Marek Hlasko - The Graveyard

“No,” the painter said. “It’s death. It’s worse than death. It’s an encore piece, an encore to something that didn’t exist, that couldn’t be taken seriously.” He waved the bottle joyfully. “How about a drink?”

“Gladly,” Franciszek said. Again he turned the glass in his fingers and blinked; the faces on the walls were hurting his eyes. He looked at the bit of vodka running back and forth on the flat bottom of the glass. “That’s how the whole thing began,” he said. “Just like that.”

“How what began?”

“My case. My downfall.”

“Just recently?”

“Yes. But that’s beside the point. You aren’t an imbecile either, and yet you’re alive.”

“I just don’t pay any attention to it,” the painter said, raising his glass. “Your health.”

“And yours.” He drank and put down his glass. “Do you know what?” he said. “A few days ago I went to see Birch.”

“Birch?” the painter asked, surprised. He smiled. “So far as I know he is now called Rocking Horse.”

“Rocking Horse?”

“Yes. He specializes in psychological questioning. It begins like this: he climbs on his desk and jumps on the prisoner’s ribs. That’s how he got the nickname. He hits the genitals with the butt of his gun. He organizes orgies and police courts. A real jokester. People shit with fear at the mere mention of his name.”

“Nice,” Franciszek said. He smiled. “He told me such moving stories.”

“That’s right,” the painter said. “There were stories all right. About that son of his, am I right?”

“About his son, yes.”

“Well, that’s fine. Another drink?”

“Sure.”

They drank. Again the children in the corridor responded to footsteps with an “Unchain me, Auntie.” Then a cat screamed. Then a dog growled. Then came the sound of heavy footsteps, and the children intoned: “Uncle, unchain us, just for a minute …”

“How about coffee?” the painter asked after a while.

“No, thanks.”

“Tea?”

“Don’t trouble yourself …”

“No trouble at all,” the painter said. “All I have is vodka. For the last five years I haven’t taken a drop of water. My questions are just a way of talking; you have got to get used to them. Excuse me.” He rose, shuffled over to a corner of his enormous studio, and came back with a new bottle. The little boys outside, the cats, and the dog screamed in unison. The painter set the glasses down side by side and filled them as though they were measuring cups — not a millimeter’s difference between them.

“To the trees,” the painter said.

Franciszek opened his eyes; for a moment he did not understand the glare or the other’s words. “To what trees?” he said.

“The woods, the underground. We fought together in the woods,” the painter explained impatiently. “We’re heroes, aren’t we? We made a revolution; we were partisan fighters. Have you forgotten?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“Does all that count?”

“Alas. Idiots and criminals are given no credit. Nor heroes. Do you know who we are?”

“No. And you?”

“I don’t either. But I’m not interested any more. I’m a corpse. Like you. Like Communism. And that’s all. I often think of Hitler. What did he accomplish, when all is said and done? Yes, he went to a great deal of trouble; but in the end, what did he achieve? He murdered more people than any decent man murders in his mind. He tried to be consistent, and he succeeded as far as his stupidity would let him. But in the end he failed like every other Savior. That’s all. The Great Teacher accomplished far greater things. He built a graveyard. From now on, future generations will be born and live in graveyards, Apparently people march toward life, toward the sun, through graves. I stick it all up my ass …” He suddenly leaned toward Franciszek and seized his wrist with terrible strength. “Tell me,” he hissed, “are you with the secret police, or not?”

“Not yet. And you?”

“Not yet, either. I’ll tell you myself when I am.”

“So there’s nothing to be done?”

“Nothing. Communism ought to be saved from Communism. But people won’t go without an idea, never. It would be easy to die if this were mankind’s last great myth. To die, to commit the greatest crimes, so that people should never again believe in any sun. But it’s no use. After a while some new madman will come along; he’ll get hold of an icon and run through the city carrying it …” He gave a short laugh. “If I were born again,” he said, “and if I wanted to take revenge on people, I’d create a new ideology for them. To lead crowds to the sunny days of the future — that’s the biggest joke of all.”

“That’s how it’s got to be,” Franciszek said. “No man can endure knowledge. He’s got no right to ask for it. It’s mythology, not knowledge, that holds societies together.”

“Well, then,” the painter said, “go ahead, create a new idea. Any Christ will be useful to mankind. Up to the point of crucifixion, everything is fine, speaking of great ideas. But resurrection is madness. It’s too bad, but I keep repeating myself. Besides, today Christ would be given the psychological treatment. That’s a sign of progress. I drink to the crumbling Cross. Hurrah.”

“Hurrah.”

Their heads were spinning now, and the glare became still more intense. They were in the middle of the city; in the heart of the dying night with its dirty puddles. They were surrounded and nailed by the dead stares of dozens of eyes. Franciszek suddenly had the feeling that he had never seen any face but this one rigidly smiling face, and that he, the painter, Elzbieta, the boy squealing in the corridor, and all people struggling on this earth looked exactly alike. That was how man looked, and his problem, too — the special problem of this unfortunate creature, the question of loyalty and conscience which God, Satan, or Nature foisted upon man to make his life even more precarious, anxious, and difficult than it would normally be.

“No,” he said, “that’s not the worst of it. If I go on living, it means that I accept all this, and I have no right to squawk. A man can live through any hell, survive any tyranny, get out of any swamp and any oppression, if he has at least a crumb of certainty, or at least hope, that there is somewhere another man who walks and breathes like him; who suffers, seeks, or fights like him, preserving his purity. Among us, none can have this hope. Here, among us, the heart of the world has died. Here the great myth of the poor gave up the ghost. Not somewhere else, but here; in this place, toward which the eyes of all the unfortunate and oppressed are turned. Here died the world’s faith. All the words. All the ideas. All the dreams of man’s emancipation. You are right: this is a graveyard. This is the worst. Where can we find strength?”

“What do you mean, where?” the painter said. “In our certainty that there will always be idiots. That’s the worst of it. Are you looking for comfort?”

“Yes,” Franciszek said. “I want to be comforted.”

“There is no comfort,” the painter said. “If there was anything more idiotic, piggish, and useless than human life, it might be a comfort. Unfortunately, no such thing has ever been discovered, but mankind is waiting for its great day. For the time being they have invented eternity, the one with a dung heap of rotten corpses. Try to get there if it amuses you. After all, we’re all going there, and in the face of eternity man always assumes the position of somebody who has been kicked in the ass. Such is the meaning of glory and fame.”

“And if,” Franciszek said, “if I could find at least one man from among our companions who thinks differently?” He looked at the painter with burning eyes. “And Jerzy?” he asked gently.