A Grain of Truth

by Zygmunt Miloszewski

  As he walked on, the pictorial horrors repulsed and attracted him all at once, like the victim of an accident lying by the roadside. He admired de Prévôt’s inventiveness, as for 365 days surprisingly few tortures were repeated, though crucifixion and throat-slashing were definitely top of the bill.

  He finally managed to reach the vicinity of the door and increased his pace, because the sexton in black was clearly trying his best to cover the last patch of dry floor by the exit. He stopped at November, as his birthday was on the eleventh. Wow, this particular martyr really did deserve canonization. Not only was he strung up on a hook in a very nasty way, just to make sure his legs were burdened with a weight and his body was stuck through with a spear. Szacki thought grimly what a dreadful prophecy it was, as if someone were trying to tell him there’s always room for a little extra martyrdom.

  The sexton cleared his throat in a meaningful way. Szacki tore his gaze from the vision of baroque pornography.

  “I’ve found my birthday,” he said pointlessly.

  “That’s not a birthday,” replied the cleaner in a surprisingly jolly tone, “that’s a prediction of how you’ll end.”

  Outside it was like November – damp, cold and dark. Szacki buttoned up his coat and went out of the gate into Kościelna Street, then started walking towards the market square. He glanced into a camera – the very one that had captured Ela Budnik for the last time as she straightened her boot top, and then caught up with her husband in three skips. The idea of calling on Budnik flashed through his mind, but he dropped it.

  VI

  Outside it keeps on raining, as if the winter is bidding farewell to this land in weak, weary weeping. In here it’s warm and dry, and if it weren’t for the burning eyes of the man sitting in the corner, it would even be cosy. Not very tall, skinny, with his hands and feet bound, he resembles a child; only the ginger beard protruding from under his gag betrays the fact that the victim is a grown man. He stirs pity, but that doesn’t change anything. In the distance the clock on the town-hall tower chimes four times to mark the full hour, and then strikes two. One more day. Just one more day. Unfortunately it can’t be waited out here; there are still the dogs to look in on before going back up. Luckily, the second act is coming to its end now.

  4

  Saturday, 18th April 2009

  The seventh, penultimate day of Easter for Catholics, and Easter Saturday for Orthodox Christians; the Sabbath in the entire Jewish world. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, independent Poland’s first prime minister, is celebrating his eighty-second birthday. More recent former prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński claims that only his party, the right-wing Law and Justice, can save democracy in Poland. In the outside world the Somali parliament introduces shariah law throughout the country, and Bulgaria is in a panic because a well-known astrologer predicts an earthquake. In the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem hundreds of neo-fascists from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Germany celebrate Hitler’s approaching birthday by attacking a Roma settlement. Łukasz “Flappyhandski” Fabiański defends his net poorly on his twenty-fourth birthday, so Arsenal lose against Chelsea and go out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage. In Sandomierz thieves cut down six apple trees and a plum tree. The sixty-year-old trees were worth a thousand zlotys. In the evening there is a noisy party at the club located in the town-hall cellar, Soundomierz Rock Zone. This is the first fairly springlike day – it is warm and sunny, and it isn’t raining.

  I

  “Listen to this. A rabbi and a priest are travelling in the same train compartment, reading in silence, all very civilized. A while goes by, and then the priest puts down his book and says: ‘Just out of curiosity – I know you people aren’t allowed to eat pork. But… have you ever tried it?’ The rabbi closes his newspaper, smiles and says: ‘You really want to know? Well actually, I did once try it.’ After a pause he adds: ‘And just out of curiosity – I know you people are obliged to be celibate…’ The priest interrupts him, saying: ‘I know what you’re driving at, and I’ll tell you straight away, that yes, I did once give in to the temptation.’ They smile indulgently at each other’s little peccadilloes, then the priest goes back to his book, the rabbi to his newspaper, and they read in silence again. Suddenly the rabbi says: ‘Better than pork, isn’t it?’”

  Szacki knew this joke, but he laughed sincerely – he liked Jewish jokes.

  “OK, here’s another one…”

  “Andrzej…”

  “Last one, I promise. It’s Passover, a beautiful day, so Moshe takes his lunch to the park, sits down on a bench and tucks in. A blind guy comes and sits next to him, and as it’s the festive season, Moshe is feeling warm and loving towards all mankind, so he offers him a piece of matzo bread. The blind man takes the matzo, turns it in his hand, his face falls and finally he says: ‘Who wrote this shit?’”

  This time Szacki burst out laughing without any buts – the joke was excellent, and brilliantly told too.

  “Andrzej, please! Teodor will think we’re some sort of anti-Semites.”

  “This is a good Kielce region family. Have you told him how we met at the National Radical Camp rally? What a night it was, in the light of the flaming torches you looked like an Aryan queen… Aargh!”

  Andrzej Sobieraj ducked as his wife threw a piece of bread at him, but he did it so clumsily that he banged his elbow on the edge of the table. He glared at her reproachfully. Szacki always felt awkward when he witnessed intimacy between people, so he just smiled weakly and smeared a generous helping of mustard on his piece of barbecued sausage. He was feeling odd, jostled by emotions he couldn’t identify.

  The husband of Basia Sobieraj – the principled pussy, as Szacki couldn’t stop thinking of her, despite his growing fondness for her – was a fairly typical teddy bear. The kind of man that had never, not even in his best years, been a heart-throb women sighed over and dreamt about, but one they all liked, because they could have a chat and a laugh with him, and feel safe. But then of course they went for the enigmatic hunks, alcoholics and skirt-chasers, convinced that love would change them, and the reliable teddy bear usually ended up with a bitch who needed someone to kick around and do all the work. In spite of all, Basia Sobieraj did not look like one of those, and this teddy bear had made a pretty good match. And he looked like a nice, happy guy. He had a nice checked shirt, tucked into old, cheap jeans. He had a nice, stocky, slightly pot-bellied, beer-and-barbecue figure. He had nice, gentle eyes, a moustache that curled towards his mouth and slightly balding temples, two thinner patches in a forest of wavy, salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Stop stirring it up,” said Nice Andrzej to his wife, as he turned the pieces of sausage on the barbecue. “Of all people the prosecutor isn’t likely to be offended by anti-Semitism. From what they write in the papers…”

  Basia snorted with laughter, and Szacki smiled politely. Unfortunately, yesterday’s press conference had gone running through the media, and unfortunately almost all of them had written about a “mysterious murder”, about “anti-Semitic undercurrents” and a “Nazi undertone”; one paper had recited the history of the city in detail, and suggested in an editorial that “it is not entirely certain whether the investigator is aware of the delicacy of the matter he is having to deal with”. And that was just the start of it – if they didn’t solve the case quickly, or if some new facts didn’t turn up soon to give the vultures something to feed on, it would just get worse.

  “Why on earth are we talking about anti-Semitism anyway?” asked Andrzej Sobieraj. “Ela wasn’t a Jew, and as far as I know she had nothing to do with them, she didn’t even organize klezmer concerts – the closest she got to Judaism was a concert a few years back featuring songs from Fiddler on the Roof. So how can her murder be a fascist act? And why should the word ‘Jewish’ appearing in any given context immediately have to mean it’s an anti-Semitic context?”

  “Sweetheart, don’t try to be clever,” said Basia Sobieraj, brushing aside his reasoning. “Ela was killed
with a Jewish knife for the ritual slaughter of cattle.”

  “I know that, but if we reject the hysteria, in that case wouldn’t it be more logical to interrogate some Jewish butchers rather than those who hate Jewish butchers? Or are we so politically correct that we can’t even hypothetically consider that the culprit is a Jew or has close connections with that culture? And as a result, has access to that tool, for instance?”

  Szacki briefly considered the words coming from the cloud of smoke above the barbecue.

  “It’s not exactly like that,” he replied. “On the one hand you’re right, people commit murder with whatever’s to hand. A butcher uses a meat cleaver, a mechanic uses a tyre lever, a hairdresser uses scissors. But on the other hand the first thing they usually do is try to get rid of that clue. And here the murder weapon was lying next to the corpse, washed and sterilized to boot, carefully prepared for us, so as not to give any circumstantial evidence except for one thing: to imply that this is some sort of filthy Jewish-anti-Semitic case. That’s why we think it’s a smokescreen.”

  “Maybe it is, but I’m sure you don’t buy that sort of ritual razor-blade at the local supermarket.”

  “No, you don’t,” agreed Szacki. “That’s why we’re trying to find out where it comes from.”

  “With moderate success,” added Basia. “There’s a slightly worn inscription on the handle, saying ‘Grünewald’, and I’m in touch with a knife museum in Solingen in Germany to find out more. They claim it might be a small pre-war manufacturer from the district of Grünewald, which is in Solingen. They still make various blades, knives and razors all over the place there, and before the war there were dozens of workshops and artisans of that kind. Some of them Jewish, for sure. We’ll see. It’s in a perfect state, it looks more like a museum piece, part of someone’s collection, than a chalef that’s actually in use.”

  Szacki winced; the word “collection” made him think of the loathsome word “hobby”. But at the same time it shunted his thoughts onto a new track. Knife means collection, collection means hobby, hobby means antiquarian, and antiquarian means… He stood up; he did his thinking better on the move.

  “So where do you buy this sort of knick-knack?” asked Andrzej, saying Szacki’s thought aloud. “At an auction? At an antique shop? At a secret den of thieves?”

  “The Internet,” replied Szacki. “E-bay, Allegro. There’s no antique shop in the world nowadays that doesn’t sell on the Internet.”

  He and Basia swapped knowing glances; if the knife was bought at an Internet auction, there must be some evidence of the transaction left. Szacki started mentally sorting the tasks that would have to be performed on Monday in order to check up on it. Lost in thought, he wandered off into the depths of the garden, leaving the Sobierajs and their house behind him. By the time he went back, walking right round the apple tree, he had a list ready; but instead of being satisfied with this new idea, he felt anxious. There was something he had overlooked, something he had failed to notice, he had made an error. He was absolutely sure of it, as he went over and over the events of the last few days, trying to find the flaw. But he couldn’t. It was like having a name on the tip of your tongue that for all the world you simply cannot remember. An unbearable itch in the middle of his skull.

  Now he could see the Sobierajs’ villa, or rather cottage, in its full glory. It was in the Kruków district; in other words, a long way from town by Sandomierz standards, near the bypass. Past the chimney, on the other side of the highway, he could see the church with the unusual roof shaped like an upside-down boat. Szacki was finding it hard to get used to the idea that here having your own home did not mean, as it did in Warsaw, luxury and membership of the elite that had broken free of the high-rise towers, and that in Sandomierz this was the same sort of standard middle-class home as a fifty-square-metre flat in a big city. But so much more human. There was something natural about coming out of the sitting room onto the patio, about having a garden with a few apple trees, spending a lazy Saturday on deckchairs by the barbecue, and breathing in the first scent of spring.

  He didn’t know this world, but he thought it was lovely, and he envied those who didn’t appreciate it and never stopped complaining about their house and garden, about the endless work they required, and that there was always something that needed doing. Even so, urban Saturdays in flats, at public swimming pools, in shopping centres, in cars and on smelly streets were like a punishment compared with this. He felt like a prisoner set free after forty years in jail. He didn’t know how to behave, and had a strong physical sense of the discomfort of not belonging. Nothing about him belonged here. His solitude compared with their friendship – because he wasn’t sure it was love – his cold big-city manner compared with their warm, provincial nest, his caustic quips in response to stories that rambled on pointlessly, his pressed suit compared with their sports clothes, and finally his can of Cola compared with their beer. He told himself that if not for the interview with Szyller, he’d be sitting slouched in a sweater finishing a second beer, but he knew himself too well. That was the whole point – Prosecutor Teodor Szacki never sat slouched in a sweater.

  Now he felt down, as he slowly walked back towards Basia Sobieraj; her husband had disappeared into the house. The grass dulled his footsteps – either she couldn’t hear him as he stopped right behind her, or she was pretending she couldn’t. She was offering her freckled face to the sun, with her shoulder-length ginger hair tucked behind her ears; in the parting he could see the roots – typical Polish mouse, with a subtle trace of grey already. She had a small nose and lovely full lips, which, even without make-up, clearly stood out peachy-pink against her pale complexion. She was wearing a mohair polo neck and a long pleated skirt, and had her bare feet on a stool – a typical Polish stool with white legs and a greenish seat. She was wiggling her toes comically, as if trying to warm them up, or mark the beat of a song she was humming in her head. She looked warm-hearted and serene. Infinitely far from the women he had been dealing with lately, the owners of clean-shaven pussies who produced vulgar moans and liked rough sex in stilettos. Szacki thought of the date ahead of him that evening with Klara at a club and sighed out loud. Basia idly leant her head back and looked at him.

  “Your freckles are showing,” he said.

  “I haven’t got any freckles.”

  He smiled.

  “Do you know why I invited you?”

  “Because you noticed how horribly lonely I am, and you were afraid that if I top myself, all this Jewish shit will land on your head?”

  “Yes, that’s reason number one. And reason number two… will you smile again?”

  He smiled sadly.

  “Well, exactly. I don’t know how life has turned out for you, Teodor, but a man with a smile like that deserves more than you seem to have now. Do you know what I mean?”

  She took hold of his hand. She had the dry, cool palm of a person with low blood pressure. He returned the squeeze, but what was he meant to say? He just shrugged.

  “In Sandomierz the winters can be dreadful in the usual provincial way, but now the spring’s coming,” she said, without letting go of his hand. “I won’t tell you what that means, you’ll see for yourself. And…” she hesitated, “and I don’t know why, but I thought you ought to leave the dark place you’re in.”

  He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t answer. The build-up of emotion rising in his chest was slipping out of his control. Self-consciousness, sentiment, embarrassment, envy, grief, the pain of transience, pleasure at the touch of Barbara Sobieraj’s cool hand, envy once again – he couldn’t control the snowball of emotions. But he was very sorry that such an ordinary thing as spending a lazy spring morning with someone in a garden at home had never been his lot. A life like his was meaningless.

  Andrzej Sobieraj came out onto the patio holding two beers, and his wife’s grip loosened; only now did Szacki remove his hand from hers.

  “I must be off to do that interview,
” was all he said, and bowed stiffly.

  Szacki walked away rapidly without looking round; on the move, he automatically did up the top button of his graphite-grey jacket. As he was closing the garden gate he was already mentally formulating scenarios for his conversation with Jerzy Szyller. Nothing else interested him.

  II

  Everything lies in the graveyard now, and what’s left seems very far away, veiled by feelings that are inconceivable. What a strong sense of regret and determination, what a thirst for destruction, the pure and simple desire for revenge. Strong enough to occupy one’s thoughts non-stop, ad nauseam, to keep repeating in one’s head every element of the plan; it seems there can be no question of a mistake, but the fear is no less for that, the tension doesn’t disappear. I want to run away, but the plan doesn’t allow for running away, I must wait. This waiting is appalling, the noises are too loud, the lights are too bright, the colours too garish. The ticking of the clock on the wall is as infuriating as the chimes from the town hall; every passing second drives me to distraction. I’m longing to remove the batteries, but that’s not in the plan – a broken clock could be a clue, a piece of evidence, a pointer. It’s tough, it’s very tough holding out.