The Lullaby of Polish Girls

by Dagmara Dominczyk

  It’s not that she regrets having Damian. Damian happened when he was supposed to happen, he happened out of love. She felt no regret, but she harbored plenty of resentment. The difference between the two is small, but Justyna understands it the way only a mother can.

  The truth is, Damian keeps getting in the way. Like last week, she had to drag him to the pediatrician’s because he had a cough. Ever since that incident with the goddamn pneumonia six months ago, Justyna starts to panic at any sign of a cold. The death of Justyna’s mother had stunned her but she was able to sort out her grief and move on. The mere thought of her son dying, however, almost annihilates her, so she schleps her kid to the doctor’s anytime he has a sniffle.

  The poczekalnia at the clinic had been packed and Damian ran wild, crying, laughing, spilling water, and throwing his shoes around. At first, Justyna tried yelling, and then she tried pinching his arm and holding him down, but she resorted to the tactic she relied on most days: she gave up and reached for a magazine. One of the mothers, whose daughter sat by her feet in silence, turned to Justyna and cleared her throat. “If you can’t rein him in, perhaps you shouldn’t have had him,” she said.

  Justyna blinked her eyes. “Excuse me?”

  The woman leaned in conspiratorially.

  “I’m sorry, I just see that you’re struggling.”

  “You see that I’m struggling,” Justyna repeated slowly. The other women in the waiting room averted their eyes.

  “Yes, I do. Look at him. Look at you. I see this all the time, you know. And it gets worse. Soon he’ll be a boy and then a teenager and then a man, and you’ll still be in over your head. My heart just breaks for him.”

  Justyna stood up and clenched her fist. She hadn’t punched someone in a long time.

  “You see me struggling, kurwo? You don’t see me, period. You see a statistic. If my son weren’t here, you’d be laying on the floor in a manicured, pedi-fucking-cured heap. Damian, idziemy!” As soon as Damian heard the words we’re leaving, he scrambled out from his hiding place, shouting Hura! Hura! Justyna grabbed his sandals and his hand.

  “And one more thing, pizdo. You know who else had a kid when she was a teenager? Holy fucking Mary, Mother of God! And that shit turned out fine, that shit saved the world, didn’t it now?”

  But the woman’s words had haunted Justyna. She never felt in over her head before, but that bitch was right.

  At ten to seven, Justyna rolls out of bed and and glances at herself in front of the full-length mirror that hangs on the door. Her breasts bounce perkily midair. At least by forgoing breastfeeding, she’s saved them from doom.

  She lives for these Fridays. She lives for going out. Downtown Kielce, while no downtown Warszawa or Gdansk, is nonetheless her downtown. The orange-domed bus depot, the wild parks and dark alleys, the homegrown boys; Justyna loves it all. But she lives for the nightclubs. Pod Krechą, Vspak, and Disco Park, these are her sanctums. There was sorcery in the opening of drawers to search for the right stringi underwear, in selecting a tight white outfit because white turned fluorescent under the club lights; it was in the way she sashayed down the porch steps, legs gleaming with baby oil, the smell of summer mixing with the scent of her Giorgio Beverly Hills perfume. Suddenly Justyna was sixteen again. Sixteen, and howling “Wannabe” into the heavens, holding her heels in her hand, back when she was a Spice Girl, when she was free and tipsy and nothing could stop her.

  People fawned over toddlers, but the truth was that they were primordial beasts, living exclusively according to their needs and desires, and sometimes, nothing but a smack to their heads got through to them. Yes, Damian gave her satisfaction in small ways that she knew she’d miss one day, like his slobbery kisses and his dimpled smile. But Damian also deprived her, and his new, boorish disposition was too much to handle. Prior to the pneumonia, Justyna coasted by, biding her time till he was old enough to fix his own lunch and wipe his own ass. But after his illness, she finally understood the depth of her wretched love for him. More and more often she’d pinch his arm a little too hard, smack him on the head, or shove him off her with a little too much force. Those impulses scared her but she couldn’t stop them.

  “Justynaaaa!” She hears Paweł summon her from the kitchen. Once again, she won’t have time to shower before Paweł takes off. She throws on a Reebok tank and her black denim shorts—the same thing she wore yesterday—and thunders downstairs.

  The kitchen is a mess, a cataclysmic mess. Damian is squatting in the middle of the floor, attempting architectural genius with a pile of pots and pans.

  “I’m late. I’m fucking late.”

  Justyna blows Paweł a desultory kiss and he rushes out the door. Justyna stands there, wishing she was going with him.

  “Damian, wanna watch a show?”

  But Damian is too busy stacking the unstackable, biting his lip in solemn concentration, because everything is a matter of life and death to him, including getting the frying pan to balance on top of the eggbeater.

  So Justyna leaves him to his work, pours herself a cup of Jacobs instant, and lights her first cigarette of the day. Its effect is instant and she feels herself relax. They’ll make it through until three o’clock somehow.

  As she puffs contentedly, glancing at Damian from the corner of her eye, Filip walks into the kitchen, wearing underwear and nothing else. The old tighty whities are no longer white and are hanging loosely at his crotch. He sits down across from her and helps himself to one of her smokes.

  Filip Bednarczyk is Elwira’s latest find, and where she found him God only knows; he’s in his late twenties, with no ties to anyone or anything. The sisters’ taste in men has always differed, and this guy was worse than all the rest.

  “Jesus. Put some pants on, will you?”

  Filip laughs and taps his ashes into the ashtray.

  “You don’t like what you see? Then look away, Strawicz.”

  “Kochanie, if you handed me a telescope right now, I still wouldn’t see much.”

  Filip lets loose a jarring laugh.

  “Oj, dziecko, where’s my breakfast?”

  “Probably getting cold over at your mamuśka’s. Why don’t you go back there.” Justyna stands up and motions to Damian. “Chodz synu, let’s go outside, okay?”

  Damian doesn’t even look her way but he scrambles to his feet, and runs to the hallway.

  “By the way, do us all a favor, and kick my sister to the curb before you get her pregnant, all right? If my father were here, you’d be gone yesterday.”

  Six months after their mother’s death, their father had packed up a suitcase and hightailed it to Naples, where he said work was rampant for the Poles. Justyna knew it wasn’t money he was after, but escape. He could no longer function after Teresa died. At first he called them regularly, then just mailed some lira every few months, and in the end even that stopped. Justyna had no idea if he was alive or had drunk himself to death. In her mind, he was dead anyway.

  Filip takes a long drag of his cigarette.

  “She loves me. She’s like him.” Filip points to the foyer, toward Rambo, her mother’s dog. “You kick ’em and they still come back for more.”

  Justyna wishes she could walk over to his self-satisfied mug and whack him across it. But she doesn’t, because this guy would whack her right back. You can tell just by looking at Filip that he would have no qualms about hitting women. Justyna is sure of it.

  “Don’t you have to go stand on some fucking unemployment line, kretynie? Get the hell out of my house.” She hears his rasping laughter behind her as she walks out and sits down on the porch steps, where Damian is already building pyramids out of pebbles and rocks, and apparently chewing on one.

  “Damian, take that crap out of your mouth, right now, jasna cholera! It’s probably covered in Rambo’s piss! You wanna eat doggie’s pee pee?!”

  Damian spits out the stone and laughs. “Doggie’s pee pee!” And then in an instant, he gets to his feet and commands bellig
erently, “Do parku!” He runs to their picket fence, rattling the slats with impressive force, like a monkey in a cage.

  Justyna sighs. Do parku again. Sitting in a park watching him slide down the rusty slide eight hundred times in a row does not sound appealing. “No, thanks,” Justyna murmurs. She closes her eyes and enjoys the sun against her skin, warming her face. “Let’s just bake in the sun, till we’re two brown loaves, how about that? ’Cause Mamuśka just doesn’t feel like doing fucking anything.”

  Damian smiles at the sound of a cuss word. “I’m the bread. You eat me!”

  “Sure, I’ll slice ya, and butter ya, and eat ya up, all right? Good idea, because I’ve got nothing but a tomato for lunch. So, Damian and pomidory sandwiches it is.” Damian laughs, raking his small fingers through the lawn, ripping up fistfuls of grass and hurling them into the air, where they fall on his face like raindrops.

  “Mama jest smieszna.” Mama is funny. There’s still plenty of time on earth, she reminds herself, and one day Damian will be fifteen and she’ll get her life back.

  After she drops Damian off with Babcia Kazia, Justyna returns home to find Paweł there. “I decided to play hooky.” Justyna claps her hands in delight and pounces on him. Their lovemaking is invigorating and quick, like getting doused with cold water. That night they take a cab to Desperados. Paweł sits behind a banquette, sipping on a beer, ogling his wife with fire in his eyes. Justyna twirls, undulating to the music. When the song is over, she points toward the bathrooms and motions at him with her index finger. They used to fuck in bathroom stalls all the time. Paweł raises his eyebrows and nods, and Justyna knows that he’ll follow a few minutes behind her.

  In the bathroom, Justyna glances at herself in the mirror. Her eyeliner is smudged, her hair is sopping wet, and her tank top clings to her braless chest like a Band-Aid. And just then a face appears next to hers. Black bob, jutting collarbones, and small gray eyes made up with frosted white shadow.

  “Holy fuck! Marchewska?”

  It’s Kamila. Or is it? Something is different about her—but when was the last time they saw each other? Has it been months or years? Justyna can’t recall. She turns from the mirror and then it hits her.

  “You got a fucking nose job!”

  “I did. I did get a fucking nose job,” Kamila says, eyes scanning the floor. “Hi. How are you?”

  “I’m fucking awesome. My kid’s away for the weekend, I get to sleep in tomorrow. And right now, Paweł and I are gonna screw in the stall right there. But afterward, come to our table. Let’s catch up. You look so good! You here with Emil?” Justyna doesn’t mean half of what she says. The sight of her old friend undoes her momentarily, brings with it a thousand memories that for some reason she wants no part of. When Justyna had Damian and when her mother died, Kamila dropped her, as if birth and death had so altered Justyna that she was no longer the same person. Justyna never quite forgave Kamila. Not so much for the distance, but for the assumption that Justyna had become a sad and broken thing.

  “No. I came with some girlfriends. Emil asked me to marry him,” Kamila blurts out.

  “Fucking finally!” Justyna laughs. “Congrats.”

  “Thanks. My nose, it’s just a subtle change, right? It’s still swollen and stuff. I, like, just had it done. The doctor says it won’t take on its true shape for another year or so.” Kamila is wearing expensive clothes, not anything she could have bought in one of Kielce’s boutiques.

  “Subtle? Are you on drugs? I mean good for you, dziewczyno, but you’re, like, unrecognizable.” Justyna says it like it’s not a compliment and that’s how she means it. Kamila flushes bright pink.

  “Did you see Anna Baran when she was in Kielce?”

  “Nah. We were supposed to get together but I was busy. You know how it is. We moan about those fucking summers, we plan on getting together, and it’s all kind of bullshit isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not,” Kamila counters halfheartedly.

  “Really, Kamila …?” Justyna is no longer smiling. Kamila retreats without another word.

  A minute later, Paweł joins Justyna in the last stall, where they go at it against the wall, but somehow Justyna’s heart is no longer in it. When she and Paweł leave the club later, Justyna doesn’t bother looking for Kamila. A few days after their awkward run-in, Justyna gets out her address book, and thumbs through it until she spies the old entry. Kamila Marchewska 33-97-18. She stares at the page before tearing it out and crumpling it.

  Anna

  Kielce, Poland

  Anna can’t get used to it. Can’t get used to the sun that sets at four P.M., the snowy sidewalks, and the goddamn cold.

  She arrived in Kielce two days ago on a train from Warsaw that stopped and stalled at every village they passed. She dozed, and when she woke, she spent her time staring out the window. The green fields she used to pass on her way to Kielce were now covered in white and it unsettled her.

  When her cab turned down Jesionowa Street, the old neighborhood came into view and Anna’s heart sank. Szydłówek was empty and covered in snow, and the thought of Babcia in her dark apartment was too much. If her mother had told Babcia that Anna was flying to Poland, Babcia would have to wait.

  “Actually, I changed my mind,” she informed the cabbie as he made a right onto Toporowskiego Street.

  “About what?” The cab driver exhaled loudly.

  “I want to go to a hotel.”

  “Which one, lady?”

  “I don’t know, proszę pana.” She smiled meekly. “The nicest one.”

  He made an abrupt U-turn, wheels skidding in the slush. Ten minutes later the cab was parked at Moniuszki 7, under the black copper awning of the Hotel Pod Różą. Two decorated Christmas trees flanked the entrance. A few steps away, Anna could make out the steeples of the katedra and a little farther down, the beginning of Sienkiewicza Street.

  “This is perfect, thanks,” she said and handed him a generous tip. He sped off without a thank-you, and Anna smiled, finally finding something familiar about Poland.

  From the main entrance, she walked up one small flight of stairs, following the signs to Recepcja, and at the small front desk Anna rang the chrome bell. A minute later a young Polish girl appeared. Her nameplate read Wiola.

  “Słucham Panią?”

  “Yes, hello, Why-ola. I was wondering if you had a room available?” Anna surprised herself by speaking in English, not knowing why she did it, but knowing it felt right. The girl at reception stared at her in surprise.

  “You have the reserve?” Her phrasing was awkward and she had a slight British accent.

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t have a reservation. I’ll need a room for a few nights, any room you have will do.”

  “Yes, we have the rooms. Smoke?”

  “Yes, please, with pleasure, smoke.”

  “I please just need the identification from you.”

  Anna pulled out her American passport and slid it across the marble slab.

  “Is this you first time in Kielce, miss?” Wiola asked, as she tapped a keyboard and printed out a sheet of paper for Anna to sign.

  “It is.” Anna smiled.

  The key to room 217 was copper and dangled from a wooden handle, like a key from a children’s book. She got in the small elevator where there were only three buttons to choose from. Her room was narrow and neat, although it smelled a little musty from cigarette smoke that had embedded itself in the velvet curtains. It smelled like her aunt Ula’s house, like her father’s room back in New York, and like her own apartment on Lorimer Street. The walls were painted a burnt orange and there was a small television, which sat precariously on the windowsill. The bathroom was tiny but immaculate and there were ashtrays set out everywhere, even one on the back of the toilet. Anna plopped down on the twin bed, held her face in her hands, and felt a profound relief wash over her.

  That night more snow fell. She watched it settle on the bare tree branches outside the hotel room while she called h
er mother to let her know she had arrived safe, if not entirely sound.

  “I can’t even believe you’re at a hotel. When Babcia finds out she’ll be devastated! Anna, you have to at least call her and tell her you’re in Kielce,” her mother reprimanded. Anna promised that she would call, and that the hotel was just for a few nights, until she slept off her jet lag.

  “What’s Poland like in the winter, Anna? Is it the same like when we left? Is it snowing? God, I remember how beautiful everything was in zima.”

  “It still is, Mamo.”

  That night Anna tossed and turned, falling victim to jet lag. She finally gave up and showered at four A.M. She was out the door by six.

  Anna walked up and down Sienkiewicza Street all day. It was still so strange to see people in hats and furs. She popped into pubs for fries and warm spiced beer. She bought books at the ksiegarnia and looked at pricey furs in fancy new boutiques. And for a long time, she stood in front of the Teatr Żeromskiego. Like every summer, the theater was on hiatus for the holiday. She had always dreamed of one day standing on its stage, in the footsteps of the great Kielczan actress Violetta Arlak. But that seemed silly now. Later, she sat on a bench across from the Puchatek mall and stared at the bustling crowd, full of faces that were so Polish—set in frowns, wrinkled, and moon-shaped. She felt separate from them, but her heart swelled with something akin to pride; these were her people. Back at the hotelik, she hung the Do Not Disturb sign on her doorknob, and went to bed early.

  Anna wakes up when it’s still dark outside. Today she plans to simply show up and knock on Justyna’s door. “I just flew here, and, boy, are my arms tired.” It would be good to start with a joke, because Justyna was always laughing at the unlaughable. Besides, things tended to happen when one just showed up, and she desperately wanted things to happen.

  When the sun comes up, Anna orders a cup of coffee from room service and finally calls her grandmother.

  “Babciu? To ja, Ania.”

  “Słonce, moje! How are you, córeczko?”

  “I’m good, Babciu. I’m in Poland.”