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"The fruit of silence is prayer; The fruit of prayer is faith;
The fruit of faith is love; The fruit of love is service."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
She's here. Do you hear? It's silence. Silence doesn't pass without an echo. It's more beautiful than music. It heals the soul. But there are wounds that never heal... Such scabs on a life story. I'm sitting hunched over in a 2x2 room now. Light, passing through a grid built into the wall of this room, plays with creating frivolous patterns on my black clothes. Light... You carry it within you. But if this light you carry within you is darkness—what a great darkness it is! I feel the cool peristalsis of the room on my skin. This place hurts. It irritates me sensually. Because I'm in a kind of cesspool of society, a toilet for sinners... Stop. I'll start from the beginning. You know, it's a bit hard to write here. I miss the light of the dawn, and I also lack the strength to scratch at this barely healed scab with my memories again. To cut it open with the scalpel of truth.
It was 1998. Summer vacation. A full-blown party. I was 17 then. I spent two whole months in Masuria at my aunt's house, where I did minor renovations for room and board. It simply happened. Two phenomenally beautiful girls. I met them somewhere in the city, they approached me out of the blue, with their natural ease, their newly acquired tans, handing me a leaflet. My Muses, Nymphs, Vestal Virgins. Dreamlike Geishas. By the fifth or sixth sentence they spoke to me in their warm, hypnotizing tones, I finally understood what they were talking about. And interestingly enough, these two long-legged beauties were telling me about God. With that absent gaze of mine, I looked at the flyer: "Do you believe? Worldview Workshops." I heard again: "Come! We'll be there too. Bye!" I was still absorbing the last remnants of the riot of scents as they both moved away. I repeat: I'm seventeen. I'm a guy. My brain, subjected to such a pleasant anomaly, served up by centuries of evolution, i.e., being an animal (because of that Freudian Id), had programmed itself into the Off mode. Hormones took over. It was they—those little, fucking, hedonistic, orgiastic endorphins, whose sole purpose in their short lives is to provide pleasure—that answered for me: "I'll definitely be there!"
Let's be honest, I went there to see them again. To smell them. To experience the fulfillment, the substitution of the entire world with their physicality. And I wasn't disappointed. They were there. The first one was 24 years old, with slightly curly auburn hair, full lips, and breasts. More beautiful than Wolszczak in "Street Games." The second one was similar in age, blonde, but with white hair rather than blonde. Vodianova in the Pirelli calendar. That kind of beauty is an aphrodisiac for me. She had blue eyes you could lose yourself in. My head was spinning at the sight of her. She smelled oriental: coumarin, oakmoss, amber. The meeting was held in the private home of a sort of Guru—he was the group's animator, giving lectures—in short, he had a charisma. Twenty-five people in the living room, twelve of them girls. The hour-long lecture was devoted to criticism of the church. The Guru effectively quelled any discussion. And he extinguished them, gnawed at with arguments! Only I and three other libidinous teenagers were officially introduced. We were new here. It turned out the matriculation part was already behind us. Surprisingly, no questions about religion or beliefs, no requests for opinions on the lecture. They asked me what my interests were, what I was doing in the city... We were all like one big group of friends. Simply cathartic. No insecurities, no inhibitions. There was music and alcohol, a normal party was underway, a summer cruise through life. Marta (the blonde) approached me – we went outside and talked. We talked for a long time. And so honestly, so authentically. About family, dreams, previous relationships. Then we moved on to literary and philosophical topics. We talked about Freud, Spinoza, Dostoyevsky. The definition of magic: intelligence enclosed in a female body. And constant ambiguity! Sparks flew between us; it was a verbal dirty dance, a sensual battle of metaphors, verbal sex. Mutual verbal masturbation and a rising blood alcohol level. "Call me Shanti," she said before we parted.
Things moved quickly from there. In the mornings, I always worked around my aunt's house, and afternoons, I spent with the group. The group house was always open. You'd go in, greet those present, and then hang out with them. There were lectures every four days. More often, we'd organize various parties. There was a salsa lesson. Me and Shanti's hips swaying to the drums. Then, one day, we were making pots together on a special wheel. I'd never experienced such an erotic game. Our intertwined hands embracing a phallic shape. I was hooked. The group noticed my talents, too. I organized a psychology lecture, and there was a lot of laughter over body language and all sorts of tests... I even managed to rent a computer lab at a local school, and we played Quake 2 (it was still too much for the equipment). Unfortunately, I came second – Guru won by one frag. We had a blast. Always together. We got braided hands – our trademark. We took Hindu names. The lectures also became increasingly interesting. They discussed the church's rejection of the Sabbath, the occult, the pointlessness of the papacy, and the deception of people with the supposedly miraculous power of the sacraments... It got to the point where we laughed when we saw people going to church on Sunday... We were realists, better than that whole herd of beads. Rydzyk's cattle. Not like our ecumene, our caste. We shared money, so there were parties every day. And Guru didn't drive a Maybach.
It happened about two weeks later. An evening party. Shanti said to me, "Come on, Sidhito (my new 'name' – it comes from my fascination with psychology and Freud), I'll show you something!" She led me upstairs. I'd been in this room before, but it turned out it had been completely refurnished. A huge bed (or bed?), shelves of essential oils, burning incense and candles, and soft, oriental, mantric music coming primarily from the subwoofer. She closed the door and asked directly, "Do you want to have sex with me?" I think I said, "I mean, right now?" She laughed, and we did. I'd never made love like that before. Oils rubbed into our bodies. We were slick, glowing, and fragrant. She massaged my back with her swollen nipples. An hour and a half of bliss. As I prematurely climaxed, she patiently nursed me back to full strength with her mouth. We left after two hours. Shanti had barely opened the door when applause broke out. It turned out that this room was Guru's idea – anyone who wanted sex could always go there. I was a bit confused and probably flushed. Nevertheless, I spent at least an hour in that room with Shanti every day. About four days later, while I was there with Shanti, Shiva (you know – the brunette's new Indian name) came into the room. She said the Guru wanted to talk to Shanti and asked if she could use it. At first, I didn't understand what she was saying – only when Shanti came out, nodding her head and winking at me, did Shiva look at me. She slowly removed her clothes and underwear, inserted two fingers inside herself, and let me smell them. From there, it just happened...
Initially, there were two couples in a room, sometimes threesomes. Later, we did it openly in the living room. But the guru said we had to civilize it somehow. Orgies were to take place every other day. We didn't protest—after all, he was the householder and the leader of the caste. Over time, sex became the reward. We underwent so-called initiations. My first initiation involved destroying the Mercedes belonging to the local parish priest. Imagine that. Night, a barking dog guarding the rectory, adrenaline, risk, excitement. I scratched the bodywork with a butcher's hook, slashed the tires, smashed the windshield and upholstery. I did it in 60 seconds! My face flushed, sweat on my forehead. Someone came out and unleashed the dog. I barely escaped through the fence. Just as I was approaching the van where a significant portion of the caste was waiting, the Guru started the engine and drove away from under my nose. I heard sirens. Panic. I run through a forest full of mosquitoes. They slash my face because I took off my balaclava. Half an hour later, I return furious to the group home. And they applaud me as if nothing had happened. Shanti runs up to me and shoves her tongue down my throat. Shiva grabs my crotch. At that moment, adrenaline unleashed a surge of arousal I'd never experienced before. It was so male, so animalistic... The guru said, "You've done it. Now take your time. Today they are for you. Choose." He was talking about all twelve girls...
This happened in the second month of summer vacation. Several members of the caste participated in some of the initiations. Always men. Although I also remember that one of the women was ordered to seduce a young vicar... We often desecrated gravestones at night, later having sex as a reward. During the third initiation, I had to steal the Eucharist from a church 150 km away. Although the Guru called it colloquially, "opłatek." I was given an electric screwdriver, a crowbar, and a balaclava. And I did it. We burned the contents of the chalice (the wafers), and the chalice and monstrance were to be sold to the Guru and added to our fund. I didn't consider morality. I did it involuntarily. I often stayed overnight, not with my aunt, but in a group home. My aunt had the story: "He's a good boy—he earns money at a construction site 150 km away." I considered staying in the caste after the vacation. I had no intention of going home, to my duties, to school. I was in some kind of endorphic frenzy, an adrenaline trip. It was a one-way ticket. A constant journey to greater perversion and more sick assignments. We figured out what else we could do. At the end of the second month, Guru threw a party instead of a lecture. But it was somehow strange. Candles, darkness, red—that didn't surprise me. But the atmosphere was definitely there. It was the first time it was so serious. I stood in the back. They were saying something, reciting something. At first, I thought it was just a prank, a plastic doll. But no. It was a child. Shanti slaughtered the baby with a smile on her face. I had an erection. My body wouldn't listen. Suddenly, I vomited. I vomited out the utter disgust of the situation. I pretended to the others that it was the alcohol. I watched them rub themselves in blood. How they tasted the child's ichor...
That was the end for me. I left them a note in an envelope on the living room table. I left and walked for half an hour. I cried. In the darkness of the night, I spotted a chapel. The same one we often peed on. I didn't kneel, I just prostrated myself, and with the smell of urine surrounding me, I prayed. Or rather, I tried. I couldn't say a word. Two months. TWO MONTHS! That's enough to make a man a murderer. I walked to the church. I asked for confession from the parish priest, the same one whose car I'd wrecked... Confession lasted forty minutes. I had bruises on my knees. When I received absolution, I felt a tingling sensation all over my body. The priest was sworn to the secrecy of confession, so he simply asked me, "Do you want me to talk to your aunt?" I didn't want to. I went to the police station, but it turned out the caste had disappeared. They'd gone somewhere. I remembered that someone in the caste had talked about leaving that day, and it was supposed to be a surprise. Where had they gone? Where would they recruit new followers? Only now did I realize I didn't know a single name... I received a letter. One sentence scrawled in newspaper letters: "We'll see you even by chance, and your aunt will die." A stamp from Ustka. Probably to throw me off the scent...
Six months passed. I returned to school. It was a shock. My classmates, so innocent, foolishly teasing girls, having fun, playing PlayStation. I felt like an old man. It was embedded in me, coming from the darkness. I couldn't speak to anyone; I was alienated. There was no trace of the sect. Neither the local police nor the Church knew anything. By some miracle, my parents hadn't found out. My aunt was angry with me for the constant phone calls. She suspected something. I graduated. With excellent grades in Polish and math. And then I decided: I wanted to go to seminary.
No one was as zealous as me. I became Paul converted at Damascus. Before my so-called temporary ordination, I confessed the truth to the bishop. I thought he would throw me out of the seminary, but he only said, "Explain to me what faith means to you?" I said it was love in its purest form, normality, a breath of freedom, a yoke with a golden bond. He listened carefully. He said, "You said it right—normality, freedom, love. But remember, faith cannot stem from a sense of guilt. Remember, it is... service." When I think back to the period between temporary and full ordination, it reminds me more of the army. I gave myself the most difficult set of exercises. I got up at four, prayed for the morning service. I fasted. I relearned interpersonal relationships. Humility. Mercy. Service...
Today I'm 24 years old. I listen to the silence. Silence never passes without an echo. It's more beautiful than music. It heals the soul. But there are wounds that never heal... Such scabs on a life story. I'm sitting hunched in a 2x2 room now. I'm sitting in the confessional... The light, passing through a grille built into the confessional wall, plays with me, creating frivolous patterns on my black cassock. I feel the cool peristalsis of the room on my skin. This place hurts. It irritates me sensually. Because I'm in a kind of cesspool of society, a toilet for sinners. A holy hour and an opportunity for confession. A young boy. He came to empty his bowels, to shit out his sins. "I had premarital sex." I ask, "Remember that you are now kneeling before Almighty God, the Creator of the world and humanity. Before the Alpha and Omega. I ask: Do you love this girl?" "I don't... know, Father." I look him in the eyes: "Do you regret using her for your own pleasure? On your deathbed, will you be able to honestly say, 'I regret what I did'? Do you feel guilty, or do you think it was no big deal? Is it possible that you were the one who pressured her, saying, 'If you love me, let's do this'? Was it her who told you to go to confession, even though you don't feel the need?" He lowered his head and said, "It's just as Father said." I wiped the sweat from my brow. If the boy knew who was giving him such advice... "So you understand that I can't grant you absolution?" Standing, he replied, "Yes."
End of confession. I reach the rectory, and my cell phone rings (I've caused quite a stir – a priest with a cell phone – so what would they say if they knew my past?). The polyphonic "Barka" is played at the top of my lungs. The number is unknown. Fear, uncertainty – I think I'll never answer the phone calmly again… It's an elderly woman from the parish where I recently attended a retreat. She asks me to come see her dying husband. She says he doesn't want to see a priest. I ask, "So what can I do?" The old woman says, "My husband listened to your retreat on the radio and said we need a priest like that in our parish, not freeloaders. He's the only one who can listen to a priest!" I say curtly, "I'm going." The radio is indeed true – the local station installed microphones in the church and broadcast my sermon to the bedridden. I get into my Polnez. My parents bought it for me after I was provisionally ordained. They loved me, and I know they scrounged for him, limiting themselves to mere survival. I feel sorry for my parents. After those holidays, I've never been as close to them as I used to be. Especially with my mother. Because my mother senses. And suspects the situation, but she's enough of a mother not to ask... One hundred and ten on the counter. The Poldek churns like a tractor. Three lanes merge into one. I arrive three hours later. I call back to get the exact address.I'm finally here.
A post-farmer's farm. A radio in the house—the only substitute for contact with the outside world. The old woman looks into my eyes, pleading. I reassure her: "I'll do my best." She retreats to the hallway. I stand before the door to her husband's room. I—a parody of Paul, converted near Damascus, a pathetic caricature of a priest—am supposed to help him. I remember the bishop's words: "Faith is service." I turn the doorknob. I see a yellowed, withered old man, reeking of urine and feces. He was dying. He was almost in agony. But he was laughing at me. For a moment, I thought it was Lucifer laughing at me. I remember a priest I knew from the seminary—he told me how, on a mission trip to Africa, he participated in the exorcism of a young Black woman. He began reciting the formula in Latin, and the demon inside the Black woman replied, "What's that, little priest? Have you forgotten Polish?" So I stood there. I looked at the sick man. I sat down. We talked for a while. He laughed, "because this is the fourth priest to see me." We talked honestly about his family: his son, his grandchildren. They don't even come for holidays anymore...
I didn't impose, but I gently suggested: "Perhaps you'd like to confess and receive Communion?" "Father, you can put that to rest." We talked for another twenty minutes. Every ten minutes or so, I offered him the sacraments. "Father, you can put that to rest." Like Peter, he denied Christ three times. Only he didn't cry. Suddenly, I noticed the crucifix hanging on the wall above his bed. He didn't look Christ in the eye as he denied Him. I tried again: "You know, promise me one thing. When you stand before Him and He asks you, 'What good have you done in your life?' please answer Him, 'I suffered just like you.' Besides, I want you to remember the happy moments in your life right now. Do you remember... your wedding day? Do you remember... the moment your son was born? Do you remember the moment you first held him in your arms? Tell me one thing: if your son were dying and asked you for anything, would you grant his request?" He looked at me and said quietly, "Yes..." "And now look at this cross hanging above you. Look at Jesus. He is dying on the cross before the eyes of his Father and asking for salvation for you too! He is asking for you there, suffering for you, dying for you on the cross! And answer me just one last question: "WILL GOD HEAR THE REQUEST OF HIS SON?" He was shaking all over. Something inside him broke. He began to confess his sins to me... I, too, looked at Christ and answered the old man: "I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit..."
I took the Blessed Sacrament from the dormitory: "When he willingly surrendered himself to suffering, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take this, all of you, and eat of it; this is my body, which will be given for you." (...) "Do this in remembrance of me." He accepted the host with tears in his eyes; I held his hand. He thanked me, and I had to return. The old woman fell at my knees and said: "I knew you would convince him." I picked her up and said: "It was your faith that healed him." I was just about to leave when the old woman said: "I know. I prayed when you were with him."
The evening coolness. A pleasant feeling of lightness and heightened vigilance, lest this state result in pride... I approach the Polonaise thinking: "I won this battle, but the war still goes on." And at that same moment I notice a familiar leaflet behind the windshield wiper: "Do you believe? Worldview workshops
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