Home Is Nearby

by Magdalena McGuire

  Krzysio said, ‘This is Dariusz.’

  It struck me, then, how little I knew about Krzysio. How little I knew about these types of relationships. In a bid to cover my surprise, I quickly leaned in to kiss Dariusz on the cheeks and thanked him for coming.

  He lowered his violin case to the ground, resting it between his legs. ‘How could I say no to Krzysio? Besides, I was told it would be an unforgettable experience.’

  As Krzysio gave Dariusz instructions for the performance, I moved away to check the arrangement of the sculptures. I was considering asking the others to help me shift one of the sculptures further back, when loud voices pierced the calm of the forest. The audience had arrived: Professor Jankowski and a couple of other teachers, a few students from the Academy, Father and, surprisingly, Pani Wedel, who picked her way through the forest in high-heeled shoes. They stopped in front of the scene we’d created, five abstract human forms, cast from blood, standing in the damp earth. A last ray of sun pierced through the pine trees and fell on the sculptures.

  Except for the screech of a crow circling above our heads, it was quiet. My skin changed as I soaked in the movement and stillness, the atmosphere of growth and decay. I had been coming to this forest ever since I was a little girl and it was home to me. By bringing people here I was exposing myself – not just my outer shell, but my inner self as well. Perhaps they wouldn’t like it. But in this moment, it felt good.

  I stood in front of the sculptures. ‘This piece is called Burning.’ I nodded to Krzysio. It was time for the performance to begin.

  He and Dominik led the musicians, who were blindfolded, towards the sculptures. Dariusz propped his violin under his chin and began to play. Krzysio and Dominik retreated as the other musician took up his instrument. Slowly, exquisitely, the two musicians drew out a mournful song on their violins. The crow, which had settled on the branch of a pine, was silenced.

  Małgorzata strode towards the sculptures, a white cape draped over her black dress. She lit a match and held it to the bundles of twigs. Flames crackled between the sculptures. She stepped back.

  The fire was an integral part of this piece. It set the colours ablaze, bringing the sculptures to life at the same time as it brought them closer to death. Dark pools of blood collected around the feet of the sculptures and soaked into the earth. The sky darkened above us as the fires burned next to the ice, melting it, the flames crackling and spitting as the violins reached their crescendo.

  The fires worked quickly. Whittling the sculptures to half their size, licking away their human forms until they became stalactites.

  Professor Jankowski stood next to a female teacher, whose beehived hair glistened by the firelight. His arms were crossed and he rocked from side to side, like a pendulum. He stopped and leaned over to whisper to her. She nodded. Neither of them smiled.

  To my left, Father stood near Pani Wedel. She looked agitated, chopping her hands through the air as she spoke. She turned from the sculptures and strode away.

  I moved closer to Father. ‘What happened?’ I asked, keeping my voice low. ‘Is she angry?’ I thought back to today’s visit to the abattoir – perhaps she’d found out that Małgorzata had taken photos. I didn’t want her to make life difficult for Father. ‘What is it?’ I prodded him.

  ‘This is your big night.’ He looked intently at the sculptures.

  ‘Did I do something wrong? I’ll go and apologise.’ I was about to hurry after Pani Wedel when Father grabbed my arm.

  ‘It’s not that.’ He shifted closer. ‘I was going to tell you later … I was talking to her on the way here, you know she has contacts all over the place.’ He rubbed the inner corners of his eyes. ‘It seems the Russians are getting ready to invade the country. Put an end to this Solidarność business. Or as they call it, “the Polish crisis”.’

  ‘We’re going to war?’

  Father enclosed my hand in his. I remembered the stories he’d told me about the Russian soldiers. Of what they did to our country and people. Of what they did to women. I buried my face in the sleeve of Father’s jacket and he said, ‘I shouldn’t have told you. Not tonight.’

  He let go of my hand.

  The burning of the flames, the melting of the blood and the kerosene fumes in the air. An image of Russian troops advancing towards Poland. The way they had before.

  Professor Jankowski caught my gaze and gave me a single nod. He turned back to the sculptures, his face bright by the light of the fire.

  Steel

  1

  Poland, December 1981

  The carp regarded me dolefully from its enamel tank. Though its tail fluttered from side to side, it gained no traction, remaining at the tap-end of the bath. I lowered my head to the sink and drank the cool water. Then I wiped my mouth and moved into the kitchen, joining the others.

  Paranoia clung to us as we waited for the knock on the door. Dominik sat next to me at the table. He tapped a pen against a cup while I clutched the seat of my chair, my throat parched again.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  I wrenched the pen from Dominik and set it out of reach. He extended his hand towards it, glanced my way, and then cracked his knuckles.

  The walls were thin enough that we could hear the militiamen search the apartment next door. There was shouting, questions about a disturbance. Silence.

  When the frenzied banging of fists hit Małgorzata’s front door, it was a relief. She patted her cheeks and smoothed her hair before she got up to answer it. Her voice carried into the kitchen. ‘A disturbance? Come in, then.’

  My nerves got to me and for an awful moment I thought I would laugh. I clamped my hand over my mouth, remembering how we’d gathered here on May Day when the militiamen had come. I remembered how the older one seemed amused by our student antics. But that was before. General Jaruzelski’s announcement made it clear that things were different now.

  Two men in green uniforms, hot with adrenaline, stomped into the apartment. Their boots trampled the books on the living room floor. Anxiety surged through me and the beginning of a laugh caught in my throat.

  Krzysio, seeing me on the verge of hysteria, leaned across the table and gripped my shoulders. ‘Ania!’ The hiss of his voice was enough to sober me.

  The men were in the kitchen. One stood under the light with his cap pulled low, a shadow cast over his brow. The longer I looked at his face the stranger it became. His eyes, nose and mouth were crammed in the centre, leaving too much space around them. I couldn’t turn away. Why did I smoke that hashish?

  ‘Get up.’ His rifle was slung across his shoulder. He nudged it, tilting the barrel-end our way. I leapt from the table, Dominik and Krzysio standing after me. ‘We’re seeking information about a disturbance to the peace,’ the man said.

  A disturbance to the peace. That’s what they said last time. Were all their words – their thoughts – sanctioned by the State? Disdain took the edge off my fear and I stood straighter. Dominik gave me a nod.

  Krzysio tugged at the sleeve of his jumper. ‘A disturbance to the peace?’

  ‘The broken television,’ the man said.

  Małgorzata had a smile that she reserved for men when she wanted them to do something, a smile that was both complicit and demure. She used it now. ‘As you can see, our television is still intact.’ She edged further into the kitchen, clamping a sneakered foot on the corner of the lino where the hashish was concealed. ‘We watch a lot of television on account of my husband being in the business. He’s a director. Ryszard Wiater. You might have heard of him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ Małgorzata crossed her arms. ‘Well, as you can see, everything is in order here.’

  The other militiaman, who had disappeared to search the rest of the apartment, now clomped into the kitchen. He was a boy about my age, with high cheekbones and clean-shaven skin. ‘Found this,’ he said. ‘Pani is in possession of forbidden reading materials.’ He held up a copy of Tygodnik Solidarność, which had been banned wit
h the introduction of martial law. He tore the paper. The pieces snowed to the kitchen floor.

  The other man watched. When the paper was destroyed he nodded towards the window. ‘Better close it,’ he said, ‘don’t want to freeze to death.’ As Dominik pulled the window shut, the man added, ‘Your names are going on a list. We’ll be keeping an eye on you.’

  The door slammed behind them.

  I opened the window, gulping the cold air.

  ‘Going on a list …’ Dominik squatted to retrieve the hashish from under the lino.

  I heard the militiamen pounding on the door of the neighbours, shouting again about a disturbance to the peace.

  ‘Why do you think they let us go?’ I asked.

  Krzysio was leaning against the kitchen bench, balancing on one foot, then the other. He kicked aside a piece of Tygodnik Solidarność. ‘Every person in Poland owns copies of this paper. They can’t arrest us all.’

  2

  Overnight, the city transformed into an army camp. Tanks loomed outside the cinemas, the churches and shops. The government said we were living in a state of war. What they didn’t say was that the enemy was us, the Polish people. All this time we thought it would be the Russians who put guns to our heads. Instead, our own leaders did it for them. Better than waiting for an invasion, they said.

  Sunlight glared off the morning snow as Dominik and I walked past the markets on our way to university. Despite everything, the preparations for Christmas were going ahead. Stall holders were selling pine trees, poppy seeds and tinsel. There were makeshift tanks for the carp; the fish scales were glinting lights against the black tarpaulin. An old babcia in a floral headscarf presided over one of them with the sort of pride normally reserved for grandchildren. ‘Pretty fish, pretty fish,’ she called as we passed. ‘The prettiest you’ll see.’

  A couple of weeks ago, before this all happened, Father bought our carp. It was big enough for Christmas Eve dinner plus leftovers, he said. Soon after, we learned that travel was banned unless you had a permit issued by the State. When I applied for one I was told it would take months to process the request. Even so, I refused to believe it. I had to go home. It was Christmas.

  There was a skin of ice on the surface of the Odra. A soldier perched on a log near Grunwald Bridge, his olive cap askew on his adolescent head. As Dominik and I stepped onto the bridge, a middle-aged woman approached the soldier, two children by her side. She passed him a couple of bread rolls and a plastic bag of milk. She leaned in to kiss him before wiping the lipstick from his cheek.

  A yellow peace sign, paint dribbling down the edges, adorned a banner that hung from the university entrance. Black letters at the bottom declared, Make love not war.

  Dominik and I went to the basement, where about forty people had convened. It was as cold in here as it was outside. Some people had spent the night in the basement and their sleeping bags were arranged in neat rows on the floor. A girl with an orange blanket draped over her shoulders was brushing her teeth by the window. She pushed the pane up a fraction, lowered her head to the gap and spat outside.

  Krzysio darted over to us. He must have got dressed in a hurry because his shoes were mismatched; one was brown with muddy laces and the other was maroon with velcro straps. He wore a red and white armband around the sleeve of his jumper, a sign of solidarity with the teachers and students who’d been interned. The university had called a strike in their support. ‘All our classes are cancelled,’ Krzysio said. He cupped his hands and breathed on them for warmth.

  ‘At least something good’s come out of this,’ Dominik said. ‘I’ve got an essay due tomorrow. Guess I won’t have to worry about that.’

  Krzysio shook his head in mock dismay and then punched Dominik on the arm. ‘Always look on the bright side, hey?’

  We joined a group of people sitting on the floor. Everyone was scrambling to find out what martial law meant. A student with a sleeping bag pulled up around his waist was consulting an encyclopaedia, but that only told us what we already knew: that the country was under military dictatorship. ‘Useless,’ he said, throwing the book to the floor. Someone said there was a curfew, that if we stayed out past ten at night we could be arrested. Another person claimed that the nightclubs and art galleries had been shut down.

  ‘Can they do that?’ I asked.

  ‘Apparently,’ Krzysio said. ‘I heard that all public gath erings have been outlawed. You know what they count as a public gathering? Three or more people together on the street.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’ I thought of the woman we had passed near the bridge, two small children by her side. Could they get arrested for holding a public gathering? Unlikely, given she had a soldier in the family. Things were different for us. I remembered what the militiaman had said, Your names are going on a list. But then, half the people in the country probably had their name on a list. Either that or they were in prison.

  My skin tingled with cold and I tucked my hands into the pits of my arms. Around me, people talked agitatedly. Debating what we should do. ‘This is useless,’ I said.

  Dominik said, ‘Let’s go to the paper. They’ll have more idea what’s going on.’

  ‘I’m coming too,’ Krzysio said. He pulled on a beanie. It plastered down his hair and he tucked the tendrils behind his ears. White reindeers leaped around his forehead, their hooves tucked to their bodies.

  Outside, the snow burned my cheeks. We huddled together before Krzysio touched my elbow. ‘Three people, remember?’

  ‘What a load of crap,’ Dominik said. Nonetheless, he and I waited while Krzysio walked ahead. The wind beat my face as I kept my gaze on Krzysio’s languorous gait, his mismatched shoes clearing a path in the snow.

  3

  ‘Who’s going to kill it?’ Małgorzata sat on the edge of the bath and trailed her fingers in the yellowed water. The carp floated listlessly at the tap-end, too tired or too defeated to swim.

  ‘It’s your fish.’ I knelt on the floor, the cracked tile digging into my knee. I smiled at the memory of how Dominik and I had broken it.

  ‘Ryszard usually takes care of it,’ Małgorzata said. Her husband was stuck in Lublin where he’d been working on a film. Even Ryszard, with his connections, couldn’t get a travel permit. It was no wonder I couldn’t get home to see Father. The one consolation of this lock-down was that Dominik and I were spending Christmas together.

  I called out to him now. ‘We need you in here.’

  The sweet smell of hashish announced his arrival. He leaned against the open door, a joint in his mouth.

  ‘Can you take care of it?’ I pointed to the fish.

  He passed me the joint and then picked a bit of hashish off his tongue. ‘I guess I’m the man around here.’ Krzysio was joining us later, though I wasn’t sure if he’d be any better at killing the fish. ‘One more puff for good luck,’ Dominik gestured to the roll-up in my hand.

  I took a drag and then stepped towards Dominik and positioned the joint in his mouth. He breathed in, his lips pressed against the pads of my fingers.

  ‘I’ll get started on the potatoes.’ With a swift movement, Małgorzata filched the joint.

  At home, Father always killed our carp in the back garden while I stayed inside. This time I wanted to see it. Dominik rolled up his sleeves and knelt by the bath. His broad shoulders cast a shadow over the fish. His hand hovered by the water and then withdrew.

  ‘Are you sure you can do this?’ I asked.

  Without saying anything, he plunged both hands in the bathtub. The fish came to life, darting away from his grasp. He continued to chase it back and forth, but the fish was too fast for him, too slippery.

  ‘That’s not going to work. Why don’t you empty the bath?’ I said. ‘It’s not like it needs the water.’

  He gave me a dark look. ‘You want to kill it instead?’ Nonetheless, he pulled the plug. Water gurgled down the drain, sucking the fish back, and Dominik managed to catch it. The carp tried to wriggle away as Dom
inik repositioned his hands, grabbing the fish by the tail. His mouth twisted as he pulled the fish out of the bath, swung it over his shoulder and then slammed it on the edge of the tub with a bone-crunching thwack. The fish’s head shot up from the force of the motion. I thought that surely it must be dead but it kept moving – twitching and spasming and trying to get free. Dominik struggled with the fish and, with a low moan, he threw it in the empty tub. The fish writhed about, gasping for water. I closed my eyes.

  When I opened them Dominik was sitting with his back against the bath, panting. Perspiration trickled down his forehead. He wiped it with the back of his arm and then reached into the tub for the fish.

  The carp dangling by his side, he went to the kitchen. I followed. He slapped the fish onto the counter, where Małgorzata was cutting beetroot. Without stopping to wash his hands, he took the joint from Małgorzata’s lips and slipped it between his own.

  When the first star came out, signalling the birth of Jesus, we sat down to eat. Krzysio had ducked away from his family celebrations to be with us for a while. He brought Dariusz, who was looking as refined as he had that night of the blood sculptures, again wearing black. As though inspired by Dariusz, Krzysio had also dressed up for the occasion in a maroon corduroy suit. When Krzysio recounted his family Christmas, he kept glancing at Dariusz, touching the sleeve of his boyfriend’s shirt. Delicately, as though he didn’t want to get it dirty.

  Dominik had showered after his exertions with the carp. His hair was soft and his skin smelt of tobacco and soap. Under the table, our thighs touched. I was grateful to him for killing the fish. If he hadn’t done it, the responsibility would likely have fallen on me, the girl from the country. I watched him take a swig of liqueur and squeezed his leg.