The Motion Demon (9 page)

Since the crush was less this time, Kluczka easily occupied an excellent first-class seat and settled comfortably in the red plush cushions. Because the train he was on crossed with the express from F., it stopped for a longer than usual length of time at Snowa, and Kluczka could surrender to the illusion of a symbolic ride in the direction of the mountains for a good half hour. But when the anticipated express flew by and disappeared in the distance in the midst of clouds of smoke, Kluczka imperceptibly took down his suitcase from the net and furtively slipped to the steps leading to the outside. When a minute later the departing wail of a bugle sounded, he ran unnoticed by anyone down the steps and found himself again in the waiting room. Along the way he once more paid off with a cigarette the porter, Wawrzyszyn, who was looking into his eyes a little insolently. In general, the poor wretch had from time to time to pay off the railroad service, so that it would look through its fingers at his caprices. He was well-known at the station under the nickname ‘the perpetual passenger’ and also another, less flattering one, ‘the harmless madman’.

Meanwhile the train departed and the second interval began. The waiting room had become deserted. The next passenger train in the direction of D. was due at ten at night; people weren’t in a rush to get to the station.

The station was filled with late-afternoon boredom and reveries: grey spider threads began to spread along empty benches and yawn in recesses and corners. Under the ceiling of the hall roamed a few flies, buzzing monotonously, and with a strange stubbornness circling about a large, hanging chandelier. Outside the windows the first lights of switch signals flashed and bright streams from electric glass balls invaded the interior. In the dimness of the closed waiting room the solitary silhouette of the law clerk could be seen, somewhat hunched, bent, laid low to the ground….

By the light from the platform, Kluczka studied a frayed old timetable; he searched out fictional train connections. Finally, his face flushed, he marked out most precisely the route that he promised to himself to carry out ‘in truth’ around Easter when he would obtain a two-week vacation and a holiday supplement from his pension.

Finished with his calculations, he was looking one more time at his tiny, precise notations when the hall suddenly brightened up; from under the ceiling five electric bowls shot out their beams, from the walls jetted several light-yellow projections: the waiting room took on an evening atmosphere. The door handles of the nearby door moved to the inside and into the hall came several travellers. The previous mood was blown away irrevocably. Everything became bright as if in broad daylight.

Kluczka took his usual place of observation in the shadows of a heater; close by sat a woman of undetermined age. She seemed nervous, the corners of her mouth twitching and her movements fidgety. Kluczka felt very sorry for her all of a sudden and decided to calm his uneasy neighbour.

‘Madam,’ he said, leaning to the lady and assuming an expression of near seraphic sweetness, ‘you must be completely surrendering to a traveller’s mood?’

The woman, caught off guard, looked at him a little strangely.

‘Madam,’ explained Kluczka in a silken voice, ‘you are simply suffering from the so-called “railroad fever”. I am familiar with this, my dear lady, very familiar. Even though I am used to the railroad environment, I cannot master myself over it to this day. It constantly affects me with the same strength.’

The woman looked at him kindly.

‘To tell the truth, I do feel a little agitated; maybe not so much by the ride that awaits me, but by the uncertainty of how I’ll manage after I arrive at my destination. I’m not familiar at all with the town I have to go to, I don’t know to whom to turn, where to spend the night. I’m concerned about those first, exceedingly anxious moments immediately after one arrives.’

Kluczka rubbed his hand in satisfaction: the lady simplified most wonderfully his passing over to the ‘information-clarification phase’, which, in the progression of events, now appeared on the evening horizon. He drew out from a side pocket of his coat an impressive bundle of papers and notes, and spreading them out on the table, he turned with a friendly smile to his neighbour.

‘Luckily I can be of service to you in the information you seek. Is it possible to know where madam is heading?’

‘To Wyznia Retreat.’

‘Excellent. In a moment we’ll know more about it. We’ll take a look at the index in back of this station directory…. Wyznia Retreat…. Here it is! Line S-D, page 30. Splendid!... Time of train departures: Passenger train at 4:30 at night, 11:20 before noon, and 10:03 in the evening. Cost of a second-class ticket, about

10.40. Let’s go to the particulars of the locale. Wyznia Retreat— 210 metres above sea level—a city of third-class size—20,000 inhabitants; under district law; a
starosta
, an elementary school, a secondary school . . .’

The lady interrupted his reading with an impatient motion of her hand.

‘Hotels, my dear sir, are there any hotels?’

‘Just one moment…one moment and we’ll find out…. Yes! Two inns, one eating house under the sign of “The Cap of Invisibility” and the hotel “Imperial”—here near the station to the right, two minutes away—sunny, large rooms starting from three kopeks up—excellent service, heating according to one’s request, electricity, an elevator, steam bath below—a three minute leisurely, quiet walk away—dinner, supper, excellent home cooking.
Mein Liebchen, was
….’

Kluczka bit his tongue, knowing that in the ardour of presenting this information, he had gone too far.

The lady beamed.

‘Thank you, sir, thank you very much. Are you hired by this station as its information person?’ she guessed, taking out a purse from her bag.

Kluczka became confused.

‘Why, no, my dear lady. Please don’t consider me an agent of the information bureau. I only do this as an amateur, from purely idealistic motives.’

He was in a rosy mood. The information phase today had surpassed all his expectations so that when, around ten, the porter threw out in the hall with a stentorian voice the cry for departure, the perpetual passenger carried out all his symbolic actions with the redoubled energy of a young man in his twenties. And though after his repeated return to the waiting room, the third
intermezzo
did not seem tempting, his high enthusiasm did not fall, and Kluczka’s spirit was bolstered with the memory of the successful information phase.

Despite this, today’s ‘journey’ was not fated to end happily. For when two hours later—that is, after midnight—Kluczka tried to force his way with his suitcase through the unprecedented crowds to a third-class compartment, he suddenly felt someone pluck him strongly by the collar and take him down roughly from the steps of the train. Looking around in fury, he saw by the light of a centre-track lantern the irate face of the conductor, and he heard in the tumult of voices the following apostrophe apparently meant for him:

‘Get the hell out of here! There’s a crush here so great that one can’t even move a pin, and despite this, this lunatic is pushing through the steps like a madman and shoving people aside, only to jump out later on the other side at the moment of departure. I know you, my bird, and not just from today; I’ve been watching you for a long time! Well, get the hell out of here or I’ll call the military police! There is no time today for indulging the half-witted whims of crazy people!’

Stupefied, frightened to the bone, Kluczka found himself unexpectedly beyond the tight crowds of the passengers, and, as if drunk, he staggered somewhere among the columns of the platform.

‘You deserved that,’ he murmured through tightened teeth. ‘Why did you have to push your way to the third-class compartment instead of the second? Inferior compartments, inferior service. I always told you that. One can tell a gentleman by his knee-boots.’

Calmed a bit by this reasoning, he straightened his crumpled coat and went stealthily from the platform to the waiting room, from there to the entrance hall, and then to the street. He had had enough ‘travelling’ for today—the last occurrence had disheartened him from finishing his journey, cutting it short by one hour.

It was already after midnight. The city slept. The lights of roadside inns had died out, beerhouses and restaurants had become silent. Here and there a consumptive street lamp at a corner in the far distance brightened the darkness of the street; here and there, the faint gleam from some underground den slid along the sidewalk. Now and then, the quick step of a late passer-by, or the distant baying of dogs let down from a chain, interrupted the quiet of sleep….

With his suitcase in hand, the perpetual passenger dragged on slowly along a narrow winding street that crept somewhere among secluded lanes by the river. His head weighed like lead, his legs trod stiffly, wooden like crutch stilts. He was returning home for a few hours of sleep before daybreak, for tomorrow morning a desk was waiting for him, and after three o’clock, as today, as yesterday, as for many forgotten years, a symbolic journey.

IN THE COMPARTMENT

THE TRAIN SHOT THROUGH THE LANDSCAPE
as quick as a flash. Fields plunged into the darkness of evening, fallows bare and stark moved submissively behind, appearing like so many segments of a continuously folding fan. Taut telegraph wires went up, then went down, and once again unreeled along with perfect level straightness—stubborn, absurd, stiff lines.

Godziemba was looking through the coach window. His eyes, glued to the shiny rails, drank in their apparent movement; his hands, digging into the window sill, seemed to be helping the train push away the ground being passed. His heart rate was fast, as if wanting to increase the tempo of the ride, to double the momentum of the hollow-sounding wheels.

Winged with the rush of the locomotive, a bird flew easily from the fetters of commonplace existence and flashed by the lengthy coaches, brushing their windows in its exhilarated flight, and overtook the engine to soar to the wide, vanishing horizon, to a faraway, mist-covered world!....

Godziemba was a fanatic of motion. This usually quiet and timid dreamer became unrecognizable the moment he mounted the steps of a train. Gone was the unease, gone the timidity, and the formerly passive, musing eyes took on a sparkle of energy and strength.

This notorious daydreamer and sluggard was suddenly transformed into a dynamic, strong-willed person with a feeling of self-worth. And when the lively bugle signal faded and the black coaches started towards their distant destinations, a boundless joy permeated his entire being, pouring warm and reviving currents into the farthest reaches of his soul, like the rays of the sun over the earth on summer days.

Something resided in the essence of a speeding train, something that galvanized Godziemba’s weak nerves—stimulating strongly, though artificially, his faint life-force. A specific environment was created, a unique milieu of motion with its own laws and power, its own strange, at times dangerous, spirit. The motion of a locomotive was not just physically contagious; the momentum of an engine quickened his psychic pulse, it electrified his will—he became independent. ‘Train neurosis’ seemed to transform temporarily this overly refined and sensitive individual into someone who exhibited a beneficial, positive force. His intensified excitement was maintained on an artificial summit above a frail life that, after the retreat of the ‘fortunate’ circumstances, descended into a state of even deeper prostration. A train in motion affected him like morphine injected into the veins of an addict.

Finding himself in the four walls of a compartment, Godziemba became instantly enlivened. This misanthrope ‘on the mainland’ threw off the skin of a recluse and initiated conversations with, at times, reluctant people; this taciturn and difficult man was suddenly transformed into a splendid conversationalist who showered his fellow travellers with anecdotes put together quickly in an adroit and witty manner. An oaf—who aside from his remarkable transformation aboard a train was undistinguished in everything else—became, from neither here nor there, a strong individual, venturesome and incisive. This chicken-hearted wallflower changed unexpectedly to a blustering brawler, who could even be dangerous.

Quite a few times during a ride Godziemba had gone through some interesting adventures, from which he emerged triumphant thanks to a pugnacious and unyielding attitude. A sarcastic witness to one such scene, who knew Godziemba well from another place, advised him to settle all his affairs of honour in a train—and one travelling at full speed at that.

‘
Mon cher
, always duel in coaches; you’ll fight like a lion. As God is my witness!’

But the artificial intensification of his life-force reverberated badly on his health: he paid the price for almost every ride with some illness. After each temporary increase of psychological powers an even more violent reaction would follow. Despite this, Godziemba liked riding trains immensely and repeatedly invented fictional travel goals just to opiate himself with motion.

So, yesterday evening, getting on the express at B., he really didn’t know his purpose; he did not even reflect on what he would do tonight at F., where in a few hours the train would deposit him. All this was of little consequence. What did it matter to him? For here he sits comfortably in a warm compartment, looking through the window at the landscape whisking by, and he is riding at a speed of 100 kilometres an hour….