by Marek Hlasko
“Elzbieta,” he said, “I’m in a hurry.”
After a while she came in carrying a tray with a steaming dish. “You and Mikołaj think that everything makes itself,” she said. “Or that I have a dozen gnomes in the kitchen to help me.”
“A dozen, no, but one …” Franciszek began, and bit his tongue. Whenever he recalled that Elzbieta was an adult, and that there were matters of life about which she need no longer consult him, he could not bear the sight of her and Roman together.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. It’s hot. When is Mikołaj coming?”
She glanced at the clock. “He should be here now.”
“He is always late.”
“Always.”
Franciszek knew that Mikołaj and Roman could not stand each other. Whenever he wanted to get rid of Roman, he talked about Mikołaj: the effect was instantaneous. This time it worked again. Roman began to move restlessly about the room; finally he said he had to leave and would be back tomorrow. He said a long goodbye to Elzbieta in the entrance hall, and managed to say “Bye-bye, Pop” several times. At last, to Franciszek’s great relief, the door banged shut. Elzbieta came back into the room.
“I don’t like him,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. But I’m sure you understand.”
“I’m trying.”
She smiled weakly. “You’re wonderful.”
“Will you tell me something frankly? As frankly as you can.”
“I’ll try.”
“I want you to tell me, yes or no.”
“Yes?”
“Do you love him?”
“You know that I do.”
“Very much?”
“As much as I’m capable of.”
“You’re sure?”
Her clear eyes filled with light. He sighed.
“Yes,” she said.
He wanted to question her about their relationship, but he suddenly felt ashamed. “Why do I have to talk to her about these things?” he thought angrily. “Am I afraid, or what? It’s I who should tell her everything, not the other way around. No, damn it, I must tell her at once …” He put his fork down, and was about to tell her, but she spoke first.
“You’ve guessed everything, haven’t you?”
“I’ve guessed what?”
She peered at him closely. “You know everything,” she said.
He felt as if he had swallowed a lump of ice. He suddenly began to fear that she would tell him something that would merely sound bad; that she was too young to tell him everything clearly and well; and that she would use some unfortunate words that would torment him for years afterward. He said: “I know … he is the only human being …”
“Not the only one,” she said. “Now there is a second one …”
“Have you fallen in love with someone else?” He was about to jump from his chair when he saw her calm, almost victorious smile.
“Most of us love our own children,” she said. He looked at her, and suddenly time vanished, the years opening up like the waters in fairy tales: his own wife had used the same words, and said them in the same way to announce that she was pregnant with Mikołaj.
“You know it for sure?”
“For sure.”
“My little girl,” he whispered. “But …”
“There’s something I never told you. He’s very sick.”
“Who?”
“Roman.”
“Sick?”
“Consumption. I’m worried about him, Father. He’s very depressed; this has been going on for months. He says he’s going to die; he thinks about it all the time. He wants me to think of—him.”
“And what does he say about this?”
“Nothing.”
“How so?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“You didn’t tell him?”
“I’ll tell him when the time comes.”
“You can tell him now. You’ve got to.”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid to,” she said. “He might want me to—he’s sick, he’ll be afraid. I’ll tell him after it’s …” She stopped.
“Why?” Franciszek whispered.
“I want them to live, both of them.”
Franciszek turned away; Elzbieta walked quietly out of the room, carrying the dish. He drummed his fingers on the windowpane. On the floor above, someone was torturing a piano; the fingers of the invisible player kept stumbling on the same key. In the street a man with a long pole passed, lighting the lamps; the gleam of a newly lit lamp and the false note on the floor above came almost simultaneously.
“You look like an Italian woman praying to God and waiting for her husband. They stand by the window for hours, exactly as you’re doing now.”
He turned. “Did you buy a newspaper, Mikołaj?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going somewhere tonight?”
“Have you something to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Just a minute, I want to wash my hands.”
Mikołaj left the room. He was dangerously handsome; his face, voice, silhouette, the gleam in his eyes, his smile or grimace, his animal gait, his calm sleep, the manner in which he flipped away a cigarette butt—everything nature had given him was like a constant humiliation to others, a summons to hide their faces, to keep offstage, to stop talking, smiling, and breathing loudly. After a moment he came back and sat opposite Franciszek.
“Listen, Mikołaj,” Franciszek said. “I’ve been expelled from the party.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I’m sober. I haven’t touched a drink.”
“Then don’t talk that way.”
“It happened yesterday. I did something I can’t understand. It seems like a nightmare. But it’s a fact.”
Mikołaj walked up to him and looked him in the eyes. Franciszek drew back, hunching up a little: his son was staring at him as if he were some strange thing. They were silent; Elzbieta was clattering dishes in the kitchen.
Mikołaj said at last: “Why?”
“It’s my fault.”
“What did you do?”
“Listen: I met a friend I hadn’t seen since the days of the underground. We drank a few drinks. Then the police stopped me—two hard-boiled kids. I began to talk back to them—I was sober, damn it, suddenly quite sober; and they badgered me, they wanted to take me to the police station. In the end I flew into a rage, and I shouted things I can’t remember. Next morning they told me what I had shouted, Mikołaj; I shouted that they could stick everything—you understand, everything—somewhere; that I didn’t believe in anything; and I insulted the party, and …” He suddenly fell silent.
“Well?”
“Mikołaj, the fact is I don’t think that way; you know it. I’ve never thought that way. I can’t understand it.”
“Then why did you shout?” Mikołaj asked tonelessly.
“I don’t know. That’s the worst of it.”
“What happened then?”
“I wanted to get the matter cleared up right away. But I failed. That is to say, I was expelled. They have a record at the police station, you understand. Everything is written down, every word. There can’t be any mistake. I must really have shouted those things.”
“That means you think them.”
“Mikołaj,” Franciszek said imploringly, “surely you know me as well as a son can know a father. You have no right to speak like that.”
“We aren’t talking as father and son,” Mikołaj said.
“No? As what, then?”
“As party comrade to party comrade.”
“I don’t think that way,” he whispered. “You know I don’t.”
“You speak that way. You shout that way. Were you sober?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I’m here. Maybe a bit edgy.”
“So at other times—when you
are sober as you are now—you also say things you don’t feel?”
“No, no.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t understand. I don’t understand it myself. Maybe it’s a mistake?”
“Haven’t you checked?”
“I have,” Franciszek whispered. He passed his hand over his forehead. “In the morning when I was released they told me. And our secretary, too, checked … No, it’s not a mistake. I must really have insulted the party.”
“Yes, you must have.”
“And I don’t understand it.”
“That you shouted?”
“It’s a vicious circle of some kind. I shouted something I don’t feel.”
“And when you shout, ‘Long live socialism, the party, Stalin,’ don’t you feel it either?”
“How can you?”
“How could you?”
“Mikołaj …”
Mikołaj got up. “There’s no Mikołaj … You’ve been expelled from the party, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“For duplicity, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Who is right—you or the party?”
“I.”
“And who shouted?”
“I.”
“So you weren’t right. Whom shall I believe—you, an individual, you who shout something you don’t feel, something you can’t account for—or the party?”
“We must believe the party,” Franciszek whispered.
“If that’s so, we can’t stay together,” Mikołaj said.
“You want to leave home?”
Mikołaj did not reply. An hour went by. Franciszek watched Mikołaj pack his things in a valise—a modest suit of clothes, books, cheap shirts.
“You’re really going,” Franciszek said. He was silent a long while, then he added: “Who knows, maybe I’d do the same thing in your place.”
“I’ll come back after you’ve cleared yourself.”
“What am I to do?”
“Stand up and fight. Maybe you’ll find somebody, some comrades, who’ll believe you and be able to settle things for you. I’ve got to believe the party.”
“And not me? I am your father; in spite of everything I am your father, whether you like it or not … Can’t you believe me?”
Mikołaj was already in his overcoat. He walked to the window; the light of the street lamp glinted in his hair.
“Believe—you? You alone? No.” He turned round violently. “What do you know about the world, about how vile it is? You’re still living in the past, in the underground—don’t you realize what is going on today? Don’t you really understand anything?” Once again he stared into the street. “If they tore the fronts off the houses, we’d see pigsties. I can’t afford to believe any individual. I can only believe the party. If I didn’t have the party to look up to, I’d become the vilest of the vile. I couldn’t live otherwise. And you want me to believe you, you of all people—a shouter and a liar?”
“I am your father!” Franciszek cried.
Mikołaj smiled gloomily. “You are Franciszek Kowalski, expelled from the party for duplicity. The rest is beside the point, an accident. If the party takes you back, I’ll apologize to you.”
He picked up his valise. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” Franciszek said after him. He stood by the window; he saw Mikołaj leave the house, and walk resolutely down the street. Then his son disappeared around a corner. Again trams, autos went by; over the slippery pavement, when it was empty for a moment, spread the red glow of the neon sign: YOUNG PEOPLE READ … —the only glow above the thick darkness of the city.
X
THE STREET CAME ABRUPTLY TO AN END, AND Franciszek stopped. Farther on there were fields, dilapidated wooden buildings, unkempt yards, and smoking piles of rubbish; in the fields wrecked cars protruded from under the thawing snow; the sun setting behind the distant city walls gleamed red on their rusty bodies. Franciszek looked about him helplessly—he had never before been in this section. Finally he stopped a passer-by. “I beg your pardon; can you direct me to Acacia Street?”
“Over there.”
“Where that tall house is?”
“Yes. I’m going that way myself.”
They walked along a wet path, avoiding puddles. The stranger asked: “Are you going to watch them clear the snow?”
“What are they doing?”
“They’re clearing the snow.”
“Where?”
“From the roof of that very house. My son told me, so I’m going to watch.”
True enough, before the tall building toward which they waded through the slush stood a large throng of spectators, craning their necks. On the roof a man with a shovel was busily tossing piles of snow into the street; the object of the game was to try to hit an unsuspecting passer-by. From a distance they could hear the happy laughs and enthusiastic shouts that greeted each heave of the shovel.
“I beg your pardon,” the stranger said, tipping his cap. “I must drop in to see a friend, he’ll be glad to …” He scrutinized Franciszek’s face. “Are you by chance from Bloc Committee No. 385?”
“Me? What gave you that idea?”
“I’m only asking. We’re expecting a lecturer today, and, seeing that you’re not from this neighborhood, I thought it might be you. He’s going to lecture about the sun or something. They say we’ll be getting electricity from the sun. Do you think that’s possible?”
Franciszek was about to reply when a mad turmoil broke out before the tall house, and both he and his companion turned their heads. The man with the shovel had succeeded in dropping an avalanche of snow on the heads of three passing hunchbacks, who stood dazed, not knowing what had happened to them. The onlookers were delirious with joy; the man on the roof was shouting merrily, triumphantly waving his shovel.
“Is it possible?” the stranger asked thoughtfully.
“What?”
“That electricity business.”
“Yes, certainly … someday. Goodbye.”
“Someday,” the stranger repeated, and walked off. To the accompaniment of the happy clamor, Franciszek continued on his way until he found the house he had been looking for. It was an old tumbledown building; the wind was tearing at pieces of rotten tarpaper on the roof. Surprised by the squalor of the place, Franciszek stood staring for a few moments, then, with a shrug, plunged into the shadows as into dark water. He waded on blindly, groping for the wall—at last he touched its rough ratlike dampness, and drew back his hand in disgust. There was a smell of washing, of children; from an upper floor came the echoes of a quarrel. He struck a match, and looked for the number by the light of its uncertain flame. At last he stopped at a door, and knocked.
No one answered; a woman was shouting loudly on the same floor. Franciszek was about to leave when he thought he heard a rustling noise behind the door. He knocked again, and then again, louder; at last he heard the sound of shuffling feet.
“Who is it?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Is Mr. Zakrzewski at home?”
There was a moment’s silence. “What’s your business?”
“I want to see him.”
“And who are you?”
“Kowalski.”
There was another brief silence. “Wait a minute,” the woman said.
He lighted a cigarette; behind the door the sound of shuffling feet receded. From the street came a roar of rage and a triumphant clamor; once again a shovelful of snow had found its mark. The bolt creaked in the door.
“Come in,” the woman said.
He crossed a small passageway, and entered a room. Behind a table a giant of a man rose from his seat; he was so huge that the time it took him to lift his powerful bulk seemed infinitely long. “You wanted to see me?” he asked.
Franciszek was silent, looking him straight in the eyes. Then he said softly: “Bear—don’t you recognize me?”
“I’m sorry,” the man stammered. “But … my name is Zakrzewsk
i, Wacław Zakrzewski. I’ll … show you … my identity card.”
“Bear,” Franciszek repeated, “is it possible you don’t recognize me? I am Kowalski, Franciszek—‘Skinny’—have you forgotten everything? We fought together in the underground.”
For a long while they regarded each other in silence. The enormous man sat down heavily. “I knew you’d find me someday,” he said in a low voice. “Well, here I am. There’s nothing in life that can be wiped out, nothing can be forgotten …” He raised his head. “May I say goodbye to my wife?”
Franciszek stepped back. “You’re out of your mind,” he said. “What makes you think I’m from the secret police? I just wanted to see you, to find out how you were, to talk to you …” He walked up to him and held out his hand. Bear swerved violently. “Bear,” Franciszek said, looking with horror at his face, which had turned white, “what’s happened to you? Why do I find you like this? Bear …”
“Shh, quiet!” Bear hissed. “Don’t call me by that name. What do you want?”
Franciszek sat down, his hat in his hands. “So this is what you’ve come to,” he said thoughtfully. “Twelve years in Bereza prison before the war for being a Communist; a price put on your head by the Germans; songs written about you in the underground …” He passed his hand over his forehead. “My God,” he whispered, “where am I? Is it a dream? Is it real?” Once again he looked at the other’s huge dead face. He shook his head, and suddenly burst out laughing. “I remember you,” he cried; “I remember that I wanted to be like you; I remember that we were proud of you; I remember the day you were decorated; how we drank home-brew to the health of your medals—Jerzy, myself, everyone else …” He paused, and then asked dully: “What’s happened to you, Bear?”
“Shh, quiet!” Bear hissed. “Just a minute.”
He violently turned the handle of a phonograph and put on a record. A rasping voice came through the horn:
“And Jozio came and brought the doughnuts,
And kissed her hands, and kissed her hands …”