Jerzy Pilch - The Mighty Angel

“Not a word about the former regime. . Fine, that’s actually even better. Not a word about the former regime, because you’re quite incapable of saying anything sensible about the former regime. All you can do is make pathetic jokes about how Solidarity supposedly robbed you of a hot babe in a yellow dress or something.”

“It’s true, Solidarity robbed me of a certain, as you put it, hot babe in a yellow dress, for which, by the way, at the present moment I’m eternally grateful to said labor union.”

“We know all about that. The yellow dress has been replaced by a black blouse, so to speak. . Am I right?”

“The hell you care.”

“You’re right, I really could care less about yellow dresses, or any other slutty item of clothing. But I care about the black blouse, I care about the black blouse almost as much as you care about the Solidarity labor union. I’m grateful to it.”

“You? Grateful to it? You’re grateful to it? For what, if I might ask?”

“For the fact that you got sober. After all, you got sober for it. . And if not for it, it still played a leading role in your getting sober. You got sober splendidly, definitively, and in style. You got sober the way Luis Figo dribbles a soccer ball. You’re completely sober and finally, finally you can be negotiated with.”

“Negotiated with about what?”

“What do you mean, what? Continuing to drink. You continuing to drink — right now that game is worth the black candle.”

“I’m afraid it would be a waste of effort for me. I realize that directing your attention to my comrades in arms is, if not inappropriate, then actually criminal, but right here you’ll have no problem finding a good few eagles, as Dr. Granada calls them, ready and waiting for their next phantom flights.”

“Who is it you’re recommending to me? These wretches, whose last ounce of reason has been eaten away by firewater? Surely you can see that all of your comrades in arms, as you so grandiloquently call them, have damaged brains? You don’t see that? And anyway, how come you’re so understanding all of a sudden, you who were once the embodiment of malice, my friend? I know — you decided to accept a lesson in humility and so you’re humble, except that you don’t even believe in that humility of yours. You’re prostituting yourself out of humility, and that’s the worst kind of prostitution.”

“My mind is damaged too.”

“Your mind isn’t damaged, with you it’s quite the opposite. Even here, in this intellectually lean environment, even here the she-therapist princesses sing anthems of praise to your mental proficiency. By the by, I’d like to talk about that some time.”

“About what? The therapists or my mind?”

“Both. As far as the princesses are concerned, take your pick. In this respect at least I understand your humility and your toleration. You’re attracted to them, and so you tolerate the nonsense they talk: flush the toilet, brush your teeth, and wash your socks, because the ward is our little home and we’re a little family. . Fine, that’s actually even better. . Sixty half-cut yahoos are a “little family” according to a sleeping princess of a she-therapist. You must really want them to put up with it all. . So take your pick. . It’ll be like before — not one of them will say no to you. Remember how great it was? And as for your mind, don’t you worry, it’s in good shape, your noggin survived too, you lucky drunk, you’ve got everything a Polish writer needs to get down to work.”

“If my mind wasn’t damaged I wouldn’t be able to hear you or see you.”

“As it is you can barely hear me or see me. Have a drink, you’ll hear me and see me better.”

“I won’t do that. You know I won’t. You know it, and that’s why you’re here.”

“True, I’m a little concerned, but let’s not exaggerate. You won’t do it now, today. . But after a while. . in a year. . in two. . you’ll reach for the bottle.”

“No I won’t. I tell you in truth, Satan, I won’t reach for the bottle.”

“I’m not Satan, I’m your green-winged angel in the gold baseball cap. Though the question of my identity is of little importance. . And what if something happens? You won’t reach for the bottle even if something happens?”

“No visible events ever had any influence on me. I drank because I drank. I never drank because something happened. At most my drinking was accompanied by certain events. For example I drank when the Berlin Wall was coming down, but I didn’t drink because the Berlin Wall was coming down.”

“And what if something special happened?”

“Like what for example?”

“Let’s say. . Let’s say the black blouse disappears from your life.”

“There is no human or inhuman force that could separate us. That you know too, and you’re flailing about in a truly pathetic manner.”

“You won’t reach for the bottle?”

“You’re the measure of my true decline. Your home isn’t in the underworld, you live in the back room of the liquor store. My eternally hung-over angel, my Satan crawling like an amber worm from a bottle of Żołądkowa Gorzka.”

“Don’t demean yourself, Jerzy. A devil from a bottle is better than no devil at all. My own lot pains me too; I’d rather have been Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s devil or Thomas Mann’s, but it fell to me to be Jerzy’s. It pains me, but I also accept it; each of us evidently gets the author he deserves.”

“Each of us gets the demon he deserves.”

“I’m telling you — better a devil from a bottle of Żołądkowa Gorzka than none at all. Besides, Żołądkowa Gorzka wasn’t that bad; sometimes it was delicious. For instance in the winter, at four in the morning, remember how divinely it traveled down the throat straight from the bottle? Remember the overwhelming sense of bliss that came to you at the door of the all-night store?”

“I feel like barfing.”

“Less of the puke if you please. Communism is stamped with puke, analyses and condemnations of communism are stamped with puke, your drunken licentious past is also marked permanently with puke. Permanently — or maybe not so permanently? We could eliminate certain things.”

“What sorts of things could you eliminate, my sulfurous gentleman?”

“The puking for example. We could get rid of the puking. Also the insomnia, the oceans of sweat, the quaking, the fear, and the hallucinations.”

“Meaning what?” I pursued with a stubbornness worthy of a better cause — but in my stubbornness there was cunning.

“Meaning that it would be like twenty years ago. In the evening you’d knock it back like a wild animal, in the evening you’d experience great relief, because the constant experiencing of relief became the foundation of your life, till late in the night you’d wallow in a stream of pure relief; then a deep sleep and in the morning, nothing. In the morning there’s a heathy appetite, bacon and eggs, a hot and cold shower, a walk, no sign of any indisposition; in the afternoon some reading. . Do you remember? Do you remember?”

“I remember very well. I remember everything from back then, from before, and I especially remember everything from afterwards. That I’ll never forget, and that’s exactly why. .”

“That’s why you won’t reach for the bottle, even if you were free of the burden of puking, like in the old days?”

“I won’t.”

“You yourself don’t even believe in your Lutheran resistance. Since you know you won’t reach for the bottle, why are you sitting here? Get your things together and run away. Just think, in a few hours you could be anywhere you want, in Sopot, in Wisła, in Jarocin. .”

“I’m staying here. Simon Pure Goodness is running away.”