A Thousand Peaceful Cities

By Jerzy Pilch

"If laughter actually is the best medicine, fortunate readers of this wonderful novel will surely enjoy perfect health for the rest of their days."—Kirkus Reviews

A comic gem, Jerzy Pilch's A Thousand Peaceful Cities takes place in 1963, in the latter days of the Polish post-Stalinist "thaw." The narrator, Jerzyk ("little Jerzy"), is a teenager who is keenly interested in his father, a retired postal administrator, and his father's closest friend, Mr. Traba, a failed Lutheran clergyman, alcoholic, and would-be Polish insurrectionist. One drunken afternoon, Mr. Traba and the narrator's father decide to take charge of their lives and do one final good turn for humanity: travel to distant Warsaw and assassinate the de facto Polish head of state, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, Wladyslaw Gomulka—assassinating Mao Tse-tung, after all, would be impractical. And they decide to involve Jerzyk in their scheme...

Jerzy Pilch is one of Poland's most important contemporary writers and journalists. In addition to his long-running satirical newspaper column, Pilch has published several novels, and has been nominated for Poland's prestigious NIKE Literary Award four times; he finally won the Award in 2001 for The Mighty Angel. His novels have been translated into numerous languages.

David Frick is a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Letter
• Release date: Mar 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781934824481

Book preview

Praise for Jerzy Pilch

A very gifted writer. . . . The hope of young Polish prose.

—Czesław Miłosz

A highly original voice.

—Washington Times

"Pilch’s prose is masterful, and the bulk of The Mighty Angel evokes the same numb, floating sensation as a bottle of Żołądkowa Gorzka."

—Becky Ferreira, L Magazine

Also by Jerzy Pilch

in English Translation

His Current Woman

The Mighty Angel

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Copyright

Copyright © by Jerzy Pilch, 2009

Published with the permission of ŚWIAT KSIĄŻKI Sp. z o.o., Warsaw, 2009

Translation copyright © by David Frick, 2010

First ebook edition, 2010

All rights reserved

The quote on pg. 61 is from Adam Mickiewicz, Ode to Youth, Poems by Adam Mickiewicz, translated by various hands and edited by George Rapall Noyes, New York, 1944, pg. 70. The quote on pg. 75 is from Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, translated by H.T. Lowe-Porter, New York, 1969, pg. 517. The quotes on pgs. 118–119 are based on Juliusz Słowacki, Kordian, Act III, Scene 5, translated by Gerard T. Kapolka, pg. 96. The hymn on pg. 135 is taken from an English translation of Martin Luther’s Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her by Charles Winfred Douglas.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: available.

ISBN-13: 978-1-934824-48-1

Design by N. J. Furl

Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press:

Lattimore Hall 411, Box 270082, Rochester, NY 14627

www.openletterbooks.org

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Chapter I

When Father and

Mr. Trąba decided to kill First Secretary Władysław Gomułka, we were in the grip of an unending heat wave, the earth was bursting at the seams, and the anguish of my youth was just beginning.

The morphinistes were living in the attic, and there was no way to bring them under control. The stairway creaked; first came the vanguard of the odors, then the odors themselves: cocoa butter and something else that I couldn’t identify, but which must have been the odor of morphine and immoderation. Every morning—just like everybody else—they went out to sunbathe. They took along baskets of food, drinks, air mattresses, sunshades, bathing suits. Were they really no different from us terrestrials? Quite the opposite! They were radically different. Everyone else went to the real beach; everyone headed for pure radiance, grassy banks, and the babbling current. But they went in the other direction, into the depths of the deepest brush, to the very heart of the drought, right to the fuses of the still inactive machinery of conflagration. In short, everyone else went to the swimming pool or to the banks of the Vistula, but they went to the forests on Buffalo Mountain.

There’s really nothing strange here, Mr. Trąba rubbed his hands venomously, there’s really nothing strange. It’s a well known fact that the Prince of Darkness feels A-OK in stuffy copses in the heat of July. It’s a well known fact that he is mad about the sulfur hour: twelve noon. A well known fact . . . a well known fact . . . a well known fact.

Mr. Trąba unexpectedly lost the thread of his infallible argument.

We know irrefutably, Chief, he addressed Father, we know irrefutably that they associate with the Antichrist, but we don’t know the operational details, and that worries us. Of what use to them, by a billion barrels of beer, of what use to them is that Babylonian blanket?

•

Nobody knew why the morphinistes needed that truly Babylonian blanket, which they lugged along with them, in addition to their swimsuits, baskets, and air mattresses. The wildest expanses of unbridled speculation opened up in our puritanical heads. The blanket was great and luxuriant, like the canopy of a deployed parachute, crimson on one side, gold on the other. Crimson and gold like the outside and inside of a royal mantle, like the shimmering surfaces of two holy rivers traversing an empire, crimson like blood and gold like a suntan. There was no such princely covering in the entire house, to say nothing of the room they had rented in the attic. None of us had ever even seen such licentious bedding.

No army in the world, Mr. Trąba’s voice rose to a desperate pitch, no army in the world has ever strapped such monstrous plunder to its saddle. Not even the victorious Red Army. By the way, Chief, do you remember how the victorious Red Army grazed in my yard toward the end of the war? Do you remember in what satins, brocades, and cloths of gold they were wrapped?

I don’t remember, Father said coldly, I don’t remember, because as a soldier of the Wehrmacht I sat in Russky bondage toward the end of the war in Serpukhov, near Moscow.

"Oh, that’s right. I always forget, Chief, that you are basically a repatriate. Well, these krasnoarmeytsy—by the way, they were an exceptionally cultured detachment; on account of their delicacy, my ward Emilia, God rest her soul, departed this world intacta. It’s quite a different matter that the poor girl’s only chance was the confusion of war or the passage of foreign troops. In peacetime conditions her exterior was a bit too radically conspicuous. To tell the truth, I myself made some effort that she might be granted knowledge of the animal pleasures of touch on this earth. But, as God is my witness, it was impossible to ignore reality to that degree. I suffer because of this, and I reproach myself to this day. Perhaps I should have shown greater generosity, concentrated more, focused on those rare aspects of her corporality that were acceptable . . . May the earth be light upon her. Or rather, may it weigh just as much as he whose weight she was never to feel . . . So, Chief, those krasnoarmeytsy, who were grazing in my yard, carried off entire armfuls of down comforters, feather beds, and silk bedspreads from the Presidential Castle, but not even they had such a blanket. What would you say, Chief, to the phrase: ‘Not even the victorious Red Army had a blanket like the one the morphinistes have?’ What would you say?"

A good phrase, and worthy of reward, said Father, whose habit it was to reward Mr. Trąba’s more artful sentences with a shot of blackthorn vodka, and he approached the sideboard, took out a bottle, and poured a shot of blackthorn vodka. Then he raised the overflowing glass, glanced at the swaying phantoms of the addicts who were caught in the oily drink, and said skeptically: But will you like it, will you like it, Mr. Trąba?

There is no way, Chief, no way to like it, Mr. Trąba’s voice broke, melting like an October frost. After all, you know, Chief, that I don’t drink because I like it; rather, I drink in order to intensify existence.

Without a word Father gave Mr. Trąba the glass, and he poured its contents in one lightning-fast draught into his broadly gaping mouth. Not one muscle trembled in his face, neither eye flickered, no sigh of relief or of delight was heard. In making room in his entrails for the blackthorn vodka, Mr. Trąba froze and stood motionless. He became like an object, a vessel, a jug that—although it doesn’t see, hear, or feel—desires to be filled.

•

Not even the Red Army had a blanket like the one the morphinistes had. But what use did they have for such a lair in 100-degree heat? Why did they take that blanket to the forests on Buffalo Mountain? Probably in order to make a bed with it in a forest clearing, for it was truly as big and as fecund as a forest clearing. Whom did they cover there in the depths of the backwoods? What canopy bed, and whose, stood there among the spruces and the firs? What terrible entanglements must have taken place under that blanket? Or even on top of it?

Father didn’t give any major signs, but his gradually growing irascibility revealed that he too was plagued by these fundamental riddles. Mr. Trąba dropped by more and more frequently. He seemed—inconceivably!—not to care about a reward; he didn’t apply himself to the declaiming of phrases; he didn’t even attempt to maintain a semblance of disinterest. He gaped without embarrassment. His glance constantly ran up and down the stairs over which the morphinistes carried the blanket that blocked out the entire world. Even Mother, eternally occupied with putting her correspondence with the bishop in order, lifted her head from the postcard-strewn desk and, I have to admit, stared without reproach at those two dazzling witches. Their glances burned red-hot, like undying infernos; their venomously twisted mouths were ready to whisper a curse; their sulfurous skin was ready to explode at any moment.

•

You just wanted one of them to be a blonde, the other a brunette; one short, the other tall; one scrawny, the other massive. You just wanted this sort of fundamental contrast. But no, they were as similar to each other as badly cast actresses: both tall, slender, raw-boned, grey-eyed; both had hair cut short and dyed red in the same fashion; both had skin that was oily to the same degree, but that slight defect was so noticeable in its doubling that it must have given rise to a sort of desperate aggression in their souls.

That summer I was chasing after the angel of my first love, and I didn’t really pay much attention to them. I didn’t pay attention to much of anything. Still, the mystery of their blanket, unclean like Sodom and Gomorrah, caught even my attention. One day, I set out to follow them. I penetrated through thickets that were as stuffy as the Sahara. I breathed in the smell of the earth, which was as dry as the moon. The crimson-gold panache disappeared from my sight time and again. I parted the branches. I crept through fir-needle brush that was as hot as chicken-noodle soup. But when I surmised, judging by the traces left and the ruts furrowed out, that they, that everyone, had gone this way, following the tantalizing trail of the morphinistes, I turned back. Even if everyone hadn’t gone that way, without a doubt the decided majority had gone that way, and among that majority—although at the same time decidedly outside their group—was Mr. Trąba.

I have solved their secret, Chief, but only in the visible, which is to say in a highly inferior, aspect, he said to Father in partial triumph.

•

Mr. Trąba was a diminutive, darkish, and dreadfully skinny man. He was deceptively similar to Bruno Schulz, both in the soft intonation of his voice and in his polite gestures.

Always, everywhere, and everybody, Chief, everybody took me for a Jew. I never regretted this. On the contrary, I was happy about it. Although we both know that being a Lutheran in Poland means having an even more subtle existence than being a Jew in Poland. There once were Jews in Poland, and now there are none; but once there were no Lutherans, and now there are none of us too.

The spaces of nothingness, white as snow in Mr. Trąba’s squat and stumpy silhouette, lent him deadly charisma. That summer his hands shook more and more, his features were becoming sharper and sharper, and the smell of spirits never left him. Mr. Trąba more and more frequently, and with greater and greater desperation, expatiated upon the end of his world.

The shame of it aside Chief, I think that before the sudden end of your life arrives you must do two things: you must do something for humanity, and you must discover how, in operative terms, those sorceresses live with the Antichrist. And I said to the Lord: ‘Lord, give me the strength of the trumpets that swept away Jericho, that I might sweep away this and that,’ and I set off in pursuit of them.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trąba’s story about his pursuit of the morphinistes was a story without a turning point and without a conclusion. He followed them closely, never losing sight of them even for a moment. He heard their voices, even their breathing. Anyway, they very quickly noticed his presence, and they paid him no attention. Once or twice they looked over their shoulders in his direction, and that was that. They were clearly accustomed to the more or less camouflaged sleuth-hounds constantly at their heels. Finally, as was to be expected, they reached a little clearing in the depths of the forest. The morphinistes spread the cover, stripped to their beachwear, and made the crimson-golden blanket into something like a rampart encircling their camp. They lay down, and all around there was absolute silence. An hour passed, maybe two. Mr. Trąba wasn’t able to report accurately on the passing of time. Doubtless he dozed for a good while. After all, he hadn’t set out on such an expedition empty-handed. Even now, after more than thirty years, as I laboriously attempt to recreate, step by step, all the murderous scenes of those seasons, I see precisely this scene—even though I didn’t see it, nor did anyone mention this detail to me—precisely this scene, with infallible clarity. Mr. Trąba hastens through the forest on Buffalo Mountain in his silvery-black suit. The morphinistes lug the huge blanket, look over their shoulders, whisper something to each other, giggle. Mr. Trąba picks up the pace, and yet he stops time and again, draws from his breast pocket a soldier’s flask that once upon a time an exceptionally—and just how exceptionally!—cultured detachment of the victorious Red Army had given him. And time and again he takes refreshment, and time and again, with the help of repeated sips of the rectified spirits he had mixed with huckleberry compote, he intensifies the will to pursuit and inquiry in himself. If that is how it was—and that is surely how it was—I can’t rule out the possibility that the remainder of Mr. Trąba’s account was the report from a narcotic dream, which may have taken him in its embrace in the amicable ferns on the edge of the clearing. And so, for at least two hours, complete silence reigns there, absolute peace. Nothing happens. And yet, when the time is up, and the hour rings, a secret movement among the bed of leaves and needles commences and macabre shadows, the phantoms of forest people, an entire throng, begins to creep out from the backwoods. According to Mr. Trąba they were tramps, social outsiders, fugitives, and refugees, with faces flogged by the wind. Riffraff and savages, fallen intellectuals and incurable alcoholics. There was allegedly even a certain writer who, to cover his tracks, had mixed in with this obscure little band and taken up residence in a primitive hut. There was, as Mr. Trąba feverishly asserted, an incredible psychopath with a hateful glance. There was—Mr. Trąba swore on all that was holy—a Stalinist butcher who was devoid of human feeling, and God knows who else. And that wild crowd of men, prey to untamable desires, was gathered a short distance from where the morphinistes were entrenched in their Babylonian blanket; and they remained quite motionless, and nothing further happened. Granted, the forest hobos cast greedy glances from time to time. New arrivals emerged from the forest, joining their colleagues in the clearing and gaping at the morphinistes’ lair. They even bowed awkwardly. But nothing else—no crude remarks or gross propositions, just peace and quiet; although, as Mr. Trąba emphasized, it was a peace and a quiet that was full of a singular tension. And that’s how it was until dusk, when the morphinistes, with identically melodious motions, arose from the flames surrounding them, dressed, collected all they needed, and set off on their return trip. Then the forest people also began to melt away. In ones, twos, and threes they disappeared into the thickets. Mr. Trąba also arose from his observational lair (perhaps he awoke from amicable dreams?), refreshed his clothing as best he could, and set off

Reviews for A Thousand Peaceful Cities

[hemlokgang · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Think about this...."The invention of stories about oneself is the duty and irresistible temptation of the true man. The made-up story is the song of his life and death. The story of the loser, the invented story of the loser, is the sign of the winner." This is the primary driving belief, in my opinion, behind the story of the Chief, Jerzy, and Mr. Traba's plot to assassinate the communist leader of Poland in 1963. Did they do it? Did they fantasize about it as they fantasized about the French woman who whispered "mille....villes.....tranquille" in the ear of her lover (thousand....peaceful...cities...the title of the novel)? I will be pondering this novel for a while. Very good!

[mthelibrarian_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in 1963. Communism, religion and family play a large role in this short fiction (143 pages). Polish author; translated work. In the story, Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" is read annually and reference is made to a famous Polish tale "The Ugly Duchess" by Lion Feuchtwanga. "Ship of Fools" by Katherine Anne Porter is also mentioned. I've not read any of those works.

[nuwanda_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A quirky small tale of the loss of innocence, as little Jerzyk is growing up and experiencing his first love -- and gets subsequently involved in an intricate plan by his father and his friend, Mr. Trąba, who have both decided to do something for the good of the mankind and assassinate Władysław Gomułka, the Secretary of Polish United Workers' Party. The story is, however, very little about what happens, rather than numerous small digressions, flashbacks, loops, and sideways glances at the despair and greatness of human existence.