The Motion Demon (11 page)

The victor breathed freely. He drew the cool night air in to his exhausted chest, rubbed the sweat from his forehead, and straightened his crumpled clothes. The draught of the rushing train streamed through his hair and cooled his hot blood. He took out his cigarette case and lit up a smoke. He felt somehow refreshed, happy.

He calmly opened the door that had slammed shut during the fight, and with a sure step returned to the compartment. As he entered, warm, serpentine arms embraced him. In her eyes glowed the question:

‘Where is he? Where is my husband?’

‘He will never return,’ he answered indifferently.

She cuddled against him.

‘You will protect me from the world. My beloved!’

He embraced her strongly.

‘I don’t know what is happening to me,’ she whispered, leaning against his chest. ‘I feel such a sweet giddiness in my head. We’ve committed a great sin, but I’m not afraid beside you, my strength. Poor Mieciek!... You know it’s terrible, but I’m not sorry for him. Why, that’s horrible! He’s my husband!’

She drew back suddenly, but looking into his eyes, intoxicated with the fire of love, she forgot everything. They started to devise plans for the future. Godziemba was a rich man and of independent means—no occupation tied him down, he could leave the country at any time and take up residence anywhere in the world. So, they will get off at the nearest station, where the rail lines cross, and go south. The connection will be excellent—the express to Trieste departs at daybreak. He’ll buy the tickets immediately, and in twelve hours they’ll reach the port. From there, a ship will take them to a land of oranges where a May sun sweetens trees, where the ocean’s deep-blue chest washes golden sand, and a pagan god’s forest garlands temples with laurel.

He spoke in a calm voice, sure of his manly aims, indifferent towards the judgment of people. Brimming with energy, ready to contend with the world, he lifted her collapsing figure.

Nuna, who had been listening intently to the sound of his words, appeared to be dreaming some strange, singular fairy tale, some golden, wonderful story….

The engine’s loud whistle announced the station. Godziemba trembled.

‘It’s time. Let’s get our things together.’

She got up and took down her travel coat from the overhanging net. He helped her dress.

Streaks of the station’s lamplights fell through their window. A protracted shudder once again shook Godziemba.

The train stopped. They left the compartment and descended to the station platform. They were swept up and absorbed by the multitude, by the tumult of voices and lights.

Suddenly, Nuna, leaning on his arm, weighed heavily on him like fate. In the twinkling of an eye, somewhere from the corner of his soul, dread crept in, an insane dread, and it made his hair stand on end. A feverishly drawn mouth cried out the danger. Horrible, base fear bared its sharp claws.

He was just a murderer and a despicable coward.

In the midst of the greatest throng, he freed his arm from Nuna’s embrace, stepped away from her without being noticed, and made his way through some dark corridor to the outside of the station. A maddened flight ensued along the back-streets of an unknown city….

SIGNALS

AT THE DEPOT STATION, in an old postal car taken out of service long ago, several off-duty railwaymen were gathered for their usual chat: three train conductors, the old ticket collector, Trzpien, and the assistant stationmaster, Haszczyc.

Because the October night was rather chilly, they had lit a fire in a little iron stove whose pipe exited out of an opening in the roof. The group was indebted for this happy idea to the inventiveness of the conductor, Swita, who had personally brought over the rust-corroded heater, discarded from some waiting room, to adapt it so splendidly to the changed circumstances. Four wooden benches, their oilcloth covering torn, and a three-legged garden table, wide like a record turntable, completed the interior furnishings. A lantern, hanging on a hook above the heads of those who sat below, spread out along their faces a hazy, semi-obscure light.

So looked the ‘train casino’ of the Przelecz station officials, an improvised refuge for homeless bachelors, a quiet, secluded stop for off-duty conductors. Here, in their spare moments, zapped of energy by their riding patrons, the old, grey ‘train wolves’ converged to relax after the executed tour, and chat with professional comrades. Here, in the fumes of conductors’ pipes, the tobacco smoke, the cigarettes, and cuds of chewing tobacco, wandered the echoes of tales, thousands of adventures and anecdotes: here spun out the yarn of a railwayman’s fate.

And today the noisy meeting was also animated, the group exceptionally well-suited, just the cream of the station. A moment ago Trzpien had related an interesting episode from his own life and had managed to rivet the attention of his audience to such a degree that they forgot to feed their dying-out pipes, and they now held them in their teeth already cold and extinguished like cooled-down volcano craters.

Silence filled the car. Through the window, damp from the drizzle outside, one could see the wet roofs of train cars, shiny like steel armour under the light of reflectors. From time to time the lantern of a trackwalker flashed by, or the blue signal of a switching engine; from time to time the green reflection of the switch signal ploughed through the darkness, or the penetrating call of a trolley was heard. From afar, beyond the black entrenchment of slumbering cars, came the muffled buzz of the main station.

Through the gap between the cars, a portion of track was visible: several parallel strips of rail. On one of them an empty train slowly pulled in; its pistons, tired by a full day’s race, operated sluggishly, transforming their motion to the rotations of the wheels.

At a certain moment the locomotive stopped. Under the chest of the machine whirls of vapours emerged, enfolding the rotund framework. The lantern lights at the front of the colossus began to bend in rainbow-coloured aureoles and golden rings, and became enveloped with a cloud of steam. Then came an optical illusion: the locomotive and, with it, the cars, rose above the layers of steam and remained suspended in the air. After several seconds the train returned to the rails, emitting from its organism the last puffs, to plunge itself into the reverie of a nightly repose.

‘A beautiful illusion,’ remarked Swita, who had been looking for a long time through the window pane. ‘Did all of you see that apparent levitation?’

‘Of course—the story isn’t long; one can sum it up in a couple of words. There circulates among railwaymen a tale of a train that disappeared.’

‘What do you mean “disappeared”? Did it evaporate or what?’

‘Well, no. It disappeared—that doesn’t mean that it stopped existing! It disappeared—that means its outward appearance is not to be seen by the human eye. In reality, it exists somewhere. Somewhere it dwells, though it’s not known where. This phenomenon was supposed to have been created by a certain stationmaster, some real character and maybe even a sorcerer. This trick was performed by a series of specially arranged signals that followed each other. The occurrence caught him off guard, as he later maintained. He had been playing around with the signals, which he had arranged in the most varied ways, changing their progression and quality; until one time, after letting out seven of such signs, the train driving up to his station suddenly, at full speed, rose parallel to the track, wavered a few times in the air, and then, tipping at an angle, vanished. Since that time no one has seen either the train or the people who were riding in it. They say that the train will appear again when someone gives the same signals but in the reverse order. Unfortunately the stationmaster went insane shortly thereafter, and all attempts to extract the truth from him proved abortive. The madman took the key to the secret with him when he died. Most probably someone will hit upon the right signs by accident and draw out the train from the fourth dimension to the earth.’

‘A real fuss,’ remarked Zdanski, a train conductor. ‘And when did this wonderful event occur? Does the legend fix a date for it?’

‘Some hundred years ago.’

‘Well, well. A pretty long time! In that case the passengers inside the train would be, at the present moment, older by an entire century. Please try and imagine what a spectacle it would be if today or tomorrow some lucky person were able to uncover the apocalyptic signals and remove the seven magical charms. From neither here nor there the missing train suddenly falls from the sky, suitably rested after a hundred-year hoisting, and throngs pour out stooping under the burden of a century of existence!’

One evening, around seven o’clock, an alarm went out to the Dabrowa station with the signal ‘cars unattached’: the hammer of the bell gave off four strokes by four strokes spaced apart by three seconds. Before Stationmaster Pomian could figure out from where the signal originated, a new signal flowed from the region; three strikes alternating with two, repeated four times, could be heard. The official understood; they meant ‘stop all trains’. Apparently the danger had increased.

Moving along the track slope and in the direction of a strong westerly wind, the detached cars were running towards the passenger train leaving the station at that moment.

It was necessary to stop the passenger train and back it up several kilometres and somehow cover the suspected part of the region.

The energetic young official gave the suitable orders. The passenger train was successfully turned back from its course and at the same time an engine was sent out with people whose job was to stop the racing separated cars. The locomotive moved carefully in the direction of danger, lighting up the way with three huge reflectors. Before it, at a distance of 700 metres, went two trackwalkers with lighted torches, examining the line attentively.

But to the amazement of the entire group, the runaway cars were not met with along the way, and, after a two-hour inspection to the end of the ride, the engine turned back to the nearest station at Glaszow. There, the stationmaster received the expedition with great surprise. Nobody knew anything about any signals, the region was absolutely clear, and no danger threatened from this side. The officials, worn-out by tracking, got on the engine and returned to Dabrowa near eleven at night.

Here, meanwhile, the unease had increased. Ten minutes before the engine’s return, the bell sounded again, this time demanding the sending of a rescue locomotive with workers. The stationmaster was in despair. Agitated by the signals continually flowing from the direction of Glaszow, he was pacing restlessly about the platform, going out to the line to return again to the station office baffled, terrified, frightened.

In reality, it was a sorry situation. His comrade from Glaszow, alarmed by him every dozen or so minutes, answered at first with calm that everything was in order; later, losing his patience, he started to scold fools and lunatics. To Dabrowa, meanwhile, came signal after signal, entreating ever more urgently the dispatching of workers’ cars.

Clinging on to the last plank like a drowning man, Pomian phoned the Zbaszyn station, in the opposite direction, supposing, he didn’t know why, that the alarm was coming from there. Naturally he was answered in the negative; everything was in perfect order in that area.

‘Have I gone crazy or is everyone not in their right minds?’ he finally asked a passing blockman. ‘Mr Sroka, have you heard these damned bell signals?’

‘What business is this of mine? In this direction, everything’s fine, in that direction, everything’s in order—then what the hell do they want? Some joker is playing games with us, throwing the whole station upside-down! I’ll make a report—and that’s that!’

‘I don’t think so, stationmaster,’ his assistant calmly put in; ‘the affair is too serious to be grasped from this point of view. One rather has to accept a mistake.’

‘Some mistake! Haven’t you heard, my friend, the answer from both of the stations nearest to us? It’s not possible that these stations would not have heard any accidentally stray signals from stops beyond them. If these signals reached us, they would have to go through their regions first! Well?’

‘So the simple conclusion is that these signals are coming from some trackwalker’s booth between Dabrowa and Glaszow.’

Pomian glanced at his subordinate attentively.