Rage

by Zygmunt Miloszewski

  Szacki had come up with several theories to explain the entire production, all similar in some ways. It looked as if they really did want to reform the world, hand out justice, and punish perpetrators of domestic violence. Wiktoria being in charge of them was a crude smokescreen, he could see that now. But it didn’t matter anymore. Szacki assumed Klejnocki had been right about burning at the stake. Dissolving Najman, filming his death, planting the skeleton—it was all meant to lead to a grand finale, a climactic moment when every man who beat his wife or his child would find out who was hounding him.

  But at what point had this plan changed into hounding Szacki?

  It didn’t really matter when. What did matter was that this way they had guaranteed themselves security. Szacki might not like felons, but whoever had thought this up must have been nothing short of a criminal genius.

  Altogether, none of this was of much significance, nor was the interesting but irrelevant question of whether anyone he knew was mixed up in it. Irrelevant, because even so, soon he’d be saying good-bye to everyone he knew.

  One single fact was critical: he, Prosecutor Teodor Szacki, was guilty of murder. Of course they’d done everything to provoke him into it, but let’s face it, every killer he’d ever interrogated had stuck to the same old tune: “She had me up against the wall, I saw red, what else could I have done?”

  He’d always given them a scornful look, just as he was now looking at himself. A man has the freedom to choose, and he’d had it, too. He could have controlled himself, called Bierut, summoned people, announced a breakthrough in the inquiry, locked up Wiktoria, caught the rest of the gang of maniacs, and convicted them all. He’d had a choice. And he’d chosen murder.

  He hadn’t killed in self-defense, he hadn’t killed to save anyone else’s life, and in this case it was even hard to plead extreme agitation prompted by the circumstances. He had killed because he wanted to. As an act of revenge and personal justice. And as a killer, he had to be punished.

  Whoever was behind it all, they must have been watching to see what Szacki would do next. Would he exploit his position to machinate, so that even if the case came to light he’d be able to wriggle out of it? Or would he start to scheme like the typical criminal, in an attempt to evade justice? Or would he doggedly try to solve the case on his own?

  The last option sounded tempting, but he knew it was a trap. The delay to this point was already reprehensible, and dragging it out, endlessly postponing the moment when he confessed—there was no other justification for it apart from cowardice. He must confess as soon as possible, to end this monstrous game, and also because otherwise he’d be exposing all his loved ones to risk. Hela had already been abducted. Lord knows what else they might think up.

  He sighed heavily.

  He was ashamed of it, but he had decided that, unless circumstances forced him to, he wasn’t going to confess until Monday. As a result, Falk, Bierut, and the rest of them would just have to carry on with this farce all weekend, while he already knew the details of both murders and the victims, Najman as well as Wiktoria. He felt guilty in the extreme.

  But that was the only solution that guaranteed him one last weekend with his daughter. An ordinary weekend—they’d go to the movies, go to the Staromiejska café for dumplings, dammit, they might even get to go skiing for a while, if the snow lasted. In the evening they’d watch TV, or she’d go see friends, and he’d come get her after midnight and pretend to take her carefully articulated speech at face value. On Sunday he’d nag her to do her homework to make up for the days she’d missed at school. An ordinary weekend for a father and teenage daughter.

  On Monday he’d confess, he’d be arrested, then he’d go to jail for years and years, and his life would be over. Even if he survived as a man, that day would be his last as a prosecutor, and, above all, as a father. He wouldn’t let her visit him, he wouldn’t let her think about her dad in the slammer. He’d tell her to change her name and get herself a new life. Maybe he’d go see her when he came out. He’d be at retirement age, and she’d be a grown woman of over thirty. They’d go out for dinner together, without much to say to each other, and that would be that.

  With Żenia, things were simpler. They hadn’t known each other long, they had no formal ties, and no children. He’d forbid her to visit him, too. She’d forget him sooner. He loved her. In his way he was glad this had happened at an early enough stage in their relationship for her to be able to get over it and move on.

  He sipped the coffee. His favorite, extra-large, with lots of milk and a double shot of vanilla syrup. The next time he drank one, he’d be sixty. If everything went OK. Probably older, because he wasn’t going to pull any tricks to get his sentence reduced. A strange thought, but in today’s world, fifteen years was no time at all. Would there still be any Statoil stations in Poland then? Would the ex-prosecutor know how to work the espresso machines of the future?

  The thought of jail didn’t frighten him. He knew the reality of Polish penal facilities; contrary to popular belief they weren’t like third-world prisons, or the hellholes from American movies, where gangs of black men lined up to rape the new guy in a Gothic cellar. It was just a compulsory dorm for men in slippers who stank of sweat. They’d probably give him a bit of a hard time for being a prosecutor, but he was more likely to cause a sensation as an expert on the procedures. Who could possibly be better at writing appeals against the prosecutors’ decisions for his fellow inmates?

  The thought made him snort with laughter. He hadn’t collected his uniform at the gate yet, and here he was writing the screenplay, like something out of The Shawshank Redemption. Huh, what an old fart, and a fantasist too.

  At least he’d have time to read some books; he’d finally read all of Mann. He drank the coffee, savoring the sweet syrup that had settled at the bottom, and tossed the cup in the trash.

  The sun peeked out timidly, illuminating the snow like an operatic set made of tiny diamonds. He looked around, scanning the hilly landscape of Warmia, bisected by the national road. He gazed at the soaring tower of the church in Gietrzwałd, at the forest on the horizon, and the red roofs of the houses in Naglady, protruding above the snow.

  How pretty it was.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Monday, December 9, 2013

  International Anti-Corruption Day. Kirk Douglas, John Malkovich, and former Polish Playboy Playmate of the Month Dorota Gawron are celebrating their birthdays. After a statue of Lenin was toppled on Sunday by protestors in Kiev, the Ukrainian authorities are starting to drop hints about round-table talks, but at the same time the militia are being increasingly confrontational. In the USA the leading technology companies write an open letter to the president demanding sweeping changes to US surveillance laws to help preserve the public’s “trust in the Internet.” On Mars a puddle is found, in which life may have thrived 3.5 billion years ago. In Poland politicians of all stripes parade with white ribbons on their lapels to combat violence against women, but at the same time no one is in a hurry to ratify the European convention that introduces legal provisions to facilitate effective measures against violence. In Szczytno a woman is jailed for harassing her ninety-three-year-old mother. She already has a previous conviction for the same crime. In Olsztyn, following a dispute, the head of the provincial administration withdraws his name from the new cathedral bell. Following another dispute, the mayor finds more money for culture in Olsztyn. Knowing the holiday period is on its way, everyone’s gearing up for the rapidly approaching Christmas fair, although the winter magic hasn’t lasted. There are melting snowdrifts everywhere after an entire weekend of snowfall. The weather is foul and cloudy, but thanks to a temperature of 37 degrees, Olsztyn is knee-deep in slush.

  1

  Prosecutor Teodor Szacki turned up at work before everyone else; it wasn’t six o’clock yet. Earlier he’d walked around the sleeping city, taking advantage of his last few moments of freedom. After only three paces his shoes and pants were soaked, but h
e didn’t care. He was glad about the slush, the bad weather, and his wet socks slipping in his loafers. He thought it a wonderful sensation.

  He’d just wanted to get some fresh air, but he’d sunk into deep thoughts and ended up taking a very long walk. He’d reached Niepodległość Avenue, then the main crossroads near the fire station, and had stopped at the gas station for a large coffee to go and a copy of the Olsztyn Gazette. He’d come back a different way, between the Old Town and the neo-Gothic Main Post Office building, and then taken a roundabout way; instead of going along the edge of the black-and-green hole, he’d chosen a walk around the Town Hall and the shopping mall. At the mall he had stopped and looked up at the holding cells on the other side of the street. There was an 80-percent chance of his ending up in there today—they’d have him close by, at least to begin with, but he’d be surprised if the inquiry weren’t taken over by another regional prosecution service, probably the one based in Gdańsk.

  The turn-of-the-century building, redbrick of course, had been put up right in the center because in German times, Olsztyn was a garrison town. The point was the psychological effect: any soldiers loitering on passes could see where they might end up if they got stupid ideas into their heads.

  And wouldn’t you know, the psychological effect still worked. Here he was at the heart of Olsztyn, with the Town Hall within reach, the Old Town a stone’s throw away, the epitome of Olsztyn’s architectural bad taste, in other words, the shopping mall flaunting itself behind him, and here in front of him stood the jail, only separated from the street by a high stone wall plastered with advertisements. The nearest one promised “the gentlest method of liposuction”—no doubt aimed at clients of the shopping mall rather than the inmates.

  The jail had an interesting detail that caught his eye. The cell windows were covered by blinds consisting of a row of parallel metal strips set at a forty-five-degree angle, which meant that the prisoners could look up at the sky, the clouds, and the sun, but not down at the street and life going on outside.

  He felt sorry about that. It would be great to see what was new at the Helios movie theater and the Empik bookstore, and the new collections in H&M heralding a change of fashions and seasons.

  He smiled sadly and walked to work. Freedom was freedom, but his wet feet were making him shiver by now.

  Once in the office, he took off his shoes, hung his socks on the radiator, and lounged behind his desk, finishing his now very lukewarm coffee as he browsed the newspaper. He was doing his best to put off the moment when he’d have to sort out his cases and leave detailed notes for those who would replace him. There was no point in causing his colleagues extra trouble. Once the whole thing came out, everyone here would be flooded in a river of shit anyway. A major scandal, a media sensation, extremely negative PR. Maybe it would help them a bit that this Szacki guy was an outsider, from Warsaw.

  The front-page news in the Olsztyn Gazette was the winter weather, of course—what else would anyone expect? In the doom-laden tone typical of the media. The road services had been taken by surprise, there’d been crash after crash, the sidewalks hadn’t been cleared, and to sum up: be afraid, people, be very afraid, because not only will it snow some more on Wednesday, there’ll be freezing drizzle, too.

  He had no complaints. For him, this first weekend of winter had been one of the best ever. On Friday he’d met up with Weronika, all in a state of nerves after flying home from the other side of the world in an effort to save her daughter. It gave him a chance to say good-bye to the most important woman in his life. She was the only person to whom he told the whole truth about recent events. As Hela’s mother, Weronika had to know because, although the girl didn’t seem traumatized, she could fall apart when her father ended up in jail. Or she could fall apart at any other moment when the emotional impact hit her. And it was important for someone to be there for her who knew the whole truth and would understand. Regrettably it couldn’t be him. He managed to persuade his ex-wife to leave Hela with him for the weekend because he wanted to say good-bye to her.

  Weronika had wept, and at first he had fought it off, then finally he had burst into tears, too. You’re only young once, you only have each first-time experience once—falling in love, having a child, growing disenchanted, going through hell, and getting divorced. For him, Weronika was and would remain at the center of those first, most important times. However his life had worked out, even if he weren’t going to end up behind bars.

  Then he’d spent the weekend with Hela. They’d walked around wintry, snow-coated Olsztyn, more magical than ever. Of course they’d had dumplings at the Staromiejska café. And pavlovas at the SiSi. But the unexpected highlight had been the ancient Star Wars movies. There was a special Christmas showing at the Olsztyn planetarium, and they’d watched all six parts on a huge screen in the main auditorium, wandering the hallways in the intervals among storm troopers from the Empire, models of spaceships (advertised as “the biggest of their kind in Poland”), and screaming kids. They’d had the best time ever. Szacki only shuddered once, when in The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo was forced into a sort of metal pipe and frozen solid.

  But it had made no impression on Hela.

  He thought about his daughter, how this morning for the last time he’d gone into her room to kiss her sleeping brow, just as he’d done since the day she was born, and tears sprang to his eyes.

  He leafed through the newspaper to steer his thoughts elsewhere. Sheer boredom, just as ever in the Gazette. Sheer boredom that suddenly seemed attractive. A poll for Man of the Year, with the requisite ass-kissing for the mayor and the head of the provincial administration; the elder in a village called Dubeninki was warning about a further string of wolf attacks, and there was a heated debate on the topic of the orbital road, under the headline “Junction Jammed.”

  At least he’d be done with their hick-town traffic problems for good. Then there was a knock at the door and someone entered. Szacki quickly hid his feet under the desk to conceal the fact that he was barefoot.

  A man of about sixty, who looked like a municipal clerk, greeted him and sat down on the other side of the desk.

  “My dear sir,” he said, “my name is Tadeusz Smaczek, I’m the deputy head of the Municipal Department for Communications, in charge of road-traffic operations here in Olsztyn. And I would like to report a crime that comes under Article 212 of the penal code.”

  Szacki froze. His first thought was that he was about to go to jail for one murder anyway. Would a second make much difference? He had him, he had the man right in front of him, face-to-face, suspecting nothing, defenseless. And by now he’d had some practice at strangling, too.

  “And whose personal interests did you violate?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Article 212 of the penal code relates to violation of personal interests, in other words, insulting conduct. Whom did you insult?”

  “You’re joking. I’m the insulted party.”

  Szacki smiled. He couldn’t imagine any abuse sophisticated enough to insult Mr. Smaczek as much as he deserved.

  “How were you insulted?” Szacki asked, unable to conceal his curiosity.

  The man took a file from his briefcase, on which the word LAWSUIT had been so carefully inscribed in capital letters that it would seem to refer to Jarndyce versus Jarndyce at the very least.

  “My boss, the mayor, has received a letter from a certain citizen, who, fortunately, signed it with his first and last name, which should make your task easier. I’m submitting the letter in its entirety but shall take the liberty of quoting to you the more offensive passages concerning my person.”

  Smaczek peered at him over his spectacles. Szacki made an encouraging gesture, unable to believe all this was really happening. And so this was to be his swan song after twenty years in the prosecution service—mind-blowing.

  “I quote: ‘I see that you employ in this post’—meaning mine—‘an ignoramus, and so I suggest appointing a sen
sible person to streamline the traffic in our fair city.’”

  Szacki was impressed.

  He never would have guessed a letter on this particular topic could be written so politely. He’d have started with a colorful insult, then added a list of recommended tortures, and finished with threats of violence. Meanwhile, the author of the letter to the mayor came across as the Warmian equivalent of the Dalai Lama, a Zen master of good citizenship.

  “‘I think that any moderately intelligent driver with experience of driving in our city would be capable of devising a better and more efficient way to regulate the traffic, especially the lights, which are posted where they’re needed, and also where they’re not, and that it’s not necessary to employ’”—at this point he made a dramatic pause, raised an accusatory finger, and then continued in a higher pitch—“‘a pseudo professional who creates obstacle after obstacle to make driving worse for us by the year.’”

  Smaczek put the paper away.

  “As I’ve said, those are merely excerpts.”

  Szacki could simply have thrown him out, but then he thought about all the times his own blood had curdled at Olsztyn’s innumerable junctions.

  “Does Concrete Man pass all his correspondence on to you?”

  “I’m sorry? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

  “Concrete Man. Like Spiderman, or Batman. That’s what we call your boss around here.”

  “You are insulting our democratically elected mayor.”

  “No way! I’m sure he’s a great guy; I wish him the best of health, happiness, and good fortune. I’m just insulting his competence and taste. I’m insulting his faith in concrete, cement, asphalt, and paving bricks. I’m just an outsider, I don’t really give a damn, and besides”—he hesitated—“I’m leaving soon. But I do feel sorry for the people here. Ever since the war, this city has been consistently ruined and disfigured, reduced to an architectural disaster area. But you guys take the cake.”