FIFTY TIES

Many years ago, in the beautiful city  of Ełk, Poland in the sunny summer-evening -Darek invited me to the cinema on the mad film with Kasia Figura. She looked so beautiful  and sexy in shorts, but the content of the movie with hot dogs - where instead of sausages were boiled thumbs was disturbing.

We spoke  silently about the formation of the world the way as if we knew all, sitting in darkened row close to the exit:

       -  I saw once an old drawing, where was in abundance of homunculi: the manikin in the nose, in the beard, on the forehead, everywhere. They were not  mistaken . It was their simplified premonition that from any of our parts, any cell, one could reproduce the whole man.

         - From one cell you can reproduce  even the whole universe -  said Darek.

I looked at him with the admiration. It impressed  me, that he  had studied couple of languages,  that he used to write to a Japanese girl, that he used to walk nightly through the woods without fear.

-       Aren't you afraid  of falling  asleep under  a spruce?

-       I like the moon- he said . And generally it is hard to doze off .

-       Why?

-       When I fall asleep, the part of me detaches and starts wandering.  I am connected to my body only with a stretched, very thin thread. At times I am afraid that I will wander beyond the point of  return.

I looked at the screen. The cyborg's ripped off shoulder grew back and Kasia sat on her tucked up feet with bright socks and laughed wholeheartedly, lighting up the gloomy picture. We left in the middle of the movie because I was sick of it . We went over the lake.

-       Why do you want to become a priest?"

-       Because I have a vocation."

-       When you played the guitar at the bonfire and you looked at that girl, somebody said that you would make such a priest as from the goat′s

 trumpet the trombone -  I concluded.

Darek responded with a vibrant laugh, shaking his copper hair, saying: " I want to try it, though."

We were walking for a while taciturnly. He was over 6' 3" and streetlamps were projecting his long shadow on the waving lake waters.  Afterwards we approached the cemetery. Tranquility of the place, stones glittering gently,  intensified the monuments' spirit-like look.

-       Your mother complains that you stopped eating meat and even a broth…"

-       I will not eat soups from corpses", he said cheerfully. It is not for me.

         Could you review the grammar with me? I must pass an exam…

I agreed although I kept getting lost at the parsing mile-long sentences.

We returned very late , perhaps after midnight, as right now, when I look at the clock.

Darek gave up the seminary something like at the second year. He met the girl of his life and left with her for Chicago. He called me after ten years unexpectedly. I was walking a long hallway. Curtains  blew in the open windows. Surprised I got tangled into one of them.

-       What do you do there? I asked.

-       Whatever it takes - he answered laughing as before.

-       We both have to work hard. We have two daughters.  We live in distant suburbs. Everything on payments. We are not rich, but we love each other and we have ourselves. Come to us, so we can enjoy some swim. We need to walk a little bit to the beach.

-       What do you do for a living?"

-       The housekeeping, insurance..., I am completing a college course for a professional cook. Lately on a weekend at a millionaire's. I take care of him. I drive a hundred miles. He  gave me fifty silk ties…

                  

                                                                                Translated by  Darek  

                                        Washington

                                    Nowy Jork

                                                      Ełk