by Jerzy Pilch
Dr. Granada gazed at the world through one eye; his second eye (or maybe his first? Which eye is first, and which second? Behold a classic example of a drunken concern; its every aspect can be explored with exceeding nicety as one drinks), his second, or perhaps his first eye, was covered with a leukoma, a problem that was rather superficial and could easily have been removed by some surgical colleague of his. Yet the Doctor rightly chose not only not to eradicate his one-eyedness, but, on the contrary, to cultivate it. It made him a charismatic leader: memories of childhood books about pirates stirred in our addled minds, while the nurses reacted to their director’s cyclopism swooningly—I have long observed that a distinct asymmetry in the male physique enhances the languishing receptivity of women. The mystery of this aberration cannot be unlocked, however, without drunken hypotheses, and for the moment I set it aside.
Dr. Granada reminded me of Dr. Swobodziczka of the town of Wisła: the same scent of archaic eau de cologne, a similarity in physical appearance, the palpable analogy of memorable last names, a similarly supercilious attitude to the world (“I speak to you from on high”), a similar, perhaps even identical, resonant, stentorian voice, a shared fondness for florid yet, at the same time, pointed paradoxes, an identical one-eyedness. The left eye of one was covered with a white film, while the other had a glass prosthesis in his right socket. I’m delirious, though I don’t know what it means to be delirious. I have a terrible fever. I’m lying in my parents’ bed, which is as vast as a transatlantic liner; the bedside lamp goes on and off, and the one-eyed doctor is leaning over me.
•
“But there is within them a sort of delusion; some of them, at any rate, surrender with all their might to the power of their own hallucinations.” The blue in Dr. Granada’s one eye intensified, like frozen Absolut. “Even now they believe they won’t drink any more; they are profoundly convinced they’ll never drink another glass in their lives. They promise themselves this in all honesty. Naturally they’re incapable of it; sooner or later the talons of the addiction tighten around their thirsty throats. Now, after their treatment, they’re total abstainers, or at least let’s say quasi-abstainers; they’re fully aware that it is good not to drink, and if they don’t die the first time they go on a bender again, for a time at least they’ll remember how they were sober in the hospital and for a short while after they got out. They’ll struggle, they’ll struggle in vain between drinking and not drinking, but at least that futile battle will be the sign of a fight, even when it ends in defeat; it’ll indicate some kind of movement. They’ll be whipped, but they’ll go out onto the playing field. While you, Mr. J., will no longer go out onto the playing field. You’re immobile; you’ve come to a stop in the bottle like a fly in amber. You’re all burned out inside. You’re filled with cinders, and they are cold cinders. The fire has been thoroughly extinguished by torrential rains. It would seem that you’re sitting here in my office, that you’re saying something; one might even at moments have the erroneous impression that you’re saying something sensible. You’re still wearing hospital pajamas, but in reality you’re no longer here: you’re already elegantly dressed in your street clothes, sitting on a high stool—you’re already drinking, Mr. J. Toward the end of the week you’ll walk out of here in fine shape, pumped full of vitamins and with your magnesium deficiency more or less replenished, fortified with fortifying substances and tranquilized with tranquilizing medicines, you’ll walk out of here on your own two feet, because we have put you for the umpteenth time back on your feet, and where will you, unerringly, direct your steps? Do I need to ask? Do I have to bother with an interrogative intonation? You will head with all speed for the nearest pub or the nearest liquor store.”
Dr. Granada was absolutely correct. Always, after I left the alco ward I would direct my steps to the nearest pub or the nearest liquor store. To be exact, I would first head for the pub; in the interests of further exactitude I must state that it was not the nearest pub, or rather, it was the pub nearest my apartment, which my wives had abandoned, on the ONZ Circle. That’s right, I would leave the alco ward, head for the nearest cab stand, and take a cab to the immediate vicinity of my apartment building. I probably felt safer in my own neighborhood; anywhere is good, but there’s no place like home. And I would enter the pub called “The Mighty Angel” and with the goal of putting my experiences in order I would drink four double shots. Then, in the nearby store I would buy a bottle of vodka and go and face up to the hurly-burly of physical objects. For in a state of sobriety I was incapable of dealing with the disarray that constantly accumulated in the apartment my wives had abandoned, though I did so tenaciously—I have an exceedingly pedantic nature.
Chapter 4
The Fifty-Zloty Bill
IN THE ALCO WARD a dispute had broken out over plagiarism. Incidentally, when I arrived there for the first time I did not have the slightest notion that I was crossing the threshold of a creative writing program, that I was entering a community of people of the pen, of writers who were incessantly creating their alcoholic autobiographies, recording their innermost feelings in cheap sixty-page notebooks that were called emotional journals, laboriously assembling their drunkards’ confessions. In the early and late mornings the alcos either wrote or, awaiting inspiration, for hours on end roamed the hallways with their manuscripts, which grew ever thicker during the course of their stay in the clinic, tucked under their arms. In the afternoon they had therapeutic conversations with the she-therapists, with Dr. Granada, or with the male therapist Moses Alias I Alcohol, and they listened to talks and took part in discussion groups. In the evenings they attended public readings, after which fierce debates erupted. During one such exchange the sizeable gathering put before the alco Marianna the charge that the drinking confession she had just presented to them was eerily reminiscent of the confession of the alco Joanna they had listened to the week before. Since both sides defended themselves with the aid of mutual accusations, the matter of whether the alco Marianna had copied the description of her drunken night from the alco Joanna or vice versa could not easily be resolved. The community of alcos unanimously insisted that the next day there be a showdown in which the two women would read their work; after, there would be a discussion, followed by a vote, in which a verdict would be determined.
The piece by the alco Marianna went roughly as follows: “It was December 21st, 1985. I woke up in the middle of the night. I had an awful hangover; I was sweating and shaking all over. I didn’t have a penny. I knew my husband, who was asleep in the next room, had money. I crept in, went through his clothes and found his wallet in the back pocket of his pants. I took out fifty zloties, then I got dressed quietly and went out to the all-night store, which was close by. In the store I bought a bottle of champagne, which I took home. In the kitchen, without turning on the light—it was bright enough in there as it was, since we live on the first floor and there’s a neon street lamp right outside the window—in the kitchen, then, I opened the champagne, though the whole time I was afraid that the cork would pop out and the sound would wake my husband. But I managed to open the bottle without making a noise, and in half an hour I’d finished it all. I felt a lot better. I had the usual rush of courage, and, no longer exercising any caution and even daring to turn the hall light on, I boldly left the building to throw the bottle into the dumpster. On the way, however, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to have some supplies for the rest of the night, and since I still had some money, I went back to the all-night store and bought a quarter-liter of regular vodka. This time, after I got back home I went into the kitchen again, but I no longer intended to drink there. From the cupboard I took a half-liter bottle of raspberry juice, which, by the way, I had made myself in the summer with raspberries grown on our allotment. I poured half the contents of the bottle of juice down the sink, then I took a funnel and poured the quarter-liter of vodka from the all-night store into the half-empty juice bottle. Actually, it wasn’t even a whole quarter-
liter—I started feeling sad while I was pouring the juice down the sink, and so I took a sizeable swig straight from the bottle before I made the mixture. I gave the bottle several good shakes, both to make sure the vodka and the juice were properly mixed together and to make sure the bottle looked as if it simply contained juice; I planned to take it to my room and drink it in bed. I knew it would help and that I’d sleep well, and that if I woke up I’d be able to have a drink whenever I wanted, which would help me. But I took into consideration the fact that I might fall soundly asleep, and just in case my husband woke up before me in the morning and saw the bottle standing by my bed, I wanted him to think it was just regular juice. I didn’t take the empty quarter-liter bottle out to the trash chute, but instead hid it behind the couch. I went to bed, and although I woke up from time to time, when I did I took a drink and the whole time I felt fine. In the morning, though my husband didn’t notice either the bottles or the fact that I’d gone out in the middle of the night to buy alcohol and drink it, he did notice that fifty zloties were missing from his wallet and he began shouting at me. Since I had another really bad hangover, this time with an element of aggression, I made a huge scene, got dressed, packed some things, and that was the beginning of my wanderings around the country, which in reality were nothing more than one gigantic drunken binge.”
Marianna read her composition in a faltering voice, continually wiping away supposed or perhaps genuine tears; with every means available to her she gave her listeners to understand that it was she who had been robbed, that it was her work which had been copied by Joanna.
“I’m really hurt,” she said at the end, “that I’ve been robbed of my life. In a moment I’m going to hear what was stolen from me and I don’t know if I can take it.” This time her voice faltered uncontrollably, and this time, beyond a shadow of a doubt, she burst out crying in an absolutely genuine fashion.
But her adversary acted in exactly the same way.
“It was me who was robbed of my life,” said Joanna, “and when a moment ago I heard someone else brazenly reading about my own life, that they stole, I thought I’d die.” And Joanna read her drinking confession exactly as Marianna had; her voice faltered in exactly the same manner, and with exactly the same gestures she wiped away exactly the same supposed or genuine tears. Furthermore, to underline the grotesque symmetry, they both wiped away their tears with identical pale pink lace handkerchiefs.
Joanna’s version went roughly as follows:
“It was the middle of November, 1997. I woke up at three o’clock in the night and I was in an awful state. My hangover was terrible, which was hardly surprising since I’d been drinking the whole of the previous day. I was trembling and soaked in perspiration. I knew that I had no money whatsoever. At the time I was living with my sister and her husband, and I felt in my bones that my brother-in-law would have some money. My brother-in-law hardly drank at all and always had money.
“Cautiously, so as not to wake them, I opened the door to their room and tiptoed in. My brother-in-law always hung his clothes neatly in the wardrobe, and I knew that that was where I needed to look. I was afraid the wardrobe door would creak as I was opening it and would wake either my sister or her husband, or both of them together. But I was lucky, and the wardrobe door opened without a sound. I felt my brother-in-law’s wallet in the pocket of one of his jackets. Without removing it from the pocket I took out a bill at random. I didn’t know what kind of bill it was, and I was afraid it would turn out to be of too low a denomination. When I got back to my room and checked, however, it turned out that I’d managed to take a whole hundred zloties. I was pleased, but also scared: I actually had more than enough money, but at the same time there was the worry that my brother-in-law would notice such a large sum missing. Yet my dilemma didn’t last very long; I didn’t even consider the possibility of returning to their bedroom and putting the hundred-zloty bill back in my brother-in-law’s wallet and trying to find some smaller amount. I got dressed quietly, left the apartment, and took the elevator downstairs, because it so happens there’s an all-night store on the first floor of our building. I went into it and bought a bottle of champagne. Since my thirst for alcohol was so terrible, and since I was afraid that as I was opening the champagne at home the cork would pop and wake people up in the apartment, I opened the champagne by the door of the elevator. My fears were uncalled-for: the cork did not pop. I got in the elevator and pressed all twelve buttons, as we live on the twelfth floor. Thanks to this the elevator kept stopping, and the whole ride I kept drinking the champagne. I must have been knocking it back a bit too greedily, however, because when the elevator eventually reached the twelfth floor it turned out there was very little champagne left in the bottle. Since I still had a lot of money, and the bubbles I’d drunk had made me pretty lively, I decided to make some additional purchases. I rode downstairs once again and went back to the all-night store.
“This time I bought two quarter-liter bottles of regular vodka. One of them I intended to stash away for a rainy day, and the other I meant to mix with Coca-Cola, of which I also bought a half-liter bottle. After I got back home I continued to exercise caution, though I was also a lot more at ease. I drank some of the Coca-Cola and poured some of it down the sink; I tried to arrange it so that exactly half the contents were left in the bottle, and I was entirely successful. To the quarter-liter of Coca-Cola I added a quarter-liter of vodka, so that it looked as though I were drinking straight Coke. I hid the empty quarter-liter bottle behind the refrigerator. The supposed Coke, which I planned to leave by the head of my sofa bed and drink through the night, looked a little watery, but this didn’t worry me. My brother-in-law was a health-food freak; he never drank carbonated drinks and he certainly wasn’t familiar with the exact color and taste of real Coke. I wasn’t afraid of my sister; I knew that if push came to shove she would take my side or at least would cover for me. I went to bed and, taking a drink whenever I woke up for a moment, I slept well practically the whole night. In the morning it turned out that my brother-in-law had not noticed either the hundred-zloty bill missing from his wallet or the altered color of the Coke, very little of which was actually left; but my sister started an argument for no reason at all. Without a word I packed up my things and left the apartment, where they had such a bad attitude towards me. I was calm; I still had about forty zloties, while at the bottom of my bag lay the other quarter-liter of vodka.
“I don’t know where my travels led me. I don’t know how long my drinking binge lasted. I don’t know how I ended up here. In any case, at the present time I very much want to give up drinking.”
I listened to the discussion following the readings by the two authors—which, contrary to expectations, unfolded sluggishly—with bated breath. The Most Wanted Terrorist in the World took Joanna’s side, the Queen of Kent, Marianna’s. Nurse Viola emphasized the futility from a therapeutic point of view, and the dangers from an ethical perspective, of copying one another’s work. Christopher Columbus the Explorer asserted that, though copying truly was a bad thing, this bad thing was tempered with something good, namely good will (albeit unintentionally), since it was not inconceivable that the two writers recognized in each other’s work a certain close similarity of events and shared fortunes. Dr. Granada and the therapist Moses Alias I Alcohol were silent.
“In 1985 no one could have bought any kind of bottle for fifty zloties,” Don Juan the Rib finally pronounced from his seat by the wall, seemingly resolving the dispute in favor of Joanna.
I listened to the verdict with bated breath and did not say a single word, though I should have, I indubitably should have, in every respect I should have spoken up; after all, I was the author of both contested pieces of writing.
When I was brought to the alco ward I was wearing a shirt that stank of vomit and a pair of pants fit only to be burned in the boiler-room incinerator. I did not have a penny on me, not a single cigarette; I had no underwear, no soap, no toothbrush, nothing. And ye
t after only a week, or at the very most two, I began to wallow in possessions. Now, after six months (not counting the breaks after which I returned here unconscious), I am wearing a stylish grass-green track suit. Five-zloty coins jingle in the breast pocket of the jacket; on my nightstand there are piles of bananas, oranges, chocolate candies, and other edibles. When I open the drawer, I see utterly endless supplies of cigarettes. Every chocolate, every five-zloty coin, every pack of Camels, every tin of pineapple compote represents at least one drinking confession or one emotional journal that I have written.
When the news went round the ward (and it went round, if not at the speed of lightning, then at least at the speed of a speeding arrow) that in civilian life I was a writer, the alcos, who had little proficiency in that department, collectively began to turn to me for help, not of a disinterested kind of course. I helped them, though, with a clear conscience. I didn’t write for them so much as commit their speech to paper. (Of course there were cases where it was necessary to alter something on someone else’s behalf—for example on behalf of the Most Wanted Terrorist in the World everything had to be written from A to Z—but usually I just wrote down what they recounted. They told me stories from their lives, while I, introducing only minor stylistic improvements, in practical terms recorded their speech word for word.) After all, it’s no great literary or existential secret that everyone knows how to talk, whereas very few people are able to write down what they say. True, I sometimes adapted their overly smooth language to give it a necessary, and thus believable, unevenness of style; but if those adaptations had any meaning for anyone, and if they had an influence on anyone, that person was me and not them.