Joseph Gross
Issue No. 19 • Spring 2018
[Pan Twardowski sits, back to the audience, at a bar counter crowned by a placard reading “Rzym.” The barkeep cleans, and patrons mill about. The Devil enters and stands facing Twardowski.]
BARKEEP:
A drink for you?
DEVIL:
No, thank you. Twardowski, you never specified which Rome would spell your doom. This one will do. I’m taking your soul now.
TWARDOWSKI:
Dzień dobry! Musisz się mylić, bo ja nie jestem mężczyzną, którego szukasz. Nazywam się Sobocinski, z miejsca wiśni. Nie mówię po angielsku, ale mogę zaoferować Ci drinka, przyjaciela. Mówisz po polsku?
DEVIL:
What would you be doing in Krakow, Sobocinski, from the place of the cherry trees? Warming up? Give it up, Twardowski. I know you speak English. You speak all languages through me.
BARKEEP:
A drink?
DEVIL:
No, I am here to conduct business with my friend, the noble sorcerer, and drinks are bad for business. Sober men break contracts; drunk men forget them.
TWARDOWSKI:
Fine, you beady-eyed goat, but how shall we explain our perfect English in a small Polish inn then?
DEVIL:
Why, I am John Dee, the alchemist, and you, Edward Kelly, my assistant, the Englishmen who grace the king’s court! How is dear old Sigismund, by the by? Still worthy of the name Augustus? Have you enjoyed summoning his late wife for him?
TWARDOWSKI:
You tell me, have you enjoyed playing her part? The king is, as you said, old…and decrepit. I could place a ring of kielbasa on my head and speak in falsetto and he would think me his wife. To answer your other question, I suppose if Claudius could be called Augustus, Sigismund can be too.
BARKEEP:
Are you going to order a drink? I have other patrons who would like your seat.
DEVIL:
If I must, I will have a vodka with pig’s blood, shaken, rocks, garnished with your hottest Indonesian chilis. Run along. So, Twardowski, I see your service to the king was just another grab at fame. Enough cloying. Are you going to beg or try and offer me another deal?
TWARDOWSKI:
Well, now that you’ve given me that segue…What if you take my soul only if you can live a year with my wife, the homely Pani Twardowska?
DEVIL:
If I wished to suffer other’s company I would have stayed in heaven. Sadly, I can not accept.
TWARDOWSKI:
Good for you. She lets the blood of men and makes kiszka from it. Maybe I should just go with you.
DEVIL:
That’s a bit much. And disgusting and misogynistic.
TWARDOWSKI:
And metaphorical. Misogynistic?
DEVIL:
Forget it. But still disgusting.
TWARDOWSKI:
You just ordered vodka and pig’s blood with hot peppers. I’m disgusting?
DEVIL:
My drink order was meant to be provocative and get the barkeep off my back. Yes, the way you talk of your wife and your metaphors are still disgusting.
BARKEEP:
Your drink.
DEVIL:
This is stirred, not shaken…There’s actually pig’s…Is he always so blind to sarcasm? Where did he even get the blood?
TWARDOWSKI:
He is and that is not really a concern of mine right now, though it’s fucking odd. Maybe if you let me off the hook I can find out?
DEVIL:
No, but I can see you have more questions for me. That, or your eyes are bulging because you’re about to shit.
TWARDOWSKI:
Fuck you. What I wanted from our initial contract, no, what I had dreamed for, was worldwide fame, not just fame here in Poland. By Fat Thursday, they will have forgotten me and will be dreaming about warm paczki instead. They do remember their writers, so why couldn’t I have been a great writer rather than a writer of books on sorcery and shoddy encyclopedias like those you whispered to me?
DEVIL:
Great writing, great art, great endeavors do not come through magic, magician. Nothing in this world can be gained through magic. If it were thus, the priests and pagans would hold the universe in thrall. Did you really want to be what you could not be, a Milosz or a Szymborska? They belong to later times, times of unrealized ambition. Times after the partitions.
[Twardowski yells the next set of lines, some in jest, drawing the attention of the rest of the bar’s patrons. The Devil does not acknowledge his change in pitch in responding.]
TWARDOWSKI:
Was I not worthy of my dream? Did you not comprehend my dream, Kingly Shedim? Could you not see a way to it’s realization, Prince of Darkness? Could you not provide my single measly dream? ... Partitions?
DEVIL:
My tongue dances though there is no music. Forget that last thing. But, in truth, you are not broken over having not achieved what you wanted. You are broken over having achieved exactly what you wanted and realizing its inadequacy and yours: some semblance of power, fleeting and material. In the words of a future writer, “your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.” I mean, what sort of dream is fame without a reason for that fame? If you had wished to be a writer, I might have given that to you but made you destitute…And the fame would have come. Do you understand, sorcerer? Don’t answer that. If you had dreamt of the means to achieve your end, well, dreams of means are not measly and means I can provide, but you dreamt of only the empty, worthless end and so, in this case, the means did not justify attainment of the end. You might learn something about dreaming in Hell, where one of your torments and only joys will be that you are still allowed to dream…I hadn’t wanted to torture you so harshly until we got there. Are you ready to go?
TWARDOWSKI:
Yes, just allow me to pay the barkeep. What does vodka and pig’s blood even cost?
[He reaches into his coat and produces a rosary, which he throws at the Devil. The Devil shrugs it off and speaks through laughter.]
DEVIL:
Did you just throw a rosary at me? What did you think would happen?
TWARDOWSKI:
I don’t know! Aren’t you supposed to have burned up or something? Catch me if you can! Fuck!