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Rafał Wojasiński: Tefil (Tefil)
There are in literature, a few characters who are, in their own way, somewhat repulsive, who behave badly and yet we cannot helped being fascinated by them. Rabelais’. Pantagruel and Gargantua are two obvious examples and, to a certain degree, so is Don Quixote. In modern times we have Ignatius J Reilly, Titus Groan and family and even Vladimir and Estragon. There are doubtless many others. Tefil is very much part of the club.
Tefil lives in a small Polish town. We first meet him when he is visited by a young man, Rozmaryn. Rozmaryn is seemingly looking for information about his mother which Tefil may be able to provide but we do not learn any details till later. What we do learn is who Tefil is, as Rozmaryn accompanies him around the town.
Physically, Tefil is bald and overweight. He lives in a flat where the chemistry teacher lived (on her own) for forty years. The flat is not in good condition, not least because the roof leaks. He seems to get his clothes from the dead. When someone dies, they pass the clothes of the deceased to Tefil. Tefil claims this hels the survivors when they see him in the coat of their deceased loved one. When Rozmaryn has to go to the flat to fetch something, he opens a cupboard door and finds a great volume of shirts, underpants,
socks, and God knows what else. In one case, a man got up from his Christmas meal with his mother and went and hanged himself. Tefil inherits his boots. I won’t have anything new in my home. Maybe some fresh sausage or a new carton of milk. Sure. But a watch, a radio, an umbrella – no, he comments.
During his ilfe he has done a variety of odd jobs, He used to carry fruit, vegetables and even cinder blocks in a ramshackle old cart which gradually deteriorated. He has worked as a porter at a veterinary clinic though fell asleep after his large mid-morning brunch,. He has worked as a ticket-taker on the small-gauge railway and doubtless other jobs.
He is a scrounger. The locals know him but when a stranger such as Rozmaryn comes to town, he is (not very gently) persuaded to buy him food and drink, either at the café or restaurant. One of the few things we learn about Rozmaryn at this stage is, on his visit with Tefil to both establishments, his obsession with the large and barely covered breasts of the two waitresses at the respective establishments. Tefil later tells him that they are sisters. One of them warns him about Tefil (He’ll squeeze the last penny out of you, he’ll suck you dry).
Related to this Tefil clearly is not a man to pay his debts. On one occasion,, to avoid paying a debt – the creditor was persistent – Tefil pretended to have died and posted obituary notices of himself around town. He is proud that he ended up outliving the creditor.
Above all Tefil talks. While they are wandering round the town Tefil talks non-stop. He tells Rozmaryn his life story – he seemingly has never left the town and we learn about his life. But he talks about all sorts of things, particularity his views on life with such pearls of wisdom as Mould will outlive us all”’Mould is immune, even to the atomic bomb… Mould shall liberate us from being what we are and The chief cause of cancer is cancer. Or maybe life. Some of what he says makes sense and some does not but Tefil does not care. He is just going to go on and on talking.
His talking is often random which even he admits. Normally, my conversations with people don’t hold together. Everyone turns out better. In every field… As soon as I begin, it’s cast aside, pushed away. It don’t hold together at all. However his conversations are not limited to the living, He talks to his dog Prodige, who died nearly forty years ago. On one occasion, an old woman he visited regularly, dies. He finds her dead but still talks to her.
Of course. he talks a lot about life and death. He comments Life is the transient form of the dead. A sickness of sorts. but he is considering his own death and his hoped for burial in the cemetery in nearby Tutberg.
As we have seen, money is important for him, not least because he rarely has any. He cadges, borrows and does not pay back and is eager to get freebies wherever possible. Money is my most beloved human creation. Truth does not exist without money. It becomes lunacy, illness, non-sensical babble. Only money and the power it brings, make the truth.
We never fully learn about Rozmaryn and his mother. Tefil mentions the mother on several occasions, presumably because Rozmaryn has raised the issue and it seems that Tefil knew her and may be the man in the photo but nothing is clear or reliable with Tefil.
There is no doubt that Tefil is a splendid creation. There is equally no doubt that if you met him, you would try to escape him as soon as possible, unless, of course, you were looking for your mother.
Publishing history
First published in 2022 by Nisza
First English translation in 2024 by Glagoslav
Translated by Charles S Kraszewski