“The poor things,” was all mother would say from time to time, “the poor things! What will those poor things say at the Lord’s Judgment?”
“They won’t say anything. They will say that they had gotten lost, and that will be that. The Lord God forgives those who’ve gotten lost,” Małgosia Snyperek would respond every time over her cup of coffee, which she took “Turkish” style.
Especially when the Christmas holidays came, the Baptists gave the impression of being completely lost in their heterodox misfortune. They would sit down to their Christmas Eve meals at some Godlessly early hour, when it was still light. They didn’t share communion hosts, they didn’t give each other presents, they didn’t eat fish. True, they did have cabbage and white roll with milk among their Christmas Eve dishes, they hung apples and candy on the tree, but all of that was too little. The untimely slumber of the Baptists was too weak an argument to incline Father to put a sheepskin coat over his shoulders and set off to find Mr. Trąba, who was undoubtedly dawdling over wrapping his presents.
Only when Mother placed the tray with immaculately sliced bread on the table, when next to it she set homemade butter in a wooden butter-dish, when she placed apples on the piano, when she set crystal dishes with nuts and rum-flavored crescent rolls next to them, only then, when she took off the light-blue cretonne apron and began to fold it with slow and alarmingly precise motions, only then would Father raise his hand, with a gesture that was neither calming nor indicating an announcement, and say with preacherly passion:
“I know, I know, I know. The Catholics will be going to midnight Mass any minute now, and we still haven’t sat down to our Christmas Eve supper.”
And he would put on his sheepskin coat and hat and set off in a hurry to find Mr. Trąba, whom he would usually meet somewhere nearby anyway, often right next to the Rychter Department Store, or even closer. And so, most often they both would reappear much more quickly than we expected. Sometimes it would seem like a demonstration from a private conjuror’s séance. Father would stand in the doorway, go out, the doors would shut, the doors would open, and in that same moment they both would already be standing on the threshold, Father and Mr. Trąba, awaited for so many hours now already, and yet it was as if he had suddenly materialized out of thin air. And immediately Mr. Trąba would begin to explain himself, to apologize for being late. Presents awkwardly wrapped in gray packing paper and tied with faded ribbons would pour from under his coat. He would hand them to us right there in the hall, as if flummoxed by his own awkwardness and uncertain whether, on account of that awkwardness, the presents would last to the end of the supper.
“You will forgive me, Mrs. Chief,” he would say to Mother, “but according to our carol,” Mr. Trąba didn’t quite speak, didn’t quite sing, “‘Give Lord God a joyous evening, joyous night, first for the lord.’ So here for you, Chief, instead of the proverbial Christmas Eve brandy I bring paschal slivovitz, ergo paschal Christmas Eve brandy. And what would you say about a drink stamped with such an eschatological oxymoron? Paschal Christmas Eve brandy! What would you say? ‘Give, Lord God, a joyous evening, joyous night, first for the lord, then also for such a lady.’ Mrs. Chief, please be so kind as to accept this small expression of homage from a suffering admirer, who, the more often he sees you — you will forgive me, Chief, but the late Sigmund Freud taught you, too, that the suppression of the life of the impulses turns against you — and so, Mrs. Chief, a small expression of homage from an admirer who suffers tortures, such that, the more he sees you, the greater the tortures he suffers.”
And Mr. Trąba handed Mother the neatest little package, and she delicately undid the little ribbon and half-opened the paper, and with a girlishly lit-up face she examined a tiny little bottle of “Chat noir” perfume and a dark green silk scarf that suited her perfectly.
“‘Give, Lord God, a joyous evening, joyous night,’” now Mr. Trąba was singing with full voice, “‘First for the lord, then also for such a lady. And for his dearest servants. And for his dearest servants.’”
And Mr. Trąba would turn to me, and invariably he handed me a book.
“This, Jerzyk, is currently the most widely read book in People’s Poland: The Ugly Duchess by Lion Feuchtwanger. As literature, it is rather mediocre stuff and every bit the popular sort, but of course we ought to proclaim eternal glory to Comrade Gomułka for expressing his consent to the publishing of a novel that was, without a doubt, absolutely unintelligible to him. As I say, Jerzyk, this is not great writing, but when on the first and second days of Christmas you sit down, well stocked with nuts and sweets, next to the well-lit furnace, you will have this appropriate, relaxing, and even, in some minimal degree, edifying reading.”
“Between the city of Innsbruck and the monastery of Wilten a large open piece of level ground was covered with tents and flagpoles,” I read the first sentence of The Ugly Duchess. Father stared at the Hebrew alphabet on the violet-golden book jacket.
“Sit down, sit down, sit down,” Mother always called out three times as she hurried to the kitchen.
•
But this time, as soon as Father began, with desperate passion, to speak his threefold “I know, I know, I know,” Mother — already after his first “I know”—said, “Sit,” and with classically feminine thoughtlessness, she destroyed the entire finely-wrought construction of mythical repetition.
“Sit,” she said. “Have you already forgotten what happened last year? He’ll go,” and she looked at me. “Put on your hat, coat, and gloves, and go get Mr. Trąba. You know where Daddy’s Siamese brother lives? Beyond the Protestant Hall on the left.”
The humiliating supposition that I might not know where Mr. Trąba lived didn’t even particularly sting me. It was probably the first time that I had stood in for Father in a crucial matter, and I put on my hat, coat, and gloves, trying to lend an unhurried male decisiveness to my gestures. In fact, last year Father had gone out for Mr. Trąba, and, after a good hour, Mother whispered with whitened lips, “They have both disappeared for all eternity.” And when after an eternity they finally appeared, they were drunk as lords, joyous, and inordinately roused intellectually.
“All the best, Chief,” Mr. Trąba leaned over the table like Pastor Potraffke over the edge of the pulpit. “Lord Jesus has already begun His reign, Chief, although this is still hidden from the eyes of Comrade First Secretary Władysław Gomułka, just as in days of old it was hidden from the eyes of Caesar Augustus. But both of them, both of them, Chief, both Caesar Augustus and Secretary Gomułka already serve Lord Jesus. It was said by the prophets that the Savior would be born in Bethlehem. And whose doing was it that the Holy Family found itself in Bethlehem? It was the doing of Caesar Augustus, who gave out the decree, for if he hadn’t given out the decree, Joseph and Mary would certainly have remained in Nazareth. And just as the great Caesar Augustus had to serve Christ with his decree, contributing to the fact that His birth happened in Bethlehem in accordance with the prophecies, so also First Secretary Władysław Gomułka has to serve Christ by raising the price of boneless beef, contributing in this very way to the fact that, in accordance with what was said by the prophets, Communism will fall. . All the best, Chief.”
The communion wafer, dipped in honey, shook dangerously in Mr. Trąba’s restless fingers. Mother looked at the drop that was falling onto the table cloth as if she wished to cut off its flight with some desperate motion, or perhaps to turn back the course of events the prophets had foretold.