B005GEZ23A EBOK (17 page)

“What do you want?”

He was ready for a fight. The fiancé immediately switched off his flashlight. “I truly beg your pardon, we heard something in the darkness, I merely asked.”

And he left quickly, in the dark.

I didn’t have to put my head out of my room to keep watch on Siemian—there was only a wall between us. It was quiet at his place, though he had not turned off the lamp. I preferred not to go to bed for fear of falling asleep, I sat at my table, but the rhythm of the course of events was throbbing in my head, and I found it hard to cope with—because, above the material ebb and flow of facts, there hovered a mystic sphere of accents and meanings, like the sun’s glare over a whirlpool. I sat like this for almost an hour, gazing into that glittering stream, until finally I noticed a piece of paper that had been awaiting me, stuck through a chink in the door.

A propos the latest W—K clash. That was quite a fury erupting. K. would have beaten him up!

They already know that he saw them. That’s why.

They already know because I told them. I told them that you had told me that Vaclav had told you—that he saw them on the island by chance. That he saw them (but not me) while walking along the path, by chance.

As it’s easy to guess, they burst out laughing, i.e., they burst out laughing
together,
because I told them both at the same time, and they, being together, had to burst out laughing … because they were together and what’s more, in front of me! Now they are FIXED as laughing torturers of W. That is, as long as she and Karol are together, coupled, as a couple—for you saw after all, at supper, she, by herself, i.e., on her own, remains his faithful fiancée. But together they are laughing at him.

And now for the KNIFE.

The knife makes a compound S1 (Siemian)—SI (Skuziak).

From this follows: (SSI)—W. Through A, through Ameila’s murder.

What chemistry! How everything connects! These connections are still vague, but one can see there is a TENDENCY in that direction. … And imagine, I didn’t know what to make of that Skuziak—while here he is, crawling in all by himself by way of the KNIFE. But be careful. Don’t scare them away! One mustn’t force anything … one mustn’t impose, let’s go with the current as if there’s nothing afoot, and merely take advantage of every chance to get closer to
our
goal.

We must cooperate with Hipolit’s underground activity. Don’t let on that our underground activity is of a different
kind. Behave as if you re stuck in the national struggle, in the Underground Army, in the Poland-Germany dilemma, as if this is what it’s all about … while in reality our point is that

HENIA WITH KAROL

But we mustn’t reveal this. We mustn’t let on to anyone. No one. Not even to ourselves. Mum’s the word. We mustn’t put it forward—suggest it to anyone. Silence! Let it evolve by itself. …

We need courage and stubbornness, because we must
stick to our purpose
even if it does look like lascivious swinishness. The swinishness will cease to be swinishness if we stick to it! We must press on, because, if we let up, the swinishness will drown us. Don’t be thrown off balance—don’t let on! There is no retreat.

My greetings. Best regards. Burn this.

“Burn this” he commanded. But it had already been written. “THE POINT IS HENIA WITH KAROL …” Whom was this addressed to? To me? Or to Her, to nature?

Someone knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Vaclav entered.

“May I talk to you?”

I gave him my chair, which he took. I sat on the bed.

“I’m very sorry, I know you’re tired. But I realized I won’t be able to sleep a wink until I talk to you. In a different way
than I have so far. More frankly. I hope you don’t hold it against me. You probably know what it’s about. About … about this thing on the island.”

“There isn’t much I can …”

“I know. I know. Forgive me for interrupting you. I know that you don’t know anything. But I’d like to know what you’re thinking. I’m having a hard time coping with my thoughts. What do you think about that? What do you—think?”

“Me? What can I think about it? I merely showed it to you, considering it my du …”

“Of course. I’m much obliged. I really don’t know how to thank you. But I’d like to know your point of view. Perhaps I should state my view first. I think it’s nothing. Nothing important—it’s because they’ve known each other since childhood and … It’s more silliness than … And at their age too! No doubt in years past there was … something between them … perhaps something half-childish, you know, teasing and intimacies, and it had acquired some more specific form—quirky, yes? And now they sometimes return to it. A beginning, a budding sensuality. One must also allow for an optical illusion because we were looking from a distance, from behind the bushes. I mustn’t doubt Henia’s feelings. I have no right to. I have no basis for it. I know she loves me. How could I ever compare our love to such … childishness. So nonsensical!”

Body! He sat directly across from of me. Body! He was in his bathrobe—he was here with his corpulent, pampered,
plump and whitish, groomed and robed body! He sat with his body as if it were a suitcase, or a toiletry case. Body! I was furious at the body and, for that reason, carnal myself, I watched him mockingly, I was mocking for all I was worth, almost whistling. Not one iota of compassion. Body!

“You can believe me, or not believe me, but this really would not have upset me. … Except that … one thing is torturing me. I don’t know, perhaps it’s an illusion. … That’s why I wanted to ask you. I beg your pardon in advance if it’s a bit … far-fetched. I must admit that I don’t know how to put it. What they were doing … you know, they fell so abruptly, then they rose … you must agree it was … somewhat peculiar. One doesn’t do it
like that!
”

He fell silent and swallowed his saliva, and he was embarrassed that he was swallowing.

“Is that your impression?”

“It didn’t happen normally. If they were kissing, you know—just simply … If he, let’s say, knocked her off her feet—just simply. Even if he had simply taken her right before my eyes. All that would have … disconcerted me less … than this strangeness … the strangeness of their movements. …”

He took my hand. He looked into my eyes. I cringed with disgust. I hated him.

“Please tell me frankly, am I right? But perhaps I didn’t see it as I should have? Perhaps it’s my own quirkiness? I don’t know myself. Please tell me!”

Body!

Scrupulously hiding my frivolous yet merciless maliciousness, I said—actually nothing much—nothing that would add oil to the fire: “I don’t know. … Actually … Perhaps to some degree …”

“But I don’t know what importance I should attach to it?! Is it something—significant? And to what extent? First of all tell me: do you think that she and he? …”

“What?”

“I’m sorry! I’m thinking of
sex appeal
. What we call
sex appeal When
I saw them together for the first time … this was a year ago … it caught my eye right away.
Sex appeal
Attraction. Sexual attraction. He and she. But at that time I wasn’t serious about Henia. Later, when she aroused my feelings, that other thing moved to the background, compared with my feelings the other thing lost its meaning, I stopped paying attention to it. It was childish after all! But now …”

He took a deep breath.

“Now I’m afraid that it may be—worse than anything I could have imagined.”

He rose.

“They fell to the ground … not as they normally would have. And they rose right away—also not quite normally. And also they left not quite normally. … What is it? What does it mean? One doesn’t do it
like that!
”

He sat down.

“What? What? What’s the point of it?”

He looked at me.

“Oh, how it twists my imagination! You tell me! Just tell me something! Don’t leave me alone with this!” He smiled wanly. “Forgive me.”

So this one was also seeking my company, preferring “not to be in this alone”—I was popular indeed! However, unlike Fryderyk, he was begging me not to have his madness confirmed and, with a trembling heart, he awaited my denial that would push everything into the realm of the chimerical. It was up to me—whether to calm him down. … Body! If only he talked to me solely as a soul! But the body! And this levity of mine! I didn’t need to exert myself in order to settle him once and for all in hell, it was enough, as I had done before, to mumble a few indistinct words: “I must admit … Perhaps … It’s hard to say … It’s possible that …,” I said. He replied:

“She loves me, and I know beyond a doubt that she loves me, she loves me!”

He was defending himself, in spite of everything.

“She loves you? I don’t doubt it. But don’t you think that between them love is superfluous. With you she needs love, with him she doesn’t.”

Body!

He said nothing for a long while. He sat quietly. I too sat and said nothing. Silence enveloped us. What about Fryderyk? Was he asleep? And Siemian? And Józek in the pantry? How about him? Is he asleep? The house seemed to be harnessed to many horses, each one pulling in a different direction.

He smiled, embarrassed.

“This is really unpleasant,” he said. “I just lost my mother. And now …”

He thought for a while.

“I really don’t know how to apologize for this nocturnal intrusion. I was—beside myself. I want to tell you one more thing, if you’ll permit me. I’m anxious that it be said. What I will tell you will be … Well. Listen. I’m often surprised that she … feels something for me. As far as my feelings are concerned—that’s a different matter. I feel what I feel for her because she’s created for love, she is for love, to be loved. Yet what is it that she loves in me? My feelings, my love for her? No, not just that, she also loves
me for myself—
but why? What does she love in me? You know what I’m like. I have no illusions, I don’t like myself much, and I really don’t know, I can’t understand what she sees in me, I admit it even offends me. If I have anything to reproach her for, it’s exactly that she … accepts me so graciously. Would you believe it, that in moments of the most passionate ecstasy I resent this very ecstasy, the fact that she succumbs to it with me? And I have never been able to feel at ease with her, it has always felt like a favor, a concession granted me, I even had to summon up cynicism in order to take advantage of this “convenience,” this kindhearted arrangement created by nature. Well and good. All in all—she loves me. That’s a fact. Undeserved or deserved, convenient or inconvenient, she loves me.”

“She loves you. Undoubtedly.”

“Wait! I know what you want to say: that theirs is outside love, in another realm. True! That’s why this affair that’s happening to me is … immorally barbarous, exceptionally fanciful in its maliciousness—it’s hard to understand how by some devilish miracle this could have happened. If she were to be unfaithful to me with a grown man …

“My fiancée is running around with someone like this,” he suddenly said with a different tone of voice and looked at me. “What does this mean? And how am I to defend myself? What am I to do?

“She’s running around with someone outside …,” he elaborated, “and in a manner that’s strange … unique … unheard of … one that touches, permeates me, you know, because I taste its flavor, I grasp its … Would you believe that on the basis of this sample that we watched, I have mentally reconstructed
everything
that is possible between them, the totality of their relation. And this is so … erotically brilliant, that I don’t know how they happened upon it! It’s like something out of a dream! Which one of them thought it up? He or she? If it was her—then she’s quite an artist!”

After a moment.

“And you know what I think? That she didn’t give herself to him. And this is more awful than if they were sleeping together. Such a thought is sheer madness, isn’t it? Indeed! Because, if she had given herself to him I could defend myself, but this way … I can’t … and it’s possible that she, by not giving herself to him, is even more his. Because everything
between them is happening differently, differently! It’s something different! It’s something different!”

Ha! There was one thing he didn’t know. Namely, that what he saw on the island was happening
for
Fryderyk and
through
Fryderyk—it was a kind of bastard child, created by them with Fryderyk. And what satisfaction—to keep him in ignorance, he, not having a clue that I, his confidant, am on the other side, with the elemental force that is destroying him. Even though this was not my elemental force (because it was too young). Even though I was his contemporary, not theirs—and by ruining him I was actually ruining myself. Yet—what wonderful levity!

“It’s because of the war,” he said. “It’s because of the war. But why do I have to carry on a war with those kids? One of them killed my mother, and the other … This is too much, a little bit too much. It’s going too far. Do you want to know how I’ll conduct myself?”

Since I didn’t answer, he repeated with emphasis.

“Do you want to know how I will act?”

“I’m listening. Tell me.”

“I won’t back down an inch.”

“Aha!”

“I won’t let her be seduced—nor be seduced myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know how to hang on to what’s mine and how to keep my eye on it. I love her. She loves me. This is the only important thing. The rest must give way, the rest must be of no significance,
because that’s how I want it. I’m capable of wanting it. You know, I don’t actually believe in God. My mother was a believer. I’m not. But I want God to exist. I want it—and this is more important than if I were merely convinced of his existence. And in this case I’m also capable of wanting it and I will hold my ground, my morality. I’ll call Henia to order. So far I haven’t spoken to her, but early tomorrow I’ll have a word with her, I’ll call her to order.”