Gorenski always found the concept of death comforting. His remarkable acceptance of the inevitable end never scared him. But neither did the unprecedented length of his life. Had nature taken its course, Gorenski would have died centuries ago-probably in the depths of the icy streams on the outskirts of an unknown town where he first came into his power. But defying nature was the art he excelled at.
When Gorenski shot back, spinning in the whirl of autumn leaves, his opponent gasped. The bullet hit him in the neck and remained lodged deep inside the tissue like an arrow's head. Gorenski always aimed for necks when shooting, and this time was no different.
Approaching the body with deliberate slowness, the doctor watched his secretary whisper a prayer and close the deceased's eyes before crossing himself. A bead of sweat rolled off Broniec's forehead, disappearing in the curl of his neck, covered by auburn hair. From a distance, he looked like Fra Angelico's depiction of Saint Augustine during his conversion - an image of humility and grace.
Perhaps his deceptive vulnerability inspired Gorenski to paint his secretary more often than others-a fragile porcelain doll of a man with the stubbornness of a donkey. When Gorenski's art was not created in blood and sinew, nobody saw it. Thus, Kazimierz never knew how Doctor Gorenski envisioned him-or he never remembered, even if he looked.
Whatever the case, Gorenski always arrived at the same conclusion: Morok was a cruel trickster who granted power by taking the desired away. Gorenski understood Morok. After all, he had always believed humans were made in the gods' images to defy and overcome them.
Nimble and quiet, he approached Kazimierz, who rose to his feet beneath the crooked oak tree. Glancing at the dead swine on the ground, Gorenski addressed his secretary with his usual calm politeness. His pulse was once again steady, and his heart was no longer numb.
"You should have prepared him, Kazimierz, before sending him after me." He paused, examining the body with its glassy eyes and limp arms. "Don't blame yourself too much. Acceptance of imperfection promotes a healthy mind."
"You've accused me of trying to kill you before." Kazimierz froze, his face white and his hand still checking Spiegel's pulse. "You can't know. I did not...."
"Of course you did. You sent him after me." With matter-of-fact practicality, Gorenski looked around to ensure no one followed them to the forest or overheard the shots. "You only hoped that Herr Spiegel would not ambush me too soon. If I had to accuse you, I would lay blame on your impatience."
"Why would I send someone to kill you now? I've tried so many times already. To no avail."
"That you have. But circumstances have changed. Or so you believe. Perhaps there is a new possible Curator in this world whose Talent is unnervingly similar to mine." Gorenski chose his words with precision, gleaming more from his secretary's strained pose than Kazimierz would have liked to believe. "Since you are a resourceful young man, you placed your bet on my possible competitor - even if out of spite rather than calculation. You believe I am losing my grasp and, therefore, can be removed. Given your remarkable impulsivity, your actions are understandable."
"You're extrapolating." Kazimierz pursed his lips.
"I always am. Reflection helps contain one's impulses. It would do you good."
"Contain one's impulses? You killed his sister because she harmed Ice. I am certain your beloved cat would have survived without your interference."
"Perhaps, but hypotheticals do not interest me in this case. All that matters is that she hurt my cat and exhibited swinish behaviour that warranted retribution."
Fuming, Kazimierz met Gorenski's brown eyes.
"And you are always the one to decide if people deserve to live based on their swinish behaviour?" Kazimierz pointed at the body while Gorenski put a raincoat over his soft cashmere garment, examining the possible traces of the duel that could alert the police.
"Yes, I am the one to decide," he answered. "Because I can." He paused, slung the body over his shoulder, placed it on the plastic fabric that protected his double-breasted coat, and headed to the car.
"We all savour and entertain the idea of avenging those who wronged us," Gorenski said, slinking past trees of dark gold and never tripping. "And yet we cower, hide behind excuses and self-righteousness, high morals, and religious doctrines, denying ourselves and the world justice. We want to pay those who hurt us, Kazimierz." He paused, stuffing the body into the car. "Don't you want to take revenge on me?"
When Kazimierz did not answer, he continued. "Of course you do. But you need me to be the devil for your morals to agree with your desire for my death. You need to marry your conscience to your bloodlust."
"Luckily, you never have such reservations."
"No, I do not." He ignored the poison-dripping sarcasm. "Every swine who's harmed me has met its retribution-every single one."
Gorenski started the engine when Kazimierz's hissing voice reached his ears again.
"And Elise? Was she, too, a swine? Is that why you keep her heart on your table? Or is it the bookshelf now?"
Gorenski did not stop the car, but his hand pushed the clutch with more force than usual, jerking them in their seats and straining the seatbelts of the old-fashioned black Volga. There were lines Kazimierz never crossed with him, knowing full well of the consequences such transgressions could bring. Yet, his secretary acted brashly now. If someone or something had emboldened him, they must have been impressive.
"That was most uncouth, Kazimierz," he said, voice dangerously low and husky. "Even for you."
"But you won't kill me."
"Why should I?" Broniec was right. He would not. But Gorenski would put him back in his place.
"You are more disappointed with yourself than mad at me, Kazimierz. Bringing the Spiegel sister to me must have taken extensive planning. After all, I specialize in brain trauma and mainly perform surgery. You must have found a way to inflict the damage before sending the woman to me for a consultation. Also, you knew she was allergic to cats. Ice's occasional visits are not a secret to you, but bringing all of us to the same place and timing the encounter should have been difficult for you. You've planned everything, Kazimierz. Even her brother's wrath."
"I haven't planned enough, it seems," Kazimierz hissed through gritted teeth.
"You naively assumed a pompous, overdressed fool like Spiegel would be wise enough to collect the evidence and turn to the police. Then the police would apprehend me and shoot me dead if you are fortunate."
"I am not that fortunate."
"No, your god never answered your prayers. Only I ever did."
In the night, Gorenski stood over a body tossed to the ground in Prater Park, not too far from the main alley-a conspicuous place with the amusement park still in plain sight, even in the dark of the night. The air chilled his lungs while dying leaves on the ground tickled his nostrils with their deceptive warmth. Darkness called him. Yet, in a place as touched by civilization as Prater, even the shrubbery seemed ordained.
Leaving a body in the park was a statement: Gorenski wanted it to be seen, wanted the police to break their heads over the accident, knowing none of them would be clever enough to find him. Unlike the shadow behind him. Perhaps that shadow could.
Gorenski felt that alien presence in his marrow. He had noticed it a few months before Spiegel's fateful visit. Was that someone to whom Kazimierz prayed for his death? Gorenski was no longer the only hunter in that forest, and he welcomed the change, feeling the thrill in his veins - he was born for blood and history.
An elegant grim reaper, Gorenski took his paints and knives out of the silver-encrusted box. From joints, he could weave leaves, and from smashed pigments, he would create an intense shade of green to apply to severed limbs and sinew. In less than two hours, he would turn the body into a tulip with its head bowed, arms sewn together to form petals, and skin stretched over the altered carcass of bones. For Gorenski, centuries spent in mortuaries worldwide paid off in a familiarity with anatomy that even the most experienced doctors found extraordinary. He read bodies like others skimmed evening news.
Gorenski worked quickly, struck by inspiration. His focus was as supreme as his olfactory sense, extraordinary even for a Talented. Being caught would have been inconvenient. It was not as if Gorenski could not have solved such an issue. He certainly could. But he preferred elegance and civility even in death. If something ever made him lash out, it was betrayal, but hardly danger.
"Was the display really necessary?" Kazimierz asked once Gorenski was done with his work. Twenty steps away, he moved like a ghost whose features were highlighted by the lanterns from the alley.
"It gave me aesthetic pleasure," Gorenski answered.
Kazimierz stared at the messy palette and the forceps extractor that Gorenski had used to remove the antiquated bullet from Spiegel. "You're concerned about aesthetics more than about self-preservation."
"Risk avoidance is impossible if one's goal is to enjoy all the beauty and horror of life. Stagnation breeds degradation." He wiped his hands and assembled the instruments before leaving the scene. "Look at him, Kazimierz. What do you see?"
"A butchered body," Broniec murmured, heading towards the car. If he could shout and call the police, he probably would have done so. But the price for his Talent was his service to Gorenski, and he obeyed.
"Your high moral standards are a shield, Kazimierz. You hide from your darkness by denying its existence and not allowing yourself to dwell upon it," Gorenski said, reaching Kazimierz, becoming the devil behind his left shoulder.
If someone dared to harm Gorenski, he killed them and made them more than they had been before death. He elevated them in a way. After all, the greedy, short-sighted, and indifferent swine that were his canvasses did not deserve mercy.
His curse was to be madly in love with the human condition and the progress of human civilization and yet to be removed from it, almost forcefully. Nobody would ever see his true face. Nobody would ever understand him. Only the white fog he wandered with- 'morok'.
When they returned to Gorenski's apartment, Kazimierz sulked as he often did in the doctor's presence. But Gorenski knew what could elevate his spirits.
"Crème Caramel?" He asked, lifting an eyebrow. Broniec hated Gorenski's diner table but still sat at the same place in the corner, feet tapping the parquet floor. Gorenski knew his habits and his weaknesses. His secretary would not refuse a treat, even though he would make his displeasure evident and insufferable.
Crème Caramel was Broniec's favourite dessert. Everyone had one. Everyone revealed their mind and desire in their taste. Many of Gorenski's lovers - his laundry list of sexual experiments that offered occasional thrill and empty physical pleasure - all had sweet teeth. Some loved zesty citruses, while others preferred the smooth bitterness of dark chocolate. Everyone responded to a flavour that made them burst like ripe grapefruits spilling seeds.
There was only one uncatalogued dessert in his memory-strange and simple, the one he could not quite place: Habcsók. He did not know why he remembered it. It occupied Gorenski's mind while he stirred the thickening crème with a wooden spoon in his supremely equipped kitchen. His memory had been playing tricks on him lately, and he wondered why.
"Have you disposed of Spiegel's companions?" Broniec asked when his silver spoon hit the solid caramel, thin like the first ice on a tranquil lake in autumn.
"I did."
This time, Kazimierz did not call him insane or evil, keeping his thoughts to himself. But his wince did not escape Gorenski's attentive eyes.
"What is the tab, Kazimierz?" Gorenski asked, knowing the answer.
"Five to one. You have killed more than you have saved this week."
"Thank you. You have always been an excellent secretary."
Gorenski turned around and headed to the fireplace next to the door that connected his dining room with his office. He had to settle the tab, equalizing his counts of lives taken and preserved. He found this equilibrium interesting.
"I am not your excellent secretary, Doctor," Broniec spat out, spoon trembling in his thin hand. It is Morok that binds me. I have no choice. This is the price I pay for my Talent."
"I have never mistaken your professionalism for personal affection, Kazimierz," Gorenski told him while his eyes followed the outline of the jar with a human heart on his worktable in the adjacent room. "Your stubbornness is admirable. What would you have if it disappeared?"
"I will never disappear. And you don't hate it enough to kill me."
"Why should I? Your attempts are fruitless, and yet you persist. Hope is a powerful force."
After his observant remark, Kazimierz squeezed his fists and stood up, leaving crème caramel on the table. "I hope you die. I hope someone kills you. I hope you will suffer for all you have done."
"And how would that make you feel? Triumphant?"
"Free."
Gorenski smiled, but his eyes remained cold and glossy. They always did.
"You'll never be free, Kazimierz. It is not I who torments you but your inhibitions." He drew closer, forcing Kazimierz to retreat to the wall. "A Polish boy on the field littered with bodies. You were a beautiful sight with your hair like a heap of autumn leaves on the ground. Do you remember what you said to me when I leaned over you and pressed my finger to the artery to stop the bleeding?"
"I've regretted it ever since." Kazimierz turned away. "I should have died."
"Chcę żyć. I want to live. That was what you said." The corner of Gorenski's lips quirked, but he did not smile this time. "Do not blame yourself. Our survival instinct is often stronger than our nobler impulses. There's nothing shameful about that. It has kept the species alive longer than expected."
"It was a shameful weakness. I was a Polish officer."
"Dying at the ripe old age of eighteen is breathtakingly romantic. I should regret having robbed Poland of you," Gorenski retaliated with thinly veiled sarcasm.
"I was a patriot liberating his country from invaders, and you were there in your pretty, expensive coat and fur hat. You were a prince with dead eyes pretending to perform doctoral duties. You always pretend."
He was there, wasn't he? Due to his displacement in childhood, Gorenski's upbringing was remarkably Polish, leaving the most extreme of both Polish and Russian in him. Perhaps that inability to fit into any of the frames offered by history infuriated Kazimierz. Gorenski defied categorization and mocked it in the way others abided by its rules.
When a string of fateful events brought them together, Gorenski defied the expectation for someone of his noble lineage by choosing the path of a military medic. The cruel Empire allowed him to see more than others could imagine, and he benefited from it due to his high social standing, gender, money, exceptional mind, and refined, polished appearance.
"There is nothing like war to teach one about the intricacies of anatomy, Kazimierz," he said, remembering the aftermaths of the Napoleonic wars. "That was not my first theatre of battle. And it was not my last one. Polish or not, we all bleed the same."
"I don't care what it was for you. I had my oath. I was an officer serving my country."
"No longer. As tempting and romantic as our lives may have been, we've left them behind. Our insecurities don't lie in our past or our origins."
"Of course, Prince Gorenski. Have you left that behind, Your Highness?"
"I prefer the title I earned to the one I inherited," he replied smoothly.
"You prefer a mask," Kazimierz said. "You always wear it, and everyone is swept away by your charm. But not me. I know it's a mask."
"And you still don't know what's beneath it."
"A monster."
What else could Broniec say? 'Monster' is the definition of the unknown.
"You are a count yourself. Kazimierz. Does your hamlet in Silesia define you?" Gorenski asked, taking a bottle of champagne from the humidifier and returning to the diner table. "Or does Morok define us?"
"You are not defined by Morok, Doctor," Kazimierz replied, his eyes focused and glazed like Pythia's before reciting a prophecy. "You leave a trail of blood behind. And you will be followed. Someone will be clever enough to take you down. If not Spiegel, then someone else. And that will happen soon. Death is coming for you."
"Perhaps. I am looking forward to defeating Death." Gorenski opened the bottle with a characteristic pop, inhaling the mild notes of celery and green apple, then poured the champagne into two glasses. He was almost distracted when an acrid smell from the basement reached his nostrils. Followed by muffled noise, it would have been missed by anyone untouched by Morok. But both Gorenski and Broniec heard and felt the turbulence.
There was expectation and a question in Gorenski's dark eyes when he met Kazimierz's triumphant stare.
"You should have hidden the companions' bodies better, Doctor." He scowled. "They are discovered. Remember what I said: if not Spiegel, then someone else. Your time is up." His hand reached out for a glass. "Be proud of me. I will have my revenge."
Gorenski's calmness did not dissipate. All he did was lift his glass.
"Let us toast to that, Kazimierz."
Author's Note: When Gorenski sees Kazimierz kneeling before the dead body, he compares his secretary to Fra Angelico's painting, The Conversion of St. Augustine. And, yes, Kazimierz hates everything about Gorenski, even his refined taste.