Jerzy Pilch - My First Suicide

******Hence, for defensive purposes, I here edit and publish these letters. I am aware that their author might only now launch his attack, since I am giving him additional arguments; he might, for example, charge me with the theft of his texts and bring the case to court. (He himself, incidentally, doesn’t mark quotes from the Bible, or a fragment from a poem by Iwaszkiewicz — not even with quotation marks.) He might also — and this is the more threatening variant — feel himself the stronger partner in our alleged partnership, which he insistently emphasizes all the time, and attempt, in his imbalance, to recognize himself as the author of all my texts. He might attempt to become me, which, anyway, is difficult; I am myself only in a certain sense. The last letter, from a month ago, might also mean that he won’t speak up again. We’ll see. I assure you, however, with all my heart, that I’m not engaging here in any literary tricks, with a found — or, in this case, mailed-in — manuscript chief among them. I write this footnote not for literary effect, but out of genuine fear. The guy really exists, he really writes, and he really is hounding me.

I

The bizarrely dressed female vacationer was Mother’s age, or perhaps even older. We pursued her, but we were unable to focus on her. She traversed the center of town and the neighboring valleys by paths just as bizarre as her outfits. She would suddenly emerge from beyond the bend; it wasn’t clear whether the dark colorations on her fantastic dresses were a pattern or a sweat stain; but it was clear that it was necessary to drop everything and set off after her. Sometimes, when we were playing soccer, her tall and dreadfully thin silhouette would appear on the road to Almira, which ran above the playing field; something would then force us to interrupt the match; in panicky haste we would wash in the stream, get dressed, and rush around. Janek always slowed everything down, because, first, he wanted to keep playing, and then, he would wash as if he were going to the ball. He would pull the faded baggy pants from his hips, jump into the deepest part of the stream, and swim endlessly in the dark green water. He would climb out, comb his hair with inordinate care, drowsily put on his black pants and white shirt — he made a point of getting on our nerves.

The bizarrely dressed vacationer constantly turned back, and here was the entire hope and terror of the chase: we were on the trail of a specter that would suddenly cease to flee, turn back around, and vengefully set off in our direction. She would arrive at some place known only to her and turn around; she would suddenly back up, suddenly make violent and panicky reversals, as if lava from Etna or Vesuvius were flowing from the spot she had touched with her foot. Then there was no way out: we had to trudge on; she would approach relentlessly; we would have much preferred to turn tail and run, but, in the first place, we had our honor, and in the second, we were drawn to the high voltage. No two ways about it — the gamble was out of this world — it always seemed to us that, at the moment we passed, she would do something uncanny, scream or lunge at our necks with her long, carmine nails. Nothing of the sort ever happened, although always, when she was right there, we got the shivers. Janek would shake like jello.

She seemingly didn’t do anything terrible, but all the same, what she did was sufficiently terrible. Always, when we were face to face, and when we cast furtive glances in her direction, she would bite her lips in a theatrical manner, make bizarre faces, as if she were choking with laughter. As if, by force of will, she were suppressing an attack of hysterical weeping or tubercular coughing. Her eyes were popping out of her head, her face flushed, her lips unnaturally twisted — it looked like she knew everything. Like she understood perfectly well that she was constantly being followed, and like she constantly laughed at the fact. This was disconcerting and horrifying in the extreme; we swore that, seeing that the old tart has such a high opinion of herself, we would not even glance in her direction again. But there was no escape from her fatal magnetism — after a couple days the rituals would begin anew.

In any case, it soon turned out that she was making bizarre faces the whole time, that, for the entire length of her walks, she fought back spasmodic laughter, weeping, coughs. Contrary to appearances, this mitigated the terror — it is always better when someone has some sort of permanent attack, and not only at our sight.

The most bizarre were her dresses, inappropriate for either the time of day or the season of the year. Some sort of sophisticated creations with long sleeves, made of heavy materials like brocade, mandarin collars under the neck, lace collars, some sort of gigantic embroideries, cream-colored on green, orange on dark blue — by that time, even then, nobody dressed like that, not for any occasion. Today, I think that Janek Nikandy — always in black pants and always in a white shirt — suited her perfectly.

II

He played soccer as if he were composing music to accompany his runs along the length of the field, to accompany the smell of the grass, the ball darkening from the dampness, always falling upon his foot as if from heaven. He swam in the deepest part of the river as if he were composing music to accompany swimming in the deepest part. He collected stamps as if he were composing music to accompany stamp collecting. He read everything he came upon, as if he heard song in everything that had been written. He would raise a mug of beer, throw back his head, and drink, just as the greatest composers in the world must have drunk.

He examined the girls at the swimming pool, and it was clear that he knew everything about them. We set our sights on the middling ones, he scorned even the best. He was waiting for the most beautiful one among the most beautiful; but even she couldn’t be certain that she would be accepted. This didn’t surprise anyone. It was clear to everyone that Janek could have any woman in the world at any moment, that he would go far: that he would complete the entire blacksmith’s training course in a year, two at most; that he would then, likewise in a flash, complete a few majors, go abroad, go through Oxford, Harvard, fly into the cosmos, win the Chopin competition, be the first Pole to buy Real Madrid, discover new stars, construct an everlasting battery for a flashlight, discover a vaccination for cancer, or do other miracles.

Janek had everything: stacks of books in the attic; collections of incredible objects in the drawers; a one-eyed father who forbade him nothing; a mother as beautiful as an Egyptian priestess; two unbearable sisters; three dissolute brothers, who could fix anything; a mentally ill grandmother, who never left her room; and a grandfather, who had been dying for years, and who barely spoke Polish. Supposedly before one of the old wars he had had a different name and had been a famous Viennese tailor. It is uncertain whether Robert Musil had his suits sewn by him, whether Hermann Broch had his pants shortened, but it is possible.

III

The Nikandys didn’t go to church, they held their religious services at home. The entire family sat at the table every day, the one-eyed father read from the Bible, prayed with concentration, then he spoke about the presence of God in our lives and about various spirits, mostly about the Spirit of Light and the Spirit of Darkness.

I feared the God of the Nikandys — He was too near. The Spirit of Light would show himself and disappear, the Spirit of Darkness lurked in every corner. In our Church, God was at a safe distance, and there weren’t any spirits at all.