by Anya Lipska
“Why the fuck isn’t he cuffed, kretyn?” the guy suddenly shouted at the Ukrainian, who shrugged and mumbled something. Then he turned back to Janusz, and nonchalantly pushed the side of his head with his fingertips, a gesture that was somehow more demeaning than being struck. Janusz noticed his cheeks were dappled with acne scars – probably a side effect of steroid abuse.
“Cuff him,” he said with a grin, “but not before the old cunt hands over what we want.” Catching a whiff of something off the guy, Janusz realised it was the same smell he’d picked up before, a scent that was niggling at him, but which his brain, in its agitated state, couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“I want to see Adamski and the girl first,” growled Janusz, which sent the psychol lunging toward him.
“You don’t give the fucking orders!” he shouted, spit flying. Pulling a gun out of his coat pocket, he flicked off the safety and shoved it against Janusz’s cheekbone, just below the eye. From the markings on the barrel Janusz could see it was a CZ-75, the cult Czechoslovakian nine millimetre. He could even smell the oil used to clean the mechanism. A high-pitched hum filled his skull. He was in the zone now, a trancelike state where he didn’t really give a shit what happened.
“Probably best not to shoot me till you know for sure I’ve brought the document,” he said. The guy’s cat’s-arse of a mouth worked angrily but he let the gun drop to his side.
Janusz hadn’t given up on his plan to alert Nowak, and now an idea came to him – if he could provoke the psychol into attacking him, then he might be able to take advantage of the melee to press dial on his phone, which was sitting in his breast pocket, cued up on Nowak’s number. If he answered – when he answered, please God – Janusz would start shouting his head off about Zamorski – not with any hope of rescue, but to alert Nowak to what was happening.
Seeking the psychol’s gaze, he nodded at his damaged ear with an expression of concern. “That looks nasty,” he said sympathetically, “Twelve-bore?”
He ducked his head to deflect the blow, and the next thing he knew he was face down on the deck eyeballing dirty brown lino – the guy had thrown him out of the chair. Now he started kicking the shit out of him, just like he had that night in the flat, and under the guise of curling up to protect himself, Janusz was able to press his phone keypad firmly against his chest.
Please answer. Please answer. A second or two later, through the thuds of the kicks, he made out the sound of a mobile phone ringing nearby. It seemed a simple-enough coincidence, until Janusz heard a door open, and the ringing rise in volume.
A sense of foolishness, swiftly followed by a wave of utter desolation engulfed him. The kicking stopped, and he heard footsteps crossing the floor. Still he didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to confront the sight he knew he would find. He was aware of being roughly picked up and set back in the chair, and finally, reluctantly, he raised his eyes to meet the clear hazel gaze of Konstanty Nowak.
“You called?” asked Nowak, looking at the display of his phone with a grin. “Sorry, not a joking matter, I know.” He politely extended a hand palm-up, and Janusz surrendered his mobile.
The psychol now stood several paces behind Nowak, looking docile now his boss was in the room – like a dog that knows it’s place in the pack hierarchy, thought Janusz. All in a rush, he identified the scent he’d smelled on him, and in the room. Aniseed. And remembered that it was also the smell of anethole, the compound used to make PMA. An image clicked into the viewfinder of his memory – walking through the embassy with Father Pietruzki, on the way to see Nowak, a man bowing, a gesture that had momentarily obscured his face. The psychol. Janusz remembered thinking the whiff of fennel was his aftershave. The warehouse must have been his drug factory – the dust on the table traces of the powdered chalk that formed the tablets, the equipment and product packed into the flight cases ready to be transported to its next destination.
Looking serious now, Nowak deftly turned the windcheater he was carrying inside out so it wouldn’t get dusty, and laid it neatly on the cutting table. “Perhaps you won’t believe me, Janusz – if I may still be permitted to call you by your Christian name,” he said. “But it was never my intention for you to be harmed – or to get so... enmeshed in this business.”
He perched himself on the table’s edge.
“Your job was purely to find out where the boy was hiding so that we could get the document back.” He shook his head. “It was your misfortune that he came to your place and left the document with you. ‘A poisoned chalice’, I think the English call it.” He smiled with a dry cheerfulness and Janusz felt the last trace of hope that he might get out of this alive ebbing away. Nowak was clearly in this shit up to his neck, which meant there was no way he could risk letting him survive.
“I was just about to cuff him,” said the psychol, but Nowak waved a dismissive hand. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Where’s the girl – and Pawel?” asked Janusz gruffly.
“The girl is fine, Pawel less so,” said Nowak, his voice tinged with regret. “I’m sure in your heart of hearts, you didn’t really expect him to walk away from this, after all the trouble he’s caused.” Janusz stared at the floor.
“But listen,” said Nowak, as if a happy thought had just occurred to him. “I’m prepared to keep my side of the bargain and let the girl go. She has no idea who I am, and after questioning her, Radomil assures me she hasn’t a clue what all this is about.” The psychol grinned at Janusz and raised his eyebrows to convey how much he’d enjoyed interrogating Weronika. “She can go back to her waitressing job under the firm impression that her boyfriend got entangled with drug dealers and paid the ultimate price.” He chuckled. “She’s nineteen – in six months she’ll have a new boyfriend.”
Janusz felt a wave of hatred. But he had no reason to doubt Nowak’s promise to let the girl go. Why should he lie when he held all the cards?
“Now, may I have the document, please?”
Janusz opened the top buttons of his shirt, reached in for the file, and thrust it at Nowak.
“Just tell me one thing,” he said, as Nowak’s gaze devoured the contents. “Why in the name of all the saints do you want a bastard like Zamorski running the country? Do you get a big fat payoff or something?”
Radomil stepped forward at that, ready to bite if his master issued the command, but Nowak just smiled a tolerant smile. “You young people think everything is about money,” he said equably. “No, I’m backing Edward because I believe he is what the country needs.”
“A fucking paedophile who sold his country to the Kommies?” Janusz spat out. “I wasn’t aware they were qualifications for becoming president.”
“All ancient history,” said Nowak. “You’re an intelligent man – surely you must see that what the country needs is stability, a leader who can unite our ragbag of factions – Church, unions... intellectuals,” as he mentioned the last group he rolled his eyes conspiratorially at Janusz.
“In our fractious country, a president backed by a solid alliance is the only way to get things done. Edward is no genius, but he’s prepared to listen.”
“To you?”
Nowak tipped his head in assent. “Yes, to me, and a couple of other people who understand what the country needs.”
“Really, and what’s that?” Janusz had decided to play along. The guy clearly loved the sound of his own voice, and the longer he went on, the more time Janusz had to come up with a survival plan.
Nowak looked at his watch. “I’ve got half an hour before I leave for the airport, so, why not? Let’s you and me have a good old debata, Polak to Polak.”
He pulled up a swivel chair next to Janusz and said over his shoulder “Radomil, bring some wodka.” Turning his chair to face the view, he indicated Janusz should do the same, and pointed out the cluster of cranes and high-rise blocks on the skyline to the north that marked out the Olympics site.
“Look at that,” he said with admiration. “The
East End was a complete shithole, excuse my language, but they’re transforming it – by an act of will.” He nudged Janusz. “All the hoopla over the sport? A sideshow. It’s the roads, the rail, housing, retail – that will make the real difference.’
Nowak took the glasses from Radomil, who poured shots for both of them, throwing Janusz a malevolent look. Janusz didn’t touch his, but Nowak didn’t notice. He was on a roll, jabbing a finger at the skyline. “That’s what Poland needs – a whole new infrastructure, right across the country. Jobs for all our poor exiles stuck abroad cleaning English people’s toilets.” His mouth curled in distaste, then he pointed at Janusz, “A man like you should be doing a proper job back home, not playing Jack the Lad in London.”
Janusz raised an eyebrow: “Maybe a lot of people you call exiles think of London as home now.” He realised, with a frisson of surprise, that he was one of them. “Anyway, how do you plan to conjure up a million jobs?”
Nowak smiled. “We’ve done our homework,” he said, and started to count off on his fingers. “Within five years, we will have completed a comprehensive motorway network and two new hub airports; in ten years we will have regenerated three zones of low-employment: the Kashubian Lakeland, the Bialystok Forest, and the foothills of the Tatras, which will host three new cities dedicated to leisure and tourism.”
Janusz visualised the wild beauty of the national parks Nowak listed: for their ‘regeneration’ to produce jobs on such a scale it clearly wasn’t eco-tourism he had in mind – more like Dubai in the heart of Europe.
“I can’t see the EU shelling out for all that,” he said sceptically.
“Between you and me, we’re not keen on the current obsession with Europe,” said Nowak. “‘Human rights’ for rapists, ‘health and safety’, ‘working time directives...’” He paused, his eyes merry. “The bureaucrats have taken over the asylum, no?” Then, pouring himself another shot, which Janusz declined, he leaned over and tapped him on the leg.
“The EU pen pushers won’t find out till it’s far too late to object, but the bulk of the investment will come from influential friends a good deal to the East of Brussels.”
Janusz gazed at him, trying to take in the words.
“The Russians?”
Nowak nodded.
“You want Poland to cosy up to the bastards who invaded us and made our lives a misery for forty years?” asked Janusz.
Nowak pulled a tolerant smile. “You know, for a relatively young man, you are remarkably conservative. But the younger generation doesn’t have all your baggage – they don’t have a problem with Russia.” He waved a finger at Janusz. “Russia is awash with oil and gas profits – and all that cash needs a home. Poland is on the doorstep and a very attractive investment, if the young people can be brought home.”
Janusz pictured with horror the class that ruled Russia – the old KGB types, and the gangster-oligarchs they had illegally enriched – and considered the journalists and government critics who, two decades after Communism had fallen, still had a mysterious habit of dying young. Then he remembered something. “But your father died in a Russian camp after the war!”
Nowak took a sip of wodka. “Stalin saved Europe,” he said matter-of-factly. “After the war, he had to be ruthless, especially with the Poles. You must admit, we’ve never been strong on discipline.” His clear eyes met Janusz’s gaze. “I’m afraid I came to realise, when I grew up, that my father’s nationalism was nothing more than childish self-indulgence.”
“You were a Solidarnosc organiser, in Huta!” Janusz protested. “You and Zamorski led strikes against the Kommies!” He tried to remember everything Nowak had told him, how he and Zamorski had met on a train in the Seventies heading to jobs at the steel mill, how they’d both become activists, how close they were...
Nowak had his head tipped on one side, as though waiting for the penny to drop.
“It was you who recruited Zamorski for the SB, wasn’t it,” said Janusz at last. “You were probably already working for the SB when you took the train to Huta.”
Nowak raised his glass to congratulate Janusz’s deductions.
“You were Agent Byk. A Kommunista.”
“Not guilty to the last charge,” said Nowak with a laugh. “Ideology never interested me. I’m an unrepentant pragmatist.”
“So was it pragmatic to supply innocent children for that dirty chuj to abuse?”
Nowak pursed his lips. “Sometimes you needed a strong stomach, back then, to stop the country from destroying itself. Nobody wanted an invasion – least of all Comrade Brezhnev. But think how many more innocents would have suffered and died if we’d allowed the troublemakers to provoke the Soviets beyond endurance.”
“And no doubt you take the same view of this scum who likes to hurt women,” said Janusz chopping an angry hand in the direction of Radomil, who was sitting on the stack of flight cases, cleaning his nails with a penknife. “Murder, rape, I suppose that’s all just breaking eggs to make omelettes, in your book, right?”
Nowak looked at Radomil, “I wasn’t aware that there had been any unnecessary impropriety,” he frowned. “I disapprove of that sort of thing.”
“I’m sure Justyna will be relieved to hear it,” snarled Janusz.
Nowak’s face darkened. “You really are a boy scout aren’t you? You hardly knew the girl, and as for Weronika, you’ve never even met her, yet you behave as though they’re family. It’s all about you, really, isn’t it?” He gave a derisive snort. “At least it made you easy to handle – when you threw the towel in, all I had to do was get Radomil to impersonate Adamski and rough you up, and suddenly it’s a matter of personal honour.”
He stared at Janusz, his eyes hard as boiled sweets now. “I have a theory about you, my friend,” he said, nodding to himself. “This holier-than-thou attitude – it’s all the product of a guilty conscience.” Janusz held his gaze for what seemed like an age, then dropped it.
Of course, Nowak would have checked up on him. Hundreds of thousands of SB files were made public after the revolution and he’d certainly know his way round them.
Nowak had adopted an understanding expression. “You know better than most that all of us make compromises in life. If you hadn’t given up your friends, you’d have ended up in prison. It would have destroyed your future.”
Janusz gripped the arms of his chair, seized by a fit of vertigo. It had been two days after his seventeenth birthday when the milicja had caught him spray-painting Solidarnosc graffiti, and taken him to Montepulich Prison. In the cells, before they started interrogating him, the one in charge had assured him that he would reveal his friends’ names, the ones who’d got away, or he’d leave the place zipped into a body bag.
The three of them had beaten him, stripped him, posed him like Mr Universe, taunted his skinny body, his fearshrivelled kutas, and in a final act of humiliation – the memory of which he had, by an act of will, suppressed all these years – one of them had pissed on him. After four or five hours of that, yes, he had talked, and gratefully. His three friends were brought in, but they got off with a caution. It was only many months later that he discovered the incident had cost one of the boy’s fathers, a civil servant, his job.
Janusz looked Nowak in the face. “Going to prison wouldn’t have destroyed my future, but betraying my friends did,” he said. It was a statement of plain truth. Had it not been for the guilt he carried around, he would never have insisted on going to the Gdansk demo with Iza, he would have left before it got dangerous, and Iza would still be alive.
Puzzlement creased the skin round Nowak’s eyes, but Janusz wasn’t about to explain himself.
Janusz visualised the back-door invasion of Russian gangsters and oligarchs that Nowak had planned for Poland. With so much money invested, how long would it be before there were new laws to curtail the press, and constitutional ‘reforms’ handed President Zamorski ever-greater power? Remembering how Nowak had greedily scanned the SB documents, he realised s
omething.
“Zamorski’s the ideal president for you and your friends, isn’t he?” he said. “Not in spite of being a child abuser and traitor, but because of it.”
Zamorski got up and walked over to the window.
“You wanted the SB documents in order to have complete control over him. In case he ever gets second thoughts about your plan to concrete over the national parks and sell the country to the Russians.”
When Nowak finally turned back to Janusz, his expression appeared cheerful again.
“It’s a shame I can’t persuade you to see my point of view – perhaps you’ll come round to it when you see Poland’s GDP go through the roof in five years’ time.” Then, seeing Janusz’s confusion, he burst out laughing.
“My apologies! I forgot for a moment that you’ve cast yourself as James Bond and me as the evil villain, so of course you thought that you wouldn’t be leaving my lair alive.”
Setting his empty glass on the table he leaned against its edge, arms folded. “Whatever you think of me, I actually have no desire to increase the body count unnecessarily. Anyway, I have a little insurance policy to ensure you don’t try to cause any trouble in high places.”
Janusz felt a strange mixture of feelings envelop him: a wave of relief that relaxed a hundred tensed muscles throughout his body, shot through with a thrill of fear at the mention of an ‘insurance policy’.
“You are no doubt aware that Radomil has become a TV celebrity in this country, which has curtailed his pharmaceutical activities, and means he is forced to move on,” he nodded over to Radomil, who was fingering his ragged ear solicitously. “I’m sure you’ve already worked out that he was the one who commissioned your friend for that ... export job last week.”
Janusz nodded, wondering what was coming.
But Nowak paused and checked his watch: “Excuse me, I just realised I’m running late. Radomil, will you please bring the girl for Pan Kiszka?”