The Graveyard (4 page)

Once again Franciszek had a fit of rage. “Damn it,” he thought, “is it really fair that just because a man sings out loud in the street he should be locked up for the night with hooligans and drunks? Just because a man takes a glass of vodka, must he be treated like the lowest kind of tramp?”

He stood up abruptly, and, heedless of the groans and growls of those he was trampling on, walked to the door and pounded it until his fists hurt. No one came; he could hear only screams and curses, coming probably from another cell at the end of the corridor. Franciszek kicked the door, once, twice; only then did he hear the clicking of a lock somewhere far away, followed by the sound of footsteps. “At last,” he thought, relieved, and wiped his forehead. The lock creaked, the door opened slowly, and before him stood a small man with a jolly round face, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant. “This must be the one,” Franciszek thought with satisfaction; “this must be the lieutenant that fellow talked about.”

“What do you want?” the lieutenant asked. His voice was calm and soft, with none of that irritating coldness that characterizes bureaucrats the world over, and Franciszek felt at once that he could trust him.

“I’d like to talk with you,” he said, trying to speak politely and distinctly.

“What do you want?” the lieutenant repeated.

“I have the impression that I was arrested by mistake. I was only walking in the street; I might have been a little tight, and I don’t know why I felt like singing; after all, I’m no kid, and I was once shot in the lungs, and I’d like to avoid catching cold. Could you release me?”

The lieutenant scrutinized him awhile. “Hold out your
arms and close your eyes,” he said. He said it very courteously, and Franciszek complied at once. “And now,” said the lieutenant, “tell me quickly your name, address, and occupation.”

“My name is Kowalski; I live in the Muranów housing project; I work in an automobile repair factory as assistant technical director.”

“Fine,” said the lieutenant. “Drop your arms. I’ll see what I can do.”

Opening his eyes, Franciszek saw that the lieutenant was smiling. “Come with me,” he said. He closed the door; once again they walked along the stinking dimly lit corridor. The whole police station reeked of stale alcohol; the stench was so strong that Franciszek was disgusted with himself.

“How did you get shot in your lungs?” the lieutenant asked.

“In the underground,” Franciszek said. “In 1943.”

“You were a partisan fighter?”

“Yes.”

“The National underground or the Communist underground?”

“The Communist. The People’s Army.”

The lieutenant smiled again. “And now you’ve gone and got yourself arrested,” he said.

Franciszek perceived a note of friendly chiding in his voice. “Those boys of yours are so serious,” he said, “I couldn’t talk them out of it.”

“What can we do?” the lieutenant replied. “This is your first time. Occasionally people have too much fun, and our job is to keep order in the streets.”

They walked on a bit and found themselves in a small empty room. The lieutenant said: “Wait here a minute. We’ll release you shortly.”

Franciszek sat down on the bench and luxuriously stretched his numbed legs. “At last,” he thought. “Here is a sensible fellow that can listen to reason. The fact is, I’d have been home by now if I hadn’t been so damn touchy. It’s a good thing I told Elzbieta about this meeting; she won’t be worried. It looks as though there’s something to say for meetings, though you’d never think so in advance. A bit of vodka, exhaustion, nerves—that’s all it takes to find yourself in a cell.

Oh, to hell with it!”

The door opened, and the lieutenant came in. Franciszek looked at him with a smile, and then was dumfounded: it was as though an entirely different man was standing before him. During those few minutes the lieutenant’s friendly young face had managed to assume the repellent mask of officialdom and contempt. He looked at Franciszek with cold, venomous eyes. “We’re going back,” he said dryly.

Franciszek rose. “Where to?”

“The cell.”

“But why?”

“You’re under arrest,” the lieutenant said. He stared at Franciszek as if he were an inanimate object; a note of impatience had crept into his voice. “Haven’t you had time to realize that, Kowalski?”

“But why? What for? I did nothing wrong. Can’t you at least tell me what for?”

“You’ll know in due time,” said the lieutenant. He pointed to the door. “If you please.”

“I’ve got to know right away,” Franciszek cried. “I won’t go anywhere until I know.”

The lieutenant walked up to him, put his hand on his arm, and leaned toward him. Franciszek shriveled, suddenly seized with fear.

“The fact that you’re a party member and former partisan makes no difference now,” he said. “The only thing that matters to us is that you are a man we must hold. No use thinking about the other things; I’m afraid they don’t matter. And now, let’s go.” He pressed Franciszek’s arm with his unexpectedly powerful fingers. Franciszek rose and followed the lieutenant. He did not say a word as they walked along the corridor. The lieutenant too was silent, walking erect, his legs stiff as though he were on parade.

Back in his cell, Franciszek sat down again on the bit of concrete from which he had arisen a few minutes earlier to set out on his futile journey. “What’s going on?” he thought feverishly. “For God’s sake, what do they want of me?”

The man at his side stirred and once again sat up rubbing his eyes like an ape. “Have you brought some cigarettes?” he asked after a long, powerful yawn.

Franciszek shook with rage. “Stop bothering me—you and your cigarettes,” he growled.

The stranger smiled. “That’s the way it is,” he said. “They’re in no hurry. If they want to, they can keep you here so long you’ll never want to laugh again.”

“What could I have done?” Franciszek asked, speaking to himself rather than to his neighbor. “What in the world could I have done? I keep trying to recall every word I said, everything that happened, and I can’t understand a thing. If only they would tell me, but they won’t. What could I have done?”

The stranger stretched luxuriously. “Each one of us imagines he didn’t do anything,” he said. “Each one of us somehow thinks he is innocent. But then a moment comes when others begin to have power over him, and then our thoughts don’t matter, and only what they think about us matters.” He sighed and turned over. “Thank God I’m nothing but a
drunk,” he said. “That’s the only thing that gives me some sort of assurance; if anyone thinks anything about me, it will be only that. Good night. Try to get some sleep. And pretend the whole thing is a dream. A rotten, stupid dream, from which we’ll never awaken.”

AT LAST DAYBREAK CAME, AND WITH IT A PIERCING
cold invaded the cell. Gray light filled the little window up by the ceiling. The faces of the recumbent men became more distinct, emerging from the darkness, puffy, disheveled, with bloodshot eyes. One after another, they sat up on the concrete floor; they looked about them unseeing, then, yawning and shivering, rose on shaky legs. From the street came the first sounds of the awakened city—passing trucks, hurrying footsteps, creaking tramcars.

Franciszek had sat numb while the cell was dark and silent; his only emotions had been anxiety and anger. But now the realization that only a few yards away, just outside the police station, hundreds of thousands of people were living a normal life without his being able to share in it threw him into a fit of dejection such as he had not experienced for a long time. “This is perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a man,” he thought. “Worse than sickness, solitude, any kind of misfortune. To be cut off from the life of others—can there be anything worse? Is there anything that can get you further down? I’ve had only a few hours of this; how terrible must be the life of a man condemned to endure it for long!” He was seized by only one overwhelming desire: to get out as soon as possible, to be in the streets, in the midst of people and the city bustle.

The door creaked. The lieutenant appeared in the doorway. A card in his hand, he said: “Romanowski, Bolder, Krupinski, come out.”

Three men rushed to the door. Franciszek followed them. “And what about me?” he asked.

“Wait,” said the lieutenant.

“I could still get to my job on time,” Franciszek said.

The lieutenant shut the door in his face without answering; Franciszek had barely time to jump back. Several of his cellmates laughed. “You’ll pay for this,” he thought resentfully. “You’ll pay for all your stupidities. I’ll see to it that all of you are thrown off the force, straight out on your faces. That’ll show you that you can’t treat an honest citizen like this.” Pacing back and forth, he planned all kinds of vengeance for everything they had done to him here.

The cell grew animated; the inmates recalled the events of the day before. Some cracked jokes; others sat staring vacantly. One man kept saying: “What am I going to tell my wife? What am I going to tell my wife? I promised her this would never happen again.”

On one of the benches three young men were sleeping. The others felt sorry for them, seeing them huddled together like kittens. All of them wore homemade clothes, narrow trousers, yellow shirts, and garish socks. Their faces were black and blue, and their noses were smashed; they had obviously been arrested for brawling.

Suddenly one of them woke up. He ran his fingers through his hair, and nudged his companions. “Kusiatynszczak, get up!” he cried. “The sun is up. Time to go to work.”

The other two awoke. They exchanged affectionate glances, then sang in hoarse voices:

“Shut up,” someone growled. Franciszek looked at him: he was the giant with the bald head who had slept standing up.

The door creaked again, and all glanced toward it. In the doorway stood the lieutenant and a man in civilian clothes. The latter was small; he had a surprisingly round face, a thin nose, and dark eyes set very close together.

“Kowalski,” the lieutenant said. “Will you come here, please.”

Franciszek walked to the door and stood facing the man in plain clothes. The other looked him over. Franciszek caught only a glimpse of his eyes, but it seemed to him that his innermost thoughts were being read.

The man in plain clothes turned to the lieutenant. “Is this the one?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the lieutenant.

“Citizen Lieutenant,” Franciszek said quickly, “please hurry up, I’d like to—”

“Let’s go,” said the man in plain clothes.

They banged the door right in his face, and once again he barely had time to jump back. The stranger with whom Franciszek had talked during the night let out a soft whistle. “So that’s what it is,” he said.

Franciszek turned to him. “What do you mean—‘that’s what it is’?”

His neighbor looked at him with gentle irony. “You must have made a fine mess for them to come after you like that,” he said. He smacked his tongue in a particularly repulsive
way, then went on: “If you don’t remember what happened, you’re surely in for it. Someone must have informed on you. Don’t you remember?”

Franciszek looked at him sharply. “What are you talking about?”

The stranger smiled. “Someone must have informed on you,” he repeated. “Maybe you listen to Free Europe. You’d be in a bad way if it turned out that you listen to those broadcasts and then tell other people what you’ve heard. We’ve got one of those in here; he can tell you.” He called over his shoulder: “Mr. Kwiatuszynski, would you kindly come here for a minute?”

The bald-headed giant came up to them. “I’m listening,” he said in a splendid bass.

Franciszek’s neighbor turned to him. “You’re here because of Free Europe, aren’t you?”

“Nothing of the kind,” the giant said with great dignity. “I never listened to Free Europe. I was locked up for listening to Radio Madrid. My wife turned it on full blast, and the woman next door informed on us. It goes to show, you can never trust a woman.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Franciszek’s neighbor said, smiling triumphantly. “What matters is the fact itself, not the details. And Madrid is probably worse in this respect …”

“That’s not true,” said someone in the rear of the cell. “The worst is New York.
They
really hate us.”

“The Vatican is just as bad,” someone else threw in, coming closer. He was a small gray-haired man who looked like a retired teacher. “You’d think they’d apply different standards to a purely religious program, but nothing of the kind. The trouble my stepson got into for repeating a Vatican announcement—well, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. The
name of a broadcasting station doesn’t prove anything. In such cases, my friends, everything is an illusion—”

Franciszek’s neighbor interrupted the argument with an impatient wave of his hand. “There’s no need to go into all that,” he said. “The main thing is that this gentleman here”—he pointed to Franciszek—“has been informed on, and he has absolutely no idea who it can be.” He leaned close to Franciszek’s ear. “Somebody in your family? You think the family is so wonderful? Well, we have somebody here because his mother-in-law reported he had a gun. She did it out of spite, because he didn’t ask her to his birthday party.”

“He isn’t here any longer,” the giant said in his splendid bass. “He was released yesterday.”

Franciszek cast a sharp glance at his neighbor. “Stop bothering me,” he said. “You offend me as a man and as a party member. I am honest, and the fact that I am here with you is just an unfortunate mistake. Please don’t talk to me like that, or I’ll tell the officer on duty what I think of you.”

His neighbor looked at him attentively. “What do you want of me?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders. “I haven’t said anything.”

Franciszek’s nerves, strained to the breaking point, this time refused to be controlled. He began to scream, his mouth foaming, his arms waving hysterically. “You haven’t said anything? All this time you’ve been saying the most disgusting things! Who do you think you’re talking to? I am a former partisan, and I didn’t fight through the whole occupation to hear people like you sneer at everything. I made a hash of people like you with my own hands in the underground. You offend everything I believe in and our country believes in! Do you understand?”