Swimming in the Dark

by Tomasz Jedrowski

  That night I lay awake in bed, the other guys fast asleep around me, the moon pouring in through the half-open curtain. Sharp memories knocked on the door of my consciousness, and what came to me was an old nightmare, one I had often dreamt as a child, one that had descended upon me with cruel frequency before and after Beniek’s departure.

  In it I stood in an endless overgrown field. Everything was still, as if petrified, and an overbearing silence reigned. There was no one—not just near me or within earshot, but anywhere. With the inexplicable logic of dreams, I was certain that I was alone in this world, the last member of a forsaken race. I looked around and started to see rectangular stones reaching out of the grass. They were blank and smooth, and I knew they were tombstones. They were watching me. Their stillness made my heart race with panic; standing there was like an infinite fall. It all seemed so undeniably real, not like a dream but a premonition. I’d feel violated upon waking. Outside, in the darkness of the night, the branch of a chestnut tree would sway in the wind and scratch against my window like a monster demanding admission, and without thinking I’d get out of bed and tiptoe across the cool wooden floor to my mother’s room. We would sleep together, her enveloping me from behind with her arms around my tummy, her stale, warm breath above my head, us breathing in unison, small and large, breathing in and out until the morning when the darkness would be gone and Granny would come to stir us, scolding us as we rubbed clusters of sleep from the corners of our eyes.

  “It isn’t right—you two, so close,” she once said, waking us. “What’s to become of a man if he sleeps in the same bed as his lonely mother?” Her voice took on a raspy tone that came directly from her spiky throat.

  “Mama, he had a bad dream. And he’s not a man. He’s still only a child,” said my mother, hoisting herself up, taking her hands off me. My grandmother’s face remained bitter.

  “He’s growing up, Małgosia, even if you think he’s still a boy. And without a man in the house to show him the ropes, in this house of babas, who knows what kind of a soft man he will become?”

  “Could you please not make everything about men?” cried my mother.

  “I’m not soft!” I shouted, standing up in bed. “And Mama doesn’t need another man. I can take care of her.”

  “And when you go away and marry someone else?” Granny asked, her voice becoming shrill and mean, as if imitating my own. “What will Mummy do then, huh? Will she be all alone?”

  “I will never get married,” I said. “Never. I won’t ever leave Mama.”

  “See what I mean?” said Granny, looking at my mother. “See what you’re turning the boy into? Abnormal.”

  “I’m not abnormal!” I screamed, collapsing on the bed and clenching my fists around my mother’s duvet. Shame throbbed behind those words, a snake brushing past, underneath a blanket of leaves. Late some nights, when the growing unwanted desire stopped me from sleeping, I would yield to its current. I would let the hidden fantasies sweep me away, listen to their murmur, of the boys and their bodies, the hard forms of their whiteness, the smell of sweat and musk and skin. Moments from PE would flicker: thighs in shorts and armpits in sleeveless tops; Henryk, the strongest boy in the class, on the leather-wrapped gymnastic rings, hanging above us all in the gymnasium, his biceps flexing, the dark hair of his armpits contrasting with his skin, precocious veins running all along his arms, the bulge in his short white shorts . . . images from the changing rooms, the showers we took afterward—water trickling down backs, along the cross of chests and into belly buttons, down to the strongholds of their cocks, which I would only dare glimpse at for a moment and imprint onto my mind despite myself.

  When I was done and my body had given its release, I would push these thoughts away, deep down into the recesses of my mind. And yet I’d wake with the same images stuck in my head, like flies caught on a strip of glue. Years of yearning compressed like a muscle, pulsating mercilessly. I felt like a gas flame left burning on the stove for no reason.

  One day after school, right before my final exams, when I could no longer take it, I didn’t go straight home but walked through the city by myself, feeling the world far away from me. I walked without knowing where I was going, taking in the shreds of conversations of couples dressed for their dates in suits and ties and skirts and blouses, with their hair done, the man carrying the woman’s coat and making a joke, looking her over in approval; past groups of girls coming out of school in their uniforms, long blue skirts and white socks drawn to their knees, walking in pairs with their plaited hair dangling behind them like tails; past groups of silent smoking men with red faces sitting on benches drinking from unlabeled bottles. The city was dirty and broken, layers of soot and age on the facades, nothing clean and nothing clear, a murky secondhand world. It felt like I would never get away, not from myself, not from this. I walked and walked, and my legs and feet hurt, and this was the only thing that stilled me a little.

  On the other side of the river the sun was setting on the cathedral’s broken towers. Shops began to close, and men and women in black shoes hurried out of buildings and started queuing for buses. I wasn’t going home. I stood near the old market hall, seeing the women leave with their net bags filled with vegetables and loaves of bread, and I walked in, saw the vendors pack up their goods. Upstairs I wandered along the iron walkways and past the little shops, just underneath the massive swooped roof with its lamps and iron elevators. In one shop an old man stood behind the counter, his thin white hair combed neatly across his scalp. There was only one light bulb in the place, hanging from the ceiling not far from his face, and something made me enter. Bottles without labels stood on shelves behind him. “One liter,” I said. He looked me over with vague curiosity and grabbed a bottle from behind him. I paid him with my pocket money.

  The bottle was hidden in my coat as I walked toward Staromiejski Park, the one near the river. It was the park where everyone knew the “inverts” went. I found a bench right outside it and watched the mothers and couples clear out as night fell, taking sips from the bottle that burned my mouth and throat, burned right through the inside of me. Pain followed by relief.

  When I felt sufficiently powerful and clouded, I entered the dark mouth of the park. It seemed empty at first. Still, I started to tremble with fear and possibility.

  There was a bench facing away from the river, lit by the faint moon. I sat down and felt my body shaking and my knees jumping all by themselves. I took some more sips and looked around, my eyes adjusting to the dark. A figure appeared on the path. He approached slowly and sat beside me. I was scared to look into his face. He asked me how old I was, his voice gentle and dry.

  “Eighteen,” I lied, and sensed him nod.

  “You’re a good-looking boy. What are you doing out here at night?” I knew I was still trembling. He put his hand on my knee, calming my body. “You’re nervous, no?” he said.

  I nodded, reassured by the contact, finally daring to look at him. It struck me straight away how old he was—he could have been my father—and how worn his face, as if life had already claimed the best parts of him, leaving only a husk. And yet, his hand on me felt good. He took out a flask from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to me. I took a sip, sensing his smell on the bottle top, and, without wanting to, imagined him undressed above me. The power of that possibility intoxicated me along with the spirit burning my throat.

  “Come on,” he said, taking the flask from me and letting his hand travel along my thigh, “let’s go. We’ll be better somewhere more quiet.” He stood without waiting for my reaction, and I followed him. I followed him into complete darkness, toward a hole in the bushes so black it felt like I was blind. My steps were uncertain. At some point he stopped, me bumping into him, the two of us suddenly facing each other. The darkness was a comfort: it was as if we’d melted into the night and nothing that would happen would be fully real. He began to stroke my neck, his fingers rough and callused, and his sharp breath on my face.
My heart was threatening to break out of my chest. With a hurried but practiced hand he loosened the belt of my trousers and pulled out my cock, which welcomed the touch of unknown fingers and summer air. He knelt down, disappearing from my vision, and enveloped me in the warm cave of his mouth. It was the best feeling. It felt like I was gliding down a tunnel, or that it was riding through me. My head thrown back, I saw the stars in the sky. Then I heard his fly unzipping and sensed him masturbating, rapid, urgent movements that excited me. And as we rode like this, him panting and me gasping, the urgency and abjection rose within me like heat, like an irrepressible scream, mounting, pushing, taking over, until the lights went off and I closed my eyes and exploded in his mouth, warmth and wetness meeting in one great, terrible relief.

  I wanted to run home straightaway, knew I had to get away from that place, and remembered Granny, who’d already be worried to death. But I didn’t. Because after I had released myself in this stranger’s mouth, it almost felt like I no longer had a home. So, after he had finished with a low grunt and we’d zipped up, we returned to the bench, where we had met on the other side of my life, and began to talk, our barriers suddenly removed. He unwrapped story after story, and I kept asking him questions, feeling it was my duty to learn. He told me about his first time, in the forest with a farmer from his village. He told me how he’d been in the war and how he’d almost died, and how he’d been raped by Russian soldiers in a prison camp. I nodded and said I was sorry and made myself feel nothing. I couldn’t allow his pain to penetrate me.

  “Do you live with your family?” I asked quickly.

  He laughed. He lived on his own, he said, in a single room in one of those large bourgeois apartments the Germans had built when the city was still called Breslau, the same apartments that were now ruins and which housed up to a dozen people. He shared his kitchen and bathroom with three families, each one in a single room. He came to the park every night, he said. I don’t know why he was so honest with me, but it made me feel less alone.

  “What about finding someone you could . . .” I hesitated. “Love.”

  He huffed, and smiled for the first time, revealing a set of gray teeth. “As a ciota, a fag,” he finally said, “you will always be lonely. And you will learn to bear it. Some have a wife and children”—he nodded his head—“like that one you saw walking past earlier, but they are the worst. They can stand themselves even less. At least I’m free.” He looked across the dark park, lit a cigarette, and exhaled the smoke into the night. “We give and take love for one night, maybe a couple of weeks. But not longer than that. There is too much resentment. Too much hatred. You live for pleasure if you’re like this, and hope the police won’t stop you. Mind you, they’ve stopped me a couple of times, but I’ve always managed to talk my way out.”

  His words haunted me for a long time afterward. I had told him my name—he had told me his, and I felt as if I owed it to him—but I never wanted to relapse, to come near the sordid temptation again. I never wanted to be like him. My greatest terror was ending up alone. Yet part of me was sure that’s how I would end up, and that it was the worst thing that could happen to someone. I knew I would not be able to bear it. I decided never to go back to the park, never to look at the boys in class the same way again, to reform myself. After that night, when I went home, and Granny ran toward me and asked me where I had been and cried and smelled alcohol on my breath and slapped me and hugged me, I decided I would not let the bad in me take over.

  It was around that time, or shortly after, that I met Jolka. She was a friend of a friend from school, and I knew she liked me. I’d watched her compete in the school gymnastics championships, and her body—firm and tall and slim—was unlike those of the other girls, whose softness and roundness scared me. One night, at a school dance in the gymnasium, I kissed her little mouth to the sound of Maryla Rodowicz, the song’s melancholy filling the room as I tried to get lost in something I knew would never cover me entirely. Just above our heads hung the gymnastic rings, giving off their scent of leather and sweat.

  That week I took Jolka by the hand and walked her up and down our street. Granny and Mother watched us from the kitchen window. They were beaming with pride.

  * * *

  On the first morning of camp they woke us early, storming into the hut and blowing a whistle, leaving us just enough time to brush our teeth in the washrooms and have some milk soup and tea in the canteen. In the coming weeks, I realized the canteen always smelled of cabbage and grease no matter what we were having, as if the entire building had been soaked in a concoction of the two shortly before our arrival. Every day we’d queue for something we didn’t really want, which gradually became the only thing we knew.

  After breakfast we were given our uniforms, a pair of green shorts and a green shirt, the same for boys and girls. They were made of stiff, rough cotton that felt like canvas on my skin. The morning sun was cool on our thighs and arms as we left the hut to assemble once again in front of the main building. The comrade leader’s eyes hovered over us with petty satisfaction.

  “For the coming weeks you’ll be picking beetroots from the fields over there,” he barked, pointing beyond the camp’s fence. He called out names from a list and divided us into teams.

  When my name was called, I joined a group standing to one side. I didn’t recognize anyone except for you. My stomach made an involuntary jump. We went around introducing ourselves, and when it came to you, you shook my hand—yours padded and large and warm—and said your name in that low, clear voice that spoke of natural confidence. I could hardly respond. Your face was broad and solid, well-constructed, with high cheekbones like outposts guarding your eyes, narrow and intensely gray-blue.

  “Pleased to meet you,” you said. “I’m Janusz.”

  Janusz. Two syllables that rise and fall and follow each other logically, almost inevitably, and whose sound together is so familiar, so natural, that the meaning of its parts remained hidden to me until years later: Ja, meaning “I” in our language, and nusz, sounding just like our word for “knife.”

  The comrade leader’s whistle screeched in the air as he gestured us across the camp. I let myself fall behind as the groups started to move, pained and relieved to see you walking ahead. We reassembled on the huge field that seemed to have no end and watched as the comrade leader and a farmer from the village, a man with a red face, wearing woolen trousers and an old shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, showed us how to pick the beets: breaking up the earth around them with our hands, grabbing the point where the leaves meet the bulb, pulling hard to tear out the plant with its roots. Each group was given a portion of the field to work, along with baskets and gloves. We had from nine until five each evening to reach our quotas.

  “And don’t procrastinate, comrades!” Belka cried, trying to look at all of us at once. “I will be patrolling the fields.”

  The whole operation seemed foreign to me, and as we started working, my body felt like a metal construction, heavy and unyielding. I had to kneel in the brown earth to get a grip on the beets, and my mind was agitated. You were in the first row, as if leading us, moving nimbly with your legs bent and your back straight. The workings of your leg muscles showed just underneath the skin, tendons contracting like strings being drawn, veins running down your lower arms and confounding themselves like rivers on a map. Your hands were strong and bulky, with square nails and fingers thick like screwdriver handles. Those aren’t city hands, I remember thinking.

  After a while, my body started to ache, but seeing you like that made me push ahead too. The sun grew stronger, throwing its warmth on to our arms and legs and the backs of our heads. As we moved along, sweat started to form—discrete drops at first, here and there, on the forehead and on the tips of our spines, and then, as we continued, little streams trickled, fueled by our movement. I pushed on, feeling the pain in my body, but beyond that, sensing that it had started to give way. I was surprised by the energy that lay beyond the discomfort. The
rhythm made me move on, the touch of the earth and the feel of the plants becoming hypnotic. The smell was humid and pungent and fresh. It made me think of Aunt Marysia’s garden outside Wrocław, with its berry bushes and fruit trees and places where one could hide, and beyond its fence nothing but fields. I hadn’t thought of that in ages. Mother would take me there when I was a child, and I’d play for hours by myself, dig and find worms and beetles and hold the soil, have it crumble in between my fingers, try to eat it.

  I worked with the earth, forgot myself in it. Farther out, there were other groups, all bent over the beets, breathing with effort, the sky open and wide. We broke for lunch, and afterward we napped in our huts for an hour before going back to work, the sun milder then, our bodies cooler. When we had worked for longer than enough, the comrade leader’s whistle sounded across the field to mark the end of the day. I hurt in places I had never been aware of before and went to bed exhausted, sleeping more deeply than I had since childhood.

  I got used to the sight of you, but we never spoke. In the breaks, the group would rest in the shade of a hut by the edge of the field, and you and some other boys smoked, and I chatted with the girls. But not with you. I avoided you, so that you couldn’t avoid me. I didn’t want to be in the field of your power. I envied your lightness and the beauty you carried with such ease.