Cosmos (24 page)

He stood under a huge boulder that protruded over a ravine, densely overgrown.
In front of the boulder was a small clearing, this place must have been frequented, I thought that I noticed wheel tracks .
.
.
Some dry twigs, grass.
“Lukie, I don’t want to be here, what a place he’s found!”
“Colonel, sir, there is nothing to sit on,” “Mr.
President, sir, on the bare ground?”

“Alright, alright,” Leon’s voice was plaintive, “it’s just that Daddy lost his cufflink.
The cufflink, damnit .
.
.
The cufflink.
Would someone with a flashlight please come here.”

Sparrow.

Stick.

Cat.

Ludwik.

Priest.

Leon, bent over, was looking for the cufflink, Lukie was shining his flashlight, I remembered Katasia’s little room, Fuks and I shining our flashlights.
Oh, so long ago.
The little room was back there.
With Katasia.
He kept looking for the cufflink, finally he
took the flashlight from Lukie, but after a while I noticed that the light, instead of keeping to the ground, was surreptitiously sweeping over the boulder and other rocks, just like Fuks and I swept the walls of the little room with our light.
Was he looking for a cufflink?
Maybe not a cufflink at all, was this perhaps the place to which he’s been leading us, the place of twenty-three years ago?
*
.
.
.
But he was not sure.
He could not quite recognize it.
Since that time new trees had grown, the ground had subsided, the boulder could have shifted, he was more and more feverishly searching with that flashlight of his, just like we had, at the time, and, seeing him thus, unsure, lost, almost drowning and water rising to his mouth, I had to think back on how we, Fuks and I, had been lost on ceilings, walls, flower beds.
Those were old times!
Everyone waited.
No one said anything, out of curiosity probably, to finally find out what’s squeaking in the grass.
I saw Lena.
She was delicate, lacy with her mouth stick sparrow cat, Katasia, Ludwik, and priest.

He couldn’t figure it out.
He was lost.
He was now examining the lowest part of the boulder.
All was quiet.
He straightened up.

“It’s here.”

Lulu chirped, “What is it that’s here, Mr.
Leon, what is it?”

Obligingly.

He stood modestly, calmly.
“What a coincidence .
.
.
Chance, if you please, one of a kind!
I’m looking for my cufflink, and I see that this rock .
.
.
I’ve been here before .
.
.
Indeed, it was here that I, twenty-three years ago .
.
.
Here!”

Suddenly, as if on order, he was lost in thought, and this dragged
on.
The flashlight went out.
It dragged on and dragged on.
No one interrupted him, not until a few minutes later when Lulu said softly, tenderly, “What happened to you, Mr.
Leon?”
He replied, “Nothing.”

I noticed that Roly-Poly wasn’t here.
Had she stayed behind at the house?
What if she had hanged Ludwik?
Nonsense.
He hanged himself.
Why?
As yet, no one knows about it.
What will happen when they find out?

Sparrow.

Stick.

Cat.

Ludwik.

It was difficult, arduous to realize that what is happening here, now, is in relation to that there, then, fifteen miles back.
And I was mad that Leon was playing first fiddle, while everyone else (not excluding myself) became his .
.
.
spectators .
.
.
we were here to see .
.
.

He muttered indistinctly.

“Here.
With a woman .
.
.
”

Again a few silent minutes, quiet, the long minutes dripped with swinishness and became a confession, and since no one spoke it meant that we are here for the sole reason of his doing his business in our presence .
.
.
with his own .
.
.
self-gratifying .
.
.
gratify yourself .
.
.We waited for him to be done.
Time went by.

He unexpectedly shone the flashlight on his face.
His spectacles, his bald head, mouth, everything.
Eyes closed.
A voluptuary.
A martyr.
He said:

“There are no other views.”

He switched off the flashlight.
The darkness caught me by surprise, it was darker than one would have expected, probably because
clouds were already overhead.
He was almost invisible by the boulder.
What was he doing?
He must have been doing his own disgusting stuff, exciting himself, recollecting his long-gone, one and only wench, he tried hard, worked at it, celebrated his swinishness.
But .
.
.
but what if he wasn’t sure that it was here?
And he was celebrating at random?
I was surprised that no one is leaving, surely they have realized by now why he had brought them here, to assist him, to watch, to excite him with their watching.
It would be so easy to walk away.
But no one walked away.
Lena, for instance, could have walked away, but she didn’t walk away.
She did not move.
He began to breathe hard.
He panted rhythmically.
No one could see what he was up to, or how.
But they did not walk away.
He groaned.
His groan was sensuous, but, actually, laborious, it was to voluptualize himself.
He groaned and yelped.
His yelp, muffled and throaty, was to help him whore himself, oh how he labored and how he strained, oh how he pigged himself, and oh how he celebrated and solemnized .
.
.He labored.
He strained.
He breathed hard.
He yelped.
He’s straining.
He’s laboring.
We waited.
Then he said:

“Berg.”

I replied.

“Berg.”

“Bemberging with bemberg into berg!”
he exclaimed, and I exclaimed: “Bemberging with bemberg into berg!”

He calmed down completely and we could hear nothing, I was thinking sparrow Lena stick Lena cat into the mouth honey lip twirl-up wall clod of dirt scratch finger Ludwik bushes hangs hang mouth Lena alone there kettle cat stick fence road Ludwik priest wall cat stick sparrow cat Ludwik hangs stick hangs sparrow hangs Ludwik cat I’ll hang————Suddenly it started pouring.
Loose, dense drops, we lift our heads, it suddenly poured buckets, water came down in sheets, a sudden wind rose, panic, everyone running for the nearest tree, but the pines are leaking, dripping, dribbling, water, water, water, wet hair, backs, thighs, and just ahead of us in the dark darkness a vertical wall of falling water interrupted solely by despairing flashlights, then, in the light of the flashlights, one could see it pour, fall, also streams, waterfalls, lakes, it drips, spurts, splashes, lakes, seas, currents of gurgling water and a bit of straw, stick, leaf carried by water, disappearing, confluence of streams, rivers arising, islands, obstacles, barriers and curlicues, while above from above high up a deluge, it’s pouring, it’s falling, while below a leaf rushing by, a disappearing piece of tree bark, all resulting in shivers, head cold, fever, Lena developed a sore throat, a taxi had to be ordered from Zakopane, sickness, doctors, something else entirely, I returned to Warsaw, my parents, war with my father again, various other things, problems, complications, difficulties.
Today we had chicken fricassee for dinner.

*This is not an error.
Many people have questioned it and suggest that any mention of years—i.e., thirty-seven, twenty-seven, twenty-three—may relate to milestones in Gombrowicz’s own life.