Devil knows why I thought that by turning up at the lecture I might be tempting fate. I unlaced my old skiing boots, took them off and put on my slippers again. I carried out these small tasks with precision and diligence. I was terrified but my movements were calm now. I began to consider ways of disposing of the corpse. It seemed child’s play. I’d chop the body up, flush some parts down the loo, burn some, take others away in parcels and throw them in the river or bury them. Bury them where? Ah, it’s a trifle. I know a quiet place in the woods on the outskirts of town.
I felt light-headed and carefree. I decided to carry out the plan without further ado. I went into the kitchen with an open penknife. I started with a finger. It turned out to be not that simple. The blade was blunt, the flesh gave in with difficulty, chafing and tearing. The bone just would not cut. I put away the penknife and fetched an axe. I swung it and the finger sprang off. Meanwhile, the tip of the thumb struck me in the eye. I picked up the finger and dropped it down the toilet bowl. It floated in the yellowish water like a pale sausage. I flushed the loo. The water gushed, snatched the finger and sucked it into the black void, but after a while the finger floated back to the surface. I yanked the chain. The pipes rumbled deeply, the water rose and filled the bowl. The finger disappeared. I took a piss. The finger resurfaced. The water subsided slowly. I fished out the wet finger and held it hopelessly between my own two fingers.
Apparently, that was not the way. It became clear to me that disposing of this hefty, one hundred and fifty pound body, depriving it of its full, overripe figure and its bale of fresh skin was not going to be as easy as it seemed to me, fed on the literature from the “time of contempt.” The corpse defended its individuality, its natural right to biological decay. Somewhat embarrassed, I returned to the kitchen and laid the hacked-off finger on Auntie’s breast.
There was something of a gesture of reconciliation in that.
3
AROUND MIDDAY I WENT OUT. THE STREET WAS FREEZING cold, hostile. The sun, which in the morning lit the snow on the windowsill so beautifully, had disappeared. It was gray and cold. I felt hungry. Up till now, Auntie had cooked lunch at home. If she was away I ate at any old place. I stepped into a third-rate bar on the corner. It was full. There was one free table in the middle of the room but I retreated. Sweaty, yellow-brown lacquered walls, stuffy stench of the room, trivial faces of the eaters – all that disgusted me. I walked on. I was approaching the town center when it came to mind that a day like this could be honored with a good meal at a first-rate restaurant.
In the window an enormous salmon on a bed of red caviar lay in a wreath of parsley. From behind the matted glass peered lush leaves of exotic plants, creating the impression of a perfect refuge from the freezing street. I pushed the door open and headed for the cloakroom. The cloakroom lady was very tall and very big. Much bigger than Auntie. I assessed her at some hundred and seventy-five pounds and thanked god it wasn’t her corpse I had in my flat. I was about to unbutton my coat when I saw the waiter standing at the entrance to the room. The waiter was a black-haired man of about thirty-five. Dressed in routine waiter’s garb: slightly wide black trousers, white apron, white shirt. He was playing with a napkin, looking in my direction. I felt I was afraid of waiters. At that moment I thought of one thing only: avoid a situation where he could come near me and say something. I walked back to the cloakroom lady.
“Can I make a phone call?”
Straight away I realized what a stupid idea that was; I could have asked for a pack of cigarettes, even those expensive ones, foreign, which could not be gotten anywhere else. But it was too late. I picked up the receiver and under the cloakroom lady’s unfriendly gaze I dialed a fictitious number, which nevertheless began with a five, like all other telephone numbers in our town. I heard a woman’s voice.
“Hello,” I said calmly. “May I speak to Andrzej, please?”
When told “Wrong number,” I apologized and thanked the woman sincerely.
Back on the street I was hit by sharp wind. I thought of my flat and happily turned toward home. Home sweet home. When at last I reached home, still dressed, in my coat and hat, I looked into the kitchen.
Auntie had not changed, except for the blood around her and on her face, which had dried into a blackish, brown scab. I took my coat off and, smoking a cigarette, I began to devise a plan of action. Without question, I had to remove the corpse from the kitchen and make some lunch. The gas was weak so I decided to light a fire under the kitchen stove and cook myself a proper meal. In the sideboard I found a couple of red cutlets, bread, frankfurters, butter, eggs and potatoes in a basket. There was also tea and even a bottle of Hungarian wine, which Auntie must have hidden there for some special occasion.
I started peeling the potatoes. I was no good at it. Until now I hardly ever peeled potatoes. Auntie always prepared our meals and I helped only when my manly strength or my manly height was called for. By the second potato I cut my finger. The wound was not big but deep and bled profusely. Clumsily pulling up the shirtsleeve with my other, healthy but dirty hand, I ran to the sink. The tiny wound hit by a stream of cold water began to smart. I put my finger into my mouth and sucked it. The pain abated but every time I took the finger out of my mouth, the pale, barely visible slit began to fill with scarlet blood. I went to the cupboard with the first aid kit and rummaged through it, finding some gauze, bandages and iodine. There was no other disinfectant. It took me a long time before I managed to dress my wound and tie a nice tight knot on the finger.
I sat at the kitchen table miserable and worn out, nursing my wounded finger in my fist. Hunger and cigarettes pressed on my brain like a heavy gray substance. I had no strength left to finish peeling the potatoes. I’d have frankfurters with scrambled eggs and bread. Absentmindedly I dragged myself to the sideboard to fetch a saucepan. Suddenly something tripped me up. I struggled to keep my balance and, desperately clutching at anything, I banged my head right against the edge of the sideboard.
“Fuck!” I cursed, loudly and angrily.
The object that tripped me up was Auntie’s corpse. Overwhelming pain paralyzed me briefly. Yet hungry and exhausted, I found in me new layers of strength. I was able to refrain from ignobly taking it out on the inanimate object that had caused me pain. The cause of my frustration had to be pacified so that in the future similar accidents could be avoided. I went about it with blunt angry assiduousness. I wrapped my hands under Auntie’s shoulders and lifted her. She was very heavy. As I pulled her along I smelled an unpleasant odor coming out of her open mouth. I turned my face away. Suddenly I felt the body putting up an insurmountable resistance. I pulled with all my strength but it would not budge. It turned out Auntie’s foot was hooked around one of the sideboard’s legs. I had to lay her down and unhook the damn foot. I tried a different hold. I grabbed her by the wrists and began pulling her across the floor. This was not easy either. The hands were stiff, unwieldy and difficult to steer with. Still, I managed to gain some ground. After a while her head hit the threshold. The first part of the job was behind us. Now I raised the head, then the shoulders, and pulled them over the threshold.
The hallway was narrow and cluttered. The bathroom door was hung in such a way that the body had to be turned around 180 degrees. This required a well thought-out plan and precise execution. First thing to do was remove all possible objects that stood in the way of the body. So I took down the bowl from the small chest standing by the wall, then the box full of wool, and put them away. Then, with some effort, I lifted the chest and put that away too. Slowly, I was forgetting my hunger and fatigue. I felt good, like with any noble manual labor, not the perfunctory kind but labor requiring a creative element. Bit by bit, carefully, I was pushing the corpse over the threshold, trying to position it so that in a minute I could easily pull it inside the bathroom. Now and again I spoke to myself, giving myself warnings, praises, reprimands and words of encouragement:
“Well done. Yes …
