The greatest faith in the world.
Where I sat, the point of sitting directly translates into the point of feeling, so where I sat, in the attic of a pre-war tenement building at 18 Karmelicka Street in Kraków, it was stiflingly hot. It was unusually warm despite the open window and the cooling rain that had fallen moments before, despite the summer breeze leaking through the thick curtain pattern, carrying the scent of a sleeping city and the whining wail of a dissatisfied cat crouching on the tin roof of a nearby garage. Perhaps that's why I felt the rise in temperature so clearly, because the time was right; the June heat of the sunny day hadn't been abated in the slightest by a significant evening cloudburst. Or perhaps the rise in temperature was caused by the crystal-clear liquid I'd been drinking in excessive quantities lately.
The attic, my little mecca where I spent my days and nights, was an attic like hundreds of others, entirely made of wood, with countless dark brown knots on the varnished boards, and two ancient wardrobes that creaked horribly when opened, irritating the seventy-year-old woman living below. The woman was old, gray, and bitter, prone to asthma attacks and rheumatism, and when she spoke, an ugly rasp escaped her throat. Despite this, despite serious health issues, profound loneliness, and her own irritability, she was a woman of incredible energy. Her worn shoes rhythmically clattered on the wooden stairs as she went down to the nearby shop for six rolls, a liter of milk, and blackcurrant jam. She bought the same things every day, made this sacred list, and for twenty-three years, she'd carried from the cramped, perpetually stuffy shop a jar of jam, six fresh rolls, and milk—in a glass bottle or in an eco-friendly bag—depending on the system in force in the country. And even if it was the glass bottle system, Mrs. Eleonora, out of nowhere, still had six rolls, blackcurrant jam, and a liter of milk in her shopping bag.
On the dusty wardrobes stood two large brass frames leaning against the wooden walls. From one, monstrous in size and saturated with engravings, someone had pulled a canvas and placed it beside it. The painting was old, dusty, forgotten, depicting people—probably insurgents, participants in another national uprising, striding down a narrow alley. Armed and full of faith, they were walking somewhere through the dirty, gray snow. It seemed as if the fight was still ahead, that they hadn't yet suffered total defeat. Still aroused, driven by a primal impetus, they strode along, immersed in a lively discussion.
In the other frame was a large photograph of a young, pretty woman. The photo was probably from the 1920s, as her attire gave it away—the distinctive dress, the way her hair was styled, the small watch she wore artfully, and her overall beauty—pre-war. I had no idea who it could be.
A bouquet of bright red roses hung from a wooden beam supporting the sloping roof. There were six or seven dried-out flowers hanging head downwards. The petals, leaves, and stems had darkened, and the nearby windows trembled gently in the breeze. Bought from a flower seller in the busy Market Square, they belonged to the woman in my life. Unfortunately, the woman in my life wasn't in the attic of the old tenement house that had stood for decades opposite the beautiful Carmelite Church.
I closed my eyes, the radio hummed softly, and the song commissioned by Maria from Supraśl flowed melancholy, creating an eerie soundtrack for a few large, belated raindrops that fell with a crash onto the wooden ceiling. A small table in the center of the room was piled high with newspapers and magazines.
I would have liked a drink of the well-chilled, crystal-clear stuff, but the bottle standing by the wooden table leg was as dry as the Gobi Desert on a summer evening, so dry that there wasn't a drop hanging somewhere by the neck, not yet spilled into the thick glass of the large goblet. The vodka bottle was dry because there was no vodka at all.
A blessing in disguise, a lousy prick who wasn't a joking person, didn't drink alcohol, and had an aversion to pure vodka might have said so. Mr. Kazek, a young historian, would probably have said so, as he was still attached to the ruling party. The ruling party had secured him a position in the administrative office of a small, backwater town famous for its rubber products, thanks to which he reached the end of his Promethean, pathetically underpaid teaching and educational work. Mr. Kazek, yes, would say that the lack of alcohol is a blessing in disguise in my catastrophically wasted life. Fortunately, Kazek would say, there's no more vodka, because if there were, you'd surely lose your mind, drowning once again in the darkness of a Camaldolese cell. Mr. Kazek knows shit, Mr. Kazek, a passionate teetotaler, a fervent advocate of all things temperance, a husband of seven years, the happy father of eighteen-month-old Kasia.
What Mr. Kazek and I shared, the common denominator of our diametrically opposed paths, the perfect shadow cast over his and my life, was a rotten and sloppy character, a rottenness deep within. But that's where our similarities end. There's nothing else I could confidently compare to him, because the bottom line is, whatever vodka it is, absolutely any vodka, doesn't even evoke the slightest bit of disgust in me. I drink vodka, I drink, I guzzle, I guzzle, vodka, as an inseparable attribute of my joyless existence, is constantly present somewhere within reach. But then, on that warm evening, as large raindrops pattered to the rhythm of the music, the bottle was empty.
I stared, still sober, at the newspaper, which slowly faded into a photograph of a firing squad aiming motionlessly at a collaborator. I felt sorry for the man; he had a sack over his head, his body pressed tightly against a wooden beam impaled on a pole, his hands, tied with thick rope, wrapped behind his back, wrapped around the pole. His eyes were probably closed; his end was imminent, his demise inevitably approaching. In such situations, one usually closes one's eyes, squeezes shut, tears flowing like raindrops anyway. He had conspired against the authorities; the authorities, without conspiring against him, had energetically demanded his extermination. Within seconds, the body would be pierced by six deadly fast bullets, but the collaborator wouldn't even slump to the ground, wouldn't press his cheek against the cold ground, which he had perhaps exposed to the enemy several times with genuine disgust. The platoon took care of this by tying his convulsively shaking wrists to the wood.
It's the twenty-first century, with the internet and UMTS telephony, NASA launches humans into space in completely airtight containers, analyzing whether sexual intercourse can technically occur in weightlessness, the president proudly accepts his award, the actor publishes kitschy texts demonstrating his complete lack of contribution to the development of Polish literature, Mrs. Eleonora gorges herself on a tasty roll with currant jam and washes it down with boiled milk, Marysia from Supraśl gets her wish fulfilled, and the collaborator, tied to a wooden beam with a sack over his head, ends his life like an unfaithful subject during the reign of Edward the Long-Legged.
I don't know how it happened, but it did. I saw Grzegorz leaning against the doorframe of my apartment, waiting for a gesture of consent from me, which by no means came. I hadn't seen Grzegorz—a friend of several years—before my eyes had caught sight of him. Alcohol had dulled my senses. I'd forgotten to turn the key in the door when I returned home with a bottle of vodka under my arm. I was in an unspeakable hurry to drink, and drinking was becoming more important than safety. Grzegorz must have sensed my state of mind, because after a few seconds he himself crossed the threshold and sat silently at the wooden table. He glanced at the newspapers and magazines scattered across the counter, looked at the empty bottle, lit a Marlboro, and pulled a half liter from the large pocket of his gray trousers.
He was a sought-after economist, an employee of a large holding company, a bright future stretched before him, and in that not-so-distant future, a promotion to a managerial position was being considered. But when Friday arrived, Grzegorz and hundreds of others like him—young residents of a large city, upstarts, nouveau riche—would descend into the underground. Friday marked the beginning of a time of relaxation. From Friday to Sunday, these several hundred young rich men flocked to pubs and clubs to unwind in a haze of cigarette smoke, among very undressed, eager women, forgetting about suspenders, ties, and the scoldings of a strict boss, and sipping vodka not for company, but for their own frayed nerves. Some call it clubbing, though neither Grzegorz nor I call it that.
Grzegorz probably also noticed the photo of the collaborator, because he shook his head in distaste, whispering something about the times. He looked up from the newspaper, looked at me for a moment, and then uncorked the bottle, announcing that today, exactly today, was his birthday, that a drink was in order for his little anniversary. I hadn't remembered my friend's birthday. I hadn't remembered his little anniversary, because how could I remember when I'd forgotten even the birthday of the woman in my life? How could I remember the anniversary of my friend Grzegorz's departure to the lousy vale of death when I couldn't remember the woman's birthday? That's nothing to be proud of; not remembering valuable information is a knockout, although not remembering doesn't mean not knowing; it's an undeniable knockout for the human mind.
"Happy birthday, Grzegorz," was all I told my friend. It wasn't much, but the words were completely enough for him. He himself admitted that only his mother remembered the little anniversary; his father—whether he remembered—was an open question, as Grzegorz's father was dead. Perhaps Grzegorz's father remembered, perhaps he didn't have to remember, didn't want to, there was no need to remember, perhaps it was enough to know that someone existed at all, that one day he drank vodka to commemorate his own birthday, the knowledge that Grzegorz existed, that he had, certainly had, a small anniversary, was completely enough for me, as were his perfunctory wishes.
Grzegorz was a man with a life of hardship. Aside from his family, which inhabited every corner of the globe, spread to the limit, scattered by monsoons, tsunamis, and sandstorms, Grzegorz's ordeal was connected to Zosia, a beautiful girl with blond hair flowing in gentle waves down her neck, curled slightly at the ends, somewhere around her smooth shoulders. Large, gray-blue eyes, perpetually outlined with black eyeliner, seemed constantly to be myopic. Zosia, with those little eyes, tilting her head, would gaze at objects and people clearly and longingly, as if judging distances, accustoming her pupils and adjusting their focus, perfecting the image. With those large eyes, the color of the cold sea, she captivated Grzegorz forever and ever, amen. And Grzegorz, falling into complete enchantment, would gaze with even greater delight at the tight lips and the swan-like neck on which that golden head floated gratefully.
Grzegorz's ordeals with Zosia were common ones, and the list of such experiences, stemming from the mysteries of female nature, is endless; a woman's nature is an eternal cause that produces dire consequences. After his ordeals with Zosia, Grzegorz spoke of women with regret, spoke ill of them, burdened them with responsibility, lumped Zosia, all Polish women, all European women, all women in the world into one basket. Knowing the nature of women, their striving for difference at all costs, he repeated his thoughts with even greater persistence. They say only those who speak ill of women truly love them. So I tried to convince my friend Grzegorz that his feelings for Zosia were pure, true, and sincere, and somehow he looked at it all differently when he talked to me. He admitted I was right, repeating that the worst of all is the maxim, the damned irritating maxim: "If you're not with her, she wasn't there," a maxim heard time and again from acquaintances and strangers, consecrated persons, and those who already have one foot in Rokita's mouth. But what were all the mouths in the world supposed to say when Grzegorz and Zosia were a pair of cooing lovebirds with three years of experience? God's decrees are unfathomable, someone up there didn't like this relationship, someone up there, by accident, maybe just for fun, didn't hear the prayer not to lead us into temptation, temptation after more than three years of shared days and nights, shared plans and dreams, possessed a beautiful girl with blond hair and gray-blue irises.
Zosia was an economics student. She studied macroeconomics and microeconomics, public relations, statistics, marketing, finance, gathered detailed information on interest rates and Malaysia's gross domestic product, tracked the quotations of joint-stock companies, and pored over hundreds of articles of the Commercial Companies Code. Zosia was indeed weighed down by thousands of important facts from the world economy. The important facts of Zosia's studies were overwhelming, and these important facts overwhelmed her immensely. So, after passing her exams, she took a break from the important facts, cutting herself off from the world economy. The week after the exams was Zosia's week of recharging her batteries.
She usually recharged those batteries through group activities. Grzegorz, a man with a history, had long since taken a job at a holding company. Zosia spent these moments of biological and mental rejuvenation alone—alone, that is, without Grzegorz. One evening, Zosia gave herself to one of those boys who had been groomed by life. Shiny gel on her head, a silver cell phone in her pocket, a parked yellow Renault, rustling banknotes upon banknotes. Zosia might have been impressed, it might not have been important, but Zosia gave herself to this boy. How she gave herself to him—irrelevant, betrayal, the surrender of her physicality—there's no point in squandering it. Zosia's betrayal shouldn't be broken down into sub-plots, into plots and plotlines. She gave herself to him, and that was it, period.
Chaos crept into Grzegorz's life; for fourteen days, he became the hero of a wretched Brazilian soap opera. Grzegorz, Armando, began to obtain information about his mistress's lustful motives through conniving creatures. The outcome was obvious, obvious to those who knew Grzegorz, a possessive paladin, perverted by fidelity. Despite Zosia's pleading, likely laced with fear for their own future, women always think ahead in the most difficult moments, despite the false cries of shared happiness, lost opportunity, the uniqueness and unrepeatable nature of a relationship, Grzegorz, like a granite statue, gazing with eyes as frosty as the Arctic into that beloved, myopic blue, uttered a single sentence through his teeth. He whispered, purred, articulated a single, singular phrase, after which Zosia, a beautiful, blond economics student, with a scowl and tearful expression, walked away wordlessly, soothing her sorrows in an impeccably ironed green Kenzo shirt belonging to the owner of a sunny yellow, four-wheeled sports car.
Grzegorz and I drank strong vodka, raising silent toasts to his happiness, hoping, clouded by the past, that somewhere, someday, he would catch another Zosia. We both held an eternal hope that beyond the dark horizon, true angels walked the streets, dressed in floral dresses, black skirts, slipping pretty slippers onto their shapely feet, gazing with divine restraint at the whirling world, taking dancing steps, waiting only for us, exclusively for us. Were these unspoken hopes, swarming in alcoholic minds, vain hopes? Were these hopes eternal hopes unfulfilled? Grzegorz and I, finishing that bottle filled with clear liquid, wanted to believe, and we did believe, that undiscovered treasures still existed somewhere. Faith in these good women, these truly good women, was a strong faith, stronger than common faiths, it was the strongest faith in the world.
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