The Graveyard by Marek Hlasko Read Free Book Online Page A

The secretary motioned to Franciszek to stop. “Just a minute … Come in.”
    A young boy, with a childlike face and charming bristling hair, walked in. Seeing Franciszek, he stood shifting his weight from foot to foot, as though about to withdraw.
    “Come here, Blizniaczek,” the First Secretary said cordially, and his heavy hand performed a circular motion. “Come closer; what the hell, sit down …” He pushed a chair over to the boy and gave him a friendly look. “What’s the matter? Do they teach you to behave like a little girl in the Young Communist League, or what? Sit down; speak up, openly, like one of us, a workingman …”
    The Young Communist Blizniaczek sat down. He glanced quickly at Franciszek, then stared at the tips of his shoes with great concentration. There was a long silence. Behind the walls the grinding machines hummed monotonously, like telegraph wires, a single protracted note.
    “What is it, damn it?” the secretary asked at last. He smacked the table with the flat of his hand. “Are you going to open your mouth, or aren’t you?”
    “I’d like to talk to you privately,” Blizniaczek stammered out.
    The secretary shook his head. “This is an old comrade,” he said solemnly. “You can say anything in his presence.”
    Blizniaczek looked at Franciszek with his blue eyes, shook his unruly hair, and said distinctly: “I want to report that Baniewicz and Majewska … well … you know what.”
    The secretary froze. A quick shudder passed over his face. He bent forward. “It’s not true,” he said hoarsely.
    “It is.”
    The secretary banged his fist on the table so that everything shook. “Impossible.”
    Blizniaczek looked up at him with his clear blue eyes. “I am sure of it.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I saw them.”
    “But … Majewska has a husband and child.”
    Blizniaczek smiled triumphantly: “That’s just it,” he said. “That’s just it.”
    “You saw them?”
    “Yes. They have no apartment, that’s why … Yesterday, after work, in the warehouse—I saw it with my own eyes.”
    “Did they say anything?”
    “Yes. I mean, Majewska told Baniewicz that she didn’t love her husband but couldn’t divorce him because he had a bad case of TB, and that someone has to look after him. And Baniewicz said that he had no apartment. And he said he didn’t like the whole situation.”
    “So he doesn’t like it?” To Franciszek the secretary’s voice sounded like an echo.
    “No.”
    The secretary rubbed his balding head and licked his lips. He had slumped forward; he looked like a man robbed of his most sacred belief. “A thing like that,” he said, and his ringing bass sounded like an old man’s whisper. “In the warehouse, after work … And what did you do after work, Blizniaczek?”
    “I conducted an informal talk,” he said. “The subject was ‘Love in the Life of the Soviet Man.’ I was substituting for Plaskota; he substituted for me the other day, and he talked on ‘The Forest in the Life of the Young Communist.’ ”
    “In the warehouse, after work,” the secretary repeated, not believing his own ears. “Baniewicz, our comrade …” Once again he banged his fist on the table. Franciszek and Blizniaczek jumped up. “Here, on factory grounds!” he roared. He jumped up from behind his desk, and rushed around to Blizniaczek, holding out his hand. “Thank you in the name of theorganization,” he said, shaking his hand vigorously. “Poland will never forget what you’ve done for her. Goodbye.”
    Blizniaczek rose and walked in measured steps to the door. There he stopped for a moment, raising his left fist. “Where have I seen this before?” Franciszek thought suddenly. “Where have I seen it?”
    Blizniaczek closed the door behind him, and walked down the corridor, his heels tapping. The secretary sat motionless for a while, his eyes vacant, unseeing. Then he turned to Franciszek; he remained silent. At last his eyes