Jerzy Pilch - My First Suicide

“A thousand times I imagined that Wiktoria came to me; a thousand times I opened the door for her in my delusions; a thousand times I embraced her in greeting and farewell, and suddenly it turned out that one of those delusions wasn’t a delusion. Which of her phantasmagorical visits took place in reality? Was it the time when she came in a black jacket and a scarf, light blue like the Roman sky? Or the time when it was well below zero, and she came in a balaclava helmet? Or the time when she stood quite a while in the doorway and smiled mysteriously? Or the time when she ran in, literally burst into the entryway, and, with the exclamation — I’m about to pee my pants! — fell like a bomb into the bathroom, and immediately a bestial sigh of relief resounded from in there? When was she here? The time when she stood over my corpse and cried? The time when my corpse sat in an armchair and spoke to her. I don’t know. Everybody but me in K. knew — not me. Everybody knew all the details — not me. You understand that the consequences of such a stormy finale — with my participation, but without the participation of my consciousness — was my retirement. Moving out of K. was beyond my means. I thought about suicide, but those were weak thoughts, deprived of expression. I took up literary work, which had always been on my mind, and for which I now had ideal conditions. I was completely isolated, no one came to see me, no one called. Even the postman, the kiosk keeper, or the saleswoman in the store communicated with me — I would say — rather perfunctorily. I was in ideal solitude, ergo I had ideal conditions for writing. And I did not waste that gift.

“I could — and maybe even I ought to — end my story here, but like the debutant who is uncertain of definitive meaning, I will add an epilogue. I add it because it happened. The curator’s daughter got into drama school. Supposedly. Supposedly, with gigantic success. Supposedly, at the top of her class. Supposedly, the entrance commission, which was composed of nothing but actorly celebrities, was absolutely delighted. How those pieces of information came to me — I truly don’t know. I don’t recall any informer or any conversation that initiated me into new details. In K., for a long time, absolutely no one wanted to talk with me — and about Wiktoria, to this day no one will exchange a word with me. But I did find out. Apparently, in small towns pieces of news literally fly through the air. Further news appeared. The sparrows on the rooftops twittered triumphantly that the doom of my life was an unusually victorious student, that she was passing all the exams with bravado, that she was receiving exceptionally interesting and lucrative proposals. For the time being, however, she wasn’t accepting any; first she wanted to complete her diploma course, then she would make a choice. It wasn’t certain, however, whether the choice of the first serious role would be in the homeland or abroad.

“Do you understand? The curator and his wife, stupefied and hounded by the necessity of the success of their allegedly remarkable child, were close to bullshitting their neighbors that Hollywood was fighting over this complete loser! They continued without moderation in that fiction. The curator, whenever he set out for a meeting of the parish council — a glow radiated from him. The curator’s wife, whenever she bought cheese in the market — she assumed the pose of the mother not so much of Sharon Stone or Julia Roberts, because those names said little to her, but rather the pose, let’s say, of the mother of Gina Lollobrigida. She summoned up the pathos and the dignity, and her gestures were a bit hit or miss, but still she was called the “Mother of Gina Lollobrigida” in the more astute circles. In addition to this, there appeared the so-called highly eloquent detail. Very eloquent. So eloquent that it was much more than a detail. Namely, Wiktoria completely stopped showing up in K. She didn’t come for holidays, not even for Christmas Eve. No triumphal visits of the future, or already almost fulfilled, star in the hometown. Didn’t she have the strength for such shenanigans? Was she learning her parts, and since she was receiving nothing but Shakesperean roles, there was in fact no time for anything else? Was she slaving away — day in, day out, and nighttime, too? In my opinion — day in, day out, and nighttime, too — if there was anything Shakespearean about it, she was at best giving blow jobs in some Warsaw brothel. One way or another, I decided to get to the bottom of the matter. I decided to check on the course of her Shakesperean career with my own eyes and palpibly.

“After two years — when the storm around me had died down, when they had stopped following my every step, and when The Natural History of the Cieszyn Land had appeared in print, which had repaired my reputation a bit — I set off for Warsaw. In conspiratorial secrecy, it goes without saying, and skillfully laying a false trail. I confided in the kiosk keeper — who had become, with time, a bit quicker to chat with his customer — that I was heading to Krakow for a few days in order to do some digging in the archives of the Jagiellonian Library. In the course of a couple hours, or perhaps in the course of one hour, the entire city knew where I was going and why. The matters of the world are simple. I went to Krakow by PKS bus, from Krakow by the InterCity express train to Warsaw. I intended to stop in the Hotel Europejski, in which I had had the occasion to stay in the old days. Never mind in which years and under what circumstances.

“It was the beginning of April, and pathological heat waves prevailed. You know how, sometimes in early spring, when the snows have barely receded, there occur two, three scorching days. Sudden and deceptive surges of tropical temperatures. Blinding white air, sultry weather, women’s bared necks, a narcotic and basically perverse aura. I walked from Central Station, tired, slightly tipsy, because, of course, I had been drinking the whole way, incessantly, but very prudently. I was delighted with the masses of yellowish air that were surrounding me, and I was absolutely certain that right away, on Aleje Ujazdowskie, on Nowy Świat, at the latest on Krakowskie Przedmieście, I would run into Wiktoria. At first it seemed to me that every fifth woman on the street looked like her; then every second one; then all of them. Do you understand? I saw her everywhere.

“Was I still in love with her? Had I loved her at all? Is the story I am telling definitely a love story? Granted, there can be love without a single touch, for in the end I never touched even her hand, not even accidently. Granted, there can be love which is accompanied by barely two glances, or even a glance and a half; for I saw her grey eyes the second time when she was at my place, when she was lamenting my corpse. So the second glance was not only blurry, it was also partial. There are also loves that are more platonic, and more reserved. But were my delusions love? Was my breakneck love a real love? If love is a delusion, then I loved her. If what goes on in a severed head can be called love, then I loved her. I loved her, and I longed for her. And sick with love and savage longing for her, I went to look for her in Warsaw. That is to say, I went to meet her in Warsaw. I was absolutely certain that I needn’t do a thing — not a gesture, no telephone call, no need to help fate along. That any moment, she herself would come out to meet me with her dance step. She didn’t. This didn’t shake my intution, and it strengthened my certainty of her downfall. In the hotel kiosk, I bought a newspaper with the obvious classifieds, and having settled into my room, freshened up, taken a shower, and opened the bottle planned for the afternoon, I began to look for her. It didn’t take long. After a minute, I came upon the classified ad: “Slender student — privately,” and right away, all the words and all the letters of that offer shined with the green light of hope and began to flicker at me like an emerald neon. I called. Her voice had changed. I, too, pretended to be someone else. I didn’t want to frighten her off. Once she appears, it will be too late for flight. After half an hour, there reverberated a knock at the door. True, in the course of that half hour I had drunk a significant portion of the alcohol allotted for the entire afternoon, and yet, I was sober like never in my life. But even if I had been unconscious, I still would have known the taste of defeat. I still would have known the fiasco of my own intuition. It goes without saying: it wasn’t her. A massively built, gloomy young lady from the suburbs entered the room and asked what I felt like. What I felt like? An immediate return home. Immediate flight, running like hell. Suddenly I saw, with crystal clarity, all my lunacies, all my childishness, suddenly I regained the fullness of my shaken cognitive powers. Suddenly I saw myself, a retired teacher in a brown suit, sitting in a hotel room in the company of a paid tart. Through the open window came the clatter of the hot city. You could hear the whirr of the jackhammers, the high creak of cranes, the murmur of cars driving by, foreigners were chatting in front of the hotel entryway, someone laughed, someone called somebody from far away. I was outside of all this. I was separated from everything by an impenetrable Chinese Wall. Suddenly I understood how horrendous and terrible my life was. Suddenly, in a deep and thoroughly existential sense, I sobered up, and in the flash of a second I understood that, as soon as I was alone, I would do myself in, I would hang myself on my belt or slit my wrists in the hotel bathtub, because I just didn’t have the strength any more. I didn’t have the strength to leave here, to return to the train station, to go to K. by the night train. I didn’t have the strength to do anything. I wouldn’t ever leave here. I would die here.