Andrzej Bursa - Killing Auntie

We covered the distance from the coffee shop to home at a more reasonable pace. Once inside, without taking her coat off, Auntie went into the bedroom and sat down heavily on the bed. Climbing up the stairs had taken some air out of her at last. Inside the four walls of our flat, I began to see the old signs of tiredness and age in her features once again. The moment of rest didn’t last long, though. She got up, took off her coat and boots and began pottering about the flat. I didn’t help her with her coat. At that point, my smallest gesture would have been irrelevant and meaningless before the decisive, impending moment. I sprawled on the bed, listening to Auntie clattering around in the kitchen. I was waiting.

At last the door to the bathroom squeaked. I got up. I couldn’t resist participating in the most dramatic moment of the whole adventure. Auntie stood over the bath, shaking her head.

“Boy, boy, boy,” she said with reproach, “why did you bring all these plants in here? And how could you clutter the whole bathtub like this? I bet you didn’t take a single bath while I was away, did you, you dirty boy. Help me move these plants.”

With some reluctance I began to shift the old araucaria while Auntie picked up the two cacti and we took them back to the room. My little altar ceased to exist. The scraps of the corpse littering the bathtub among the ice were cold and devoid of any charisma. Auntie clutched at her head.

“Jerzy,” she cried, “what have you been doing here? Get the brush, let’s clean it quickly. Pull up your sleeves, you’ll get your shirt dirty.”

I got down to cleaning the bathtub. The torso presented the biggest problem. Though gutted, it was still quite heavy. But Auntie helped me. We carried it onto the kitchen balcony and hung it out on the balustrade.

Just then, on the neighboring balcony, Mrs. Malinowska was beating her carpets. Seeing Auntie, she sent her a radiant smile and the two ladies exchanged pleasantries. I took the last remains outside in a bucket and chucked them into the rubbish bin.

Auntie poured half a packet of cleaning powder into the bathtub and, armed with brushes, we started scrubbing it clean.