical foursome takes Mikołaj Radziwiłł’s bell down from the Kiejdany town church. They load it on a sleigh, cover it with hay and pieces of straw, and off they go. The team of six horses sets off into the depths of the dark and icy Commonwealth. Although they couldn’t have measured it back then, the heavy frost is well below zero, and it causes the sleigh to glide nimbly over the Kiejdany high road. A seventeenth-century full moon, black forests, and white fields. Gentlemen, the history of that expedition awaits its epic poet. But—there is no reason to hide the fact—this would have to be a man at least as linguistically talented as Henryk Sienkiewicz. Just think, gentlemen, and above all try to give free rein to your completely Bolshevized imaginations. Four Protestants, four riders, not of the Apocalypse, rather four riders of the Gospel carry the Protestant bell on their sleigh across the frozen century. They don’t know where to go. Maybe to Warsaw? To Leszno? To Lublin? Or maybe to Prussia, to Königsberg? They don’t know the way, they have no destination, they know only that they must protect the sacred object. And all around them is darkness, cut-throats, Cossacks, Tatars, Turks, Swedes, riffraff, and savages. At the speed of lightning the news spreads along the route that our musketeers are carrying royal treasures. Ambuscades. Skirmishes. Adventures. In the course of one of them, one of the Calvinist brethren is mortally wounded. The mythical dramaturgy of this journey lies in the fact that its participants slowly peel away. The next Calvinist is an ecstatic enthusiast of aquavit. He swills, you should excuse the expression, like Mr. Trąba, only he swills more desperately. One night, his extremities warmed to excess, having imprudently fallen asleep, he freezes to death. The remaining duo takes part in the scene of fatal initiation described so many times elsewhere. Flakes of morning snow settle on the eyelids of their inertly lying comrade. They don’t melt. His face becomes covered with a white scale, and no one will ever know whether our erstwhile comrade in faith and comrade in arms had brown eyes or blue eyes, or whether in his breast pocket rustled a letter jotted down in someone’s very tiny hand, for whom he longed and from whom he had fled.”
Jerzy Pilch Page 6