House of Day, House of Night

Home > Other > House of Day, House of Night > Page 33
House of Day, House of Night Page 33

by Olga Tokarczuk


  that she had got fatter since spring. She buttered the bread .

  salted it and handed me a sl ice. Suddenly I felt so hungry t hat I

  278

  O l g a To k a r c z u k

  could have eaten all night without tasting a thing; that terrible

  hunger you feel after smoking grass can only be fully satisfied by

  sleep.

  There's something strange about you,' said Marta suddenly

  and stood up. 'Go to bed.'

  'No. Show me your cellar.'

  'It's just the same as yours.'

  'Never mind. I want to see it.'

  I thought she would refuse, that she'd start making excuses or

  change the subject. But she took the torch I gave her from its

  shelf, and opened the door to the cellar.

  It was similar to ours - uneven stone steps lightly coated in a

  glistening layer of damp, with a large flat stone at the bottom

  that acted as a threshold. Beyond that there was packed-down

  earth, clay, softer than the stones, warmer. Above our heads

  hung a low, semicircular roof, so anyone taller would have had

  to stoop. The walls were made of red blocks of stone, neatly set

  on top of each other, the bones of the house. Marta shone her

  torch on the opposite wall, where I saw a tiny window stuffed

  with straw. Beneath i t stood an open wooden box the length of

  a person, standing on four stones off the ground. Marta had

  lined it with straw mattresses and sheepskins, probably from

  farmer Bobol. A neat pile of bedspreads, coverlets and blankets

  lay at its foot. The torchlight moved into the corner, revealing a

  heap of potatoes.

  'Potatoes for the spring,' she said.

  People usually talk about 'potatoes for the winter', but Marta

  said 'for the spring'.

  That night I dreamed Marta had the buds of membranous

  wings on her shoulders. She pulled down her blouse and

  showed them to me. They were small, still under the skin, and

  crumpled like butterfly wings; they were throbbing gently. 'So

  H o u s e o r D a y, H o u s e o r N i g h t

  27Y

  that's it,' I said, because I was convinced these wi ngs explai ned

  everything.

  This dream carne back to me when we went to the secondhand shop in N owa Ruda together, where Ma na t ried on a cardigan, exactly like the one she already has - grey with buttons up the front and loose buttonholes. She was stand ing in front of the mirror, and as I was trying to straighten somethi ng

  I touched her shoulder. I t was this touch that reawakened my

  dream - the whole dream lay hidden in a single touch, and

  went rippling through me. Marta drew in her already sunken

  cheeks and minced about in front of the mirror; she seemed

  girlish somehow, like a teenager. I stared at the gentle curve or

  her shoulders.

  I felt moved , as if I had discovered a great secret, as if brushing my fingers against Marta's grey cardigan had caused some alien light to pass through me, sharp and ruthless as a laser

  beam. I hung the cardigan back in its place ( Wh

  '

  at do I need

  another cardigan for? I think I've already had all the cardigans in

  the world,' said Marta, smiling) , then helped her to get in the

  front and do up her seatbelt.

  We drove zigzagging up the mountainside, through damp villages and sunny patches of waste ground full o f those tall.

  aromatic plants that the locals call cosm

  '

  i c d i l l ' . Their hu)!,e

  leaves stirred in the wind like wings.

  They're the only plants that fly south for thl' win ter,' said

  Marta and laughed out loud.

  M a r t a 's a w a k e n i n g

  Now I think I know where Marta came from and win she I'>

  never part of our lives in thl' winter hut fi rst appc;m·d 1 11 carlv

  ,

  280

  0 l g a To k a r c z u k

  spring, when we had just arrived and were turning the key in the

  damp-rusted lock.

  She might have woken up in March. At first she lay without

  moving and wasn't even sure if her eyes were open - in any

  case, she was in total darkness. And she didn't try to move,

  because she knew that only her mind was awake, while her

  body was still sleeping; one careless moment would be enough

  to slip back into torpor again, into those winding labyrinths of

  sensations just as real as the feeling of lying here in the dark,

  more real even, infinitely more real , colourful and sensory. But

  somehow Marta knew that she had woken up, and that she was

  somewhere different than before.

  First she was aware of the smell of the cellar - safe and damp,

  the smell of mushrooms and wet hay, a smell that reminded her

  of summer.

  Her body took a long time to come back from sleep, until

  finally she discovered that her eyes were open, because the darkness was becoming discernible in varying shades and degrees of intensity. She let her gaze go sliding across that wealth of blackness, back and forth, up and down. Only much, much later, by looking at a patch that was growing brighter, did she perceive

  that there was daylight outside. It was shining through chinks in

  the straw that plugged up the cellar window. This light went out

  and appeared again, and it occurred to her that a day must have

  gone by.

  Only then did she feel a chill from somewhere in the distance, from the far ends of her body. She came out to meet it by moving her toes, or at least she thought she was moving them.

  After a while her feet responded - they were cold. Then gradually she woke up the whole of her body, summoning it back to life as if reading the roll of the dead, and in turn , bit by bit, the

  parts of her body responded: here, here, here.

  H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f !' i g h t

  28 1

  Twice she tried to get up, but twice her body eluded her ami

  fell back against the boards; she thought she was sitting up, but

  she wasn't. The third time she managed to hold her body up. or

  perhaps to hold on to it as well , and from then on she felt moderately secure. Step by step she reached the door, and spent a long time grappling with the iron handle. Her fingers were as

  weak as spring potato sprouts. The wet stone steps led her

  slowly up to the hall, where she saw real light coming through

  the chinks in the door, and had to shield her eyes.

  Frost had corroded the walls of the house, which were now

  sweating like a sick man. Dust speckled with mouse droppings

  lay on the floor. She sat down on one of the chairs i n the

  kitchen, which like everything else was thawing out, emanating

  a chill, so she made an effort to stand up and fetch a heater

  from a drawer in the sideboard. She pumped up a little water

  and turned the tap - a muddy, reddish liquid poured out of i t ,

  like watered-down blood. She washed her face in it and filled a

  mug. Soon she had the mug full of boiling water and was warming her hands on it. She drank it sip by sip, like a cure for death , and felt herself slowly beginning t o thaw from the inside a s her

  body returned to life.

  That day Marta went outside as well. The front door was still

  damp from the recent frost and, like e'erything, smelled of

  mushrooms and water. There were still patches o f dirty snow

  lying about
in the garden. The sun was n ibbling away at the

  edges of these decaying snowy omelettes. Soggy, rotting grass.

  and what had once been nasturtiums, asters and night -�centrd

  stocks were sticking out from under them.

  Anxiously she looked up at the sky - it was wreat hed in lo\,

  scudding clouds, through which the sun was shining m-er the

  forest. As every year, Marta was amazed that the sun could han·

  moved so far round and was now cast ing long shadow-, that

  282

  O l g a To k a r c z u k

  provided a refuge for the snow. She went back into the hall and

  put on her gumboots, which were cold and damp, then set off

  behind the house, across the garden and the damage done to it

  by the winter and the darkness. She leaned over the cabbage

  heads that had been so solid and handsome in the autumn, but

  were now slimy, rotten little heaps. There was nothing left of the

  sunflowers, though that summer, as usual, they looked as if

  nothing could possibly overpower their mighty stalks and leonine heads, their faces darkened by the sun. The fence they grew against was leaning, soaked in the ubiquitous water. Then she

  took a look at her orchard full of old apple and plum trees. A

  huge branch had broken off the sweetest cherry tree. The lush

  orchard, rich in tall grass and large cushions of greenery, as she

  remembered it, was no longer there. Now it reminded her of a

  graveyard. The bare trees looked like crosses, and the sheaves of

  flattened grass like graves. Marta hated the damp as much as the

  winter and the darkness. The water was dishonest. She felt that

  she could stand up to it, but only when it was being i tself and

  wasn't pretending to be something else. When it was flowing

  down the stream you could cup it in your hands and bring it to

  your face, but most of the time water made i tself invisible by

  infiltrating the plants and other objects. Then it would sink in,

  coating them in a layer of frost and killing them, or else it hung

  in the clouds like an eternal punishment for your sins.

  Marta went back inside because the cold had returned to her

  body. She stood on the steps for a while to see the rest of the

  valley.

  The mountains looked monotonous - olive green and black,

  they were the colour of water too. Wherever the ground was

  cooler the snow was still lying. Out of all four chimneys only

  Whatsisname's was smoking. In front of the house where the

  Frosts used to live there was a blue car, and two people were

  H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o I ! i g h t

  283

  chatting on the wooden terrace. Marta shivered, went back into

  the kitchen and set about lighting the stove.

  T i dy i n g u p t h e a t t i c

  Now that it's autumn, I spent all day tidying up the attic. I was

  putting summer things away in boxes, with mothballs between

  the layers of clothes, and newspaper stuffed into the shoes,

  which I packed in paper bags. It turned out that I hadn't worn

  many of the dresses at all - there had been no occasion to. They

  were hanging in the wardrobe, but they had still aged through

  the months of june, july and August. I could sec that they were

  wearing out, going at the seams, softening and getting older all

  by themselves without my input . And there was a sort of beauty

  in it, the opposite of ripening, a beauty that appears without

  anyone's help. Sandal leather goes black, softens and stretches,

  straps wear thin, buckles rust, the colour of a favouri te blouse

  fades, or the sleeves of a shirt fray at the cuffs. I've seen what

  happens to paper with time - it goes stiff and yellow, it seems to

  go dry and age in a completely human way. I've seen how hallpoint pens start running out and pencils get shorter, until one day to our amazement we find that a small stump is all that's left

  of that fine long pencil of a year ago. I've seen how glass loses its

  lustre, like the cloudy wardrobe mi rror that was so dazzling for

  years on end.

  For some reason people have developed a li king for only one

  sort of transformation. They arc fond of increase and dcn·lllpmen t, but not decrease and disintegration. T hey pre fer ripen ing to decay. They like things to be younger and younger, more and

  more juicy, fresh and unripe; they like things that arc not vet

  fully moulded, still a bit angular, driwn by a powerful -,pring ol

  284

  0 I g a To k a r c z u k

  potential, always the moment before , never after. They like

  young women, new houses with fresh plaster, new books

  smelling of printer's ink, and new cars that are really just variations on a familiar theme for those in the know. They like the latest technology, the gleam of freshly polished metal, newly

  bought objects brought home in fancy packaging, the rustle of

  smooth cellophane, the tension of virgin string. They like brand

  new banknotes - even if they don't fit in their wallets, clean

  plastic surfaces that won't go yellow for years, polished tabletops without the slightest trace of a mark, empty spaces yet to be cultivated, smooth cheeks, the expression 'anything can happen'

  (who bothers to add the words 'in vain'?) , green peas forced

  from their pods, astrakhan fur, flowers in bud, innocent puppies,

  baby goats, newly cut planks that haven't yet forgotten the shape

  of the tree, and bright green grass oblivious of corn spikes.

  People like what's new and has never existed before. The new !

  The new !

  N o w a R u d a

  Nowa Ruda is a town full of hairdressers, second-hand clothes

  shops and men whose eyelids are coated in coal dust. It's a town

  built in valleys, on slopes and hilltops, a town of small bridges

  slung casually across a little river that appears and disappears,

  always a different, more fashionable colour. it's a town full of

  statues of Saint John, adulterated perfumes, self-service cafes,

  shoddy goods painstakingly arranged in shop windows; a town

  of damp patches on the walls of houses, windows from which

  only the feet of passers-by are visible, and labyrinthine courtyards; an end-of-the-road town, a place where you change trains on a journey; a town of stray dogs, secret passageways, blind

  H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f � i g h t

  2H5

  alleys and mysterious symbols above the front doors of houses:

  a town of red brick buildings, elliptical roundabouts, crooked

  crossroads, bypasses leading to the centre, marketplaces on t he

  outskirts, steps that start and finish on the same le'el , sharp

  turns that straighten roads, and forks where the left branch leads

  right and the right branch left. I t's t he town with the shortest

  summer, where the snow never melts e nt i rely; a t own o f

  evenings that set i n abruptly from beh ind t h e mountains and

  land on the houses like a monstrous butterOy net; a town of

  watery ice cream, little shops that sell cows bones, lady clencal

  '

  workers with garish make-up, and drunken mothers with babies

  in prams. It's a town dreaming that it's in the Pyrenees, t hat the

  sun never sets on it, that all the people who've left will he back

  one day, and that there are underground tunn
els from the

  German era leading to Prague, Vrodaw and Dresden. It's a fragment town, a Silesian , Prussian, Czech, Austro-Hungarian and Polish town , a town on the outskirts. It's a town ful l of people

  who all think of each other by their first names, but address each

  other as 'Sir' and 'Madam'; a town of desolate Sat urdays and

  Sundays, where time drifts by, news is late and names arc got

  wrong. Despite its name, derived from the G erman J'.:cu rodc,

  there's nothing new in it, and if somet h ing new were to appear it

  would immediately be coated in fil t h , it would go black and sit

  mouldering on the edge of existence.

  T h e fo u n d e r

  The founder of Nowa Rucla was Tiintzel, whose profc-;�inn wa�

  knife-making, so he was known as Messerschmied. I k m.Hlr

  knives for killing, cut ting hair, tanning h ides, clwpp1ng

  cabbage, cu tting straps out of leather, marking t ree� tn he felled.

  286

  0 I g a To k a r c z u k

  and even for carving figures and decorations out of wood.

  It was a good profession , and everyone respected Tuntzel

  Messerschmied. But in the settlement where he lived there was

  another knife-maker with the same skills as him. As Tuntzel

  was the younger, he bought a horse and packed all his possessions on a cart, including his tools, his whetstone, clothes chests, a few pots, skins and woollen blankets, and his heavily pregnant

  wife.

  On the other side of the mountains lay fertile valleys and rich

  forests full of spruce trees so tall that they scratched the surface

  of the sky. These forests were teeming with villages, some of

  which would be sure to need a knife-maker, so Tuntzel aimed

  straight for the midday sun. For several days they wandered

  along forest paths, until they stopped by a stream where

  Tuntzel's wife began to give birth. With h is best knife Tuntzel

  cut the child's umbilical cord, but at daybreak his wife died without a word, and the child died immediately after. Tuntzel kicked the tree trunks in despair and screamed in rage and misery. Why

  did I set off like a fool? he thought, why did I go barging off into

  an alien world? Vhere am I to bury my wife now? In the forest

  like an animal? The horse gazed at him, hanging its head forlornly. Tuntzel's cries brought some woodcutters who were felling trees nearby, and they helped him to bury his wife and

 

‹ Prev