that she had got fatter since spring. She buttered the bread .
salted it and handed me a sl ice. Suddenly I felt so hungry t hat I
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O l g a To k a r c z u k
could have eaten all night without tasting a thing; that terrible
hunger you feel after smoking grass can only be fully satisfied by
sleep.
There's something strange about you,' said Marta suddenly
and stood up. 'Go to bed.'
'No. Show me your cellar.'
'It's just the same as yours.'
'Never mind. I want to see it.'
I thought she would refuse, that she'd start making excuses or
change the subject. But she took the torch I gave her from its
shelf, and opened the door to the cellar.
It was similar to ours - uneven stone steps lightly coated in a
glistening layer of damp, with a large flat stone at the bottom
that acted as a threshold. Beyond that there was packed-down
earth, clay, softer than the stones, warmer. Above our heads
hung a low, semicircular roof, so anyone taller would have had
to stoop. The walls were made of red blocks of stone, neatly set
on top of each other, the bones of the house. Marta shone her
torch on the opposite wall, where I saw a tiny window stuffed
with straw. Beneath i t stood an open wooden box the length of
a person, standing on four stones off the ground. Marta had
lined it with straw mattresses and sheepskins, probably from
farmer Bobol. A neat pile of bedspreads, coverlets and blankets
lay at its foot. The torchlight moved into the corner, revealing a
heap of potatoes.
'Potatoes for the spring,' she said.
People usually talk about 'potatoes for the winter', but Marta
said 'for the spring'.
That night I dreamed Marta had the buds of membranous
wings on her shoulders. She pulled down her blouse and
showed them to me. They were small, still under the skin, and
crumpled like butterfly wings; they were throbbing gently. 'So
H o u s e o r D a y, H o u s e o r N i g h t
27Y
that's it,' I said, because I was convinced these wi ngs explai ned
everything.
This dream carne back to me when we went to the secondhand shop in N owa Ruda together, where Ma na t ried on a cardigan, exactly like the one she already has - grey with buttons up the front and loose buttonholes. She was stand ing in front of the mirror, and as I was trying to straighten somethi ng
I touched her shoulder. I t was this touch that reawakened my
dream - the whole dream lay hidden in a single touch, and
went rippling through me. Marta drew in her already sunken
cheeks and minced about in front of the mirror; she seemed
girlish somehow, like a teenager. I stared at the gentle curve or
her shoulders.
I felt moved , as if I had discovered a great secret, as if brushing my fingers against Marta's grey cardigan had caused some alien light to pass through me, sharp and ruthless as a laser
beam. I hung the cardigan back in its place ( Wh
'
at do I need
another cardigan for? I think I've already had all the cardigans in
the world,' said Marta, smiling) , then helped her to get in the
front and do up her seatbelt.
We drove zigzagging up the mountainside, through damp villages and sunny patches of waste ground full o f those tall.
aromatic plants that the locals call cosm
'
i c d i l l ' . Their hu)!,e
leaves stirred in the wind like wings.
They're the only plants that fly south for thl' win ter,' said
Marta and laughed out loud.
M a r t a 's a w a k e n i n g
Now I think I know where Marta came from and win she I'>
never part of our lives in thl' winter hut fi rst appc;m·d 1 11 carlv
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0 l g a To k a r c z u k
spring, when we had just arrived and were turning the key in the
damp-rusted lock.
She might have woken up in March. At first she lay without
moving and wasn't even sure if her eyes were open - in any
case, she was in total darkness. And she didn't try to move,
because she knew that only her mind was awake, while her
body was still sleeping; one careless moment would be enough
to slip back into torpor again, into those winding labyrinths of
sensations just as real as the feeling of lying here in the dark,
more real even, infinitely more real , colourful and sensory. But
somehow Marta knew that she had woken up, and that she was
somewhere different than before.
First she was aware of the smell of the cellar - safe and damp,
the smell of mushrooms and wet hay, a smell that reminded her
of summer.
Her body took a long time to come back from sleep, until
finally she discovered that her eyes were open, because the darkness was becoming discernible in varying shades and degrees of intensity. She let her gaze go sliding across that wealth of blackness, back and forth, up and down. Only much, much later, by looking at a patch that was growing brighter, did she perceive
that there was daylight outside. It was shining through chinks in
the straw that plugged up the cellar window. This light went out
and appeared again, and it occurred to her that a day must have
gone by.
Only then did she feel a chill from somewhere in the distance, from the far ends of her body. She came out to meet it by moving her toes, or at least she thought she was moving them.
After a while her feet responded - they were cold. Then gradually she woke up the whole of her body, summoning it back to life as if reading the roll of the dead, and in turn , bit by bit, the
parts of her body responded: here, here, here.
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f !' i g h t
28 1
Twice she tried to get up, but twice her body eluded her ami
fell back against the boards; she thought she was sitting up, but
she wasn't. The third time she managed to hold her body up. or
perhaps to hold on to it as well , and from then on she felt moderately secure. Step by step she reached the door, and spent a long time grappling with the iron handle. Her fingers were as
weak as spring potato sprouts. The wet stone steps led her
slowly up to the hall, where she saw real light coming through
the chinks in the door, and had to shield her eyes.
Frost had corroded the walls of the house, which were now
sweating like a sick man. Dust speckled with mouse droppings
lay on the floor. She sat down on one of the chairs i n the
kitchen, which like everything else was thawing out, emanating
a chill, so she made an effort to stand up and fetch a heater
from a drawer in the sideboard. She pumped up a little water
and turned the tap - a muddy, reddish liquid poured out of i t ,
like watered-down blood. She washed her face in it and filled a
mug. Soon she had the mug full of boiling water and was warming her hands on it. She drank it sip by sip, like a cure for death , and felt herself slowly beginning t o thaw from the inside a s her
body returned to life.
That day Marta went outside as well. The front door was still
damp from the recent frost and, like e'erything, smelled of
mushrooms and water. There were still patches o f dirty snow
lying about
in the garden. The sun was n ibbling away at the
edges of these decaying snowy omelettes. Soggy, rotting grass.
and what had once been nasturtiums, asters and night -�centrd
stocks were sticking out from under them.
Anxiously she looked up at the sky - it was wreat hed in lo\,
scudding clouds, through which the sun was shining m-er the
forest. As every year, Marta was amazed that the sun could han·
moved so far round and was now cast ing long shadow-, that
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O l g a To k a r c z u k
provided a refuge for the snow. She went back into the hall and
put on her gumboots, which were cold and damp, then set off
behind the house, across the garden and the damage done to it
by the winter and the darkness. She leaned over the cabbage
heads that had been so solid and handsome in the autumn, but
were now slimy, rotten little heaps. There was nothing left of the
sunflowers, though that summer, as usual, they looked as if
nothing could possibly overpower their mighty stalks and leonine heads, their faces darkened by the sun. The fence they grew against was leaning, soaked in the ubiquitous water. Then she
took a look at her orchard full of old apple and plum trees. A
huge branch had broken off the sweetest cherry tree. The lush
orchard, rich in tall grass and large cushions of greenery, as she
remembered it, was no longer there. Now it reminded her of a
graveyard. The bare trees looked like crosses, and the sheaves of
flattened grass like graves. Marta hated the damp as much as the
winter and the darkness. The water was dishonest. She felt that
she could stand up to it, but only when it was being i tself and
wasn't pretending to be something else. When it was flowing
down the stream you could cup it in your hands and bring it to
your face, but most of the time water made i tself invisible by
infiltrating the plants and other objects. Then it would sink in,
coating them in a layer of frost and killing them, or else it hung
in the clouds like an eternal punishment for your sins.
Marta went back inside because the cold had returned to her
body. She stood on the steps for a while to see the rest of the
valley.
The mountains looked monotonous - olive green and black,
they were the colour of water too. Wherever the ground was
cooler the snow was still lying. Out of all four chimneys only
Whatsisname's was smoking. In front of the house where the
Frosts used to live there was a blue car, and two people were
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o I ! i g h t
283
chatting on the wooden terrace. Marta shivered, went back into
the kitchen and set about lighting the stove.
T i dy i n g u p t h e a t t i c
Now that it's autumn, I spent all day tidying up the attic. I was
putting summer things away in boxes, with mothballs between
the layers of clothes, and newspaper stuffed into the shoes,
which I packed in paper bags. It turned out that I hadn't worn
many of the dresses at all - there had been no occasion to. They
were hanging in the wardrobe, but they had still aged through
the months of june, july and August. I could sec that they were
wearing out, going at the seams, softening and getting older all
by themselves without my input . And there was a sort of beauty
in it, the opposite of ripening, a beauty that appears without
anyone's help. Sandal leather goes black, softens and stretches,
straps wear thin, buckles rust, the colour of a favouri te blouse
fades, or the sleeves of a shirt fray at the cuffs. I've seen what
happens to paper with time - it goes stiff and yellow, it seems to
go dry and age in a completely human way. I've seen how hallpoint pens start running out and pencils get shorter, until one day to our amazement we find that a small stump is all that's left
of that fine long pencil of a year ago. I've seen how glass loses its
lustre, like the cloudy wardrobe mi rror that was so dazzling for
years on end.
For some reason people have developed a li king for only one
sort of transformation. They arc fond of increase and dcn·lllpmen t, but not decrease and disintegration. T hey pre fer ripen ing to decay. They like things to be younger and younger, more and
more juicy, fresh and unripe; they like things that arc not vet
fully moulded, still a bit angular, driwn by a powerful -,pring ol
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0 I g a To k a r c z u k
potential, always the moment before , never after. They like
young women, new houses with fresh plaster, new books
smelling of printer's ink, and new cars that are really just variations on a familiar theme for those in the know. They like the latest technology, the gleam of freshly polished metal, newly
bought objects brought home in fancy packaging, the rustle of
smooth cellophane, the tension of virgin string. They like brand
new banknotes - even if they don't fit in their wallets, clean
plastic surfaces that won't go yellow for years, polished tabletops without the slightest trace of a mark, empty spaces yet to be cultivated, smooth cheeks, the expression 'anything can happen'
(who bothers to add the words 'in vain'?) , green peas forced
from their pods, astrakhan fur, flowers in bud, innocent puppies,
baby goats, newly cut planks that haven't yet forgotten the shape
of the tree, and bright green grass oblivious of corn spikes.
People like what's new and has never existed before. The new !
The new !
N o w a R u d a
Nowa Ruda is a town full of hairdressers, second-hand clothes
shops and men whose eyelids are coated in coal dust. It's a town
built in valleys, on slopes and hilltops, a town of small bridges
slung casually across a little river that appears and disappears,
always a different, more fashionable colour. it's a town full of
statues of Saint John, adulterated perfumes, self-service cafes,
shoddy goods painstakingly arranged in shop windows; a town
of damp patches on the walls of houses, windows from which
only the feet of passers-by are visible, and labyrinthine courtyards; an end-of-the-road town, a place where you change trains on a journey; a town of stray dogs, secret passageways, blind
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f � i g h t
2H5
alleys and mysterious symbols above the front doors of houses:
a town of red brick buildings, elliptical roundabouts, crooked
crossroads, bypasses leading to the centre, marketplaces on t he
outskirts, steps that start and finish on the same le'el , sharp
turns that straighten roads, and forks where the left branch leads
right and the right branch left. I t's t he town with the shortest
summer, where the snow never melts e nt i rely; a t own o f
evenings that set i n abruptly from beh ind t h e mountains and
land on the houses like a monstrous butterOy net; a town of
watery ice cream, little shops that sell cows bones, lady clencal
'
workers with garish make-up, and drunken mothers with babies
in prams. It's a town dreaming that it's in the Pyrenees, t hat the
sun never sets on it, that all the people who've left will he back
one day, and that there are underground tunn
els from the
German era leading to Prague, Vrodaw and Dresden. It's a fragment town, a Silesian , Prussian, Czech, Austro-Hungarian and Polish town , a town on the outskirts. It's a town ful l of people
who all think of each other by their first names, but address each
other as 'Sir' and 'Madam'; a town of desolate Sat urdays and
Sundays, where time drifts by, news is late and names arc got
wrong. Despite its name, derived from the G erman J'.:cu rodc,
there's nothing new in it, and if somet h ing new were to appear it
would immediately be coated in fil t h , it would go black and sit
mouldering on the edge of existence.
T h e fo u n d e r
The founder of Nowa Rucla was Tiintzel, whose profc-;�inn wa�
knife-making, so he was known as Messerschmied. I k m.Hlr
knives for killing, cut ting hair, tanning h ides, clwpp1ng
cabbage, cu tting straps out of leather, marking t ree� tn he felled.
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0 I g a To k a r c z u k
and even for carving figures and decorations out of wood.
It was a good profession , and everyone respected Tuntzel
Messerschmied. But in the settlement where he lived there was
another knife-maker with the same skills as him. As Tuntzel
was the younger, he bought a horse and packed all his possessions on a cart, including his tools, his whetstone, clothes chests, a few pots, skins and woollen blankets, and his heavily pregnant
wife.
On the other side of the mountains lay fertile valleys and rich
forests full of spruce trees so tall that they scratched the surface
of the sky. These forests were teeming with villages, some of
which would be sure to need a knife-maker, so Tuntzel aimed
straight for the midday sun. For several days they wandered
along forest paths, until they stopped by a stream where
Tuntzel's wife began to give birth. With h is best knife Tuntzel
cut the child's umbilical cord, but at daybreak his wife died without a word, and the child died immediately after. Tuntzel kicked the tree trunks in despair and screamed in rage and misery. Why
did I set off like a fool? he thought, why did I go barging off into
an alien world? Vhere am I to bury my wife now? In the forest
like an animal? The horse gazed at him, hanging its head forlornly. Tuntzel's cries brought some woodcutters who were felling trees nearby, and they helped him to bury his wife and