Swimming in the Dark

by Tomasz Jedrowski

  “Everyone out!” the driver shouted as he came back. “The journey ends here.”

  The passengers looked at one another, confused.

  “But why?” The little girl who’d fallen began to cry.

  “Don’t ask so many questions,” her mother said. “Let’s go.”

  We climbed out. On the other side of the barrier the street was empty, a field of concrete without any cars, only masses of people, ushered along the pavements by police. “Keep on walking. Keep on walking!” they shouted. “Hurry up! Go home, everyone, now!”

  The crowd moved slowly, in silent obedience, only whispers here and there. We saw the emptiness of the street before us, the square in front of the Party building deserted, the building itself looming ominously above.

  I felt the flow of the crowd carry me away from this scene and knew I had to find some way to stay where the action would be. This is when I saw a lady leave a building nearby, the door still ajar behind her. I ran and caught the door before it shut. I slipped inside and closed it behind me.

  The staircase was silent. Doors led off it, with little signs indicating which offices they were. I walked up the stairs, carefully, slowly, aware of every step. From the first floor I could see the street and the crowds. I walked farther up. On the second floor one of the doors was half-open. I saw the inside of an office, two figures at the window, looking down onto the street. “Don’t go out now, Pani Waleszka,” said a man in a firm but friendly voice. “The demonstrators might come at any minute. You’d better stay here until they pass.”

  I slipped by them quickly, moving up to the third and last floor. It was all quiet. I saw the abandoned empty tram, the crowds on the pavements, the policemen pushing them along like cattle. The rest of the street was a wide and empty expanse, all the way to the headquarters. Policemen in helmets lined the barriers. I crouched, like a child in a tree house, hands on the cold windowsill, my fingers pulsing. The sun was beginning to set.

  And then something approached. A murmur could be heard from far away, like the sound of a beehive, and a horde appeared on the horizon. I could not see them well at first, but as they came closer, I saw they were workers. They wore heavy boots and dark overalls and marched with banners held above their heads. They were chanting too. As soon as they appeared in the middle of the square, a rush went through the street, and everything changed, like rain falling after hours of pregnant, hovering clouds. The crowds on the pavements seemed to stop, to watch the marchers, and the police officers shouted louder, telling the people to move on. At the same time, a formation of policemen in helmets and masks marched in the direction of the strikers. A scream went through the bystanders—a policeman had hit someone with his stick. Without knowing why, I knew this was the moment. I got up. My heart was racing like a steam engine. I opened my bag, opened the window, felt the cool air against my face, the amplified buzz of the street in my ears. Then I turned my bag upside down above the street. The leaflets fluttered in the wind and glided up and away, like a scattered flock of doves. It was like the cloud I had seen earlier that day, the cloud that had given birth to this cloud, and this one too managed to stop time. I saw the faces in the street looking up, men and women and children, the police as well, confusion and amazement drawn on them as the paper rained down like giant confetti. I thought I heard banging against the front door three stories down. My heart pounded like a fist. I looked around. There were two doors. I tried both of them. They were locked. I knocked, urgently. Nothing happened. The banging on the front door became real and grew harder and louder. I ran down a flight. I tried one of the doors, without success. A crash shook the building, the sound of breaking wood. They’d broken through. Gushes of adrenaline flooded me. I weighed nothing. My insides were made of fire. I rattled on the door handles, desperate, gutted.

  “Police!” angry voices shouted from downstairs, though I saw no one yet.

  “Psst!”

  I turned around. Behind me a door had opened and a man was looking at me intently, sizing me up. Then he gestured me in.

  Heavy footsteps on the stairs. “Police!”

  I jumped inside toward the man, and the door closed behind me.

  There was heavy trampling of police boots just outside the door, shouting, running up to the top of the building, banging on the doors upstairs. I guessed they hadn’t seen me. The man who had opened the door had an intelligent, tired face and graying hair that made him look older than he probably was. We exchanged quick looks. There was also a woman, younger than him, not so far from my age, I guessed, tall and broad, with a kind face. We heard the policemen coming back down the stairs, banging on the doors of this floor. Our door. The man and woman looked at each other, and he nodded in the direction of a corridor.

  “Quick, Pani Waleszka, the kitchen.”

  The woman took me by the arm, and we hurried along the narrow corridor to a tiny kitchen with a view of the street. Before I could see anything going on outside, we heard more banging on the door. Then the sound of it being opened.

  “Citizen,” we heard a voice boom in the other room, “a suspect is hiding in this building. Have you seen him? A young man with light hair and a brown rucksack?”

  “There is no one here apart from myself and my secretary,” said the man calmly.

  “Then you will let us search the space.”

  Their boots crossed the threshold.

  The woman and I looked at each other in the tiny kitchen. Right behind the door was another, very narrow door, painted the same color as the wall. Pani Waleszka opened it quickly, took out some brooms that were inside, and pushed me in. I fit sideways, and she closed the door. I heard her shoving the brooms up against it, and running in other parts of the office, and the sound of her heels on the wooden floor of the corridor.

  “Is there anyone in that other room, citizen?”

  “No, Officer,” said her voice, betraying no tension.

  The kitchen door was flung open, and the door to my hiding place trembled. I could see them through a crack, a tiny slice of them. I thought my heart would burst. There were two. Flushed, angry men in uniforms, inches away. I would never see you again. Panic gripped me and pulled me into an abyss. The policemen moved quickly, looking around the kitchen and out onto the street through the window.

  “Shit,” one of them whispered, banging his fist on the kitchen counter.

  “All clear!” shouted the other one into the corridor.

  There was a scratching on the door.

  “You can come out now,” said the woman’s voice. I don’t know how long I had been in there, listening to the sound of the policemen thundering through the building, banging on doors, searching the flats and offices, returning to interrogate the man and the woman and to take down their details, and the commotion outside, the screams of the crowds, and then, gradually, the dying down of any sound except for the wailing of sirens. Finally I’d heard cars honking, and the buzzing of the trams, and then this scratching.

  The door to my cell opened. They both stood there, a light bulb hanging above their heads, night in the street behind them. I forced my body out of its hiding place, dusted myself off, aware of their eyes on me. They had their coats on, and both wore a look of exhaustion and curiosity.

  “That was very brave of you,” said Pani Waleszka.

  “And foolish,” said the man, with a hint of a smile in his gray eyes.

  “I know,” I said, feeling embarrassed. “Thank you. You saved me.”

  Pani Waleszka poured a glass of water and handed it to me.

  “Yes, that was rather close,” said the man, eyeing me. “And an interesting spectacle too, those flying papers. What an idea, to throw propaganda out there when the whole of the city’s police is mobilized in the street. If it hadn’t been for us, you would have spent tonight in prison.” He smiled, stretching out his hand. “I’m Tadeusz Rogalski, attorney,” he said. His hand was large and soft, his fingers like little pincushions.

  “I’m L
udwik.”

  “And this is Pani Waleszka, my secretary.” We shook hands.

  “Call me Małgosia,” she said.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  They looked at each other. “They dispersed the strikers,” said Małgosia hesitantly, unwillingly almost. “A few people got hurt.”

  “Did anyone die?”

  “We don’t know,” said the man, looking at the floor. “Ambulances came and took people away.”

  “Do you think it’s safe for me to go out there?”

  “They might still be looking for you,” he said. “Or not. But we’d better not take any risks. We’ll take the back entrance. Let’s go.”

  We went down the dark stairs very quietly. Before we reached the ground floor I could hear the noise of passing cars—the entrance door was unhinged, leaning against a wall. We slipped into a long, dark corridor that led in the opposite direction, where Pan Tadeusz quickly unlocked a door. We crept into an unlit courtyard. There was light in a couple of the windows that faced us, the lamps behind the drawn curtains somehow ominous, like secrets about to be unveiled. We hurried toward a white Trabant, and they made me lie on the back seat. The car started, the engine vibrating, my cheek cool against the leather. Driving out of the courtyard, we flowed into the arteries of the city, inserting ourselves into its body like an unsuspected virus. From below, I watched the houses and monuments rush past, both familiar and new from that perspective. Police sirens howled in the distance, and then the Trabant stopped at the mouth of the blokowisko.

  “Good night, Ludwik,” the man said, turning around to me. “Watch out for yourself. And don’t push your luck.”

  Chapter 5

  This morning, like every morning, I took the subway across to Manhattan. I sat at my desk and tried to work, but my mind was back home. I had a bad feeling. Some sort of intuition. As soon as midday struck, I left the office and walked a couple of blocks over to the telephone box on the corner of Third and East Forty-Third. No one is ever at that corner, and no one was there today. I called Jarek. He’s a fixer, a connector, knowing everything about everyone in the community. He works late shifts at a factory down in Queens, and I knew he’d be home.

  “Did you hear?” he said with his smoker’s voice, almost immediately after picking up the phone. “The ZOMO killed nine miners in Katowice. They were protesting the martial law. Can you believe it? First they lock our people in our country, then they jail them, now they shoot them in the street. Sons of bitches. This time they’re gonna pay for it.”

  A shiver ran down my back and across my lips. “Are you sure?”

  He spat out his words like bullets. “Sure as fuck. This is serious.”

  I thought of the miners, and it struck me that they could have been the same people I had seen a year earlier from that window where I threw the flyers. Or it could have been me. But then, I had been a coward compared to them. I had hidden under window ledges, in kitchen closets; I had not been in the streets demanding my right to be heard. Now I was an ocean away, wearing a new suit. I wondered about your role in all this, what kind of pact you’d made with yourself. Because we all make one, even the best of us. And it’s rarely immaculate. No matter how hard we try.

  “Głowacki? Are you still there?” Jarek’s voice brought me back. “You all right? Got family in Katowice?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m OK.” I thanked him, which felt macabre, and cut the call. Then, for the umpteenth time that week, I dialed Granny’s number.

  The tone went “Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep,” repeating mercilessly like a reproach.

  I walked back to work, waited for the sadness to pass.

  * * *

  The night after the flyers I slept deeply, dreamlessly, as if floating underwater. I was unmoored, a ship that had finally left its harbor, only to be pushed by the wind without any control of its own. When I awoke, I hardly knew who or where I was. It felt as if I’d returned from a long journey underneath the sea. I was on my bed, fully dressed; my bag lay beside me on the floor. Outside, the sun stood high in a spotless sky.

  I heard Pani Kolecka coughing. I got up to check on her, the remains of sleep diffused by anxiety. There was no blood on her or on the sheets. I went to the kitchen and prepared her tea, wondering what I’d make her to eat, wondering whether I’d try the doctor’s office again. Wondering whether it was even safe for me to go out onto the street. Whether the police wouldn’t somehow come looking for me, or whether I was being paranoid. And then, as I served Pani Kolecka the tea, the doorbell rang. The ringing was shrill like a cry.

  Pani Kolecka looked at me. We never had anyone over, except for a neighbor who came every Friday to knit with Pani Kolecka. But it wasn’t Friday.

  “Pan Ludwik, are you expecting visitors?”

  I shook my head, listening for movement.

  The doorbell rang again, with more urgency.

  “Won’t you see who it is?” she asked.

  I walked down the corridor toward the door, my knees weak. I closed my eyes. My heart was beating hard, reminding me of the previous night’s narrow escape, of the small closet, the policemen standing inches away from me. I made myself open my eyes, look through the peephole. In the globular glass your face was large and round like a moon, your body tiny underneath it, attached to you like a stalk to a flower. I felt relief rush through me. I opened the door. We looked at each other for a long moment, without saying anything.

  “I brought you something.” You pointed at the shopping net in your hand. I beckoned you inside. In the corridor you took off your shoes. It struck me how strange it was to have you there, how small you made the place look. I introduced you to Pani Kolecka. Her face lit up in a way I hadn’t seen in weeks.

  “So you’re the nice pan who Ludwik went traveling with this summer?”

  You nodded, the perfect son-in-law.

  “Would you like some tea?” she asked, looking at you in adoration, when a fit of coughing took hold of her.

  “No, thank you,” you said, waiting for her to stop. “I won’t trouble you for long. Ludwik told me you haven’t been well. I managed to get you a doctor’s appointment. Tomorrow at ten.” You handed her a card.

  She looked at it, squinting, reaching for her glasses. “But, Pan Janusz, this is a private doctor,” she muttered, looking concerned. “I don’t think I can—”

  “He won’t accept payment,” you said. “Don’t worry.”

  She considered you for a moment, very seriously. “Pan Janusz, how can I accept this?”

  “It’s nothing. A favor being returned, that’s all.” You glanced at me for a moment.

  Pani Kolecka’s face broke into an involuntary smile. “I don’t know how to thank you. Please, stay for lunch.”

  “Thank you, but I have to go, and you need to rest. Another time. When you feel better.” You got up and shook her hand and came through to the corridor with me.

  I wanted to thank you, but I couldn’t.

  “I was worried about you,” you said. “You seemed so upset yesterday. I waited for you at the pool last night. And with the demonstrations escalating . . . Did you hear?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, managing to keep a steady face, watching yours relax.

  You pulled out a packet from the net bag and handed it to me. It was large and heavy. “Chicken,” you said. “So you can make her broth.”

  You knelt down to slip your shoes back on.

  “How did you get all this?”

  You straightened up, your face right in front of mine. “I told you, there are ways.”

  “How?”

  “A contact. I’ll explain soon. Take care of Pani Kolecka. And come to see me when you can.” You kissed me quickly, for no one to see or hear, and slipped out, your footsteps echoing in the stairwell.

  I took Pani Kolecka to the doctor. I’d pushed all the clothes I’d worn that night of the flyers far under my bed, and for the outing I put on a green hat Pani Kolecka had knitted. We arrived at the d
octor’s, a small, quiet practice in the south of the city. Pani Kolecka was silent with awe as we sat on the leather couches of the empty waiting room, while I flicked through the latest copy of the People’s Tribune, dreading to see a phantom drawing of me in there. But there was not even a mention of the strikes. Nothing. As if that night had never happened.

  The doctor examined Pani Kolecka with unusual care and gave her a dose of French antibiotics that he took from a glass cabinet behind his desk. On the way home, we passed a line of policemen. I held my breath, but they didn’t even look at me.

  That week I didn’t leave the flat. My mind had a storm raging inside it, and outside the autumn rains began. It rained for days on end. The drops drummed onto the roofs and hammered the streets. Thunder growled like the anger of our forefathers. It felt like the city was under attack, like the city and its streets might start to give way, dissolve, its life flowing into the Wisła and out into the cold depths of the sea.

  I sat by the window and watched. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to the secret frequency again. A great weariness overcame me every time I thought of it, and of that night, and of the abyss of fear that had opened up as I’d stood in that closet. Something inside me had shut down. The radio remained silent.

  Instead I took care of Pani Kolecka, watched her get better little by little with the medicine the doctor had given her. A weight lifted from my soul. She was weak still, but the fits grew shorter and fainter. I’d make her tea and sit by her side and listen. She told me about the journeys she’d made with her husband, the work trips they’d gone on abroad, to Tunisia and Algeria. She showed me her photos, of dry, desert-like landscapes with palm trees and orange-brown earth and low square houses made by hand. There she was, a younger version of herself in an ankle-length dress with flowers and a straw hat, looking proudly into the camera. Next to her, her husband, tall and stocky, his square face content, a big white hat on his head. Everything had been different there, she said, smiling to herself. She told me how they used their right hand to eat and their left to clean themselves.