Priceless

by Zygmunt Miloszewski

  An unforgettable experience.

  Lisa was already asleep when Anatol went out onto the terrace, just as he had the night before. There, beautifully illuminated and festively decorated, lay Rovinj, reflected in the rippling water. On the right among the trees he could see the black block of Milewski’s residence, or “the house on the hill.”

  He couldn’t see any lights on in the windows. But he could clearly hear the nonstop rattle of a typewriter and quickly learned its rhythm. First there was monotonous tapping, then a dry crack to start a new line, followed by more tapping. For dialogue there was less tapping and more cracks. The moments of silence either meant he was pausing to think or changing the paper.

  Anatol went back to bed. He left the window open so the gentle tapping would lull him to sleep. Just as he was dozing off, he thought you’d either have to be a masochist or a pretentious hack to use a typewriter in the twenty-first century.

  10

  In a few minutes, a battered Lada drove them from their hotel to the right address, demanding twenty hryvnia in exchange—the comical sum of one dollar. They got out in front of a two-story apartment house, which looked like many of the buildings in Kraków or Vienna.

  Olga Bortnik lived on the raised ground floor. Her granddaughter—they still didn’t know her name—was waiting in the doorway to the apartment, and without a word she waved them inside before they’d had time to look around the entrance hall. All Karol noticed there was an unpleasant, musty odor.

  Whereas the apartment smelled of roasted meat, gingerbread, and old person. Karol realized that the old lady must live with her granddaughter; he sincerely doubted that a hundred-year-old could still buzz around the kitchen.

  “We’re very grateful to you—” Zofia began, but the granddaughter waved it off.

  Karol figured the granddaughter must have started looking after her in hopes of inheriting the apartment, which seemed quite nice and spacious.

  The granddaughter took their coats and led them down a corridor into the living room. Zofia went first, but she stopped in the doorway and stepped back. Karol steeled himself for the dreadful sight of someone looking more like a corpse than a living person.

  He looked in. Then stepped back.

  In the living room was a monster.

  Hanging in front of his face was a huge head with bloodshot red eyes, gorilla nostrils, and long, drooping ears. The dog-like head was covered in gray fur with ears that looked like a spaniel’s. The head ran on into a fuzzy, stuffed snake, which was suspended from the ceiling, and nearly coiled around the entire living room.

  It was truly unusual and horrible. Karol frowned, because the monster seemed familiar and somehow stirred pleasant childhood memories.

  “It’s Falkor!” he suddenly exclaimed.

  “Sorry?” said Zofia, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Falkor from The NeverEnding Story, don’t you remember? The boy starts reading a book about a world that’s being consumed by The Nothing, and he’s helped by, I think it’s a dragon, but it’s more like a flying dog, named Falkor. Do you really not remember? And when he told him to scratch him behind the ear, or the song by that peroxide guy out of Kajagoogoo . . . Or the part when his beloved horse dies in the swamp? That was the most moving thing from my childhood! The boy pulls the horse, and at first he thinks it’s being lazy and makes fun of it, then he tries to help it, but it’s quietly sinking deeper and deeper, and by then the boy knows he can’t save it. He begs it to try and not to give in to sadness . . . because it’s the Swamp of Sadness, you see? And he tells it he loves it—”

  “Karol, you’re frightening me. Stop it.”

  “You don’t understand. I cried all week when the horse—”

  “Artax,” replied a voice from the back of the room.

  And from behind the dusty Falkor, Olga Bortnik emerged in an electric wheelchair.

  She didn’t look one hundred years old. Karol would have given her eighty or eighty-five. Her once-black hair was now smoky silver, tied in a short braid. Her eyebrows were as black as ever, and below them her eyes were amazing.

  In the old black-and-white photo that Serhiy had shown them, her eyes had dissolved in shades of gray. In real life, they were alert, bright, laughing, and youthful. They were also such an unusual color that Karol found himself thinking they were the most striking eyes he’d ever seen—such a deep shade of blue that it bordered on purple.

  He smiled at those eyes and took in the sight of the woman in the wheelchair.

  She was dressed in a fine, sweeping black robe, tied in a knot at the bottom to keep it from getting caught in her wheels. Around her neck was a long string of pearls and a fur stole, which mercifully covered up her sagging throat. Strangely, her robe was so open that it revealed she was wearing stockings with suspenders and a diaper.

  Karol had to force himself not to look away. He fixed his gaze on the old lady’s sapphire-blue eyes, smiled again, and ran up to kiss her hand.

  “It’s my favorite movie from childhood,” he said.

  “Mine too. My second childhood,” she said.

  “Fourth, more like,” muttered the granddaughter.

  “Natalia, bring some tea for our guests.”

  “Where did you get it?” said Karol, pointing at Falkor, thinking it couldn’t possibly be the original.

  She looked at him with the smile of an old aristocrat. Maybe she hadn’t heard him.

  “Where did you get it?” Karol asked again, leaning toward her, almost shouting.

  “It’s a long story. I had an affair at an advanced age. It was with a very nice gentleman who ran the workshop at a puppet theater in Kiev. He made Falkor for me; he didn’t leave his workshop for three whole months. Just like the real one, don’t you think? Unfortunately he’s no longer alive. He wasn’t a youngster anymore.”

  They heard a loud sigh from the kitchen, presumably proof that Granny Olga’s amorous conquests were an overexploited topic of conversation. The old lady waved and invited them into the depths of the room.

  It was a sort of temple or museum to the golden era of science fiction. On one wall, like Lenin, Marx, and Engels, hung black-and-white portraits of Stanisław Lem, Philip K. Dick, and Isaac Asimov. In between them were posters from Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dune, Star Trek, and the first Solaris directed by Tarkovsky, signed by Lem with a dedication, “For my dear neighbor.” There were models of the USS Enterprise, the Millennium Falcon and a Star Destroyer hanging on fishing lines, and on a plaster Ionian pillar—the kind on which old people usually have a potted plant—stood a figure of Yoda, the size of a one-year-old boy.

  “I have my theory about aliens,” said Mrs. Bortnik.

  Karol wondered if maybe they were dealing with a lunatic.

  “Aliens are people from the future, you see? One day mankind will invent a time machine and start looking into the past, and for the people of the future who travel back in time, it will be painful to observe death and destruction and not be able to do anything, because taking action would mean affecting the continuum. It won’t be a job for the faint of heart.”

  Natalia put a tray with tea and cheesecake onto the table with a crash, making it clear that she wanted the prattling to come to an end.

  “Why are you interested in Henryk?” asked Mrs. Bortnik, once they’d told her the reason for their visit.

  “Because of his art collection,” replied Zofia. “We suspect he acquired a unique collection of paintings in the 1920s from Count Milewski on his island in what was then part of Italy. Do you happen to know if Henryk had those paintings, and what became of them?”

  The old woman turned toward the window, and her eyes misted over. They didn’t want to press her; they figured her memory had faded.

  “How intriguing,” she said, turning back toward them. “Whenever I mocked his love of art, he’d say I didn’t appreciate it. That we would depart this life, but art would remain. That the more of it there is, the better people can see what be
auty and goodness they’re capable of, and the harder it will be for them to tolerate evil. And so it has to be cherished. So said Henryk at the last Christmas before the war—we were sitting naked in this very room. A Jew who didn’t believe in God but believed in art and the goodness of mankind. But in the end he’s gone, the art has gone, and the notion of the goodness of mankind went up in smoke in Auschwitz; now there’s nothing left but an old woman who has never believed in anything but the ars amandi.”

  Natalia sighed again.

  “Henryk was the love of my life. It was real love, the kind that only happens once. Everything before it just a prelude, everything after a poor imitation. You, my turtle doves, are sure to know what I’m talking about.”

  “We’re not a couple,” said Zofia.

  The old woman giggled, spraying saliva on her stole. Natalia leaned forward and wiped it off with a paper towel.

  “And I think I was the love of his life, but for men it’s not the same. Henryk loved me, but he also loved art, and he loved Poland. He was a patriot, in the positive sense, the kind who wants to nurture the goodness and beauty of the nation, not shed buckets of blood for it. In theory. But when the need arose, he flew off to save his Poland and his art. I was supposed to wait and be positive. But the waiting never ended.”

  “Did you ever see his collection?” asked Zofia.

  “You’re joking, surely? I didn’t just see it, I lived with it, at Henryk’s country mansion, where I ate meals, read books, and experienced sensual delights.”

  Zofia and Karol exchanged excited glances.

  “Is there anything you can tell us about the paintings?” said Zofia.

  “They were pretty.”

  “But whose were they?”

  “Henryk’s, of course.”

  “Yes, but who painted them?” Karol could hear the irritation in Zofia’s calm voice.

  “How on earth should I know?”

  11

  The path leading to the house on the hill snaked between the trees. It was a beautiful day, sunny, around fifty-five degrees. Days like that never happened in December on the other side of the Alps. Anatol was carrying Charlie, who was staring him in the eyes, gesticulating wildly and hooting like a committed right-wing orator. Wendy was carrying a large wicker basket filled with provisions for her husband, and Lisa was exposing her face to the sun, her injured head wrapped in a colorful headscarf with a Croatian folk pattern. Wendy had found it for her in the hotel’s summer storage.

  “Last night he was clacking away for hours. That’s a good sign,” said Wendy, sounding as if Željko slapped her around every time he failed to finish his workload. “Christmas will be peaceful. Peace is the best present of all.”

  Anatol was sorry he didn’t have a gun. Just in case. But then years of military training should be enough to deal with a writer.

  This was definitely the building they were looking for. Anatol knew nothing about architecture, but the small manor was nothing like the surrounding structures. It was a simple block, two stories high, with a steep roof and a facade with hardly any decorative features, excluding the portico.

  Wendy pushed the heavy front door open and cautiously peeked around it. She called something out in Croatian, most likely “Honey, I’m here with the guests!” but it could just as well have been “I’ve brought you some fresh meat!” Nobody responded, which increased Anatol’s fears. Easy does it, he kept telling himself. He’s just a writer; you’re a commando.

  “He’s not answering, but at nine we can go in without permission,” said Wendy.

  So they went in.

  Inside, the building was still like a Polish manor house but dreadfully neglected. There was a cross vault, steps, and an opening onto a cloistered courtyard. The entrance hall still bore traces of its former splendor but nothing else. The former wooden flooring had been replaced with cheap linoleum, the walls were covered with a green dado, and the chandeliers had been replaced with industrial lamps. Against the walls stood armchairs joined in threes, which looked as if they’d been removed from an old movie theater. It was the image of misery and despair, and the owner must have figured there was no point in renovating the old manor—easier to build a new hotel out of breeze-blocks and plywood and make the historic house into a junk room with quarters for the hotel staff.

  Anatol tried to imagine Count Milewski here, but he couldn’t.

  Maybe when they saw the other rooms? The study, the library, and the ballroom.

  He felt weary. There was no way they’d find anything in a building like this. Even the cables would have been ripped out of the walls, and the documents, antiques, keepsakes, and especially the paintings stolen.

  “Željko works in the mirrored hall,” said Wendy.

  Wendy opened a tall double door; it must have been beautiful once, but now it was coated in flaking oil paint, revealing older layers underneath. She shouted something.

  They went inside.

  The hall was empty, apart from a chair and a large desk with an old typewriter. On either side were stacks of paper, confirming Anatol’s belief that Željko wasn’t a real man of letters but a crazy person convinced that he was producing a masterpiece. A writer needs a workroom, not a pretentious museum exhibit.

  “We mustn’t go up to the typewriter,” whispered Wendy.

  Anatol didn’t need to go any closer to know what was written on all the sheets of paper. All work and no play makes Željko a dull boy.

  Then came the roar of a flushing toilet, a creaking door. And there stood the Croatian man of letters. He was a giant, six foot six, fat and bald, with a long black beard and paws the size of snow shovels. He’d have crushed Anatol like a gingerbread man.

  Luckily he was a friendly giant.

  “Take a look around,” he said, once they’d explained the purpose of their visit. “You’re from Poland; you know the fate of aristocrats’ former residences in this part of Europe—they get turned into children’s homes, summer camps, grain stores, collective farm offices, or in the best case libraries, cultural centers, or local museums of fire and brimstone. There’s nothing here.”

  “Wendy said you walk around these rooms a lot. You haven’t seen anything?”

  The giant cast his wife a look of reproach but beamed with joy the moment Charlie ran up and collided with his enormous belly. The Croatian sat on a stool with his legs apart, and the little boy kept running up and crashing with all his might, bouncing off his dad’s big belly like a ball. The stupid game was clearly a source of great joy for them.

  “Don’t forget nobody’s looked after the place. I’ve seen old gym mats, metal bed frames with the enamel peeling off, boxes of old invoices, tiles falling off the walls, and a rat the size of a cat.”

  Anatol and Lisa exchanged weary glances. This was a waste of time.

  “Ask at the city administration,” suggested Željko. “Some archives or old papers may have ended up there. I’d help you, but I’m at a crucial moment. My hero, who hasn’t been able to tell the difference between when he’s asleep and when he’s awake, has finally realized that violence is the only thing that gives him a sense of reality. Violence makes him certain that what’s happening is real. So he has to become more and more wicked and evil . . .”

  “What an interesting concept,” mumbled Lisa.

  “Isn’t it?” said the writer, pleased. “I’ve titled it The Pain of the Truth of Suffering.”

  Anatol just nodded. He felt disappointment, though he shouldn’t. The hope of finding anything in a place where Milewski had ceased to call the shots almost a hundred years ago was plain stupid. He looked around the “mirrored hall,” probably named for the old columns covered with mirror tiles, in the style of a 1980s nightclub.

  From Zofia’s account he’d never expected it to be ordinary. Instead he’d imagined a romantic castle with towers and secret passages, where guests are greeted at the entrance by a massive statue of the Count. But here he was in a run-of-the-mill mansion, where everyt
hing was normal and boring. How could the crazy Count have had such an unremarkable residence built for him?

  The burly king of suffering and violence glanced at his watch.

  “Well,” said Lisa. “Maybe we can try in town.”

  “Charlie, let’s go,” said Wendy, holding a hand out to the boy, who immediately shot off in the opposite direction, hooting.

  “Hesgone wheredego hesgone wheredego,” Charlie repeated over and over, shielding his eyes and hitting his small hand against the mirrored surface of one of the walls.

  “What does he mean? He wants to hide inside the mirror?” asked Lisa.

  “He wants to play ‘hesgone wheredego,’ meaning hide-and-seek.”

  “But why is he hiding in the mirror?”

  “The door into the theater is over there; there’s a curtain, it’s his favorite place.”

  “Hesgone wheredego . . . he’s here!” shouted the excited Charlie, pointing at an enormous mirror.

  Lisa and Anatol exchanged glances.

  12

  Olga Bortnik could seem mentally alert with her jokes about her love life. But she had a habit of suddenly drifting to another topic, and also into bouts of amnesia, which even she noticed, though they all pretended nothing was amiss.

  Their attempts to extract even a decent description of one of the paintings that had hung on the walls in Aszkenazy’s residence at Podhorce misfired. She remembered what they had eaten (goose), what they had drunk (Crimean brandy), where they had made love (where hadn’t they?), and what the weather was like. But the paintings? Boring, some men in frock coats; unlike Hein—that was her name for Aszkenazy—she didn’t believe the meaning of life was held in portraits of people staring into space.

  “Wait, I do remember one, because I liked it,” she said and broke off as her misty gaze wandered. “It was different from the others. Not just different from Henryk’s, but from all the paintings I’d ever seen. But I may not have seen all that many—I had other interests in those days. But anyhow, I knew it was different.”

  Then, five minutes of silence.