B005GEZ23A EBOK (9 page)

She: “Look what a big earthworm.”

Karol kept rocking, his legs spread apart, she raised her leg to scratch her calf—but his shoe, resting just on the heel, rose, made a half-turn, and squashed the earthworm … just at one end, just as much as the reach of his foot allowed, because he didn’t feel like lifting his heel from the ground, the rest of the worm’s thorax began to stiffen and squirm, which he watched
with interest. This would not have been any more important than a fly’s throes of death on a flytrap or a moth’s within the glass of a lamp—if Fryderyk’s gaze, glassy, had not sucked itself onto that earthworm, extracting its suffering to the full. One could imagine that he would be indignant, but in truth there was nothing within him but penetration into torture, draining the chalice to the last drop. He hunted it, sucked it, caught it, took it in and—numb and mute, caught in the claws of pain—he was unable to move. Karol looked at him out of the corner of his eye but did not finish off the earthworm, he saw Fryderyk’s horror as sheer hysterics. …

Henia’s shoe moved forward and she crushed the worm.

But only from the opposite end, with great precision, saving the central part so that it could continue to squirm and twist.

All of it—was insignificant … as far as the crushing of a worm can be trivial and insignificant.

Karol: “Near Lvov there are more birds than here.”

Henia: “I have to peel the potatoes.”

Fryderyk: “I don’t envy you. … It’s a boring job.”

As we were returning home we talked for a while, then Fryderyk disappeared somewhere, and I didn’t know where he was—but I knew what he was into. He was thinking about what had just happened, about the thoughtless legs that had joined in the cruelty they committed jointly to the twitching body. Cruelty? Was it cruelty? More like something trivial, the trivial killing of a worm, just so, nonchalantly, because it
had crawled under a shoe—oh, we kill so many worms! No, not cruelty, thoughtlessness rather, which, with children’s eyes, watches the droll throes of death without feeling pain. It was a trifle. But for Fryderyk? To a discerning consciousness? To a sensibility that is cable of empathy? Wasn’t this, for him, a bloodcurdling deed in its enormity—surely pain, suffering are as terrible in a worm’s body as in the body of a giant, pain is “one” just as space is one, indivisible, wherever it appears, it is the same total horror. Thus for him this deed must have been, one could say, terrible, they had called forth torture, created pain, with the soles of their shoes they had changed the earth’s peaceful existence into an existence that was hellish—one cannot imagine a more powerful crime, a greater sin. Sin … Sin … Yes, this was a sin—but, if a sin, it was a sin committed jointly—and their legs had united on the worm’s twitching body. …

I knew what he was thinking, the crazy man! Crazy! He was thinking about them—he was thinking that they had crushed the worm “for him.” “Don’t be fooled. Don’t believe that we don’t have anything in common. … Surely you saw it, didn’t you: one of us crushed … and the other one crushed … the worm. We did it for you. To unite ourselves—in front of you and for you—in sin.”

This must have been Fryderyk’s thought at this moment. Yet it’s possible that I was suggesting my own idea to him. But who knows—perhaps at this moment he was, in the same way, suggesting to me his idea … and he was thinking about
me in a way that was no different from the way I was thinking about him … so it’s possible that each one of us was breeding his own idea by placing it in the other. This amused me, I laughed—and I thought that perhaps he too had laughed.…

“We did it for you to unite in sin in front of you.” …

If they really wanted to convey to us this hidden meaning with their nimbly crushing legs … if that’s what it was supposed to be … surely, no need to repeat it twice! A wise brain needs no twain! I again smiled at the thought that perhaps Fryderyk was smiling at this moment and thinking that I’m thinking the following about him: that any laborious decisions to depart have vanished from his head, that he is again like a hound on the trail, full of suddenly awakened hope, his blood roused.

Giddy hopes—perspectives—were indeed opening up that had been contained within the little word “sin.” If this little boy and this little girl suddenly craved sin … with each other … but also with us … Oh, I could almost see Fryderyk sitting somewhere and thinking, his head resting on his hand—that sin pervades us at the deepest level of intimacy, bonding us no less than a hot caress, that sin is our common secret, private, clandestine, embarrassing, leading us as far into another person’s existence as physical love leads into the body. If this were the case … then it would surely follow that he, Fryderyk (“that he, Witold”—thought Fryderyk) … well, that we both … are not too old for them—in other words, their youth is not inaccessible to us. What is the purpose of a sin
committed jointly? It’s as if sin is created to illegally marry a boy’s florescence with a girl to someone … not so enticing … to someone older and more serious. I smiled again. They were, in their virtue, closed off from us, hermetic. But in sin, they could roll about with us. … That’s what Fryderyk was thinking! And I almost saw him, a finger to his lips, looking for a sin that would let him chum up with them, looking for such a sin—or rather, perhaps he’s thinking, perhaps he is suspecting that I am the one looking for such a sin. What a system of mirrors—I was a mirror for him, he for me—and so, spinning daydreams on each other’s account, we were arriving at designs that neither of us would dare to consider as his own.

Next morning we were supposed to travel to Ruda. The expedition was the subject of detailed deliberations—which horses, what route, which vehicles. It so happened that I went with Henia in the
britzka.
Since Fryderyk didn’t want to decide, we cast a coin and fate designated me as her companion. The morning was immense, its bearings lost, the road distant over the rising and falling of the undulating terrain with roads cut deep into it, their walls yellowish and sparsely adorned with a bush, a tree, a cow, while in front of us the carriage with Karol on the coach box appeared and disappeared. She—in her holiday best, her coat white from the dust and thrown over her shoulders—a fiancee traveling to her fiance. And so, infuriated, after a few introductory sentences, I said: “My congratulations! You’ll get married and start a family. You’ll have children!” She replied:

“I’ll have children.”

She replied, but the way she said it! Obediently—fervently—like a schoolgirl. As if someone had taught her the lesson. As if, in relation to her own children, she herself had become an obedient child. We rode on. Horse tails in front of us and horse rumps too. Yes! She wanted to many the attorney! She wanted to have children with him! And she was saying this while there, in front of us, was the outline of her underage lover’s silhouette!

We passed a heap of rubble discarded on the side of the road, and soon thereafter two acacia trees.

“Do you like Karol?”

“Sure … after all, we’ve known each other…”

“I know. Since childhood. But I’m asking whether you feel anything for him?”

“Me? I like him a lot.”

“‘Like’? That’s all. So why did you crush the worm with him?”

“What worm?”

“And what about the pants legs? The pants you rolled up for him by the barn?”

“Pants? Oh, yes, they were too long after all. So what of it?”

The glaringly smooth wall of a lie told in good faith, a lie that she did not feel to be a lie. But how could I demand truth from her? This creature, sitting next to me, small, frail, ill-defined, who was not yet a woman but merely a prelude to a
woman, this transience that existed solely to cease being what it is now, that was killing itself.

“Karol is in love with you!”

“Him? He’s not in love with me, or with anybody else. … All he wants is, well … to go to bed with somebody …” and here she said something that pleased her, she expressed it as follows: “After all, he’s just a kid, and besides, you know … well, better not talk about that!” This was of course an allusion to Karol’s uncertain past, but in spite of everything, I thought I was also catching a friendly tone toward him—as if there was the shadow of a “limited” friendliness hiding here, somewhat collegial, she did not say it with disgust, no, but rather said it as if it pleased her to some degree … and even intimately in some way. … It seemed that as Vaclav’s fiancée she was judging Karol severely, but also, at the same time, she was associating herself with his tumultuous fate, common to all born under the sign of war. I latched onto this right away, and I too struck the chord of intimacy, I said, nonchalantly and like a colleague, that after all, she must have slept with more than one man, surely she’s no saint, so she could go to bed with him too, and why not? She accepted it easily, more easily than I expected and even with a certain eagerness, with a strange obedience. She promptly agreed with me that “she could of course” and especially since it had already happened with someone from the Underground Army who stayed overnight at the house, last year. “Don’t tell my parents, of course.” But why was this young girl introducing me so easily into her
little affairs? And right after her betrothal to Vaclav? I asked whether her parents suspected anything (with regard to the one from the UA), to which she replied: “They suspect it, since they caught us at it. But
actually
they don’t suspect it. …”

“Actually”—a brilliant word. With its help one can say anything. A brilliantly obfuscating word. We were now descending down the road toward Brzustowa, among linden trees—shadow is bathed in sunlight, the horses slow down, the harness moves forward on their necks, the sand creaks under the wheels.

“Good! Well, then! Why not? If with that one from the UA, why not with this one?”

“No.”

The ease with which women say “no.” This talent for refusal. This “no,” always at the ready—and when they find it within them, they’re merciless. Yet … could she be in love with Vaclav? Is this where the restraint came from? I said something to this effect: it would be a blow for Vaclav if he found out about her “past”—he who worships her and is so religious, so principled. I expressed the hope that she would not tell him, yes, better to spare him this … spare the one who believes in their total spiritual understanding … She interrupted me, offended. “And what do you think? That I have no morality?”

“He has a Catholic morality.”

“Me too. It’s the truth, I am a Catholic.”

“What do you mean? Do you take the sacraments?”

“Of course!”

“Do you believe in God? Literally, as a true Catholic?”

“If I didn’t believe, I wouldn’t be going to confession and Holy Communion. And don’t think anything to the contrary! My future husband’s principles suit me just fine. And his mother is almost a mother to me. You’ll see, what a woman! It’s an honor for me to become part of such a family.” And after a moment’s silence she added, hitting the horses with the reins: “At least when I marry him I won’t be screwing around.”

Sand. Road. We’re going uphill.

The vulgarity of her last words—what was that for? “I won’t be screwing around.” She could have put it more subtly. But the undertone of her sentence was double-edged. … It contained a desire for purity, dignity—and at the same time it was unworthy of her, degrading in its actual wording … and exciting me anew … exciting me … because it again brought her closer to Karol. And once more, as with Karol earlier, a fleeting discouragement came upon me—that we can’t find out anything from them because everything they say, or think, or feel, is only a game of excitement, a constant teasing, a kindling of a narcissistic savoring of themselves—and that they are the first to fall prey to their own seductions. This young girl? This young girl who was nothing but a captivating force, an attraction, a greatly appealing element, unceasing, lithe, soft, absorbent coquetry—and she was like this as she sat next to me, in her little coat, with her little hands that were too
small. ‘When I marry him I won’t screw around.” This sounded severe, taking herself in hand—for Vaclav, because of Vaclav—but it was also an intimate, and oh how seductive, admission of her own weakness. She was therefore exciting even in her virtue … and in the distance ahead of us was the carriage, mounting a hill, and on the coach box next to the coachman was Karol … Karol … Karol … On the coach box. On the hill. In the distance. I don’t know whether it was the fact that he appeared “in the distance”—or that he appeared “on the hill”—yet in this configuration, in this “rendering” of Karol, in this appearance of his, there was something infuriating me, and, furious, pointing my finger at him, I said:

“But you like to crush earthworms with him!”

“Why are you stuck on that earthworm? He stepped on it, so I stepped on it.”

“You both knew quite well the worm was suffering!”

“What do you mean?”

Again nothing was revealed. She sat next to me. For a moment the thought came to me to let go—to back out. … My situation, my bathing in their eroticism—oh, it was impossible! I should get busy with something else as soon as possible, something more appropriate—busy with more serious matters! Would it be so difficult to return to normal, to the truly familiar state in which other things seem interesting and important, while such antics with young people become worthy of nothing but disdain? But what if one gets excited, loves one’s excitement, excites oneself with it, and
everything else is no longer alive! Once more pointing to Karol with my shaming finger, I emphatically declared, my intent being to press her to the wall, to wrest an admission from her:

“You’re not just for yourself. You’re for someone else. And in this case you’re for him. You belong to him!”

“Me? To him? What put that into your head?”

She laughed. This laughter of theirs, constant, unceasing—hers and his—obfuscating everything! What misery.

She was pushing him away … by laughing. … She was pushing him away with laughter. This laughter of hers was short, it soon ceased, it was merely a hint of laughter—but in this brief moment I saw his laughter through her laughter. The same laughing mouths with teeth inside them. This was “cute” … unfortunately, unfortunately, this was “cute.” They were both “cute.” That’s why she didn’t want it!