The Graveyard by Marek Hlasko Page A

you?”
    “It has nothing to do with the campaign,” Franciszek said in a rage. “Yesterday I was detained in a police station, do you understand?”
    “You? In a police station?”
    “Yes.”
    “But why?”
    Franciszek jumped to his feet. “Listen, Jan,” he said, putting his hand on the other’s arm. “You know me. Surely I don’t have to tell you who I am and what I think, and why I am in the party. But yesterday I got horribly drunk …” He walked a few steps, then turned his face toward the other. “Yesterday I insulted the party,” he said in a wooden voice.
    “You?”
    “Me.”
    “But— But—” the secretary stammered. “What did you say?”
    “I told them that they could stick it all up …” Franciszek said, staring at the wall. “And I said something much worse, but even they, in the station, were ashamed to repeat it. And I myself don’t remember. I was in a blur for a minute, so furious I was out of my head, and everything I said left my mind; nothing remains—a blank.”
    “Man, man,” the secretary was stammering. “What have you done? What police station was that?”
    “Forty-two.”
    “Ah,” the secretary said with sudden relief. “Well, my friend, you’re lucky. I’ll ring them up at once; I have a friend there, a colleague—we may be able to fix it.”
    He picked up the receiver; Franciszek restrained his hand. “No,” he said, “that’s not what I want, Jan.”
    “Well?”
    “I don’t want to settle the matter that way, Jan. They took everything down in black and white—that I’m an enemy.” He shook his head. “This must be handled differently. At the moment I can’t trust myself. The party must look into this.”
    “The party?”
    “Yes. It’s up to our comrades to say that I’m right. They’ve got to tell me that they trust me, the way they have always trusted me up till now. And that my position here is justified. There’s a meeting tomorrow. I want you to put the case on the agenda. Listen—I’ve got a son, a grown son, who’s in the party. I have a daughter who will also join the party someday. My children must believe in me. I don’t want anyone to tell them, ‘Your father’s the kind of fellow who says one thing, and thinks another …’ I don’t think that way. I never thought that way—or else I wouldn’t be here, with you, now. Unity of thought and word and deed, that’s what makes a man. To my mind that’s the meaning of loyalty … Do you understand me, Jan?”
    “I understand, of course; I understand,” the other said. He was staring at the window; a wretched gray light seeped through the pane, trying to assert itself against the crazily flickering bulb on the ceiling. The secretary pressed his head with his hands. “What a filthy day it is!” he said. “First you, then Baniewicz with Majewska, then this parcel … You look at it superficially—the parcel is fine. It’s labeled, sealed, passed —that’s the end of it, you might think. But hell knows what it may lead to …” He looked heavily at Franciszek. “Damn it all!” he said in a fury. “Haven’t I enough troubles? Just tell me. First it’s Baniewicz, then it’s a parcel, now it’s some other dirty business—to hell with it all …” He drummed on the table with his fingers; the terrible roar ofthe engines in the workshops went on and off. “Why did you have to blurt it out?” the secretary asked.
    Franciszek froze suddenly, as though coated with ice. “What did you say?” he growled.
    “Why did you have to talk?” the secretary went on, staring at the dusty windowpanes. “Listen to me: Are you a party comrade? You are. Have you a card? You have. Have you a job? You have. Well, damn it, behave like a party comrade. But instead you suddenly scream at the top of your lungs, ‘I believe, I don’t believe, stick it all up …’ Goddam it, who asked you to go into all that?”
    He drew aside just in time: a heavy brass weight flew by a