Jerzy Pilch - My First Suicide

My longing took on no desperate and caricatured incarnation. I went down to breakfast calmly, I ate — as is always the case in a hotel — significantly more than normal. I collected my few pieces of gear, and I set off for the train station on foot. Along the way, on Pijarska Street, I got a stock of newspapers for the road. The express trains from Krakow to Warsaw depart on the hour. I easily made it in time for the nine o’clock train.

In first class, the compartment for smokers was completely empty. I ensconced myself skillfully; I picturesquely strewed newspapers, bag, and jacket on the seats. No one could be in doubt that all those objects belonged to numerous travelers, who had just that moment stepped out for a second; every last one of them — it goes without saying — a smoker. In order to confirm this, I smoked for six, closed the door to the corridor, and drew the curtains. Musty train car air turned, in the blink of an eye, into molten stone. There was a minute until departure, I was already in a state of homeostasis, in other words equilibrium, when the door opened, the curtains parted, and into the compartment stepped — you guessed correctly — Anka Chow Chow.

My heart soared on high, my soul — so be it — sang out, but my defensive habits, plus my hardened arteries, did their bit. “This is a compartment for smokers,” I snarled ferociously. “ For… for… ” I found myself tongue-tied. The more difficult word— compartment —I remembered; the banal one— smoking —completely slipped my mind, but I immediately remembered and snarled out the entire phrase, although at the end in a voice incomparably weaker than at the beginning. To tell the truth, at the beginning my voice was routinely hostile, but at the end — having overcome my habits and realized who the miraculous interloper was — it was inordinately ingratiating.

Here is compartment for smoking . As God is my witness, I couldn’t help myself. Linguistic degradation consists not only in the fact that, with age, one’s vocabulary shrinks. This isn’t all that painful; in the end you can always find some synonym or periphrastic formula. What is painful, truly painful, is the persistence in one’s head of a constant store of phrases, which — whether you want it or not, whether they fit the context or not — one pronounces automatically in a certain moment and with a dull satisfaction.

“I know that this compartment is for smokers,” her voice was like shivering steel, “I’m looking for a compartment for smokers.”

“During the match you didn’t smoke. At least I didn’t notice that you did.”

“I didn’t smoke during the match,” she said very slowly. “During the match I didn’t smoke,” she repeated even more slowly and examined me carefully; or you would rather have to say that she struck me with a short, forceful gaze. “I didn’t smoke at the match because I don’t smoke any more. For a year — however this might sound — I haven’t had a cigarette in my mouth.”

Before I managed to express my eager and highest amazement, she pointed out a mighty impressive bag to me with her glance. With my last bits of strength and with the greatest difficulty, refraining from any commentaries concerning what must have made it weigh two tons, I placed the ghastly duffel on the rack.

“What were we talking about?” I was panting like a dog.

“We? I don’t believe we were talking. For the moment, you were attempting not to let me into the compartment.”

“Oh yes, of course,” I shouted almost triumphantly. In any case, the life of the dementia sufferer is not the worst; true, it is full of black collapses, but once a person recalls something, it’s like an orgasm. “Oh yes , of course… ”

“I prefer the smell of cigarette smoke to the natural stench,” she explained calmly. “Of the two evils, I prefer smoke. Don’t feel hurt, but for the time being your only virtue is that you smoke Gauloises.”

Jesus Christ, I quietly heaved a sigh, it’s a good thing that this rabid she-cat doesn’t have a tail. She would have destroyed the compartment with it.

V

Compared to Anka, I was lacking any sorts of lust whatsoever, a young virgin, innocent of the facts of life. My obsession with broads, compared to her obsession with broads, was nil. My debauchery, compared with her debauchery, was despicable. My thing for girls, compared with her thing for girls, wasn’t a thing at all. My staring at women, compared with her staring at women, was clumsy, vulgar, and boorish.

I am not engaging in any sort of masochism, I’m not bowing and scraping before feminists, I’m not pouring the ashes of cremated instincts upon my male head. Granted, I can say that my staring at broads is bestial, but I can also say that it is metaphysical. I can repeat after Miłosz: “It’s not that I desire these creatures precisely; I desire everything, and they are like a sign of ecstatic union.” But I can also say: I stare at the them the way a dealer in live goods appraises the strongest female slaves. I stare all-embracingly.

Frankly speaking, I often leave the house only for that purpose. And if not only for that purpose, then also for that purpose. The constant thought that, on my way to work, shopping, the café, a meeting, or wherever, I’d have a little look around helps me live. That’s how it always was. If not my whole life, then quite certainly well before the definitive departure of subsequent girlfriends.

If it weren’t for the women I encounter on the street, I’d limit leaving the house to the absolute minimum. There are certain things I wouldn’t do at all. Most certainly, I would drop by Yellow Dream for my afternoon grapefruit juice less frequently, and perhaps not at all. I would buy myself a juice maker, and it would come out cheaper. Nor would I take any walks around Warsaw. I’ve come to like this spectral city, but if I were supposed to take walks around it without encountering any girls — no thanks! I wouldn’t spend time at Central Station, I wouldn’t drop by department stores, I would even go less frequently to my dry cleaner on Hoża Street, where by some divine coincidence the best pieces of Warsaw ass have their super rags cleaned.

But there they are, and I circle among them. I circle, and I stare, sharply and importunately. Not that I have any sort of strategy for importunate staring. It is simply stronger, a thousand times stronger than me. I am incapable of not staring at décolletage. I stare ravenously, I salivate like a snot-nosed kid, my snout gapes like that of a village idiot, I stand there like the ninny at a wedding, I begin to sweat and to shake like a serial murderer. Whenever some super babe passes me by, there is no force on earth that can keep me from turning around to look. Quite often I don’t just turn around to look, quite often — in order to lend stability to my backward gaze — I stop, and quite often the embarrassing thought of running after her does not seem embarrassing to me in the least. Whenever I see before me some noteworthy back, I lose consciousness.

I’m walking down the street, let’s say it’s Świętokrzyska, and my head is darting here and there like the president’s bodyguard. I check out every passing woman, I am prepared for an assault from all sides, and I am ready to attack on all sides. I am unable to control this, even when I am with a woman.

When I was with the singer in the lizard-green dress, I moderated my staring, I tried not to stare, but often I couldn’t manage it. I had more success in the company of Anka Chow Chow. I was scared to death of her, and because of that fear I didn’t even have to pretend that I wasn’t staring. I genuinely didn’t stare. I didn’t even cast any furtive glances. Until the moment when I realized that it was she who was staring for all she was worth. This didn’t happen quickly, because she was a virtuoso. She took note of every detail of the make-up of every passing miss, but it looked like she hadn’t even noticed that anyone had passed by. Even a normal, young, quick-witted fellow wouldn’t have caught on right away, to say nothing of me. Besides, Anka’s unyielding, still unyielding virginity was enough of a complication for me not to think about other complications.