Polychrome

by Joanna Jodelka

  Bartol had the impression that a curtain would fall presently and the play would come to an end. Nothing like that happened. He continued staring at the naked body and thinking he’d not seen anything like it before.

  The right arm lay casually close to the body while the head rested on the left hand; one leg was slightly bent, the other straight. The face was peaceful, sleeping. The faint grimace clashed with the blue groove around the neck, which should have made the face look as though the man were experiencing a nightmare, not an afternoon nap.

  ‘Have you ever seen a client so peaceful while being strangled? ‘Cos I haven’t!’ Polek stood leaning against the door frame, waiting, as if indifferent, for an explanation of what he saw.

  ‘No. He didn’t fall asleep like that by himself,’ replied Bartol. ‘The cord must’ve been thick, like a piece of rope. Besides, he might have died earlier from a heart attack or something, and was strangled just to make sure he was dead or to make it look like a finale.’

  ‘What finale?’ asked Polek, shifting from one foot to the other.

  ‘A spectacular one.’ Bartol knew he was watching a performance but didn’t know who it was for. One spectator, the perpetrator, just them or the whole world? ‘We’ve received an invitation,’ he said, shrugging.

  ‘What invitation are you going on about now?’

  ‘For the performance which has just started. Can’t you see?’

  Polek didn’t know whether he saw or not; either way, he didn’t like it.

  And he was not the only one.

  It was clear that the officers would, more than likely, not leave before morning. The house must have been the smallest on the street but still measured about two hundred cluttered square metres. There was enough to do.

  One man and hundreds of objects from his life, his parent’s lives and probably the lives of his grandparents. A rarity in a country torn by wars and a workers’ party. It aroused respect and perhaps nostalgia for a world which was no more. Everybody was strangely quiet, more focused than usual; perhaps because shootings were rare where there was a museum and order; they were far more frequent where there was a brothel and bedlam.

  It was getting late, what was generally agreed to be late – as always in winter. In summer 7pm was almost the middle of the day, but not in January, when it had already been dark for over three hours.

  Briefing for the investigative team was set for eight in the morning. Meanwhile, as much information as possible was to be collected about the murdered man and neighbours were to be questioned – they might have seen or heard something, something could have drawn their attention. The usual stuff.

  First of all, Bartol had to question the woman who’d called the police. Before asking who she was, he’d imagined an elderly woman who did the cleaning or shopping – that had seemed the norm.

  But, not for the first time that day, he was taken by surprise. The police had been called by a female architect with an office a couple of streets further down. And that was where she was waiting to speak to him. She was a bit shaken and there was no cause to take her to the police station, at least not that day.

  He had no difficulty finding the office; it really was nearby. Another beautiful villa, also old but in a different way.

  The slick, sophisticated office of registered architects, decked out with strangely suitable aluminium components, was going through its second youth, fitting in with new times and assignments. The sign informing that architectural engineer Romana Zalewska worked here could not have been smaller yet caught the eye.

  From a distance, he saw a tall, slender woman open the gate and door for him.

  ‘Good evening, I’m Romana Zalewska. You must be from the police. It feels as though I’ve been waiting forever.’

  ‘Good evening. Maciej Bartol. I’m sorry. I came as soon as I could.’

  ‘So I gather. I should be the one apologising. I’m a bit edgy. I was just looking for some cigarettes, even though I don’t smoke. Please come in. Would you like something to drink?’

  ‘Yes, coffee, if possible.’

  ‘Then please wait a moment.’

  He sat on something which was neither an armchair nor a chair and found it surprisingly comfortable if a little too low for an official conversation. As usual, he didn’t know what to do with his legs. Sliding them under the table, the way he liked, was out of the question – the table was too low. He ran his fingers through his hair; at least his hair remained neatly dishevelled.

  He cast his eyes around. Everything was modern, mainly grey and metallic; only one wall resembled a painting, decorated with gold-red patterned wallpaper which seemed as though it had been taken from the upholstery of palatial furniture. Perhaps that was why the interior appeared to him more feminine and friendly than all the other shades of grey and aluminium which he’d recently come to expect in such offices.

  The architect fitted in with the place. Straight, narrow, black jeans, a white shirt with a collar cut moderately low, promising fine breasts; dark blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, a short fringe. She could have been forty-five but he wasn’t sure; she looked good, very good indeed.

  When she’d brought the coffee and gone back for an ashtray

  – because that must have been the only thing missing on the table – he unwittingly followed her with his eyes to the door of a kitchenette and gazed at the wall opposite. There hung a large group photograph. He scarcely recognised her. It was difficult, at first glance, to spot the resemblance between the shapely, elegant and self-assured woman and the hunched, podgy girl in awful glasses and overstretched brown-grey jumper.

  He didn’t notice her come back. She, too, looked at the photograph.

  ‘Youth and studying weren’t my best time,’ she said with singular tolerance in her voice. ‘Oh well, the day must have upset me. I don’t like talking about myself, let alone going back to the past. I try to make sure I don’t have time. Your turn now.’ She broke off as quickly as she’d started.

  ‘You phoned the police, although I’ve been told you weren’t professionally connected with Mr Antoniusz Mikulski nor were you part of the family.’ He heard himself utter the murdered man’s name for the first time.

  ‘I didn’t really know him. I called because there was a light on in his study.’

  ‘Yes. I know. I also know you were very effective. It’s not every day that a patrol car turns up because there’s a light on. Please try to explain calmly everything in as much detail as possible. Do you have time?’

  ‘I do now.’

  ‘So we don’t have to hurry. Good. From the beginning, please.’

  ‘More or less thirteen years ago, fortunately after my divorce – because it wouldn’t have been so simple otherwise

  – I managed to sell the piece of land I’d inherited from my parents.’

  Bartol put away his ballpoint pen; he hadn’t expected quite such a long story. He took a sip of coffee. It was better than he’d expected.

  ‘I got a hefty sum of money quite unexpectedly – they’ve built a parking lot for a large supermarket on the piece of land. I decided to buy a house. It was completely unlike me to arrive at somebody’s house asking them if they’d like to sell. But, I don’t know, it was one of those days, one of those moments, maybe someone had egged me on, I can’t remember. What I do remember, is ringing the doorbell of the house. Mrs Aurelia Mikulska appeared in the window, quickly opened it and asked: ‘How can I help you, child?’ You know, she was – how can I put it… the perfect picture of an elderly lady, like those you see in pre-war films, as if from another world. Her voice, attitude, dress, calm and some sort of warmth, her silver curls

  – everything was perfect.’

  Bartol caught himself thinking the same thing about the woman sitting opposite – she had matured with perfection. Looking furtively, he caught sight of a white lace bra-strap and took a snapshot in his mind; the strap lay attractively against the faint tan of her skin. He could almost imagine the rest.<
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  ‘I drank tea from an old porcelain cup, learned that neither that house nor any other in the street was for sale but enjoyed myself anyway. When it grew late I decided to say goodbye. She then asked me to wait another fifteen minutes, because at precisely seven o’clock her husband would emerge from his study and be curious to know who’d come to visit them. I was surprised because for a good hour I had had no idea that anybody else was there apart from her. It was so quiet. I discovered later that it was always like this. Between six and seven in the evening Mr Mikulski worked in his study, writing or reading, so I gathered. He was a restorer of monuments, buildings, or something like that as far as I remember. It was exactly as she said: at seven o’clock Mr Mikulski emerged, greeted me and went to the kitchen. I was afraid he’d be wanting his supper – at a quarter past seven, for example – so I quickly took my leave. I went there once or twice after that’

  – she grew pensive – ‘but I never saw Mr Mikulski again. Not long afterwards I bought my house. And I’ve also acquired a certain habit. I always, or almost always, drive down Góralska Street on my way to work and back. It’s a bit of a roundabout way but I always have the feeling that something separates me from the city, a private corridor.’

  She paused for a moment and lit a cigarette. Very awkwardly.

  He let her continue without losing her flow. He realised that the story was a necessary part of the whole, that it was the construction on which rested a rational explanation. He was talking to an architect, after all, and not some gossiping neighbour.

  ‘I always smoke when I’m nervous. I don’t even know how to inhale but it does help a bit. A habit acquired during exams. As I was saying, when I pass the house in the evenings I always look up at the window – by force of habit. For thirteen years the ritual repeated itself. On the dot of seven the light went out – sometimes… this might sound silly, but I can’ – she shuddered

  –‘sorry, I could stop at three minutes to seven to wait and watch. His desk lamp would be on even in the summer when it was overcast and it, too, would be turned off on the dot.’

  Again she paused a while.

  ‘I had a terrible day yesterday. A construction project was turned down for no reason at all. It can still be salvaged because the conditions of construction are vague, as is their interpretation, but still, the time, nerves and so on. I left the office and took the same way home as usual. I was sure it was half past seven. I gathered, when at home – by some programme on TV – that it was well past nine. I had no idea where the hour had gone. It preyed on my mind a bit but I was already quite exhausted and didn’t want to think. In the morning, I visited a construction site with a client and took the usual route to the office. I was alone in the office at about four drinking coffee, and have no idea why it occurred to me that the light had been on and that was why the previous evening I’d thought it wasn’t even seven. I hadn’t realised that, subconsciously, I regulated my daily rhythm according to the window. But that wasn’t the worst of it. I realised after a while that something must have happened; I was convinced of it. Mrs Mikulska died some two years ago. Mr Mikulski was completely alone and could have needed help and, above all, could have needed it yesterday. I got to the house as quickly as I could. And had another shock, the light was off but so what? It was a quarter past four. I rang the bell. I hadn’t even thought of what I’d say if he'd opened. ‘Mr Mikulski, why aren’t you working in your study?’ But nobody opened anyway. I was sure something wasn’t right. I was made to believe I was wrong for too many years, and have grown sensitive. If I’m convinced about something, I fight for it – in both my private and professional life. Which is why I didn’t let some duty officer brush me aside. I wasn’t worried about making a fool of myself. I’m not scared of looking foolish anymore either. And there it is, the whole story. You know the rest better than I do. Would you like something else to drink?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I’m just going to get some water. All these nerves and too many words perhaps. I’m sorry.’

  Thoughts ran through Bartol’s mind. He knew it would be easy to check whether Antoniusz Mikulski’s world really had been ordered in this way, but to find out who had destroyed it would be far harder. It didn’t look like a coincidence.

  He heard a glass shatter in the kitchen.

  ‘Just one more question. Did you see anything strange in front of the house? Somebody lurking and watching you ring the doorbell?’ he immediately began as soon as she returned.

  ‘No, nothing strange apart from the light being on and off.’

  ‘Please try to remember as many details as possible by tomorrow. Maybe you saw something suspicious earlier on, as you drove past. Please don’t hurry to answer now. We’ll wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘You can be sure that if I saw anything it’ll come to me. My whole life is made up of details. That must be my curse. What does anyone want to stare at a window for?’

  He wasn’t sure whether the two thick wrinkles on her forehead appeared only then as, lost in thought, she pulled back her hair, or had been there all along.

  He said goodbye and left.

  For a while, he stood by his car. It was already late, exceptionally quiet and somehow uncanny. There were practically no lights on anywhere as though no-one lived here, as though the city were somewhere else.

  The enormous trees had grown grimmer. There was no wind, the trees didn’t want to talk.

  they vIsIt the cemetery as though it were a café; somebody ought to install a vending machine with cakes and tea, the man in the strange glasses thought with disgust.

  The smile was long to disappear from his face, slowly, almost naturally. The old woman had turned away a long time ago.

  Impatient people, who had practically mastered the art of smiling and achieved a level of near sincerity, yet didn’t have the time or intelligence to round it off with precision, amazed him. He loathed botched work. When he invited a smile to his face, he didn’t allow it to leave for a long time. Well practised.

  He looked after his cheerful expression like other people look after their teeth – systematically and to the point of boredom. He practised and trained it; he didn’t want to give time a free hand – it could have revealed too much, hampered. He neither wanted to nor could trust his genes. So he laughed often and easily. In women’s eyes – disarmingly.

  His well-exercised facial muscles gave a fine performance, sculpting friendly wrinkles, radiantly turning down the corners of squinting eyes and catching parted lips in funny brackets.

  He presented this trained smile as easily and readily as young body-builders their freshly pumped muscles.

  He cast his eyes around again. Soon there’d be nobody; it was starting to grow dark. The woman who’d accosted him belonged to the brave anyway; dusk chased old women away.

  Now the candles burned only for ghosts.

  For a moment longer, he allowed his thoughts to run in disparate directions as he looked around, soaking up the darkness and silence, feasting his eyes on the incongruous scenery.

  He gazed at the joyful flicker of votive flames, comically reined into kitschy forms – in memory.

  Aesthetics of the living in honour of the dead. All this repulsed him.

  Stone and flowers torn from the earth, cut and decorated – with an aim incomprehensible to them – into shameful shapes.

  He looked up. Only the huge trees, swaying in the wind, lived their own life without looking down. They’ve got time, he thought, and one day they’ll cover and bury all this. They’ll steal the light from the yews watching over the graves, planted to dispassionately measure out pain.

  The taller the yews, the less the pain.

  He didn’t intend to wait until time brought relief. He wasn’t going to let it flow smoothly, wasn’t going to mute anxiety with daily life. He’d already tried.

  Makeshift solutions – anxiety had to be killed. A fractured soul couldn’t be plastered over with appearances, couldn’t
be decorated with frilly accessories like a Christmas tree in order to make it colourful, make it glitter with shiny lights and hide it as it slowly dies in a pleasant atmosphere.

  Once he’d suffocated, now he breathed freely; once he’d deceived himself, now he deceived only others. When he needed them. When he pulled the strings of people seemingly alive yet as dead as puppets. When, just like a whore or politician, he told them exactly what they wanted to hear in order for their wooden souls to come alive momentarily, irrigated by the illusion of understanding, empathy and other nonsense.

  Only weak people allow themselves to be so deceived.

  I know how much it hurts; I know what a great loss it must be; I know how you’re feeling; I know what it’s like; I know how awful it is. I’m very sorry. It shouldn’t happen, it shouldn’t have happened.

  Little ditties.

  He looked around a while longer and unintentionally read the epitaph on the grave nearby: How can we live without you, it hurts so much.

  He laughed out loud as he gazed with disgust at the plastic flowers – practically immortal – hideous things.

  And what if one can’t live with them in this world? When there’s a problem of surplus and not of lack? Someone will understand – as if.

  Is somebody going to say: I can imagine what you feel; I’m sorry they’re alive; it shouldn’t happen; it shouldn’t have happened; it’s so unfair?

  He looked around one more time; he was now entirely alone.

  He was slowly calming down, setting his thoughts on the right track.

  He pulled a small gold pendant out of his pocket and carefully placed it beneath the lettering on the next vacant place in the queue to the unknown harbour. From another pocket he extracted a rope of triple twine, wrapped it around his clenched fists and started to repeat as if in prayer: Funiculus Triplex Difficile Rumpit, Funiculus Triplex Difficile Rumpit, Funiculus Triplex…

  mAcIej bArtol couldn’t wake up, and rose groggy; then he stood staring blankly out of the window for a long time. An old man wound his way between the blocks on Bukowska Street. Bartol had known the man since he was a boy. The old man had always walked with an ugly little yapping mongrel but for the past year had only carried a leash which swayed lifelessly in step; he obviously couldn’t walk without it anymore.