Annihilation – by Piotr Szewc
translated by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarborough

Presented here by kind permission of Dalkey Archive Press

The time is 1:23.

The air is dense. The two suns have warmed it up earlier than usual today. The afternoon heat only seems to expand it. In fact the air is as dense as morning fog. Another comparison is also possible: the air in February or January may be equally dense. Compressed by frost, it jingles softly. You have only to listen. One more time the attorney wipes the sweat off his face and forehead. The concert in the linden trees goes on. A spot of light on the attorneys face. Right now they jump over a narrow, frozen river. Walek is last, the others are older than he. They let him carry a pole. He has to be careful not to break it. The pole is very long and easy to break. To make matters worse, he can’t pull his leg out of the snow. They say something and laugh, turning away from Walek. He’d like to plunge the pole into the snow somewhere or grab one of their caps, twirl it high, then throw it far back behind himself. He can’t do that- they wouldn’t take him with them again.



The dark wall of the forest before them. If s still far away. Walek stops. He wants to take a rest, to catch a breath. They are about halfway through. The roofs are covered with snow. Here and there smoke rises from a chimney- someone is sending signs of life. All the trees in front of his house took like trees after a fire that burned the leaves. Enough. The trees are dead. The dots of crows at the treetops. The second half of December- every few days a new layer of snow. Far out there, in town, hungry dogs are barking. The red tongues of dogs, the tongues of devils. There are different fires, and there are different hells. Only at night, streaks of fire trail up the sky. It seems that the red tongues of dogs are on fire. Dogs-devils, the phantoms of that winter. After dusk the doors are bolted, the windows covered. Hungry dogs attack the houses, breathe out smoke and fire. Noise and words that no one has ever heard. Such was Walek’s dream. He stops to rest. He hasn’t seen the fire-spitting dogs yet. He didn’t tell anybody about his dream. Nobody would have believed him. They are calling to him to follow.

The air is dense, compressed by the frost- as if from above, something were pushing it down into the snow. A short, shallow breath, and the lungs are full. The pole feels heavier and more unwieldy. The air jingles softly like distant bells. As far as you can see, no one is riding. The air crackles like sand in an hourglass or snow underfoot. They are smoking cigarettes. Walek breathes in the fragrant smoke. Here on those marshes, on those swampy meadows, during this freezing weather, the smoke is a bit different. Walek doesn’t like his grandfather’s breath smelling of cigarette smoke or his father’s when he sits down in his lap. But today it smells different. Several goldfinches have flown by. The tracks of hares in the snow. Walek squats and, with the tips of his fingers, touches the depressions. The snow in them is somewhat less cold. He must get up and follow the other boys.

"What are you looking for, Walek?"

"I’m just-hares have been here."

Each breath, each deep breath pulls the whole winter into the lungs. The compressed space, like compressed, dense air, tears the body from the inside. The sky is low and, for wintertime, quite bright. it is windless. The air jingles softly. A bright Sunday morning. The first clusters of alders to which they are going stand several minutes away. No one is in a hurry. But Walek would like to be there, be there as fast as possible, be there right now. The dogs, these terrible dogs… Maybe it isn’t true? Maybe he didn’t dream about them?

"Don’t look back, Walek. Don’t look back. We are almost there. Listen carefully and you’ll hear them for sure."





Before the forest, against the snow, a red flame sneaks by. The fox runs, stops. A few leaps and it vanishes behind the nearest trees.



The familiar odor of glue for catching siskins wafts in the air around them. Walek asks them to take the pole from him. it’s close to the alders and he’s a little ashamed to give it back, but he prefers to walk more freely, run, when he wants, or bend down over something. And the pole gets in the way. He gives it back to Marian. When Marian smiles, his teeth light up his swarthy face.

Now his two hands are free. The partridges flush noisily when he throws a snowball at them. The noise subsides, but it can still be heard. Then it’s gone. Walek can’t hear them any longer-the partridges sink into the snow like they sink into the grown wheat in the summer, without a trace. Without a trace? ‘Me air is vibrating like a chord that has been struck. It radiates. Such a trace two meters above the snow, a transitory reminder that the birds have recently been here. Do they – those that are walking ahead of Walek-see the constantly vibrating air? Do they hear- although it isn’t audible, you may always hear it- the beating wings of the partridges that cower behind the juniper bush? Walek doubts that they can see the vibrating air and hear the beating wings. But truly the existence of such phenomena can’t be denied. The more Walek doubts that his older friends know about them, the more unshakable his own faith in those phenomena is.

They are close to the first alders. The bare branches, irregularly shaped balls of seed at their tips. The siskins aren’t here, but they must be nearby. Walek can smell the glue on the sticks that Marian is holding with care. Walek decides to take the pole again. They walk scrutinizing the tops of the alders, trying to hear if maybe the siskins are chirping there softly. They can hear the snow crunching and the fragile alder branches breaking under the snow. Soon it will be noon- the bells have sounded in town. A screeching magpie alarms the whole forest. The meadows and the forest are streaked by sunlight. Sun rays bounce off the snow and cross one another many times. Quickened breathing-more and more winter in the lungs. Walek overtakes his friends. He wants to be the first to hear and see the siskins. He is holding the pole, but he doesn’t know he has it.

In the snow, the traces of a marten’s or a weasel’s paws, with hollows left by the claws. They lead to the moss-covered aspen trees. A couple of jackdaws romp in the willow bush. The jackdaws fly off when Walek scares them by waving his hand.

At last they are here. Walek is the first to notice the siskins. They perch quietly, chilled-perhaps in anticipation of the impending. The rusty-yellow-and-green bellies are ruffled. They peck the alder seeds or hide their beaks in their feathers. Ready to take wing at any moment. They must be approached very cautiously.

This prologue to the mystery of the hunt that is about to begin requires the utmost concentration Walek is counting siskins. There are nine of them. How many of them will let themselves be caught? What do they know about glue-smeared rods that will adhere to their wings and bellies? The pole with a sticky rod attached to its end is rising up little by little. (A slight stir among the siskins. They leap onto the higher branches.) The pole leans against a thicker branch and for a moment stops. (Don’t breathe, don’t move an eyelid, listen to the blood coursing through the veins.) Again Walek sees the dog-devils illuminating the town with fire. The dog-devils chase people who run on the streets. The streets are grey from smoke. Together with fire, a cry ascends to the sky. The gluey stick is just now touching the wing. The flutter of the second free wing. The pole with the floundering siskin wanders down.



The remaining eight don’t fly away. They are waiting for something-for what? Slowly the boys remove the siskin from the stick. On the snow, the torn-off feathers lie like drops of blood. Walek asks them to let him hold the siskin. They hand him the bird, telling him not to release it. Walek moves the siskin from his right hand to his left, walks to an alder, props his right hand on the trunk and shakes it hard. And he lets the siskin go. All the others have also flown away. The boys look dumbfounded at what has happened.

Walek is running ahead, stumbling, sinking into the snow. They aren’t following him but he can hear their curses. But this doesn’t concern Walek anymore, nothing concerns him anymore now.

The attorney is standing in the window, his eyes fixed on some point. Can it be that he once dreamed about dogs raging in town? That the dogs carried people away? This is very baffling. In fact it is unbelievable. Did he dream about them or not? He remembers shaking the alder to scare the siskins away. He remembers coming back home late at night, hungry, chilled, with fingers like icicles. The rest is blurred by fog, by a huge cloud before the eyes that successfully obstructs visibility.

The attorney returns to his desk. The constant hum of the town. The sun slants into the office from the right. It hangs high like before. Its slight shift to the west – is it really a shift? – causes the sunrays to enter the office obliquely, it seems. The rays cross. The second sun, the dome of the Town Hall, continues to shine.

The afternoon is still at its peak. The play of light that no paintbrush will convey. Everything changes in one moment. The attorney raises his eyes and squints. The rays of both suns hit the windowsill. They refract on the windowpanes and, at a new angle, enter the office.

The heated air billows as before over the roofs. Over the tin, over the roof tiles, it rolls down onto the streets, under the feet onto the cobblestones, the dust, and withered grass.

The Hasidim can’t be seen in front of the Town Hall. They walked away in an unknown direction. Their white stockings have changed color because of the dust. who knows- maybe the Hasidim are resting in the shadow of the horse-chestnut trees. Reclining, one hand propped on the grass, the other hand tossing pieces of broken branches into the pond, they watch the circles on the water disperse.

The attorney stares into the comer of the office. Something rustles or stirs there. Nothing can be seen. Flies zoom, land on the desk and on the lamp. Maniek, Marian… His last name may have begun with an "M" too. Or maybe with an "N." Or with a "P." it was kind of short. He wore his hair cropped, had a swarthy face, white teeth. In the summer, at the time of bar making, he liked to sing. After Mass on Sundays, when we went to the forest, he sang. Those songs, short and simple, which I too knew by heart. Jadwiga liked to sing them. What has remained? Where is he, Maniek whose last name I can’t even remember now? And would I recognize him? Fog and confusion in my memory. Nothing is left.

This unexpected recollection of an old friend and Play companion about whom he now knew so little put the attorney into a state of pensiveness-or rather of latent sadness. The wheels of a droshky clatter noisily in front of the Dominican church. The attorney doesn’t hear that. He is sitting on the edge of a chair, turned towards the back wall of the office. His head is bent down, a strand of hair dangling over his forehead.

He puts a mint drop into his mouth. Several are still left. He goes over today’s mail and sorts out the earlier batch. He writes to the more important clients. At this time nobody ever comes to the office. The attorney breathes deeply.



Somewhere far away, in the north, a thunderstorm rolls, but the townspeople don’t know about it.

When a cat looks straight at the sun or at the dome of the Town Hall, its pupil narrows. Cats leave the cool of gates and cellars. For a short time they stand in front of the houses, on the lawns, in the warmth of the two suns. Their coats absorb the heat. Sparks discharged by their coats are fragments of the sunrays. Then the cats return to the gates, to the cellars, to the little-known underground life.

As it turns out, the Hasidim are sitting on the benches in the park under the horse-chestnut trees, close to the pond. Some of them have sat down on the grass. All have loosened up their clothes. One of the Hasidim now and again picks up a discolored chestnut and throws it on the water. Before long the Hasidim will go to dinner, but we don’t know yet to which restaurant.

But before that happens the zaddik will intone a new song. The Hasidim will pick up the songs words, and the town will hear singing coming from the park

Attorney Danilowski seals the envelopes and writes addresses. Soon he will go to dinner as well.

What will happen next?

We have to trust the order of events and things. It is inviolable and the only one right. When we look at the hands of the clock on the Town Hall, we could swear that they are at a standstill. And then, during each passing moment, nothing happens.

We close our eyes. We can hear the pious Hasidim singing a long way off. The air is dense. Let’s open our eyes. One, two minutes have passed. The clock readily informs us about it. We can see the attorney scratching his temple with a fingernail. Nothing can be stopped.

Our new photograph:

Blue, black and white. A stork flying over the town, below the sun, above the dome of the Town Hall. What will the blue of the sky look like in a photograph? The stork is bound for the meadows, most likely near the Labunka. The wings keep moving. We close our eyes. The wings continue to move. We close our eyes again. A small point vanishing in space.

Let’s turn back from the attorney’s office. Let’s go to Listopadowa, to Lwowska. Let’s go to the market square. Let’s enter the fire, the smoke, the flood that Mr. Hershe Baum dreamed.

In the market square, as near the attorney’s office, it is still early afternoon.



But it is already a different kind of afternoon. The sun that until recently hung at the top of the pear tree has detached itself. And when we stand at the place from which we observed the sun before, we notice that it has really moved to the right. It has moved towards the market square, towards Mr. Hershe Baum’s store and Rosenzweig’s tavern.

The goat is no longer under the apple tree. Maybe it is plundering someone’s garden. Or maybe, hidden from view, it is resting in the shade of a lilac bush. We can’t hear its bleating.

We are passing the house in which Kazimiera M lives. We are approaching the flour mill. The sounds of working machines are at first muffled, then louder and louder. Looking for scattered seeds, chickens busy themselves among the piles of horse dung. We don’t know if those are the same chickens on which this morning Kazimiera M poured the contents of her chamber pot. At the wall of the mill, flowering dandelions, the leaves wilted from heat. We pick up a leaf- white juice slowly flows. A drop of the juice spreads at the tip of the tongue. How bitter it is!

We are walking on Listopadowa. The flour mill is several steps behind us. A barefoot man, wearing only pants, stands among gooseberry bushes.