“It was the beginning of April, and pathological heat waves prevailed. You know how, sometimes in early spring, when the snows have barely receded, there occur two, three scorching days. Sudden and deceptive surges of tropical temperatures. Blinding white air, sultry weather, women’s bared necks, a narcotic and basically perverse aura. I walked from Central Station, tired, slightly tipsy, because, of course, I had been drinking the whole way, incessantly, but very prudently. I was delighted with the masses of yellowish air that were surrounding me, and I was absolutely certain that right away, on Aleje Ujazdowskie, on Nowy Świat, at the latest on Krakowskie Przedmieście, I would run into Wiktoria. At first it seemed to me that every fifth woman on the street looked like her; then every second one; then all of them. Do you understand? I saw her everywhere.
“Was I still in love with her? Had I loved her at all? Is the story I am telling definitely a love story? Granted, there can be love without a single touch, for in the end I never touched even her hand, not even accidently. Granted, there can be love which is accompanied by barely two glances, or even a glance and a half; for I saw her grey eyes the second time when she was at my place, when she was lamenting my corpse. So the second glance was not only blurry, it was also partial. There are also loves that are more platonic, and more reserved. But were my delusions love? Was my breakneck love a real love? If love is a delusion, then I loved her. If what goes on in a severed head can be called love, then I loved her. I loved her, and I longed for her. And sick with love and savage longing for her, I went to look for her in Warsaw. That is to say, I went to meet her in Warsaw. I was absolutely certain that I needn’t do a thing — not a gesture, no telephone call, no need to help fate along. That any moment, she herself would come out to meet me with her dance step. She didn’t. This didn’t shake my intution, and it strengthened my certainty of her downfall. In the hotel kiosk, I bought a newspaper with the obvious classifieds, and having settled into my room, freshened up, taken a shower, and opened the bottle planned for the afternoon, I began to look for her. It didn’t take long. After a minute, I came upon the classified ad: “Slender student — privately,” and right away, all the words and all the letters of that offer shined with the green light of hope and began to flicker at me like an emerald neon. I called. Her voice had changed. I, too, pretended to be someone else. I didn’t want to frighten her off. Once she appears, it will be too late for flight. After half an hour, there reverberated a knock at the door. True, in the course of that half hour I had drunk a significant portion of the alcohol allotted for the entire afternoon, and yet, I was sober like never in my life. But even if I had been unconscious, I still would have known the taste of defeat. I still would have known the fiasco of my own intuition. It goes without saying: it wasn’t her. A massively built, gloomy young lady from the suburbs entered the room and asked what I felt like. What I felt like? An immediate return home. Immediate flight, running like hell. Suddenly I saw, with crystal clarity, all my lunacies, all my childishness, suddenly I regained the fullness of my shaken cognitive powers. Suddenly I saw myself, a retired teacher in a brown suit, sitting in a hotel room in the company of a paid tart. Through the open window came the clatter of the hot city. You could hear the whirr of the jackhammers, the high creak of cranes, the murmur of cars driving by, foreigners were chatting in front of the hotel entryway, someone laughed, someone called somebody from far away. I was outside of all this. I was separated from everything by an impenetrable Chinese Wall. Suddenly I understood how horrendous and terrible my life was. Suddenly, in a deep and thoroughly existential sense, I sobered up, and in the flash of a second I understood that, as soon as I was alone, I would do myself in, I would hang myself on my belt or slit my wrists in the hotel bathtub, because I just didn’t have the strength any more. I didn’t have the strength to leave here, to return to the train station, to go to K. by the night train. I didn’t have the strength to do anything. I wouldn’t ever leave here. I would die here.
“Luckily, I’m a drunk, and we all know what a drunk does when he sobers up, especially when he sobers up in tragic fashion. Yes, sir: he starts drinking all over again. So I poured myself a drink then. The massively built, gloomy young lady from the suburbs didn’t refuse the refreshment. We sat, and we chatted about life. We went on living. The nightmares didn’t stay long. They came in through the window, they went out the door. It wasn’t bad. It already wasn’t bad. A pleasant chat with a Warsaw whore as a means for saving one’s life, and perhaps even a means for living. It goes without saying that I didn’t question her whether there wasn’t perhaps among her colleagues a certain failed actress named Wiktoria. I didn’t proceed to such shamelessness, but also — judging by her bored expression — there wasn’t any great innovation in my questions. I asked her why she did what she did for a living, when she had decided to do it, how it was the first time, etc. Supposedly, all her clients posed the same questions. Oh, why should I have been original? I didn’t worry in this case about my lack of originality. All the less did I worry about the fact that it was she who turned out to be the original. I would say, very original. ‘Why do you do this?’ ‘For the money. I need the money. I need quite a lot.’ ‘Do you have some serious expenses? Debts?’ ‘Debts, no, but expenses, yes. I have to put on my daughter’s First Communion in May. You need money for a good First Communion.’ Yes. The story is reaching its end. As you can see, my new acquaintance was not only not Wiktoria — she wasn’t even a Lutheran. In a sentimental reflex, I paid her a couple grosz more, and the next day I returned to K. From that time, which is to say, for the last two years, I haven’t budged from the spot.
“In a fundamental sense, nothing has changed here. The latest local news says that Wiktoria completed her degree with distinction, that she has accepted a role in an unusually popular series, and soon all of K. will be sitting down before their television sets in order to marvel at the pearl that our land has produced. Sometimes I think that if this had been true, I would have the punchline of all punchlines. A punchline that is light, edifying, comic, and surprising. But this is not very likely. Back then, two years ago, on the next morning, I dropped by the acting school on Miodowa Street on my way out of town. Besides, this was not far at all from the Hotel Europejski. For Warsaw — very near by. A person named Wiktoria Złotnica had never studied there, nor had anyone by that name been accepted in the program. We have few, desperately few surprises in life. Time for bed. You especially deserve it. Please forgive the intrusion. In any case, we have spent a pleasant evening, a remarkably pleasant evening. And now — however this might sound — I vanish without a trace.”
I awoke in quite good shape. I felt ill treated — it goes without saying — by the story I had listened to; with pathological clarity, I recalled my guest’s every word and every gesture, but I was not threatened with any interruption in my life’s story. I ate breakfast, packed, and turned in the key at the reception desk. Emil was also already moving about, barely, but still — he was moving. I didn’t ask about anything. I knew perfectly well that if I were to ask about the retired teacher in a brown suit, who knew the history, geography, and substance of every local square inch inside and out, I would discover that he was either an absolute lunatic, or a complete drunk, or both.