Cosmos (19 page)

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and Fuks surprised me, jumping up and down, delighted, shouting: “Mrs.
Lena, please come to my rescue!”While Lulu: “Lena, stop helping him, he’s not on a honeymoon!”And Fuks: “I’m always on a honeymoon, it’s always honeymoon month for me!”Lukie: “Why is he talking about his monthlies, my ears are turning red!”

Lena, laughing just a little .
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Oh, the honey .
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the sticky honeymoon honey of the three couples .
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changing on Venomie’s part into her own “homemade” hone y, or “uniquely her own,” like certain scents, because indeed “when she smells herself it doesn’t bother her,” and she doesn’t bathe at all, why should she, and even if she did bathe, it would be in all seriousness, for herself, for the sake of hygiene, not for anyone else.
The Lulus were attacking Fuks, but of course they had Venomie in mind, he was just a billiard cushion .
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he knew it, but, thrilled that someone was finally pelting him with little jokes, he almost danced in carroty ecstasy, he, Drozdowski’s quarry, was now fawning up to them in his wretched joy.
While he danced to one side, an innate, disgusting silence kneaded itself on the Toleks’ side.
At my feet the grass—the grass—consisting of stalks and blades whose individual positions—twists, slants, bends, desolations, crunches, desiccations—loomed before me, flashing, escaping, absorbed as they were by the totality of the grass that breathlessly stretched all the way to the mountains, but already under lock and key, dejected, condemned to itself .
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We walked slowly.
Fuks’s laughter was more idiotic than the Lulus’ giggles!
His idiocy, the unexpected crescendo of his idiocy puzzled me, but the honey puzzled me even more.
Honey was on
the rise.
It began with the “honeymoon.”But now “honey” (thanks to Venomie) was becoming more and more “self-gratifying”.
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more disgusting .
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To which the priest also contributed .
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with his fingers fumbling .
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This love-honey, albeit somewhat disgusting, it too had some connection with me.
Connections, indeed.
Stop connecting—associating—.

Our steps, unhurried, trudging along, led us to an idyllic little stream.
Fuks ran up to it, spotted the best place to cross and shouted “this way.”The absence of light penetrated farther and farther into the light that was framed by the forests on the mountain slopes.
Lulu called out: “Lukie, have pity on my little shoes, carry me piggy-back, carry me over!
Oh oh!”

To which Lukie insolently replied:“Tolek, sir, you carry her over!”

Since Tolek merely coughed, Lukie wiggled his little hips and added with a schoolgirl’s cherubic solemnity:“Upon my word, do me a favor, I’m exhausted, I’m dead on my feet!”

The situation developed as follows: Lulu exclaimed to Lukie: “you’re mean!”She ran up to Tolek, almost dancing, “Mr.
Tolek, poor me, my husband has deserted me, have pity on my little shoes!”And she put out her little leg.
Lukie: “On my word, Mr.
Tolek, one, two, three, what will be will be!”Lulu: “One, two, three!”And she went on pleading to be in his arms.
Lukie: “Onward, what will be will be.
One, two, three!”

I didn’t watch this too closely, absorbed as I was by the surroundings, by what surrounded and entwined us, at least by the weight of the mountains that from a distance enveloped and clasped us almost sternly, having themselves turned grave with the forests’ reeling and caving in (though high above us there was brightness—yet set apart).
In spite of it, I was able to see that the
Lukies are dancing a war dance, the cavalryman does nothing, Fuks is in seventh heaven, Ludwik nothing, the priest stands still, Lena .
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why did I spoil her for myself at that time, that first night, in the hallway, with Katasia’s lip, and why, instead of forgetting it the next day, did I return to it, fixing it in my memory?
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I was curious about one thing, one thing alone interested me, whether the association was merely a whim on my part, or was there really some connection between her mouth and the lip that I subconsciously sensed—but what sort?
What sort?

An imperious whim?
An act of capricious license?
No.
I did not feel guilty.
It was happening to me, but it wasn’t my doing .
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.Not at all, why would I have made her more disgusting for myself, when, without her, my life could no longer be harmonious, fresh, alive, only dead, rotten, unnatural, made loathsome without her as she stood here with her charms that I’d rather not be watching.
No, it’s not that I couldn’t love her because of the swinish association with Katasia, that’s not the point, it was even worse, I didn’t want to love her, I didn’t feel like it, and I didn’t feel like it because it was as if I had a rash on my body and if, having a rash, I were to glimpse the most wonderful Venus, I also wouldn’t feel like it.
And I wouldn’t even look at her.
I didn’t feel well, so I didn’t feel like it .
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.Wait a minute .
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wait a minute .
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so was I the disgusting one, not she?
So I was the one who perpetrated the disgust, it was my doing.
I won’t find out.
I’ll never guess .
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But wait, wait, “lift her up,” Lukie’s calves in patterned socks, “lift her, Mr.
Tolek, in good fellowship, you are on a honeymoon too!”.
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And Venomie’s voice, deep, from the fullness of her breast, trusting, noble!

“Tolek, please, carry the lady over!”

I looked.
Tolek was already placing Lulu on the grass on the
other bank of the little stream, end of the affair, we’re walking again, walking slowly on the grass, honey, why honey, honey and the priest’s fingers, I walked, as one walks in the night, through a forest where rustles and shadows and shapes, dispersing, mysterious, yet also merging painfully, press hard and encircle at the very edge of a leap and an assault .
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and Leon, what about Leon with his bemberging into the berg?
How long will this lurk and circle around us?
Where will the beast spring from?
On this meadow, surrounded by mountains moving mutely into forsaking and deserting, heaping large deposits of invisibility, clusters of nonexistence, citadels of blindness and muteness, on the meadow a house appeared from behind the trees, it was not home and it existed only because it was not .
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it was not the other one, there, with the system of configurations that contained within itself the hanged bird—the hanging stick—the strangled-hanged-buried cat, where everything was under the supervision and care of Katasia’s “affected” mouth that happened perhaps to be in the kitchen, perhaps in the little garden, perhaps on the porch.

The emergence of the other through this house was importunate—and it was also sick, completely and terribly sick—but not only sick, it was also predatory—and I thought, it can’t be helped, let it be, this constellation, this form, this configuration and system cannot be overcome, one can neither break away nor work one’s way out of it, it’s all too much.
It is.
At this point I simply walked across the meadow, and Ludwik asked me for a razor blade—of course, you’re welcome to one!—and (I thought), it is insurmountable because any defense against it, any escape, entangles one all the more, just as if one were to fall into one of those traps where every movement ensnares you further .
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and, who knows, perhaps all this assailed me simply because I was defending
myself against it, yes, who knows, perhaps I became overly frightened when Katasia’s lip attached itself in my mind to Lena, and this was the cause of the paroxysm, that first paroxysm that had seized me, and which was the beginning of it all .
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I wondered if my defense preceded the assault?
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I wasn’t sure .
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In any case it was too late now, a polyp had formed along my perimeter, a falsity had arisen between us, and the more I tried to annihilate the polyp the more it asserted itself.

The house ahead of us looked bitten by dusk, to its very core, weakened .
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and the valley was like a false chalice, a poisonous bouquet, filled with powerlessness, the sky was disappearing, curtains were being drawn, closing, resistance was rising, objects were refusing to join in, they were crawling into their burrows, disappearance, disintegration, finality—even though there was still some light—but one was affected by the malicious depravity of vision itself.
I smiled because, I thought, darkness can be convenient, while not seeing one can approach, come closer, touch, enfold, embrace, and love to the point of madness, but I didn’t feel like it, I didn’t feel like doing anything, I had eczema, I was sick, nothing, nothing, just spit, spit into her mouth and nothing.

I did not feel like it.

“Look!”I heard the pig talking to her Dearest, her One-and-Only, quietly yet ardently (even though I didn’t look at them I was sure it had to do with the shades of purple on the horizon).
“Look,” she said sincerely and sublimely with that mouth organ of hers, and right away I heard in a deep baritone, a sincere “I see.”
So what about the priest?
What about this priest with his paws?!
What’s happening in that quarter?

Near the house Fuks and Lukie challenged each other to a race to the front door.

We went in.
Roly-Poly was in the kitchen.
Leon leapt out of the next room, holding a towel.

“Ready, get set, mangium,
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scrub me till I shine fiddle-dee-dee, hey mangium yum yum, no time to pee, let’s eat, hey ho, hey brother mountain men, give me a tart, gulp, gulp, old fart, O God, fill us up!”

Ludwik asked once more for the razor blade—and then Leon nudged me, would I loan him my watch, he didn’t trust his.
I gave it to him and asked why he was so keen on accuracy, and he whispered back, it must be to the minute!
Ludwik returned a moment later and wanted me to also give him a piece of string, but I didn’t have any.
I thought: a watch, a razor blade, a piece of string, one person after another asking for something, what is this, was there something brewing from that direction?
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How many themes could be taking shape at the same time as my own, how many meanings maturing independently of mine—barely emerging, larval, or deformed, or disguised?
And, for instance, what’s with the priest?

The table was already partially set, the dusk crawling out of the house had deepened, it was night on the stairs, and yet up in our little room, where Fuks was combing his hair in front of a hand mirror propped against the window frame, there was still some light—nonetheless, the blackness of the forest on the mountain slopes, a couple of miles away, was crawling through the window, like a thief.
The trees by the house rustled and a low breeze rose.
“Well, it’s just too much, oh brother!”Fuks was meanwhile going on.
“Their minds are made up, no doubt about it, you saw it, you
have no idea what was happening during our walk, scandalous, but you could bust your gut laughing, whenever they set their sights on somebody, God have mercy, still, I must admit I’m not surprised .
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the worst of it is, that Venomie is so .
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so moved .
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please hold the mirror .
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actually I’m not surprised at Lulu’s behavior, the way Venomie treated herself to such a strapping fellow in exchange for her father’s money is a bit annoying, and on top of that for her to be going after someone else .
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It’s a little embarrassing for Lena, they are her guests after all, they are both her girlfriends, besides, she doesn’t know how to cope with it, she’s too quiet, and Ludwik is a total zero, a strange guy, I’d say the type to just go about his job, a neatly dressed functionary, how did he come by someone like Lena, that’s strange too, well, people choose each other by accident, that’s the devil of it, three little honeymoon couples, just let it go, can’t stop nastiness from developing, on the other hand, one must admit that too much too soon isn’t healthy, I’m not surprised that Lulu was in the mood for revenge .
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She caught Venomie with Lukie, you know .
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”

“What do you mean, caught her?”