B008GRP3XS EBOK

by Wiesiek Powaga

  "What's all this ... Why ..." I stammered out, struggling to be myself again.

  "These are their new rules," said Gmyr with a grudging grimness, "the new law they've laid."

  "The old folks told me much about the devil's tricks ... But this? ... Never ..."

  "Well, there's never been anything like it," nodded Gmyr, and he was about to add something when a cock's crow pierced the air. The infernal will-o'-the wisps above the vats fluttered and paled, and having felt the weight that had been lying heavily on my heart suddenly lift I drew a big breath and ran out into the clearing, under the starry sky. Gmyr ran after me and we both ran onto the porch, and then to the door in the beamed wall. The door gave when pushed, but behind it, barring the way, stood that pimp, the same one I'd seen earlier. "Pst," he hissed, warning me with fingers that seemed to have no bones in them, "Don't disturb the lovers!" and I found I couldn't move. I could have easily squashed the vermin; it was however, I realised at once, that Prussian devil.

  "It's after the first cock-crow," I managed to mumble, but he only waved his hand:

  "It looks like the officer hasn't had enough and has extended the bet till the second cock crows."

  I had faith in the major as if he were my own father, but here, I thought, he'd overdone it, that is, if this pimp of a devil wasn't lying.

  Gmyr and I backed out onto the porch, followed by that filthy guttersnipe who, piercing me with his squint, said:

  "If you're bored, soldier, let's play cards for a decent wager.

  "What shall I wager then? My eyes?" and I crossed myself quickly, at which he recoiled slightly, twitching his little moustache with displeasure, but went on: "Eyes? Why not? But your nerves, I see, aren't bad either, soldier - pink, nimble, haven't been used much ... And I," he was tempting, "would stand a good foreign porter, however much you want, and as much black pudding, fresh, from today's slaughter.-.

  "Leave him alone, Herr Wrum," muttered Gmyr with distaste. "The officer will do for you, but this one's a simple lad, local, his sort are for me ..."

  "For leading astray on marshes," barked Wrum scornfully, "for scaring with hooting owls and winds whistling down chimneys ... We turn this muck into superbeings such as the world has never seen! God cries salty tears when He sees one of them and you go on as if we were still in the Middle Ages!"

  "We are not learned," admitted Gmyr gloomily, "and we can't understand your plans ..."

  "Then be obedient and disciplined!"

  Gmyr opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment a terrifying cock-crow resounded again, the second cock-crow of that night, and so he stood with his mouth open while I, not waiting for more of Wrum's ranting, slipped past him, forced the door open with my shoulder and ran into a big room where I found the major lying on a bearskin, pale but alive and unharmed, and in the corner the young lady from Hell, paler than he, with tangled hair, swaying with exhaustion and embarrassment.

  "Till the third cock-crow," said the major.

  "No ..." she whispered pleadingly, "please, no more ..."

  "Hey, Mr Officer!' shouted Wrum the pimp from the door. "You've dishonoured my cousin Lucy! You'll pay for it.

  "I am ready," said the major standing up.

  "But the deal was different," reminded Gmyr. "You were...

  Wrum snorted scornfully and without bothering to reply to the local devil he made a step towards the major. His white fingers, spread out and writhing like worms, were getting nearer and nearer the proud and handsome face. I wanted to rush in between them and stop them, but a strange deadness seized my limbs and I could only watch in despair the whirling of the hellish tentacles, until suddenly they curled up and fell down. Now, seeing Wrum's futile efforts to lift his arms, I realised that he was held by the same power that held me. But that was not the end for soon, apparently against his will, Wrum started backing out at a trot and at that moment I regained the power of my arms and legs. The Prussian fiend rose a good couple of feet above the threshold and, still moving backwards, barked from behind the door:

  "I shall remember that, you filthy muckworm!"

  "We can still turn on the old tricks," giggled Gmyr, "without the help of the new science, just like in the old days ..."

  From a distance came Wrum's voice:

  "One way or the other, that which I have once reached for, will be mine! . . . "

  Then the cocks crowed for the third time. I looked at Lucy and shuddered: her thick, black tresses were turning completely white and fading, her hunting dress rotted and she changed into a hideous, decrepit witch, only her eyes still burning with that unearthly glow.

  I spat and ran outside into the meadow, the major following with an unsteady gait.

  Day was breaking and in the pale light of dawn I noticed a winding string of footprints left by a dog, or some such beast. When I got near the first one, it burst into stinking flames, and then the rest wove a fiery path among the trees. Soon the flames engulfed a small juniper bush and before I could say three Hail-Marys the resinous pine-trees stood engulfed in a wall of fire. We flung ourselves in the opposite direction. The major was no longer tottering but in an instant regained his old resilience and orientation. We tore through the pathless wilderness of the forest, leaping over roots, holes and bushes while the fire roared behind our backs. It must have been choking on its own hate, though, for it fell further and further behind until we could hear another noise giving us a sudden breath of hope - that of a train pounding on its tracks.

  We reached the tracks just as the puffing train was coming to a halt. It was that very same spot, the stop with no station we knew from the previous afternoon. I pulled open the carriage door, the major jumped in, I followed, and the train moved off, as if it had stopped there specially for us.

  It would be nice if I could finish my story at this point, with the rays of the morning sun playing on the carriage windows, in the sweet greenness, and in that peace which made us doubt everything that had happened to us that night, and trust it was just a nightmare ... Alas, it was all true, and yet to reach its gruesome end.

  A week later our regiment, part of the 29th infantry division, was cutting its way through different woods - not my local ones - on the river Pilica, which was flowing red with blood. The war was on; the time of our terrible defeat. The autumn was so beautiful you could breathe it in and in, and you'd never have enough of it, if it weren't for that calamity.

  The major marched with the soldiers, wading with them through the boggy streams, without a wink of sleep, inspiring those who were tired. At four o'clock in the morning, having passed the Piotrkow-Czgstochowa road, the vanguard - I was there with my major - turned south towards Lodi which had already been taken by the enemy. The order came to attack. We ran across the open field shooting until we were forced to the ground by the enemy's fire. But after a while we got up again. Then the enemy attacked from behind. Before our command managed to decide anything we were attacked from the third and fourth side. We lay down, pressed flat to the field stubble, firing back in great desperation - we didn't even have time to pray for deliverance. Then I heard a terrible rumbling. I lifted my head and on the horizon I saw dark, heavy monsters, moving slowly, crushing everything in their way. The tanks were rolling in on us.

  We did not surrender and kept the fire up to the end, but what could our shooting do to the thick armour-plates? When one of the tanks stopped some dozen yards from our position and one of its hatches opened slowly, the major stood up and fired his gun straight into the figure emerging from the hatch. He didn't miss but the figure kept growing out of the hatch as if the bullets couldn't harm it. I recognised that sordid moustache and the squint on that crumpled pimp's face. Wrum was grinning and shouting something which was drowned in the clamour of the fighting. The tank spat with fire and on the major's boot, just below his ankle, flowered the bloody sign of a dog's footprint. The major staggered but did not fall, took aim and fired once more. He hit Wrum again, and again didn't harm him. He was about to
fire for the third time, carrying on his duel with Hell's might, but the tank was quicker. The shell exploded next to us, shrapnel stinging me in the hip, but that did not matter for I wasn't concerned about myself then. Before the pain blacked out my sight I saw the most frightening thing of my life - a pair of eyes gouged clean with red-hot iron and rolling out of the major's head like two enormous, bloody tears. I wanted to jump to his side, to prop him up ... and fainted.

  Two years later, after escaping from the prison camp I reached the forests of the river Niemen and joined the resistance. Seventeen times did we set traps for landrat Wrum, who held the district in his devilish grip; and every time he managed to slip through our net; until I made a deal with the local devil, Gmyr, and he delivered Wrum into my hands where he met his end. My soul will fry in the fires of Hell, but to me, who was with my major at the hour of his terrible death, the good old Hell of Gmyr, God bless him, holds no fear.

  I still had the rest of the afternoon and almost the entire evening ahead of me before the bus would arrive. Ready to go, briefcase in hand and coat over my shoulder, I sat in the deep grass on a slope by the roadside. The material for an article on the difficulties and problems of manufacturing traditional harnesses in the village of G. was researched thoroughly and so, going through my notes again seemed a pointless exercise. I had six hours to kill.

  Luckily, the weather was warm and sunny, and I stretched out comfortably in the grass. I could see practically the whole village from here. It was big, spreading widely over the surrounding hills and valleys. In the market square, amid the ordinary, thatched huts, stood two one-storey houses built of stone and the brick building of the new bakery. Below stretched the fields through which ran a lively stream. All this was surrounded by mountains, their tops covered by spruce forest. G. was a typical mountain village populated by shepherds and harness makers. Because of its geographical position G. was cut off from the major regional centres, yet its inhabitants were relatively cultured folk, eager for education; as I was informed, even a certain recently deceased professor of the oldest university in the country was a native of G.

  And so, lying on my stomach in the tall grass I abandoned myself to the contemplation of nature and the village architecture. Lazily smoking cigarettes and squinting against the sun proved also a reasonable source of amusement. Suddenly I noticed a skinny shrivelled old man who was squatting nearby. After a while the old man moved towards me holding in his fingers a short, blackened cigarette-end and asked for a light. I offered him my own cigarettes. At first he declined politely and then helped himself to two. He lit up and settled comfortably next to me. I accepted his presence with resignation; after all, he seemed no more boring than the clouds or the mountains.

  We started to chat. The old boy turned out to be a retired school teacher; he complained about his aching joints and I found this topic amusing enough. He did not take advantage of my position as a journalist by asking favours or trying to sell me village secrets. I was grateful for this and kindly listened to his complaints. We were already smoking a second cigarette when I noticed a group of people gathering in the market square. As far as I could tell from this distance they looked as if they were leaving the church after a high mass, all dressed in their Sunday best. The old man looked in their direction and stated indifferently:

  "Oho, they are getting ready ..."

  "For what?"

  "You don't know?..." he was surprised. "The loth of May... Dragon's Day."

  "What dragon?"

  "You haven't heard of the dragon of G.? People haven't told you?"

  "Nnno... Or maybe? ..."

  I remembered that, indeed, when I said in the club that I was going to G. one of my colleagues mentioned the dragon. At that point however the waiter brought the vodka and the conversation moved onto another track. And today, during the interview with the chairman of the Village Council, the word "dragon" was also mentioned, perhaps even the "Dragon's Day". But, as I really had learned nothing more from him, I asked my companion to tell me about it.

  "Ah, it's an old custom," he said, "going back maybe even to pagan times. What happens, is that once a year, on the evening of the twentieth day of May, the bonniest lad and the bonniest lass, not more than eighteen, but no less than sixteen, are thrown to the dragon which lives in the cave by the river. Of course the word `bonniest' shouldn't be taken literally - any healthy boy and girl of the prescribed age are chosen by means of casting lots."

  "And what do we calla dragon?" I asked amused.

  "The dragon is real alright. It's a huge old lizard of unspecified kind. It lives there . . ." the old man pointed his finger towards the alder thicket on the other side of the river. "Anyway, would you like to observe the ceremony? We can join the procession which has to pass this way. You'll be able to see the whole thing, including the devouring."

  I could not tell whether the old man was making fun of me or simply drivelling. He noticed this and smiled:

  "Are you surprised? All our visitors are when they find out about it. But then they get used to it. It's now thirty years since the Society for Public Education organised the first campaign against the dragon, and lost. The problem was also taken up by the government and Party officials but so far they haven't taken any positive steps. You see, the authorities have to reckon with our highlander's conservatism and love of tradition, and in truth they turn a blind eye to the dragon. Thirty years ago I myself, as an activist of the SPE, spoke out sharply against the dragon and other superstitions rampant in our rural community. I even wrote an article dealing specifically with the dragon. It was called The Monster Sucks Out Our Vital Juices, and it appeared in our official organ The Torch, which, alas, died a death a good five years before the war."

  "What?" I shouted, quite upset. "So every year you sentence to death two innocent people, almost children?"

  "Well, yes ... The village doesn't lose much, for the women here are broad in the hip and give birth easily, almost without pain. There's even a proverb: `Our lasses in good health always give a painless birth'. The vicar grumbles about it because it goes against the words of the Holy Bible."

  "And what does the dragon do for the rest of the year?"

  "He just lies in his cave digesting the two people, doesn't ask for anything more."

  "And if... if... he were refused the sacrifice...? What would happen then?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Nobody's tried that yet."

  "And if the monster were killed?"

  "It's not that simple. It seems to me that such a rare creature must be under some kind of protection. After all he's not as dangerous as you may think ... You'll see."

  Meanwhile, the procession was moving down the road. It was led by the chairman of the Village Council, accompanied by two men whom I recognised as the secretary of the local Party and the well-known "people's artist", the local wood-carver Lelek. A few metres behind them two elderly women, wearing starched skirts and beads, led the boy, who, despite being no more than eighteen, was tall and broad-shouldered, like a fully grown man. His brow was furrowed by a deep, horizontal frown. He walked with a rope hanging around his neck but apart from that there were no other signs of force, except maybe for the two women who held him lightly under his arms. The boy's face was covered in sweat and his jaw trembled. Further on two old men in black suits were leading the girl. She was dressed in a silk dress and high-heeled shoes, and sobbed all the way. Time after time she reached into her white handbag for a handkerchief, loudly blowing her nose, putting the handkerchief back into the handbag and taking it out again. Behind them, like a river, flowed the crowd of peasants - men, women and children.

  The old man and I stepped off the grass onto the road and joined the procession. The crowd parted and gave us a place at the head, just behind the girl. The procession waded on through the dust of the hot dry road; people sighed and wiped sweat off their brows. After a half hour march we reached a small footbridge on the river. Here the girl became hysterical. She threw herself
on the ground, wailing spasmodically and grabbing people's feet. The crowd stopped to allow the attack to pass. Some lit cigarettes. After a while the girl got up, brushed the dust off her dress and obediently crossed the river. The footbridge was so narrow that it could be crossed only in single file, and so the crossing took a long time. Many took their boots off and forded the river.

  The place where the procession stopped did not look any different from the remaining stretch of riverbank. Perhaps only the osier and alder thickets were somewhat thicker here. The crowd formed itself into a crescent. The chairman raised his hand and recited:

  Something rustled in the osier bed and the dragon emerged. It was a reptile four metres long, an old, blind and mouldy beast. It could hardly stand on its weak, soft legs. .

  recited the chairman again, and seeing the dragon stumbling clumsily he struck it with a stick across the back: "Shift yerselfl" he called out sharply.

  The dragon snorted and positioned himself properly as told. The boy, until now quiet and composed, went green and shuffled uneasily.

  "Mother," he mumbled to one of the women holding him, "I feel a bit sick."

  The women took him a few steps to one side and held his head with tender care. The boy vomited and wiped his mouth quickly. The women then led him to the dragon and retreated. The boy knelt down, crossed himself, and trying to sound like the chairman, mumbled out:

  "Amen," answered the crowd.

  The dragon came closer, sniffed the boy, swept him under its belly and tore him apart. He swallowed him in three long gulps. Now it was the girl's turn. She was not crying any more. She kneeled down, wiped her nose and recited the formula. The dragon dealt with her in two snaps of his teeth.