Candlelight Stories

by Andrzej Galicki

  Seeing that with him in a sober state I was going to achieve nothing, I invited him again for a glass of wine.

  It was a worthy and necessary expense. Everyone knows that to learn something, you need to pay. Nothing is for free in this Rotten West.

  “Well then, how was it in the military?” I asked after the second glass.

  It was too early. Only after the third he began to unwind, to open up. At the beginning, he did so reluctantly, as if forced. While drinking more, his voice became as if it was liberated from some shackles. He was talking easily, freely, up to a certain point when he had had enough. Then he dropped his head and said nothing. After that, it was no longer possible to force him to speak. It was better to give him peace of mind.

  “This was a job for a contract, ” he began. “The organization works for anybody who has the means to pay. We worked mainly in Africa, where all these new countries still have rickety borders and governments. Once a country is called so, after the coup, its name changes. They paid, sometimes with gold, other times with diamonds or ivory, depending on what they had. Often, we worked for those who did not have anything to pay with. Someone else paid for them, then it was probably the issue of political influence. Besides, it was not our problem, we just had to do a good job, not think. We had to know only What, Where and How. We never asked why. In fact, the word never existed in our poor vocabulary. We had to get the job done efficiently, quickly and without loss of life. The last was very important. Each soldier was damn precious. The soldier carries not only the price of his training but also how much he can potentially earn for the organization. Sometimes, our customers were the dictators who were afraid to be overthrown, so they had to destroy their opponents. Other times, we worked for those who wanted to overthrow the existing government. Any customer was good as long as he had the money or something else to pay for our services.”

  I ordered the next two glasses of “vin Maison”. It was not bad, likeable even with a sour-sweet taste and the smell of the vineyards of southern France. I'd never been to the south of France and I'd never seen a vineyard from up close, but it just had to smell this way. It could not be otherwise.

  While passing next to the bar, the waitress smiled at us. She was a beauty to see. Nothing in her was straight. Her body was rounded all around, the curvature changing with each step she took. It was impossible not to look at her. In Poland, I had a set of drafting patterns, such templates for drawing curved lines on the plans. Each shape could be the drawn with it. I especially liked one of them - a long, slender tool, somewhat similar to the treble clef. She was exactly like this one. Those templates were called ‘French curves’ in English and only now did I understand why, the waitress duly enlightening me.

  I looked at Bart. He also followed her with his gaze, like the other guys at the bar. But quite differently. In his eyes, there was no passion, no excitement. He did not undress her with his regard, did not analyze those excellent curves in awe. In his eyes, there was nothing. Complete emptiness, like the Sahara without water and without end, maybe even without the sand. He looked at her just because she was moving, a pure physical impulse. If she was a big, gray fly, I had no doubt he would look at her the same way.

  “What did you do on your job?”

  “Simple. Differently, each time, but always simple. We were not politicians. When we should only subdue those who rebelled against our client, we approached, for example, the indicated village or colony at night with four Jeeps from all sides. Each of the Jeeps had powerful headlights placed on the roof. We switched them on at the same time, so there was more than enough light to see every pebble on the dry surface of the earth. And then, we opened fire on the huts, slashed them thoroughly and evenly. After a moment, the village changed into an anthill. The people got out of each hole, black, sleepy, the whites of their eyes glowing in the spotlight. They immediately fell under our bullets. It was necessary to finish them all, every one of them, women and children also, so that no witness of the massacre would remain. In general, it was not as bad for them as it seemed. Other villages considered it as a punishment from some unknown dark forces and local cacique could again prevail quietly for some time, until the next rebellion. If not for our intervention, this could have escalated into a serious turmoil and much bigger loss of life. Many more would have died, maybe several thousand. Over there, they don’t play democracy. When they butcher, they do it equally all around. That’s how it goes.”

  He paused then and I knew that it was all for today. We went out into the street.

  As we walked toward the subway, he asked me why I was staring at the sidewalk. I explained to him that I was planning to find an old, fat wallet with a hundred thousand new francs in it. He looked at me like I was an idiot on a day off from the hospital.

  “Money is shit” he said. “It does not give happiness.”

  “I know. That is written in every book. But I still would like to have it. How about you? You would not like to have that kind of money?”

  “I had that kind of money so I know what I'm saying.”

  “And what did you do with it?” I asked in astonishment.

  “Maybe someday I'll tell you. For now, bye.”

  With that, he disappeared into the entrance to the subway.

  Mui-Tang was already waiting me with her incenses. It was necessary to check whether the Chinese wraps were still needed. It turned out so, and absolutely. Therefore, we conducted a thorough treatment, which helped my still painful ribs recover perfectly. After the procedure, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was alone in the room and beyond the windows ruled the black, Parisian night.

  ***

  Saturday.

  Tang Mui usually worked on Saturdays in the shop of her aunt. I chose the early afternoon to fulfill one of the responsibilities of each, self-respecting tourist in Paris - visit Pere Lachaise’s cemetery. I reached the Philippe Auguste subway station and before the entrance to the cemetery, I went to the café for a cup of coffee. I decided to go crazy. Instead of a small espresso, I asked for a cafe-noisette, which was a little more expensive but more aromatic. I sat at a table outside the cafe enjoying its smell and I was extremely pleased with myself.

  A bunch of Parisian sparrows arguing about something on a nearby tree watched me with appreciation and chirped one after another, as if saying: "Look at that. Look. He is sitting in the garden of a true Parisian cafe and sipping a café noisette, as if he was in his own country. Yeah, well, he has a good life. After all, over there, in Poland he was recently doing the auto stop with his colleagues to get to Sopot because he had no money for the train. Well, well, what's the next step?"

  ***

  What should I do now? The expiry date of my French visa was drawing closer and I still had no idea what to do next. Maybe join the Foreign Legion, or such a Squadron as Bartek? I did not think so. My experience with the Military Studies for students at the Warsaw Polytechnic School had convinced me once and for all that the military was not for me. Such a student’s army was indeed child's play compared to the real one, but for me, it was enough. I liked the military since my childhood. It was one of my passions, but only watching war movies. The everyday life of a soldier was not the same as the patriotic uprising and romantic adventures where they get the ideas for these movies. I rose, left the money on the table and walked out of the cafe patio onto the street. The sparrows continued twittering in the tree, but no longer about me.

  I entered the cemetery. It was huge. The streets traversed it with moving cars, quite unlike the cemeteries in Warsaw. I did not know that I had to bring a map. Without one, it was hard to find the tombs of the Great Dead that interested me.

  Without a plan, I walked down the alleys, stopping by the most impressive tombs to read the inscriptions on the stone slabs. However, they said very little to me. Then I came up with a brilliant idea: I would simply go where there were other people gathered, these living ones. It worked. I came to a tomb where I saw a whole
bunch of people standing around, still, motionless, immersed in their marvelous thoughts. I read the inscription: Allan Kardec. I grinned. I knew who he was. He probably wrote the Book of Spirits as one of the forerunners of the French spiritualists. I read something about him while I was still in Poland. Allegedly, he had promised his disciples before his death that when he found himself on the other side, he would come back to tell them what he saw over there. And so they stood and waited, but until today, they had not seen this revelation. Nothing has happened. The Grand Master had not returned. Could they have been tricked? I stood there also for a moment. Like the others, I closed my eyes and tried even to meditate, but I had never been good at that. My mundane thoughts always took precedence over the spiritual, as the spiritualist considerations invariably conducted me to the door of the spirits store. I gave up with the meditation and went back on the road between the tombs.

  Each tomb was different, as usual in old cemeteries. There were large tombs, small tombs, modest ones, rich ones, but one grave seemed to be very special. It was surrounded by a group of adults who looked like hippies, singing to the sound of the guitar "Come on baby, light my fire..."

  Who rested here? Of course, Jim Morrison, one of my early idols. I knew he had died, but I did not know that he was buried in Paris. I never thought I would meet him once, even after death. From the stone pedestal, a head carved by some unknown artist and installed here by someone (I only found out about it later) stared with its unseeing eyes at the crowd. Now, devotees sang his hits, from time to time sipping from the whiskey bottle standing on the edge of the grave. Could he hear them? Who knew? Maybe he alone knew. The head seemed to hear everything. When I visited this place seventeen years later, a bottle of whiskey still stood at the edge of the grave (I doubt it was the same), while the head was gone. Apparently, it disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared.

  I stood with them for a long time. Jim Morrison was only 27 years when he died. Oh boy, we'll never know how much good music he could have still performed.

  I moved on. As I did, Morrison's music gradually faded. The birds twittered something between the trees, but they did not understand his music.

  I saw someone from afar, a lonely figure standing motionless in front of one of the tombs. I walked closer and stopped. He looked at me without too much surprise.

  “You can often meet a Pole here,” he said.

  “Hi!”

  “Hi,” he said.

  I noticed that at first, he was not satisfied with this meeting, as I surprised him in the middle of some intimate activity. I understood it. There are times when a person wants to be alone, shut himself up in a sanctuary where no one else has access to, and think about his life. Maybe I also wanted it. Maybe it was the reason I was here.

  The monument was made of light-coloured stone. It presented a tearful Muse, sitting on a high pedestal, below the portrait, there was a bas-relief carved in marble and a short inscription above it: FRED CHOPIN. Interesting. I had just found the grave I wanted to see the most and here was Bartek, the gloomy guy, introverted, seemingly lacking that little bit of romanticism which almost each of us had. Maybe, despite all those years spent in the African wars, the trace of an artist remained in him?

  “He was a romantic, ” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “And also am I, although this is hard to see. I come here from time to time to have a talk with him. Sometimes, it helps me. Sometimes not.”

  “I did not know that you were interested in music.”

  “Not interested. And for sure not like before. But him, he is the only reason that I still listen to the music. It is the complete opposite of what I experienced there, on the Black Continent.”

  “Do you want to talk about that a little bit?”

  “Good, but not here. Let's go somewhere else. Anyway, I'd like to show you one special bridge.”

  We went to the nearest metro station, then he took me to a place where I had not been before. I saw there a few barges moored to the stone quay.

  “Wait a minute here.” He pointed to the few benches standing against the stonewall facing the shore. Since my last confrontation with the Sicilian, I no longer had confidence in this kind of stonewalls. However, I sat down and waited. The gray waters of the Seine moved up steadily before my eyes, from right to left. Still, quiet, again and again…

  Bartek showed up a few moments later, carrying two bottles of cheap red wine and two paper cups. He put them on the bench and poured. I noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.

  "Not good" I thought. "Something must be eating his nerves."

  “I wonder if there are piranhas here,” I said a little absurdly as I looked at the murky waters of the Seine. I just wanted to say something, and nothing wiser crossed my mind at the moment.

  “Piranhas?” he asked, surprised. “They are the only things we are missing here.”

  “Those are the most bloodthirsty monsters on the planet” I continued. “Their mouths are about one-third the length of their entire body, or so, I read somewhere.”

  We drank the first cup of wine.

  “You're wrong” Bartek said firmly. “The most bloodthirsty monsters have pretty small mouths.”

  “What kind of monsters do you mean?”

  “You know them well. They have small mouths and large heads. And they walk holding their heads up.”

  “People?”

  “Way to go. I’ll give you a grade of five in zoology. Men, that is you and I; we are without a doubt the biggest monsters that our planet has ever given birth to. Sometimes I think, maybe we really come from another galaxy, and they keep us so far from it because we are so dangerous.”

  “You really think so?”

  “More and more. Earth reminds me of an apple that fell down from a tree. Immediately the putrefactive bacteria find their way to it. The apple begins to change a color. It gets soft, yellow, brown, and lousy from the outside and from the inside. In the end, the bacteria eat it up to the last bit. There is nothing at all left. Yes, that is what we do with our land. We have polluted the air. We are destroying the forests. Drinking water is already running low, probably soon it will run out. Currently they are looking for places where the bedrock is thickest to drill deep holes in so they can deposit wasted radioactive materials there. If we go on like this, we will begin to destroy the Earth from the center. Obviously, this is the very initial stage of apple putrefaction, but we do it faster and faster. The earth will end up being the first rotten apple in the cosmos. Now, do you still wonder why they keep us far from them?”

  “Who?”

  “I do not know. Other civilizations. God, maybe.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  Bartek decided that this question we should drink to. He poured into our empty cups.

  “Certainly not in this God, which the Church is trying to sell us. Man is the biggest monster on Earth. Man destroys, kills and eats animals, eats everything he could fit into his little mouth. And when he does not want the meat to look like delightful, innocent ducks or calves he chops it into small pieces and pounds it with a hammer or grounds it until it does not longer resembles anything cute. Then, he can devour it with a calmer conscience. And to think such a man is created as likeness to the divine image according to the Church. But of course the likeness is never perfect. So if a man looks like an imperfect copy of God, how cruel must be the original? I prefer not to imagine. No, I do not believe in such a God. But I believe in my kind of God. I do not know how He looks, but certainly nothing like a man.”

  I looked at him, puzzled. Bartek was quite different from usual. Torrents of words flowed from his mouth, and his eyes glittered feverishly.

  “So what can we do?” I asked cautiously. “After all, we cannot suddenly cease to be human beings, even if we see our flaws.”

  “What can we do? Simple. We can destroy ourselves as soon as possible, until everyone, any traces of human life disappeared from this planet. In the
end, this will be done anyway, but the sooner the better. Less destruction will be left behind.”

  “How long have you been thinking this way?”

  “I started before I got fired from the army. It took just one day, just one to open my eyes. We were sent to one rebellious settlement in some African kingdom, whose name you don’t need to know. There was already before us another platoon from our division. The roofs of the clay huts burned. Between them lay plenty of bodies, still warm. We walked between them indifferently to see if there was someone left to kill, even though we knew this other platoon, as good as we were, probably finished the job properly. I stopped before the largest hut in the middle of the village. Next to the entrance lay the remains of a white man, probably a priest or a missionary. He was unlucky because we were under strict orders not to leave witnesses so he had to die as well. Maybe the poor shepherd was trying to defend the lives of his sheep to the end? I went inside the hut. The roof of palm leaves was obviously burnt. Opposite the entrance, over the remains of the altar, a crucifix hung on a blackened wall. I looked to the left... And froze…

  On the clay wall, a picture hung behind broken glass, in a blackened frame. With a dark face, her cheek cut twice by the Tatar sabre, She looked at me, with a look that seemed to bore straight and deep into my soul. I could not look away from this portrait. It was coded so deep in my childhood memories, the defense of Czestochowa. All of our national uprisings were attached so tightly to it that even the years of Soviet "occupation" failed to weaken the force of our love to the Black Madonna. And now, the picture of Her hung on the wall of this miserable African church, sooty and battered, and not by the Turks and Tatars, but by my fraternal branch of white mercenaries, mostly Christians. A knight who once more defended Her like Kordecki priest did once, lay now on the sun-cracked earth at the entrance to the temple in rusty stains of his own blood, which merged forever with the land and with the faith for which he gave his life. And then, I felt something inside me snap. Something broke with a sharp crack.

  I went in front of the hut and began to shoot indiscriminately. I played a long series towards those under my command, because I was in charge of the squad. It was me who brought my boys to the village and now, I tried to shoot them on the spot as I was overwhelmed with grief and rage. These two feelings flooded my heart at the same time. Fortunately, my fire was off target as I ran amok and no one was hurt. I received (also happily) a powerful blow in the back of my head with the butt of a gun and I fell on the hard, loamy soil next to the Kordecki priest. If I were not squad leader, I would have been shot immediately. The cases where soldiers went amok were not rare, but usually, this happened to less experienced NCOs whereas I had already been in the service for three years.