JANKO pOLie KAMOV
119
his suffering and his life with understanding and experience. For my broth–
ers were absent, and my mother knows nothing of politics, literature or
medicine.
Yes. It is them. My brothers will weep. I will comfort them, I wil l say:
It's better this way. If you had witnessed his suffering, you would feel better
now. It's easy for you to mourn and weep now.
Yes, it is them. The first and the second. The third one couldn't make
it. He's abroad. I forbid my mother to go
to
meet them. You will cry, I
said, and that will only make it worse for thelll. And I was thinking, I shall
explain to them. Nicely, quietly, soberly. There is so much kindness, good–
ness and politeness in Illy every move, thought and word. To protect my
father and comf()]"t my brothers! Ah' What a magnificent image of the
deceased arose in my mind. My brothers won't understand it; they hadn't
seen him. 13ut me! I saw two holes through which soup poured out; in the
bathroom he had tried to force himself so fiercely that a stream of blood
fell to the floor and the dog drank t:lther's blood, while I was looking at
the two holes through which hell came pouring out. And what will they
be able to tell me about? There they are, hesitating: they don't dare come
in; they've already lost courage! And what would they have done had they
faced what I faced? What will they tell me about? Drinking, women, vom–
iting. But about cancer, about cancer, about cancer' About decomposing,
decay, holes! And what is all the pleasure in the world compared to one
moment of terror!
Oh, my brothers. My brother, come into my arms! Take courage.
My brothers notice that I have grown in the year they haven't seen me.
I talk self-confidently and I choose my words. I explain in detail how the ill–
ness developed; how the catarrh choked my father and how that had finished
him off. How cancer has remained incurable and unexplained to this day.
What's more, today while everyone was sleeping, I took "Home Medicine"
and carefully read the passage on cancer several times. Cancer is intensified
by psychological suffering, the writer says. Cancer is hereditary, he goes on
to say. That's very important to me. Now I can talk about the disease with
more understanding and can make my f;lther's image more grandiose. In
front of my brothers I stress his liberal beliefs, his education, the spiritual
battles of the
patcrjillllilicls,
the clash between the problems of freedom and
discipline in raising the chi ldren. I explain his tragedy: such a kind, good and
polite man, and he had to die of the harshest disease, uncovered in fI-ont of
his son like Noah; he, a l11an of ideals, to have a chamber pot for his last wish.
My brothers look at me with respect and delight while I go on and on
praising the deceased. Finally I add:
"His illness was so unexpected and illogical like
deliS ex /llachilla
arriv–
ing in our modern tragedy
to
untie the knot with illness and death."
