by Marek Hlasko
The Young Communist Blizniaczek sat down. He glanced quickly at Franciszek, then stared at the tips of his shoes with great concentration. There was a long silence. Behind the walls the grinding machines hummed monotonously, like telegraph wires, a single protracted note.
“What is it, damn it?” the secretary asked at last. He smacked the table with the flat of his hand. “Are you going to open your mouth, or aren’t you?”
“I’d like to talk to you privately,” Blizniaczek stammered out.
The secretary shook his head. “This is an old comrade,” he said solemnly. “You can say anything in his presence.”
Blizniaczek looked at Franciszek with his blue eyes, shook his unruly hair, and said distinctly: “I want to report that Baniewicz and Majewska … well … you know what.”
The secretary froze. A quick shudder passed over his face. He bent forward. “It’s not true,” he said hoarsely.
“It is.”
The secretary banged his fist on the table so that everything shook. “Impossible.”
Blizniaczek looked up at him with his clear blue eyes. “I am sure of it.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw them.”
“But … Majewska has a husband and child.”
Blizniaczek smiled triumphantly: “That’s just it,” he said. “That’s just it.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes. They have no apartment, that’s why … Yesterday, after work, in the warehouse—I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Did they say anything?”
“Yes. I mean, Majewska told Baniewicz that she didn’t love her husband but couldn’t divorce him because he had a bad case of TB, and that someone has to look after him. And Baniewicz said that he had no apartment. And he said he didn’t like the whole situation.”
“So he doesn’t like it?” To Franciszek the secretary’s voice sounded like an echo.
“No.”
The secretary rubbed his balding head and licked his lips. He had slumped forward; he looked like a man robbed of his most sacred belief. “A thing like that,” he said, and his ringing bass sounded like an old man’s whisper. “In the warehouse, after work … And what did you do after work, Blizniaczek?”
“I conducted an informal talk,” he said. “The subject was ‘Love in the Life of the Soviet Man.’ I was substituting for Plaskota; he substituted for me the other day, and he talked on ‘The Forest in the Life of the Young Communist.’ ”
“In the warehouse, after work,” the secretary repeated, not believing his own ears. “Baniewicz, our comrade …” Once again he banged his fist on the table. Franciszek and Blizniaczek jumped up. “Here, on factory grounds!” he roared. He jumped up from behind his desk, and rushed around to Blizniaczek, holding out his hand. “Thank you in the name of the organization,” he said, shaking his hand vigorously. “Poland will never forget what you’ve done for her. Goodbye.”
Blizniaczek rose and walked in measured steps to the door. There he stopped for a moment, raising his left fist. “Where have I seen this before?” Franciszek thought suddenly. “Where have I seen it?”
Blizniaczek closed the door behind him, and walked down the corridor, his heels tapping. The secretary sat motionless for a while, his eyes vacant, unseeing. Then he turned to Franciszek; he remained silent. At last his eyes brightened again. “You see,” he said in a tired voice, “here I sit behind my desk; everything seems to be all right; but wherever you look—the enemy is vigilant …” He drummed on the glass plate with his clumsy fingers. “We must be vigilant,” he said. “We must be constantly on our guard, Franciszek. Our people are inexperienced: they deviate; they succumb to whispering campaigns; it’s easy to break them down … Take Baniewicz. We sent him to the miners as an agitator—he did a good job. We sent him as our delegate to the scrap-collection campaign—he did well there too. He was top man in the clean-up Warsaw campaign; he even got a certificate. In our amateur theatricals he works like a fiend: he dances, sings, acts—some even say he has a good deal of talent. To look at him you’d say he was pure gold. And now, all of a sudden—plop!”
Once again he buried his face in his hands. His mouth drooped pitiably. “I shouldn’t bother him at such a moment,” Franciszek thought. But he swallowed hard, and said: “Listen, I’m late for work—I was out all morning. What I want to tell you won’t take five minutes. Yesterday, as I was going home from the meeting, I met an old friend of mine from the underground, a wonderful fellow. He was deputy commander of our unit; now he’s executive manager of a big construction project in the provinces somewhere.” He paused, and sighed heavily. “That’s all it was—an unexpected meeting, two old friends … We went to a bar to talk about old times, and—there’s no point hiding it—I drank a bit. Then we separated—”
Someone knocked at the door, and Franciszek stopped.
“Come in,” said the secretary.
The door opened slightly; a man looked in, and, seeing that the secretary was not alone, was about to withdraw, but the secretary repeated, “Come in, come in.”
A short man with a splendid shock of gray hair and nervous hands entered the room.
“I’m listening, Citizen Jarzebowski,” the secretary said. “Make yourself at home, sit down.”
The newcomer sat down, folding his nervous hands on his knees. His hair shone in the artificial light of the bulb.
“Well, what’s on your mind, Citizen Jarzebowski?” the secretary asked. He glanced at Franciszek and tapped his forehead with his hand. “But of course you don’t know each other, that’s true. Our new head bookkeeper, Citizen Jarzebowski; Comrade Kowalski, assistant technical director. Citizen Jarzebowski is new here,” he explained to Franciszek. “He’s a nonparty activist. He is going to conduct a glee club as part of our social program.”
“Yes, yes,” Jarzebowski said eagerly, smiling at Franciszek. “Perhaps you’d like to join us?”
“What?”
“Would you do us the favor of joining our club and singing with us?”
“Me?” asked Franciszek, surprised.
“Why of course, what’s so strange about that?” Jarzebowski said in a slightly offended tone. “What part would you like to sing? Baritone? Tenor? I suppose a baritone; you don’t look like a bass—no offense meant. We’re having our first rehearsal today after work—we’re going to sing ‘The March of the Enthusiasts.’ How does it strike you?”
“I might at that if I can fit it in,” Franciszek stammered.
Jarzebowski inclined his gray head with dignity. “I shall await your kind answer,” he said.
The secretary said: “Well, what’s on your mind, Citizen Jarzebowski? Speak up, come to the point; talk like one of us, a workingman.”
“My dear sir,” Jarzebowski stammered, turning red with pleasure, “this is a great honor—I mean, your kind expression, ‘like one of us’—but you see, my dear sir,” here he lowered his eyes with embarrassment, “unfortunately I am not with you because of my convictions; but, if I may say so, you will be good enough to understand, I hope—I am—I was—a landowner. I mean I have been a progressive since I was a boy, rather Left Wing, but …” He spread his arms in a magnificent gesture.
“Come now,” the secretary said, “what are you trying to say?”
Jarzebowski cracked his knuckles—his nervous hands seemed to have a life of their own. “The fact is,” he said dejectedly, “the fact is, I have nothing good to report. Please try to understand, this is not an easy thing for me to say; it’s terribly unpleasant—please, understand me, dear sir, my situation is very, very delicate—but the duty of a Pole, a Left Winger …”
“Speak up; don’t be afraid.”
“A parcel,” Jarzebowski blurted out.
“What parcel?”
“Malinowska, in the Bookkeeping Department. I mean, my department,” Jarzebowski added modestly, once again accompanying his words with a magnificent toss of his mane.
“Well, go on, what’s
next?”
“You’ve been good enough, if I may say so, to hit the nail on the head. That’s just it: what next?”
“I don’t understand.”
Jarzebowski pounded his chest. “It’s my fault, dear sir, my fault. Apparently I haven’t been able to express myself clearly enough. Malinowska, of the Bookkeeping Department, received a parcel.”
“Where from?”
Jarzebowski stood on his toes, raising his hands, as though addressing legions of witnesses. “That’s the whole point,” he said in a metallic voice. “A parcel from the West.”
“From—the—We-e-est?”
“From the West. What’s more, she makes no secret of it. She told me herself. She even treated me to a cigarette, which I have taken the liberty of bringing here …” He reached into the upper pocket of his waistcoat, drew out a cigarette, and set it down in front of the secretary. “Please—here it is.”
They stared at each other for a moment with piercing eyes. The secretary let out a whistle. “So that’s how it is.”
“Yes, indeed.”
They remained silent. The clock on the wall ticked maddeningly. Somewhere in the factory a powerful engine was being tested at full speed; it stopped, only to start up again with an ear-splitting roar.
“A parcel,” the secretary said pensively. Carefully, with the tips of his fingers, he picked up the cigarette and examined it from all sides; he turned it this way and that, sniffed it, and at last put it down, shaking his head. “A cigarette,” he said; “the devil knows what that can lead to. That’s how it always begins: parcels, cigarettes, nylons, a few trinkets, and then it turns out …”
He paused, and his face tensed as if he were about to give birth to some powerful new idea, unique in form and expression. Jarzebowski held his breath; and to Franciszek, who was watching from the side, the secretary seemed to have become petrified. The suspense was palpable; even the clock seemed to be ticking more slowly.
“Thank you, Jarzebowski,” the secretary said hoarsely after a while. “Our organization will take the matter up.” He rose from his seat. “Thanks,” he repeated. He shook the bookkeeper’s hand vigorously, and as the latter turned his noble mane in the direction of the door, the secretary repeated once again, “Thank you, Citizen.”
“Not at all,” Jarzebowski said, and, turning to Franciszek, “How about our club?”
Franciszek clenched his jaw. “We’ll see about that later,” he said.
“Thanks,” the secretary cried. He moved his chair over to Franciszek, patting him on the knee. “What do you think about it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Lots of people get parcels from abroad.”
The secretary smiled jeeringly. “Parcels,” he repeated. He leaned toward Franciszek, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You don’t know them.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“Them.”
“But, damn it, the contents of the parcels are checked, aren’t they?”
“You don’t know them, and that’s all there is to it,” he said, keeping his superior smile. “Well, what’s new with you? You were saying that you couldn’t manage the campaign, weren’t you?”
“It has nothing to do with the campaign,” Franciszek said in a rage. “Yesterday I was detained in a police station, do you understand?”
“You? In a police station?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
Franciszek jumped to his feet. “Listen, Jan,” he said, putting his hand on the other’s arm. “You know me. Surely I don’t have to tell you who I am and what I think, and why I am in the party. But yesterday I got horribly drunk …” He walked a few steps, then turned his face toward the other. “Yesterday I insulted the party,” he said in a wooden voice.
“You?”
“Me.”
“But— But—” the secretary stammered. “What did you say?”
“I told them that they could stick it all up …” Franciszek said, staring at the wall. “And I said something much worse, but even they, in the station, were ashamed to repeat it. And I myself don’t remember. I was in a blur for a minute, so furious I was out of my head, and everything I said left my mind; nothing remains—a blank.”
“Man, man,” the secretary was stammering. “What have you done? What police station was that?”
“Forty-two.”
“Ah,” the secretary said with sudden relief. “Well, my friend, you’re lucky. I’ll ring them up at once; I have a friend there, a colleague—we may be able to fix it.”
He picked up the receiver; Franciszek restrained his hand. “No,” he said, “that’s not what I want, Jan.”
“Well?”
“I don’t want to settle the matter that way, Jan. They took everything down in black and white—that I’m an enemy.” He shook his head. “This must be handled differently. At the moment I can’t trust myself. The party must look into this.”
“The party?”
“Yes. It’s up to our comrades to say that I’m right. They’ve got to tell me that they trust me, the way they have always trusted me up till now. And that my position here is justified. There’s a meeting tomorrow. I want you to put the case on the agenda. Listen—I’ve got a son, a grown son, who’s in the party. I have a daughter who will also join the party someday. My children must believe in me. I don’t want anyone to tell them, ‘Your father’s the kind of fellow who says one thing, and thinks another …’ I don’t think that way. I never thought that way—or else I wouldn’t be here, with you, now. Unity of thought and word and deed, that’s what makes a man. To my mind that’s the meaning of loyalty … Do you understand me, Jan?”
“I understand, of course; I understand,” the other said. He was staring at the window; a wretched gray light seeped through the pane, trying to assert itself against the crazily flickering bulb on the ceiling. The secretary pressed his head with his hands. “What a filthy day it is!” he said. “First you, then Baniewicz with Majewska, then this parcel … You look at it superficially—the parcel is fine. It’s labeled, sealed, passed —that’s the end of it, you might think. But hell knows what it may lead to …” He looked heavily at Franciszek. “Damn it all!” he said in a fury. “Haven’t I enough troubles? Just tell me. First it’s Baniewicz, then it’s a parcel, now it’s some other dirty business—to hell with it all …” He drummed on the table with his fingers; the terrible roar of the engines in the workshops went on and off. “Why did you have to blurt it out?” the secretary asked.
Franciszek froze suddenly, as though coated with ice. “What did you say?” he growled.
“Why did you have to talk?” the secretary went on, staring at the dusty windowpanes. “Listen to me: Are you a party comrade? You are. Have you a card? You have. Have you a job? You have. Well, damn it, behave like a party comrade. But instead you suddenly scream at the top of your lungs, ‘I believe, I don’t believe, stick it all up …’ Goddam it, who asked you to go into all that?”
He drew aside just in time: a heavy brass weight flew by a few inches from his face. The windowpane tinkled; the roar of the engines surged into the room with new intensity.
“Bastard!” Franciszek hissed, coming close to the other, his fingers outspread like claws. “You! Our First Secretary! Talking like that! I’ll show you … tomorrow … at the meeting. I’ll tell everybody …” He walked toward the door through a roaring red haze.
“Franciszek!” the other cried. “Franciszek, but I haven’t—”
As the door opened, he ran into Blizniaczek.
VII
THE MEETING OF THE PARTY ORGANIZATION OF the “For a Better Tomorrow” automobile repair shop opened at five the next afternoon. Franciszek barely had time to eat his dinner in the canteen and to wash up. Buttoning his coat on the way, he ran to the crowded meeting room. The hall was too small for the crowd, and there was so much smoke that the open, smiling faces of the dignitaries in the portraits on the wall were scarcely visible behind the thick
haze; and in the joyful faces of the Stakhanovites, boys and girls, there was something mysterious, unfathomable, as in the faces in portraits by old masters. At the table, covered with red cloth of the kind used for flags—it was riddled with cigarette holes—sat the First Secretary, Comrade Pawlak; his deputy, a young engineer with a face that twitched like a rabbit’s; two members of the Executive Committee; and a delegate from the party’s district organization. Franciszek pushed his way through the chairs, found an empty one, and sat down. His case was the third item on the agenda. The First Secretary silenced the room by an imperious motion of his hand, and rose. “I declare the meeting open.” He held out his hands to applaud, but before he had brought them together the whole room was clapping. This went on a long while. Then the applause subsided.
“Since there are no objections, the meeting is open,” he said, and his ringing voice filled every corner of the smoky room. “On the agenda we have the self-criticism of Comrade Jablonka, the cases of comrades Gierwatowski and Kowalski, ad lib motions, and discussion. Does any comrade wish to supplement the agenda?”
Before anyone had time to reply, he clapped his hands. The general applause lasted several minutes. Then Comrade Jablonka took the floor.
“Comrades,” he began in a high, tense voice. “I’ll simply say, in our working-class way, that I went off the deep end. No matter what anyone thinks and thinks, the best thing for a decent man is to admit right away, I went off the deep end, and that’s all there is to it. Sometimes a man thinks to himself, Maybe I ought to do this or that; but I’m not like that; I speak straight in our workingman’s way—I went off the deep end, and that’s all there is to it. Thoughts of all kinds come to me. I don’t know why. And yet a man sometimes thinks this or that, and it turns out that he has gone off the deep end. So I’ll simply say like a workingman—I went off the deep end, and that’s that.” He raised his voice. “Comrades,” he cried. “There was starvation, there was capitalism, there was misery: people were hungry, bloated, I saw it myself, with my own eyes, comrades. Then along came a man named Lenin. And the people woke up, comrades. And we ourselves know how things are, and we also know that they’ll be better. And I went off the deep end, comrades. When I was little, I tore wings from beetles and from flies; and I did things with cats and frogs that—well, to put it bluntly—I had fun that wasn’t our kind, the workers’ kind. Once a man died under my window. And it’s well known, comrades, that Comrade Stalin said: ‘Man—the word has a proud ring.’ There were terrible times. There was starvation, and misery, and capitalism; until a man named Lenin came along. And once again, comrades—my shop will deliver the shovels on time.”