A darkly comic tale that bridges ancient Rome and modern Poland through a reincarnated firefighter
At first I thought I’d descended into madness. No, I’m not talking about Poppaea; I mean the days I spent in hospital and those first months after the accident. Please understand that my first life exploded in my head with lightning precision, and I remember it better than the wretched one I’m leading now. The ruler of the world in a studio flat! The City’s alleged arsonist in a fire engine!
Imagine a new hard drive full of data opening up inside you. Someone plugged it in and that was that. You have no idea what to do with the information it contains: the blood of the arena, the hungry sacred chickens, the sickly smell of the Tiber, a Vestal Virgin bricked up behind a wall with bread and a little wine. Ivory statues of gods inlaid with gold. Seneca’s Adam’s apple, Burrus’s hand and Poppaea’s shadow stretching out over it all. My first thought was: eject the hard drive. Let things go back to how they were. I wanted one life. No need for another. But still. I’d increasingly ask myself which one was real.
I promised myself not to tell anyone. You’re the first. Just think what Arnie and Pea would have done if I’d checked into the unit and gone: Listen, some time way back I used to be Nero. They’d have had a laugh and called Kobierzyn Hospital, where my straitjacket would be waiting. I considered calling someone like you myself. I would rehearse the conversation in my head at night. What I’d say. How I’d say it. The longer this lasted, the more details came back to me and the better I understood that I was remembering the truth.
In this life, before the accident, I didn’t know any languages. I didn’t want to learn Russian at school. It was the enemy’s language, after all, and by the time English became popular I was already serving in Kołobrzeg. But now: Illa lingua loqui sine labore possum. Illa lingua utor, ut cogitem. Accidit, ut somnia illa in lingua somniem! ὁμοίως καὶ Ἑλληνιστί γιγνώσκω τε λέγω τε! Yeah, I know Greek, too.
All kinds of thoughts went through my head. For example: Why Nero? Why am I not remembering the life of some serf, potter or sailor from centuries ago? I’m just your ordinary person, never been into politics, though everyone keeps banging on about how much joining the EU will change things. Kwaśniewski. Miller. Günter Verheugen. Poland’s friends. No country has friends, not among their own people, not abroad, and those in power always mock the plebs, suck up to them at the lowest cost. They’ll build you some roads, an airport or two, get the best people to go and work in Germany or Britain, now there’s Poland’s greatest gift to Poles – it’ll be legal to leave. I have enormous respect for Brussels and Berlin. After all, they’re pursuing my policies, absorbing new provinces without any bloodshed. That’s how I took Liguria and Pontus after King Polemon’s death. I never started a war. Caesar alone slaughtered a million Gauls. Sulla collected his opponents’ heads and displayed them around his crib like vases. Augustus used to gouge people’s eyes out, he really enjoyed it. Fun and games, two thumbs lodged in a face. You ever hear about that? Now how does their reputation compare to mine?
Translated by Nasim Łuczaj
A darkly comic tale that bridges ancient Rome and modern Poland through a reincarnated firefighter
Translation rights: Iwona Denkiewicz, iwona.denkiewicz@swiatksiazki.pl
Following an accident, underdog firefighter Staszek Zoll is flooded with the memories of another man: the infamous emperor Nero. His gripping and vulnerable story goes on to bridge ancient Rome and post-communist Kraków, providing universal insights into the nature of power, love and agency.
Though the novel begins with Nero’s childhood, the reader gradually discovers that the narrator is describing his past life to a psychiatrist. In custody after setting fire to a Kraków shopping centre, he explains his motivations: when he was Nero, he was forced to have his mother killed. Reborn as Zoll, he recognised her selling jewellery at the shopping centre. So as not to risk her revenge, he burned the building down. Is he mad? Rather than directly answering this question, Orbitowski paints an empathetic picture of a seemingly unlikable, misunderstood and heartbroken character. Written as a series of monologues, the novel is propelled by his strong, down-to-earth voice, making for an approachable and humorous read studded with entertaining details. The protagonist embarks on murder plots and stork-shooting escapades, appears on national TV, attempts to make himself pregnant, and much more.
The Enemy has been well-received domestically and will captivate readers of all ages, whether interested in Poland and ancient Rome or entirely new to those worlds. A delight for anyone who enjoys historical fiction with a twist, or has ever felt that they’ve been here before in another life…
Nasim Łuczaj
Selected samples
She climbed her first peaks in a headscarf at a time when women in the mountains were treated by climbers as an additional backpack. It was with her that female alpinism began! She gained recognition in a spectacular way. The path was considered a crossing for madmen. Especially since the tragic accident in 1929, preserved … Continue reading “Halina”
First, Marysia, a student of an exclusive private school in Warsaw’s Mokotów district, dies under the wheels of a train. Her teacher, Elżbieta, tries to find out what really happened. She starts a private investigation only soon to perish herself. But her body disappears, and the only people who have seen anything are Gniewomir, a … Continue reading “Wound”
A young girl, Regina Wieczorek, was found dead on the beach. She was nineteen years old and had no enemies. Fortunately, the culprit was quickly found. At least, that’s what the militia think. Meanwhile, one day in November, Jan Kowalski appears at the police station. He claims to have killed not only Regina but also … Continue reading “Penance”
The year is 1922. A dangerous time of breakthrough. In the Eastern Borderlands of the Republic of Poland, Bolshevik gangs sow terror, leaving behind the corpses of men and disgraced women. A ruthless secret intelligence race takes place between the Lviv-Warsaw-Free City of Gdańsk line. Lviv investigator Edward Popielski, called Łysy (“Hairless”), receives an offer … Continue reading “A Girl with Four Fingers”
This question is closely related to the next one, namely: if any goal exists, does life lead us to that goal in an orderly manner? In other words, is everything that happens to us just a set of chaotic events that, combined together, do not form a whole? To understand how the concept of providence … Continue reading “Order and Love”
The work of Józef Łobodowski (1909-1988) – a remarkable poet, prose writer, and translator, who spent most of his life in exile – is slowly being revived in Poland. Łobodowski’s brilliant three- volume novel, composed on an epic scale, concerns the fate of families and orphans unmoored by the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war and … Continue reading “Ukrainian Trilogy: Thickets, The Settlement, The Way Back”
