your dress and hold a fine handkerchief to your bosom. 'You're
so beautiful. I cannot get my fill of you,' said Celestyn suddenly
into his ear. 'And nov let us pray.' They kneeled beside each
other on the stone floor and began to mutter their prayers.
Because in a monastery there is not much difference between
the past and the future, because not much changes over time
and in everyday life, except perhaps for the colours of the seasons, the monks live in a constant present. Here, a period of time that in the outside world would seem just a fleeting moment, has
no beginning and no end. And if it weren't for the wisdom of the
human body, which never loses sight of its final goal , life in the
monastery would have been immortal.
Paschalis was surrounded on all sides by a sequence of
meticulous rituals, calculated down to the very last gesture, the
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t
79
very last instant. Even the dogs that he watched from the windows took part in the routine of monastery life. They would appear at noon by the rubbish heap, where the leftovers were
thrown, and feed voraciously. Then they would disappear for a
while , only to come back and rummage eagerly through the
next load of refuse. They spent the evenings either establ ishing
their hierarchy, by biting each other and whining, or holding
their doggy frolics. In the winter they huddled up against the
barns and byres. In spring you could hear their envious yapping as they divided up the bitches between them . In summer pathetically helpless puppies would appear in all corners, a nd
in autumn they formed packs and started hunting small
rodents.
Like all the monks, Paschalis got up at dawn, washed his face
and put on his habit. Then he went straight into the gent le
rhythm of prayer and work, into the whispering throng of dark
figures shuffling to and fro along walkways and cloisters.
Brother Celestyn was father, lover and friend to him. He
taught him many things. One day he gave him a rare privilege he got him a place on the monthly expedition to deliver fresh meat to the associated convent. It was a great gi ft for Paschalis to
see a landscape so vast that the monastery cloisters and
labyrinths seemed sick and stunted in comparison. They would
leave before dawn to reach the kitchen gate of the convent at
around noon. The cart rolled slowly uphill, and when it reached
the pass, even the oxen stopped and stared at the incredibly distant horizon separating the sky from the green valley, and the massive mountains that looked like a row of tables. For some
reason, at this point Paschalis was always seized by an xiety.
Further along the way they passed a single small village. just a
few clay huts, and that was the only moment when he used to
feel homesick.
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As soon as the cart stopped before the gate, a bell rang out.
The cart drove into the yard and the brothers set about unloading sides of pork. Each month Paschalis looked around impatiently for any female figure at all, but usually he only saw
the older nuns, who had missing teeth and wrinkled faces. They
reminded him of his mother. Afterwards they would invite the
monks into the kitchen and treat them to a meal. The kitchen
was clean and cosy, and smelled of honey and cheese. The nuns
had an apiary and kept cows. In exchange for the meat the
monks were given pots of honey and baskets of cheeses wrapped
in clean rags. Paschalis suspected that a woman's body must
smell like that: of cheese and honey - a combination both pleasant and nauseating.
Sometimes Paschalis succeeded in seeing more. Once from
the cart he saw some nuns over the wall, among their garden
plots. They were weeding the vegetables and started throwing
clumps of weeds at one another, smothering their squeals of
laughter by pressing the broad sleeves of their habits against
their mouths. This childlike behaviour startled him. Then one of
them hitched up her skirt and leaped across the vegetable
patches, without hitting the clusters of plants. Her veil fluttered
in the wind like hair, or as if wings had miraculously sprouted
from her head. Afterwards Paschalis tried to copy their movements - soft, always flowing and beautiful.
After this sort of incident he always felt reluctant to return to
the monastery, and even to Brother Celestyn. Everything there
monk. Yes, Celestyn's body could give Paschalis pleasure - he
had learned that by now - but it was not the answer to
Paschalis's dreams. Lying beside him in bed he would fantasize
that Celestyn was a woman. He would slide his fingers down his
lover's back, until eventually he fel t rough, hairy buttocks, and
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t
8 1
withdrew his hand i n disappointment. But soon he began to
imagine that he himself was a woman, and then Celestyn could
remain who he was. The very idea of having a woman's body.
with that secret hole between your legs, made him shudder with
pleasure until it became an obsession. He wondered what such
a thing might look like - whether it was a hole like an car or
nostril, but larger, round and smooth, or maybe like a son of
split, a continually bleeding wound, like a cut that never heals.
Paschalis would have given the world to know this sinful secret,
but not in the usual way, from the outside - he wanted to li'e it,
to experience it for himself.
The next winter Celestyn caught a chill, and once it was clear
that nothing could possibly help him, the brothers gathered in
his cell and began to recite the three-part prayer for the dying.
Celestyn knew what this meant, and he cast his feverish gaze
across the faces of the brothers, as if seeking their reassurance
that what awaited him would resemble the order of monastery
life. Then there was a rap at the door and all the monks assembled to hear his last confession . Pascbalis cried as the abbot intoned the Credo in unum Deum. The tears went on pouring
down his face as Celestyn made his fitful confession and failed to
mention the sin they had committed together for months on
end. The abbot gave the dying man absolution and his bndy
was laid on the stone floor. In the evening he died.
The abbot must have noticed the young monk's despair
because he suggested releasing him from the duty of the next
clay's meat delivery expedition. But Paschalis didn't want to be let
off the trip. His skin, brain and heart were burning as if he had
fallen into the flames of a living hell.
The delivery wagon set off in the dark. The wooden ca rtwheels creaked steadily and the freezing breath of the oxen ro�c above their muzzles in a bright cloud . The sun came up O'Cr a
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low wimer sky and the pass opened before them, revealing nothing but misty white air - neither the Glatz valley nor the Table Mountains were visible. Before they reached their destination,
Paschalis was running a temperature, vomiting and shaking with
fever. The cart moved slowly as the oxen struggled to wade
through the snow. There was no sense in taking the sick man on
the return journey, so the brothers left him at the convent, to the
dismay of the sisters, and promised to come back for him once
he was better. Outside a blizzard was raging.
Paschalis forgot where he was. He thought he was being carried into a damp, murky vault, and suddenly he realized that they wanted to lay him beside the dead body of Celestyn, to bury
them together in the same grave. He tried to break free, but he
had the impression of being tied or, more likely, tangled in his
own habit, which had suddenly become heavy and stiff as a
coffin lid. Later he saw two terrible sorceresses leaning over
him. They seized him by the head and poured some hot, odious
liquid into his mouth. One of them led him to understand that
he was drinking Celestyn's urine, and Paschalis grew rigid with
shock. Tm poisoned, I'm poisoned ! ' he shouted, but his voice
echoed strangely off the bare walls.
Suddenly he awoke in a small room with a high, narrow
window. His bladder was full, so he sat up on the pallet and lowered his feet to the floor. He felt the soft, warm touch of sheepskin underfoot, and all at once his head began to spin. He stood up
cautiously and glanced under the bed in search of a chamber pot,
but there was nothing in the room apart from the bed, a prayer
stool and the bedside rug. He wrapped himself in the bedspread
and peeped outside. He saw a broad corridor with windows on
one side that looked straight on to sheer cliffs, and only then did
he realize where he was. A squat clay vessel stood by the door. He
hauled it into the room and relieved himself, and went back to bed
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s c o f N i g h t
83
feeling happy. The air here was warmer, and smelled completely
different. His feet revelled in the touch of the sheepskin.
In the evening the prioress came to see him. She was the
same age as his mother. Fine lines radiated from her mouth,
and her dry, wrinkled skin was the colour of ash. She took him
by the hand and measured his pulse. 'I'm so weak that I can't
stand up,' Paschalis assured her in a whisper. She looked him
closely in the eye. 'How old are you, boy?' she asked. 'Seventeen,'
he said, cl inging on to her hand. 'Please would you let me
recover here, Sister?' he asked and kissed her hot , dry hand .
She gave a faint smile and stroked his shaven head.
Next day the two old crones whom he remembered from his
feverish hallucinations summoned him to the kitchen. A
wooden washtub stood steaming full of hot water. 'You'll have a
bath so you don't bring us any lice,' said the older nun , who had
drooping cheeks like empty purses. She spoke softly, like a
child - perhaps she had no teeth, or maybe she came from the
south. They washed him with their heads averted, scrubbing
his small body just as his mother used to - single-mindedly, but
gently, until his skin glowed red. He was given a long linen shin
of the kind worn by the nuns, and leather boots for his legs.
Without a word the nuns escorted him back to the room where
he had lain sick for the past two weeks.
From then on the prioress came to sec him every day. She
would stand over him and gaze at him intently. He could n't bear
this searching gaze. He was sure she knew all about his lying and
pretending. He would turn his face to the wall and wai t . Once
she had checked his pulse they would kneel together to say the
Hail Mary and the prayer for the sick. When she left , he would
close his eyes and try to catch her scent in the air. But the prioress had no scent. He found her bea u t i ful - she was tall and fine-figured, strong and healthy looking, and had a gap between
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her front teeth. One evening she came and told him from the
doorway to get ready for the return journey. She had already
turned and placed her hand on the door handle when Paschalis
threw himself down before her, caught hold of her habit and
pressed his lips to her stockinged feet. 'Don't send me back there,
Mother,' he cried in a shrill voice. She stood still , and only now
could he smell her scent - of dust, smoke and flour. He clung to
that scent, ready for anything. After a long while she leaned
over him and raised him from his knees.
He told her everything, even about Celestyn. He told her
about his body, that didn't want to be the way it was. Finally he
burst into tears, which ran down his face and soaked his linen
shirt. 'It is hard to comprehend all of God's works,' she said,
sighing, and looking at him with a strange glint in her eye. The
boy could not control his sobbing. The prioress left the room.
'One thing I know. You can't stay here,' she told him at dawn,
when without warning she entered his cell straight after prayers.
'You are not a woman, you have the physical traits of your
sex . . . although they can be hidden. As a man you are dangerous and undesirable here.' Torn from sleep, Paschalis had difficulty in following what she was saying. 'But I prayed to the
Holy Virgin and she sent Kummernis to me.' In a whisper
Paschalis repeated the name . He couldn't understand what it
meant. She told him to get up. He let her throw a cloak over his
shirt and followed her down the corridors, from narrow into
wider ones, which twisted and turned, becoming cloisters and
staircases, until at last they stopped at the door of a small chapel
built on to the stone wal l of an empty room. The prioress genuflected, and Paschalis automatically repeated the gesture. They went into a smallish space illuminated by a little oil lamp close
to the floor. The prioress used i ts flame to light the candles.
Gradually, his eyes took in the sight before them.
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t
85
The entire altar was a large oil painting of a cross with a body
crucified upon it. Something about it made Paschalis feel uneasy,
and at the same time there seemed to him somethmg er
'
y familiar in the scene - the folds of the dress, falling softly to the
ground. He couldn't tear his gaze from the two smooth, w hite
female breasts that, exposed by the figure's outstretched anns,
seemed to him the central point of the painting. Bu t there was
something even more bizarre, something impossible to accept ,
and Paschalis began to tremble - the female body on the cross
was crowned with the face of Christ, the face of a man with a
youthful, reddish growth of beard.
Though Paschalis couldn't understand what he was seeing, he
instinctively sank to his knees. His teeth were chattering, not
because of the early morning chill, but from the apprehension
that he was kneeling before a creature like himself, similar to
him in some way, although it was patently unnatural. The eyes
of Christ gazed at him meekly and with a sadness that could
only be the flip side of love. There was neither torment nor pain
in them.
He turned to the prioress. She was smiling.
This is Kummernis. We also call her Holy Care,
and she has
many other names.'
'It's a woman,' said Paschalis quietly.
'She isn't a saint yet, but we believe that one day she'll be
canonized. So far Pope Clement has blessed her. She l ived O"Cr
two centuries ago not far from here, in Broumov. She was ,·i nuous and beautiful. All the men 'ied for her hand, but she chose Our Lord as her only husband. Her father t ried to force her to
marry by imprisoning her, and then a true miracle occurred
The Lord jesus, wanting to protect her from the loss of her ,·i rginity and to reward her constancy, ga'e her I l is face . · The prioress genuflected slowly. He
'
r enraged fat her crucified her, :-.o
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0 I g a To k a r c z u k
she died a martyr's death, just like her Betrothed. We chose
Kummernis as the patron saint of our order, but the present
Pope has banned her cult, so we keep her shut up in here. Ve
believe the Pope will change his decision. But come on now, or
you'll freeze.'
On the way back she asked him if he could keep a secret. He
said yes eagerly. 'And can you read and write?'
H e n s a n d c o c k e r e l s
Every spring Marta goes down to Nowa Ruda and buys herself
two hens and a cockerel. She then looks after those chickens,
tending to their mindless existence, which boils down to hour
after hour spent wal king round their enclosure with their attention equally divided between the earth below, where there might be grain, and the sky above, where there might be a hawk. In the
world of the chicken, there is life beneath their feet, and death
above their heads. In the evenings Marta ushers all three of them
into the henhouse, and in the morning she lets them out again.
She brings them potatoes boiled to a pulp and mixed with bran
in an old cake tin. The chickens are little bother, and she gets
two eggs a day for her pains. Sometimes she brings me an old
sugar bag full of eggs, their shells stained with chicken droppings. Their yolks are intensely yellow; just looking at such a perfect replica of the sun is enough to make you squint. Each
autumn, Marta kills her chicken family with her own hands in
one day.
I have ne'er understood this; the first year I didn't speak to her