Jerzy Pilch

by A Thousand Peaceful Cities

  Chapter IX

  I BREATHED IN DEEPLY, and unexpectedly I caught the smell of freshly mown grass. Perhaps the desert thread of a tropical atmospheric front had slipped over the icy valley. Or perhaps the clear well of a thaw was slowly opening up among the dark, murky heavens.

  “Jesus Christ is born,” said Mr. Trąba. He reeled and leaned on my shoulder. “Jesus Christ is born, and although this happens every year, and although He is born every year, although every year Reverend Father Pastor Potraffke tells of this in sermons that become more and more formally perfect, you can never get to the bottom of this story or investigate it completely . . .”

  You could hear the far-off drone of an engine. In a gray cloud stirred up by tires, a truck loaded with bushy spruce trees drove down from Buffalo Mountain.

  “That’s a fine thing,” Mr. Trąba grumbled, glancing at his watch. “It’s already almost 10:00, it’s 9:47 to be precise. In two hours Sexton Messerschmidt, and with him all the bell-ringers in all the basilicas in the world, will pull on the ropes, organists will strike their keyboards, songs praising the advent of the Lord will reverberate, and these laggards are still cutting down a stand of trees.”

  And Mr. Trąba, realizing his own tardiness, shakily hastened his step. It wasn’t far now. We passed by the Baptists, who were already plunged in darkness, and Rychter Department Store buzzed with the flames of huge candles and the hubbub of conversations. For a moment, a cyclone of snow, smelling of gasoline, embraced us. In its eye a lost truck swam slowly. A huge dog ran after it like a specter and barked like mad. It seemed to me that, above its barking and above the Latin carols sung by shepherds and angels, I heard the stormy signal of Radio Free Europe. It was ten o’clock, and every day, Christmas Eve or not, without fail, with desperate vengeance in his eyes, Father turned the radio up full blast.

  Indeed, you could never get to the bottom of that story, nor investigate it completely. Every year the mixed forests on Buffalo Mountain froze. Every year Caesar Augustus called for all the world to be taxed. Every year Mr. Trąba was late for Christmas Eve.

  •

  Mother was covering the table with a cloth. In the middle she put salt, garlic, and communion wafers. She placed a candle stick and a tea cup with honey. The smell of milk, fish, and cabbage came from the kitchen. I brought hymnals and set them out at the places on the table. I knew the hymns by heart. I knew “Time of Joy,” number 139 in the hymnal of Father Heczko, and “Praise Be to Thee, Jesus Christ,” number 127, and all twelve verses of “From Heaven High I Come to You.” Everybody—Father, Mother, Mr. Trąba, Elżunia Baptystka, and Grand Master Swaczyna—everybody in our parts, even Małgosia Snyperek, even Commandant Jeremiah, everybody knew the hymns by heart, although they glanced at the hymnals while singing, as if renewing a covenant with the old books. They glanced at the words of the hymns, even though they didn’t read them. It was rather that, by singing, they brought them to life, praised them through their singing, strengthened the fading print by singing, and reinforced the crumbling pages by singing. Everybody knew the hymns by heart, but I don’t think anyone but me knew all twelve verses of “From Heaven High I Come to You.” No one but me—and Father Pastor Potraffke. Even today I am still ready to recite or sing that entire festive hymn, and—no doubt when I say this I am consumed by Evangelical-Augsburg pride—I am ready to say or even to sing all twelve verses, and verily I say unto you, I will do it just as well as, more than thirty years ago, Father Pastor Potraffke did it in the Protestant Hall.

  •

  “From heaven high I come to you,

  I bring you tidings good and new;

  Glad tidings of great joy I bring,

  Whereof I now will say and sing:

  To you this night is born a child,

  Of Mary, chosen virgin mild;

  This little child, of lowly birth,

  Shall be the joy of all the earth.”

  Pastor Potraffke stood against the backdrop of a plush curtain that covered the stage of the Protestant Hall. He descended from the heavens and sang. The Pastor’s Wife, beautiful and dark-complexioned like the Brazilian actress Maria Félix, leaned lower and lower over the keyboard. Snow was falling beyond the high windows. The church tower rose beyond the moveable wall of snow.

  “To you this night is born a child,

  Of Mary, chosen virgin mild . . .”

  Father Pastor Potraffke finally stood on the lowest level of the ladder with fireworks shooting from every step. He touched the earth with his foot, and he suddenly fell silent, as if struck by a subterranean thunderbolt that came from the depths of the globe, from the basement of the Protestant Hall. The Pastor’s Wife played a moment longer, glanced once, twice in the direction of her husband, played a few chords more loudly and distinctly, as if wishing to persuade him to sing further, glanced once again with reflection and attention, and her divine shoulders, covered with a cashmere shawl, shook, her fragile fingers tore themselves suddenly from the keyboard, a blush covered her indescribable face.

  “A child is born to you this night!” Pastor Potraffke suddenly bellowed. “Heathens! A child is born to you this night!” Apoplectic patches appeared on his chubby-cheeked face, and his eyes burned with an apostolic radiance. “Sons of philistines,” he shrieked at the boys sitting at the window, “sons of philistines! A child is born to you this night! And you,” in a fury he turned his face to the girls sitting by the door, “and you, daughters . . .” he hesitated for a moment, “and you, daughters of Bolsheviks! A child is born to you this night!” he finished as if with a sort of relief. “Nothing in the world,” he wheezed, drowning in the ocean of his own impotence, “nothing, verily I say unto you, nothing will bring me to grant you confirmation. For the next time, that will be after the holidays, for the next time, six verses, not six, seven verses, by heart, of ‘From Heaven High I Come to You,’ seven verses of that festive hymn, which . . . who composed it? Well, who?” Potraffke looked around the Protestant Hall with what seemed a more conscious glance. “Błaszczyk, let Błaszczyk tell us: who composed the festive hymn ‘From Heaven High I Come to You?’”

  Straw-haired Joey stood up uncertainly, glanced at the thicker and thicker snow beyond the windows, at the white cross on the wall, at the Pastor’s Wife, who, with an exquisite motion of her head, was indicating the portrait of Martin Luther hanging on the wall, and at father Pastor Potraffke, who was blocking his view of that portrait, and he said, not quite asking, not quite answering:

  “Father Pastor?”

  “No, not me, you mutton-brain.” The furies left Pastor Potraffke, and he spoke with an almost normal, only slightly stifled, voice. “No, not me, mutton-head. It was our Reformer, Doctor Martin Luther. Yes, verily I say unto you, our Reformer, Doctor Martin Luther, composed that hymn on Christmas Eve in the year of our Lord 1534 in his home in Wittenberg. Sit down, Błaszczyk. I understand that the Lord receives various people at His table, but every time I look at you, Błaszczyk, I wonder. Verily, I say unto you, Błaszczyk,” Pastor Potraffke again raised his voice, “verily, I say unto you, Błaszczyk, I wonder whether someone like you can sit down to the Lord’s table.”

  The Pastor’s Wife suddenly struck the keyboard, and we all eagerly sang the hymn which ended the lessons and services:

  “Amen, Amen, Amen,

  Jesus Christ is Lord . . .”

  We quickly recited the prayer, and we set off for houses that smelled of apples, poppyseed strudels, and floor polish.

  Dressed in his old postal uniform, Father chopped huge beach logs in the courtyard.

  “And what did you learn today?” he asked with a skepticism that was rare with him and, paradoxically, foretold a good mood.

  “Nothing yet. I am only now going to go learn it. The pastor told us to learn seven verses of ‘From Heaven High I Come to You’ by heart. For the holidays,” I added with emphasis and hope.

  For it now and then happened that Father, adhering to all of the principles formulated in Scripture
, and subject, at the same time, to uncontrollable fancies, came to the conclusion that a contradiction had arisen between the commandments of the Bible and my homework assignments, and he would forbid me from doing them. “You aren’t going to solve any equations on Sunday,” he would say now and then. “You must keep the Sabbath holy.”

  But this time it was different.

  “Seven verses of ‘From Heaven High I Come to You.’” He struck with precision in just the right place, and the beach trunk was split asunder, revealing its almost brick-red interior against the background of the all-encompassing snow. “If I were you,” he said with his characteristic, non-binding tone, “if I were you, I’d learn all twelve verses. A person ought to strive for perfection. ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’”

  •

  I placed the hymnals on the table cloth with numbing symmetry. “Be ye perfect, even as the hand that places you is perfect,” I whispered. Mother sliced the bread that Mrs. Wantuła had baked in Goje. She sliced for a long time and attentively, and when she had finished, she first glanced at the table, then at Father, and she said with an indulgence that turned inexorably in the course of speaking into impatience:

  “We’re missing apples, nuts, and Mr. Trąba.”

  Then she went up to the window, moved the yellow curtain aside, and stared for a long time into the windy labyrinths of the Christmas Eve night, which was thickening from the constantly falling snow.

  “The Baptists went to bed long ago. The lights are turned out, but we haven’t even sat down at the table yet,” she said, tearing her forehead away from the dark-blue windowpane.

  Father, dressed in a white shirt, smelling of cognac and still inflamed from the afternoon fish-slaughter, stood by the table, took coins and banknotes from his wallet, and slid them under the tablecloth. The heretical habits of the Baptists didn’t make much of an impression, either on him or on us.

  “The poor things,” was all mother would say from time to time, “the poor things! What will those poor things say at the Lord’s Judgment?”

  “They won’t say anything. They will say that they had gotten lost, and that will be that. The Lord God forgives those who’ve gotten lost,” Małgosia Snyperek would respond every time over her cup of coffee, which she took “Turkish” style.

  Especially when the Christmas holidays came, the Baptists gave the impression of being completely lost in their heterodox misfortune. They would sit down to their Christmas Eve meals at some Godlessly early hour, when it was still light. They didn’t share communion hosts, they didn’t give each other presents, they didn’t eat fish. True, they did have cabbage and white roll with milk among their Christmas Eve dishes, they hung apples and candy on the tree, but all of that was too little. The untimely slumber of the Baptists was too weak an argument to incline Father to put a sheepskin coat over his shoulders and set off to find Mr. Trąba, who was undoubtedly dawdling over wrapping his presents.

  Only when Mother placed the tray with immaculately sliced bread on the table, when next to it she set homemade butter in a wooden butter-dish, when she placed apples on the piano, when she set crystal dishes with nuts and rum-flavored crescent rolls next to them, only then, when she took off the light-blue cretonne apron and began to fold it with slow and alarmingly precise motions, only then would Father raise his hand, with a gesture that was neither calming nor indicating an announcement, and say with preacherly passion:

  “I know, I know, I know. The Catholics will be going to midnight Mass any minute now, and we still haven’t sat down to our Christmas Eve supper.”

  And he would put on his sheepskin coat and hat and set off in a hurry to find Mr. Trąba, whom he would usually meet somewhere nearby anyway, often right next to the Rychter Department Store, or even closer. And so, most often they both would reappear much more quickly than we expected. Sometimes it would seem like a demonstration from a private conjuror’s séance. Father would stand in the doorway, go out, the doors would shut, the doors would open, and in that same moment they both would already be standing on the threshold, Father and Mr. Trąba, awaited for so many hours now already, and yet it was as if he had suddenly materialized out of thin air. And immediately Mr. Trąba would begin to explain himself, to apologize for being late. Presents awkwardly wrapped in gray packing paper and tied with faded ribbons would pour from under his coat. He would hand them to us right there in the hall, as if flummoxed by his own awkwardness and uncertain whether, on account of that awkwardness, the presents would last to the end of the supper.

  “You will forgive me, Mrs. Chief,” he would say to Mother, “but according to our carol,” Mr. Trąba didn’t quite speak, didn’t quite sing, “‘Give Lord God a joyous evening, joyous night, first for the lord.’ So here for you, Chief, instead of the proverbial Christmas Eve brandy I bring paschal slivovitz, ergo paschal Christmas Eve brandy. And what would you say about a drink stamped with such an eschatological oxymoron? Paschal Christmas Eve brandy! What would you say? ‘Give, Lord God, a joyous evening, joyous night, first for the lord, then also for such a lady.’ Mrs. Chief, please be so kind as to accept this small expression of homage from a suffering admirer, who, the more often he sees you—you will forgive me, Chief, but the late Sigmund Freud taught you, too, that the suppression of the life of the impulses turns against you—and so, Mrs. Chief, a small expression of homage from an admirer who suffers tortures, such that, the more he sees you, the greater the tortures he suffers.”

  And Mr. Trąba handed Mother the neatest little package, and she delicately undid the little ribbon and half-opened the paper, and with a girlishly lit-up face she examined a tiny little bottle of “Chat noir” perfume and a dark green silk scarf that suited her perfectly.

  “‘Give, Lord God, a joyous evening, joyous night,’” now Mr. Trąba was singing with full voice, “‘First for the lord, then also for such a lady. And for his dearest servants. And for his dearest servants.’”

  And Mr. Trąba would turn to me, and invariably he handed me a book.

  “This, Jerzyk, is currently the most widely read book in People’s Poland: The Ugly Duchess by Lion Feuchtwanger. As literature, it is rather mediocre stuff and every bit the popular sort, but of course we ought to proclaim eternal glory to Comrade Gomułka for expressing his consent to the publishing of a novel that was, without a doubt, absolutely unintelligible to him. As I say, Jerzyk, this is not great writing, but when on the first and second days of Christmas you sit down, well stocked with nuts and sweets, next to the well-lit furnace, you will have this appropriate, relaxing, and even, in some minimal degree, edifying reading.”

  “Between the city of Innsbruck and the monastery of Wilten a large open piece of level ground was covered with tents and flagpoles,” I read the first sentence of The Ugly Duchess. Father stared at the Hebrew alphabet on the violet-golden book jacket.

  “Sit down, sit down, sit down,” Mother always called out three times as she hurried to the kitchen.

  •

  But this time, as soon as Father began, with desperate passion, to speak his threefold “I know, I know, I know,” Mother—already after his first “I know”—said, “Sit,” and with classically feminine thoughtlessness, she destroyed the entire finely-wrought construction of mythical repetition.

  “Sit,” she said. “Have you already forgotten what happened last year? He’ll go,” and she looked at me. “Put on your hat, coat, and gloves, and go get Mr. Trąba. You know where Daddy’s Siamese brother lives? Beyond the Protestant Hall on the left.”

  The humiliating supposition that I might not know where Mr. Trąba lived didn’t even particularly sting me. It was probably the first time that I had stood in for Father in a crucial matter, and I put on my hat, coat, and gloves, trying to lend an unhurried male decisiveness to my gestures. In fact, last year Father had gone out for Mr. Trąba, and, after a good hour, Mother whispered with whitened lips, “They have both disappeared for all eternity.” And wh
en after an eternity they finally appeared, they were drunk as lords, joyous, and inordinately roused intellectually.

  “All the best, Chief,” Mr. Trąba leaned over the table like Pastor Potraffke over the edge of the pulpit. “Lord Jesus has already begun His reign, Chief, although this is still hidden from the eyes of Comrade First Secretary Władysław Gomułka, just as in days of old it was hidden from the eyes of Caesar Augustus. But both of them, both of them, Chief, both Caesar Augustus and Secretary Gomułka already serve Lord Jesus. It was said by the prophets that the Savior would be born in Bethlehem. And whose doing was it that the Holy Family found itself in Bethlehem? It was the doing of Caesar Augustus, who gave out the decree, for if he hadn’t given out the decree, Joseph and Mary would certainly have remained in Nazareth. And just as the great Caesar Augustus had to serve Christ with his decree, contributing to the fact that His birth happened in Bethlehem in accordance with the prophecies, so also First Secretary Władysław Gomułka has to serve Christ by raising the price of boneless beef, contributing in this very way to the fact that, in accordance with what was said by the prophets, Communism will fall . . . All the best, Chief.”

  The communion wafer, dipped in honey, shook dangerously in Mr. Trąba’s restless fingers. Mother looked at the drop that was falling onto the table cloth as if she wished to cut off its flight with some desperate motion, or perhaps to turn back the course of events the prophets had foretold.

  •

  I breathed in deeply. The snow had unexpectedly stopped falling, and in the sudden motionlessness you could hear the regular blows of the axes that came from the forests on Buffalo Mountain. Someone was laughing there with an unbridled pagan laugh. Someone wastefully started and stopped an engine. In the depths of the perspective that was brightening like the Milky Way, beyond the Rychter Department Store, beyond the Baptists plunged in darkness, loomed Mr. Trąba’s silhouette, ambling with its characteristic wobbliness.