A Grain of Truth

by Zygmunt Miloszewski

  III

  Szacki was just about to press the doorbell, but he withdrew his hand and slowly walked along the fence surrounding the property. Was Szyller watching him? He couldn’t see a face in the window, or the twitch of a curtain, nor were there any cameras. Was he having his coffee? Watching TV? Reading the newspaper? If he were waiting for the prosecutor conducting an inquiry into a murder case, he probably wouldn’t be able to concentrate on everyday tasks. He’d be loitering by the window or standing on the porch, exceeding his daily quota of cigarettes.

  Jerzy Szyller’s house was on the slopes of Piszczele gorge, for where else should the home of one of Sandomierz’s most distinguished and richest citizens be? Judging by the size of the neighbouring properties, the owner must have joined up two or three plots of land, thanks to which his tasteful Polish mini manor house was surrounded by a well-kept garden. No follies, no little paths made of granite slabs, no ponds or temples of Diana, just a few walnut trees, a new growth of spring grass, and a climber winding around the veranda on one side. If not for the distinctive portico supported by stout columns, and if not for the red-and-white flag hanging rather wistfully from a mast by the entrance, Szacki would have thought: Germany. Although no, in Germany there would have been some obvious stylization, the plastic windows would have been divided by gold strips, but there was something genuine about Szyller’s house. The columns looked wooden and tired, the roof sagged slightly under the weight of the shingle, and the whole building was like a dignified old man who is doing very well, but has clocked up the years. A sort of Max von Sydow of manor-house architecture.

  He pressed the bell and the homeowner answered so speedily that he must have had his hand on the intercom. So Szacki was right.

  Jerzy Szyller was boring and monotonous; Szacki let him ramble on. Despite a show of openness and joviality, the man was extremely tense, a bit like a patient at an oncologist’s, who’s going to talk about anything at all rather than hear the verdict. Feigning friendly interest, the prosecutor was taking a good look at his host and his surroundings.

  “Forgive me, please, for keeping the name of the place to myself, I don’t think there was anything illegal about it, but naturally I wouldn’t want to get anybody into trouble.”

  “But did you transport the whole house from the east, or just part of it?” asked Szacki, thinking Szyller used too many words – trying to drown out the tension in a way he had observed hundreds of times before.

  “The mansion was pretty much destroyed, it was built in the mid-nineteenth century, and as you can imagine, after the war naturally no one took care of it, and it fell into ruin, but luckily enough for it the Belarusians never turned it into a state farm or the like, I think it was simply too small, and besides that, the land in the vicinity was barren. My specialists took it apart beam by beam, once it was here we had to replace and supplement about twenty per cent of the structure; the roof was recreated on the basis of some pre-war photos that had survived in the Wyczerowski family. In any case, the count and countess’s descendants turned up here a couple of years ago, I must say it was a very nice…”

  Szacki switched off. In a while he would shunt Szyller off this bloody tedious tale, but only in a while. For now he was registering things. The tone of Szyller’s voice – low and velvety in greeting, it had imperceptibly got higher and higher. Good, let him get a bit anxious. He couldn’t see a wedding ring, he couldn’t see any photographs of women, he couldn’t see any photographs of children, and considering the fact that Szyller was a classically good-looking, well-off man in his prime, that was strange. He could possibly be gay. His meticulous clothing and the impeccable, but refined elegance of the interior also spoke in favour of that. Instead of pictures in gilt frames, there were a few graphics and engravings. Instead of an ancestor with a sabre, there was a portrait of the homeowner, painted in the symbolist style.

  Szyller finished his boring oration on transporting the house from Belarus to Sandomierz and clapped his hands emphatically. Plus one for the gays, thought Szacki, and awarded them another point a little later, when his host leapt up to fetch some chocolates, laid out – yet another point – on a small cut-glass platter. Minus one for movements – Szyller moved energetically and softly, but there was nothing camp about it; the softness had more in common with the movements of a predator.

  He sat down, crossing his legs. He reached for his shirt cuffs in the typically male gesture of a man who has come home and wants to announce the end of the day by rolling up his sleeves. Yet he withdrew his hand before touching the buttons. Szacki kept a stony face, but he felt a sudden twinge of alarm. Something wasn’t right.

  “Let’s start,” he said, taking a Dictaphone out of his jacket pocket.

  Szacki pretended to be bored, and to be plain about it, he really was a bit bored, but he wanted to put Szyller off his guard and let him give the game away. He had taken his personal details, told him about liability for making a false statement and politely expressed surprise that the interviewee was fifty-three years old – he really didn’t look older than forty-three – and now for a quarter of an hour he had been hearing about Szyller’s relationship with the Budnik couple. Nothing but big fat platitudes. He was rarely in touch with them, as you know, relations between businessmen and politicians aren’t well regarded, ha ha ha, though naturally they knew each other and ran into each other at official events.

  How would he define the nature of these relations? Sporadic, appropriate, maybe even friendly.

  “And what about the victim?”

  “Elżbieta,” Szyller corrected him insistently.

  Szacki merely pointed at the Dictaphone.

  “Ela and I have known each other almost from the day she came back here.”

  He hadn’t got used to the past tense yet, and Szacki didn’t correct him.

  “Since her marriage?”

  “More or less.”

  “What sort of relationship did you and she have?”

  “Well, you know, if you’re looking for a sponsor for anything in Sandomierz, the list is quite short. The glassworks, me, a few factories, a few hotels, for want of anything better the restaurants and bars. There’s hardly a day when someone doesn’t ask. A concert, some children in need, some old folks in bad health, skateboards for the skateboarding club, guitars for a new band, drinks for a private view. I’ve sorted it out by having one of the accountants dispense a certain sum each quarter for, let us say, aims to do with Sandomierz. He chooses the projects, and naturally I approve them.”

  “How large is the sum?”

  “Fifty thousand a quarter.”

  “Was the victim in touch with him?”

  “Elżbieta,” he emphasized again, “spoke to the accountant, or directly to me.”

  Szacki started questioning him in more detail, and taunted him with the word “victim” several times more, but couldn’t get any worthwhile information out of him. He and Mrs Budnik knew each other, and had even been friends, he funded (or didn’t, but more often did) her various crazy ideas, such as putting on a production of Shrek at Sandomierz Castle. Perhaps, so it seemed to Szacki now and then, the businessman from the Belarusian manor house had been a little bit in love with Mrs Budnik.

  “Will you continue to make such generous donations to local cultural life?”

  “Naturally. As long as I regard the proposed projects as worth it. I’m not a state institution, I have the luxury of supporting what appeals to me.”

  Szacki made a mental note to check what did and what didn’t gain the noble gentleman’s approval.

  “I’ve heard you didn’t love” – he paused almost imperceptibly to gauge Szyller’s reaction – “Mr Budnik? That his activities at the municipal council weren’t convenient for your business interests.”

  “Gossip.”

  “In every bit of gossip there’s a grain of truth. I realize that for a thriving businessman who wants to operate with full transparency it might not be convenient for th
e city to be handing property over to the Church as recompense for centuries of injustice, only for that property to be traded outside the system of public tenders, to the eternal glory of all interested parties. Well, except for you, obviously.”

  Szyller gave him a vigilant look.

  “I thought you were new here.”

  “New, yes; from Sweden, no,” retorted Szacki calmly. “I know how this country works.”

  “Or doesn’t.”

  Szacki made a gesture to imply that he agreed.

  “I’m glad you’re so agreeable. As a civil servant. It restores one’s faith in the Republic.”

  Well, wouldn’t you know, Mr Crashing-Bore can be witty too, thought Szacki. Except that he didn’t have time for idle banter.

  “Are you a patriot?” he asked his host.

  “Naturally. Aren’t you?”

  “In that case it shouldn’t bother you if someone acts to the benefit of the Church, the one true Catholic faith.” Szacki did not think it appropriate to answer the question; his own views were totally irrelevant here.

  Szyller stood up abruptly. When he wasn’t huddled on the sofa, he looked like a big strong man. He was quite tall, broad-shouldered, a powerful build, the type on whom even a suit from the supermarket would look good. Szacki was envious – his own suits had to be made to measure so they wouldn’t look as if they were hanging on a broom handle. Szyller went up to the minibar, and for a split second Szacki thought he was reaching for the Metaxa, visible in the distance, but he fetched out a bottle of some snobby mineral water and poured them each a glass.

  “I’m not sure if this is really relevant to our conversation, but the biggest, most harmful idiocy in the history of Poland is the identification of patriotism with that paedophile sect. Excuse me for the strong words, but it only takes a little nous to see that the Church is not behind our greatest achievements, just the disasters. Behind the bloodthirsty myth about the bulwark of Christendom, behind the pornographic desire for martyrdom, behind a suspicious attitude towards the wealthy…”

  That’s where it hurts you, thought Szacki.

  “…behind idleness, superstition, passive waiting for divine aid, finally behind sexual neuroses and the pain of all those poor couples who can’t afford test-tube babies and who will never be granted the joy of offspring, because the state is afraid of that mafia of onanists in black skirts.” Szyller had noticed that he was getting carried away, and got a grip on himself. “And so yes, I am a patriot, I do my best to be a good patriot, I want my actions to speak for me and I want to be proud of my country. But please don’t insult me with suspicions that I place some Jewish sect above other superstitions and that I call it patriotism.”

  Szacki felt a touch of sympathy for the guy; no one had ever expressed his own views so aptly. He kept this thoughts to himself.

  “Patriotism without Catholicism and anti-Semitism, you really are creating a new standard,” said Szacki, once again steering the conversation onto topics of interest to him. He could see they were close to Szyller’s heart too; the man noticeably loosened up, relaxed, and he could tell this sort of conversation had often been held in this house.

  “Please don’t be offended, but you’re thinking in terms of politically correct stereotypes – you’ve been programmed to think the best citizen is the left-wing cosmopolitan with a short memory. And patriotism is a sort of shameful hobby that goes hand-in-hand with popular Catholicism, xenophobia and, naturally, anti-Semitism.”

  “So you’re a non-believing, Jew-loving patriot?”

  “Let’s say I’m a non-believing Polish patriot and anti-Semite.”

  Szacki raised an eyebrow. Either the fellow didn’t read the papers, or he had a screw loose, or he was playing some sort of devious game with him. Intuition told him it was more likely to be the latter. Not good.

  “Surprised?” Szyller settled more comfortably on the sofa; it looked as if he were snuggling down in his own opinions. “Surely you’re not going to pull out the Penal Code, you’re not going to charge me for inciting racial hatred, are you?”

  Szacki did not pass comment. He had more important things to think about. Besides which he knew Szyller would say his bit anyway. He was the type.

  “You see, we’re living in strange times. Since the Holocaust, anyone who dares to admit to anti-Semitism must be standing shoulder to shoulder with Eichmann and saluting Hitler – he’s regarded as a deviant who dreams of splitting up families on the loading ramp. However, there’s quite a difference between having a degree of reserve towards the Jews, their role in Polish history and their present politics, and inciting pogroms and the final solution, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Please go on, this is very interesting,” Szacki encouraged him, not wanting to get involved in an open quarrel. He would have had to reply sincerely that he was disgusted by any attempt to judge people in terms of the national, ethnic, religious or any other kind of group they belong to. And that he was sure every pogrom had its roots in the civilized debate about “a degree of reserve”.

  “Just look at France and Germany. By showing reserve towards immigrants from Algeria and Turkey do they at once become fascists and murderers? Or are they perhaps merely citizens who are concerned about their country’s future, concerned about the expanding ghettoes, the lack of assimilation, the aggression, the alien element that is destroying their culture?”

  “I don’t remember anything about the Jews in pre-war Poland setting fire to carriages, organizing themselves into mafias and living on drug-smuggling,” said Szacki, and mentally kicked himself for not holding back the wisecracks. Let him talk, man, let him talk.

  “So you say, because you didn’t live in those times.”

  “Indeed, I am a little younger than you.”

  Szyller just snorted.

  “You don’t know what it was like. A Pole and a Jew from neighbouring districts couldn’t communicate because they spoke different languages. The Jewish districts were not necessarily like nice open-air museums of cultural interest. Filth, poverty, prostitution. Usually a black hole on the map of the town. People who were all too keen to live in a developing Poland, but who didn’t want to work for it or fight for its good. Have you ever heard of any Jewish battalions fighting in the national uprisings? Of any Orthodox Jewish units in the Polish Legions? I haven’t. Sit tight and wait until the Poles bleed to death, and then we can occupy a few more streets in the depopulated town. Yes, I think that if I’d been alive in those days, I wouldn’t have been a fan of theirs, regardless of my respect for writers like Tuwim and Leśmian. Just as today I don’t agree with the idea that every aggression-filled, xenophobic move Israel makes in the Middle East is immediately pardoned because of the Holocaust. Can you imagine what would happen if the Germans started fencing themselves off from Turkish settlements with a wall several metres high?”

  No, Szacki couldn’t imagine it. More than that – he refused to imagine it. Nor did he want to tell the man about Berek Joselewicz, who did command a regiment of Jews in the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794, and went on to fight in the Legions. He wanted to find Elżbieta Budnik’s murderer, best of all with incontestable proof, to press charges, write out an indictment and win the case in court. Meanwhile, here he was in this annoyingly perfect sitting room, where apart from the tacky antlers above the mirror there was nothing to find fault with, listening to this man’s woolly effusions about the world, and getting annoyed. He could sense that Szyller’s committed rant was a well-practised routine, and he could imagine the guests at table, the wine that cost at least fifty zlotys a bottle, the scent of perfume that cost at least two hundred for thirty mils, the sirloin steak that cost at least seventy zlotys a kilo, and Szyller in a shirt that cost at least three hundred, toying with a cufflink that cost God knows how much and asking what would happen if the Germans… The guests agree and smile understandingly: how good he is at putting it into words, what an orator our Jerzy is!

  “Those days are over, there
aren’t any Jews left, you can thank whomever necessary.”

  “Now really, you can do better than that.” Szyller seemed genuinely devastated by Szacki’s impertinence. “I am an anti-Semite, but not a perverted fascist. If I had divine powers and could rescind the Holocaust, aware that Poland would be left with its pre-war problems, I would rescind it, I wouldn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. But now that it has happened and can’t be undone, it is a sad fact of life, a scar on world history, and if you were now to ask if the disappearance of the Jews from Poland was a good thing for it, then my answer to you would be yes, it was a good thing. Just as today the disappearance of the Turks from Germany would be a good thing for our neighbours.”

  “Yes, Polish children are safe at last.”

  “Are you talking about ritual murder? Do you take me for a fool? Do you think anyone in their right mind could take that nonsense seriously, that local legend with terrible, real consequences?”

  “They say that in every legend there’s a grain of truth,” said Szacki, to goad him even more.

  “You see, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Just one critical word and at once I am plainly a fascist, ready to march through the town with flaming torches, shouting that they’ve kidnapped a Polish child to make matzos. This is a country full of superstitions, distortions, prejudices and hysteria. It’s hard to be a patriot here.”

  The modern anti-Semite broke off and pondered his own words, probably perceiving depths in them that even he found surprising.