Under my window,

 

Realization struck me like a bolt from the blue, bringing with it a certain amount of discombobulation, mainly because at first I didn't know where it had come from or what absurdity it was protecting me from. Then I realized I was rocking back and forth in my chair, hunched over, crouched, back and forth, like an autistic child.

I wouldn't even have time to recite "or like Hamlet, with a skull so small in his fingers that you can see the shape of potatoes from afar," when another realization struck me even more painfully, reminding me that there was no point in holding back when I was completely alone in my apartment. I wanted to return to the sweet, mindless monotony of that fluctuation, but I glanced at the desk, and there was a stack of four coins – from the bottom: 5 złoty, 1 złoty, 1 złoty, 2 złoty. Slightly tilted to the right, it stood like the futilely swollen Tower of Pisa, yet stubbornly escaping such associations with its metallic sheen. I was just about to realize its absurdity, to finally begin to rock again, when, along the wave formed by the shimmering arcs of the coins' edges, the melody of a violin slid and soared high into the air.

It's a bad person who doesn't like music and song, and I assume only a good person can be interested in my story, so I don't have to explain, explain, or clarify to a good person the sound of a violin resounding amid the silences and noises of a tired, scourged city at the end of a loathsome day (a loathsomeness not my own, but also the atavistic one of a thousand previous days). All this, topped off by winter, with the ubiquitous chessboards of black roofs and white snow, on which uniform gray pawns—pigeons—had long since abandoned their game modeled on military skirmishes.

The melody soon parted ways with the coins, seemingly without diminishing their luster, yet leaving them even more meaningless and a trifle more insignificant than I found them. Perhaps this was also why I could use them as a momentary wedge to my confused perception, staring at them until I was ready to go to the window to peer out at the violinist, that wizard of urine-smelling gates and leaking gutters, the juggler who, perhaps by mistake, through some fortuitous mistake upstairs, had been sent to my window, who could live nowhere else but on Charlatan Street.

And it was a woman. In a navy blue jacket, a fleece hat, wrapped in a shawl that must have stood at least two meters tall. The case lay at her feet, and the red upholstery, with a faint blush of embarrassment, modestly accepted the pennies thrown in by passersby. I wanted to get a closer look at the violinist before going downstairs, so I picked up the glasses, placing my hand on the open book they lay on. And the page they had chosen to lie on was a good one, because it was wordless; it showed only that famous photo of old Einstein, staring off into the distance, a tear rolling down his cheek.

One-two-three, one-two-three—I ran down the stairs. One step of different wood, the other rotten.

One-two-three, one-two-three—triplet sounds. I stepped out into the cold, the wind picked up, and I slowly approached the violinist. She stood with her back to me, and moreover, she seemed to be separated from the world (above all, from me!) by a glass curtain, and—to add to the tragedy—I got the impression that the performance was over, that she wasn't about to be raised at all. I began to circle the woman in a very wide arc, slightly disrupting the monotony of my own path and masking as much as possible the existence of the axis that was the violinist, to conceal my interest in her, which was slowly turning into fascination.

Oh, what nonsense, you've all been talking nonsense! (Because I know what you were thinking.)

That I was? That she was in this city? What patterns have crept out of every pore in your skin. (Because I know what you were thinking.)

Ha, ha – what am I saying? You already know what. (Because I know what you were thinking.)

It's over, it's over – I'm not nitpicking. (I'll pretend I don't know.)

I managed to (imperceptibly?) circle her and find myself somewhat behind her again, only this time more to her right. New melodies flowed, alternately climbing the floors of the tenements, then descending with a wistful cry, almost hitting the cobblestones. By then, it had grown completely dark – the streetlights were bleeding orange, and the cold, though I knew it had exerted itself exceptionally, bothered me a little less. I don't know if she was aware of my constant presence behind her; I couldn't sense it at all. But a certain tone rang out, which filled me with unease. It took me a moment to grasp the source of that feeling amidst the jumble of thoughts and associations. And I did – they were the same sounds that had begun her concert that day with a daring glide along the edge of a pile of coins. Meanwhile, another coin jingled in its case.

The infinite meaninglessness of that pile and its gleam now played on a single note with the jingle of this offered coin, and that revealed to me the utter futility of the sorceress's performance. Futility, futility, futility! All for nothing, all – nothing. Because no one was listening. Yes, they were throwing in, but due to some unexplained impulse. Yes, they heard, but they were moving so quickly they certainly couldn't appreciate it. Yes, they saw, but who cared?

All the horror, how emaciated my word is—that they supposedly have eyes but don't see, ears but don't hear? Maybe so, but I don't care, and that's not the point. Not their indifference, but her Sisyphean labor was the center of my interest. Only after setting mine aside in the frost could I understand it. And here was the field of my fascination. A plowed field that would never be sown. A field with the hallmarks of wasteland. They—damn them—don't see me either, don't hear me either—and that's better! In reality, only cold, only isolation, only alienation is a relationship that never oppresses—oh, if only there were more of it, more of it.

To focus my attention on them—it was utterly pathetic, utterly naive, susceptible to primitive idealism.

Her Sisyphean labor! It was inscrutable, veiled, hazy, and dark. Nothing can be done—and she's doing it!

Meanwhile, fewer and fewer passersby, more and more charlatans—they began to flit here and there, nestled in their coats. Only the music continued, until suddenly—quite unexpectedly and without ceremony—it stopped. The woman, with a miserly movement, gathered up the money and put the violin in its case. She started walking toward me, and I was sure she was heading for me, but she passed without a single glance. Such an ending was certainly not satisfying; what's more, it was unacceptable. Stories, matters—I need to systematize them a bit, lest I fall into madness or some kind of nihilism. The formlessness of this situation was a note too empty, a tone too dull for me to find the will to hear it. A final chord or tremolo—meaning, consequence, even—justification through form—any form.

"For them, the stars shine above and below." Could I have a conversation with someone like that? Was the dissonance, which was bound to emerge, more like a bluesy touch, or rather like tuning a string quartet? Isn't that like trying to mix water and gasoline, just because they don't look so different? What's that like? Or maybe with a sorceress, only nonverbally, or perhaps telepathically...

"Excuse me?" my mouth shouted (because it certainly wasn't me!), while my head pondered as above.

"Yes?" she turned around, and I saw (heard!) that she was completely normal, in every way.

"You play very beautifully; I admit I listened, and with considerable joy, because I can appreciate this and that, you say, I'm looking there... so to speak..."

And she interrupted me:

"Why am I soiling my hands with Sisyphean labor, right?" "Aha! What a charlatan!"

"Yes," I replied, and then quickly apologized so as not to be taken for rude. "Because you see... Nobody actually listens to that..."

"Really?"

"And you have so much passion, so much life, so much energy, and it's all for nothing, because they—not that I care—but they—" I approached and, for some reason, spoke in a conspiratorial tone—"don't listen at all! You'll say they're throwing it in! Well, they are, but it's no... It's just..."

And she interrupted me again:

"I know."

"You know?

" "I know."

I can't think of much when the conversation takes a completely unexpected turn:

"You—you know?

" "I know." Seeing that I couldn't get enough of these revelations, she spoke these words: "Because, you see, no one listens here, do you. But there," she pointed to the dark windows of the apartments, "within their four cold walls sit charlatans—like you—and they listen—just like you. And that's where the violin sounds best—where it's empty and sad."