The Institute

by Jakub Żulczyk

  I was alone. This loneliness grated on me and was becoming unbearable. I wanted to meet someone, talk to someone, even just to avoid sobbing all night thinking about my daughter. To find some peace, stop myself going mad.

  For a week, I held back from going to one of the thousands of bars alone. Normal people don’t do things like that, I thought. People who go to bars alone are alcoholics who are too embarrassed to drink to the mirror.

  Then, one evening, I noticed that I was talking to myself more and more as I paced the empty apartment, made soups and sandwiches for myself, cleaned, read, played Scrabble on the internet and awkwardly performed asanas I’d once picked up somewhere: Agnieszka, you idiot, you forgot to buy the toilet paper again; Agnieszka, the washing’s going to rot in the machine again; Agnieszka, one more cigarette, another tea and it’s bed, okay? And I realised that I wanted to talk to another human being so much – even the girl at the supermarket checkout or the tram driver – that I had to go out, hear a voice other than my own.

  It was a crazily warm yet fresh evening. I walked down Karmelicka Street wearing no make-up, in a colourful, light blouse, tracksuit and trainers. Swarms of people passed me; everyone seemed happier and more normal than me. The first bar I entered turned out to be the Ugly Cat on Sławkowska Street.

  Sometimes I wonder whether if I’d entered any other bar, I’d have stayed there. Perhaps I wasn’t as desperate as I thought I was; perhaps it was simply that the Ugly Cat had and has something homely about it. It is the cosy home of lunatics.

  When I stepped inside, into the first, colourfully painted room shrouded in smoke, all the men were standing up, shouting, “Shame!”, “Shame!” and “Go, Papa!”, “Go, Papa!”

  The subject of the cheering was a forty-something guy with a heavily furrowed face, scarce, long hair, dressed in a washed-out hoodie. He was standing on a stool behind the bar, fully focused, using a roller to cover a TV – attached by a boom to the ceiling – with white oil paint. Half of the screen was already layered with a white shell; all that was visible was the double chin and suited torso of a sports commentator saying, “Wisła’s defeat is shameful. The defence’s criminal mistakes can only be put down to…”

  The men in the room were whistling, clapping, raising their glasses of beer so dramatically that most of the contents ended up over their heads. I walked up to the bar, pushing my way through the chaos, and asked the barmaid, a chubby girl with dyed hair, what was going on. I ordered a beer with lemon and pointed to Papa, who was determinedly rolling another layer of paint over the screen.

  “They lost the derby,” said the girl, pouring my beer.

  “Who did?” I asked dimly, watching as Papa, having finished painting over the still switched-on TV, jumped off the ladder, climbed onto the bar and raised his arms triumphantly, thick white paint dripping from the roller and tin onto the bar.

  “Fuck the lot of you, you useless bunch of wankers!” Papa started shouting.

  The customers quickly pitched in, thumping the tables.

  “Where are you from?” the girl behind the bar asked. She had a pleasant, slightly hoarse but strong voice. Human.

  “Żoliborz,” I said. I looked at her meaningfully. She smiled.

  “Okay. What would you like?” she asked.

  “I just want to get drunk,” I explained.

  “A large vodka sour,” she responded, nodding, understanding. “You’ve really never been here?” she said over her shoulder as she made my drink.

  Before I could answer, Papa leapt off the bar, handed the paint and roller to another barman, walked over to the other end of the bar and approached a well-sopped, fat and heavily made-up woman sitting at a table by the window. He knelt in front of her, kissed her hand and whispered:

  “Queen of the night, it’s time to dance the dance of victory. Our hearts are always the hearts of victors.”

  “Fuck off, Papa,” retorted the woman, leaning her chair back precariously.

  “Hop onto the bar, dear queen, and I’ll notch you one on tab, and your tab’s huge,” spluttered Papa.

  “Papa, give me a fucking break,” moaned the woman.

  “Huge and beautiful, like your arse,” groaned Papa, who clearly felt some sort of strong, erotic fascination for the woman.

  When I saw the woman give in and jump onto the bar, start dancing to the song “Papa Dance” turned up loud, I downed my vodka in one go. When I saw half the room instantly join in, and the woman’s body – already spilling out of her tight blouse – turn into an undulating sea of white blancmange, I looked at the barmaid.

  “I’m Iga. Another?” she asked, and I nodded.

  Iga smiled, then shouted to Papa to stop fucking making an idiot of himself because the Lech beer was finished, and the barrels needed fetching.

  I spent the rest of the evening dancing with strangers and talking to Iga across the bar, talking about anything and everything. I told her the entire saga of my apartment and my daughter and my, to all intents and purposes, now ex-husband; told her about my fear, my escape, how I’d wasted my whole life maintaining false, toxic appearances.

  I felt at home, looked after. Iga kept sliding more vodkas my way, which I drank between dancing and talking, and I talked in at least five different languages and everything was great until some fifty-something British guy grabbed me roughly by the bum.

  I automatically turned and slapped him in the gob; he probably wanted to slap me back, but suddenly, from amid the hive of drunk people dancing, an enormous bald giant emerged with a thick, strong line of brows above his eyes, wearing a jacket with the name Banda written on it. When the Brit yanked my hat off against my will, the giant grabbed him by the armpit, twisted his arm, forced him into a squat and dragged him in the direction of the door, which he opened with his free hand. He let go of the Brit and, as though we were in a silent movie, gave him a hefty kick up the arse.

  “Call Sebastian next time,” he said, pointing at his chest.

  “Sebastian,” I repeated.

  “Or Seba, if you like,” the giant clarified, and he returned to the gate. Towards morning, there was only me and Iga, another barman nicknamed Hangover, Papa swaying on his feet, Sebastian and Yogi, still rooted at their tables.

  I was barely conscious, but still talking. Iga was talking, too. Sometimes we spoke at the same time. We laughed like two idiots. I had a best friend again and it was a good feeling, a feeling I’d last had when I was about sixteen.

  “Get your daughter down here, sis, she must be really brilliant. You’re brilliant, so she must be brilliant, too.” Iga was pouring us yet more drinks, at the same time trying to aim the dishes into the dishwasher and the money into the cashbox.

  “I’d give my mother’s heart for a woman like you, Hat,” declared Papa, leaning against the bar.

  “I need to drop anchor here.” I spread my arms out, almost tripping. “I haven’t got anything. Haven’t even got a job. Painting those bruises on TVN for twenty złotys isn’t a job. I’ve got to get something. Give Ela something.”

  “Be a barmaid here.” Iga smiled. “Papa, give Aga a job. Look, Aga’s great, fucking great.”

  “Fucking great,” repeated Hangover, then fell asleep.

  Papa lay on the bar. I began to laugh. I was really enjoying all this.

  “Stay,” repeated Iga. “What have you got to lose? Ever been a barmaid?”

  “I’m too old,” I replied.

  “The hell you are,” retorted Iga. “You’ve got to give it a go. It’s miserable, but it’s a laugh. Isn’t it, Papa?”

  Papa raised himself, supported his elbows on the bar and whispered, reeking of stale vodka:

  “Listen, Hat. Let me tell you something, and don’t take it bad. You going to take it bad?”

  I shook my head, trying gently to move away.

  “I’d give my mother’s heart for a woman like you.”

  And that’s how, at the age of thirty-five, I became a barmaid. It rejuvenated me inwardly by
about fifteen years. At least that’s what I thought over the first two weeks. At least that’s how I played it. Maybe it was unwise, strange and extremely unhealthy. Maybe I was making up for something, something I’d lost. Maybe at the deepest layer of my character, I was an irresponsible idiot. But Iga was right – it was a laugh. There were lots of people. Loud music all the time. I was constantly at least a bit drunk. I needed this like I needed air. I needed not to think.

  Now I only cried a little in the mornings, when I woke up with a hangover.

  My best friend, Iga, moved in, of course, after a week. For the past two years, she’d been renting a twenty-squaremetre broom cupboard near Radio Cracow, half of which was taken up by a table and the other half by books. She moved in without a second thought; all I asked her for was to contribute to the gas bill. When she moved in, we talked again for days on end. Non-stop. I loved talking to her.

  We spoke about Iga’s flights from home, about a boyfriend whom she’d got out of drugs and sleeping on park benches and who was now the managing director of a metal company, about another boyfriend whom she still couldn’t stop loving even though everything had dried up between them, about her mother, a professor at a private Catholic college, about friends, about my daughter, about bad choices.

  One evening, Sebastian, our bodyguard, came to work with a different expression on his face than usual. His brows were drawn, lips downturned. He slouched as though somebody had placed something heavy on his back. It took us a couple of hours to grasp that he was just sad. When we asked what was wrong, he said that his fiancée had thrown him out of the house and he didn’t have anywhere to live, that he didn’t want to go back to his parents, who lived with his brother in a Nowa Huta apartment the size of a large bath.

  Of course, Sebastian moved in. He took the smallest room, repaired the electricity on the first day, screwed together the already wonky furniture from IKEA and insulated the windows.

  Everything was still great, and I’d have carried on feeling good if it wasn’t for my daughter’s questions. I was still calling her as often as I could, and Ela kept asking when she could come. I kept trying to work out what to do. And I quickly realised that, really, I didn’t have a clue.

  I met a few guys, of course. Some left in the morning; others stayed longer, for a few nights, but they always left in the end. Some were younger, some were older, some were my age. Some were intelligent, others stupid. Good looking and less so. There was no rhyme or reason for them leaving, no pattern or regularity.

  I didn’t talk to them much. I was an adult and didn’t want to hurt anyone. It was enough that, beneath this happy charade at being a student, I should be unhappy.

  One day, however, a guy appeared at the Cat who had a week’s stubble, was slim, had unwashed shoulder-length brown hair, dirty trainers and a good, fitted jacket. He was both worn and fresh. He’d come with another man who talked to him a lot, but he only smiled politely as though not wanting to disappoint him.

  “Do you take cards?” he asked, leaning over the bar. He didn’t look like the owner of his own voice. His voice was strong, melodious and rough, gave him height and gave him breadth in the shoulders. I fancied him when he spoke, really fancied him, and it was a strange feeling because I hadn’t really fancied any man for about ten years.

  Iga noticed and laughed.

  “Credit cards?” he asked.

  “No, we don’t,” she replied.

  “It’s my card,” he said, pulling his ID out of his wallet. “Really.”

  “I believe you.” Iga laughed again. “But the terminal’s dead. Give him a tab.” Iga turned to me. “You’ll go to a cashpoint, won’t you? Otherwise, we’ll be paying for you.”

  He nodded. At first glance, his eyes, hidden behind horn-rimmed glasses, looked like a pair of broken headlights. But, in fact, they revealed shrewdness and sharpness. They contained little knives. These knives cut through reality. He wasn’t stupid, I could see that.

  “I’d like a straight vodka on the rocks, then, please, and one with lemon for my friend.”

  Iga handed him two vodkas, one with lemon, the other only ice.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “No problem,” I replied. I felt like a teenager, nervous and embarrassed. And to all intents and purposes, I was an adolescent. An overgrown adolescent.

  The place wasn’t busy. That was still to come. The sharp, good-looking guy’s friend was still talking to him, but he wasn’t listening. Instead, he was smiling at me, which annoyed me even more. Iga stood nearby, laughing out loud. The man finished his vodka and peered into his wallet again.

  “I think I’ll go to that cashpoint now after all,” he announced.

  “I think my colleague’s going to accompany you.” Iga nodded at me.

  “You don’t trust me.” He smiled.

  “No, we don’t, not a bit,” said Iga.

  That evening, we didn’t return to the Cat. To be honest, I don’t remember where we went. He was called Jacek and everything about him was intriguing. Or perhaps that’s how I wanted it to be. He was like a book with a twist on each page. He told me about his work and about how he made a lot of money as a stocks and shares analyst and employee of an investment fund, about the three degree courses he’d done, and that he’d spent two years in the United States, six months of which he was homeless, three in jail, that he’d tried peyote in the Arizona desert and that it wasn’t anything really special. He told me how he’d had his driving licence confiscated twice, how his concerned teachers had phoned his parents when he was ten because he’d compiled a set of historical errors in Bolesław Prus’s Pharaoh.

  We went for an excellent dinner, then to his place. Then, in the early hours of the morning, we had sex under the walls of Wawel Castle, which made me feel ashamed.

  The following day, he visited me at my apartment. We watched TV. Jacek dubbed every programme and advert quietly and idiotically; I nearly split my sides laughing. Then we had sex again. Later, he got up, went to the shop and made Viennese eggs for breakfast. Halfway through preparing breakfast, he announced that he’d also like to make some coffee. I told him truthfully that the espresso machine wasn’t working. He got in a taxi, went to the market square and twenty minutes later arrived with a new one.

  While Jacek was making the first coffee, Sebastian knocked on my door and asked:

  “I know that we all like to have fun, Hat, but did you have to bring a gypsy like this home?”

  Jacek, returning from the kitchen, passed him in the doorway and stretched out his hand.

  “Sebastian,” said Sebastian.

  “Gypsy,” responded Jacek.

  “Come here, Gypsy.” I called him into the room and closed the door, and when we finished making love, the eggs and coffee were long cold. Gypsy binned the cold ones and made some more.

  Two weeks later, I told him to move in. Into a separate room, of course.

  “You’re regressing more and more,” noticed Iga.

  “I’ve fallen a bit in love with this guy,” I countered and shrugged. “Besides, one room’s still empty.”

  “And he hasn’t got his own place?” asked Iga.

  “I’ve no idea,” I answered truthfully.

  He arrived at the Institute with a laptop, a rucksack of clothes and one cardboard box. He put them down in the empty room, took a taxi to IKEA and returned two hours later with a mattress, bed linen and a few enormous cushions.

  “Is that it?” I asked, when he’d put the cardboard box in the corner, laid the linen on the mattress, the laptop on the linen, stood with his arms crossed and looked at the room like it was a furnished home.

  “Yes, that’s it,” he replied.

  I don’t know how long it lasted, maybe thirty days, maybe less, maybe a little longer. Days when I called my daughter to make sure she was alright, while she got further away from me. I don’t even know how far. A step? A kilometre? An entire galaxy? But they were also days when I fell asleep and woke up with G
ypsy, went for walks with him. We read books together and I listened to what he said – and he talked a lot, really a lot, and he knew a lot.

  For about thirty days, still exiled, still in a colourful simulation of student life, still on a different planet from my daughter, it didn’t even occur to me that I might hurt him. What’s more, one day, maybe while washing dishes, or maybe lying in the bath, it crossed my mind that Gypsy might possibly hurt me.

  After thirty or maybe sixty days of this charming relationship, talking, listening, watching and strolling, a problem arose. For Gypsy, this was it. This was just what he wanted, what he’d been waiting for. The Agnieszka he saw, the fake Agnieszka, the Agnieszka who was painted pink, Agnieszka pretending to be a fun-loving student of the Academy of Fine Arts, was the Agnieszka he’d fallen in love with. When I sensed this for the first time, I shuddered, and when I felt myself shuddering, I realised that, for me, it was over.

  But it wasn’t real. The real Agnieszka wept looking at photographs on her phone when nobody saw, photographs from an outing to the zoo.

  “All this isn’t real, Gypsy,” the real Agnieszka said one day, the one whom Gypsy was seeing for the first time. The real Agnieszka had furrows and crow’s feet, downturned lips; the real Agnieszka walked slowly, slouching a little, had to catch hold of the wall from time to time; the real Agnieszka could have been fifty-something, not thirty-something. “It’s all a fairy tale.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Gypsy.