He led me upstairs to a large verandah that overlooked the rainforest. Tree tips pierced through the decaying wooden planks on the floor. We sat at a hardwood table that was marked with water rings and ate the food he’d prepared. There was a fried fish that John said was called barramundi, followed by exotic fruits for dessert: mango and papaya and bananas, their flavours as sweet as their bright skins suggested.
A green coil burned in the mouth of a beer can, its heady smoke drifting my way. I tipped my face back to meet the oncoming breeze. A mobile tinkled; it was made of metal screws and nails, their heads bitten with rust. I thought back to the time that I had worked with metal.
‘This reminds me of something I made,’ I said, pointing to the mobile. ‘A sculpture of car pieces.’
‘Oh yeah?’ John brought his foot to his chair, bending his leg so that his knee was near his chin. ‘Car parts?’
Memories came to me of the exhibition that Małgorzata and I held in church. Before I knew it, I was telling John about my sculpture, Flight. I even sketched it on a paper napkin. He asked a lot of questions and so I told him about the discovery of the clutch discs, the closure of the galleries, and the night we gathered in Małgorzata’s apartment after learning martial law had been declared. I recounted the smell of hashish in the air, the militiamen with their guns, and the fish floating placidly in the bath. I even told him about the picture I drew, Portrait of Dominik as a Carp.
At last I stopped talking and took a breath, startled by this flood of stories. I glanced at John.
He shook his head. ‘Amazing.’ He pushed back his chair and said, ‘I love this idea of making art as a fuck-you to the state. It’s different. Just what we need around here.’
I followed his rush of words from the verandah, down to the studio.
‘I’ve got some new ideas,’ he said. ‘I have to pin them down before they escape.’
Like butterflies, I thought, picturing a collection of ideas in a glass case. Their bodies speared with silver pins.
8
The following day, when I was in the studio alone, I examined John’s sculpture designs in more detail. Now it was obvious what the problem was: the drawings gave no consideration to issues such as volume and weight. They simply wouldn’t work in three-dimensional form. Professor Jankowski would be disgusted if a student handed in this type of work. Though I felt embarrassed on John’s behalf, there was nothing for it but to bring these flaws to his attention.
I went upstairs to find him lying on a hammock on the verandah, scribbling in a notepad. ‘This sculpture is not good,’ I said, brandishing one of his designs. ‘If it is like this it will fall over.’
He looked up at me. ‘That one’s a draft. It might need a few modifications.’ He brought the tip of his pencil to his tongue and then said, ‘I reckon you can handle it.’
Down in the studio, I began working on the designs. When I was satisfied with them I re-cut the materials according to my own specifications. As well as making these technical changes, I went on to adapt some of the pieces so they would look more pleasing to the eye, expanding their dimensions or shrinking them. I even altered the colours in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. If John noticed these changes he said nothing about them.
A few weeks later, I completed one of the key pieces for John’s exhibition: a pyramid of clear plastic, edged with blue, that would sit in a pool of water on the gallery floor. When I showed it to him, he examined it from all angles, stretching his arms to test the boundaries of the piece. Then he said, ‘Excellent. That’s how I imagined it. You have a way of bringing my work to life.’
I bristled at those words, my work, but then shook away my possessiveness. I was getting paid to do this. And it was better than being a cleaner in a gallery. ‘Good,’ I said.
John rested his hand on the tip of the pyramid. ‘I’ve got some exciting news.’ He let go of the sculpture. ‘You’re coming with me to London. The gallery’s paying for it. I managed to convince them you’re indispensable – and so you are.’
‘Oh.’
London was Dominik’s city. Everything there would remind me of him. I would be plagued by all those useless memories, all those desires and regrets. It would be unbearable walking down the streets and thinking of nothing but Dominik.
John pulled up the waistband of his shorts. ‘You don’t seem very excited.’
I explained my reluctance by saying that I’d moved halfway across the world and felt too uprooted to get on a plane once more.
He breathed out and said, ‘You’ve been through a hell of a lot. I can’t imagine leaving everything behind like that. Look, don’t come if you don’t want to. No pressure. But this is London we’re talking about. You’ll meet some bigshots, people who run the artworld and all that. And we make a good team, don’t we?’
I made a noncommittal sound. There was a smudge on the plastic sculpture where he had touched it. I wiped it away.
The thought of London set my nerves on edge and I left the studio early.
The afternoon was thick with heat. John’s house was next to the rainforest and I retreated there for coolness and calm. I followed a gravel path into the wilderness, the tangle of trees and ferns getting denser as I went. One tree, its base covered in moss, had roots that protruded from the ground, forming narrow walls that, if I wished, I could have hidden in. Above my head a bird took flight, its feathers a smattering of purple and blue. A fat spider crept along the branch of a tree. I could see no other animals but I could hear the high notes of the bird calls and the occasional croak of a frog.
As I walked, I breathed deeply. I was restored by the smells of damp soil and vegetation, of decaying plants and fruits.
About half a kilometre along the path, I came across a tree, about my height, that had spectacular red flowers with yellow stamens shooting from their middles. The flowers, which I hadn’t seen along this walk before, seemed uncannily familiar. As I neared the end of the path, I realised why. I had painted similar ones on a mural once, back in Poland, thinking they were more ostentatious than anything that existed in real life.
The gravel path ended and I walked on the rainforest floor, branches cracking underfoot. I reached a green creek that hummed with dragonflies. I sat on a rock and dipped my legs in the cool water. From my satchel, I pulled out a note that Dominik had once left for me at the studio in Wrocław. I took in its hurried scrawl.
Aniusieńka. I just got back from a job in Katowice, and I want to tell you so many things. I’ve been running around with factory workers and madmen and drunks and I miss the sweet sound of your voice, the pine-cone smell of your hair.
He wrote that at the beginning of our time together, back when everything was hope. I read the note once more. It was easier to be angry at Dominik than to remember him like this.
No one here knew about Dominik’s article. And yet the shame of it had followed me. This was no way to live: shrinking my life to accommodate someone who used to love me.
Here in the outdoors I felt braver than before. I could trick myself into believing that Father was with me. Go to London, słoneczko, I heard him say, show those foreign galleries what you can do.
9
One of John’s ideas was to make a sculpture that looked like a waterfall spilling from the corner of the gallery ceiling. It was to be made of chairs. This was a technical challenge I enjoyed: manipulating wood so that it took on the properties of water. I adjusted his design to give the chairs a more free-flowing appearance. Some of the chairs I left intact and others I broke up so I could use their parts individually. I was proud of this piece. I wanted to be there for its premiere.
I wasn’t going to turn down this opportunity because of Dominik. In my past life, I had missed out on going to Paris. This time I wasn’t saying no.
When John wandered in to check my progress, I said, ‘I’m going.’
‘London?’ He let out a whoop. ‘I’m declaring today a holiday.’
I touched up a section o
f paint on the sculpture. ‘There is still much work.’ It amazed me that John was content to delegate so much to me. I’d never come across such a hands-off way of making art. Though I liked John and was learning a lot in his studio, I found it hard to respect a man who didn’t make his own sculptures.
He took the paintbrush from me and deposited it in a jar of water. ‘Art is more than just work, you know. It’s about the ideas. And you won’t find them sitting around in here. Why don’t I take you to the cove?’ He pulled me up from the floor. ‘Hang on. You know how to ride a bike?’
I jabbed him in the ribs, leaving a trace of white paint on his skin. ‘We have bikes in Poland.’
‘Just checking.’ He hurried me away, talking about how much fun we were going to have. As we walked up the stairs I took one last look at the sculpture. From this perspective it wasn’t quite right. I reminded myself to fix the angle of the top chair.
Now that I had a bike in my hands, riding didn’t seem as easy as I’d remembered. I clenched the handles, unsure of how to get on. I didn’t even want to think about how I was going to get the bike down the steep hill from John’s house to the road below.
‘I’ll do that.’ John took the bike from me, hopped on, and then tore down the hill. I hurried after him on foot. He skidded at the bottom, nearly crashing into a palm. ‘Now you.’ He pushed the bike towards me.
‘I have no memory of how,’ I admitted.
‘As it happens, riding a bike is like making art, you never really forget how to do it.’ John helped me on. Though he was a reckless rider, he proved to be a patient teacher, holding the bike steady while I practised.
‘You can let go,’ I said, wobbling along the grass.
He clambered back uphill to get his own bike, which was larger and rustier than mine. Then we wheeled slowly out to sea.
The emerald afternoon stretched before us. As I pushed my feet down on the pedals, my confidence grew. Soon I was hurtling past John, laughing with the salt air in my mouth.
‘Left!’ he yelled. ‘Go left. Here!’ He sped in front, directing me down a gravel track. We threw our bikes onto the sand.
Waves raced to shore, dissolving into white foam. There was the flicker of wind at my shoulders and the heat of the sun on my back. John and I were the only ones on the beach. We walked along the damp sand. Broken pieces of shells crunched under my bare feet. I breathed in the smell of the sea.
‘Tell me something.’ John threw a stick to the water. ‘Tell me something about yourself.’
‘This is your turn to talk.’
‘You don’t want to hear about an old fart like me. Tell me about where you used to live, the cottage by the factory. And the bees! I want to hear about the bees.’
The memory of the bees put me back in Poland and despite myself, I started to talk. ‘My first pain from a bee –’
‘Your first bee sting?’
‘Yes, my first bee sting. This was on my tongue, when I was little girl …’ As I told him this story, I shaded my face to get a better look at the sprawl of beach ahead. In the distance, the white sand was dotted with grey rocks. The day was large and bright and as the wind threaded through my hair I felt a sense of optimism that I hadn’t had in a long time.
‘What happened then?’ John asked.
Remembering the story, I said, ‘My tongue swelled so much I couldn’t speak …’
As we kept walking, I saw that what I had taken to be rocks were actually birds. Behind me, John exclaimed, ‘Bloody hell!’
I knelt on the sand and reached out to stroke one. Its eyes were open to the sun. There were no marks on its grey feathers, nothing to give away how it had died.
‘Don’t touch that. It’s disgusting.’ John knocked my hand away. ‘This place is normally so beautiful.’
‘This also is beautiful.’
‘It’s not how I wanted you to see it. I wanted it to be perfect.’ He looked like a school boy who’d taken home a bad report card to his parent.
I brushed the sand off my knees. ‘Show me the cove.’
We left the birds behind and walked until we reached a barrier of rocks, about two metres tall, that stretched from the sand into the sea. John climbed them and I followed, scraping my palms and my feet. When we reached the top, he leapt down to the other side. Standing up, he held his hand out to me.
‘It’s okay.’ I closed my eyes and jumped. When I hit the ground my knees collapsed onto the sand.
‘This is it,’ he said.
The sea was silver green. The rocks cradled the water, taming it, so that the roar of the waves subsided to a gentle hiss. John wriggled out of his shorts and tossed them aside, running into the sea in a black bathing costume. He disappeared in the water and then bobbed up again, his hair slick against his skull.
I took my clothes off, readjusted the straps of my costume, and waded in. I tipped my face to the sun. This was nothing like the freeze of the Baltic Sea. Here, the water was warm and forgiving.
John floated on his back, his hands supporting his head as I swam towards a rock by the edge of the cove. I climbed onto it and when I closed my eyes, the sound of the sea got louder. Something squelched against my leg and I gasped. John laughed and threw another piece of seaweed, which landed in the water.
‘You look like a mermaid,’ he said.
The water rippled as he swam towards me and pulled himself onto the rock. There was just enough room for the both of us, our thighs almost touching. The proximity of his skin, the glare of the sun in my eyes and the thirst in my throat were disorienting. The rock seemed far higher above the ocean than it had a moment before.
John looked at me, checking. Then he leaned in, bringing his salt mouth to mine.
Our lips met. Desire pulsed through my fingertips. As soon as I was aware of it, it morphed into revulsion. This was my employer. I pulled away. ‘What are you –?’
‘I like you, Ania.’
A sick feeling crawled in my stomach. I cursed him for kissing me and cursed myself for letting it happen. What did he think he was paying me for? I recalled Rahel’s stories from the pub she’d worked in in Brisbane, the way that her boss had always been trying to grope her. She told me, He thinks I will put up with this because I am not from here.
‘Ania?’
I struggled to order my thoughts in English. Finally I said, ‘This is not what I am for.’ I plunged into the water and swam away.
By the time we got back to our bikes, the rays of the sun had weakened. How long had we been gone? Three, maybe four hours? My throat was parched and I was weak with hunger.
‘We have not even a bottle of water,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’ I threw my bike on the sand in frustration and then picked it up again.
John steadied my bike. ‘Did I get it wrong? I mean, I thought you wanted me, too.’
I remembered the Yugoslavian girl he told me about, the one who’d worked for him before me. ‘Why did she leave?’ I asked. ‘Your last assistant?’
He looked away from me and then said. ‘We broke up.’
‘Your girlfriend …’ With difficulty, I started to push my bike through the sand.
‘It’s not like that,’ he said.
We didn’t speak as we rode our bikes back to town. The sky darkened above our heads. It happened quite suddenly, as though a door had been closed on the bright afternoon. There was a wet smell in the air.
‘Storm’s coming,’ John said. ‘Look, do you want to come back to mine? It’s closer, is all.’
‘Nie,’ I told him. As I cycled away, black clouds consumed the horizon and thunder shook the sky. This was not rain as I knew it, but enormous fistfuls of water that hurtled down and fizzed on the hot concrete. I dropped my bike to the ground and stood by the edge of the road, breathing in the storm. A car honked as it drove past.
When the rain subsided I continued riding to the bungalow, my wet clothes clinging to my skin. I hurried inside before the farmer caught sight of me.
Warm air sieved t
hrough the wire mesh on my kitchen window. With a towel wrapped around my head, I put the kettle on. I took down two glasses from the cupboard. Realising my mistake, I put one back. For the rest of the afternoon, I decided, I would sit on the front step of the bungalow and read my letters from Father.
I was dripping. I unwound the towel from my head and tossed it on the ground. My feet on the towel, I shuffled to the bedroom to retrieve the letters.
As soon as I opened the door I saw that something was different.
The room was flooded. A damp stain on the ceiling revealed a hole that had let in the rain. My knees skidded on the wet floor as I crawled under the bed to retrieve the cardboard box. The lid was soaked. Inside, the letters were stuck together in a clump. When I peeled them apart I discovered that the ink had bled, making the words unrecognisable. I desperately sorted through the letters, trying to find one that had survived.
The wet paper gave way in my hands.
10
A sense of despondency settled over me. I had trouble sleeping and lost my appetite. On slips of paper, I wrote phrases from the letters. Writing and rewriting the words until they were as true as I could remember. I threw them out. They only served to remind me of what I had lost.
With no one around to talk sense into me, I felt a desperate need to know what Dominik was doing with himself, whether he was sorry. I went to the post office and with the help of the owner – a woman who had blue-tinged hair and generous arms – subscribed to the famous journal that Dominik wrote for. Despite the expense I bought back editions. A few weeks later a large paper parcel, bound in string, arrived for me at the post office. I rushed it back to the bungalow and tore it open.
The journal was printed on thin white paper, with its name, Świat Kultury, emblazoned across the front. Aside from a few earlier copies, each edition contained a piece by Dominik. He wrote mostly about politics, but also about poetry and art. Each of his articles was accompanied by a black and white headshot. Dominik met the gaze of the camera with a world-weary air, no hint of the teasing smile he used to give me.
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