She shook her head.
“It was an ordinary woman, speaking standard Polish. I’m sorry. Not an old woman, that’s all I can say.”
All three were silent. Jadwiga Korfel because she had said what there was to say. Jan Paweł Bierut because he was like that. Prosecutor Teodor Szacki because he was thinking hard. He had to find the woman with long black hair and blue eyes. Probably with black hair and blue eyes, because nowadays you could change those features in a couple of hours. In fact the only certainty in her description was that she wasn’t old. How feeble it sounded: “The police are looking for a woman up to seventy years old.” He felt like crying. He had no foothold at all, nothing. His daughter had been kidnapped and was either just about to die, or was already dead, and every trail led nowhere. Each time he thought about it, he felt even more hysterical. His thoughts were scattered, and he couldn’t get back to the process of logical reasoning, which was making him feel even greater panic.
“I’m sorry, but looking at you there’s something I have to ask you,” said Bierut. “Why did you let it happen?”
“Because I’m an educated, intelligent, well-read woman of the world, right?” She smiled.
Bierut made a gesture to say yes, that was what he was thinking.
“I call it a virus. You know, gentlemen, there’s one thing that emerges from the research: Not every person who has experienced violence as a child is bound to become a victim or a perpetrator later on. But everyone who starts doing harm in adult life, or who lets themselves be harmed, was a victim or witness in childhood. One hundred percent. Which means we carry a virus that doesn’t have to become active, but in favorable conditions is all too willing. That’s what happened to me.”
Szacki tried to fake a concerned look, but he couldn’t care less. He felt angry with Bierut for prompting the woman to make confessions.
“And there’s another thing. I rarely talk about it because I’m ashamed. You know, everyone likes to feel special sometimes, one of a kind. I used to have that experience, too, during our honeymoon periods. It’s not usually like that in a marriage. At first, people want to seduce each other, so they make an effort. But then everyday life takes over, the usual routine. But I was regularly conquered all over again, seduced, won over, and showered in imaginative presents. I’d walk down the street knowing he was thinking about me the whole time, wondering how to surprise me, how to give me pleasure, what to do to make me happy.”
“Wondering whether he could go into IKEA and change his brand of pillow for one that let him whack you with a lead pipe for a change,” said Szacki in the same refined tone.
That rendered her speechless; for a while she stared at Szacki with her eyes wide-open, and then burst out laughing.
“That’s a good one. Dark humor is my favorite.”
Szacki stood up. He was sick of all these confessions.
“Let’s go,” he said, though he had no idea where.
Bierut drank his tea, and they walked toward the door, escorted by their hostess.
“Are you really called Jan Paweł Bierut, or is it a stage name?”
“Do I look as if I’ve ever been on stage?” said Bierut.
“Oh yes. In commedia dell’arte.”
Bierut glanced at Szacki, but he just shrugged to show he didn’t care if Bierut responded or not. He just tapped his watch, though even if time were running out, he had no idea what to do next.
“Nobody chooses their last name, but my father didn’t want to change it, because it’s a family with a long tradition. Of course, we’re not related to the Communist leader. My parents had the idea of balancing out the weight of it, so they named me Jan Paweł after the Pope. I was born on the day he held the famous mass in Warsaw. I have a sister, too, whose name is Maria Magdalena.”
“Why don’t you change it? As part of my therapy I’ve gone back to my maiden name. One trip to the registry office and it’s done. I never expected it to be so easy.”
Szacki took hold of the doorknob. He wanted to leave, and at the same time he didn’t; he felt a flood of weariness and wanted to give up, switch off. Lie down somewhere, go to sleep, wake up in another world or another time. Hela was probably dead by now anyway—it was all pointless. For the first time the thought of suicide occurred to him. Just end it, find out what happens next. Not have to live without her, not have to deal with searching for her body, not have to go to the funeral, not have to tell Weronika. Not wait for another nightfall. Not have to fall asleep in the deplorable certainty that he’d instantly wake up again. Not have to carry on with this work, in which he neither prevented evil nor righted any wrongs, but just swept up the broken pieces.
Not have to do anything at all. Nothing.
“Is there anything else you want to ask, Prosecutor?” Bierut asked.
Szacki woke up. He must have been standing there, holding the doorknob for quite a while; the other two were behind him, gazing at him expectantly.
11
After leaving the slum on Mickiewicz Avenue, in an act of desperation Szacki sent Bierut off with a warrant to search the Najmans’ house, with instructions to focus on the attic, but he wasn’t expecting much to come of it. In fact, he wasn’t expecting anything. He called Żenia to find out if Hela had made contact or turned up at any hospital. He called Weronika to tell her the whole story. She went into hysterics, accused him of being careless, and left for the airport to get back to Poland as fast as she could. He returned a call from Hela’s teacher, but they had no news to share. He didn’t return a call from Szarejna, or several from Falk. He didn’t believe the junior prosecutor could help him and had no wish to explain why he had suddenly taken off to interview Kiwit.
He didn’t know what to do. Bierut had taken the car, so Szacki roamed the city aimlessly. Finally he came to Piłsudski Avenue, Olsztyn’s backbone. The Town Hall, the shopping mall, the custody cells, the provincial administration, the sports center, the planetarium, the new water park, the stadium—they were all on the same long street. He stopped, wondering whether to walk toward the Town Hall or the planetarium, and after lengthy deliberation he turned toward the Town Hall. He decided to go to the Old Town and maybe sit in a café—he should eat something, whatever. As he crossed the junction with Emilia Plater Street he glanced to the left; he was only about two hundred yards from home, and the same distance from his office. But he didn’t turn off or even slow down.
He passed the shopping mall, and suddenly felt so faint that he had to grab hold of a lamppost to keep from collapsing. The blood was pounding in his ears, his legs were giving way, there was a stabbing pain in his chest, and his hands were going numb. He took short gulps of air, feeling as if his lungs had suddenly constricted. He rested his brow against the cold lamppost to wake himself, to avoid losing consciousness or falling into a puddle.
He managed to get enough of a grip on himself to wobble his way from one lamppost to the next, and from one patch of grass to the next, until finally he trudged into KFC, which was buzzing at this time of day. He bought a coffee, which he had no intention of drinking, sat down by the window, sent Żenia a text, and laid his head on the table.
There must have been something he’d overlooked. Something obvious. Somewhere in this case there was at least one piece of information, maybe more, to which he hadn’t paid due attention.
A woman with black hair.
He raised his head. At the next table, directly opposite him, was a woman with a huge soda. Young, probably a student. Of course, she had long black hair, and of course she had huge dark blue eyes. He stared at her so insistently that finally she gave him a flirtatious smile. Rather than return it, he quickly shifted his gaze outside the window.
A teenage couple was holding hands.
A woman with black hair holding hands with a child. The child liked it. He wanted to draw her holding his hand. That’s someone close to him.
The door banged and Żenia sat down at his table, out of breath. The image of his languid n
eighbor with black hair was replaced by the image of his agitated girlfriend. With black hair too. Żenia looked at him with concern and took a device for measuring blood pressure out of her purse. The classic kind, with a bulb.
“You must be crazy—you’re not going to test my blood pressure in KFC.”
She leaned forward. The eyebrow rose so high that it looked as if someone had shaved off the old one and drawn a new one on her forehead in an impossible position.
“You’re forty-four years old, you live under constant pressure, you’re going through unimaginable stress, and you’re feeling faint. Of course I’m going to test you in KFC, since you refuse to come home.”
He tried to protest, but she was right. It wouldn’t do anybody much good if he croaked in here. At most, it would bring him relief. He took off his jacket and held out an arm. It caused a bit of a stir in the restaurant; the shift manager kept an eye on them from behind the counter, possibly suspecting it was some sort of protest by health-food fanatics.
“You’re not even qualified,” said Szacki.
“But I took the courses. Believe me, I know enough to measure blood pressure.”
She spoke without taking her eyes off the gauge.
“No big deal,” she said, quoting a book they’d both read recently, “but no big shame either.”
She put away the device and looked at him inquiringly.
“I know nothing at all. Absolutely nothing.”
“Why is the media so quiet about it?” she whispered. “Shouldn’t she be the world’s most wanted teenager by now?”
He made a vague gesture. He both couldn’t, and didn’t want to, answer.
Żenia was surprised.
“It’s no ordinary kidnapping,” he said. “It has to do with the investigation I’m conducting. Someone’s kidnapped Hela as a way of playing games with me.”
She looked shocked.
“But how? What for? Have they demanded anything? A ransom? Do they want you to drop the case? Resign?”
He shook his head.
“Shouldn’t you make it public?”
“I wanted to outsmart them. But I will go public soon. I have no other option now.”
“Is there any way I can help?”
“Who’s really close to a five-year-old? Close enough for him to want to draw himself with that person, rather than with his parents?”
Żenia gave him a shocked look.
“Seriously—who could it be? Someone from the family?”
He scanned KFC in search of families. Children. Whose hand were they holding? At this time of day it looked as if only high school kids were wolfing down fried chicken, too young and dumb to think about their health or the harmful effects of carcinogenic substances.
In one corner sat a father with his daughter, who looked about eight years old. There was another dad by the cash register, with twin sons. One boy was trying to knock his brother’s hat off and trouble was brewing.
Then a mother came in with three children. She was quite heavy, evidently not steering clear of deep-fried chicken. She was either sparing her children the same fate, or else they’d inherited their metabolism from their father, who came in after them. He was small, thin as a rail, and tired. She wasn’t pretty and he wasn’t handsome, but the children were all right. A boy and two little girls, aged from five to ten, judging by appearance.
“I’m going to the restroom,” said the man in a weary voice. “Stick with your mom, OK?”
The man disappeared, and the woman stared at the menu, as if she’d never seen it before.
“Teo, that’s the simplest question under the sun. You really are an incorrigible only child if you have to ask that. A brother or sister.”
Szacki froze. He gazed at the two small children standing by their mother, and saw one of the most beautiful gestures to have accompanied mankind since the dawn of time. A gesture of trust, kinship, and security. Performed automatically, without a second thought, a unique symbol of love and friendship. The gesture of a child’s hand reaching for the hand of an older sibling.
It’s not possible. He couldn’t possibly have made such a simple error.
The only official database he hadn’t checked. The only one, but in this case the most important from the start, obviously so crucial.
Family. Brother. Sister. Vengeance.
He glanced at his watch, leapt from behind the table, spilling the cup of coffee, and ran out of the restaurant.
It was nearly half past three. The sun had gone down five minutes earlier.
12
It was pitch-black outside and the same inside. So it must have been between three and four. She ought to get up and carve another line, but she didn’t want to. She could have gotten up and turned on the light, but she didn’t want to do that either. The darkness made her feel safe, it enveloped her, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt the lack of light to be like a soft fabric that she could wrap around her like a blanket.
Unfortunately it turned out she wasn’t the only one who could switch on the light. When the room suddenly filled with brightness, she squeezed her eyelids shut and lay there without moving, staring at the afterglow beneath her eyelids, wandering patches in various shades of gray.
The lock rattled. She froze with horror, holding her breath and tensing all her muscles.
Nobody came in. The lock just rattled.
She waited a while longer, but nobody came in.
She raised her head. The diode by the door had changed from red to green.
She waited a while, got up, went over to the door, and found a large bag from McDonald’s behind it.
She thought it through. She was sure to die. That was bad news. She was sure to die in agony. That was very bad news. But—maybe—she wasn’t going to be raped. That—maybe—was good news.
None of it sounded great, but she saw no reason to be tortured and raped on an empty stomach. She picked up the bag, took the food out, then looked around the room and said aloud, “If you tell anyone that Helena Szacka ate a Filet-O-Fish from McDonald’s for her final meal I’ll come back and fuck you up bad, you junk-food homicidal maniacs.”
She felt a little better—after all, what did she have left apart from her innate sense of dark humor? She started with a shake, while it was still cold, figuring kidnap victims have every right to start their meals with dessert.
13
Several famous people had been born on the same day as Myślimir Szcząchor, December the fourth. Rainer Maria Rilke, for instance, shared his birthday. He wasn’t wild about Rilke—not only had he died prematurely of leukemia, but Hitler had been a psychofan of his. Speaking of dictators, General Franco was born on the same day too. At least he’d lived to a ripe old age. And exactly nineteen years to the day before Myślimir, Marisa Tomei had been born; he thought of her as a real soul sister, above all because she was extremely sexy. Seriously, he thought she was the sexiest woman on earth, and he was always defensive when they laughed at him, saying she was an old hag at fifty. Apart from anything it wasn’t true—Marisa was only going to be forty-nine today.
He sighed heavily, took the phone out of his bag, and placed it next to the keyboard. It rang at exactly twenty-four minutes past three. As usual.
He answered.
“Happy birthday, Son!” his parents roared in unison through the receiver. “You’re thirty years old! Congratulations!”
“Thank you, I love you,” he mumbled, always rather embarrassed by their eagerness.
While he was waiting for the call, he’d thought up some middle-class birthday wishes: he’d like to have Momma’s Black Forest cake (to please his mother) and a Kindle (so his father would know what to buy him), and to meet a girl with a kind heart (to give them both the hope of a wedding and grandchildren). Because they would never understand if he admitted to them that his greatest dream was for a real adventure to come knocking at his door. An adventure with a capital A. An adventure that needed a symphony orchestra and
a full choir.
Myślimir Szcząchor believed that one day it was bound to happen. The fact that he was an ordinary civil servant at the Public Records Office, and not an explorer, an archaeologist, or a scientist in search of a cancer vaccine in the Amazon was actually in his favor. Isn’t that what all the books and movies were about, after all? At the beginning, these ordinary people are defensive. They refuse, they beg to be left in peace—but eventually they’re sucked into a whirlwind of events, action, plot twists, love, friendship, and a battle for the highest stakes.
The clock on his computer showed that in two minutes it would be three thirty, which meant nobody was likely to want his services again today. It also meant that he could close up shop and go home. Or instead he’d go to the movies. After all, it was his birthday.
He’d go on his own. It wasn’t very festive, but then what woman would understand a guy wanting to celebrate his thirtieth birthday by watching Disney cartoons? He smiled. He went to see just about everything except Polish movies, which always put him in a gloomy mood. And it was ages since anything had pinned him to his seat as much as Frozen, the animated film about the Snow Queen, cursed by her own gift. He had no idea why. Maybe it was a fabulous cry for freedom? Or maybe because for once it wasn’t about romance, but the power of love between siblings. As he’d watched it, he’d swallowed tears, feeling that he should have been ashamed, but my God, what a great adventure.
He started packing his bag, with a song from Frozen playing at full blast on the computer to put him in the mood.
The lyrical ballad filled the reception room. Myślimir hummed along to it as he crawled under the desk to grab his phone charger.
The office door suddenly slammed, but Myślimir was up to his ears in cables and didn’t notice.
He loved the stuff of fiction. He loved adventure so much. He wondered why it never came his way.
As the vocalist drew out the last bar, Myślimir crawled out from under the desk and saw a ghost in front of him. The ghost was tall, thin, and deathly pale, positively blue with tiredness and the chill of December. His face blended in a single pale shape with his snow-white hair, quite unnatural for a man of his age. And the white face contrasted with his long black coat, his graphite-gray suit, and his pale-gray shirt, buttoned up to the collar. A plain tie, perfectly knotted, with a subtle silver pattern that blended in—a shade darker than the shirt, a shade lighter than the jacket.
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