Buying the Mercedes

Count Czechowski telephoned on Thursday early in the morning. He apologized that he had not been in contact for so long, but the entire time he was away. 

We arranged that I would be at his place in an hour. I was upset about the Mercedes, with which soon I would have to irreversibly part, and which I had come to like from the first test drive, which I took together with Milena. 

I constantly considered if I should buy it after all, and when I departed, to leave it for my mother. I oriented myself also that the monthly limits on distance in this totally degenerated and corrupt country was a clean fiction and when you paid a fifty or hundred złoty bribe, no one would be interested if you rode in a given month two hundred, two thousand or even twenty thousand kilometers. 

When I arrived, the count, in the same dark blue robe as before, drinking coffee, sat before a giant two-deck game of solitaire. It was visible that he had just taken a bath and shaved, because his right cheek had a light nick of the type made during shaving. 

Apologizing, with a sour face he informed me that unfortunately in the last month in his financial operations, because of clean stupidity, he committed several errors. 

He said he was sorry but at the moment in no way could he return these eighteen thousand he owed me. 

He had for me however an interesting proposition. He was open to drop the price of the car a bit. 

When I asked how much, he said that if I were able to buy it today and pay the remainder of the sum at this moment, than he would give it to me not for thirty six, but for twenty six thousand. 

Lately I always carried, just in case, some twenty, thirty thousand throughout my pockets. I made a decision in a second, and said that I could pay him this sum soon, but considering that it would be inhumane so callously and classlessly to take advantage of his momentary poor financial condition, I decided that instead of the remaining eight, I would pay him ten thousand—but under two conditions. 

First, I did not want to sign the papers for the sale now, because I was not sure whether I would register the automobile in my name or my mother’s. 

Second, I wanted the price of the automobile to be officially listed in the actual papers no higher than fourteen thousand. I knew that the value of the Mercedes was actually unquantifiable; I could probably successfully pass it off as an old, almost worthless piece of junk which I bought naively from some cheater, overpaying fourteen thousand. 

This sum was theoretically after all within the financial reach of my possibilities. 

Officially working hard full time as an inspector of chimney workers as well as receiving honoraria from my work for different periodicals, plus money for my sports results, I was able this non-bagatelle sum to scrape up over time and prove that I attained it the legal way. 

In any case no one could nit-pick at anything, and in fact they could have at me. Quickly I pulled out ten thousand and counting it before his eyes put it in front of him. The count stood, took the money, blew at it three times and left the room. 

He returned in a moment, in his left hand holding some papers, in his right hand an old fountain pen of the firm Mont Blanc. I noticed that the fingers of the Count were stained with ink. We put down our signatures, and as I signed the document and stained my own hands with the count’s eternal pen, promised myself to complete the registrations within two months. We parted ways like old friends.

The Mercedes was mine. For the next several days I reveled in the possession of my own vehicle. I drove everyone I liked and everyone who asked me. 

My mom, Milena, Aurelia, lots of my colleagues, twice even Mr. B and once Tufta, Plebanczyk and his wife, Basia Krol, Wojtek Szpotakowski, red-head Daria, Jurek Beker, Teresa Zipser, Tomek Skarżyński, Adas Wolski, Zosia Staboszewska, Henio Kozłowski, the handless Henio Lis, Dagmara Poncyliusz, Kazio Madejski, Ewa Panufnik, Grzesio Siodor, Wanda Majer, Johnny Piczura, Cezary Lucer, Zdzisio Jurkiewicz, Henio Kopec, Honorata Klima, Chris Napora, the underage Teresa Szreder, Joanna Rawik, Zbyszek Paluszak, the beautiful Magda, Jasio Geppert, Jurek Antkowiak, this one beautiful big breasted daughter of the one organist, Staszek Grochowiak, Janusz Krzymiński, Witold Kotylla, Jagoda Czartoryska, Jasio Kalisz and Stanley Kochankek, Regina Konieczka, Simon Szurmiej, Marika, Artur Ossowicz, Gabi, Andrzej Cyrano, Nina Ciążyńska, Tomek and Marek Łowiccy, the beautiful and very sexy Zyta, Andrzej Bolechowski, Leszek Kauhfold, Jacek Łukasiewicz, Irka Skangiel, Mark Petrusewicz, Zbyszek and Al Krasuscy, Miłka Schall, Jasio Szarejko, Michael Kotowicz, Nitka Puzilewicz, Vladi Terlecki, this one very tall and very dark haired girl, as if an assistant to the magician Lemano-Lemanik, Kristin Krupska, mother and sisters Kiełbasiewiczówny, Wiesiek Utnik, Anka Broniewska and even twice the old good-hearted homo Kazio Herba, Jurek Piela, Milena—sister of Rożynek and wife of Waśkiewicz, Jurek Lukierski, Janka Chryplewicz, Stasio Foszcz, Wiesia Drojecka, Marek Szymaszkiewicz. 

To play for a bit with his dogs, I visited Sokal once in his old German castle, and his wife and children and their whole brace I drove from the train station for two hours to her parents in the forest, where unfortunately the dogs bit up two chickens. 

I drove also numerous friends of STORMY WEATHER Zula, who after her departure, being very interested in me, wildly amplified their activities, not to mention already Stella-Stella by Starlight, with whom in the long term I sporadically maintained risky contact.

The always bothersome problem of traveling now became for me clean enjoyment.