Andrzej Galicki
CANDLELIGHT STORIES
Montreal 2015
OTHER BOOKS IN ENGLISH
BY ANDRZEJ GALICKI
White Valley
At the Crossroads
Orion
CANDLELIGHT STORIES
Andrzej Galicki
Copyright ©2015 Andrzej Galicki
Cover - painting "Never Ending Day" 1998
by: Andrzej Galicki
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the publisher and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of contents
1. Tatiana
2.Iza from Adria
3. Rusalka
4. Long, black veil
5. What would you do if she was alive?
6. Station Red Poppies
7. Few candlelight stories
8. The raft of Meduza
9. Bartek
10. Browarek
11. Beginning of the Book
12. Vampire Lady from Warsaw
Tatiana
Do you like old cemeteries, with their extraordinary atmosphere of almost perpetual twilight, shady canopy of trees, eternal smell of rotting leaves and the constant whispers that only a few are chosen to hear? If you are a nature poet, an old cemetery is the place for you. Here, the words themselves are arranged in poems. But beware, because you never know what you might find among these tombs covered in overgrown moss, especially after dusk...
Perhaps the story described in this book seems unlikely, but where does it say that only likely things are supposed to affect us in our lives?
***
At the beginning of October 1968, I began my studies in the Plock branch of Warsaw Polytechnic, Department of Civil Engineering. It was a whole new facility only recently opened - just in its second year of existence - and not everything yet was organized. The university did not have its own building and was located in the "borrowed" building of the Technical School. Students from outside Plock lived in rented, private lodgings or in the dormitory of the same Technical School. One wing of the dormitory was dedicated to academicians and a corresponding plaque was mounted at the entrance.
The College Dean secretary had just sent me there. The address given to me was Norbertanska street 11, Room No. 1.
The room was the closest to the main entrance. Inside, I found four metal-framed military beds on both sides and one table near the window. I was the first to arrive, so inevitably, I took the bed that seemed the most comfortable to me - the one on the left side, near the window. When I met the other three people assigned to our room, I found out that all four of us were from Warsaw, like the most part of students directed here. The next day, we all walked the long Kilinski street - which was named after a simple Warsaw shoemaker, who probably never thought that such a long street in Plock would bear his name - to our classes and so our first academic year began.
Autumn was beautiful, as usual in Poland. Kilinski street was lined with chestnut trees. On the way to lectures, we gazed at those shiny, brown balls looking curiously out at the world from between clusters of grass and kicked them down the road. With this unsophisticated fun, we considerably shortened the long way to our university.
I had never lived in a dormitory or boarding house before, so this sudden movement into the unknown prompted me to reflect on myself and to compare my personality with that of my colleagues. And here there was actually a shock, since it turned out that the comparison was not always to my advantage. In fact, the results were sometimes really embarrassing. I was neither the most talented nor the smartest. I was also not the strongest or the most hard working. And as a testament to my mediocrity, I realized that I was not even the laziest of the bunch, which was the last title I was counting on. But the result of comparison, however, was unable to break the deep conviction I had inside of me that I was different from all of them, that I was not the same. Maybe I was neither better nor worse, but certainly a little different. For a long time, I wondered what this difference was, and where my unshakable certainty of its existence came from. It cost me a few sleepless nights before I finally realized what was going on.
I just knew something they all did not know, but whenever I tried to explain it to them, my efforts were deterred by their indifference like a fat fly hindered by a glass window. There was no way to penetrate through the armor of their ignorance with the vague arguments I had at my disposal. The case was made all the more difficult by the fact that I only had a rough understanding of what I meant. I could not express it clearly using words. It felt as if human speech did not have a sufficient amount of sounds to convey my thoughts. This feeling comes back to me even today, when, in the middle of a conversation with some people I know, I can see in their eyes infinitely clear misunderstanding and impatience, waiting when I will finally be finished, because after all, they have something more important to say.
I shut down in such cases. I hide with my thoughts like a turtle in my shell, releasing only some banal jokes and pleasantries that are usually worthy of attention and interest. But that is now. Then, I was young and ambitious. I realized that the glass could be broken only by using special methods.
I've never been a good speaker, and so I decided to use the weapon, which is the charm of the spoken word. Of course, I mean poetry. I set aside for this purpose one of my academic checkered notebooks and an ordinary, blue pen. They were sufficient, as I had no intention, yet to publish my poetry. The more important thing was to learn first how to shout out the seething truths inside me. Trying to pass them off as something more was still a distant thing.
Writing poetry in the dorm was a completely impossible task. There, one could not even study in peace. How much more write poetry? I could probably also win for myself a reputation of ridicule, then I would be left alone, but that would stick to my skin forever. No, what I needed was peace and inspiration, complete isolation from those screams, curses, the sound of clinking bottles of wine and puking in the toilets, which are the ordinary, everyday sounds of a male dorm. As it turned out, I was extremely lucky. Only about 200 meters from the building where the student housing was located, on the very same Norbertanska street, there was an old, abandoned cemetery, where the mixed graves of both civilian and military from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War were laid. I discovered the place while I was wandering around on my own and immediately fell in love with the prevailing mood there - the melancholic silence, scant streaks of light piercing through the dense foliage of large trees with apparent difficulty, the mysterious atmosphere suspended in the air. They were all just what I needed then.
The right side from the cemetery entrance looked newer, filled with graves from the Nazi war period and later. The left side, on the other hand, looked much more interesting. The old, crumbling gravestones and tombs seemed already forgotten, overgrown with moss and ferns and in the middle of them all stood a small chapel - orthodox style, which was likely where the funeral rites were once held. Walking towards this extraordinary sanctuary, I tried to read some of the inscriptions on the moss-covered sandstone panels.
It seemed to me that I could hear the exultant whispers of those who had been lying here for so long, as if they were rejoicing that someone might be interested in them that they had not fallen completely into oblivion. The sounds were not hostile to my ears. Rather, they sounded like they were greetings from
the other side of life.
These were the graves of the Russian and Polish, the tsarist army officers lying side by side with Polish insurgents, the unsubordinated subjects of Russian annexation.
Once, while passing by one of the tombs, I heard a growl. I stood still, scared. The dark shadow flitted suddenly from beyond the grave and hid among the bushes. I could not exactly see what it was. Maybe a fox? I had heard that there were a lot of foxes lingering around cemeteries, but it seemed too big to be a fox. And too dark. I looked at the vertical plate of sandstone, where an inscription made in Cyrillic letters was still partially visible:
“Peter Ivanovich Zaharov
General- Major
Tatiana Zaharova
His daughter”
The rest I could not read, although it looked like some fuzzy dates and ornaments. The plate was cracked and had already been heavily nibbled on by the tooth of time.
"Why would a fox (or maybe not a fox) guard just this tomb?" I wondered. Guard? At least that was the impression I got.
I set aside that question, though, as I went back to the dorm happy with my discovery of the cemetery, which I did not share with my colleagues, of course. The place had become my place, my very own "creative sanctuary", and the place of my reverie.
It happened that in our room, only I was a student of civil engineering. Three colleagues studied at the department of mechanical engineering. They called me "bricklayer" and I called them "locksmiths", which seemed suitable. One afternoon, they had to prepare for the first test of the semester, a kind of trial test. I was obviously not concerned. When they opened the next bottle of cheap, cider wine in preparation, I took my checkered academic notebook and my blue pen out of my cabinet and hastily left the room.
The day had only begun to turn grey, but when I crossed the gate of the cemetery and found myself under the umbrella of spreading branches, I regretted that I did not take my flashlight with me. Pretty soon, it would be dark, and how would I be able to write my damn poems then? Well, I would just have to see. I walked towards the chapel, having already set my mind on its stone steps as my place of work. I firmly believe true art is born on the stones, not in a comfortable chair.
I sat down and opened my notebook on the first, yet clean page. I took the pen in my teeth and pondered. Around me, there was only silence, seemingly created for artistic inspiration. I took a deep breath, the heavy smell of ferns and rotting leaves slowly filling my lungs. Then, finally, I forced myself to touch the pristine white paper with the oozing tip of the ballpoint pen.
"Heavy clouds hung over the city... " - I started writing, then looked up at it. What clouds? Damn, there were no clouds up ahead. Through the gap between the branches, only a dark blue sky that was quickly turning grey could be seen. I could not start with a lie, for whoever begins to lie will supposedly lie for life. I struck out the first line and started over:
"Across a clear sky rushed puffy..."
You're the puffy idiot - I thought, and again crossed out the first line.
"In this quiet autumn evening... "
This time I stopped because I felt someone's eyes boring into me. Shivers went up my spine, from my waist up to my neck. Slowly, carefully, I looked up from my notebook. Before me, in the middle of the alley, sat a big, dark wolfhound which was looking at me straight in the eye, its gaze was deep and inquisitive, as only an Alsatian wolf could look in the evening in the middle of the cemetery. I tried to get up. I even grumbled "Sorry, sir" but he growled so threateningly that I stopped. I did not know what to do. Of course, poetry evaporated immediately from my head. My hand instinctively reached into my pocket and pulled out one of the "cuckoo" candies there, which I raised slowly to my lips. The beast followed my every move closely, ready to pounce on me at any moment. Its eyes suddenly sunk into my "cuckoo" as two ruby lasers (I had read about the device from the "Young Technician" magazine, so I knew what laser light beams looked like.)
“You, Igor, do you want a ‘cuckoo’?” I asked suddenly,
surprising even myself with this name. How could I know it? I threw the candy at him. He caught it on the fly and devoured it immediately, not sucking or smacking like me. He simply snapped his jaw and the candy was no more. Then he stepped closer and let me stroke his big, shaggy head. I realized then that we had become friends.
From the depths of the alley, I suddenly heard whistling.
“Igor, where are you?” It was a woman's voice. The dog lifted his head and barked briefly, and on the path between the graves I saw the figure of a young woman heading towards us.
When she came closer, I saw that she was still very young and beautiful. She was dressed in a bright, long dress, the hem of which almost scraped the dirt. It had a bow at the front, just below the chest. It reminded of the clothes women wore in old movies. Now, the girls in college usually wore jeans and cotton blouses. To complete her rather absurd look, she had a small hat in the same color as her dress, and she held in her hands a small parasol with a thin, long handle that ended with an ivory knob shaped like a cat's head.
I looked at her in disbelief, not knowing what to say while scratching Igor behind his ears, which he clearly liked.
“You gave Igor a ‘cuckoo’ candy?” she asked, shifting her glance from the dog to me.
“I did. Otherwise, he would have eaten me. Is his name really Igor? Is he your dog?”
She came closer and sat next to me on the stairs.
“Yes, it is Igor, but he does not belong to me. He’s a friend.”
She folded the umbrella and set it down so that it was leaning on the stairs, next to the place where she was sitting.
“Do you live somewhere near here?” I asked another question, maybe one too many. Apparently, you should not ask a stranger personal questions. It is not considered good manners, but her presence here seemed to me so absurd that I could not resist.
“Oh, yes, quite near. I live with Daddy. My mother is away, somewhere near Moscow.”
I noticed then that she spoke with a Russian accent, though it was barely audible, slightly dragging the middle or last syllable of each word, which added to its pronunciation a melodious sound so characteristic of this beautiful, Slavic speech.
“My name is Tatiana” she said, and first stretched out her hand in my direction.
“Andrzej” I introduced myself, extending my hand as well, though it did not encounter anything in its path except clear air. In one second, I became petrified with horror. Tatiana did not exist. I saw her clearly in the moonlight that streamed through the gap between the branches, where not so long ago I had glimpsed the already dark sky. I saw her pale, astonishingly beautiful face. I saw real disappointment in those beautiful black eyes under classical bows of eyebrows. Finally, I saw them brim with tears, and then suddenly, I stopped being afraid. I felt sorry for her as some indescribable despair was painted in her gaze. I ventured then to ask the next question:
“Why are you crying? Can I help you?”
“Are not you afraid of me? Why do you not run away?”
“At first I wanted to” I confessed. “But when you started to cry, I changed my mind. Now, I don’t even think about it.”
“I thought you were my chance. I thought you'd be able to touch me. It might possibly help me. But you do not feel me, just like everyone else. I am very disappointed.”
“And Igor? Does he feel your touch?”
“Igor? Of course he does.” She stroked the head of the Alsatian and the dog licked her hand with compassion. Then something dawned in her mind. She stretched out her hand in my direction.
“Can you lick it?” Asked she hopefully. “Maybe that would work?”
“I would prefer the other hand,” I mumbled, pointing to the hand the dog had not licked.
Immediately, she reached out her other hand toward my face. I licked the air, nothing more.
“It’s just as I thought” she whispered, disappointed. “It's not enough.”
“Wh
at more can I do?”
“You have to believe in me, that's all. Igor believes. That’s why he feels me. You'd have to know me better, but it could take a lot of time. Could we arrange to meet a few times and see if we will finally succeed? Would you like to take on this boring task?”
I agreed, of course. Each poet would have agreed, especially the one that has not yet posted any verse. So we agreed to meet again the next day. Tatiana smiled and sent me a farewell kiss with her hand. After a moment, her pale dress disappeared in the dark alleys of the cemetery. Igor stood up without a word. He wagged his tail and followed her.
***
The next morning before my classes, I remembered that I left my book of poetry at the cemetery, on the stone steps. It was still empty, a small loss for the art, but anyway, it was a shame to lose it. The A4-sized academic notebook with rigid covers cost a lot of a student’s budget. After breakfast, I went there to retrieve my loss.
"What a strange place?" I thought along the way. Not for a moment did I doubt that I had suffered hallucinations yesterday evening. Maybe it was the damn poetry, causing my brain to climb to higher levels of imagination that it created the dog and Tatiana and all the rest. Or maybe it was some natural gas or the intoxicating scent of those ferns altering my brain? No, ferns, probably do not smell so it may be the smell of rotting leaves. The air was so heavy and musty, I remembered well. I might have inhaled some dross.
After crossing the gate, I stopped for a while, captivated by the beauty and mystery of the place. Through the spaces between the tree branches, the sun's rays fell in slanting streaks illuminating the old stone tombs, turning their lush green moss gold, and everything was bathed in a haze of morning dew which floated upward in billows as it evaporated from the leaves of grasses and shrubs under the heat of the morning sun. I stood there entranced for some time, savoring the view, which one could see only in dreams or in the classic paintings hanging from the walls of an art museum. Well, now I knew what my first poem was going to be about. Then I remembered my notebook. Passing by a familiar grave, I looked again at the faded inscription: