Fanny Kapelmeister seemed to fall silent a second time, and this time she turned to stone. She may have wanted to add something; she may have wanted to say how important even a minute-long phone conversation can be for an alco; she may have wanted to refer to the relevant clause in the patient’s bill of rights; she may have wished to remind everyone of something that could have been the punch-line of this chapter: namely, that the sole telephone accessible to the alcos on this ward only took tokens, which had been unavailable for years, in consequence of which hardly anyone ever actually used it; she may have had other arguments, but probably not, and, in fact, most certainly not. There was nothing in her head except the crowd of alcos waiting in line for the breathalyzer.
Fanny could clearly see her own specter standing in this line, and it occurred to her that perhaps a person whose evening ritual involves blowing into a breathalyzer should indeed have no other right than the right to blow into a breathalyzer every evening. In the meantime, the therapist Quasi Moses alias I Alcohol was already on his feet and said very quietly:
“According to the regulations the telephone ought to be available to all you alcoholics between the hours of 7 A.M. and 9 P.M. That is how it has been and that is how it will be, or maybe not, because I can see we need to think about removing the telephone from the ward entirely. This is not a question”—he gave a slight bow in Sister Viola’s direction—“this is not a question of quiet in what I might call its audible or inaudible aspect. You are all supposed to quiet down inwardly, you’re supposed to compose yourselves. You’re supposed to calm your frayed nerves — not so as to go to sleep, but so as to lead a tranquil life in the future. And anything that comes from the outside world, even a telephone call, can upset you. Telephone calls, especially telephone calls I would say, can upset a person; I personally know how upsetting some telephone calls can be. So then, as I said: from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. After that there is curfew, the telephone’s switched off, and you all work on yourselves, on quieting yourselves. You quiet yourselves indefinitely with the goal of quieting yourselves absolutely. That’s right, quiet yourselves, quiet yourselves, because if you do not, I, alcohol”—the therapist Quasi Moses alias I Alcohol continued to speak very quietly, but he spread his arms wide to give himself a dragon-like appearance—“if you do not quiet yourselves, I, alcohol, will destroy you.”
•
Quieting ourselves was the goal of our lives; it was our prayer and our God (or alternatively, in the local lingo: our higher power, however we chose to understand that). Quieting ourselves was our Promised Land, toward which we were guided by our she-therapists, under the leadership of the therapist Moses alias I Alcohol. Dr. Granada engaged us in philosophical debates about life and death. Nurse Viola and the other nurses did what nurses do: they administered drips, gave injections, and distributed vitamins and sedatives and mineral complexes for our thoroughly depleted bodies; whereas the therapists guided us toward the Promised Land of quiet. All the therapists had themselves long ago become exceptionally quiet; they were professionally quiet, they were virtuosos of quietness. They could tell at a single glance the extent of our quietness, so as to determine, to an inch, the distance that still separated us from the Promised Land of absolute quiet. The therapist Quasi Moses alias I Alcohol (the first part of his name came from his role as a leader, not from his faith) was perceptive to a god-like degree. The therapist Quasi Moses alias I Alcohol had undoubtedly met with the God of quiet on the mountaintop, and the Almighty had imparted to him all there is to know on the subject of quieting oneself. The therapist Quasi Moses alias I Alcohol looked at a person who had not sufficiently quieted himself and said to the insufficiently quieted person: “Quiet yourself!” And the person immediately quieted himself.
I remember as if it were yesterday the precise day of my face-to-face meeting with the therapist Moses alias I Alcohol. It was on Thursday, July 6, 2000 precisely. I remember precisely that it was on that very day I had written the first paragraphs in the emotional journal of the Most Wanted Terrorist in the World, in civilian life a long-haul truck driver who transported fruit to countries east of us. The Most Wanted Terrorist in the World had given me an exceedingly cursory account of his life story; he had spoken disjointedly and it was impossible to follow. Dictation, even subconscious dictation, was in this case out of the question, as was the notion that he himself should write anything. I hesitated to take on the task of writing for him in the fullest sense, both mechanically and mentally; I was reluctant to assume the character of the narrator — a long-haul truck driver transporting fruit to countries east of us. I hesitated, but the Most Wanted Terrorist in the World offered me a small bottle of Polo Sport cologne, and I could not resist the temptation. All colognes and deodorants were strictly forbidden on the alco ward, but I was obsessed during this particular stay of mine by the idea that my whole body, and my whole expensive track suit, were permeated with the odor of madmen’s pajamas.
All around the alco ward were the brick-built residences of the insane, set amid untended, overgrown gardens. At the height of noon these gardens would fill with noisy throngs of schizophrenics and suicides clad in striped pajamas; dense yellowish-gray clouds of odor from the blue-and-white pajamas and the farinaceous bodies they contained drifted over the gardens; I was unable to rid myself of the notion that one of these clouds had encircled me and soaked into me.
I accepted the small bottle of Polo Sport cologne from the shaking hands of the Most Wanted Terrorist in the World; I promised myself I would use it discreetly, in any case in such a way as to evade the matchless sense of smell of Nurse Viola, who from a distance of several dozen yards (and, I repeat, by smell alone) was capable of determining what kind of alcohol, consumable or non-consumable, a person had had (internal or external) contact with. I accepted the small bottle, hiding it in a hiding place the whereabouts of which I will not reveal, and in return I undertook to keep a journal of someone else’s emotions.
On July 6th, at four-thirty in the morning, I sat down at the table in the writing room, and in the upper left-hand corner of a blank sheet of A4 paper I wrote the date: 7/6/2000.
“I’ve come to the end of the first week of my stay. It’s half past five in the morning. It’s raining. In half an hour the wake-up bell will ring. I’m sitting in the quiet room and writing my emotional journal. At the moment in my heart I’m feeling despair. What is the state of soul of a person who wakes up at the beginning of July on an alco ward, knowing he has to spend the whole summer here? The rain outside the window depresses me and at the same time it’s a relief. It depresses me because if it keeps raining till Sunday, then on Sunday when my girlfriend comes to visit I won’t know where to go with her. The rain is a relief because if the weather were hot I’d regret even more the vacation I already paid for but wasted because of my drinking rampage. I’d always be imagining my girlfriend and me lying on the beach, and my despair would be even greater.
“Yesterday at the evening community meeting we said goodbye to the people who were leaving. I was jealous and I wanted to be one of them. Homeless Czesław, who was supposed to give the last farewell speech, read a poem he had written instead of giving a speech. When he finished, Nurse Viola told him he would have to repeat the whole cure from the beginning. It’s just as well I don’t know how to write poetry.”