Best European Fiction 2014

by Drago Jancar

  “I’ve been had,” he snorted. “Who ever heard of so many cuckoos? Italian craftsmanship, indeed!”

  He propped his telescope up to one eye. Far off yonder, beyond the wall of poplars, stretched Sztorch’s property. He lorded over his neighbors, he had no iron cuckoo, and he brought in a tutor to teach his children botany and the constellations. Closer, on his own haystack, the prince spotted a falcon drying its wings from the night’s dew. His tongue felt for the gap in his teeth; one had fallen out as he’d gnawed a chicken bone the night previous. There was no predicting what could happen! The falcon flapped its wings and flew off. A cart of peasants armed with pitchforks and rakes arrived at the tilled meadow. The women hiked up their skirts. His men were good-for-nothing, unruly, and idle. He liked to punish the peasants, and severely at that. He put down the telescope and retired from the window. He spent a time studying the tooth on the table with a magnifying glass. The tooth was gray with brown and green flecks, and even a red one.

  A servant knocked at the door.

  “Who’s there?”

  “The Jew from town, my Lord!”

  “Tell him to wait!”

  Stanisławczyk threw on a Turkish robe and studied himself in the upright mirror. He assumed a commanding posture.

  “Come in!”

  A short, plump Jew in pince-nez appeared in the doorway.

  “You called, my Prince?” he said with a bow.

  Stanisławczyk pointed a finger at the table.

  “Look good and hard, Grajcewer.”

  The Jew went to the table and inclined over the place indicated by the prince’s finger.

  “A tooth?” he asked uncertainly—for there were a thousand other things scattered on the table.

  “My tooth.”

  “A marvelous tooth! Ay!” The Jew clapped his little, puffy hands. “A wisdom tooth. A rare tooth! An extraordinary specimen!”

  “I wish to have it mounted. As a souvenir of a miserable youth. A souvenir of smothered hopes. What’s your advice, Grajcewer? I thought a breastpin of some sort, what say you? For a shirtfront? Or a stickpin?”

  “A most refined choice!”

  “Becoming, wouldn’t you say?” Stanisławczyk turned toward the mirror, pressing the tooth to his nightshirt.

  Grajcewer scurried up on his little legs and stood behind the prince.

  “A capital choice!” he cried.

  The prince wound the tooth in a scrap of his robe that had torn off only the day before—as if the robe and tooth had been in cahoots—and gave it to Grajcewer. Then he went to the window and put the telescope to his eye.

  “So be it. On a stickpin, correct?” he asked slyly.

  “A breastpin, as the Good Prince suggested.”

  “You’re a scoundrel, Grajcewer. A stickpin would come out cheaper.”

  “A breastpin is senatorial, my Good Prince.”

  “But the stickpin is cheaper!” the prince bellowed.

  “A capital . . .”

  “Cheaper! Tell me at once!” yelled the prince, jamming the telescope painfully to his eye, for the peasants were racing about the meadow. The farmhands were chasing the wenches. They never raced to work.

  “Cheaper, my Good Prince,” said the Jew with a hurt expression.

  “You double-dealt me last time on that turquoise button, which was purportedly from the royal treasury!” Stanisławczyk turned his furious face to the Jew.

  “It was, my Good Prince!” Grajcewer said, placing a hand over his heart. “Passed through the Dawłowiczes to the late Urszula Sieńczycka!”

  “From one crook to another! Villain! I’ll have you run out of town! It’s as regal as you are honest! You want to reduce me to beggary! Suck my last drop of blood! You want to do a breastpin!” His bulging eyes bored into Grajcewer, as if seeking to plough through to his most deeply buried, infamous intentions.

  Stanisławczyk, as usual, had decided that he would not be taken for a fool.

  “You wound me, my Prince,” the Jew dryly complained.

  “As though I could wound one of your ilk! Whatever the case, you always come out on top! Your house burns down, all your livestock are slaughtered, and you turn the ashes to gold! You make me a stickpin, and make sure you count out every last gram! And that clock! What kind of clock did you sell me? Italian craftsmanship! How you praised it, boasted that it was just like the ones in the Warsaw salons—and it doesn’t run properly! The cuckoo cuckooed sixteen times! It’s preposterous!”

  Grajcewer stared flustered at the clock, carved to resemble a trunk with a hollow. “I’ll take it in for repairs. That Italian scoundrel.”

  “You’re the scoundrel. And now look here!” the prince tapped a book lying on the table. “Here’s a picture of a stickpin. Take the magnifying glass. Do you have a magnifying glass? Go, and get it right this time, lest I run you out of town. Indeed.” Stanisławczyk sighed. “Did you bring me some baubles?” he asked, tossing a glance at the battered sack by the door.

  “Allow me to show you!”

  Grajcewer ran over to the sack, and plucked out a flat saffian box. This he opened and passed to Stanisławczyk.

  “What’s this?”

  “The Chain of King Sigismund August.”

  “Why isn’t it intact?” asked the disappointed prince, taking it into his hands. “It’s only a piece of it. There’s no clasp.”

  “Thus has it weathered the tides of history,” explained Grajcewer, wiping the perspiration from his pince-nez.

  “And how can you be sure it’s from the Jagiellonian Dynasty?”

  “Take the magnifying glass, your majesty, and study the medal. There it is: Sigismundus Augustus Rex Poloniae.”

  The prince took the magnifying glass and the chain over to the window. He had a look and gave it some consideration. He muttered something under his breath.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A Jew brought it to me.”

  “And where did he get it?”

  Grajcewer raised his brows. He gave his head neither a nod nor a shake, as if to say: “How should I know? Why ask? One answer is as good as another.”

  “Crooks. Crooks, pure and simple,” the prince muttered, turning the chain over in his hands.

  “What kind of jewels are these?”

  “Rubies and opals. Beautiful, pure. Rare.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know. The chain isn’t intact. How could I wear it? Haven’t they noted in the public journal that you’ve stolen it?”

  “Not a word! A widow found it in her deceased husband’s cabinet!”

  Grajcewer covered his mouth. He’d said too much, now the prince wouldn’t let him get away with it.

  “No respect from the widow. Not even for the deceased. What was this cabinet?”

  “It had a secret drawer.”

  “Nothing else inside?”

  “Nothing. Just bedbugs.”

  “Only bugs, you say. Who really knows? I won’t be checking, will I? How much do you want?”

  “The widow found it. She’s a modern widow.”

  “The widow’s a swine. Why did the man hide his fortune? She must have tormented him to death.”

  “A torment indeed,” Grajcewer agreed. “A torment in her subtile ways. The husband of such a lady is sent packing to the next world all the quicker, by his wife’s modern schooling.”

  The prince gave this some thought, for he too had a modern wife. He sighed. A wise man, this Grajcewer.

  “How much do you want?”

  “Ten rubles?”

  “Not on your life!” bellowed Stanisławczyk, retreating a step.

  The merchant spread his little hands.

  “Let Your Lordship quote the price. You are the Lord, and I merely a foolish Jew, at your service.”

  “Take five, or I’ll run you out of town! You and those sons of yours, and those daughters of yours . . . !”

  The Jew nodded his head. He raised his hands and his eyes toward the ceiling.


  “Agreed! Agreed! Only God knows a Jew’s pain. Will you have me replace the rest of the chain?”

  “Replace it. What good is the thing without the rest? You must. I’ll pay when it’s all ready. And take the clock.”

  Grajcewer bowed and left, taking the tooth, the chain, and the clock with him.

  “The crook,” Stanisławczyk muttered. “The rogue.”

  He went back to watching the peasants load hayricks onto carts. There was too much laughter ringing out. But just enough of the girls’ thighs flashing from under their hiked skirts. He felt hungry. Going to the mirror, he stared for a long time into the cracked, matte surface, as blue as ice on water. He opened his mouth, tilted his head, and studied the gap where his tooth had been. He pulled a gnawed toothpick from his robe pocket and poked it into the hole. It hurt.

  “The crooks. No mercy.”

  He bared his teeth, counting those that remained.

  “Plenty left,” he muttered.

  A soft knock sounded. He didn’t respond at once. He crossed slowly to the window, ran his fingers over the telescope, and returned to the table. He brooded. His servants were good-for-nothing, dirty, and idle. Crooks, the lot of them. The artful widow had found a secret drawer in the cabinet. The prince felt ill at the thought that, after his demise, his wife too would find the secret drawer in his desk. Perhaps he should drill a hole in the table leg? But the leg was too skinny! What could he keep there? His children would have no respect, they’d find it and then drink, gamble, and carouse it all away! One man after another would come malingering round the widow, there’d be a widower too, and they’d pair up at his grave! But it didn’t even have to be a widower! It could be a bachelor! Bachelors were the most despicable! There was never enough money for them! And if he could dance a jig or play the guitar, there was no widow in the world who could resist! And if he could slip a word or two of French into the conversation! If he said he’d spent some time in France, the son-of-a-bitch, at the cabarets!

  The servant knocked for the second time.

  “Come in!”

  The prince had the kind of servants who helped deceive the husband.

  A tall, barefoot girl entered the room. She had blonde hair, fulsome lips, and deep, twinkling eyes. The prince’s ward. She was the only one who never deceived. She came in when she wanted, and left when she wanted. What kind of creature she was—this the prince did not know. She was carrying a letter on a dented tray. She tossed the tray onto the table. Then she moved as if to leave. But leave she did not.

  “Hold on! What goes on in the village, eh?” the prince blurted out.

  He breathed in the smell of feminine sweat, lye, and wood smoke. The scent of hay drifted in through the window. The prince ran his eyes over the girl’s breasts, her hips, her bare arms. They came to rest on her dirty feet and broken toenails.

  “Why aren’t you off carting the hay, eh?” he asked, drawing nearer to the creature, placing a hand on her breast and squeezing. His fingers skimmed the stiffening nipple.

  “I’m in the kitchen.” She leaned her hip on the table and sloped her body forward.

  “And what goes on in the kitchen? What’s for lunch?” He ran his hand over her belly and quickly plunged it between her legs.

  The girl seemed to have been waiting for this. She giggled. She pressed her thighs together, clasping the prince’s hand. From this trap he could not escape! All was lost!

  “Capon and dumplings,” she purred.

  “And soup?”

  She nodded her head.

  “And a golden sauce?”

  “Golden,” she replied, and stared at the prince with golden eyes.

  And he pulled back his hand, but it would not come free! She gave a quiet laugh. At last, however, she had mercy on the poor thing and spread her legs enough for him to escape. The prince’s round eyes glazed over.

  “I am your captive,” he moaned.

  “You are only your own captive.”

  He hung his head, for he, too, was a humble servant of love.

  The girl left with a smile that sent a shiver of both delight and dread through the prince! Only a goddess smiled thus, so that a mortal man dreamed of sweet death in her arms, as though it were not death at all, but salvation and eternal happiness.

  “Come later,” her lips breathed.

  Stanisławczyk silently moved his own lips. Luckily a piece of plaster tore free and fell onto the window ledge, restoring the prince to his senses. He sat down to read the letter. Slupcyn was inviting him to town for a game of cards. What other matters concerned Slupcyn, indeed, apart from cards? Perhaps wine and women as well. The arch-scoundrel, the whoremonger, the son-of-a-bitch! He’d smash the desk to smithereens with an axe to find the secret drawer! He’d waste no time in figuring it out, in hunting down the hidden spring! He amused Stanisławczyk, because he could stick his mouth into a glass of wine, and drink like a hog while wiggling his ears. He was big, flabby, and hairy. Slupcyn was somebody—he had a great deal of power. His letter mentioned that he’d sent old Wypcza packing for his no-good son’s political intrigues, and he asked if the prince wouldn’t care to buy something for a pittance before the auction; Slupcyn would falsify some documents and spook Wypcza’s distant relations. Imbecile! How could he write such things in a letter? Just think who else might have opened it! The local gentry would find out! No breeding, no fear of God! The scoundrel sought to profiteer on human suffering! “Screw yourself, Pyotr Pyotrovich!” the prince thundered. He burned the letter in the oven. He burned all the letters from Slupcyn, replied to none of them, and sent back all his gifts. Slupcyn liked to laugh:

  “You, Stanisław, are a flea. No one can see you, yet you cling to my collar, and there’s no shaking you off.”

  “Up your ass!” muttered the prince, staring at the ashes.

  He spit. He staved off all such unpleasant thoughts. And what were these gifts Slupcyn had sent? A square-shaped folding comb, toothpicks, a flute, a dried tiger’s paw—but a small one, a cat’s, seemingly—a ship in a bottle, some dirty illustrations and poems. He had a look at the drawings and read the poems, of course, then sent them back. None of it made much of an impression, though Slupcyn had raved: “They’ll make you ram your head against the wall all night, until you bash a hole in it!” For a week he pondered how the ship might have been squeezed into the bottle. He took out the cork, prodded it with a finger, blew at the sails. He surmised the ship had been put in when it was the size of a seed; then it was watered, and grew like a pumpkin. And so he poured water into the bottle and waited to see if the ship would come bursting through the glass, it would grow gigantic and Stanisławczyk would cast it off to sea, sailing to Brazil; but everything just got wet, came unglued, fell apart. In a fury he corked it back up and sent it back to Slupcyn without so much as a word.

  TRANSLATED FROM POLISH BY SOREN A. GAUGER AND MARCIN PIEKOSZEWSKI

  [PORTUGAL]

  RUI MANUEL AMARAL

  Almost Ten Stories

  WITH A SOUL AS LIGHT AS A BUTTERFLY’S SHADOW

  Christoph Robbé lost all his teeth in a single day. It started in the morning and by the beginning of the afternoon there were none left in the top row. “In spite of all this,” he thought, “it’s not too serious, since I still have quite a few on the bottom.” But just as soon as he thought this, another one fell out.

  So he continued walking, as was his custom, down Bommel Avenue, and, stopping in front of a tobacco shop to read the newspaper headlines, another one went. Things were getting ugly. Christoph pulled out his handkerchief, blew his nose, and yet another one fell out. He picked it up and examined it between his fingers: it was the molar that had bothered him for years, and that the dentist had always maintained—in spite of all the evidence to the contrary—was healthy and thriving.

  Meanwhile, his very own tongue had started to push on one of the incisors with the malicious intention of knocking it out of his mouth, which is exactly what happened around three in the
afternoon. Christoph straightened his tie, ran his fingers through his hair, looked at the horizon with a dreamy expression, imagined poppy-covered meadows, took a few resolute steps, and seven of his teeth fell out at once. “Teeth have a very peculiar way of expressing themselves,” he thought, philosophically. And he added out loud, but softly, to himself: “It’s hard to ignore it—it just jumps right out at you.” At that precise moment, his second-to-last tooth fell to the ground and bounced a couple of times in front of him.

  Night fell, at last, but nothing good came with it. A single tooth remained. A sad, desolate, and solitary canine on the right side. All at once a radiant light appeared. And the tooth flew, with a soul as light as a butterfly’s shadow, into the beyond.

  THE LONG RED BEARD

  When Zurbin Raimondi entered the café, everyone burst into laughter. He always had this affect on people. Wherever he showed up, everyone would soon start laughing and pointing fingers at him. He walked across the room and dropped down into the last chair, patiently waiting for the laughter to subside. As was his custom, he didn’t exchange words with anyone. He wiped his neck, ears, and the curved end of his nose—all drenched in sweat—with his handkerchief. Afterward he drank a beer, paid, and left, in the midst of general laughter.

  Zurbin Raimondi couldn’t comprehend what it was about him that attracted so much attention and aroused such uncontrolled mirth in others. Especially because he hated to be seen: He spoke very little, and when he addressed people, even the sound of his own voice startled him. At night, closed up in his room, he gave in to tears and the most terrible hopelessness. “No, no, no!” he repeated to himself, tearing out his hair, his eyes rolling back in his head.

  Then, suddenly, as a result of really focusing on the problem, he felt that he had come upon a way to put an end to all that. He grabbed a blade, held it above his neck, and set about cutting off the long red beard that had been his companion for years. So then, with a cleanly shaven chin, he went out into the street. And it indeed came to pass: Not a single smile confronted him, nor any suggestion of mockery. Instead, he saw serious expressions, worried and even hateful, in the office, on the bus, in the café, at every turn.