A Grain of Truth (32 page)

“I’m sorry,” said Szacki after a pause. He genuinely felt bad – he realized that by responding to a stereotype with a stereotype he was behaving no differently from the drunken neo-fascists whom he had had arrested the night before. “I’m very sorry. And thank you for your help.”

The priest nodded, and something clicked in Szacki’s mind. It was starting to be unbearable – if those empty clicks didn’t stop he’d have to consult a neurologist. What could it be about this time? The pogroms? The seminary? Bible studies? Or maybe he’d seen something out of the corner of his eye? Maybe his brain had made a note of something important that had eluded his conscious mind? He took a good look around the interior of the church.

“Teo…” Sobieraj began, but he silenced her with a gesture.

He noticed something that drew his gaze in one of the side chapels. It was a picture of Christ the Merciful, the same as everywhere, a copy of the one based on the vision of Sister Faustyna. Around the picture there were some votive offerings, and underneath it a quotation from the Gospels: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. J 15,12.”

Click.

What’s it about? Christ? Faustyna? The quotation? Mercy? That was just what was lacking in this case. Perhaps it was to do with John the Evangelist? The ladies in the shop had been talking about a Bible contest and he’d felt a click then too. Except that he’d had his head full
of Hitler and George Michael. God, how did that sound – sometimes he was ashamed of his own thoughts. Concentrate! A Bible contest – click. John the Evangelist – click. The seminary – click.

He tried linking these facts together, while staring non-stop at the picture.

Click.

He was a hair’s breadth away from swearing as loud as he could bellow. How the hell could he have been so dumb?

“I need a copy of the Bible. Immediately!” he barked at the curate, who without waiting for the priest’s permission, set off at a run towards the sacristy; his cassock fluttered in a cinematic way.

“Which books of the Bible can you think of that start with the letter K?” he asked the priest.

“There’s no single letter K denoting a book in the Polish Bible,” replied the canon after a moment’s thought. “But the ones that start with a K are
Kapłańska
– Leviticus,
Królewskie
– Kings, and
Koheleta
– Ecclesiastes. In the New Testament we have the two letters to the
Koryntian
– Corinthians, and one to the
Kolosan
– Colossians. I think that’s it, though in Latin nothing starts with a K – but with a C we have the
Canticum Canticorum
, in other words the Song of Songs in the Old Testament as well.”

The curate had made the journey to the sacristy and back again like a seasoned sprinter, and had trouble coming to a halt before the small group assembled beneath the representation of ritual murder, wielding a vast A3-sized book bound in leather and adorned with metal fittings and gilding.

“Have you gone mad?” asked the canon. “Couldn’t you bring an ordinary one from the bookshelf?”

“I wanted everyone to be able to see properly,” panted the curate, though it was clear to all that he didn’t find a plain blue Millennium Bible suitable for such a grand moment worthy of Dan Brown.

“Let’s start with
Kapłańska
– Leviticus,” said Szacki. “That’s part of the Pentateuch, the Torah, right?”

“That’s right,” confirmed the canon.

“Chapter twenty-four, verses nineteen to twenty-five.”

“Oh, of course… K-W-P,” groaned Sobieraj from the back.

The curate found the right place, helping himself with a knee, and respectfully offered it to the priest to read out.

“If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbour, as he has done, so shall it be done to him – fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him. And whoever kills an animal shall restore it; but whoever kills a man shall be put to death.”

The canon had a deep, resonant voice, and uttered the words slowly, with the respect due to the Holy Scripture. They sounded ominous in the silence of the church, reverberating against the ancient stones and bouncing off the walls and vaulted ceiling, filling Sandomierz cathedral with sound and meaning. No one twitched a muscle until the distant echoes had fallen completely silent.

“Now for a book that starts with W –
Wyjścia
, or Exodus, chapter twenty-one, verses twenty-two to twenty-five,” said Szacki.

The curate rustled the pages.

“If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

“And a book starting with P – I think it’ll be
Prawa
– Deuteronomy, yes?”

“
Powtórzonego Prawa
,” Wilczur corrected him from behind. Szacki shuddered; the voice just behind his back gave him a shock. And he was surprised, but only a little.

“Yes, of course. Chapter nineteen, verses sixteen to twenty-one.”

More rustling. And a flush on the curate’s face – he looked as if he was burning, filled with determination to cast off his cassock and swap it for Indiana Jones’s jacket and hat.

“If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. And
the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you. And those who remain shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

The priest read out the final sentence without looking at the pages of the Bible, but instead he cast his eyes over the faces of his audience, and finally suspended his questioning gaze on Szacki.

“That is all. It looks as if the meaning of the Hebrew inscription has been explained.”

“Surely,” remarked Sobieraj. “Our mysterious KWP has also been explained.”

“Yeees,” drawled Szacki. “But why aren’t they in order? Strange.”

“But what’s strange?”

“The quotations aren’t in order,” replied the curate quickly, so no one would beat him to it. “In the Pentateuch first there’s the Book of Genesis, then Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.”

“So it should be WKP?
Wyjścia
– Exodus,
Kapłańska
– Leviticus, and then
Powtórzonego Prawa
– Deuteronomy. Why have the letters been swapped?”

“I have no idea,” replied Szacki. “But I’ll find out. I must find a rabbi.”

Basia Sobieraj glanced at her watch.

“You’ve got to be at the prosecutor’s office in five minutes. You’re interviewing Magiera – they’ve brought him in from Kielce specially.”

Prosecutor Teodor Szacki swore hideously. Wilczur snorted with laughter, the canon gave him a reproachful look that was full of understanding, and the curate was delighted.

IV

SUSPECT INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT. Sebastian Magiera, born 20th April 1987, resident at 15a Topolowa Street, Zawichost, currently detained at Kielce custody centre. Education secondary technical, unemployed before arrest, occasionally employed as a gardener. Relation to parties: victim’s son. No criminal record, informed of a suspect’s obligations and rights, his statement is as follows
:

I would like to change the statement made several times previously in the course of proceedings and to admit that on 1st November 2008 I unintentionally killed my father, Stefan Magiera, at his home, 15a Topolowa Street, Zawichost. I did it in an emotional state and in the heat of an argument, and I did not intend to deprive my father of his life. The cause of the argument was the fact that, despite repeated promises, my father refused to provide me, my wife Anna and our three-year-old son Tadek with accommodation at his house, which he inhabited alone, or to let us use a family plot of land which was lying fallow. This fact was having an extremely negative effect on our living conditions.

I met my wife at horticultural college in Sandomierz five years ago. At the time I was living alone with my father in Zawichost. I would like to mention that my father, a former athlete, was always abusing alcohol and was aggressive. Anna and I fell in love, and when she became pregnant, which was before we got married, I asked my father if she could come and live with us, because there was no room for us at her parents’ flat in Klimontów. My drunken father insulted me and Anna, refused to let us live at his house and threw me out. To begin with, in spite of all we lived with Anna’s parents, but once Tadek was born, we rented a room in Klimontów. Our situation was very bad and we didn’t have any money. I had occasional work as a gardener, but I wasn’t earning much. Once Tadek had grown a bit, Anna looked for work too, but without success. Throughout this time I kept trying to talk to my father, asking him to let us have at least one room, but he was unyielding, even after we got married in 2007, and continuously maligned me and my wife. We had problems because the benefits weren’t enough to live on, especially when it turned out Tadek was suffering from asthma and needed expensive medicine. So we moved from the room in Klimontów into the welfare huts in Kruków, Sandomierz. The conditions there were not good. My wife Anna is very pretty and in 2007 she found a job as a model. She started travelling around Poland to do fashion shows, and I took care of the child. And I kept talking to my father, the whole time to no effect. My father kept repeating that he’d managed to win a bronze medal at the Munich Olympics through his own hard and persistent effort, and that I should follow his example.

Anna’s job turned out to be unsatisfactory because the work as a model required some stripping. At first she modelled underwear at discos, then performances were added, such as wrestling in jelly and boxing with other girls. For her and for me it was very humiliating. At first she used to tell me about the other girls, about her female boss, who was unpleasant and aggressive, and about the woman’s husband, who treated the employees disrespectfully and tried to exploit them. Then she stopped telling me, and I didn’t ask, because I thought it was painful for her and she didn’t want to talk about it. Besides which I felt ashamed, because I should have been the one supporting the family. That was an awful time, so I went to my father with the child and started begging him, and insisting that it was our last hope, that the land was just lying fallow, and he wasn’t even getting any grants for it, nothing. And it wasn’t just about grants, it could be cultivated, I could grow things there, I’ve always had a flair for that. And my father took pity and said all right, we could live with him, and he’d transfer the land to me, he didn’t need it, because his pension was enough for him. He said we’d sort out all the formalities by the end of the year, and we could move in from 1st January. It was the summer of 2008 when we had that conversation. I admit that apart from my wedding day and the day Tadek was born, that was the happiest day of my life.

It was mainly me who took care of the preparations, because Anna was travelling to shows, and I admit that our relationship was deteriorating at the time. Not because we argued, but we didn’t talk much. Now I think she held it against me that she had to do that job, but we had no alternative – we were spending up to three hundred zlotys a month on medicine. Nevertheless, I managed to borrow a bit from people too, to buy some gardening tools for the land. Things were even good with my father then too, we planned what I’d do together, I spent time at his place and he showed Tadek his discus, but it was still too heavy, the kid couldn’t even hold it up. I was afraid my father would get upset, but he just laughed and said it was nothing, never mind, he’d grow into it eventually.

On All Saints’ Day 2008, the three of us went to Zawichost to visit the family graves, and to see my father of course; I was a bit worried about the meeting, because since the arguments in the past Anna had hardly seen him at all. But it was nice, we had something to eat, we chatted and had a drink, but not much. I did most of the talking, saying what would happen with the land, but my father didn’t pick up on the topic at all. He just switched on some music on the radio and said now Anna could show him how she danced as a model and how she did a display. She didn’t want to, and I got upset and said it was out of the question. To which he, and I quote, said: “Since that tart gets undressed in front of everyone, she can do it in front of me too.” And he said if she didn’t do a dance for him, there’d be no home and no land, and I could go and play with my rakes with Tadek in the sandpit. And he started to laugh, and I realized it had all been lies – he had never really wanted to give us a place to live, or a piece of land, or to help me, or anything at all. Somewhere he had found out about Anna, and had just thought it all up to humiliate and degrade us, there was no truth in it at all.

And then I saw that Anna was starting to undress, doing it with such indifferent, mechanical movements. And my father was laughing even louder, saying he’d seen through her when we were still at college, but I had refused to believe him, so why didn’t I look now, this lesson was entirely for free, worth more than the house and the land, because maybe I’d finally wise up. And at that moment I felt nothing mattered any more – not the future, nor my wife, nor the medicine for Tadek – and this red mist came down before my eyes, and I took that discus from Munich off the shelf and struck my father on the head with it, and then I hit him a few more times as he lay there.