‘Could be, although I don’t remember.’ He had no idea why he’d lied and couldn’t say anything cleverer. All he saw was that the curt reply didn’t discourage the beaming stranger in the least.
‘Please don’t be angry that I'm pestering you. You’re not the only one I’ve pestered since yesterday.’
Ksawery hadn’t seen him pestering or paying attention to anybody that morning.
‘I’m just passing through Poland,’ he continued. ‘I regret not living here but that might soon change and I’ll stay for longer.’
Ksawery didn’t have time to ask where the man was from, but his earlier peculiar unease was imperceptibly evaporating, swiftly turning into sincere interest. And his typical, deeply rooted aversion to small talk with compatriots was gradually turning into equally typical, endearing native hospitality extended to foreigners and, eventually, to Poles not born in Poland.
Their conversation, barely begun, was interrupted by a collective groan from a dozen passengers as they heard yet another announcement declaring a further delay of up to fortyfive minutes.
They sat down.
‘You know, when I watched you this morning, you looked like a million dollars.’ The stranger smiled. ‘That’s a saying, of course. A particularly successful trip to the capital, was it?’
Ksawery was astounded. Watched – how? When? But he replied truthfully about his work, the state exam he’d passed and would, perhaps, have wondered when the man had, in fact, been watching him if it hadn’t been for the turn which the conversation had taken.
The following two hours were like honey to Ksawery’s ears.
Even the most optimistic script of an intricately planned celebration didn’t presume such admiration for himself as he heard from the lips of this foreign stranger. The entire conversation centred on real estate. Ksawery talked a lot, the stranger merely confirmed everything he already knew or had already sensed. How very underrated and still underestimated the profession was in a developing market, what great possibilities it had to offer such a well-educated person as himself, what a good moment it was for development because later there’d be branch offices where someone with experience could make a name for himself or strong local offices which one could open.
For the sake of the conversation, Ksawery also added that he was intending to study estate evaluation – he’d thought about it once and now remembered how well it had sounded. The stranger enthused over the versatility of people in Poland, their desire to educate and better themselves.
They took a long time saying goodbye on landing at Poznań’s Ławica airport, hoping that they’d meet soon, which was quite possible considering how the company where the stranger acted as advisor was developing.
Not even the slovenly taxi driver, the dreadful heat or lack of air conditioning in the car could make him angry. He calmly recreated the recent conversation in his mind, basking in turn in the flattery he’d heard and in the analysis of his boundless possibilities.
He also imagined his potential client entering the office and he, Ksawery, loudly joking that commissions were simply falling into his hands. Or maybe something interesting would turn up even sooner, he thought, looking at the parcel he’d promised to deliver. He’d offered to do this when the stranger had told him that he’d promised to deliver it, but wouldn’t have time because of the delay. To the parents of a friend who’d died; an old story. Nothing much, just a small parcel of photographs. He’d also promised to add a bunch of sunflowers for the grandmother, which was very important. Ksawery had firmly refused to take money to buy the flowers – a gesture not to say a bonus.
He couldn’t remember whether he’d hit upon the idea of relieving his fellow traveller of the small task immediately or only when he’d helped decipher the address in view of making it easier to eventually find the old couple in the future. The address was balm to the ears of the estate agent. An old villa in Sołacz – an expensive area, an expensive street and, even if the house looked as if it were on the point of collapsing, still worth an incredible sum.
An excellent commission – remuneration, he corrected himself. That’s what he ought to call it, it sounded better; he recalled the current advice to agents.
If he’d understood correctly, the people to whom he was delivering were the owners of the house and, more importantly, had left no beneficiary. Such people were a rarity and equally rarely, if at all, did they allow in a nosey agent, but with the photographs and flowers… Even a beginner from the office could do a great deal. But he – he could perform miracles. Yes, he’d go there first thing in the morning. He also decided not to tell anyone about it.
Having looked at the same crossroads and the same road workers for the past ten minutes, he was overcome with tiredness. His shirt started to stick to his back and his back to the dirty upholstery; his palms were damp, too – but that was probably due to all the excitement and not the August heat. He took a long time wiping them on the moist tissue he’d taken from the airplane before carefully studying the note he was to attach to the flowers. Flowers, as if a little withered, were painted on the small card. He didn’t like them much. In the middle were printed the Latin words Expecto Donec Veniat and ‘For Aurelia’ – handwritten.
He considered it strange but didn’t think about it for too long; Latin wasn’t his strong point, let alone some words of wisdom. He slipped the note into his wallet, in the compartment where he kept his money, so as not to forget to attach it to the flowers as promised.
In the end, he phoned home, even said something pleasant; after all, he did feel the day was exceptional. He asked what they were having for supper.
And heard – sorrel soup.
The taxi driver who’d just changed lanes saw his passenger’s hideous grimace in the mirror. He couldn’t stand it and uttered furiously: ‘Then find a route yourself. I’ve no idea how to drive around this city anymore. Everyone knows where there aren’t any traffic jams! Apart from taxi drivers, of course,’ he added under his breath.
The passenger didn’t say a word, either then or later. He didn’t even say goodbye.
mAcIej bArtol, an unfledged police commissioner, thought someone had saved his life when he heard his work mobile phone ring. And he was not far from wrong.
For the past fifteen minutes he’d been at his mother’s. He had a very close relationship with her generally, but not at this moment. He’d discovered recently that her maiden name, Bogdanowicz, indicated that she might have descended from the Tatars. Now, he was almost certain there was some truth in it.
Things had already gone very badly when he’d told her he was to be a father and not a very happy one at that, but when, regrettably, he’d added that he wasn’t sure how it had happened, her large, expressive eyes had begun to narrow into slits like those of a wild animal and her eyelids trembled. Something peculiar had happened to her lips, too. The anticipated attack had followed.
The tirade – along the lines that perhaps she really hadn’t talked to him enough about matters concerning men and women when he was an adolescent, that if he wanted to she could, albeit unwillingly, make up the deficit and explain to the thirty-five-year-old fully-grown man where babies come from – was only broken by a silly ringtone. The cabaret tune didn’t suit the situation, and not for the first time.
He hoped it was something important; an innocent lie which would enable him to escape was out of the question. He didn’t know how, but his mother always knew when he was lying or even when he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
Fortunately, the call was from Piotr Lentz. The two men worked together but weren’t bound by friendship, so Lentz wouldn’t be phoning without good reason.
‘Hi, where are you?’
‘Ogrody. What’s happened?’
‘Good, you’re not far. Get yourself over here. The prosecutor and SOCO are already on their way. No point in talking. You’ll be surprised. 6 Góralska Street.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Sołacz. Go
down Wojska Polskiego Street and you’ll see a disco on the right. They’re all here.’
He glanced at his mother who was looking at him, listening and, for a moment, looking almost normal.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later.’ He assumed a serious expression.
‘Fine, and I’ll buy you a couple of textbooks in the meantime. Primary or secondary school level, what do you think?’
‘Stop, mum. It’s hard for me, too!’ he answered, knowing full well he shouldn’t have said anything, let alone complained. Too late.
‘You’re finding it hard!’ He almost jumped away; he couldn’t remember when she’d last shouted so. ‘How far gone is the girl?’
‘Two, three months… I think?’
‘No, it’s impossible, I wouldn’t have brought up my real son like that! I’m calling the hospital. I was so sleepy after giving birth and newborns all look alike. After all, mistakes do happen…’
‘I’ll call you, mum. Bye.’ He smiled to himself as he closed the door – he used to be the spitting image of her when he was a child.
The relief was almost physical as he ran downstairs.
He’d put off talking about it to his mother for almost a month. And not long ago he’d been happy not to have to listen to her grumbling so frequently about his having let Malina go. It was so damn painful every time. They’d been together for six years. He’d been the one to mess things up. When, a year ago, they’d both agreed to part, he’d been the only one who’d thought the separation was temporary – it couldn’t be otherwise. Then he’d seen her with another guy. And he lost ten kilos.
But now what? He’d have to let his mother know that things would work out somehow. Because somehow he was going to have a baby with a girl he hardly knew, whom she’d never seen and whom even he hadn’t seen all that frequently.
Perhaps he was lucky somebody had been murdered right then.
Perhaps it wasn’t going to be some plain old chase, all tidied up in the morning when everybody had sobered up. Perhaps he was going to have to work from morning to night and everything, in the meantime, would fall into place of its own accord; that did happen at times.
He almost immediately ruled out a drunken brawl in which somebody had butchered someone and was in no state to mumble why, or doggedly mumbled he had a reason and one which couldn’t wait. This wasn’t the street for it or the area. But why hadn’t Lentz said ‘you’ll see for yourself’? Why ‘you’ll be surprised’? He thought about this a little longer but not for too long; he arrived fairly quickly.
He could already see the flashing police lights from the wide dual carriageway. He’d definitely never been to this street. Large houses, which must have fulfilled their purpose of isolating and hiding themselves from both each other and the city even before the war, concealed themselves among enormous trees covered in the first November snow. The narrow street seemed to scream that it couldn’t stand any more cars, that it had always been peaceful here. All this looked more like a mountain spa than close to the centre of a city of over half a million inhabitants.
He parked at the end of the pavement. A quick glance at the cars told him who was already there; everyone, it seemed. He didn’t even have time to approach the small group of people by the fence before seeing Polek struggling with the zip of his jacket.
Polek was standing closest and was the first to speak.
‘Well, hello. How long do we have to wait for you? I’m going to freeze to death.’Without waiting for a reply, he went back to battling with his zip.
‘Hi. So why are you standing here?’ Bartol asked pointedly. ‘Because I want to do this bloody thing up.’
Bartol smiled to himself. He knew that even if Polek succeeded in dealing with the zip initially, it wouldn’t move any further. He knew the jacket; it had already been too tight a year ago and today was no more than a reminder of a miracle, the miracle of a diet a couple of years earlier. He had no idea why Polek was trying to squeeze into the jacket now, and could have said something but didn’t dare. He had himself recently devoted a fair amount of time to combing and ruffling his hair across the increasingly broad stretches of his forehead – so he would certainly have met with some unwelcome repartee.
They were friends. In spite of everything. Perhaps to spite each other, or simply because of all this.
Bartol, taller by a head, was – apart from his ever more nervous habit of raking his hair from temple to forehead – rather calm in speech and manner. Slender. Angular. As if entirely made up of hinges. His too-long arms dangled from his shoulders, his thin legs were awkwardly connected to the rest of his body, his knees were pointed. He didn’t sit and stand but rather folded and unfolded.
Polek was corpulent and full of roundness. Round head, round eyes, round back and belly, everything round, smoothly flowing from one part of the body to another. Even when gesticulating furiously, he would generally trace huge and small circles with his hands – and he liked to reason with himself and others even when he knew he was wrong; sometimes simply for the sake of it. Just as he was quick to fume and rage when angry so he would quickly simmer down, soften and forget what it was all about. He said: ‘can do’ or ‘no way’. Nothing was ever ‘can do’ for Bartol; his mother, who taught Polish, saw to that.
Recently, however, they hadn’t talked to each other as much or as often as before. Nor, for a month, had they gone for a beer. It wasn’t really either Polek’s fault or his wife’s that the pleasant weekend at the Agrotourism farm which they’d visited as a foursome with his wife’s nice friend hadn’t turned out all that well. Although it would certainly never be forgotten, and would somehow have to be explained to the new human being who had just then decided to exist.
It shouldn’t have been like that, perhaps, but something unspoken, something like remorse on the one side and reproach on the other, hung in the air.
Two more cars pulled up.
‘Who’s the bugle call for?’ asked Bartol presently.
‘I’ve no idea,’ replied Polek, finally giving up on his jacket. ‘Can’t suss it out, no way. Have a look for yourself. It’s a museum in there with a still life at its centre. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he added.
Bartol had never heard of Polek ever visiting any museum whatsoever, not even a wax museum. He’d no idea where the comparison had come from. He wanted to ask but decided not to and, unaccosted by anyone else, stepped inside.
Everything here was old and solid. The walls, the doors, the furniture inside. The enormous, oval table, the chairs, the escritoire were not like the antiques in the Stara Rzeźnia market which he visited every other Saturday. They were identical to the ones in the antique shops on Stary Rynek which he visited only rarely, feeling like an intruder and knowing that nobody was going to make him feel otherwise. That’s how he felt now.
In every room everything was in perfect order; it looked as though everything had been in the same place for years.
The coloured porcelain parrot on the piano seemed to say: ‘I’ve been living in this place twice as long as you’ve existed, son.’ Bartol stopped himself from picking it up and checking where it had been born; Meissen porcelain figurines from Miśnia could cost thousands. He’d once discussed such figurines with a shopkeeper for a good two hours. He’d never imagined he’d be interested in porcelain birds but he was, very much so.
He smiled, thinking that – fortunately – he couldn’t afford such a hobby. He wouldn’t have been able to invite the guys around. As it was he had a lot of explaining to do regarding his ballerina; the rare mechanism of the music box wasn’t a convincing argument.
He continued to look around. He wasn’t in a hurry, knew that the body was in some other room. The SOCO dispersed in a spiral and were still far away, tracing an ever-wider circle further and further from the corpse.
As he slowly made his way towards another room, his attention was riveted by an inconspicuous round table. He’d already seen one like it – in a terrib
le condition, admittedly, but he’d still stared with disbelief at how smoothly the surface had slid apart and the concealed legs parted in different directions to form a long, exceptionally long table. He couldn’t remember what tables like these were called but knew they were extremely rare; the battered one had been too expensive for him.
A glass vase containing long-dried stalks stood on the table. He didn’t know much about flowers but once more had the impression that he’d seen such colourful patches on the blue glass of a jug somewhere in a book. A familiar voice tore him from his thoughts.
‘Bit of a museum, eh? I’ve heard it’s your hobby, junk like this. I’m taking shots of everything but if you want something for your album, tell me. Have you seen the still life yet?’ It was one of the technicians.
‘Not yet. What’s all this about a still life everyone's going on about?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what somebody called it and it’s stuck. It goes well with the client, go and look for yourself,’ he suggested and went back to taking photographs.
Bartol knew the technician but couldn’t recall his name. He had no memory for names – name days, birthdays and so on.
He decided to come back later. Perhaps he really was taking too long looking around right now; everything simply fascinated and interested him, not in the way it should.
He reached a room which might have been a study. Through the half-opened door he saw an entire wall lined with yellowing or gilded book spines – also old. Everything indicated that this was where the drama had taken place.
After a while, he understood that the word ‘drama’ was exceptionally apt in describing what he saw. He understood, too, what everyone had had in mind.
On the floor lay the corpse of an elderly man. It was naked; only the hips were girded with something like a narrow towel. The towel wouldn’t have been strange had it not been for its red colour, which contrasted dramatically with the grey, wrinkled body. The position in which the man lay was also extremely theatrical.
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