Killing Auntie (4 page)

The heat inside the stove was wonderful. I threw in more pieces of paper and wood to build up the fire and chucked the foot into the shimmering void. It sizzled. I heard a hollow thump of the falling weight. The flames began to lick the new item. The skin began to blush and stretch. I smelled the odor of burning tallow. I was very tempted to watch the struggle of the flames with the corpse's foot a bit longer, but overcame the temptation and closed the hatch. It could have led to some kind of unhealthy sadism, which so far had been absent in my relationship with the corpse. Anyway, the fire burned better with the hatch shut.

Somehow I lost interest in preparing the cutlets now. There was still time, I told myself. And went to the room and lay on the bed. Like an old sybarite I took time to arrange the pillows under my head and shoulders, and to wrap myself in the blanket. I wanted to make my bed as soft and comfortable as possible. I reached out for a book. Oddly, it happened to be
Dante's Inferno
. I was irked by this theatricality, which from time to time emerged against my will and against – I was very much aware of that – my actual situation. But then, what was I to do if this was the only book within the range of my hand? I didn't have much of a choice anyway. The few miserable books lying on my shelf were all so thumbed through I had long lost any interest in them.

I immersed myself in reading but as I read I was becoming more and more aware that my eyes were running through Dante's stanzas mechanically, without taking in any meaning. I felt sleepy. It was eleven o'clock. Perfect time for a midmorning nap. And then, when the foot had burned, I'd cook myself lunch. I unclasped my watch strap and unbuckled my trouser belt. The room was cold. The fire, left unattended in favor of the kitchen stove, had died out. I wrapped myself tight in the blanket and closed my eyes. Sleep came soon after.

I woke up with a headache. My head was still full of images from my oppressive, suffocating dreams. I had dreamed a nightmare. I threw off the blanket and sat on the bed. Across the room hung a thin gray mist. And a smell of burning. I opened the window and leaned out into the frosty air of the street. My head swam. I turned back into the room and only then realized how it stank inside. Before I guessed the cause I was in the kitchen. It was dark. Thick, black smoke and that sweet, sickly stench permeated the entire room. The stove looked like a volcano. Through the gaps in the range and the hatch door spewed heavy, lazy swirls.

I retreated and shut the door. The hall too was filling with smoke. I shut myself in my room and opened the window wide. Yuk, what an awful, sticky stink … I felt that stickiness everywhere: in my nose, on my hands, inside my mouth. I felt sick. I positioned myself by the window and, taking deep breaths, began to think through different ways of getting rid of the smoke. Alas there was only one thing to do: air the flat. A dangerous way, attracting attention but … the only possibility. I held my breath and burst into the kitchen. I flung the window wide open and quickly ran back into my room, where the air was by now quite breathable. I wrapped myself in the blanket and covered my feet with a duvet. With my hands clasped over my chest, eyes fixed on the ceiling, I waited for the kitchen to clear. It was a method of an ostrich, perhaps, but who said I was to be constantly in a heroic mode of action? After all, so far the more energetic activity had always landed me in trouble.

But it was not granted that I should enjoy my peace for long. I heard banging on the kitchen door. A dilemma: Should I open it or not open it? Of course – open it. I could not afford the risk of having someone break down the door and poke around my flat in search of the cause of fire. Behind the door rose a clamor of female voices. Someone started pummeling the door with a fist. I called out:

“I'm coming! I'm coming …” and turned the key.

I came face-to-face with a small group of frightened women. The poor ladies had abandoned their saucepans and hurried to my rescue. The corpulent Malinowska was holding a knife with which she was presumably cutting meat when she heard her close neighbor was in danger. Skinny, jumpy Benderowa dragged in her toddler; the look of terror in her irregular pale eyes made me want to laugh. But I stopped myself. The women swept me aside and ran in. They kept throwing questions at me, which fortunately I didn't have to answer as they were just as quickly answering them themselves, shouting over one another.

So I stood mumbling something, spreading my hands, smiling apologetically and thanking them. The women treated me with tender concern, putting into their words all their motherly affection they felt for those different twenty-year-old men – their lovers, husbands and sons – who were driving them to their graves. The energetic Piekarzowa knelt in front of the stove and began to poke about inside it with a poker. I offered my help and tried to take the poker out of her hands but was brusquely led away from the stove. It's not a job for boys. So I leaned against the sideboard and, talking to the ladies, waited for the half-burned foot to fall out of the stove. Piekarzowa put the bucket to the hatch and with a few well-practiced movements swept out a mound of ash. In a gray, acrid cloud of ash I saw the foot. It fell into the bucket. With a thud. Now Piekarzowa would look into the bucket and … I didn't want to imagine any more.

But nothing of the sort happened. The woman swept the stove clean and shut the hatch.

“Well, Mr. Jurek,” she said, “it won't smoke no more. And in the future – be careful.”

Nodding my head meekly, I listened to warnings and indulgent rebukes. The kitchen was emptying. The women were returning to their kitchens. Only Piekarzowa stayed for a chat, asking me about Auntie and my dead parents. At length, she commiserated over my orphaned state and Auntie's toil – “after all, an old person.”

At long last I managed to get rid of the ghastly woman. I sat down in the middle of the kitchen totally crushed. In front of the stove I noticed a piece of Auntie's leg still lying there. It was incomprehensible how they could not have seen it. I poked around the bucket and found the foot, charred but still retaining its natural shape. The good housewife missed that too. No doubt I was incredibly lucky, but somehow it didn't make me jump for joy. My lunch, which I prepared all by myself – the cutlets, so keenly anticipated by my taste buds – all went down the tube. And now the flat was cold as a doghouse. My first response was to take the foot with the ash and dispose of it in the rubbish bin outside. I knew it was risky but then it was already the second day and I still hadn't got rid of one piece of my deceased.

However, I refrained from that desperate step. Resigned, I picked up the foot and the piece of leg and carried them to the bathroom where I placed them on both sides of the corpse. Then, from the sheets, I selected the biggest one and covered the corpse as neatly as I could. Only one leg and the shorter stump were sticking out from under this improvised shroud.

The time for my university lectures approached. Having checked that the flat was more or less free of smoke, I closed the windows and went out. I had my lunch in the corner bar. I chewed the bits of the overseasoned stew but they grew only bigger in my mouth. I washed them down with a beer. It was flat and sour. I quickly paid the bill and went out onto the street. I checked my watch. It turned out I was about fifteen minutes early. These fifteen minutes would have to be killed loitering and window-shopping, or reading film posters hanging outside the cinema on my way. I was not interested in the merchandise on display and I'd read the film posters several times before, but I stopped both before the shops and before the cinema. I didn't want to arrive too early.

The lecture was just like all the others I had attended so far. The cold barrenness of the walls and the ritual inventory hanging behind a framed showcase were exactly as they were before. I noted down some of the professor's words absentmindedly, though not more absentmindedly than usual. His bony, shortsighted assistant was noting the professor's every word, turning his head in a funny way like a blind sparrow hawk. After forty-five minutes the professor put his coat on and went out for a fifteen-minute break. Then he returned and got on with his lecture for another three quarters of an hour. The assistant knew well when his moment would come, and when the old man pulled out his watch he put his pen aside and waited in readiness. Then he jumped up, took the professor's coat off the coat hanger and before the old man managed even to put it on properly, he was offering him hat and walking stick. It always went like this so I was not surprised by today's ceremony.

I nipped out for a smoke. In the corridor by the window stood Alina, a girl with very bad legs, and vulgar Eva, talking in a conspiratorial way, totally absorbed in each other. A few smoking boys gathered in a small noisy group. I caught fragments of some old crass joke, which had ceased to amuse me when I was sixteen. Luckily, Mazan was not there. Instead, another student came up to me and asked if I had managed to sort out something I was supposed to arrange for the party. I replied that I had not, yet, but that I would for sure. Because I was not inclined to keep up the conversation he soon left me in peace.

Nothing had changed here. My act, punishable by the gallows, appeared pointless and unimportant. That very same lecture hall, the dark corridor and the loneliness that accompanied me so I was among these people, whom I didn't need, who couldn't help me or even harm me. After the lectures I quickly sneaked outside. Yet walking down the street I regretted my rashness. It was too early again. I couldn't think what to do with the evening. The flat was cold and I had no strength left to do any more burning. I slowed down, and then turned back toward the center. Something was nagging me about the corpse at home, and the need to get back and do something about it. I ran through in my mind a short list of friends I could visit. Somehow I didn't feel like talking to any of them. But still, I kept walking.

I remembered it was a Saturday. I was definitely too young to spend a Saturday night moping around at home. Even a home shared with a corpse. I checked several cinemas but all of them had long lines. Dejected, I stood on the curb and stared stupidly at the yellow splashes of electric light from the lampposts reflected on the street and frozen puddles. Across the street I noticed two people I knew. They were students at the Academy of Fine Arts. Nice guys. I used to go to school with one of them; we even became friends. At first I wanted to turn and walk away. But then remembered I had nowhere to walk to. I quickly crossed the street and accosted them. We greeted one another in a noisy, friendly fashion. My friends were burdened with bottles of vodka and invited me enthusiastically to help them lighten their load.

I accepted. Immediately, the mood turned light and warm. The conversation became noisy, punctuated with loud bursts of laughter. In Jacek's flat we found waiting for us two other boys and Hilda, a medical student. Hilda was wonderfully ugly, skinny as a pole and gracelessly tall. But she wore a funny little pigtail and could out-drink any boy. Without wasting time on spurious conversations we got down to it. It's hard to imagine a better place for drinking large amounts of plain vodka than Jacek's room. It was very small yet oddly bleak. It had something of a train station waiting room about it. The space between the wall and the wardrobe was crammed with rolls of canvas.

“Eat, take a bite,” Jacek invited us to rolls and sausage served on grease paper.

So we ate and took bites. But most of all we drank. There were no glasses. We drank from heavy clay cups. Bottoms up. By the third round a great discussion broke out about art, politics, philosophy and ethics. We spoke all at once, with great wit and passion. One of the boys, Janek … yes, Janek – picked up a guitar and started strumming it. We broke into a song. Soon I had drunk my fill, but the vodka had to be finished. The cups clacked again. One of the boys disappeared down the hallway and returned after a while rather pale and with wet hair. I felt I would soon follow suit. I was seeing drifting black clouds and felt a sweet acerbic taste in my mouth. Now people regularly disappeared behind the door, returned and drank on. Only Hilda didn't move, sitting ramrod straight throughout, though she drank the most.

We reached the point of soul-searching and confessions. Jacek put his arm around me and poured out his heart. He swore his undying friendship, pledged his life to creating great art and threatened to show someone what's what. Before long we were embracing and kissing as true friends. In the process we knocked the table and one of the cups fell on the floor. Next I was in someone else's arms. Again we hugged and opened our hearts. I had had about enough. I was burning with the fire of impatience. I got up and, swaying, headed for the coatrack.

“Jurek, where are you going?” someone grabbed my arm.

“I'm going,” I mumbled. “I must …”

Now more hands grabbed me and threw me on the bed. Everyone talked at me. A new cup of vodka was put under my nose. I leaped to my feet and turned over the table.

“Fools!” I screamed, “I have a corpse at home! I'm a murderer! A murderer!…”

With outstretched arms I tried to reach the door. Somewhere on the way I tripped over a stool and crashed to the floor. My head was booming just like a bathtub struck with an axe.

“I'm a murderer, ha ha ha …” I cried, picking myself up off the floor.

“What are you doing?!” shouted Jacek. “Be quiet …! Peasant …”

“Leave him alone,” said Hilda soberly. “He's completely drunk.”

5

W
ALKING DOWN THE STREET
, I
SAW DOUBLE
. I
DON'T THINK
I had ever experienced that before. I amused myself by guessing which of the twin objects was real. And usually I got it right. Yet my trousers were wet from wading through imaginary puddles. I vomited lightly and without any difficulties. I was balancing on the pavement, courteously giving passersby a wide berth. I was trying to sing out loud, but my throat was dry and my voice came out raspy. I came to a little square with two lonely benches. I dragged myself to one of them and keeled over. Immediately everything around me began to sway. The instability of my position instantly released the dynamic volatility of the world. So I changed my position. I stretched out on the bench with my head hanging down and legs thrown over the back. The world viewed from this vantage point, through the prism of alcohol, seemed for the first few seconds quite interesting. But it didn't last long. I had to change my position again, as this one wasn't very comfortable. Carefully handling the absurd weight of my head, I arranged my body into ever-different configurations. Now I sat on the armrest with raised arms. Then I changed into an ape, then into a hero. I blessed the alcohol that allowed me to assume all those forms. Eventually, I let go of the bench and moved on. I stopped for a moment and raised my finger:

“No one will learn about the corpse,” I whispered conspiratorially.

The pavement on the street where I stood was glistening and looked slippery. I hesitated before stepping onto it like before stepping into a river. Suddenly I heard the drum of horses' hooves. In the perspective of the street loomed an ornamented coach pulled by two horses. I recognized a hearse. The horses ran at a trot and the hearse was quickly approaching. Enthralled and elated, I opened out my arms.

“Oh, you drivers of death!” I greeted them, “I envy you. And admire you. Oh how I admire you. How lightly, blithely and gracefully you carry off death! While I … I'm tired of it, I – a miserable murderer. Ah, why do I bother … I rejoice in your triumph. And thou, Cerberus with a peasant face … thou, that's right – thou!…”

The hearse was almost level with me now and as I spat out the “thou” I pointed my finger at the face of the coachman dressed in funereal garb:

“Ha ha ha!… Ride on, my hero. I shall farm my little bloody field myself. With the saw! With the axe! I kill … I kill …”

The hearse was vanishing in a whirr of turning wheels and trotting hooves. I followed it with my eyes and said in a hollow voice:

“As old Goethe used to say, as old Goethe used to say …”

I moved on with my open arms. I felt strong and free. The annihilation of the corpse seemed an easy task again. The sense of power exhilarated me.

“I'm free through murder!” I cried out. “Freeeeee!…”

As soon as the words died on my lips I was arrested. I didn't even try to resist. Two policemen held me fast in a way that precluded any attempt at breaking loose. I let them lead me away in peace and humility. I was trying to carry myself with dignity. Not to tremble, or rattle my teeth. I thought bitterly that my freedom hadn't lasted long. Not even forty-eight hours from the terrible deed. How long is forty-eight hours? There are twelve hours to the daytime. Twelve and twelve.

I was intrigued by the forthcoming trial and the prospect of being hanged. I didn't feel bad at all except for the paralyzing fear of being beaten. I resolved to tell everything as soon as we arrived somewhere. I considered my chances of getting away with it. Very slim. Almost the entire corpse lay in my bath. Ah, but it probably lies there no more. They must have taken it away for forensics. But then they may have left it there under guard – hm, I wonder what he looks like, this man sitting in my flat now – and are going to lead me there. God, I hope they don't beat me. I could hardly control the trembling.

The vodka evaporated now. There was only fear. I saw the neon letters on the police station. The booking room made a ghastly and somber impression on me. The only light was a desk lamp, which had no lamp shade and cast huge shadows of people and objects on the walls. I took in the drab furnishings: the desk behind a barrier, two chairs, a scratched bench. It crossed my mind that in a few minutes I might be laying on that bench, naked, bleeding and trembling. Proudly I raised my head. Standing so, with my face like a mask, I tried to think of the scornful grimace I should adopt for the first question.

They pushed me toward the barrier. I looked straight in the face of the on-duty sergeant behind the desk. It didn't make any impression on him. They took away my wallet, my belt and my shoelaces. Luckily my trousers hung well without the belt and I could still look a hero. The policemen weren't showing any interest in my person, which hurt my feelings. They just chatted among themselves, sluggishly. I couldn't follow their conversation, as the vodka began to swoosh in my head again. One of the policemen, a weakling, shorter than me, to which I took personal offense, escorted me down a dark corridor to a heavy, steel-clad door. The bolt clanged and I was pushed inside a cold, unlit cell.

I stood rooted to my spot. I didn't dare to make a move. I couldn't see a thing. From the corners of the cell came animal-like grunts. Slowly my eyes grew used to the darkness. I began to get a sense of the dwarfish proportions of the cell. But I decided not to leave my spot. Suddenly I felt a live force grab me by the feet. Some enormous boa constrictor began winding itself around my legs. Roaring and choking, I grasped at the wall. The pressure eased momentarily, only to squeeze itself tighter. A large, heavy body was performing some terrifying convolutions around my feet. I stood patient as a sea rock. Based on the alternating rhythm of pounding and panting I came to the conclusion that there were in fact two bodies. But I was not sure. The hand which leaned against the wall and with which I was supporting myself was beginning to throb from the effort. At long last the bodies let go of my feet and crawled away into the deeps of the den.

With my back against the wall I slowly shuffled into a corner, where I sat down. The worn-out drunks were now lying in a writhing heap in the opposite corner. I thought that for my crime I was to suffer not only through the interrogation and execution but also a Golgotha of humiliation. Reducing me to the level of these drunks seemed to me particularly cruel. Their primitive noises kindled in me the fire of hatred. Meanwhile, having rested a bit, the pair resumed their orgiastic antics. I could now distinguish the movements of this creepy octopus. It wasn't howling now but purred in a monotonous, almost plaintive fashion, locked on the clay floor in a weird dance, accompanied by a hollow thumping. Suddenly the corridor echoed with steps. The drunks grew still. Through my body ran a funny shudder, all the way from my toes to the top end of my spine. I felt a touch of chill on my cheeks. I rearranged my legs in readiness to spring to my feet but waited with dignity. When the door opened I was ready. I didn't want to get up without an order.

The order didn't come. Instead a small, inconspicuous-looking man was pushed through the door, and the bolt clanged shut. There was nothing left to do but to kill time by observing the new arrival. The little man was sober. He looked around the cell without inhibition and said in a half voice:

“Blessed be the Lord.”

“
In saecula saeculorum
, amen,” I replied politely.

The drunks, feeling secure again, resumed their mumbling and writhing on the floor.

“May I take a pew with you?” asked the little man without moving from his spot.

“But of course,” I agreed.

He approached with a mincing step and sat down next to me. In the faint light from the street I could make out a rough outline of his features. The little man was probably coming to the end of his mature years. He had a small but fine figure, and a beautiful profile. Ah, how many Romans had I seen in the corner bar where I ate my dinner. He didn't have a coat. His modest, threadbare attire hung on him faultlessly. He was, perhaps, the last earthly companion to treat me in a kindly, human fashion. So I looked at him closely. The little man was sitting still but I felt emanating from him manly energy and concentration. After a few minutes he turned to me:

“Do you think they will be able to understand my reasons?”

“I don't think they are capable of understanding anyone's reasons,” I said. “Neither yours nor mine.”

“You are right,” he agreed. “I will be taken for a relic thief.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Funny, that,” smiled the relic thief. “The consistent following of God's commandments always leads man astray … Were you surprised by my greeting everyone here?”

“No.”

“Excellent. I have nothing to say to people who are surprised by simple words. Such people bore me terribly. But it seems to me that you, sir, despite your tender age, have already acquired the wisdom of not being surprised by simple things.”

“Why do they take you for a relic thief?” I asked.

“Ah, this …” he smiled. “ I stole a golden arm.”

“From the Capuchin church? I know this golden arm well.”

“From the tone of your voice, sir, I conclude that you have lived in the New Town for a time and are familiar with the magic of the golden arm. I was troubled by it too, and more painfully than you, and for much longer. I'm twice your age. I'm forty-seven years old, nearly fifty.”

“The golden arm was, if I'm correct, given to the abbey in the seventeenth century.”

“Sixteenth. Your error is actually perfectly excusable, for it happened at the beginning of the Baroque period. In 1598 to be precise. Kazimierz Hermanowicz joined the order and the arm was kept in the abbey's treasury. Only after his death in 1610 was it put on public display, thus fixing the conviction that the arm was in fact given to the order in the seventeenth century.”

“Do you know other details connected with Hermanowicz?”

“Oh yes. The question of the golden arm has interested me for a long time. The moment I heard God's voice telling me to steal it, I began to study the matter in earnest.”

“Did you hear God's voice?”

“Huh, let's not simplify this …”

I didn't hear the rest of the relic thief 's answer. The drunks, after a rest, burst out with their madness again. One of them snatched the other's belt with his teeth and now both were chewing on it, growling and tugging at it, each to himself. This tug of war went on for a while until an apocalyptic roar communicated to us that one of the drunks had lost his tooth. The thrashing on the floor stopped. Out came sobbing and words of succor. At last the two bodies rose and began to urinate in silence against the opposite wall.

“You were asking,” resumed my interlocutor, “if I heard the voice of God. I think we should not pose the question this way. I am not one for spewing revelations. God's will speaks to us without any metaphysical packaging. It simply manifests itself through certain decisions and thoughts in our brain. Through a certain order of events in our lives. I, my dear sir, have been dealing in sacrilegious thieving for a long time now. But they were mostly trifles.”

“Trifles?”

“Yes. Do you remember that little cherub with a porcelain head, nodding thanks every time someone put a coin in the box? He was my benefactor for two years. Every week I knelt before the box, sunk in prayer, during which I would pick the lock with a needle and take out the coins. I was caught by accident, in a silly way, as usual. Later I was involved in other sacrilegious thefts. Small votive candles, and once I had a go at a chalice. But a serious matter like the golden arm I hadn't tried before. It's a difficult case. It's possible I will rot for the rest of my life in jail.”

“Couldn't you try a psychiatrist?” I was worried I may have offended the sacrilegious thief but he showed no sign of taking offense.

“It's my only hope,” he replied gently, “but whether it's going to be successful this time remains to be seen. It's already helped me once, when I was put on trial for the chalice. I shammed it rather badly and they didn't believe me. Only when I started explaining the true philosophical motivation behind my actions did the doctor write out a certificate that saved me from five years in prison. I think now I have to take a similar route. Tell the truth. Truth opens the gates of heaven. It's interesting how many people claim to be following the teachings of Christ yet practically no one understands their true sense. So far it's served me well. They take me for a madman. And yet it's so childishly simple, like the sunshine. Since God created the sacred, he had to create the sacrilegious. Since at the root of our religion lies the legend about a murder, it's natural that murderers have to exist. You killed a man …”

I shuddered. The sacrilegious thief didn't notice and continued:

“In your case, the primitive desire of enriching oneself or exacting revenge …”

“I didn't kill to enrich myself, or out of revenge,” I interrupted him.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry into your personal affairs,” the sacrilegious thief apologized politely.

I said in an unnaturally high voice:

“I simply killed.”

“That's OK too, young man,” my companion smiled gently, and then asked:

“Are you a believer? Please excuse the forthrightness of my question.”

“No.”

“I thought so. The youth of today is mostly unbelieving. Without unbelievers the church would not exist. But I do hope one day you will find your path to God.”

“It's very kind of you to wish me well,” I replied politely. “Trouble is, I have very little time left to find that path …”

“Hm, true,” smiled the sacrilegious thief. “But let us be of good faith.”

My conversation with this kind man absorbed me to such an extent that I didn't hear the steps in the corridor. When, pulled roughly by my sleeve, I was leaving the cell, my companion didn't even send me a parting look. In the other corner the two drunks were snoring away, soaked in urine and blood.