Stanislaw Lem - Hospital of the Transfiguration

After eating and washing, Stefan was at last admitted to the bedroom.

His aunt played the envoy, scurrying back and forth on tiptoe, her hands rowing at her sides as though she was fighting the air resistance. The atmosphere was charged: the Return of the Prodigal Son, thought Stefan as he entered quietly, at which point the Rembrandtian contours in his mind dissolved.

The first thing that struck him was that his mother’s collection of cactus, asparagus, and other plants had been mercilessly crammed into the darkest comer of the room. His father lay in bed with a blanket drawn up to his chin. His lemon-colored hands with their gnarled fingers looked like ugly dead ornaments on the blanket border.

“How are you, Father?” he croaked.

His father said nothing, and Stefan yearned for a pleasant, rapid conclusion to the visit. It flashed through his mind that it would be convenient if his father died right at that moment. Then Stefan would be able to kneel at that pathetic spot at the bedside, say a prayer, and leave. That would make everything so much easier.

But his father did not die. On the contrary, he lifted his head and said in a whisper that turned into a groan, “Stefek, Stefek, Stefek,” in disbelief and then in joy.

“Father, I heard you weren’t feeling well, and I was so upset,” he lied.

“Oh,” said his father dismissively. He tried to sit up. He needed help and Stefan found the task terribly awkward. He could feel the bones under his touch, the gaps between his father’s ribs just beneath the skin, and the feeble remnants of warmth for which the emaciated, helpless body fought.

“Does it hurt?” he asked with sudden concern.

“Sit on the bed. Sit,” his father repeated with some impatience.

Stefan perched obediently on the edge of the bedframe; it was uncomfortable, but also very touching. What could he talk about?

He could remember only one expression on his father’s face; a vacant gaze into that other world where his inventions took shape. His hands had always been scratched by wire, burned by acid, or dyed some exotic color. Now all that was gone. The last of life trembled gently in the thick dark veins under his freckled skin.

It was painful for Stefan to see.

“I’m so tired,” his father said. “It would be better to just go to sleep and not wake up.”

“Father, how can you say that?” Stefan blurted, but at the same time he thought: What else is there for a body like this, for a skull that seems to rattle like the meat in a dried-up walnut? His joints are squeaky hinges, his lungs asthmatic moss, his heart a jammed, leaky pump. The body was a decrepit tenement whose inhabitants feared it would collapse on their heads. Stefan recalled Sekułowski’s poem: it was our bodies that murdered us, obeying the only law they knew—not our will, but nature.

“Father, would you like to eat something?” he asked uncertainly, disturbed by the lightness of the hand now stroking his own. It sounded so stupid, he felt ashamed.

“I don’t eat. I don’t need anything now. I wanted to tell you so many things, but now… I lie awake all night. I can’t even sleep anymore,” he complained.

“Well, I’ll give you a prescription,” said Stefan, reaching into his pocket for his pad. “Who’s treating you, Marcinkiewicz?”

“Forget it. Don’t bother. Yes, Marcinkiewicz. It doesn’t matter now.” He burrowed deeper into his pillow. “Stefan, this time comes for everyone. When it really hurts, you wish a vein would burst in the brain at night. It might sound stupid, but I wouldn’t want to go all at once. It’s better to know what’s coming. But this doesn’t make sense.”

Stroking Stefan’s hand, he paused as if confused.

“We didn’t know each other well. I never had the time. Now I see that it doesn’t make any difference. The ones who hurry and the ones who take their time all end up in the same place. Just don’t have any regrets. No regrets.”

He fell silent, then added, “Never regret that you’re in one place and not another. Or that you could have done something but didn’t. Don’t believe it. You didn’t do it because you couldn’t do it. Everything makes sense when it ends. Not before. Always and everywhere, when you come down to it, are the same as never and nowhere. No regrets, remember!”

He was quiet again, breathing more deeply than before.

“That’s not what I really wanted to tell you. But my head won’t obey me anymore.”

“Father, can I get you anything? Are you taking any medicine?”

“They keep sticking me with needles,” his father said. “Don’t worry about it. You regret the life I led, don’t you? Tell me.”

“But Father.”

“It’s too late for lying now. You regretted the life I led, and you still do, I know that. There was never time. We were strangers. The thing is, I never wanted to give you up. Obviously, I didn’t love you, because that would have been… I don’t know. Stefan, are you doing all right?”

Now it was Stefan who could not find words.

“I’m not asking if you’re happy. You know if you’re happy only afterward, when it’s over. Man lives by change. Tell me, do you have a girl? Do you plan to get married?”

Something caught in Stefan’s throat. Here’s a man who’s dying, almost a stranger, and he’s thinking of me. Would I be able to do that? he wondered, but was unable to answer.

“Say something! You have a girl, then?”

Stefan shook his hanging head. His father’s eyes were blue, bloodshot, but most of all tired.

“Well. Advice doesn’t help. But let me tell you this. We Trzynieckis need women. That’s the way we are. We can’t handle things on our own. To live a clean life, a person has to be clean himself. You were always pigheaded—maybe I’m not saying it right, but you never knew how to forgive, and that’s everything. You don’t need to know anything else. I don’t know if you can learn now. But anyway, you don’t have to look for beauty or intelligence in a woman. Just tenderness. Feeling. The rest comes by itself. But without tenderness…”

He closed his eyes.

“Without tenderness it’s worth nothing. And tenderness is so easy.”

Then he added in his old, strong voice, “Forget all this if you want. Don’t listen to my advice. That’s wisdom too. But in that case don’t listen to anybody’s. Now what did I want to tell you? Oh yes, there are three envelopes in the desk.”

Stefan was stunned.

“And in the bottom drawer there’s a roll of paper with a ribbon around it. That’s the blueprint for my pneumomotor. The whole plan. Are you listening? Don’t forget. As soon as the Germans leave, take it to Frąckowiak. Someone has to make a model. He’ll know how.”

“But Dad,” said Stefan. “You’re talking like you’re making a will. You’re not feeling that bad, are you?”

“I’m not feeling that good either.” He did not want comforting. “That pneumomotor is worth a fortune. Believe me. I know what I’m talking about. So take it. It would be better if you took it right now.”

With his neck outstretched he whispered, “Aunt Mela is impossible. Absolutely impossible! I can’t trust her any farther than I can throw her. Take it now. I’ll give you the key.”

He almost fell out of bed reaching for his trousers, draped over the chair. In the pocket they found—under a dirty handkerchief, a roll of wire, and a pair of pliers—a bunch of keys. His father held them up to Stefan’s face and looked for a small Wertheim key. He handed it to Stefan, who took it and went to the desk. His father dozed off again.

He woke up when Stefan came back. “Well, did you get it?”

Then he looked at Stefan sharply, as if he had just remembered something. “I was not good to your mother,” he finally said. “She doesn’t even know that I’m… I didn’t want to tell her.”