Jerzy Pilch

by A Thousand Peaceful Cities

  “For the moment I can’t even look. For the moment I don’t even know how to see. The swallows, the barn swallows are flitting about me like mad.” Mr. Trąba was the embodiment of black despair. “I must at least apply an energy blockade. Praise God, she’s coming . . .”

  Dressed in a black skirt and a white blouse, the most beautiful waitress in the world approached from the depths of a dark hall that smelled of powdered sugar. When she placed the cream pastries (three of them) before Mr. Trąba, he immediately gobbled them down, one after the other. Those were gargantuan moments, since, unaware of his panicky movements, he smashed the pastries with his fingers. Whipped cream flowed down his chin, crumbs were falling everywhere, but I have to admit that the more he ate, the faster the black flames of death in his eyes burned out, and after the last, largish bite, they went out completely.

  “Better,” said Mr. Trąba, “significantly better. An energy blockade is only a provisional solution, but at least it’s some sort of solution.”

  Then he wiped his mouth with a checkered handkerchief, shook off the crumbs, licked the ink pencil, and began to write. And as he wrote he sounded out what he wrote:

  “Esteemed and dear Mrs. Chief. We arrived, thanks be to God, in good form. In a few hours we will do what we must do, and what the Chief still doesn’t believe we will do. I hope that everything will go according to plan, and that what must happen will finally happen. I will then flee, but the Chief will be apprehended and shackled and locked up in an underground cell for many long years. Then, dearest Mrs. Chief, we can finally link our fates. The Chief, on the other hand, will have an opportunity to cure his incurable skepticism and to be forcibly convinced that what is isn’t fiction but truth. Jerzyk is completely safe and has a good appetite. We will tell you about all our other impressions, of which there are a great many, after our return . . .”

  “Mr. Trąba, Mr. Trąba,” Father smiled sourly, “the Fatherland is in need. In a few hours we are supposed to kill Moscow’s vice-regent with our own hands, and you’ve got romance on your mind . . .”

  “Not romance, but love of life. Please finally be convinced that I don’t operate with literary constructions, but with existential phenomena.”

  “Here’s an existential phenomenon for you.” Father summoned the most beautiful waitress in the world, and craftily—with a quiet voice, so that she would have to bend over them—he ordered the next round of cream pastries.

  “Verily, you were right.” Mr. Trąba stared shamelessly. “Now I see. Now I know how to see. I beg your pardon most humbly, but what is your name?”

  “Zosia,” the most beautiful waitress in the world replied with dignity. “Zosia, vintage 1939.”

  “We’re very pleased to meet you, Miss Zosia, vintage 1939,” Mr. Trąba bowed, “very pleased to meet you. We are unknown partisans from Wisła.”

  “Partisans don’t eat pastry,” Zosia vintage 1939 burst out laughing.

  “Oh, Miss Zosia, you’ve obviously had very little to do with partisans in your life. And what does your esteemed boyfriend do?”

  “He plays soccer for Legia,” she said without enthusiasm, and she added after a moment, “but he isn’t my boyfriend. I don’t love him. I beg the gentlemen partisans’ pardon, but the chef is calling me.”

  And indeed, in the open doors, gleaming with golden radiance like the Gates of Heaven and leading to the kitchen and back rooms, there appeared an incredible cook in an incredible cap, and Zosia vintage 1939 turned on her heel and, like a gazelle, ran in his direction.

  “Indeed, the star of the beauty standing on the curb on Wiślna Street is beginning to fade,” said Mr. Trąba, casting nostalgic glances. “But you have to admit, Chief, a white blouse and a black skirt are the absolute peak of perfection in a woman’s wardrobe. Never, nowhere, can any woman put on a more perfect vestment than a white blouse and a black skirt. That’s right. A white blouse and a black skirt. Accessories worthy of the deepest analysis. We will have something to debate on the return trip. But now,” Mr. Trąba drank a sip of lemon squash and sat more comfortably in his chair, “but now, gentlemen, you will permit me to occupy your attention with more fundamental questions.”

  •

  “When you, Chief, announced that traveling relaxes you, I also realized that I felt some relief on account of leaving, even for a short while, the Cieszyn region, that chosen land of home-grown philosophers. But in addition to relief, fear began to well up in my heart, uncertainty, and a horrible craving for you know what. I thought to myself: the thing we are attempting is contradictory to our natures to such an extent that there is no way that it could succeed, because it won’t succeed. The demon of capitulation made itself at home in my heart. For our drama, Chief, is based upon the fact that, by reason of birth, upbringing, confession, nature, and psychophysical predisposition, we are unquestionably not assassins. We are rather, for all the above-mentioned reasons, and a thousand other causes, born negotiators. After all, in the depths of my soul I would rather negotiate with him than kill him. Instead of initiating and, what is worse, definitively embodying my grand plan in the face of death, I would rather, I would rather a hundred times over, that we go to that Gomułka of theirs and say: ‘It’s like this and like that, comrade, in a word, it would be better if you went away, it would be better if you went away, you Polish Genghis Khan.’ We could even dazzle him with an ambiguous compliment, drink a glass with him, and take care of the whole matter amicably.”

  “Our cause has utterly failed, Comrade Secretary. You are going away, we remain,” said Father.

  Mr. Trąba was so delighted that he snorted, choked on his own saliva, and got up from his place.

  “A masterpiece, simply a masterpiece. I have to say, you rarely speak up, but when you do, it’s a masterpiece.”

  “As usual, I was quoting The People’s Tribune,” Father smiled gloomily.

  “The good use of a quotation is often worth more than an original thought, but the use of any quotation from The People’s Tribune—in such a way that it makes sense—heightens its sense and makes it an original thought . . . One way or the other, those are fantasies,” Mr. Trąba continued after a moment of silence, “one way or the other. Perhaps we are born negotiators, but we assassins in spe are also just plain good and gentle people. And even if we were to reach him, and even if we were to explain our reasons to him—we are staying, you are going away, and so on—well, he would begin to drown us in his ironsmith-Leninist logorrhea. He would begin to convince us. Mrs. Gomułka would extract a bottle of French cognac from the sideboard and serve us home-baked cake . . . That’s right, Chief, she cooks and bakes at home. In this sense, our emperor lives modestly.

  “There are testimonies of the members of the Central Committee who, in 1956, visited Gomułka at home for the purpose of transferring power over this country to him. So this was the scene: the coronation ceremony was going on in the dining room, and an unceasing and horrible racket in the kitchen kept interrupting them. It was Mrs. Gomułka pounding pork cutlets on the cutting board . . . And at this point the aura of domesticity would doubtless seduce us too. From word to word, slowly, slowly, we would begin to nod our approval. From up close, the tyrant would begin to seem less and less deadly, less and less bloody, and in the end, convinced and defeated, we would go away with nothing, while he would remain, and, what is more, he would be strengthened in his power. There’s nothing to be done for it,” Mr. Trąba sighed, “nothing to be done for it. We have to kill him.”

  Mr. Trąba lifted yet another cream pastry to his mouth, ate it slowly, exquisite bite after exquisite bite, drank a sip of coffee, drank a sip of lemon squash, and spoke further:

  “I have no choice. Since I don’t know how to do anything, I can’t choose the field in which I could accomplish something before dying. I can’t dance, I can’t drive a car, I can’t ski, I can’t swim, I don’t speak languages, I haven’t mastered the axe or any other tool, I don’t know about nature, nor am I a technician,
or a humanist. I don’t know about art or literature, I’m not a tinker or a collector, I’m not even, contrary to appearances, a flirt who flirts by listing his insufficiencies. My pal from the school bench, the most reverend bishop, stuck it out, finished, defended, wrote, worked, conducted activities, directed parishes, climbed up the rungs until he became a bishop of the Church. I don’t envy him, although of course every time I think of him I also think that if my life hadn’t been a disastrous life, but an edifying one, that his life would have been my life. Although that isn’t true either—that I don’t envy him. I do envy him. I envy him horribly, that he can send postcards to Mrs. Chief from every corner of the world, and I envy the care with which your spouse, Chief, collects, preserves, and orders that casual correspondence . . .

  “Of course there were moments in my wasted life when I got the audacious idea in my head to gain mastery of some earthly skill other than drinking, but upon reflection I rejected all those ideas. I drank all my life, and drinking was my work and my rest, my love and my hobby. Drinking was my art, my concert, and my artfully written sonnet. Drinking was my cognition, my description, my synthesis, and my analysis. Only amateurs, laymen, and graphomaniacs assert that you drink in order to soften the monstrosity of the world and to dull unbearable sensitivity. On the contrary, you drink in order to deepen pain and to heighten sensitivity. Especially in a case like mine: when there is nothing but drinking, it is necessary to make an art of drinking, it is necessary to reach the heart of the matter through drinking, and the heart of the matter is death. Since man is condemned to pain, since man condemns himself to pain, it is necessary to become a virtuoso of pain. And I, Józef Trąba, Grand Master of my own pain, now, when my bodily shell refuses to execute the only ability it possessed, I, Józef Trąba, have resolved that, before I die on account of one of seven unfailing reasons, I have resolved to take possession of one more, a one-time earthly ability, and that is, as we have known for a long time, the ability to kill First Secretary Władysław Gomułka.

  “And so that there be absolute clarity,” Mr. Trąba raised his voice slightly, “so that there be absolute clarity, I wish to emphasize with all force that I do not blame Moscow for my unhappy fate. You, Chief, you were debased by Moscow, me—no way. No one bears the blame for my fate other than myself. If I were a truly great personality, I would cope with everything. Moscow, I grant you, is tearing this country apart, frustrating every initiative, befouling and debasing people, but truly great personalities can cope with Moscow. After all, strictly speaking, you can’t even say that Moscow poses a genuine challenge for truly great personalities, because it doesn’t pose one, it isn’t any partner, it isn’t any opponent, you can basically cope with it with childish ease. In spite of Moscow, a truly great personality will learn foreign languages, study the classics, plumb the depths of philosophy, listen to the great composers, even travel. A truly great personality will cope with the velvet Russification of this country by gaining perfect mastery of the language of Gogol, because, after all, that isn’t the language of Stalin. That’s right, Chief, if I were just a tiny bit stronger person, I would have sovereign mastery over myself and my innumerable abilities. But since it is entirely otherwise, I enter into history by the narrow path of the barbarian.”

  Mr. Trąba glanced at his watch, then he cast his gaze over us and the dark interior of the confectioner’s shop, as if he were seeking the willowy shadow of the most beautiful waitress in the world, and he said:

  “Time to pay the bill and do our duty.”

  •

  We stood in the penetrating cold, under leafless poplars. The rain had stopped. November constellations revolved above us.

  “It won’t be long now,” Mr. Trąba said, and with a delicate motion he removed the crossbow from my shoulders. “After they return, the guards draw the shutters over the windows on the ground floor, so that no one can see how they swill vodka and play cards. But in his apartment on the second floor, the shutters, sometimes even the curtains, are left open until late at night. Accidental passersby and neighbors say that you can often see him quite well, especially when he stands in the window and smokes a cigarette, half a cigarette, since, for reasons of economy, he smokes halves. In glass cigarette holders.”

  “Are you certain you will hit him? Do you even know how to shoot that thing?” I had the impression that, for the first time since the beginning of the expedition, Father had taken an interest in the real course of events, and that for the first time he had taken a look at the Chinese crossbow and arrow.

  “I know how, and I will hit him,” Mr. Trąba replied, and his whisper was icy.

  “Just exactly where and when did you learn and practice?” Father continued his inquiry.

  “Chief! And do you believe in God? You do believe, don’t you? And how did you arrive at proficiency and skill in faith? You didn’t scheme. You didn’t wrestle with the problem of whether or not the grace of faith had been granted to you. You simply went to Sunday school, to lessons in religion, to confirmation class. You recited prayers, you sang Psalms—in a word, you behaved in general and in every regard like a pure-bred, believing, full-blooded Protestant, and before you knew it you were a pure-bred, believing, full-blooded Protestant . . . You see, it’s just the same with shooting a crossbow.”

  “You’ll forgive me, but your reasoning is a bit difficult for me to follow, Mr. Trąba.”

  “I’m concerned with the spiritual aspect,” Mr. Trąba started to giggle unexpectedly and in a very peculiar manner. “I’m concerned with the spiritual aspect, plus practice, of course. Training is the way of life. Moreover, one mustn’t forget that this,” Mr. Trąba raised the crossbow to his shoulder, “is the weapon of the ancient Chinese. Therefore, one must take into account the teachings of the ancient Chinese. And the ancient Chinese say that when you shoot at your target, you must free yourself from trivial thoughts of the necessity of hitting it. The shot must have a spiritual scope, whereas the shooter must remain in intense tension until the shot falls upon the target like a ripe fruit falling, like snow from a bamboo leaf . . .”

  You could hear approaching cars and motorcycles, the slamming of doors. Lights were lit in the dark windows at which we had been staring for a good hour. Mr. Trąba extracted the arrow with the silver tip from the tails of his raincoat—it had been secured there on special loops that Mother had sewn on the coat—and, with unusual solicitude, he placed it on the bed of the crossbow. Terrifying cawing resounded. There must have been a thousand funereal birds sitting in the bushes.

  “Crows live several hundred years. They will remember this moment centuries after our deaths,” said Father.

  “Not only they,” Mr. Trąba took careful aim in the direction of the illuminated windows, “not only they will remember, Chief . . . There he is! I see him! The ancient Chinese teach us to bow to the target before hitting it.”

  Mr. Trąba tore the crossbow off his shoulder for a moment, bowed, placed it back in a flash, and, almost without aiming, drew the trigger. I heard the whistle of the arrow, the shattering of the windowpane. An absolute quiet ensued; even the crows fell silent. After a moment, a woman’s desperate cry resounded, a dog began to bark, we heard footsteps, someone was running in our direction.

  “Got him. Let’s split up,” Mr. Trąba spoke with an incredibly calm, almost sleepy voice. Jerzyk will run to his woman friend. We, Chief, will head in the direction of the station, but by different paths. To the glory of the Fatherland, gentlemen.” Mr. Trąba reached back broadly and fluidly and hurled the crossbow into the crown of the tree. The crows took flight. The Chinese crossbow hung in the invisible heights.

  •

  I ran through the dark little streets, and I swallowed tears. I don’t know why. Maybe I was sorry to lose the crossbow that had burdened me so unbearably all day. I was sorry to lose the irrevocably lost toy, and even today, whenever I am in Warsaw, whenever I am in this wolfish city, which is now like a Biblical emporium, every time, I stand under
that poplar and, with head thrown back, strain to catch sight of the shape of a Chinese crossbow that has become one for all eternity with the branches and boughs, has been covered over by generations of leaves. I ran through the little streets, and I fell into the dark gate, and I climbed the dark stairs, and the angel of my first love, not changed in the least, in that same mid-thigh sweater, opened the door to me, and, just as I had supposed, she showed no sign of surprise upon seeing me. And the entire evening I sat at the table, and I played chess with her husband. She changed dresses in the depths of the apartment, combed her hair before a mirror, and gave me secret and tender signs from time to time. And so I played with him, and I waited for the moment—the moment that the gestures of her incredible fingers had foretold—to arrive. I waited until, sooner or later, he would fall asleep over the chessboard, but he didn’t show any signs of falling asleep. He meditated for hours over the simplest move. It was rather I who was falling off to sleep, and in the first half-sleep I heard her delicate steps. She walked up to the television. A cadaverous light fell over the chessboard. Then serious music resounded, and an announcer in an incredible jacket pronounced the words that I had long known would be pronounced in every home that evening. He pronounced the word “death,” and the word “attempt,” and the word “assassination.” And then there appeared on the screen skyscrapers and automobiles of a sort I had never seen on the road, and yet on the blurry close-up you could see how the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, sitting in the open limousine, grabbed his pierced neck, how someone jumped to his rescue, but there wasn’t any possibility of rescue, for the shot was on target and unerring, like snow falling from a bamboo leaf.

  Very late in the night, the angel of my first love came to me. She sat on the edge of the bed and held my hand. On the other side of the wall snored her unhappy husband, who, granted, had beaten me at chess, but whom she had never loved. My first dream began, and through its first spaces, over snow-capped mountains, flew an arrow with a silver tip. It circled the world like a Russky sputnik, and the slashed air immediately sealed over it, and there wasn’t a trace of its passing.