I don’t think I was particularly helpful to him. He was far better than I was, his intelligence was faster, digital, I’d say; mine remained analogue. He cottoned on quickly and was able to look at a translated sentence from a completely different angle, to leave aside unnecessary attachment to a word, but to bounce off it and come back with something completely new and beautiful. I always passed him the salt cellar, because I have a Theory that salt is very good for the transmission of nerve impulses across the synapses. And he learned to plunge a saliva-coated finger into it, and then lick off the salt. I had forgotten most of my English by now; swallowing the entire Wieliczka salt mine couldn’t have helped me, and besides, I soon found such laborious work boring. I was at a complete loss.
How does one translate a rhyme that small children might use to start a game, instead of constantly reciting ‘Eeny meeny miny moe’:
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born,
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.
This is Blake’s most famous verse. It’s impossible to translate it into Polish without losing the rhythm, rhyme and child-like brevity. Dizzy tried many times, and it was like solving a charade.
Now he’d had his soup; it warmed him so much his cheeks were flushed. His hair was full of static electricity from his hat, and he had a funny little halo around his head.
That evening we found it hard to focus on translation. I was tired and feeling very anxious. I couldn’t think.
‘What’s wrong with you? You’re absent-minded today,’ said Dizzy.
I agreed with him. The pains were weaker but hadn’t entirely left me. The weather was awful, windy and rainy. When the foehn wind blows it’s hard to concentrate.
‘What Demon hath form’d this abominable void?’ asked Dizzy.
Blake suited the mood that evening: we felt as if the sky had sunk very low over the Earth, and hadn’t left much space or much air for living Creatures to survive. Low, dark clouds had been scudding across the sky all day, and now, late in the evening, they were rubbing their wet bellies against the hills.
I tried persuading him to stay the Night, as he sometimes did – then I would make up a bed for him on the sofa in my small study, switch on the electric heater and leave the door open to the room where I slept – so that we could hear each other’s breathing. But today he couldn’t. Sleepily rubbing his brow, he explained that the police station was switching to a new computer system; I didn’t really want to know the details, what mattered was that he had a lot of work to do as a result. He had to be on site early in the morning. And there were the slushy roads to negotiate.
‘How will you get there?’ I fretted.
‘Once I reach the asphalt I’ll be fine.’
I didn’t like the idea of him going. I threw on two fleeces and a hat. We both had yellow rubber raincoats, making us look like dwarves. Under his coat, Dizzy wore a flimsy jacket that hung on him loosely; although we had tried to dry his boots on the radiator, they were still soaking wet. I walked with him to the dirt road, and I would have been happy to escort him to his car. But he didn’t want me to. We said goodbye on the dirt road, and I was already heading for home when he shouted after me.
He was pointing towards the Pass. Something was shining over there, feebly. Strange.
I turned back.
‘What can it be?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘Maybe someone’s prowling over there with a torch?’
‘Come on, let’s check.’ He grabbed me by the hand and pulled me along, like a boy scout on the trail of a mystery.
‘Now, at Night? Don’t be silly, it’s wet over there,’ I said, surprised by his obstinacy. ‘Perhaps Oddball lost a torch and it’s lying over there, shining.’
‘That’s not the light of a torch,’ said Dizzy, and headed off.
I tried to stop him. I grabbed his hand, but all that was left in mine was his glove. ‘Dionizy, no, let’s not go there. Please.’
Something must have taken possession of him, because he didn’t react at all.
‘I’m staying here,’ I said, trying to blackmail him.
‘Fine, you go home, I’ll go and check on my own. Maybe something’s happened. Off you go.’
‘Dizzy!’ I shouted angrily.
He didn’t answer.
So I went after him, shining a torch for us, picking out of the darkness clear patches in which every colour had vanished. The clouds were so low that one could hook onto them and let oneself be carried away to a distant land, to the south, to warmer climes. There one could jump down straight into the olive groves, or at least the vineyards in Moravia, where delicious green wine is made. Meanwhile, our feet were getting bogged down in the semi-liquid slush, as the rain tried to push its way under our hoods and slap us in the face.
Finally we saw it.
In the Pass stood a car, a large off-road vehicle. All the doors were open, and a feeble inside light was shining. I remained a few metres away, afraid to approach it; I felt as if I were going to burst into tears at any moment like a child, out of fear and nervous strain. Dizzy took the torch from me and slowly approached the car. He lit up the interior. The car was empty. On the back seat lay a black briefcase, and there were some carrier bags too, maybe full of shopping.
‘You know what,’ said Dizzy quietly, dragging out each syllable, ‘I recognise this car. It’s our Commandant’s Toyota.’
Now he was sweeping the area immediately surrounding the car with the torch beam. It was standing at a point where the road turned left. On the right-hand side there was dense brushwood; before the war there had been a house and a windmill here. Now there were some overgrown ruins and a large walnut tree, to which the Squirrels came running in autumn from all over the neighbourhood.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Look what’s on the snow!’
The torchlight picked out some strange tracks – masses of round spots the size of coins; they were absolutely everywhere, all around the car and on the road. And there were also the prints of men’s boots with thick, ridged soles. They were clearly visible because the snow was melting and dark water was seeping into every footprint.
‘Those are hoof prints,’ I said, kneeling and closely examining the small, round marks. ‘They’re deer prints. Do you see?’
But Dizzy was looking the other way, towards a spot where the soggy snow had been trodden down, stamped completely flat. The torchlight glided on, towards the undergrowth, and shortly after I heard his cry. He was leaning over the top of an old well standing among the bushes, beside the road.
‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ he repeated mechanically, which threw me right off balance. Obviously, no god was going to come and put things to rights. ‘My God, there’s someone here,’ he whined.
Lying in the shallow well there was a body, head down, twisted. Behind an arm, part of the face was visible, horrible, covered in blood, with its eyes open. A pair of boots was sticking up, hefty ones, with thick soles. The well had been filled in years ago and was shallow, just a pit. I myself had once covered it with branches to stop the Dentist’s Sheep from falling in.
Dizzy kneeled down and touched the boots helplessly, stroking their uppers.
‘Don’t touch,’ I whispered.
My heart was thumping like mad. I felt as if any moment now the blood-stained head would turn towards us, the whites of the eyes would shine through the streams of caked blood, the lips would move and utter a word, and then the whole of this burly body would slowly scramble up again, come back to life, enraged by its own death, furious, and seize me by the throat.
‘Perhaps he’s still alive,’ said Dizzy mournfully.
I prayed that he was not.
There we stood, chilled to the bone and stricken with horror. Dizzy was trembling as if having a fit; I was worried about him. His teeth were chattering. We embraced each other, and Dizzy began to weep.
&n
bsp; Water was pouring from the sky and streaming from the ground – it felt as if the earth were a vast sponge saturated in cold water.
‘We’ll catch pneumonia,’ said Dizzy, snivelling.
‘Come away from there. Let’s go and see Oddball, he’ll know what to do. Let’s get away from here. Let’s not stop here,’ I suggested.
We headed back, clinging to each other clumsily, like wounded soldiers. I could feel my head burning with sudden, anxious thoughts, I could almost see them steaming in the rain, changing into a white cloud and joining the black ones. As we walked along, slipping on the sodden ground, words came to my lips that I urgently wanted to share with Dizzy. I longed to say them aloud, but for the moment I couldn’t bring them out. They were eluding me. I didn’t know where to start.
‘Jesus Christ,’ sobbed Dizzy. ‘It’s the Commandant, I saw his face. It was him.’
I had always cared about Dizzy very much, and I didn’t want him to take me for a lunatic. Not him. Once we had reached Oddball’s house, I plucked up my courage and decided to go ahead and tell him what I was thinking.
‘Dizzy,’ I said, ‘it’s Animals taking revenge on people.’
Dizzy always believes me, but this time he wasn’t listening to me at all.
‘It’s not as strange as it sounds,’ I continued. ‘Animals are strong and wise. We don’t realise how clever they are. There was a time when Animals were tried in court. Some were even convicted.’
‘What are you saying? What are you saying?’ he gibbered vacantly.
‘I once read about some Rats that were sued for causing a lot of damage, but the case was deferred because they never showed up for the hearings. Finally the court appointed them a defence lawyer.’
‘Christ, what are you on about?’
‘I think it was in France, in the sixteenth century,’ I carried on. ‘I don’t know how it ended and whether they were convicted.’
Suddenly he stopped, gripped me tightly by the arms and shook me. ‘You’re in shock. What on earth are you on about?’
I knew very well what I was saying. I decided to check the facts as soon as I had the chance.
Oddball loomed from behind the fence wearing a head torch. In its light his face looked weird and cadaverous. ‘What’s happened? Why are you walking about at night?’ he asked in the tone of a sentry.
‘The Commandant’s over there, he’s dead. By his car,’ said Dizzy, his teeth chattering, and pointed behind him.
Oddball opened his mouth and moved his lips without making a sound. I was starting to think he really had lost the power of speech, but after a long pause he said: ‘I saw that great big car of his today. It was bound to end like that. He was driving under the influence. Have you called the Police?’
‘Must we?’ I asked, with Dizzy’s agitation in mind.
‘You’ve found a body. You’re witnesses.’
He went over to the phone, and soon after we heard him calmly reporting a man’s death.
‘I’m not going back there,’ I said, and I knew Dizzy wouldn’t either.
‘He’s lying in a well. Feet up. Head down. Covered in blood. There are footprints everywhere. Tiny ones, like deer hooves,’ gabbled Dizzy.
‘There’ll be a fuss because it’s a policeman,’ said Oddball drily. ‘I hope you didn’t tread on the prints. You probably watch crime films, don’t you?’
We went into his warm, bright kitchen, while he waited for the Police outside. We didn’t exchange another word. We sat on the chairs like wax figures, motionless. My thoughts were racing like those heavy rain clouds.
The Police arrived in a jeep about an hour later. Last to get out of the car was Black Coat.
‘Oh, hello, Dad, yes, I thought you’d be here,’ he said sarcastically, and poor Oddball was extremely embarrassed.
Black Coat greeted the three of us with a soldierly handshake, as if we were boy scouts and he were our team leader. We had just done a good deed, and he was thanking us. Though he cast a suspicious glance at Dizzy and asked: ‘Don’t we know each other?’
‘Yes, but only by sight. I work at the police station.’
‘He’s my friend. He comes to see me on Fridays, because we’re translating Blake together,’ I hastened to explain.
Black Coat looked at me with distaste and politely asked us to get into the police car with him. When we reached the Pass, the policemen cordoned off the area around the well with plastic tape and switched on floodlights. It was raining, and in the brilliant light the raindrops became long silver threads, like angel hair on a Christmas tree.
We spent the whole morning at police headquarters, all three of us, though in fact Oddball did not deserve to be there at all. He was alarmed, and I had a tremendous sense of guilt for dragging him into it.
We were interrogated as if we had murdered the Commandant with our own hands. Luckily they had an unusual coffee machine at this police station that also made hot chocolate. I liked it very much, and it instantly put me to rights, although in view of my Ailments I should have been more cautious.
By the time we were taken home it was well past noon. The stove had gone out, so I toiled away to relight it.
I fell asleep on the couch. Fully dressed. I hadn’t brushed my teeth. I slept like the dead, and shortly before dawn, when the darkness was still at full strength outside, I suddenly heard a strange noise. I thought the central-heating furnace had stopped working, and that its gentle hum had ceased. I threw on a coat and went downstairs. I opened the door to the boiler room.
There stood my Mother, in a flowery summer frock, with a handbag slung over her shoulder. She was anxious and confused.
‘For God’s sake, what are you doing here, Mummy?’ I shouted in surprise.
She opened her mouth as if to answer, and tried moving her lips for a while, but did not produce any sound. Then she gave up. Her eyes roamed fitfully across the walls and ceiling of the boiler room. She didn’t know where she was. Once again she tried to say something, and once again she gave up.
‘Mummy,’ I whispered, trying to catch her fugitive gaze.
I was angry with her, for she had died a long time ago, and that’s not how long-gone mothers should behave.
‘How did you end up here? This is no place for you,’ I began to reproach her, but I was overcome by intense grief. She cast me a frightened look, then her eyes began to wander the walls, totally confused.
I realised that I had unintentionally brought her here from somewhere else – it was my fault she was here.
‘Be off with you, Mummy,’ I said gently.
But she wasn’t listening to me; perhaps she couldn’t even hear me. Her gaze refused to stop on me. Exasperated, I slammed the boiler room door shut, and then stood on the other side, listening. All I could hear was rustling, something like the scratching of Mice or Woodworm in the timber.
I returned to the sofa. In the morning it all came back to me as soon as I awoke.
VI
TRIVIA AND BANALITIES
The wild deer, wand’ring here & there
Keeps the Human Soul from Care.
Oddball was probably made for a life of solitude, just as I was, but there was no way for our separate solitudes to be united. After these dramatic events everything went back to its old ways. Spring came, so Oddball energetically set about cleaning, and in the seclusion of his workshop was sure to be getting various Tools ready, which he’d use in the summer to make my life unpleasant – such as an electric saw, a garden shredder, and the gadget I hated most of all: a lawnmower.
Sometimes during my ritual daily rounds I would see his slim, hunched figure, but always from afar. Once I even waved to him from the hilltop, but he didn’t answer. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed me.
In early March I had another, acute Attack, and the thought crossed my mind of calling Oddball or shambling over there to knock at his door. My stove had gone out, but I hadn’t enough strength to go down to the boiler room, which had never been a pleasure. I pr
omised myself that when my clients came to visit their houses in the summer I would tell them that unfortunately I wasn’t going to take the job on again next year. And that this might be my last year here. Perhaps before next winter I would have to move back to my little flat on Więzienna Street in Wrocław, right by the university, from where one can watch the River Oder for hours on end as it hypnotically, insistently pumps its waters northwards.
Luckily Dizzy came by and got the old stove going again. He went to the woodshed and fetched a wheelbarrow full of logs saturated with March damp that gave off a lot of smoke, but little warmth. From a jar of pickled gherkins and the remains of some vegetables he managed to make a delicious soup.
I lay up for several days, subdued by my body’s rebellions. I patiently endured fits of numbness in my legs, and the unbearable sensation of fire burning within them. I pissed red, and can confirm that a toilet bowl filled with red liquid is a dreadful sight. I drew the curtains, for I could not bear the bright March light reflected off the snow. Pain lashed my brain.
I have a Theory. It’s that an awful thing has happened – our cerebellum has not been correctly connected to our brain. This could be the worst mistake in our programming. Someone has made us badly. This is why our model ought to be replaced. If our cerebellum were connected to our brain, we would possess full knowledge of our own anatomy, of what was happening inside our bodies. Oh, we’d say to ourselves, the level of potassium in my blood has fallen. My third cervical vertebra is feeling tension. My blood pressure is low today, I must move about. Yesterday’s egg mayonnaise has sent my cholesterol level too high so I must watch what I eat today.
We have this body of ours, a troublesome piece of luggage, we don’t really know anything about it and we need all sorts of Tools to find out about its most natural processes. Isn’t it scandalous that the last time a doctor wanted to check what was happening in my stomach he made me have a gastroscopy? I had to swallow a thick tube, and it took a camera to reveal the inside of my stomach to us. The only coarse and primitive Tool gifted us for consolation is pain. The angels, if they really do exist, must be splitting their sides laughing at us. Fancy being given a body and not knowing anything about it. There’s no instruction manual.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Page 7