We began to scrub it while we were still in the water, then on the shore, then in our neighboring courtyards, and the more its original shape emerged out of the chaos, the higher my heart soared. And when, finally, it was entirely restored — that is, when, through one of its tubes, you could see some sort of image that was foggy, but brought nearer all the same — I became triumphally certain: this time I would be better. I didn’t even need to summon the Spirit of Miraculous Discoveries. I knew where to look.
IV
I searched the back room inch by inch. I looked under both beds. I dug out everything that was under the beds, and there was quite a lot of it. I looked into each and every shoe. I checked the straw mattresses. Night stands — so filled with objects that they were practically inflated — took me a lot of time. Then I checked the interior of the clock, the hearth under the stove, the ash pan under the hearth, and finally I stood before Grandma Pech’s wardrobe, heavy, deep, and dark as the ocean.
To say that no one but her had access to that wardrobe is to say nothing. Grandma herself seldom opened that wardrobe, and always with some sort of uncertainty or fear. She would then close the doors behind her; she would chase away anyone who just then happened to look in on the back room and ask her about something; just like in a film — she would block out the wardrobe with her own body, so that no one could even glance into it.
All the domestic furniture made themselves known: the table creaked, the stools were falling apart, the upholstery on the armchairs was tearing, the sideboard was headed for collapse, the stoves smoked — there was constant talk about pieces of equipment that were falling to pieces. We talked about them, and we talked to them; it was as if constant conversation with the dying objects was supposed to keep their spirits up. We talked especially frequently about all the cupboards: what to put in which one, what to bring from which one, in which one hymnals stand on the shelves, in which one Grandpa’s postal uniform was hanging, in which one there was a box of winter socks, in which one the bottom was falling out, in which one the locks needed to be oiled, in which one mice had danced the night before; this, that, and the other thing. All the cupboards were constantly on our tongues. But about the wardrobe in the back room — never even a single word. As if it didn’t exist, or rather, as if it were a wall-less specter, as if it didn’t have hinges, as if no one knew what was in it. As if demons with unpronounceable names lived in it, or as if the path to the abyss opened up in the wall behind it.
I stood before that wardrobe as before the gates to a forbidden city; there was a terrible silence in the entire house. The spirits of the world’s leading burglars sat on my shoulders and whispered advice about what I should do. My hands glided over the dark pear wood and correctly felt out the weak places. I guessed the most secret codes; invisible keys slipped into locks that had been oiled just a moment before; the tree rings in the wood were like a legible map leading straight to the treasure. The wardrobe in the back room, brittle like a decayed cork, or perhaps heavy like lead, opened slowly. I smelled the scent of silk blouses from the twenties. On hangers hung patterned and light dresses from those times — one with a deep décolletage in the back, a second made of pleated yellow crêpe de Chine; two satin jackets (one matte, the other shiny), a raincoat with circus designs, a jersey bathing suit — no ghosts, no werewolves: the spirit of a young girl lived in this wardrobe. The spirit of the young body of Grandma Pech, sprinkled with naphthalene as if with slaked lime, was imprisoned there. This was its kingdom, this was what was guarding — as if they were precious jewels — the brown suit and the green hunting outfit, which were hanging there on the other side; the yellowed curtains, which were lying on the shelves, and which, in their time, had hung in the windows; it watched over the bed linens, which fell apart in your hands; it dusted the stack of books from the bordeaux-colored series entitled Library of Masterpieces, which was hidden away in the depths; it was the spirit that looked through the album, wrapped in brittle oilcloth, with photographs from her first wedding; it had in its care all the ties, hats, neckerchiefs, scarfs; it was what hovered over the boxes that stood on the floor of the wardrobe.
I took into my hands object after object, opened box after box. In the first were tangles of fossilized yarn and a million buttons. In the second, promissory notes, bills, postcards. In the third, daguerreotypes — fragile as emigration — of old man Trzmielowski and old lady Mary, with Humphrey the cat in her hands; they stand, smiling broadly, before an iron gate leading to a gold mine in Nevada. No wonder they are laughing. They would return to Wisła soon thereafter, and, in addition to the eccentric custom of giving Anglo-Saxon names to the household animals, they would bring with them so many dollars that there would be enough for satin jackets and dresses with décolletage for Zuza. The fourth box was full of burned out prewar light bulbs. A collection that was not sorrowful or comical, but lofty and romantic. Who among you women has loved like this? What woman in the world got the idea of saving the light bulbs that had shined during the lifetime of her beloved? As a memento of that by-gone light over their heads; as a memento of those moments when they were gently extinguished over their bed?
A pair of hunting binoculars, which were older than World War II and had belonged to Grandma’s first husband, were in the fifth box. I knew about their existence, because, from time to time, whenever unique astronomical phenomena occurred — when bizarre air vehicles glided over the mountains, or on a summer night something unusual happened in the sky: the Big Dipper made such a big dip that its handle cracked, or the North Star shined ever more strongly from minute to minute, as if it were flying straight toward our yard — whenever such spectacles occurred in the cosmos over our heads, Grandma Pech went to the back room, meticulously shut the door behind her, and returned after a moment with the binoculars.
Once, we observed a biplane circling over Wisła; once, a comet over Czantoria Mountain. The biplane circled desperately and in vain and couldn’t find a way to straighten out its flight or make the decision to land; it looked tragic to the naked eye, but entirely different with the binoculars. The plates of the fuselage were about to drop off, its flight was about to end, but through the binoculars we saw the plane soaring calmly in the sky, the solid riveting of the wings, the equally shining dials on the control panels. Janek was even able to catch sight of the pilot’s face. Supposedly he wasn’t in a panic at all, supposedly — quite the opposite — he was in sovereign control of the rudders, and this was most likely accurate, for suddenly, after one of the circlings, he stepped hard on the gas and disappeared over Jarzębata Mountain. The motors fell silent; we were sure that he had landed on the peak. We rushed up there as if on wings, in an absolutely full sprint. Usually it takes at least an hour to walk to the peak of the Jarzębata — we were there in a few minutes. I will never forget the sudden silence of our thudding hearts and the yellow meadow, in the middle of which the biplane ought to have stood, its propeller still revolving, and yet there wasn’t a trace — only the great calm of the Beskid peak, the warm breath of the sun, the gentle ocean of the blue sky, and a partridge suddenly shooting upward.
From a distance, the comet over Czantoria Mountain looked like normal fire, except that it was slowly floating through the air; but from up close, it looked like a red-hot bulldozer driving in first gear. The binoculars brought everything close: the pieces that were incessantly falling off the humming machinery, the meteors that were constantly revolving — as in a cauldron — in its very center, the blizzards of snow creating an ideal fan, the spotlights wandering across the peaks of the mixed forest.