I don't think immortality is the best thing that happened to Grandpa Włodek. He had more pleasant moments in his life. He could talk about them for hours. When he was still a young sergeant and they discovered a real moonshine production center in some village. Apparently, a pompous secret police officer came from the province and pinned a medal to his chest. "Distinguished on the field of glory" or something. Plus, he received so much money in an envelope that he could have bought himself a deluxe Siren, if Grandma hadn't told him to bury it all in the garden. And then there was such a flood that the Siren and the whole garden went to hell. If Grandpa had known immortality awaited him, he wouldn't have bothered at all about those papers with Waryński and other lunatics, and he wouldn't have been offended by Grandma. If he had known. It's easy to say. Grandpa was the most unbelieving man to ever appear in this valley of tears – that's what he called himself. He also added that his great namesake, Vladimir Ilyich, was not up to his standards in terms of disbelief and should have signed up for lectures on the basics of a materialistic worldview with his grandfather.
Grandpa Włodek had died three years ago of an unspecified illness. My daughter, overcome with grief, and my mother decided we would keep Grandpa alive for a few days. In the end, the damned postman spoke to Grandpa through the door anyway. Grandma used to forge his signature, uttering the phrase "You name it, you name it." When Grandpa had held out for a few days and received his first posthumous pension, it was clear to everyone that it was over. Grandpa looked like the end. He had turned gray, sagged, and was fading. He was leaving, sitting in his worn-out rocking chair. My mother locked herself in her room with Grandpa and didn't come out for a long time. We assumed they were saying goodbye. Sitting in the kitchen with my grandmother, father, and my sister, we talked about my grandfather. My grandmother began first. "
It's a shame about my grandfather..." she said with a wistful look on her face. "They don't give you that kind of pension for nothing. Our Włodek deserved nothing for the People's Republic of Poland."
"Mom!" my father hissed. "Can you please stop talking about money for once in your life?"
"I can, but why? It's over. Such a pension. The guy got so worked up, filled out so many forms, and what did he get for it? He went to St. Peter's to feel the goat."
"My grandfather wasn't a believer," I wanted to add, but my father raised a clenched fist like a boxer before a fight. "
So what? You have to bury him in a Christian way, with a priest, normally..."
At that moment, my mother came in with a knife and a bucket. She had a strange face and seemed to be crying.
"Nobody's going to bury anyone here. My grandfather will live."
Without going into the details of immortality, I'll just say that what was left of Grandpa Włodek took up residence in my room. I don't know where the hell my mother learned how to dissect a corpse, but in any case, Grandpa didn't look too bad. I know a few living people who would give a lot to look like that.
Actually, Grandpa doesn't bother me. I cover him with a blanket so he doesn't have to look at the damn world. A girl even came to see me once. Sweet Paulusia. The dumbest girl in school, yet possessing great qualities. One of her greatest qualities was that she liked "it." To do "it" with Paulusia, you didn't even have to lift a proverbial finger. Paulusia considered herself a nymphomaniac and solemnly promised, supposedly in front of a holy painting, that she would fuck every guy in school. It was my turn. Paulusia didn't have a place to stay, so she invited herself in, and for all that, I forgot about Grandpa. I just hoped he was under the blanket. He was. Paulusia, unsuspecting, stripped right on top of Grandpa. Perhaps in his most perverse dreams, Grandpa Włodek never dreamed of such eternal rest. With Paulusia's red underwear on his face. The color was right; Grandpa loved red. And the cut, well, if Grandma had worn something like that, it's possible my mom wouldn't have been an only child. Returning to Paulusia, despite her stupidity, she had a kind of instinct, intuition, or who knows what. As soon as I got down to business, she—I have a feeling someone's there—and so on. She started looking out the window, asking if I had a younger brother or a perverted father. I was so angry that I threw her rags at her. Grandpa's blanket flew off along with her red panties. Needless to say, Paulusia didn't keep her promise made before the holy image, and that same evening, in front of the whole family, I said, "It's either me or him." I also refused to accept my share of Grandpa's pension, saying what they could do with it. Honesty has always been valued in our family, so no one took offense. My father suggested that Grandpa could be moved to the basement, and if there was a real emergency (my father was a soccer referee and used professional terminology excessively), Grandpa would be brought in and said hello. Grandma then stood up and said Grandpa wasn't some slob to be brought to the basement. She then added that if Grandpa was moved to the basement, she would go to the police and say that their former officer was being persecuted and wouldn't let him rest in his old age. My mother, in such situations, spoke last (unless you counted my sister, who never spoke), and her word was always decisive. "Dawidek, why are you so hard on Grandpa?" she said. "I knew it wasn't good." "Dawidek, you better get back to your lessons. They told me in town that some girl with a bare butt jumped out of our room and screamed like she was being skinned alive. So I asked, whose fault was it?" I lowered my eyes. My marijuana-addicted sister either coughed or laughed; it sounded the same to her. My father blushed and began fumbling with his belt, wondering whether a seventeen-year-old should be spanked on the butt or elsewhere. I didn't wait for the discussion to develop. I went back to my room and apologized to my grandfather.He looked as if he was saying, "It doesn't matter.
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