Grand Master Swaczyna glided with a decisive gait through the empty and cleanly swept Market Square, dressed in a faultlessly tailored light-blue suit. I had received wings, and I was already prepared to commit an act of betrayal, but my enlightened mind now began to play for time and to consider the fundamental question of whether there was any need for committing an act of betrayal. I was enveloped by the smell of the world’s most expensive eau-de-cologne. I bowed. Grand Master Swaczyna politely returned my bow.
“A beautiful day, Jerzy, my good man, as beautiful as, excuse the expression, five hundred new złotys,” he began the conversation with his perfect low voice.
“The dearest day in the world,” I responded.
Grand Master Swaczyna looked at me with his splendid blue eyes — to match them he chose the most expensive blue shirts and the most expensive blue suits in the world — and he sighed in relief.
“Conversation with you, sir, my good Jerzy, is a true pleasure. If you don’t mind, if you have a little time, let’s look in on my shooting-gallery for a moment.”
Grand Master Swaczyna winked perfectly, smiled dazzlingly, and added playfully:
“My shooting-gallery worth all the money in the world. After you, sir,” and he offered his hand.
I turned around, and I caught sight of a spanking-new Citroën in the shadow of an old spreading willow tree. The sky-blue body had in it the intensity of the heavens of August.
“I brought it here from Warsaw yesterday. I crawled along all day long. I was afraid I would destroy the engine. I sold the Moskwicz for a small profit.”
Grand Master Swaczyna jingled the keys. He opened the windows and doors. He wiped invisible dust from the dashboard with a chamois. He started the engine, and, with his head thrown back, like a director listening to the first notes of an orchestra, he listened to the music of the first revolutions. The interior of the car smelled of the eternal odor of nothingness delimited by matter. It was the odor of the most expensive bars, exclusive clubs, and elegant apartments, the odor of costly hotels, rare substances, and harmonious objects.
We drove along the river. The first vacationers were taking off their dresses, rubbing suntan lotion onto their shoulders, and carefully spreading out gray blankets on the grassy banks. Grand Master Swaczyna nervously adjusted the collar of his deluxe shirt time and again.
“More than one body worthy of attention will be brought to the light of day today. More than one, Jerzy.” His intonation misled me. I was certain that immediately thereafter he would add the necessary conclusion, or that he would offer me unambiguous advice about life. But he unexpectedly fell silent, and having lost my concentration and irritated at myself, I was no longer able to guess where he was headed, what he had in mind.
“Is it true what people say about you?” I asked after a while.
“It depends which of the numerous legends that circulate about me you mean. Just what do they say?”
“They say,” I started stammering, although I had sworn that I wouldn’t stammer, “they say, that you are the richest man in the world.”
Grand Master Swaczyna waved it off scornfully.
“What do you mean?” he said with distaste and irritation. “What do you mean? Don’t believe every rumor you hear. The richest man in the world! That’s a good one!” Grand Master Swaczyna was enjoying his own scorn and irritation. “The richest man in the world! I’m not even in the top ten!” Now he spoke quickly and forcefully, with the bitter sarcasm of a man who was conscious of his defeats in life. “Come on, I’m not even in the top ten. It isn’t enough that I’m not there, I’m falling. To put it bluntly, I’m falling on my face. Last year I was number fifteen, but today I’m seventeen. That, among other things, was precisely what I wanted to check on in Warsaw. Do you realize, Jerzy, what it means to be number seventeen!? It means not to exist at all.”
•
Flakes of green paint were falling off the brittle walls of the shooting gallery. Through the crevices in the crooked boards and battered sheet metal arose straight streams of light. In the depths, in the thick green shadow, stood rows of glass tubes, paper flowers, and matches. Cigarettes hung on invisible threads. Black-and-white photos of film stars, petrified candies, above that shields full of shots, in the corner a monstrous doll no one could win — you had to have seventy-two points from six free-hand shots in order to win it, a result that even an Olympic champion could never achieve.
Małgosia Snyperek sat on a stool outside that rickety pavilion, which, it seemed, would collapse with the least puff of air. She exposed her freckled little face to the sun. She had rolled up her sad little dress, which was sewn together from various mismatched fabrics, and you could see her paper-white thighs. She was startled at the sight of us, and putting her sackcloth gown and her indifferent hairstyle in order, she fled inside and attempted to lend an expression of business-like readiness to her happenstance features.
“How’s business, Miss Małgorzata? How’s business today?” Mr. Swaczyna asked in a friendly, but at the same time thoroughly official, tone.
“There hasn’t been anyone yet. There hasn’t been a single client.”
“That’s not good.” Grand Master Swaczyna became concerned, and he put on such an air, executed such gestures, and spoke such that there was no way around it: Małgosia had no choice but to feel guilty. Even I felt guilty.
“Maybe this afternoon,” I said without conviction, “maybe things will pick up a bit this afternoon, when people start to go to the summer festival.”
“That’s not good.” Grand Master Swaczyna, immersed in his supposedly immense calculations, seemed to have heard nothing. “That’s not good. That’s not good at all. If things continue like this, I’ll be reduced to begging. In short, I don’t know what to do.” He suddenly turned to me and spoke as if he expected real advice. “In short, I don’t know what to do. Whether to sell the firm for a modest gain, or to remodel, or to lower prices. . I don’t know. . I’ll have to think about it. Today is not a day for final decisions.”
In very carefully choreographed reverie, Grand Master Swaczyna slowly began to take off his jacket. He took it off, methodically folded it, and delicately placed it on a counter that had been worn shiny by the elbows of generations of shooters. Then, with equal calm, he began to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. He rolled them up, and he said with studied politeness:
“Miss Małgorzata, a weapon and ammunition, if you please.”
And when Małgosia Snyperek handed him an air-rifle and placed a can full of shot before him, he stood for a long time with the gun in his hand, with the barrel turned upwards, and with hateful reflection he examined the un-hittable army of matches, sticks, and glass tubes that paraded in the depths of the shooting gallery. And then, with uncanny accuracy, he began to decimate the rickety-legged detachments. Splinters and pieces of glass, scraps of paper floated about in the air. After each shot, Grand Master Swaczyna raised up the weapon with a melodious motion and shouted triumphantly:
“Dress!
“Blouse!
“Skirt!
“Slip!
“Bra!
“Panties!
“Left sandal!
“Right sandal!
“Left earring!”