The Graveyard by Marek Hlasko Page B

Bear. He turned off the phonograph. “This music is no good,” he said. “There are people all around;someone may be listening in.” He jumped up from his seat, rushed to the other room, and after a moment came back with a little boy. “This is my son,” he said to Franciszek, and made the boy stand in a corner with his face to the wall. “Recite Mayakovsky,” he said, and the boy began to declaim in a monotonous voice, staring with round eyes at the empty wall. “Now go on with your story,” Bear said to Franciszek.
    “I was expelled from the party,” Franciszek said. “My case will go to the District Committee, perhaps to the executive of the Regional Committee. Tell me, Bear, was I ever …” He wanted to say “twofaced,” but he suddenly realized how ridiculous he was: what did they know about each other, he and the man facing him? He stared gloomily at Bear. Now one thing was clear to him: he was guilty. He must have done something that estranged him from the party, that estranged him even from Mikołaj; now that something was closing the mouth of this man. The thought of his guilt almost brought him relief. “Yes,” he said in a low voice, “I did something terrible, I know it’s terrible, and I don’t myself understand how it could have happened. But can one moment, in which a man is not accountable for his thoughts and words, wipe out his whole life and everything he has done? Is there really such a crime?”
    Again he fell silent. The boy went on reciting in a voice as monotonous as the dripping of water from a spout:
    “Beyond the mountains of defeats the dawns glow,
    A new sunlit country is awaiting us.
    Against starvation, against the sea of pestilence
    Our million steps resound.
    Though a mercenary gang surrounds us …”
    “Will you help me, Bear?” Franciszek asked.
    “Have you been to see anyone else?”
    “No, I just telephoned Jerzy. I was told that he was on vacation, and that he’d be back in a few days. I looked you up first …” He took his hand. “You won’t refuse me, will you?”
    “Now sing, Franek,” Bear said to the boy, who began at once, “On the Vistula, the broad Vistula, rose the builders’ song …” Bear said to Franciszek: “I named him after you, in memory of those days. How can I help you?”
    “I beg your pardon,” Franciszek said, annoyed. “This is very nice of you, but must the child sing? Must he be present during our talk? Who the devil is listening in here, and what for?”
    “No, that’s not it,” Bear stammered, “but you know, silence is no good either, so let him sing; he likes it, anyway. When it’s too silent, your neighbors think at once, ‘Aha, they’re plotting something; why should anybody live so quietly?’ And they begin to have foolish ideas, about spies, or enemies. Why, sometimes I have fights with my wife, just so as not to seem too quiet. Let him sing. But if it bothers you, he can recite poetry. Franek, recite ‘Vladimir Ilyich.’ ”
    Franek began at once to declaim in the same bored tone:
    “The party is the backbone of our class,
    The party is our immortal cause,
    The party, the one thing that won’t betray me;
    Today I am a subject, tomorrow I abolish empires.
    The brain of the class, the cause of the class …”
    “So what do you want?” Bear asked.
    “I want you to help me. You, a former partisan, an officer. Don’t you understand? You are Bear, aren’t you?”
    “No,” said Bear. “And I refuse even to remember it. Or to talk about it. Or to think about it. Do you understand?”
    “So you’ve cut all that out of your past?” Franciszek asked. “You, a legendary partisan, a hero, the pride of your unit … you’ve cut all that out. Is that true?”
    They measured each other.
    “It’s true,” Bear said.
    “Don’t turn around, Franek,” Franciszek said to the boy. And, while the child went on reciting, he walked up to Bear and slapped him in the face.
    He walked out. Was that