Joyful

by Robert Hillman

  Daniel led the way to a table in the beer garden at the back of the pub where he could smoke. A poster appealing for information about a missing girl was taped to one of the posts supporting the roof covering; Leon had seen the poster all over town. Daniel kissed the tips of two fingers and touched them to the lips of the girl’s picture before sitting down.

  ‘Nice to see you, my friend, nice to see you.’

  ‘I have a proposal,’ said Leon, and without any explanation placed the sheet of A4 on the table by Daniel’s folded forearms. Daniel shifted his gaze lazily to the sheet without attempting to read. He lifted his glass and sipped, dragged on his cigarette, blew the smoke from the corner of his mouth. Every gesture conveyed a quality of contempt softened or even denied by his smile, which seemed perfectly genial.

  ‘Drink,’ he said to Leon, who hadn’t yet raised his glass. Leon sipped, then took his handkerchief from his inside pocket and dabbed his lips.

  ‘Smoke?’ said Daniel. He held his bulky packet of Horizon out to Leon with one cigarette extended. A ruined lung was gaudily pictured on the box. Leon took the offered cigarette then leaned over the table towards the flame of Daniel’s lighter.

  Daniel studied the image of the diseased lung. ‘You know something?’ he said. ‘I have friend in school, Tomas, he died from cancer when he is ten. Little pain just here’—Daniel jabbed a finger into his neck below his left ear—‘nothing you can see, just a little pain inside his neck. In three months he was dead. My mother took me to see him in the hospital couple of days before he died. In Kraków. He looked like a little baby. I could have picked him up in one hand. Many people I know killed with cancer. Cancer in the bones, cancer in the liver, cancer in the cunt. Some smoke cigarettes, some never did. So fuck it, okay?’

  Daniel lifted his glass; Leon sipped from his own.

  ‘So what we got here?’ said Daniel. He stuck his cigarette in the side of his mouth and propped onto the end of his nose the spectacles that he wore hanging from his neck on a loop of twine. He squinted his eyes against the wreathing smoke.

  ‘“To Daniel Mikolajczyk, Emily Williams and Gareth Williams”,’ he read aloud. ‘Good spelling, my friend. Mikolajczyk. Very good. “I wish to purchase from you every item in your possession that relates itself in any way at all to Tess Wachowicz, including letters, postcards, emails…”’

  Daniel allowed his voice to trail off, but kept reading. Leon followed the flickers and frowns. He was prepared to raise the sum he’d offered, even to double it. His plan, he now believed, was a stroke of genius, or something like that. Like a miracle cure. Almost as if, at the final moment, receiving the last rites from Father Bourke, Tess had begun to take on colour, and then to grow more flesh, and then to smile, and little by little to seize once more the vigour of life.

  By the looks of it, Daniel had come to the part of the proposal that spoke of payment. He lifted his gaze from the paper and let out a low whistle as he crushed the butt of his cigarette. Leon thought it best to look away. He didn’t want to seem avid. The only other customer in the beer garden, a tiny old man in oversized clothing, smiled at him with a set of perfectly formed false teeth as small as an infant’s.

  ‘How’s it going?’ the little man asked.

  ‘Good, thank you,’ said Leon.

  ‘Got your nose in front?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Got your nose in front?’

  ‘I don’t quite follow,’ said Leon.

  ‘You winning?’ said the man.

  Daniel intervened to rescue Leon from bafflement. ‘Hey, what’s that? Is that an empty glass Cyril my friend?’

  ‘Think you’re right, Mister Danny.’

  Daniel leaned across to the old man and dropped a folded five-dollar note on the table. The little man scooped up the note and hobbled into the bar.

  ‘He has a big gift, that man,’ said Daniel. ‘He stands in a field and stamps his foot on the ground, and snakes come. Can you believe that? I seen him with my own eyes. You know where? At your place. He told me he can make snakes come so one day I put him in the truck and took him to the house. I said, “Okay, make the snakes come.” He did it. Two snakes. Black ones with red underneath. I ran away fast, fuck me! Then I have a think about it and I give up writing poems, give up painting pictures. Forty years writing poems, forty years painting pictures. Kraków, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin. I never made any snakes come. Okay, I write a few poems for Tessie, paint a couple of pictures. All shit, Tessie loves them. But out at your house, my friend, I make myself happy. I become a carpenter. Fixing your house up. And fucking your wife, of course. Then you tell me, “Mikolajczyk, fuck you, get out of my house.” So I go.’

  It was hot in the beer garden. If it had been Leon’s custom to loosen his tie in the heat, he would have done so now. ‘What about my proposal?’ he said.

  Daniel had let his spectacles drop onto his chest. He put them on the end of his nose again and picked up the sheet of paper.

  ‘This is also about snakes, isn’t it my friend? Don’t you agree with me?’

  ‘No. I don’t understand.’

  ‘“I don’t understand”,’ said Daniel, attempting to mimic Leon’s delivery. ‘You don’t understand many things, my friend. You want to make a whore out of me, I think. You want to fuck me for money. Yes?’

  ‘You don’t like my proposal?’ said Leon. ‘Can you tell me why?’

  Daniel took off his Afrika Korps cap and pushed his fingers through his long hair. He held his cap in his two hands, studying the badge above the peak. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘A man with a lot of money can afford foolish things. That’s the truth, my friend. I can tell you everything you want to know about your wife in five minutes. I can tell you everything before you finish that glass of beer. For nothing. So why do you want to pay me this money? It’s crazy.’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ said Leon. ‘Do you accept my proposal?’

  ‘And all the others who fucked Tessie? You want to pay them too? That’s a billion dollars, my friend. Crazy.’

  ‘Only you.’

  ‘Only me,’ said Daniel. He put his Afrika Korps cap back on his head and fitted it snugly. ‘This is because, for what? Because you think Tessie was in love with Mikolajczyk? I tell you something for free. For nothing. Tessie told herself a story about me. That’s what she falls in love with. She told herself a story that Mikolajczyk is a monster, an animal, a big goat. She told herself a story that Mikolajczyk is a genius. This is what pleases her. I am supposed to chase her in the grass and fuck her like a bull. Okay, I do what a woman wants from me. Okay by me. I get sunburn on my arse but doesn’t matter. Tessie is the most beautiful woman I fucked in my life, so I do what she wants.’

  ‘Then write it down,’ said Leon.

  Daniel shrugged. He sprawled back in his chair with his arms spread wide. ‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘For nothing.’

  ‘I’d prefer you write it all down.’

  ‘Hey, I tell you something,’ said Daniel. He sat upright again and picked up the proposal. ‘What’s this in here? “Twenty thousand dollars each to Emily Williams and to Gareth Williams.” This is shit, Leon. For everything in her head you are stupid to pay Emily five dollars. Gareth maybe ten dollars. Look at the shop. That’s her brain, my friend. Gareth is okay ten minutes at a time. Plays his guitar. Not bad. Finish that.’

  Leon emptied his glass. Daniel took the two empties to the bar, whistled for the barman and returned with two full glasses. He settled into his chair, lit up a fresh cigarette, tapped the packet across the table to Leon.

  ‘Leon my friend, tell me this,’ said Daniel. ‘Why do you want this shit? Everything about Tessie in my head, everything I remember? This sort of shit. Tessie says you don’t fuck her, so what is all this shit for? Why do you want to do that?’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ said Leon.

  ‘Sure, sure, you have your reasons. I know you have your reasons, my friend. So what I am thinking is this, if you will excuse
me. I’m thinking, maybe Leon likes to whack himself while he reads Mikolajczyk telling his stories. For me, I don’t care. I know husbands like this. I know husbands when I was a kid in Kraków, sixteen years old. They take me home and say, “Wife, this boy will fuck you, I can’t be bothered.” It’s okay. I don’t care about this. One husband in Tluszcz, town near to Warsaw, his wife was a beautiful girl, big Catholic girl, very religious. I met him in a bar. Two drinks, three drinks, he says, “Mikolajczyk my friend, would you like to see my wife’s arse?” What do you think I answer? “Sure, sure!” We go to his apartment, a few more drinks, his wife puts down the baby to sleep. “My darling girl, you have to fuck Mikolajczyk,” he tells his wife. So we do our business and the husband, he sits in his chair crying like a baby, wah wah wah! What is this? Madness! I don’t mind. Maybe you are like this husband, Leon my friend. Maybe you want to sit in your chair and cry like a baby when I tell you about Tessie. It’s up to you. But one hundred thousand dollars? This is stupid. I would be a whore to take your money.’

  Leon closed his eyes for a moment. He would have to prepare for disappointment. ‘So you decline?’ he said.

  ‘Listen to me. One hundred thousand dollars, what can I do with that? Probably, I go back to Poland. But Poland is shit. The communists were shit, I hated the communists, now the communists are gone and it’s still shit. It’s best thing for me if I stay here. Sell things in the shop, fuck some women, I need some more money I sell some dope. I’m a lazy man, my friend. Tessie, she made me work too hard. “Danny, paint a picture, Danny, write some poems, Danny, fuck me on the kitchen floor.” This is something I can tell you, Leon my friend. Tessie knew she is dying. Before she went to the doctor, she knew she is dying. Okay?’

  Leon had steeled himself to hear Daniel talk of sexual intercourse, but it infuriated him to hear the man claim mystical knowledge of Tess’s inner life. ‘That’s utter nonsense!’ he hissed. ‘That’s egotistical rot! Don’t talk of Tess in that way!’

  ‘No, no. Listen to me. Old books you know about, okay? You are the great expert on old books, I don’t say a word if you tell me about old books. But, my friend, I know about fucking. That’s what Mikolajczyk knows about. Tessie knew she is dying, trust me. Not in her head, okay, I agree with you. But in her cunt, she knew she is dying. About cunts you know nothing, if you will forgive me for saying. About Tessie’s cunt you know nothing. Listen to me. Tessie’s cunt was like paradise for a man, beautiful, beautiful cunt, like paradise, made by God. But she changed.’

  ‘Tess’s illness had nothing to do with her genitalia. Your intuition is…it’s idiocy.’

  ‘Okay. You know best.’

  ‘Well, concede it, at least!’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Me? Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me if you know something!’

  ‘Okay, if you want to listen with your ears. Tessie, she wanted me to fuck death out of her body. This I know. Never was she greedy before. Tessie can fuck for an hour, two hours. When she is ready, she comes. Only when she is ready. But when she felt death in her body, she was greedy.’ He shrugged. ‘This is what I can tell you.’

  Leon leaned back in his chair, frowning. He realised that what Daniel had said was the truth. It was not mere bragging. It was not designed to torment him. It was the truth. But he resented Daniel knowing it.

  ‘I wish you had agreed to write all this down,’ he said.

  ‘Save your money! What can I say to you?’

  Daniel sipped his beer and lit another cigarette.

  ‘Listen to me. Your wife was very beautiful. More beautiful than any woman I ever saw. Beautiful face, beautiful body, beautiful cunt, beautiful tits. Everything in Tessie is made for fucking. You touch Tessie’s tits, she smacks your face. She smacks your face not to make you stop. She smacks your face to make you keep going. Tessie was full of smacking! Smacking and spitting. Like an otter. You know if you make an otter tame, she bites you when she is happy. You pat her—patting, patting—she bites your hand, not too hard. Listen to me. Tessie knows some things about fucking nobody else knows, no other woman. Except maybe a woman I knew in Malaga, crazy woman who ate only rabbits. Maybe. This is all I can say to you. What do you want this information? It’s madness. What do you do with these pages and pages if I write it for you?’

  ‘I want to burn them,’ said Leon.

  Daniel coughed on the smoke he’d just inhaled. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘I want to burn them.’

  ‘You want to burn this when I write it for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You give me one hundred thousand dollars for just reading what I write and burning it?’

  ‘I don’t intend to read it,’ said Leon. ‘I didn’t say anything about that.’

  ‘Are you fucked in your head? I write everything, pages and pages, writing for weeks, and you burn it? You don’t even want to read it?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Leon.

  A new light came to life in Daniel’s grey eyes. He began to nod his head slowly, his gaze fixed on Leon. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Daniel covered the top half of his face with one hand, a smile widening on the lower half. Blinded, he felt for the ashtray and stubbed out his cigarette.

  ‘This is too beautiful!’ Without warning he threw himself forward across the table and seized Leon’s face in his two hands. ‘This is true?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true.’

  ‘Okay. Okay.’ Daniel subsided back onto his chair, his face a fierce brick red, tears standing in his eyes. He stared violently at Leon. Minutes passed without any further word being spoken. Leon didn’t know what the man was thinking, only he sensed that it would be best if he met Daniel’s stare. He didn’t find it difficult. His proposal was sincere and his need was sincere. If he was mad, it was a clear and perfect madness. He had nothing to be ashamed about.

  Finally Daniel looked away. He took off his cap, whacked it twice on the table as if freeing it of dust then put it back on his head. He muttered something, presumably in Polish.

  ‘Goddamn,’ he said. He took Leon’s two hands and held them in his across the table. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘for this I love you. You burn all the pages, no reading. My friend, you are a great, great poet. I didn’t know this. You are a great, great poet. You know something I can tell you? Listen to me. I will make on the pages the best writing ever I have. Ever. I will make myself crazy for working so hard. Sure! Do you believe me? Maybe I am bullshitting you? Maybe I write rubbish on the pages? Do you believe me that I will make the best writing ever I have?’

  ‘Yes. I believe you will.’

  ‘Listen to me. I have to write for you in Polish. My English is shitty. For the best work, I have to write in Polish.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Okay, in Polish. Something I will write I tell you now. One thing. I came to your house when Tessie was sick, okay? You didn’t see me. That daughter, Evie, she did it. I saw Tessie in that bed. She stinks of medicine. The devil has taken everything. Everything. She is the same as a corpse you dig from the ground after two days. I have done this. I know. You know what I thought? I thought, “Better if I kill her.” I say to her in her ear, “Die now, this is disgusting!” That was my words to her. “Die now, this is disgusting!” She knows what this means. This means I love her. She kisses me here, on my neck. She is smiling. She says, “Monster!” She always likes to call me monster.’

  The scene before Leon—the beer garden, the vivid fronds of the tree ferns, the figure of Daniel making his confession—all of this fluttered on the periphery of his vision. What he saw, what he strove to see while he strove not to hear was Tess rescued from the oafs on whom she lavished her appetites, Tess saved from her fevers, Tess at the piano in the black and grey Madame Grès evening dress playing for him alone. Her shoulders bare, the exquisite tilt of her head as she listened for the timbre she was seeking in the Chopin, finding it, smiling,
pressing herself a little closer to the keyboard, the room brimming with milky light from the windows.

  part five

  Leon, Emmanuel,

  Jennifer

  chapter 17

  William Wordsworth

  ‘I DREAMED of your death!’ wrote Emmanuel Delli.

  Ah, the benison of sleep! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! But seriously, Dr Mark. How can you bear to live with yourself? I would like to know. I really would. When you wake in the morning, do you think: ‘Why do I not dream that I’m dead? Why does Manny have all the fun?’ Oh but it is not just my dream, Dr Mark! So many enjoy the same dream! Even your family! Even poor little Klara, Dr Mark! She writes to me each day! ‘Uncle Manny,’ she says, ‘come in the night and cut Papa’s throat, I beg you!’ HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Best wishes, Dr Mark! Not really.

  I remain, forever, Emmanuel Delli.

  Delli read through what he’d written with his usual pleasure and approval—this was his hundredth message to Mark Averescu, about that—pressed SEND, then leaned back in his chair while he contemplated his next message.

  The window of the spare bedroom overlooked a lawn bordered by crimson fuchsias, a laurel hedge, a grove of lemon trees and a herb patch dominated by an ancient rosemary bush grown almost as tall as a tree. In the centre of the lawn stood a rotary clothesline that whined and clanked as it revolved. A full week’s washing was pegged on the line, Delli’s wife Daanya being a conscientious observer of water restrictions. All of the pleated white boxer shorts favoured by the professor and purchased in lots of a dozen from Corrigans in London were grouped neatly along an outer strand of the line. His socks, plain black and long enough to wear folded just beneath the knee, also from Corrigans, were hung on two inside strands. His singlets, shirts and handkerchiefs occupied a further quarter of the clothesline. Daanya’s own underwear, scarves, blouses, dresses, socks and pantyhose were kept strictly to the far side of the clothesline, at the professor’s insistence.