Candlelight Stories

  Ludwik brought from the kitchen, two glasses, two plates and an open can of sardines. After another trip, he brought half a loaf of bread and a kitchen knife.

  "Sit down," Ludwik invited his guest. "We'll talk."

  They each drank a glass of murky vodka, which to Pawel tasted strangely.

  "You probably have enough petrodollars in your account now. Is it difficult to count?"

  "I had," Paul admitted. "Recently, I lost a lot of it."

  "The crisis in the stock market? The previous one or the new one?"

  "Both. First, there was the dot-com bubble, now, the real-estate bubble. Well, we are coming out of it, but I do not think I’ll get back what I lost."

  "I do not invest in anything. Money is not important. Socrates said that only truth and virtue count in life. Material things do not matter."

  "So probably he would have lost a lot also. What did he know about the stock market?"

  "You're wrong, dead wrong. A good philosopher would not have lost. Besides, he would have been too smart to deal with such nonsense as stock."

  "What are you talking about? What does philosophy have to do with finances?"

  Ludwik sighed deeply.

  "Do not play with the things you don’t know," he said. "Stock exchange is run by the psychology of the crowd. Psychology and philosophy go hand in hand like two bald horses in one harness. Do you know who was the greatest financial trader in the U.S.?"

  "Certainly not me, I know that."

  "His name was Jesse Livermore. He was the richest man of his time in the U.S. And do you know what he did to get better results? He studied psychology! See? And philosophy? This is the main science. All the sciences of the world are subordinate to it."

  "I know Livermore. He was my hero. But do you know how Jesse Livermore ended up? He went bankrupt and committed suicide. I do not think his philosophy of life was the best. Anyway, from what I know, Socrates also committed suicide. Maybe it is better to keep away from philosophy."

  They drank the next glass of strange vodka. This time, the Siwucha tasted better as alcohol often did the second time around.

  "Is this truly the taste of moonshine?" Paul tried to remember the taste he had forgotten a long time ago. He remembered only that it was something nasty, but now, after paying a high price, he had to admit it tasted quite good. “Just a minute, when was the last time I drank it? It must have been maybe thirty years ago?”

  "Socrates drank his poison because that was the judgment of the court," Ludwik enlightened."The death was a penalty for disobeying the rules of the society in which he lived. He could have ran, but he did not, for he was proud and too honest. He loved truth and justice. But we really don’t know a lot about him, as he did not leave a single written work. He was a speaker and dialectician, but not a writer. His student, Plato, wrote "The Defense of Socrates". Maybe his philosophy was too perfect for those times. As for this American, Livermore, from what I just recently read about him, he also died because he had to. He married a widow. She had four husbands before him. Can you believe it? And you know what? All of them committed suicide. Did he have a chance? "Une femme fatale". From such a woman he should have stayed away, not from philosophy. He often went bankrupt anyway, but finally left behind about five million dollars, which before the war was a lot for someone bankrupt."

  Ludwik excused himself for a while and went to the bathroom. Through the door not closed completely (the custom of the majority of men living alone) could be heard a long, philosophical piss. Then Pawel did something, something he would never have done without the two glasses of Siwucha in his stomach.

  When they entered the room, he noticed that Ludwik had walked quickly to the table, picked up some photograph in a wooden frame and put it "face down" on the table. Now, Pawel could not help himself. He reached out and lifted the frame to his eyes. The photo was an old one, black and white, taken with Ludwik’s first amateur camera. Pawel remembered well this camera of which Ludwik (back then Lutek) was very proud. The small camera of the Soviet brand Smiena appeared to them in the past as a piece the art. The young girl in the picture was holding on the handlebars of her bike. Someone else also had his hand on the same bars, but the figure was not visible. On the picture was shown just a part of one hand.

  "He cut me off, the motherfucker" Pawel thought suddenly, his temper rising even though he did not know why. As he heard the sound of the toilet flushing, he hastily put down the photograph as it lay before, face down on the table.

  "From what you are saying," Pawel returned to the subject they had been discussing "a good psychologist, or even better, a philosopher should be the best investor, because he can predict the behavior of other investors, and thus the moves of the stock exchange market."

  "A good philosopher should. But he never will, because he does not need the money. Those who dream of wealth, yet do not have a clue about the emotions that control the human mind, they have no chance."

  "And you. Could you do it?"

  "Of course. If I wanted to, in a few weeks I could make a fortune."

  "Have you tried?"

  "Why should I? I have no motivation."

  "To convince me. Apparently your Socrates walked the streets and chatted to strangers just to convince them of his rationales."

  Ludwik thought about it.

  "For this, just one meeting would not be enough."

  "I'll meet you here as many times as you wish, and each time not without "Siwucha"."

  The face of Ludwik lit up suddenly.

  "Well, we can try it."

  "Will you try in the U.S. stock market? I have no idea about the Polish."

  "I think the same laws rule every stock exchange market in the world. But I need some material. Tell me what's going on in the U.S. economy and bring me some stock charts. Print the charts of the American stock exchange from last year and the five past years."

  "There are a couple of indexes. The most important indicators are: Dow Jones, Standard & Poor's and Nasdaq."

  "The biggest. I want to include all fields of economics."

  "Standard & Poor's 500 will do. Five hundred items."

  "All right. And a bank, possibly the greatest. Money is ruled by money."

  "Maybe Citi. In this case, it is my bank. Does that bother you?"

  "No. It’s even better. You'll be involved. And what is at the moment the economy in the U.S.?"

  "Overall straits. The real estate market was so inflated because of the unsecured loans, which it all started to fall apart. Banks gave a loan to buy a house to anyone who was able to sign it, without checking whether the person is able to pay it off or not. Then, financial institutions began to trade these loans among themselves. They even created insurance funds for these loans. They also began to trade on an international scale, the true pyramid scheme based on greed, lies and deceit. Not surprisingly, it started to collapse. The first failure was "Countrywide", a huge financial credit institution. The Bank of America acquired it as a result. Now, the next two financial institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are in trouble. People are not able to repay the loans. The banks confiscate thousands of houses and don’t know what to do with them, because nobody wants to buy them. Unemployment is increasing. People are not buying new cars. General Motors, Chrysler and other companies are standing on the brink of bankruptcy. One branch of the industry pulls down the other. Everything is produced in China, American factories closing down their gates. Besides, USA is running two wars at once, with no end to either in sight and that costs a fortune. The Congress is corrupt and bribed by the banks. They run America. I do not know when this will all be over."

  "Probably not soon," Ludwik said thoughtfully. "The larger the country, the longer it takes to carry out economic reform, and the U.S. is a huge country. Besides globalization, the economy has become a worldwide monster, one great machine printing money, so it is not easy to manage. It's like trying to drive ski slalom with a road roller. But I do not mind. The worse the better.
When people panic, it is easier to guess the mood. The most difficult is when there is peace and nothing happens. Next week, we begin. Bring all the material that I asked you for."

  Pawel stood up from the table. The second bottle of Siwucha remained intact.

  "You would not know what’s up with Helena, would you?" asked he casually as he extended his hand in farewell. He noted that the face of Ludwik twitched suddenly and his eyes involuntarily ran into the reversed photo lying on the table.

  "What would you like to know?"

  "Well, just the general stuff. What is she doing? How is she doing?"

  "Immediately after you left, we got married," drawled Ludwik slowly, watching intently the face of Pawel. What he noticed on it gave him clear satisfaction. It was written in his eyes. After a while, he slowly added

  "She's now dead."

  "She's dead..." repeated Pawel unconsciously. "Dead..."

  He was clearly upset by the news.

  "Yes, for several years now. She passed away suddenly."

  "I'm sorry. You have my deepest sympathy. I would never have expected it."

  "What would you do if she was still alive?" asked Ludwik in an unexpectedly aggressive tone.

  "I would have liked to see her, that's all. Actually, I was hoping to see her. Too bad."

  They said goodbye and Paul went out into the street in the August twilight, a bit tipsy and quite badly shaken by the news of the death of Helena. In the photo, she had been holding the handlebars of her bike and just the two of them were photographed then with this Soviet camera of Ludwik. He said later that the image did not show up clearly. There was not enough light or something like that. Apparently, he just cut Pawel off. He wanted to have Helena for himself, the scoundrel.

  Paul walked slowly toward the Krakowskie Przedmiescie Avenue, thinking he would walk that way to the European Hotel where he was staying. "Well, this should make a good walk before going to sleep" - he thought.

  ***

  Paul well remembered that day, as if it was yesterday, even though it had probably been about forty years ago. Long time. He even remembered the makes of their bikes. Helena had a Goplana bike in a willow green color. Lutek had a black bicycle of Popular brand; in fact, the most common PRL bike, and Pawel had his navy blue colored Maraton. It was a half-course type bike. At the back wheel, it had a three-speed derailleur, and the front handlebars were bent down in a "ram" style.

  It was a school trip during high school. They met on a Sunday morning, in front of the school building, inspected each other's bikes (at the time, the bike brand was for a young man as important as the brand of a car today), and set out. The group rode slowly, one by one, down Sobieski Alley, then Avenue of Wilanow. Once they reached Wilanow, the PE teacher who had organized the tour ordered for them to stop at the ice cream booth.

  Lutek had his Smiena with him. He took a group photo of all with ice cream cones in their hands. After a short rest, they went further in the direction of Jeziorna until they reached the forests of Powsin. Along the way, every now and then, one of the guys sped ahead of the group and tore forward, to show how good he was on the bike. The day was beautiful. It was May, after all, ideal for cycling.

  Pawel noted that Lutek, from the start, stayed close to Helena. He was always the first to hold her bike or to fart in her tire as his classmates maliciously commented. Each of them wanted to be close to her. She was certainly the prettiest girl in the class. But nobody acted this way. It would not be well seen by others and you would only put yourself up for ridicule. Ludwik somehow did not mind. Helena ostentatiously was not paying attention to him, but you could see anyway from her behavior that she liked the fact that Ludwik was riding after her, unable to take his eyes off her shapely ass hidden under tight-fitting shorts. She did not have to turn around to know that. Girls feel the gaze of boys, even from behind.

  Once they reached Powsin, the PE teacher riding behind the group took the lead and soon they found themselves in a nice grove on a hill with a murmuring brook. There, they decided to set camp.

  They all sat on the grass and took out their sandwiches and thermoses from their backpacks. Some did not eat immediately, watching what others had to eat. Some exchanged their sandwiches. Everyone knew, after all, that a sandwich prepared by another mother tasted differently. Then, most of them scattered throughout the woods looking for mushrooms or running after squirrels.

  "Take a picture of me with my bike," asked Helena.

  Lutek, who was obviously nearby, jumped up immediately with his Smiena.

  "Or maybe you and me," joked Pawel, passing just next to them.

  "Sure, Pawelek, you too," said Helena. "Stand on the other side of the bicycle."

  Pawel stood then and leaned on the handlebar with one arm on it. He looked forward and saw that Lutek, who was readying the camera to take the photo, had a furious expression. They heard the snap of the shutter and this time, Pawel felt his hand touching the hand of Helena. It felt weird, like an electric discharge. He looked at Helena immediately, but she smiled, looking at the lens as if she had not noticed anything. That exact moment was captured in the photograph that supposedly did not show up. Yet the bastard had simply taken his time toying with how to set up the camera so that he could crop the picture as he wanted. Only the hand of Pawel did he fail to cut, perhaps because he was afraid doing so would damage Helena. Only now the cat got out of the bag, after so many years and in addition, by chance. He was angry with Ludwik but at the same time, he wanted to laugh. It reminded him of a joke he had read somewhere on the internet:

  "Tell me something that will make me joyful and sad at the same time," asked the husband.

  "You have the longest dick of all of your friends," the wife replied."

  He laughed aloud until someone stopped and stared at him in surprise. All right, the Siwucha working well.

  The string of cars moving slowly through Krakowskie Przedmiescie Avenue drew his attention. What kind of cars did they drive now in Warsaw? Where had the Warszawas, Syrenas and Trabants gone? And where were the small Maluch Fiats?

  The more questions he asked himself, the more he realized that he had a screw loose in his head and he decided it was better going back to the hotel and sleep off this Siwucha stuff.

  ***

  Prom.

  That was the first time Pawel felt the gaze of Medusa.

  It took place in a large, decorated hall, the tables laden with snacks and glasses of wine.

  The prom is not a normal school party. The difference is huge, groundbreaking. For the first time, you can officially have a drink and smoke cigarette in the open, not in the washroom. You can ask to dance with the young biology teacher. You can smash the face of the math teacher who was unjust to you... No, not that last one, although it would have been nice to try.

  They danced to the music of some little-known local rock band, drank much, smoked and increasingly soiled the toilet, which was characteristic for the majority of proms. The more fan there was to be had, the dirtier the toilet became (at least, the one for men). They danced hot pieces in groups, romantic stuff in pairs. Lutek kept asking Helena to dance. Each time, she replied that she was tired, but when the band started playing "Love Me Tender", a favorite tune of Pawel, she did not refuse him. They danced in the twilight huddled together, more and more lost in the romantic melody, until blue sparks began to jump between their bodies, and the whole room blurred into one gray background all dotted with the red glints of cigarettes. And then, in the mirror that occupied the entire wall, Pawel saw in the crowd the face of Lutek, his eyes like Medusa’s. They were sharp, stabbing him as dagger-like rays, which reflected off the glass panes straight at him. "Luckily, that's in a mirror" - he thought, uneasy. Yet at the same time, he was surprised to feel the satisfaction that Helena preferred him, not this pompous guy who always seemed to know everything better.

  They danced a few more pieces glued to each other, surrounded by the blue, romantic cloud, which as a shield
protected them from Lutek’s deadly gaze. When finally they returned to their table, Lutek regained his philosopher’s eyes, whereas he and Helena felt a kind of strange. He especially. Helena was dreamy and absent while he was seized by some peculiar anxiety, enjoyable in the beginning, then growing less and less, maybe because his balls had started to hurt and he had no idea what could be done about it.

  He walked Helena home after the celebration. Before parting, they kissed, but not seriously, rather more to see how it would feel, how it would work. And it turned out that it worked better than he expected because his ornaments ached again. Shit. Girls do not have such problems?

  There were also a few private parties before graduation. It happened sometimes that one of them had his or her "old folks" traveling and they had a "free place". Never, of course, was such an opportunity wasted. They put on some records, gave out some wine and the fun was on. But all this was not serious then, just a child’s play. Sometimes, they managed to persuade one of the girls or two to undress so that she was only in her bra, but generally, nothing more occurred than embracing and caressing during a dance or on the couch.

  Those who had big mouths bragged, of course, about how many girls they had already been with, but no one ever treated them seriously. No one perhaps, with the exception of one guy, the philosopher. He somehow was never able to take a joke and certainly not one associated with Helena. He and Pawel were still close classmates, friends even, but as soon as Helena showed up on the horizon, Lutek immediately stiffened, throwing a hostile look at him. He, for his part, played the game coolly and felt indescribable satisfaction whenever he managed to drive Lutek crazy.

  ***

  Paul took out from a plastic bag a bottle of Siwucha and put it on the table.

  Ludwik smiled like a horse at the sight of a sugar cube and went to the kitchen for glasses.

  Paul looked around. Not a trace of the photograph in the wooden frame on the table or anywhere nearby.