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by Wiesiek Powaga

  "Dear doctor, please forgive me for being so forthright, but, speaking as a police officer, I think this is a matter for a psychiatrist. I cannot help you." The man obviously took me for a lunatic.

  "But sergeant," I insisted, "I have evidence! This dagger, the wound on my face!"

  "This evidence does not change my opinion of the matter. You must be suffering from a nervous disorder, doctor."

  He shook my hand. I left, relieved and grateful to the man.

  Then I went to the municipal offices to get some more information. I asked for the maps of all the villages, estates and settlements within a five mile radius of the town. I found that there were only two places in the town's vicinity which might be of any interest to me, one in the south, called Wankow Hamlet, the other in the east, Zolyn Hamlet.

  I noted down the details and casually asked one of the clerks if he had heard about a refuge for lepers set up recently near the town. The clerk, an old acquaintance of mine, looked at me as if he did not believe his own ears and burst out with a hearty laugh.

  "He, he, he, I see the good doctor has come to pull my leg. What a joke, oh, please! A leper colony near Dworzanow! In our country, an oasis for the afflicted with a biblical disease! I'll be damned, that's a good joke! He, he, he! I wouldn't even dream of it."

  His answer was more than clear. Nevertheless, wanting to make sure, I visited both hamlets. The result was obviously negative, neither of them resembled the black village, and their inhabitants had not dreamed of leprosy either . . .

  So what was it? What was it? How am I to explain the bite on my cheek? How am I to explain the bloody dagger? ...

  Today is the 2tSt of June. Three weeks have passed since that dreadful afternoon. For twenty one days I have lived with my nerves on edge, in constant fear. I will not be able to stand it much longer. I will have to shoot myself ... Or go mad...

  I have searched the entire district within a few miles of the centre of the town - Black Hamlet is nowhere to be found ...

  There are moments when I wonder at my own foolishness in looking for this place. How can I think of finding it at all if I know that the supposed events took no longer than ten minutes and my flat is a good half hour journey on a tram to the nearest suburb? How can I look for the Black Hamlet in such circumstances? How can I? How can I?

  And yet I am looking, I still am, and I tremble at the thought that one day I may find it ...

  25th June 1903

  Yesterday I visited an old school-friend, a well-known psychiatrist, and told him the whole story. He was very interested and thought it was an exceptional case. He examined the dagger and the scar on my cheek very carefully. Then he examined me. Something did not seem right, for he shook his head several times. At the end he gave me his opinion:

  "You will have to undergo intensive treatment. You've had a nervous breakdown of a very acute form. In such a state one is very open to suggestions; you must avoid these at all costs. Best thing would be to go for a long trip, perhaps France, or London ... Ali, one more thing, most important: under no circumstances should you think about this whole crazy adventure. No analyses, no examinations, no inquiries. You are to have a good time, laugh a lot and love a lot, but do not think about it. You understand? Just do not think about it. The consequences may be fatal," he added seriously, with emphasis.

  30th June 1903

  I have not heeded my colleague's advice and have not gone anywhere. I can't, I can't. Something keeps me in this town and does not allow me to leave it. Instead, I went to see a dermatologist, Doctor Wiersza. He listened to my story patiently, examined the scar on my face, by now completely healed, and took a sample of my blood. He found nothing. That calmed me a little. A blood test, at any rate, was something positive.

  The story of the dagger also interested him. He asked me to bring it to him to test the blood on the blade. I assisted him with the analysis. The result surprised us both. Wiersza concluded that the blood on the dagger showed signs of pathological changes. So, Mafra's organism was poisoned with some unknown bacteria ...

  ioth July

  Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha! Now I shall have to buy a wooden rattle myself! ...

  This morning, irritated by a strong itch on my left breast, I opened my shirt and saw spreading through my flesh a wide, snow-white blemish ... Half an hour later I showed it to Doctor Wiersza.

  He looked at me like at a vampire and moved a few steps away. Scared, the poor quack! I am not even surprised.

  After a while he said in a muffled voice, avoiding my eyes:

  "In some inexplicable way your fears have come true. You have the first stage of Lepra orientalis ..."

  I stumbled out of the consulting room, into the street.

  "Out of my way, you despicable rabble! Keep away from me! Away! I'm a leper! I'm a leper!"

  My friend, a decent fellow and a poet, told me this story, which seems like the tale of a certified lunatic. This friend gave me his "honest to God word of honour" three times that he partook in the whole affair. Had it been once, maybe I could somehow believe him, but three times - it's a bit much. Incidentally, I should also mention that my friend is a prodigious drinker. From that angle the whole thing begins to make sense.

  Here is what he told me for what it's worth:

  Not so long ago I was shocked, rather nicely I might add, by the news that an old miser, whose little fortune I was to inherit, had eaten a roasted pig and an incredible amount of prunes, all washed down with ice-cold water. When one is seventy, one shouldn't do this kind of thing unless one has a proper heir. Nature's revenge was swift and the good old man died. I was told with great affection how he kept his faculties clear and sharp to the last and how - out of thriftiness - he blew out the candle a long while before his death. Before returning his soul to God he also consumed a small roast chicken, so as not to waste it.

  Because it all happened in a small, shabby, provincial town I had to go there to check if my benefactor was really dead, for it might well have turned out that - out of thriftiness - he had slipped into a coma for couple of years to save on candles and food. The inheritance was, of course, the least of my concerns, though I was greatly consoled by the fact that these days it is only in small towns that a big inheritance can be found. There, the good deceased had every chance to lead a modest and God-fearing life, medicine is cheaper and doctors not so greedy. I honestly pity those who expect an inheritance, say in Warsaw, where the costs of death are incalculable and the inheritance shrinks like the wild ass's skin in Monsieur Balzac's novel.

  As for myself, I was content enough with my scrupulous deceased relative not to complain too much about having to stay in such a grey muddy town. I looked suitably disconsolate and the deceased, if he could have seen me, would have experienced a moment of true joy. This good man always fared well in whatever he did and even after his death he was lucky to have an heir like myself.

  When it became clear that the dear departed, even if he were to wake up from a coma, would not be able to shift the heavy load of stony earth (for provincial workmanship is not the slap-dash job one sees so often in the capital and the grave-diggers are diligent and conscientious), and that the soul of the old miser had been sent off to paradise with full pomp and ceremony, i.e. in a black suit cut at the back, then it was time to think how to soothe my grief and sorrow.

  I still had to walk the streets of this pleasant town for another two days. My kind relative, by then enjoying all the wonderful delights of paradise free of charge, could not reproach me that with my own money (as his was still trapped in countless formalities), I wanted to console my disconsolate and sleep-starved soul. Only wicked and hypocritical people pretend on receiving an inheritance that they are dying of grief. A rational man should give pleasure to the departed by giving proof that their wealth will not be misused but consumed amidst joy and blessed merry-making, that, in a word, he will do what they could not for the fear of suffering terrible pangs of conscience for all eternity.

 
It was quite difficult to paint this grey town red. True, one could order pineapple ice cream and a Havana cigar after dinner, but such an order would make no sense. It would only create a crowd of onlookers, and in vain too, for in the whole town there was not a single pineapple or Havana cigar. Yes, one could reserve all the rooms in the best hotel in town, which would cause a sensation. But this idea would be equally pointless, for in the hotel there were only two rooms, including one with a billiard table, which on occasion served as a bed.

  But it was not altogether a bad town. It is not fair to judge by appearances, for after all I did find some first class entertainment. There was a cabaret in town, a circus show or something of the sort. A green poster with crooked, red painted letters passing for a print, said that every evening the "Cafe Japanese" hosted a "performance fantastique" of the world's most distinguished stars, namely artists from the capital.

  Ha! Life bursts with joy like a geyser, even here!

  Near the town there were famous oil wells which attracted rich people with a weakness for gambling, and who as such were therefore either happy or unhappy. Luckily, and unluckily, Nature invented one remedy for both afflictions: champagne. Naturally, after such a convoluted argument the conclusion is simple: even in such a shabby town a cabaret where one can get champagne has a fair chance of success. Man never drinks oil but he can always turn it into wine. It is the divine part of his human nature that he can change everything - tar, salt, fertilisers, wheat and potatoes - into wine. Like a magician.

  However, it was not without a certain apprehension that I entered this establishment which was all the rage with the locals. The establishment was a seedy hole and its history was amply illustrated by its wallpapers. Countless generations of flies had died and been buried on a "chandelier" of fly-paper and a magnificent mirror - scratched, cracked in the middle and misty throughout - which adorned one of the walls. Looking into this mirror one backed off instantly in terror. It was a magic mirror. The prettiest face became ugly, one's eyes ran away from each other as if struck by sudden fear, the nose assumed a monstrous shape and the mouth was twisted as if with terrible pain; one was looking at a ghastly, green and terrifying apparition. It was the true mirror of life in which all earthly tinsel and wretchedness were given their proper form. In the turbid depths of the mirror one could see a terrible ghost laughing satanically - ha! ha! ha!

  One side of the stuffy room was taken up by the buffet. On a long sideboard, covered with a greasy oilcloth which no amount of water would wash clean, stood some glasses, cold meats and cheeses, things which were supposed to gladden the stomach. But there were also things which were a joy for the eyes, and through the eyes, a joy for the spirit. In small metal vases of indeterminate colour stood flowers - artificial flowers - resembling a dusty, withered, shop-soiled virtue. Even someone bent on taking his own life would shudder to see such a feast.

  On the other side there was a stage which looked like a disused catafalque. On it stood an upright piano whose soul had died a long time ago, but which would, when pulled by the hair of its strings, give out from beyond the grave a terrible, hoarse wheezing. This piano, battered around the ribs, tortured passionately by a horrible Torquemada, shook like a black coffin containing a deceased writhing in convulsions of bad conscience; it cried, hiccuped and moaned in a hollow, underground bass, it gurgled and sputtered in a spasmodic raucous cough of galloping consumption, howled like a mad dog, hooted with the wooden voice of an owl, then wailed in the squeaky, shivering voice of a foundling left on a doorstep in the middle of a freezing night. All these voices rose and died in a rhythm that, when one closed one's eyes, induced a vision of a skeleton dancing a crazy jig, prancing about and rattling its bones, humming to itself, now high, now low, and sometimes getting no sound at all from its death-scorched wind-pipe, as every other key was dead. An instrument like this must have the soul of an old spinster, who with her indefatigably appalling piano-playing has poisoned her neighbours' life, and now they pull her hair, crunch her bosom with every squeeze of the pedal, while she is moaning her heart out, poor thing.

  This piano with its soul whining like a hungry dog must have moved many listeners. Kind people, once they've poured the goodness of wine into their hearts, always take pity on an instrument like this. One pours into it some wine, another a glass of cognac, others throw in a sardine, an odd slice of lemon, a cigar. And the beast devours it all and starts crying again, and sobbing, and wheezing, and tearing its guts out with a terrible howl.

  Behind the bar sat a fat lady, at the piano a thin maestro. The lady's bosom was of such ample abundance it seemed it could feed not just a fair sized baby but a hundred hungry Tartars. It was only short of a miracle that someone as skinny as that zombie banging the bones of his fingers against the bones of the keyboard could remain so thin for long in her company. One could put on weight just looking at this goodly woman. She was sitting behind the bar counting sugar cubes and slices of lemon. Whenever someone looked at her she smiled the smile of a toad dreaming of its lover. Since it was a Sunday the place was full of people, but not so many that the beauty from behind the bar could not have cuddled them all up to her bosom.

  At the door I was greeted by the director of the cabaret.

  When I looked at that face I shuddered. The man was wearing evening dress which any corpse with a minimum of self-respect would have refused to have put on, kicking like a mule. The soiled shirt-front, visibly attached to the invisible shirt, had stuck into it two pieces of glass passing for diamonds, the trousers were folding into a concertina. But the face was really unusual. He was advanced, not to say hoary, in years, with black, sharp and wise eyes, and a goatee beard. His face, pale and strangely intelligent, bore signs of the suffering which had ploughed through it leaving behind deep furrows. His brow was high, wise, the brow of a thinking man, constantly worried by something for ever rolling and crashing at the bottom of his soul. It was a gaunt, pale face whose paleness was verging on blue, yet a face which in all its ugliness was quite attractive. One got the impression that he was a grand nobleman defeated by some misfortune, who still dons his worn out, grease-stained evening dress and, prowling the forest of life, fights for survival.

  There was one thing in this face which was truly beautiful - his smile. It was a sad, quiet smile, sort of dreamy, kind and obliging, but at the same time painful and ironic; a smile of frosty contempt which was constantly present, lurking at the corners of his lips.

  When I entered he sized me up with one piercing glance of his wise eyes and quickly walked up to me. I noticed then that he had a pronounced limp. With a bow he led me to my table near the bar, from behind which I was greeted by the barmaid's fat and rancid smile.

  The gentleman with the goatee had apparently singled me out from the small company of guests who were as keen on merry-making as if the event were a paralytics' ball or the annual conference of Suicides Anonymous.

  The atmosphere was heavy, sultry and muggy.

  The cabaret director explained to me that I had missed the first two numbers of the programme, but no matter, they weren't worth seeing. In a moment though, the real attractions would begin and so it was only proper to ask if I would care for a bite to eat. No, I would not. Still, whoever comes to a cabaret must be looking for excitement and usually doesn't care for anything else. And he who doesn't care for anything, usually wants to get drunk. Well, that was the least of my temptations. It is easier, however, to kill a couple of hours with a bottle than without it. You can talk to a bottle and it won't answer back. How right were those wise men who considered a bottle man's most worthy companion. And so I asked the good director who was awaiting my orders with a wise and gentle smile:

  "What wine do you have?"

  "The worst in the world," answered this strange man kindly.

  The answer was impressive. -I smiled.

  "There are no good wines left anywhere in the world," he carried on, "Human baseness could not even respect wine. What can we serve y
ou, sir? A glass of soda with yeast and sugar. What would you like me to call this horsepiss? At least the name is old and original."

  I looked at this odd and honest man with admiration. At the same time he, too, looked into my eyes. I was struck by the feeling that I had seen his strange and interesting face before.

  "Two days ago, dear sir," the director said quietly.

  "What happened two days ago?"

  "You saw me at your uncle's house."

  I was confused. What a fellow. Does he read thoughts or something?

  "You read thoughts?"

  "By no means, no, but the face of a man who is trying to remember something is very easy to read. At that particular moment you could only be preoccupied with my unworthy person. It's simple."

  "Yes ... simple. Please sit down, Monsieur Directeur."

  "Thank you very much. You're very kind. In a minute I'm doing my number on that damn stage but there is still time ...

  We were served some "Champagne Nouveau" and the waiter's terrible visage, the sight of which would fill any judge's heart with joy, inquired whether to pour a glass for the director. I readily assented.

  "You have to drink what you have brewed yourself, sir," I said rather worried, seeing I had found a companion in disaster, for the champagne looked indeed like a disaster. It was pale yellow, like a man driven to despair by insomnia, bitter like a terminally ill patient, and acidic like someone suffering from a liver complaint. And it reeked of cork. In a word, high marks.

  "One doesn't drink wine but the joy it brings, and one drinks the soul of a man who shares it," said the director.

  "Beautifully said ... So, I saw you at my uncle's funeral? Yes, I remember now ... Were you his friend?"

  "I never had the honour of making the gentleman's acquaintance."