The Strange Museum

The museum looked more hushed than usual.

My leather shoes clacked against stripes of timber. The sound spread across the floor, every step that I took felt like stepping on thin ice, it took me a while to get used to my presence. 

A woman I’d never seen before sat beside a typewriter, moving the carriage to the left margin. Her arms were pale and skinny. She looked as if she was pulling a copper door, contracting her right arm to feed the next line. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said.

She squinted at me through her heavy lens.

“I came to see the Poland museum” I said

“Turn left at the bottom of the stairs,” She emphasized the bottom. “Go straight from the corridor to room 206.” 

I descended a long flight of stairs, turned left, and walked along the corridor counting down room 202, 204, 206. I went to a lot of museums, but the fact that the Polish museum is under the basement was news to me.

I knocked. One loud and 2 soft continuous knocks. That’s the way my mom taught me. 

“Come in,” said a hoarse voice from the inside.

I opened the door.

An old woman sat behind a little old desk in the middle of the room. Her nose was hooked like a boulder on Yosemite.

“Welcome, my boy,” said the old woman. “Which exhibition are you here for?” 

“The polish history exhibition” I answered timidly, 

“How may I be of assistance?”

“I was trying to ask about taxes, but I can see that you’re busy. I’ll come back some other time …”

“Nonsense, my boy,” the old woman replied. “This is my profession — I’m never too busy! My master will tell you precisely how the taxes layered out.” 

What a funny way of talking, I thought. 

“Hmm, the taxes from the nobles, a fascinating subject if there ever was one!” 

I wished I had never opened my mouth.

“Please don’t bother, It’s nothing really, I was just curious how tax was collected.” 

“Don’t trifle with me,” the old woman snapped. 

“Our master will show you the history of taxation, you’re not just horsing around, are you?” 

“No miss,” I replied.

 The old woman brought me a ticket, “Twenty five” she said. I was hesitant, and so she opened her mouth again, “Well I assume you understand how valuable knowledge is.” 

“But I don’t have the money,” I said, “I only came to understand my question.”

“Now, that’s the heart of the issue, if the master checks the ticket for our income, how is it going to fit?” She paused for a moment. “Unless you rub the stamp ink just like the old ones.”

She handed me an old ticket, a huge one, I must say.

Sure enough, I see stamps everywhere on the ticket, it seems this was held before by many. 

“The master will guide you at 5:15, you can wait in the waiting room beside the stairs.”

 “But the museum is about to close and my mother will be concerned if I wasn’t there for dinner.”

The old woman frowned, “Closing time isn’t a concern, I promised the master there would be a tour at 5:15. The real question is do you respect my job or not? You think I hand out tickets for fun?”

I was very bad at saying no to people, so I quieted down and waited patiently for the master’s arrival.

The master arrived in black suits, walking hunch backs and wore a purple bowtie, he was very skinny, hardly enough to fill his suit. He finds a key in his jangling ring and opens the door without introducing himself.

“Well, well. Here we are,” said the master. “In you go.”

“In there?” I asked.

“Wait. Before you go, hand me your ticket.”

I handed over my ticket, the master stamped a clear “PROCEED” into the ticket, distinctive from the fading ones beside it. 

I entered behind him, and secretly rubbed the ink with my fingers.

“It’s pitch black,” I protested, the room was as dark as the end of the cosmos.

Suddenly, the master turned to me and drew himself to full height. Now, suddenly he was big. The eye sockets bulged, like pingpong balls rolling forward.

“Are you the sort of boy who finds fault with every little thing, however trivial?”

“No sir, I’m not like that at all. But it seems to me that—”

“Enough of your prattle,” the old man said. “I cannot abide people who conjure up a raft of excuses, disparaging the efforts of those who have gone out of their way to help them.”

“Please forgive me,” I apologized. “I’ll go in.”

“There is a stairway right on the other side of this door,” the old master said. “Hold tight to the railing so you don’t take a tumble.”

I went in first, inching my way along. 

There is not a ray of light anywhere, I have to get really close but also to watch his strides. Finally we reached the bottom of the staircase, I could see a glimmer farther in, just a feeble glow, really, but still strong enough to make my eyes hurt after the long darkness. Someone approached the back of the room and took my hand. A smooth, rounded hand. I see before me a small girl in the appearance of a wooden polished polish doll, literally the same dress as a polish doll.

“Hey, thanks for coming,” the polish doll said.

“Good afternoon,” I replied.

It was real wooden skin, although the apron covered most of it, but undoubtedly her skin was made out of wood. There was an opening for the face, however, through which peeped a friendly pair of blue eyes. The costume suited her well. The polish doll looked at me for a moment; then her eyes shifted onto the ticket I was holding on.

“Did you actually come here for the tour?”

“That’s right, “ I answered.

“You mean you really and truly came to learn history?”

There was something strange about the doll’s way of speaking. I found myself at lost for words.

“Come on, out with it,” the master demanded. “You came here to learn, is that not a fact? Give him a straight answer.”

“Yes, I came here to learn.”

“You heard him,” the master crowed.

“But sir,” said the polish doll, “he’s only a kid.”

“Silence!” Thundered the master. He drew a willow switch from his back pocket and whipped the polish doll across her face. “Take him to the museum now!”

The polish doll looked troubled, but she took my hand anyway. The switch had left a red welt next to her lip. “Okay, let’s get going.”

“Where?”

“To the museum. You came to learn about polish taxes aren’t you?”

The polish doll led me down a narrow hallway. Her apron covered her legs, her body did not move one bit from her strides, it seemed like it was floating on her apron.

“Well, well,” said the polish doll, when we reached the end of the hallway. “Here we are.”

“Just a minute, Miss doll,” I said. “Is this by any chance a jail cell?”

“Sure is,” She replied.

“You hit the nail on the head,” Said the old master.

“This isn’t what you’ve told me,” I said to the old master. “I came this far only because you told me it’s a tour to the museum.”

“You got taken,” the polish doll said, and nodded.

“That’s right, I pulled the wool over your eyes,” said the old master.

“How could you…”

“Silence, you fool,” the old master snarled, pulling the willow switch from his pocket and brandishing it over my head. I quickly stepped back. No way I wanted my face to be whipped by that thing.

“In you go, no more arguments. You will recite the entire polish history of taxes.” The old master said as he handed me old scrolls of tax records scripted in polish and a black dictionary.

“One month from now and I will personally examine you. If you mastered their contents completely, then I will set you free.”

“It’s impossible to translate the scrolls word by word,” I said. “And my mother is getting pretty worried right now…”

The old master bared his teeth and brought the switch down hard, I jumped out the way and it struck the polish doll in the face. Enraged, he hits the doll once again. It was awfully unfair.

“Throw him in the cell, I leave it to you,” the old master ordered and left.

“Are you hurt?” I asked the doll.

“It’s ok, hey, I’m used to it.” And it really did seem this way.

“I hate to do this, but I’ll have to lock you up.”

“What if I refuse? What if I don’t? What happens then?”

“Then he will hit me even harder.”

I felt sorry for the polish doll, so I entered the cell, it has every necessary equipments to live.

“I’ll bring you three meals everyday,” said the polish doll. 

“If I can recite the polish history, he’ll let me out right?”

“That’s what he said.” 

I sat down on bed and buried my head with my hands. Why did this happen to me, all I did was just went to the museum to ask a question.

“Don’t take it so hard,” the doll consoled me. 

“Don’t you feel awfully cruel? ”

“You got dealt an unlucky card, that’s the long and short of it. These things happen.”

“But my mother’s going to worry herself sick waiting for me. Can’t you help me sneak out of this place?”

“No, unfortunately, that wouldn’t work. Master will punish me even harder.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“So you see, I can’t help you make a run for it, kid. I’m real sorry.”

The polish doll departed, leaving me alone in my tiny cell. 

I decided the best thing I could do was sit at the desk and read the scrolls. If I was going to find a way and escape, first I’d have to put my enemies off guard. That meant to be pretending to follow his orders. I figured that wouldn’t be too hard. After all, I was the type of boy who naturally follows orders.

I picked up the tax index across Plock and began to read. The book was written in classical polish; yet, strangely, I found it easy to understand. Not only that, each page stuck to my memory, word for word. As I flipped through the pages, I began to imagine myself as the Polish tax collector Piotr Lesznoski, who walked the streets of Plock with a szabla at his waist, collecting taxes. The air was filled with scent of yeast and bread, stone and wax. The buildings I walked past switched color like Neapolitan ice cream. Lesznoski was an ambitious, quirky sort of fellow, with tiny allowance and land, but stood as if the floor belonged to him already.

The old master finally came to after nearly a month, he was delighted to see me lost in the record. Seeing how happy he was made me bit happier. No matter what the situation might be, I still take pleasure in enjoying the joy of others.

“I’ve got to give you credit,” he said, scratching his jaw. “You’ve made more than I anticipated. You’re quite a boy.”

“Thank you, sir,” I do love getting praised.

The old master did not ask any questions, he simply patted me on the back, and told me to walk with him. We came to the same room where I had first met him, room 206, in the basement of the museum.  Next to the desk was a ledger and a stamp, he handed it to me and walks towards the museum reception. He sat next to the typewriter, types “Piotr Lesznoski” and contracted the carriage to the left margin.