The Dark Domain (12 page)

Uneasy, I drew my head back inside.

It occurred to me that perhaps the puzzling noise had been accompanying the cleansing process of the self for some time. Very likely, taken up with intense internal work and projecting it onto paper, I hadn’t noticed what had been happening around me. Only when I had pulled back a certain distance from my newly crystallized individuality and turned my attention to my surroundings had I been able to detect these mysterious sounds. Though I wasn’t sure why this was happening during my attempts at spiritual emancipation, I eventually had to admit to a connection, because the noise made itself heard only when I succeeded in casting off my hateful fetters.

Frequently, when I was in my usual double state, I would listen for something to reach me from that side – but to no avail: the wall at those times didn’t let through the slightest tremor.

Sometimes I thought I was succumbing to an acoustic illusion and that the noise was in reality coming from the right wall, behind which lived a quiet bachelor. But this speculation was rejected after scrupulous evaluation of the sounds … .

Therefore the noise was coming only from beyond the left wall, beyond a wall that bordered on empty space. Most strange!

After a while, when the sounds persisted, I began to carefully examine the left wall. Soon I came to the opinion that there was a cavity inside, because when I banged it, the wall emitted a hollow reverberation.

This assumption was subsequently strengthened by a detail observed on the outside of the house. Scrutinizing attentively the left wing, I noticed for the first time, with no little surprise, that the distance between the boundary of the wall and the last window amounted to four metres. Since the wall on the inside was separated from the window by at most a metre, then its thickness was three metres, an unusual dimension for a house of this sort. Beyond me, then, was a walled-up room. And that particular noise originated from it. This was obvious.

Amazed at this discovery, for a long time I practically never left my home, spending hours on end in trying to reach my true self. Now, however, this proved to be more difficult because, catching sounds from the void, I diverted my attention too quickly from my own being. Realizing that by this road I wouldn’t attain my goal, I concentrated my entire energy on thinking of myself, and only when I felt the strong intensity of my regained individuality did I listen to those sounds which emanated from the hidden room.

After a while I noticed they contained rather audible semi-tones, like gradations. The deeper I would sink into the process of my spiritual liberation and the more I would purge myself of my other self – the more distinctly the noise would make itself heard. Something restless was tramping inside that enclosed space, roaming about the corners, wandering along the length of the walls as if in frantic helplessness.

But when I was trapped again in that unhappy double state, more strongly restrained by the co-presence of the alien element, the sounds beyond the wall calmed down and faded away, as if soothed.

There was something puzzling about this, something that stimulated my utmost curiosity while evoking ice-cold fear. One had the impression that while I was here dealing with my hated enemy, endeavouring to oust him from my unfortunate ego, there, beyond the wall, some entity was being born, something was being formed, was emerging … . Finally I decided to smash down the wall and see what was inside that hidden room.

It was appropriate, however, to proceed systematically and slowly, so as not to scare away the strange being. Whenever I listened at length to the particular details of its movements, everything ceased, and I – a thing for me incomprehensible – would burst out with devilish laughter and return to my double state.

‘This is some cunning beast,’ I muttered, quietening down after these unexpected outbursts. ‘However, we will find even for this a remedy; we will find it, and it will be infallible. One has to catch you off guard.’

I soon proceeded with my plan. I took a piece of chalk and drew on the wall a quadrangle corresponding, more or less, to my size. Then I chipped off the plaster within the marked boundaries, after which I carefully cut out with a sharp tool the inside section of the wall, leaving only a thin layer, which according to my estimate would give way with one blow.

After finishing these preparations during the day, I decided to break into the room that very evening and catch whatever had been unsettling me for many weeks.

Outside the autumn weather was typically foul; a light rain fell continually. An early dusk unreeled grey lines of curled mist along narrow suburban back-streets. From sparsely scattered lanterns spread out golden, flickering trails, dying in the distended watery expanse. Some kind of carts, wet, slippery, dragged along the road in a clattering file … .

I lowered the blind and lit a lamp.

I felt strange and not myself. I dropped my weary head onto my hands and sank into the work of liberation. As usual, I reminded myself of my former character, its development and its tastes; I immersed myself in drawing out my experiences before my illness; I imagined myself in typical situations in which my individuality had manifested itself most clearly. Thus I went further and further, going down ever deeper to reach the most primary layers of my ego … .

I was happy; I was that former self, full of belief and confidence in the future, infused with the love of goodness and beauty, fascinated by life and its secret wonders. I was at the peak of my emancipation, without a particle of alien matter, with the cleanest ego … .

Suddenly I looked around, taking in the room with a quick glance. At that moment a noise to my left pierced my solitude. Something was hurling itself around beyond the wall, as if from the floor to the ceiling, scraping along the walls in despair, rolling around in painful fits, without finding a way out … .

I listened with bated breath, clenching a pick in my hand. After several minutes the noise quietened down; fretful, nervous steps followed. Someone, clearly of this world, was pacing up and down in that hidden room, from corner to corner.

I raised the pick and with all my strength hit the marked wall … .

I rushed inside, and at that moment came a deadly silence.

I was hit with the stifling, putrid odour of a sealed space.

At first, stunned by the blinding darkness, I saw nothing. But a long streak of light from my lamp slipped into the void after me, and it crept along the floor to the corner … .

I looked there and let go of the pick, horror-struck.

At the corner of the little room, squeezed between two walls, crouched some human figure, staring at me with a piercing, greenish look. Drawn by the magnetic power of his gaze, I advanced … . The figure straightened up, grew … . I cried out. It was Brzechwa … .

He stood silent and still; only his moustache twitched slightly. Suddenly he inclined himself in my direction, leaned against my chest, and – entered me, vanishing inside without a trace … .

Dazed, like an automaton I went and grabbed the lamp from the table and rushed back through the breach. In vain. The room was empty. Under the ceiling swung cobwebs, along the walls trickled cold tears of humidity … .

Suddenly a sound cut the air, hoarse, whizzing, grating … .

‘What’s that?! What’s that?!’

Then I realized: it was my laughter.

Antoni Czarnocki, the fire chief of Rakszawa, had just finished his study of fire statistics, and lighting his favourite Cuban cigar, he stretched himself out on the ottoman.

It was three o’clock on a scorching July afternoon. Through the lowered blinds, dark-yellow daylight trickled, invisible waves of humid heat permeated. The distant noise of the street flowed in, languid from the hot weather; lethargic flies buzzed on the windows with a faint, fitful rattle. Czarnocki pondered over the dates he had been looking at, mentally arranging the notes collected through the years, as he came to his conclusions.

No one can imagine what interesting results can be obtained with a skilful and methodical – and, of course, a highly attentive – study of fire statistics. No one would believe how much interesting material can be extracted from these dry, seemingly useless dates, how many strange, sometimes amusingly strange, manifestations one can notice in this chaos of facts apparently so similar, so monotonously repetitive.

But to search it out, to detect something of the sort – for this a special sense is needed, which few acquire; one needs a ‘nose’ for it, maybe even the constitution. Czarnocki certainly belonged to such an exceptional group and was aware of that fact.

He had been occupied with fire for many years, studying the element in Rakszawa and elsewhere, making exceedingly precise notes based on newspaper accounts, reading special works, perusing an immense quantity of pertinent data.

Of no small help in this original research were the meticulous maps of practically all areas of the country, and even beyond, which filled his library shelves. Amongst these were plans of cities and towns with their entire labyrinth of streets, back-streets, plazas, alleys, gardens, parks, squares, buildings, churches, tenements, plans so pedantically scrupulous that a person visiting a particular area for the first time could, with the help of these guides, move about freely and with ease, as if in his own home. Everything was numbered most thoroughly, arranged according to districts and regions, and waiting their owner’s use. All he needed to do was stretch out his hand – and rectangular and square canvases, oil-skins or papers would obediently spread out before him, acquainting him with their details and peculiarities.

Czarnocki frequently spent hours devouring these maps, studying the distribution of houses and streets, comparing the planimetry of cities. It was very laborious work, demanding much patience; not always was the outcome readily known and frequently one had to wait a long time for some positive result. Yet Czarnocki wasn’t easily discouraged. Noticing a suspicious detail, he would grab it in indignation, as if with pincers, and wouldn’t let go until he discovered a fire that had occurred years ago, or until a fire would occur and confirm his suspicions.

The fruits of this long-standing research were the special ‘fire maps’ and ‘fire modifications’ drawn up by him. On the first were emphasized places, buildings and houses which had passed through some catastrophe, no matter if the traces of the fire were eliminated and the damage repaired, or if the fire site had been left to its own fate. The plans called ‘fire modifications’ underlined the changes that had occurred in the arrangement of homes and buildings as a result of a fire disaster; any shift or the slightest alteration was marked with amazing pedantry.

After the creation of both types of maps Czarnocki eventually came to some very interesting conclusions. Connecting various fire sites with lines, he became convinced that in four out of five times the fire points created outlines of strange figures. Primarily these were the shapes of short, funny beings that sometimes reminded one of child freaks, at other times, of animals – little monkeys with long, playfully turned tails, agile bow-legged squirrels, extremely hideous talapoins.

Czarnocki ‘extracted’ from his plans a complete gallery of these beings and, colouring them with vermilion paint, put them into his unique album titled:

Album of the Fire Elementals.

The second part of this work was
Fragments and Designs –
a multitude of grotesque figures, incomplete forms, barely developed ideas. Inside were sketches of vague heads, fragments of trunks, parts of arms and legs, segments of hairy, spread-out paws, interspersed with half-twisted figures, mangled things and tentacled growths.

Czarnocki’s album seemed like the work of someone’s capricious fantasy that, delighting in grotesque-diabolical beings, fills pages with multitudes of malicious, chimerical and incalculable monsters. The fire chief’s collection looked like a joke, an artistic genius’ florid joke which had materialized in some strange dream. But at times this caprice chilled one’s blood … .

The second conclusion reached by this original researcher came after years of observation. Fires, he perceived, occur most frequently on Thursday. Statistics showed that in most cases this terrible element is awakened on this particular day of the week.

Czarnocki didn’t think this was just coincidental. On the contrary, he found an explanation. According to him, it came from the very character of a day whose symbol is contained in its name. This day, as is known, has for ages been the day of Jove, the thunderbolt god. Not without reason do the Germanic races name the thunder day:
Donnerstag
and Thursday. And that full, precise Latin melody:
giovedi, jueves
and
jeudi –
do they not indicate a similar understanding?

Reaching these two important findings, Czarnocki went on to further conclusions. Philosophically learned, and clearly inclined to metaphysical speculations, he engrossed himself in his spare moments in the mystical works of early Christianity and meditated scrupulously over various medieval tracts. The long-term study of fires and their circumstances finally led him to believe in the possible existence of previously unknown beings who, occupying some middle level between human and animal, appear beside every strong eruption of the elements.

Czarnocki found confirmation of his theories in peasant beliefs and in ancient folk tales concerning the Devil, water nymphs, gnomes, salamanders and sylphs. Today he had no doubt that elementals existed. He felt their presence at every fire and followed their maliciousness with unusual skill. Gradually this hidden and unseen world became as real to him as the human environment he belonged to. With time, he became quite familiar with the psychology of these strange creatures and their crafty, deceitful nature, and he taught himself how to neutralize and subdue this enemy. A stubborn, fully-conscious fight ensued. As Czarnocki had previously fought with fire as a blind and thoughtless element – slowly, in direct proportion to his acquaintance with its real nature, he began to look at his enemy differently. Instead of a persistent, irrational force, he gradually detected a spiteful, destructive essence that had to be reckoned with. Recently, he also perceived that his altered tactics had been noticed by the other side. At that point, the battle became more personal.