Andrzej Bursa - Killing Auntie

“Come. I’ll show you something.”

I nodded, obediently refraining from saying anything. The Girl slowed down. We walked carefully and in silence; only her grip on my hand grew stronger. I couldn’t understand why we were creeping like this, for that was the only way I could describe it, but I crept as best I could, holding my breath and trying to take steps without making any sound. When we got to a big hut, The Girl motioned me to hide behind a tree trunk. Leaning out from behind the tree, our faces were practically touching the wire fence of the cage.

Inside the cage, which was as huge as an auditorium, on a concrete shelf built into a massive rock, two lynxes were copulating. They did it softly, gracefully, soundlessly, without purring. It went on for an embarrassingly long time, and in silence. It began to get on my nerves. I felt I could not articulate any kind of reaction to this phenomenon, fundamentally indifferent to me and outside my direct sensual experience yet totally absorbing. I looked at The Girl. Her face was calm and beautiful as usual. She was watching it with concentration, her forehead slightly furrowed. Her lips were gently pursed in a kind of smirk, neither contemptuous nor ironic. The aroused animals began to moan and purr. It was unbearable. I tried to wrench myself free and cover my eyes with my hand. But The Girl would not let go, her grip growing stronger still, her fingernails sinking into my hand. It was only thanks to my thick gloves that she didn’t draw blood.

“Let go,” I hissed with my throat tight. “Let go, now! I’ve had enough. This is ridiculous …”

I was flailing madly behind the tree, unable to pull free. After a while I realized The Girl was no longer holding my hand; I was simply rooted to the spot. The lynxes’ moans were growing louder and louder, reaching the pitch of beastly whining. I leaned against the other side of the trunk and with my eyes shut, waited out the feline orgasm. After another minute I decided to open my eyes. I was struck by the stillness of the surrounding. My writhing and flailing of a few moments ago seemed utterly out of place now as I stood in the midst of a silent snowy landscape. The lynxes lay on their bellies scratching each other lazily. The female lay with her hind legs stretched out like a woman’s. A bird swayed a branch above my head and a single black leaf fell on the ground nearby. I turned around looking for The Girl but she wasn’t there. I wanted to call her but remembered that I didn’t even know her name. I walked around the cage, checking behind other trees; The Girl was gone. I became angry: What would be the point of looking for her anyway?

I checked the time. Ten o’clock. I decided to take the shortest route back to town. But as soon as I turned toward the alley I saw her, waiting for me.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING BEFORE DAWN I THREW MY SKIS over my shoulder and headed for the zoo. In fact, I hadn’t arranged to meet The Girl but I was hurrying as if late for a date. The workers, gathered in groups at the bus stop, looked at me gravely, even hard-heartedly. I didn’t have the time, or the patience, to explain to them that my needs, forcing me to take a ride to the woods at this time of day, were just as unforgiving as theirs, forcing them to hurry to the cigarette factory. After passing the bus stop I fastened the skis on and set off across the empty fields.

The gray skies made the snow glisten with a turbid sheen, which was hard on the eyes. The first part of the run, passing houses and cowsheds, was unpleasant, in fact, and now and again I asked myself if I shouldn’t go back. How would I justify to The Girl such an early visit? Once inside the forest I began to enjoy the run, and the freedom. Sliding along the downy paths, past the black tangled mass of shrubs and bushes, here and there I would knock off a thick snowy hat from a fir branch, crying out in hushed excitement as I went along. I didn’t let myself get carried away, constantly reminding myself I had to make it on time for the feline heat.

I entered the zoo through the main gate. I expected The Girl to be waiting for me there and was rather disappointed when she wasn’t. I walked slowly along the alley. The animals watched me without any fear in their eyes. The bears stood up on their hind paws and had a closer look at me, but didn’t turn their heads when I disappeared from their sight. A young lion ran away at first and then stopped with his paw in midair, above a still quivering wooden ball. I turned back and started toward the mouflon pen, behind which stood the caretaker’s black hut. The hut looked as if someone had shoveled the snow in front of the gate, locked the door, bolted the shutters and left for somewhere far away. I stood before it for a long while, hesitating whether I should knock on the shutters or not, but in the end I lacked the courage. I turned back onto the main alley and began to move towards the other entrance, the one we had used. But I couldn’t find the way. I had no idea which end of the park the lynx cage was at, which could serve as my orientation point.

Sliding along on my skis, I came across a long wooden building. Because I was feeling a bit cold, I unfastened the skis and went in through the half-open door. The inside of the building was like an elongated, over-wide corridor. Along the walls were cages with small parrots, hummingbirds and white-footed voles. The stench was overpowering. I lit a cigarette and moved towards the other end of the corridor, where I saw an open window. It didn’t, as I expected, open up to the outside, but looked into a small room with a floor covered by layers of cotton wool and a small barred window that was closed. A big monkey in a black waistcoat sat in the middle of the floor. The animal held some kind of a magazine and was leafing through it with great concentration. After a while the monkey put away the magazine and pulled a sheaf of loose pages from his waistcoat pocket. I managed to catch a glance at the magazine’s cover; it was an old satirical German weekly.

Meanwhile the monkey spread the pieces of paper out on the straw floor like someone dealing a game of Patience, except that the cards were uniformly blank. He fiddled with the glasses on his nose, though in fact there was just a wire frame without lenses, and sank into thought over his cards, as if trying to decide which to choose. Then, with a quick, thieving swipe, he snatched one of them from the middle row, moved to the window and raised it up to the light. As far as I could tell from that distance, the watermark on the paper was an erotic picture, drawn in a vulgar and naturalistic way. The monkey examined the paper at length, nodding his head with appreciation, then picked out another one and again looked at it for a long while. By the third card, the monkey’s breast heaved with a soft sigh. He glanced at the fourth card quickly, as if not interested, and immediately reached greedily for the next. I had had enough.

I stamped my foot loudly and cried: “Shoo!” The monkey froze with a card in his hand, turning his eyes on me with a tense, painful look. Suddenly he leaped in the air, jumped on a ledge above the window and a metal curtain fell right in front of my nose. I began pummeling it, without thinking. Inside the room it was totally silent. From without, the parrots raised a deafening racket, their cries piercing my ears like steel shrapnel. The baboons and chimpanzees began thrashing about in their cages.

Tormented, I ran out of the building, slamming the door behind me. My skis were waiting for me in the snow, familiar and friendly. I fastened them on and threw myself into a run across the park. Suddenly, as I reached the main alley, the silence was rent by a hoarse, guttural shriek. I recognized the lynxes’ call of love. Automatically, I turned in that direction. The noises grew more frequent; the intercourse must have been reaching the climax. I ran as fast as I could. At last, in the perspective of empty pens and barred enclosures, I saw the lynx cage. The Girl stood outside the caretaker’s hut, pale, with eyes shut. Her face was somber, pained. I ran up to her and grabbed her in my arms. We fell on the snow. The Girl was kissing me feverishly and passionately, not possessively as before, but submissively, like a woman. The skis, still fastened to my feet, splayed widely, drawing long tangled spirals on the snow.