Andrzej Bursa - Killing Auntie

“Think, man. Think. Chopping off legs with an axe makes no sense whatsoever,” I explained to myself. “And it’s equally pointless chopping them off here. Rather, you should try for smaller pieces, ready to be put in the stove. And finally, there’s no point in chopping at legs that are still dressed in stockings and shoes.”

So I unlaced the shoes, pulled them off the dead feet and stood them at attention in front of Auntie’s bed. Then I pulled up the skirt and unclasped the stockings. I rolled them up into a ball and threw them in the stove. From the larder I fetched a small and rather blunt saw. I positioned myself and had a first go. It wasn’t too bad. I realized that resting my hand just above the corpse’s knee I could saw the leg into pieces any size I liked, just like they do it in the country when they saw birch branches that go straight in the stove. So first, I had to disconnect the foot. I cleared my throat to emphasize the gravity of the work, and began:

Shrrt-Shrrt … shrrt-shrrt … shrrt-shrrrt …

On the whole, I was making good progress. Several times the saw jumped out of the groove and scratched the skin, but that is to be expected during sawing.

Shrrt-Shrrt … shrrt-shrrt … shrrt-shrrrt …

I got to the bone, which proved tougher, but then it started to give way, too. Then the saw blade got stuck in some sticky muck. I wiped it off with a finger and flicked the gunge into the loo, then got on with the sawing again. Muscles, tendons, bones — everything gave way. My confidence grew. It turns out I am not all thumbs, as Auntie used to tell me. I smiled at the joke, which came to my mind unbidden. When the foot was nearly cut through I put away the saw and reached for the axe. With a few brisk chops I finally severed it from the leg. Stupidly though, I wasn’t holding it, and the foot plopped into the toilet bowl. I cursed and delicately fished it out with two fingers. For a moment I hesitated whether I should wipe it dry so as not put a wet item in the stove, and even made a movement toward the towel, but laughed aloud at myself. I put the foot on the hot range in the kitchen and returned to sawing off another piece of leg. This time I was careful to avoid the embarrassment with the toilet bowl. At long last the foot and the other piece lay in front of the stove.

The heat inside the stove was wonderful. I threw in more pieces of paper and wood to build up the fire and chucked the foot into the shimmering void. It sizzled. I heard a hollow thump of the falling weight. The flames began to lick the new item. The skin began to blush and stretch. I smelled the odor of burning tallow. I was very tempted to watch the struggle of the flames with the corpse’s foot a bit longer, but overcame the temptation and closed the hatch. It could have led to some kind of unhealthy sadism, which so far had been absent in my relationship with the corpse. Anyway, the fire burned better with the hatch shut.

Somehow I lost interest in preparing the cutlets now. There was still time, I told myself. And went to the room and lay on the bed. Like an old sybarite I took time to arrange the pillows under my head and shoulders, and to wrap myself in the blanket. I wanted to make my bed as soft and comfortable as possible. I reached out for a book. Oddly, it happened to be Dante’s Inferno . I was irked by this theatricality, which from time to time emerged against my will and against — I was very much aware of that — my actual situation. But then, what was I to do if this was the only book within the range of my hand? I didn’t have much of a choice anyway. The few miserable books lying on my shelf were all so thumbed through I had long lost any interest in them.

I immersed myself in reading but as I read I was becoming more and more aware that my eyes were running through Dante’s stanzas mechanically, without taking in any meaning. I felt sleepy. It was eleven o’clock. Perfect time for a midmorning nap. And then, when the foot had burned, I’d cook myself lunch. I unclasped my watch strap and unbuckled my trouser belt. The room was cold. The fire, left unattended in favor of the kitchen stove, had died out. I wrapped myself tight in the blanket and closed my eyes. Sleep came soon after.

I woke up with a headache. My head was still full of images from my oppressive, suffocating dreams. I had dreamed a nightmare. I threw off the blanket and sat on the bed. Across the room hung a thin gray mist. And a smell of burning. I opened the window and leaned out into the frosty air of the street. My head swam. I turned back into the room and only then realized how it stank inside. Before I guessed the cause I was in the kitchen. It was dark. Thick, black smoke and that sweet, sickly stench permeated the entire room. The stove looked like a volcano. Through the gaps in the range and the hatch door spewed heavy, lazy swirls.

I retreated and shut the door. The hall too was filling with smoke. I shut myself in my room and opened the window wide. Yuk, what an awful, sticky stink … I felt that stickiness everywhere: in my nose, on my hands, inside my mouth. I felt sick. I positioned myself by the window and, taking deep breaths, began to think through different ways of getting rid of the smoke. Alas there was only one thing to do: air the flat. A dangerous way, attracting attention but … the only possibility. I held my breath and burst into the kitchen. I flung the window wide open and quickly ran back into my room, where the air was by now quite breathable. I wrapped myself in the blanket and covered my feet with a duvet. With my hands clasped over my chest, eyes fixed on the ceiling, I waited for the kitchen to clear. It was a method of an ostrich, perhaps, but who said I was to be constantly in a heroic mode of action? After all, so far the more energetic activity had always landed me in trouble.

But it was not granted that I should enjoy my peace for long. I heard banging on the kitchen door. A dilemma: Should I open it or not open it? Of course — open it. I could not afford the risk of having someone break down the door and poke around my flat in search of the cause of fire. Behind the door rose a clamor of female voices. Someone started pummeling the door with a fist. I called out:

“I’m coming! I’m coming …” and turned the key.

I came face-to-face with a small group of frightened women. The poor ladies had abandoned their saucepans and hurried to my rescue. The corpulent Malinowska was holding a knife with which she was presumably cutting meat when she heard her close neighbor was in danger. Skinny, jumpy Benderowa dragged in her toddler; the look of terror in her irregular pale eyes made me want to laugh. But I stopped myself. The women swept me aside and ran in. They kept throwing questions at me, which fortunately I didn’t have to answer as they were just as quickly answering them themselves, shouting over one another.

So I stood mumbling something, spreading my hands, smiling apologetically and thanking them. The women treated me with tender concern, putting into their words all their motherly affection they felt for those different twenty-year-old men — their lovers, husbands and sons — who were driving them to their graves. The energetic Piekarzowa knelt in front of the stove and began to poke about inside it with a poker. I offered my help and tried to take the poker out of her hands but was brusquely led away from the stove. It’s not a job for boys. So I leaned against the sideboard and, talking to the ladies, waited for the half-burned foot to fall out of the stove. Piekarzowa put the bucket to the hatch and with a few well-practiced movements swept out a mound of ash. In a gray, acrid cloud of ash I saw the foot. It fell into the bucket. With a thud. Now Piekarzowa would look into the bucket and … I didn’t want to imagine any more.