Jerzy Pilch - My First Suicide

On account of the collective and instant evacuation of the banquet, which was now drowned by the downpour and bombarded by lightning bolts, the atmosphere became — as it happens when the commoners suddenly take control of the salons — more and more unrestrained. Under the pretext of drinking to get warm, everyone ignored the extraterritoriality of the embassy and drank as is drunk throughout our entire land: one bottle per person. And so it was no wonder that in short order almost everybody was in the same state as the colorless columnist of the so-called “Independence Style” had been from the very beginning. I wasn’t very fond of him, but I couldn’t think about his predatory swilling with anything other than respect. If a person has to be fuddled in the end, it is better that he be more generously fuddled. And so in a pinch, very much in a pinch, I could put together a thin disguise. I could attempt — pretending to be fuddled — to ask someone who was equally plastered (except that they really were), as if for a joke, about the whereabouts of The Most Beautiful Woman in the world.

But then, I didn’t know this company very well. That is, I knew more or less, who could have her cell phone number. It was clear that the designer who was living in New York most probably had it, and the former minister most certainly had it; that the famous illustrator most likely had it, and that the right-wing journalist probably didn’t; that the film director, known for his conquests, might have it, but the composer, who boasted of his monogamy, did not; that the scandalous female painter almost certainly did, but the philosophy professor from Oxford almost certainly not.* This much I knew, but I didn’t know what, in this particular case, would be the reaction to my request. I hesitated a good while, I looked around carefully, I feverishly attempted to find some friendly soul, but, in the end, fear prevailed — the fear that the person I should finally ask wouldn’t manage sufficient discretion, might even, in his cups and for a joke, make a fuss throughout the entire embassy.

As a sort of farewell, I ventured into the private apartments of the ambassador and his wife. Now I was acting in cold blood and as if for my own amusement; I knew that I wouldn’t find her there, but suddenly the power I still had over the guards began to excite me. Calmly, and even phlegmatically, I roamed through personal offices, closets, bathrooms, bedrooms; I went into the toilet for a moment; upon exiting, with an eloquent gesture to the unit that was following me, I made it clear that it was now unoccupied, and — quietly writhing with rage, sorrow, and a feeling of irreversible loss — I went home.

III

In the taxi, while still on the way, I was absolutely certain that I would suddenly be washed away. I was tired, soaking wet, hungry. (Because of nerves, I almost never eat at receptions and here, to boot, before I was able to make up my mind about some slice of cheese, the flood swept all the food in its wake.) I was alone, since, in my desperate search for the irrevocably lost star, it didn’t even occur to me to look around for some sort of substitute for the evening. I was furious at myself over this, too. After all, a couple of very impressive body doubles — you could even say, a couple of very daring and dexterous stuntwomen — were strolling consentingly, very consentingly, about the gardens.

But now the gardens and the city were plunged in rain and darkness. The temperature had fallen at least twenty degrees. I didn’t have a single reason not to have a drink. On the contrary, I had fourteen reasons to have a drink. Fourteen 50 ml bottles of stomach bitters awaited me in the refrigerator. For some time now, I had preferred coin divided up precisely in this fashion, convenient for parcelling out among my pockets. Each of the fourteen named reasons was individually good for a beginning, and all of them together were good for an end.

I paid the taxi driver, ran into my apartment, and, as is my custom when it is bad (and this time, it was very bad), without taking off my shoes I ran straight to the refrigerator in order, as quickly as possible, to open up, unscrew, drink down; in other words, to perform three ritual ceremonies, after which it would stop being bad. But before I plunged myself into the rites, and even before I had made it to the refrigerator, I remembered about the air rifle. That’s right. There was indeed something worth remembering. I had something to recall. And I’ll put it even more forcefully: there is something to tell a story about.

A week earlier I had fulfilled the eternal dream of my childhood, of my youth, and of my maturity — I had bought myself a gun. I had bought myself a pneumatic rifle, commonly known as an air rifle. For a week now, I have been the owner of a dazzling Spanish flintlock from the firm Norica. For a week now, I have been placing the smooth cherry wood butt to my cheek. I raise up the black oxidized barrel, and my dithering hands are calmed, and my weakening eyes once again see every detail. I release the safety, I pull the trigger, and all the artificial flowers, sticky suckers, and black-and-white photographs of film stars, which I shot to bits at Wisła church fairs, fly circles around my head. All the matches, threads, and glass tubes that I was able to shoot up in the shooting galleries I have happened upon in the course of my life (and I haven’t let a single one pass by) spin under the ceiling. All the targets I have managed to hit come flying like squadrons of paper swallows. I don’t like vulgar sentimentalism, but when I load my rifle (I bought — it goes without saying — a significant stock of ammunition), take aim, and hear the metallic clang, I am as happy as I was as a child.

And so, before I rushed to the refrigerator, I remembered about my weapon, and I decided, after all, to take a look at it first, to make sure it was really there. I still had a feeling of unreality. For my whole life, I had been certain (and I still have this fear) that an air rifle belongs to the realm of things that will never be accessible to normal mortals. The place for such collectors’ items was in some sort of closely guarded arsenal. Only the most privileged, and those of the highest standing, had access to them, and even they couldn’t always take them home with them. The owners of church fair shooting galleries — athletic men with insolent eyes — always made an incredible impression upon me. It was clear that they belonged to some sort of dark Areopagus, with no one knew what sort of powers. And it seemed that it would always be so, that the world of dark Areopaguses, inaccessible air rifles, church fair shooting galleries, and mysterious store rooms — full of weapons stands, heaps of artificial flowers, and pyramids of shot — would last forever. And now, when my own, my endlessly beautiful Spanish lady stands there, leaning against the wall, when I look at her — it is with the greatest difficulty that I realize that that world has come tumbling down.

I turned on the light in the room — there she was. She is.** Without taking off my shoes, without changing clothes (and without looking into the refrigerator), I approached, grasped, broke, loaded, and began to shoot.

When a person becomes the owner of a weapon (even one — as some would claim — so childish as an air rifle), the image of the world changes. The world is transformed into a collection of targets. If you have a gun, you automatically begin to examine the world from the point of view of its usefulness for shooting at. In the infinite number of objects that create the surface of reality, only those that are good for shooting count. In this sense, the light bulb hanging from the ceiling ceases to be a light bulb and becomes a perfect and very tempting target. The pigeon on the windowsill is no longer only a pigeon, a tree stump ceases to be exclusively a tree stump, an empty cigarette pack only an empty cigarette pack, etc. In my case, the Coca-Cola bottle caps ceased, in an exceptionally radical manner, to be bottle caps per se and became dazzling and narcotic targets. I placed a cardboard box on my balcony sill, I pounded a pencil into the box, I hung a bottle cap from the pencil, and out of the depths of my living room — Aim! Fire! Aim! Fire! Aim! Fire! Since — I should add — I am addicted to Coca-Cola, I have a considerable reserve of bottle caps.