Stanislaw Lem: Hospital of the Transfiguration

“We’re going, aren’t we?” she asked. “Rygier and Pajączkowski are staying overnight. Your friend is with them. They’re leaving in the morning. The Germans promised to take their things to the train.”

“What about Kauters?” asked Stefan without looking up.

“Von Kauters, you mean?” Nosilewska replied slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe he’ll stay here.”

When he looked at her, puzzled, she added, “This is going to be an SS hospital. I heard him talking about it with Thiessdorff.”

“Ah, yes,” said Stefan. His head was starting to hurt, from temples to forehead.

“Do you want to stay? Because I’m going.”

“I admire your composure.”

“There’s not much left. It’s just about used up. I have to leave. I have to get out of here,” she repeated.

“I’ll come with you,” he said suddenly, feeling that he too would be unable to touch equipment still warm from the touch of those now dead, or to inhale air in which their breath seemed still to hang.

“Let’s go through the woods,” she said. “It’s shorter. And Hutka told me the Ukrainians are patrolling the roads. I’d rather not run into them.”

When they reached the ground floor, Stefan hesitated. “What about the others?”

She understood what he meant. “It might be easier for us, and for them too. All of us need different people now, different surroundings.”

They walked toward the gate: above them dark trees soughed like the surface of a cold sea. There was no moon. A large dark shape suddenly loomed in front of them.

“Who goes there?” a voice asked in German.

The white beam of a flashlight fell on them. In the reflection from the leaves they recognized Hutka. He was patrolling the yard.

“Go,” he said, waving them on.

They passed him in silence.

“Hey!” he called.

They stopped.

“Your first and only obligation now is to keep silent. Understand?” His voice held a threat. Maybe it was because of the glaring, shadow-sliced light, but he seemed somehow tragic walking in the long coat that fell to his boots, a seam of teeth showing in his face.

Much later, Stefan spoke: “How can they do such things and live?”

They were on the damp road, past the stone arch with the faded inscription black against the sky, when light shined around them again. Hutka was waving farewell with wide swings of the flashlight. Then all was blackness.

They veered off the road at the second bend and slogged laboriously through the mud, heading for the forest. Trees, ever denser and taller, surrounded them. Their feet sank into dry leaves that babbled like water at a ford. They walked for a long time.

Stefan looked at his watch. By then they should have been at the edge of the woods, from which they would be able to see the railroad station. But he said nothing. They walked on and on, bumping into each other; the suitcase felt heavier. The forest sighed steadily. Through the branches they caught rare glimpses of a ghostly night cloud. They stopped and spoke in front of a great spreading sycamore.

“We’ve lost our way.”

“So it seems.”

“We should have taken the road.”

They tried in vain to figure out where they were. It had gotten darker.

Clouds covered the sky, forming a low backdrop to the leafless branches that stirred in the wind. The breeze rattled the twigs. Then rain began to fall, and dripped down their faces.

When they stopped to rest, they noticed a squat shape nearby: some sort of barn or cottage. The trees thinned out and they walked into an open space.

“This is Wietrzniki,” Stefan said slowly. “We’re nine kilometers from the road, eleven from town.”

They had walked in a broad arc in the wrong direction.

“We’ll never get to the train in time. Unless we find horses.”

Stefan did not answer: it seemed impossible. The people were long gone. A few days ago the Germans had burned the neighboring village to the ground, and everyone had fled.

They climbed over a low fence and tapped at the windows and door. Dead silence. A dog barked, then another, and finally waves of steady barking rang through the area. An isolated cottage stood on a little hill above the village. A glow appeared in one of the windows.

Stefan hammered on the door until he shook. He was about to lose hope when it opened to reveal a tall, rumpled peasant, the whites of his eyes shining in his dark face. A white unbuttoned shirt peeked out under the jacket he had thrown on.

“We’re… we’re doctors from the hospital in Bierzyniec, and we’re lost. We need a place to sleep, please,” Stefan began, sensing that he was saying the wrong thing. But anything he said would be wrong. He knew peasants.

The man stood immobile, blocking the entrance.

“All we’re asking for is a place to sleep,” Nosilewska said, quiet as a distant echo.

The peasant did not move.

“We’ll pay,” Stefan tried.

The peasant still did not speak. He stood there. Stefan took his wallet out of an inside pocket.

“I don’t need your money,” the peasant said suddenly. “What people like you need is a bullet.”

“What do you mean? The Germans let us leave. We got lost, we were trying to make the train.”

“They shoot, bum, beat,” the peasant continued in a monotone, stepping out across the threshold. He pulled the door shut behind him and stood, tall, in the open. The rain was coming down harder.

“What can you do?” he said finally, shrugging.

He walked away from the house. Stefan and Nosilewska followed. There was a thatched shed in the yard. The man turned the simple latch on the door. The inside smelled of old hay and aromatic dust that tickled the nose.

“Here,” said the peasant. He paused for a moment and added, “You can sleep on the hay. But don’t crush the bundles.”

“Thank you very much,” said Stefan. “Will you take something after all?”

He tried to press a banknote into the peasant’s hand.

“That won’t stop a bullet,” the peasant said dryly. “What can you do?” he said again, more quietly.

“Thank you,” Stefan repeated helplessly.

The peasant stood there for another moment, then said, “Good night.” He left, turning the latch.

Stefan was standing just inside the door. He stretched out a hand like a blind man: he always had trouble finding his way in darkness. Nosilewska shuffled about on the straw. He took off the cold, heavy jacket that had stuck to his back; water dripped off it. He would have liked to have taken off his trousers too. He bumped into some sort of pole and almost fell over, but steadied himself on his suitcase. Then he remembered that he had a flashlight inside. He pawed at the lock. Along with the flashlight he found a piece of chocolate. Setting the light on the ground, he looked in his pockets for Sekułowski’s papers. Nosilewska scattered straw on the dirt floor and covered it with a blanket. Stefan sat down on the blanket’s edge and unrolled the sheets of paper. The first one contained several words. The handwriting fluttered between the ruled lines as if caught in a net. At the top was Sekułowski’s name, and below it the title; “My World.” Stefan turned the sheet over. It was blank. So was the next one. White and empty every one.

“Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing.”

A fear so powerful came over him that he sought Nosilewska’s gaze. She sat bent over, the plaid blanket draped over her. From under it she tossed out her blouse, skirt, and underwear, all heavy with moisture.

“Empty,” Stefan repeated. He wanted to say something, but it came out a hoarse groan.

“Come here.”

He looked at her. Her hands brushed back the dark waves of her hair.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t think. That boy. But Sekułowski… It was Staszek who…”