In it were the sky and two moons, one beside the other. There was a river – cold and joyful. There were houses – alluring and awful all at once. The line of the forest – a sight full of strange excitement. On the grass lay sticks, stones, and leaves filled with images and memories. Beside them, like paths, ran scent trails full of meanings. Under the ground ran warm, live corridors. Everything was different. Only the outlines of the world remained the same. Then with her human reason Florentynka realised that people were right – she had gone mad.
“Am I talking to myself?” she asked the bitch, who was resting her head on her knees.
She knew she was.
They went home. Florentynka poured the remains of the evening’s milk into bowls. She, too, sat down to eat. She wetted a piece of bread in the milk and chewed it with her toothless gums. As she ate she stared at one of the dogs, trying to say something to him through pure images. She emitted a thought, “imagining” something like: “I am, and I am eating.” The dog raised its head.
So that night, whether because of the persecutor-moon or her madness, Florentynka learned how to talk to her dogs and cats. The conversations relied on emitting images. What the animals imagined was not as concise and specific as human speech. It did not include thoughts, but it did have things seen from the inside, without the human distance that brings a sense of alienation. It made the world seem more friendly.
Most important for Florentynka were the two moons from the animals’ images. It was astonishing to find that animals saw two moons, and people only one. Florentynka could not understand it, so finally she stopped trying to. The moons were different; in a way they were even opposed to each other, but also identical at the same time. One was soft, rather damp, and tender. The other was hard as silver, shining and jingling merrily. So Florentynka’s persecutor had a dual nature, and this very feature made it even more of a threat to her.
THE TIME OF MISIA
When she was ten years old, Misia was the smallest girl in her class, and so she sat in the front bench. As she walked between the benches, the teacher always stroked Misia’s head.
On her way home from school Misia collected things her dollies needed: horse chestnut shells for plates, acorn tops for cups, and moss for pillows.
But once she got home, she couldn’t decide what she wanted to play. On the one hand she was drawn to the dolls, to changing their dresses, and feeding them dishes that were invisible, but which did actually exist. She was drawn to wrapping their stiff bodies in baby quilts and telling them simple, rag-doll stories for bedtime. Then, once she had picked them up, she’d suddenly feel disheartened. They weren’t Karmilla, Judyta, or Bobaska any more. Misia’s eyes saw flat eyes painted onto pink faces, reddened cheeks and mouths that were permanently sealed, for which no food could exist. Misia turned over the thing she had once regarded as Karmilla and gave it a spanking. She could feel she was hitting sawdust covered in material. The doll didn’t complain or protest. So Misia sat her with her pink face to the windowpane and stopped bothering with her. She went to rummage in her Mama’s dressing table.
It was wonderful to sneak into her parents’ bedroom and sit before the two-winged mirror that could even show things that were normally invisible – shadows in the corners, the back of your own head… Misia tried on the beads and rings, opened the little bottles and spent ages fathoming the mystery of lipstick. One day, when she was feeling especially disappointed with her Karmillas, she raised the lipstick to her mouth and painted it blood-red. The red of the lipstick set time in motion, and Misia saw herself in a few dozen years, just as she would die. She furiously wiped the lipstick off her mouth and went back to the dolls. She took their coarse, sawdust-stuffed paws in her hands and clapped them together soundlessly.
But she always went back to her mother’s dressing table. She’d try on her silk camisoles and high-heeled shoes. She’d make herself a floor-length dress out of a lacy petticoat. She’d look at her reflection in the mirror, and suddenly think she looked funny. “Wouldn’t it be better to make a ball dress for Karmilla?” she’d think, and excited by this idea, go back to the dolls.
One day, at the crossroads between her Mama’s dressing table and the dolls, Misia found a drawer in the kitchen table. In the drawer there was everything. The entire world.
First of all, the photographs were kept here. One of them showed her father in a Russian uniform with a pal. They were standing with their arms around each other, like good friends. Her father had a moustache from ear to ear. In the background a fountain was playing. Another one showed her Papa’s and Mama’s heads. Mama was in a white veil, and Papa had the same black moustache. Misia’s favourite picture was one of her mother with her hair cut short, wearing a headband. Mama looked like a real lady in it. Misia had her own photo in here too. She was sitting on a bench in front of the house with the coffee grinder on her knees. Above her head the lilac was in bloom.
Secondly, the most valuable object in the house, as far as Misia was concerned, was in here – the “moonstone,” as she called it. Her father had once found it in a field, and he said it was different from all normal stones. It was almost perfectly round, and there were tiny crumbs of something very shiny embedded in its surface. It looked like a Christmas tree decoration. Misia would put it to her ear and wait for a sound, a sign from the stone. But the stone from heaven was silent.
Thirdly, there was an old thermometer with a broken mercury tube inside, so the mercury could move freely about the thermometer, not restricted by any scale, regardless of the temperature. One time it would stretch out in a stream, and then freeze, rolled in a ball like a frightened animal. One time it would look black, and another time it would be black, silvery, and white all at once. Misia loved playing with the thermometer with the mercury shut inside it. She thought the mercury was a living creature. She called it Sparky. Whenever she opened the drawer she said softly:
“Hello, Sparky.”
Fourthly, old, broken, unfashionable costume jewellery was thrown into the drawer, all those trashy purchases no one can resist: a snapped chain whose gold paint has come off, exposing the grey metal, a fine filigree brooch made of horn, depicting Cinderella, with the birds helping her to pick the peas out of the ashes. Between pieces of paper shone the glassy stones of forgotten rings from the fair, earring clasps, and glass beads of various shapes. Misia marvelled at their simple, useless beauty. She would look into the window through the green eye of the ring, and the world became different. Beautiful. She could never decide what sort of world she would prefer to live in: green, ruby, blue, or yellow.
Fifthly, among the other things in here lay a switchblade, hidden from children. Misia was afraid of the knife, though sometimes she imagined she could use it. In defence of her father, for instance, if someone tried to do him harm. The knife looked innocent. It had a dark red ebonite handle, in which the blade was treacherously concealed. Misia had once seen her father release it with barely a flick of his finger. The mere “click” it gave sounded like an attack and made Misia shudder. That was why she reckoned she shouldn’t even touch the knife by accident. She left it in its place, deep in the right-hand corner of the drawer, under the holy pictures.
Sixthly, on top of the knife lay some small holy pictures collected over the years, which the priest used to hand out to the children on his way round the parish. All of them showed either the Virgin Mary of Jeszkotle or the little Lord Jesus in a skimpy shirt, grazing a lamb. The Lord Jesus was chubby and had fair curly hair. Misia loved this sort of Lord Jesus. One of the pictures showed a bearded God the Father sprawling on a blue throne. God was holding a broken staff, and for a long time Misia didn’t know what it was. Then she realised that this Lord God was holding a thunderbolt, and began to be afraid of Him.