‘I must have inherited my eccentricities from my father,’ Oddball concluded.
I was truly moved by his story, but also by the fact that never before (or since) had I heard him make such a long speech. I’d love to have known about further episodes in his life – for instance, I was curious to learn who Black Coat’s mother was – but now he seemed sad and exhausted. And we also found we had quite unconsciously eaten all the strawberries.
Now that he had revealed his real name to me, I couldn’t refuse to go to the meeting with him, so that afternoon we went. The Tools that I kept in the back of the Samurai rattled as drove along.
‘What are you carrying about in this car?’ asked Świętopełk. ‘What on earth do you need all those things for? A camping cooler? A petrol can? Shovels?’
Surely he knew that if you live on your own in the mountains you have to be self-sufficient?
By the time we arrived everyone was seated at the table, drinking strong coffee brewed in the glass. To my surprise I noticed that the Penny Buns Mushroom Pickers’ Society had a large membership, including people whom I knew well from the shops and kiosks, and from the street, and some whom I hardly recognised. So this was the one thing capable of bringing people together – mushroom picking. The conversation was dominated from the start by two men of the genus Woodcock who, like those noisy birds, outshouted each other in an effort to recount their rather unexciting adventures, which they both called ‘anecdotes’. Several other people endeavoured to silence them, but to no effect. As I learned from the woman sitting to my left, the ball was to be held at the firehouse, which was situated near the Fox farm, not far from Ox Heart Corner, but some of the members were protesting against that plan.
‘It won’t be much fun having a party near the spot where a friend of ours died,’ said the man chairing the meeting, whom I was pleased to recognise as the school’s history teacher. I would never have guessed he was keen on mushrooms too.
‘That’s one thing,’ said the woman sitting opposite me, who ran a newspaper kiosk and often kept magazines for me. ‘Apart from that, it could still be dangerous around there. Some of the ladies and gentlemen smoke, for instance, and will want to go outside into the fresh air…’
‘I should mention that smoking is not allowed inside the firehouse, whereas we can only drink alcohol indoors, according to the permission we’ve obtained. Otherwise it’ll be classed as public consumption and it’ll be illegal.’
A murmur ran through the assembled company.
‘What’s that?’ called a man in a khaki waistcoat. ‘I, for one, like to smoke when I drink. And vice versa. So what am I to do?’
The history teacher chairing the meeting was perplexed, and in the confusion that followed, everyone started giving advice on how to resolve the situation.
‘You can stand in the doorway, with one hand holding your glass inside, and the other holding your cigarette outside,’ someone shouted from the back of the room.
‘The smoke will get inside anyway…’
‘There’s a roofed terrace there. Does the porch count as inside, or outside?’ someone else asked sensibly.
The chairman rapped on the table, and at that very moment a late arrival entered the room – it was ‘the President’, apparently an honorary member of the Society. Everyone fell silent. The President was one of those people who are used to being the centre of attention. From his early youth he had been on the board of something or other: the school student union, the Boy Scouts Service for People’s Poland, the local council, the quarry company – supervisory bodies of every possible kind. Even though he had served as a member of parliament for one term, everyone called him the President. In the habit of running the show, he solved the problem immediately.
‘In truth, we can have a buffet on the porch, and we’ll declare the terrace the buffet zone,’ he joked genially, though few people laughed at his pun.
Admittedly, he was a good-looking man, though disfigured by an ample belly. He was self-confident, charming, and his Jovian physique inspired confidence. Oh yes, this man was born to rule. And he didn’t know how to do anything else.
The smug President delivered a short speech about how life must go on, even after the greatest tragedies. He larded it with little jokes, and kept appealing to ‘our lovely ladies’. He had the rather common habit of repeating a favourite phrase every now and then. In his case it was ‘in truth’.
I had my Theory about interjections of this kind: every single Person has their own expression which he or she overuses. Or uses incorrectly. These words or phrases are the key to their intellect. Mr ‘Apparently’, Mr ‘Generally’, Mrs ‘Probably’, Mr ‘Fucking’, Mrs ‘Don’t You Think?’, Mr ‘As If’. The President was Mr ‘In Truth’. Of course there are entire fashions for some words, just like the ones that for some crazy reason suddenly make everyone start going about in identical shoes or clothes – people just as suddenly start using one particular word or phrase. Recently the word ‘generally’ was fashionable, but now ‘actually’ is out in front.
‘In truth, the dearly departed’ – at this point he made a gesture, as if trying to cross himself – ‘was a good friend of mine – we had many shared interests. He was also a keen mushroom picker, and I’m sure he would have joined us this year. In truth, he was a very decent man, of broad horizons. He gave people jobs, and in truth, for that alone we should respect his memory. Jobs don’t grow on trees. He died in mysterious circumstances, but in truth, the Police will soon get to the bottom of the case. In truth, we shouldn’t let ourselves be terrorised, or give in to fear. Life has its rules, and we cannot ignore them. Courage, dear friends, my lovely ladies – in truth, I’m all for putting an end to the gossip and groundless hysteria. In truth, we must trust the authorities and live according to our common values.’ He spoke as if he were a candidate in a forthcoming election.
I couldn’t help thinking that someone who overuses the phrase ‘in truth’ is sure to be a liar.
The people at the meeting went back to their chaotic debate. Once again someone brought up the topic of the beast lurking in the countryside near Kraków last year. Was it really safe to hold the ball in the firehouse, right at the edge of the biggest forest in the area?
‘Do you remember how the television followed the operation run by the Police in September to catch the mysterious animal in a village near Kraków? One of the locals happened to have filmed a predator on the run, probably a young lion,’ said an excited young man. I thought I recognised him from Big Foot’s house.
‘Nah, you must have got something mixed up. A lion? Here?’ said the man in khaki.
‘It wasn’t a lion, it was a young tiger,’ said Mrs Merrilegs; that was what I called her, because she was tall and nervous and sewed very elaborate costumes for the local ladies, so this name suited her best. ‘I saw the pictures on TV.’
‘He’s right, let him finish, that’s how it was,’ the women said indignantly.
‘The Police spent two days searching for that lion or tiger, that animal – they used helicopters and an anti-terrorist brigade, remember? It all cost half a million but they never found it.’