House of Day, House of Night Read online

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  HOUSE OF DAY,

  HOUSE OF NIGH T

  Writings from an Unbound Europe

  GENERAL EDITOR

  Andrew Wachtel

  EDITORIAL BOARD

  Clare Cavanagh

  Michael Henry Heim

  Roman Koropeckyj

  Ilya Kurik

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  OLGA TOKARCZUK

  HOUSE OF

  DAY,

  HOUSE OF

  NICiHT

  Translated from the Pol1sh

  by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

  NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

  PRESS

  EVANSTON,

  ILLINOIS

  Northwestern University Press

  Evanston, Illinois 60208-4210

  Northwestern University Press edition published 2003. Copyright © 1988, 2002 by

  Olga Tokarczuk. Translation copyright © 2002 by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Dom dzienny.

  dom nomy first published in Poland by Wydawnicrwo Ruta 1998. T his translation first

  published in Great Britain by Granta Books 2002. All rights reserved.

  Printed in Canada

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

  ISBN 0-8101-1869-6 (cloth)

  ISBN o-8101-1892-0 (paper)

  Typeset by M Rules

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available from

  the Library of Congress.

  T he paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements

  of the American National Standard for Information Sciences­

  Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z}9.48-1992.

  Translator's note

  The book is set in south-west Poland, in the region known as

  Silesia. This was part of the German Reich until 1945, when at

  the Yal ta and Potsdam conferences the Allies agreed to move the

  borders of Poland westwards. Many Polish citizens were transported from the land lost to the east (annexed by the USSR) and resettled in formerly German territory to the west, where they

  were given the homes and property of evacuated Germans.

  Readers are advised that some of the recipes in this book should

  carry the health warning, 'Don't try this at home ! '

  Your house is your larger body.

  I t grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night;

  and it is not dreamless.

  Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the

  city for grove or hilltop?

  GIBRAN

  Th e d re a m

  The first night I had a dream. I dreamed I was pure sight, without a body or a name. I was suspended high above a valley at some unde fined point from which I could see everything. I

  could move around my field of vision, yet remain in the same

  place. It seemed as if the world below was yielding to me as I

  looked at it, constantly moving towards me, and then away, so

  first I could see everything, then only tiny details.

  I could see a valley with a house standing in the middle of it,

  but it wasn't my house, or my valley, because nothing belonged

  to me. I didn't even belong to myself. There was no such thing as

  T. Yet I could see the circular line of the horizon enclosing the

  valley on all sides. I could see a turbulent stream flowing down

  between the hills. I could see trees set deep into the ground like

  huge, one-legged creatures. The stillness of what I could see

  was only on the surface. Whenever I wished , I could look

  through this surface to what lay underneath. Under the bark of

  trees I could see rivulets of water, streams of sap flowing up and

  down the trunk. Under the roof of the house I could see the

  bodies of people asleep, and their stillness, too, was only superficial - their hearts were beating gently, their blood was rippling in their veins, I could even see their dreams, fragments of images

  flashing inside their heads. In their tangled dreanHhoughts I

  could see myself (this was when I discovered the strange truth.

  that I was purely vision, without any values or emotions). Then

  I discovered that I could see through time as wcil, and that just

  2

  O l g a Tok a rcz u k

  as 1 could change my point o f view in space, so I could change

  it in time, too. I was like the cursor on a computer screen navigating of its own accord, or at least oblivious of the hand that is moving it.

  I seemed to dream like this for an eternity. There was no

  before, or after, no sense of anticipation, because there was nothing to gain or lose. The night would never end. Nothing would happen. Even time would never change what I could see. I went

  on staring, not noticing anything new or forgetting anything I

  had seen.

  M a r t a

  When we moved in three years ago, we spent the whole of the

  first day inspecting our property. Our gumboots kept sinking

  into the reddish mud. It stained our hands, and when we washed

  them the water ran red. R. examined the trees in the orchard

  again. They were old, bushy and rambling in all directions. Trees

  like that won't bear much fruit. The orchard stretched down to

  the forest, stopping at a dark wall of spruces, standing there like

  soldiers. In the afternoon the sleet began to fall again. Water collected in pools on the clay-clogged earth, creating streamlets and rills that flowed straight down to the house, seeping into the

  walls and disappearing somewhere under the foundations.

  Worried by the constant trickling sound, we went down into the

  cellar with a candle. Water was pouring down the stone steps,

  washing over the stone floor and flowing out again into the

  pond. We realized that the house had been unwisely built on an

  underground river, and it was too late to do anything about it.

  The only option was to get used to the relentless murmur of

  water disturbing our dreams.

  H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t

  3

  There was a second river outside - a stream full of mud-red

  water that blindly washed away at the roots of the trees before

  vanishing into the forest.

  From the window of the main room we can see Marta's house.

  Ever since I've know her, I have wondered who Marta really is.

  She's always giving me a different version of the facts about herself - even the year of her birth changes. For me and R. Mana only ever exists in the summer; in winter she disappears, like

  everything else around here. She is small, her hair is white as

  snow, and some of her teeth are missing. Her skin is wrinkled,

  dry and warm. I know this, because we have sometimes greeted

  each other with a kiss or an awkward hug, and I have caught her

  smell - of damp forced to dry out quickly. This smell lingers for

  ever, it can't be got rid of. Clothing that has got wet in the rain

  should be washed, my mother used to say, but then she was

  always doing a lot of unnecessary laundry. She used to take

  clean, starched sheets out of the wardrobe and throw them in the

  washing-machine, as if not using them made them just as dirty

  as using them. The smell of damp is usually unpleasant, bu
t on

  Marta's clothes and skin it smells nice and familiar. If Mana's

  around, everything's in its place and in perfect order.

  She carne by on our second evening. First we drank tea, then

  last year's rosehip wine, thick and dark, so sweet it makes you

  feel dizzy at the first gulp. I was unpacking books. Marta held

  her glass in both hands and watched without curiosity. It

  occurred to me at the time that perhaps she didn't know how to

  read. It was possible, as she was old enough to have missed out

  on state education. I have noticed since that letters simply don't

  hold her attention, but I have never asked her about it.

  The dogs were excited and kept coming in and out of the

  house, bringing the scent of winter and wind on their fur. As

  soon as they had warmed up in front of the kitchen fire, they felt

  4

  O l g a To k a rcz u k

  the lure of the garden again. Mana stroked their backs with her

  long, bony fingers, telling them how beautiful they were. She

  spoke only to the dogs all evening. I watched her out of the

  corner of my eye as I arranged the books on wooden shelves. A

  lamp lit up the crown of her head, from which fell a tuft of thin

  white hair, tied at the nape of her neck into a little pigtail.

  I ha'e such a lot of memories, but I can't remember the first

  time I saw Marta. I remember all my first encounters with the

  people who have subsequently become important to me: I can

  remember whether the sun was shining and what they were

  wearing (R.'s funny East German boots , for instance) , I can

  remember how things smelled and tasted, and what the air was

  like - whether it was crisp and sharp, or cool and smooth as

  butter. That's what first impressions are made of- these things

  get recorded somewhere in a detached, primitive part of the

  brain and can never be forgotten. But even so, I can't remember

  my first encounter with Marta.

  It must have been early spring - that's when everything starts

  here. It must have been in this rugged part of the valley, because

  Marta never goes further afield on her own. There must have

  been a smell of water and melted snow, and she must have been

  wearing that grey cardigan with the loose buttonholes.

  I've never known much about Marta, only what she has told

  me herself. I have had to guess most of it, and I've been aware of

  fantasizing about her, of inventing for her an entire past and

  present. Whenever I've asked her to tell me something about

  herself, about when she was young, how something that appears

  obvious now looked then, she has changed the subject, turned

  to face the window or simply fallen silent and concentrated on

  chopping up a cabbage or plaiting the hair that she uses to

  make wigs. It's not as if she has seemed reluctant to talk, but just

  as if she simply has nothing to say about herself, as if she has no

  H o u s e o f Da y, H o u s e o f N i g h t

  5

  history. She only likes to talk about other people - some I might

  have seen once or twice by chance, others I may never have seen

  at all, and never could, because they lived too long ago. She also

  likes to talk about people who never actually existed - I have

  since found proof that Marta likes to invent things - and about

  the places where she has chosen to plant these people. I've

  known her to talk for hours, until I've had enough and find an

  excuse lO interrupt her politely and go home across the green.

  Sometimes she breaks off these narratives of hers suddenly, for

  no reason, and doesn't return to the subject for weeks, until

  one day out of the blue she says: 'You remember how I was

  telling you . . .

  ' 'Yes, I remember.' 'Well, what happened next

  was . . .' and she carries on with some tired old story, while I'm

  racking my brains to remember who she's talking about and

  where she broke off. Oddly, it's never the actual story that comes

  back to me, but the memory of Marta telling it, a small figure,

  with her round shoulders in the cardigan with the loose buttonholes and her bony fingers. Did she tell this one while staring straight ahead as we were driving to Wambierzyce to

  order planks, or was it the time we were picking camomile in

  Bobol's field? I've never been able lO reconstruct the story itself,

  but always remember exactly when and where it was first rooted

  within me, as if these stories are unreal somehow, nothing but

  fantasies that exist only within our two heads. Sometimes she

  breaks off in mid-story just as abruptly as she started ; a fork falls

  to the floor with a metallic clang, shattering the last sentence,

  and the next word comes to a halt on her lips. Or our neighbour, Whatsisname, comes in without knocking, as he always does, stamping his great big boots on the doorstep and trail ing

  water, dew, mud - whatever there is outside - behind him, and

  once he's around he makes so much noise that it's impossible to

  have any sort of conversation.

  6

  O l g a To k a rc z u k

  Many of the things Marta has told me have not stayed in my

  memory, but have just left a vague impression, like mustard on

  t he edge of a plate after the food has been eaten. Odd scenes,

  funny or frightening, and odd images torn out of context ha,·e

  remained - children catching trout from a stream with their bare

  hands, for instance. I don't know why I have stored this kind of

  detail, while forgetting the rest of the story. It must have made

  some sort of sense - it was a story, after all, with a beginning and

  an end - but I remember nothing but the pips, which my

  memory - quite rightly - has had to spit out later on.

  It's not that I do nothing but listen. Sometimes I talk to her,

  too. Once early on I told her I was afraid of dying, not of death

  in general, but of the actual moment when I would no longer be

  able to put anything off till later, and that this fear always comes

  over me when it's dark, never in the daytime, and goes on for

  several awful moments, like an epileptic fit. I immediately felt

  embarrassed at having made this rather abrupt confession. That

  time it was me who tried to change the subject.

  Marta is not a therapist at heart. She doesn't keep asking questions, she won't suddenly abandon the washing up to sit down beside me and pat me on the back. She doesn't try, as others do,

  to work out the chronological order of important events by

  asking: 'When did it start?' Even Jesus couldn't have resisted

  asking the madman he was about to heal, 'So when did it start?'

  But in fact the most important thing is what's actually going on

  here and now, right before your eyes, and questions about the

  beginning and end tell you nothing worth knowing.

  Sometimes I have thought Marta wasn't listening or that she

  lacked sensitivity, like a lifeless cut-down tree, because when I've

  told her something meaningful the kitchen utensils have not

  stopped clattering, nor have her movements lost any of their

  mechanical fluency. She has even seemed cruel somehow, not just

  H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t />
  7

  once or twice but often - like when she faLtens up those chickens

  of hers, then kills and devours them in three days fiat each autumn.

  I have failed to understand Marta in the past, and I don't

  understand her now. But why should I? What would I get from

  uncovering her motives, or the sources of her tales? What would

  I gain from her life story, i f indeed she has a life story to speak

  of? Maybe there are people with no life story, with no past or

  future, who are different, always in the present?

  W h a t s i s n a m e

  For the past few evenings, just after the television news, our

  neighbour Whatsisname has come by. Each time R. has warmed

  up some wine, sprinkled it with cinnamon and thrown in some

  cloves, and each time Whatsisname has talked about the winter,

  because apparently the story of the winter has to be told before

  the summer can come. It's always the same story - of how Marek

  Marek hanged himself.

  We've heard this story from other people too, but yesterday

  and the day before we heard it from Whatsisname. The second

  time he forgot he had told it already and started all over again

  from the beginning, which was a question - why weren't we at

  the funeral ? We couldn't come, we said , because it was in

  January when we were away, and we simply couldn't get here. It

  was snowing and the cars wouldn't start, their batteries were fiat.

  The road beyond Jedlina was snowed up and all the buses were

  stuck in wretched traffic jams.

  Marek Marek lived in the cottage with the tin roof. Last

  autumn his mare kept coming into our orchard to cat the windfall apples. She would dig them out from under the rotting leaves, staring at us nonchalantly. ironically even, R. said.

  8

  O l g a To k a r c z uk

  One afternoon as darkness was starting to fall Vhatsisname

  was on his way back from Nowa Ruda. He noticed that the door

  of Marek Marek's house was slightly ajar, just as it had been that

  morning, so he leaned his bike against a wall and looked in

  through the window. He saw him at once. He was half hanging,

  half lying by the door, twisted and undoubtedly dead.

  Vhatsisname shaded his eyes with his hand to see better. Marek

  Marek's face was livid, his tongue was sticking out and his eyes