Stanislaw Lem - Hospital of the Transfiguration

“You give him a hundred,” he said to Stefan. Stefan paid, and the conductor opened a notebook, adding the banknote to a stack of others. He wet his finger, rubbed his pocket flap, and pulled out a key. They followed him as he crawled under the car to the other side of the train and led them to a tiny compartment. “Have a good trip,” said the conductor politely, stroking his mustache and saluting.

“Thanks very much,” said Stefan, but his traveling companion suddenly lost interest in him and turned to the window. The man’s face was not so much old as desolate, with dark skin and a thin, sunken mouth. When he took off his coat and hung it up, Stefan saw that he had large, heavy hands with fingers that looked as though they were used to gripping angular objects. His fingernails were thick and dark, like pieces of a nutshell. He pulled his cap down over his eyes and sat in the corner. The train began to move. Two more passengers could have fit into their compartment, which did not endear them to the people jammed in the corridor. Their faces were twisted into scowls. Against the glass stood an elegant man with a delicate, plump face that seemed eternally moist. He rattled the handle and knocked loudly several times. Finally he started to shout, and when his voice failed to carry through the glass, he took out a document with a German stamp and pressed it to the glass.

“Open up right now,” he roared.

For a while Stefan’s companion pretended not to hear anything, then he leaped to his feet and pounded back on the glass: “Shut up! This is a crew compartment, asshole!”

The elegant man mouthed something to save face and withdrew. The rest of the trip passed without incident. When they reached the hills approaching Bierzyniec, the stranger stood up and put on his coat. When its folds bumped the wooden partition, they made a hollow sound as if there was metal inside. The train came around the turn to the empty platform and the brakes shrieked. Stefan and the stranger jumped out as the locomotive rounded the bend, huffing to get up steam for the hill. They slipped through a gap in the iron barrier. A sentimental autumn landscape unfolded behind the station. Stefan blinked up at the sun.

The stranger walked along beside him. They went through the town and turned on to the road that ran through the gorge. The stranger seemed to hesitate for a moment.

“Are you going to the asylum?” Stefan asked, curious.

For a moment the stranger did not reply. Then he said, “No, I just want to get some fresh air.”

They walked on for a few hundred meters. At the head of the gorge, where the trees still blocked the view of the little brick building, something occurred to Stefan. “Excuse me,” he mumbled, stopping.

The stranger also stopped and looked at him.

“You wouldn’t by any chance be going to the substation? Don’t say anything, but, well—please don’t go there!”

The stranger watched him warily, neither joking nor disbelieving; the grimace of a half-smile was on his lips and his eyes were wide and unblinking. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t move either.

“There are Germans there,” Stefan said quickly, his voice hushed. “Don’t go there. They took Woch away. He was arrested. They probably…” He broke off.

“Who are you?” asked the stranger. His face had turned gray as a stone. He put his hand in his pocket, and the hint of a smile that remained on his face became an empty twist of his mouth.

“I’m a doctor at the asylum. I knew him.” He could not go on.

“There are German at the substation?” asked the stranger. He spoke like a man carrying a heavy weight. “Well, it’s none of my business,” he added slowly. He was clearly mulling something over. Then he gave a start and leaned so close that Stefan could feel his breath. “What about the others?”

“The Pościks?” Stefan caught on eagerly. “They got away. The Germans didn’t get them. They’re in the woods, with the partisans. That’s what I heard, anyway.”

The stranger looked around, grabbed Stefan’s hand and gave it a short painful squeeze, and walked straight ahead.

Before he reached the turn, he climbed the hill alongside the road and disappeared into the trees, Stefan took a deep breath and started up the hill toward the hospital. When he neared the stone arch, he turned his head and looked back, down into the woods, searching for his traveling companion. At first he was fooled by the tree trunks that showed among the bright yellow and reddish leaves. Then he spotted him. The stranger was far away, standing still, black against the background of the landscape. But only for an instant: he vanished among the trees.

Pajączkowski stood before the door of the men’s wing, a rare sight in the yard. Father Niezgłoba was with him. The priest had been feeling well for several weeks and could have returned to his pastoral duties, but his substitute from the diocese would be at his parish until the end of the year. Besides, he admitted that he had no desire to spend Christmas with his parishioners.

“It’s funny,” he said, “but they get angry if you don’t have a drink with every one of them. It’s the same thing at New Year’s, and Easter, with the blessed food, is the worst of all. I’m not supposed to drink now, but you think they care about my health? I’m in no hurry. It’s better if I stay here, professor,” he told Pajączkowski, “if you don’t throw me out.”

Pajączkowski had a weakness for the Church. It was only thanks to him that two Sisters of Charity notorious for their merciless treatment of patients had not been dismissed years ago when a ministerial commission came to investigate the death of a patient who had been scalded in the bathtub. Actually, they left a few weeks later, under his covert pressure. At least that was the story.

Now the priest was trying to talk Pajączkowski into letting him hold Mass next Sunday in the little chapel against the north wall of the yard. He had already checked to make sure there would be no problems with the local parish, and he had everything he needed, except for Pajączkowski’s permission. The director wanted to go ahead, but was afraid of what his colleagues might say. Everyone knew that Mass in an insane asylum was a circus. It was all right for the staff, but the priest thought that the healthier patients at least would be up to it as well.

Pajączkowski was sweating, but when he finally agreed, he calmed down at once. Then he remembered some pressing business and excused himself.

That was when Stefan arrived. “Well, Father, no more visits from the Princess?” he asked, looking around the unkempt garden. The leaves were falling from the trees on the ridge faster than from those on lower ground. At first Stefan did not realize that he had hurt the priest’s feelings.

“My mind, dear doctor, may be compared to a musical instrument with a few strings out of tune. The soul, that marvelous artist, was therefore unable to play the proper melody. But now, since you gentlemen have treated me, I am completely healthy. And grateful.”

“In other words, Father, you are comparing us to piano-tuners,” said Stefan with an inward smile, though he maintained his serious expression. “Perhaps you’re right,” he went on. “A nineteenth-century theologian is said to have stated that the telodendria, the edges of nerve cells, are immersed in the universal ether—except that physics had already disproved the existence of the ether.”

“Not long ago there was a different note in your voice,” the priest said sadly. “Please excuse the obsession of a former patient, doctor, but it seems to me that Mr. Sekułowski has acted on you like wormwood. You are naturally good-hearted, but seeing him has given you a bitter streak that, I am sure, is foreign to you.”