“A thousand times I imagined that Wiktoria came to me; a thousand times I opened the door for her in my delusions; a thousand times I embraced her in greeting and farewell, and suddenly it turned out that one of those delusions wasn’t a delusion. Which of her phantasmagorical visits took place in reality? Was it the time when she came in a black jacket and a scarf, light blue like the Roman sky? Or the time when it was well below zero, and she came in a balaclava helmet? Or the time when she stood quite a while in the doorway and smiled mysteriously? Or the time when she ran in, literally burst into the entryway, and, with the exclamation — I’m about to pee my pants! — fell like a bomb into the bathroom, and immediately a bestial sigh of relief resounded from in there? When was she here? The time when she stood over my corpse and cried? The time when my corpse sat in an armchair and spoke to her. I don’t know. Everybody but me in K. knew — not me. Everybody knew all the details — not me. You understand that the consequences of such a stormy finale — with my participation, but without the participation of my consciousness — was my retirement. Moving out of K. was beyond my means. I thought about suicide, but those were weak thoughts, deprived of expression. I took up literary work, which had always been on my mind, and for which I now had ideal conditions. I was completely isolated, no one came to see me, no one called. Even the postman, the kiosk keeper, or the saleswoman in the store communicated with me — I would say — rather perfunctorily. I was in ideal solitude, ergo I had ideal conditions for writing. And I did not waste that gift.
“I could — and maybe even I ought to — end my story here, but like the debutant who is uncertain of definitive meaning, I will add an epilogue. I add it because it happened. The curator’s daughter got into drama school. Supposedly. Supposedly, with gigantic success. Supposedly, at the top of her class. Supposedly, the entrance commission, which was composed of nothing but actorly celebrities, was absolutely delighted. How those pieces of information came to me — I truly don’t know. I don’t recall any informer or any conversation that initiated me into new details. In K., for a long time, absolutely no one wanted to talk with me — and about Wiktoria, to this day no one will exchange a word with me. But I did find out. Apparently, in small towns pieces of news literally fly through the air. Further news appeared. The sparrows on the rooftops twittered triumphantly that the doom of my life was an unusually victorious student, that she was passing all the exams with bravado, that she was receiving exceptionally interesting and lucrative proposals. For the time being, however, she wasn’t accepting any; first she wanted to complete her diploma course, then she would make a choice. It wasn’t certain, however, whether the choice of the first serious role would be in the homeland or abroad.
“Do you understand? The curator and his wife, stupefied and hounded by the necessity of the success of their allegedly remarkable child, were close to bullshitting their neighbors that Hollywood was fighting over this complete loser! They continued without moderation in that fiction. The curator, whenever he set out for a meeting of the parish council — a glow radiated from him. The curator’s wife, whenever she bought cheese in the market — she assumed the pose of the mother not so much of Sharon Stone or Julia Roberts, because those names said little to her, but rather the pose, let’s say, of the mother of Gina Lollobrigida. She summoned up the pathos and the dignity, and her gestures were a bit hit or miss, but still she was called the “Mother of Gina Lollobrigida” in the more astute circles. In addition to this, there appeared the so-called highly eloquent detail. Very eloquent. So eloquent that it was much more than a detail. Namely, Wiktoria completely stopped showing up in K. She didn’t come for holidays, not even for Christmas Eve. No triumphal visits of the future, or already almost fulfilled, star in the hometown. Didn’t she have the strength for such shenanigans? Was she learning her parts, and since she was receiving nothing but Shakesperean roles, there was in fact no time for anything else? Was she slaving away — day in, day out, and nighttime, too? In my opinion — day in, day out, and nighttime, too — if there was anything Shakespearean about it, she was at best giving blow jobs in some Warsaw brothel. One way or another, I decided to get to the bottom of the matter. I decided to check on the course of her Shakesperean career with my own eyes and palpibly.
“After two years — when the storm around me had died down, when they had stopped following my every step, and when The Natural History of the Cieszyn Land had appeared in print, which had repaired my reputation a bit — I set off for Warsaw. In conspiratorial secrecy, it goes without saying, and skillfully laying a false trail. I confided in the kiosk keeper — who had become, with time, a bit quicker to chat with his customer — that I was heading to Krakow for a few days in order to do some digging in the archives of the Jagiellonian Library. In the course of a couple hours, or perhaps in the course of one hour, the entire city knew where I was going and why. The matters of the world are simple. I went to Krakow by PKS bus, from Krakow by the InterCity express train to Warsaw. I intended to stop in the Hotel Europejski, in which I had had the occasion to stay in the old days. Never mind in which years and under what circumstances.