‘Are you going to visit her tomorrow?’ she asked after a while.
‘Who?’ This time he did choke.
‘You’re a bit strange today. Careful, or you’ll suffocate. What do you mean ‘who’? The Ogrodniczak woman.’
‘Yes,’ he replied still coughing. ‘She’s already back. I called her company. She’s going to be there.’
‘I don’t know whether we’re on the right track but it would be good for you to be prepared. Presuming that my thinking’s correct, Hope and Faith have already been buried, only the greatest remains – Love.’
‘Why the greatest?’
‘“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Letter to the Corinthians. You’ve never read it,’ she laughed.
‘I don’t read other people’s letters, haven’t you noticed yet?’
‘I couldn’t help but notice. You’d better listen then. Love can be represented in various ways. There’s worldly love, sensual love and love in general. The latter used to be represented with a torch, basket of fruit, flaming heart but above all children. Alciati has it that there can be no end of them, however many will fit, it doesn’t matter. Cesare Ripa states decidedly three. I’ll read it to you: “three children indicate that although single love is a virtue, it is triple love which has power because without it neither faith nor hope has meaning” – and, in my opinion, it does have meaning for this person. He left it, meaning Love, to the end, and it’s not out of the question that it could refer to this woman. She’s somehow mixed up in all of this.’
‘That’s why I’m going there. Let’s say we’re right, what do you think I ought to look for and ask about? Children? Latin?’ He felt everything was slowly returning to normal. He made himself more comfortable on the sofa, looked and listened.
‘Both one and the other, of course. Ask and look around. I’m trying to tie it all together. I know I’m going to find a painted or graphic representation with all this in one, and with an inscription at that, I just know it. If not in some church then in a town hall, if not in Gdańsk then in Paris. I’ve no idea why I haven’t found it yet but I will, and then we’ll know what to look for or what’s been found, but make a bit of an effort now.’
‘So what symbols and what sayings am I looking for and where are they supposed to be?’
‘All of them and everywhere. Note down what comes to mind and if you see anything in Latin, even on a cake of soap, call me.’
‘What’s soap got to do with it?’
‘I’ve no idea, it just came to mind. Besides, Venus emerged from the foam naked: will that do?’
‘It could. Maybe I’ll just see a heart and arrow on a wall?’
‘Don’t joke. Even if you see a heart-shaped box of chocolates, take a good look at it and all the chocolates, too. Besides, do you think a heart like that was thought up by one of your pals at junior school?’
‘No. I associate it with a little chubby Cupid and his bow. It’s probably his doing.’ He laughed.
‘Cupid with an arrow is the notion of sensual love, sudden, at first sight, heralding a change of events, but a heart as symbol of sublime love, if pierced by an arrow, bleeds – unhappily. And if you think that Cupid is nothing but a chubby child, you are mistaken. There was a time when he used to be represented as a beautiful youth with an enormous quiver resting on naked, firm – very firm – buttocks. All he’s got left from childhood are his curls. I’ll show you in a moment if you like, I’ve got one somewhere here of exceptional beauty.’
‘No, thanks,’ replied Bartol nervously ruffling his fringe.
‘Then take a look at all these illustrations. Love figures in all of them. I’ll make us another drink. It’s got stuffy with all these feelings.’
He merely glanced at the photographs; they all looked alike. Then he gazed at Magda as she extracted ice from the bag, sliced the lemon, as she walked and smiled. When she sat next to him, all he knew was that he didn’t want to talk about Love anymore, unless it was about the other kind. He pushed all the papers aside. Picked up one picture, with no children in it: just a man and a woman, the latter holding a flower. He showed it to her when she returned.
‘I prefer these innocent flirtations.’
‘They’re not all that innocent,’ Magda replied. ‘The covering on her head shows that she’s married and that joker in the lace next to her looks to me to be nothing more than a musician. Look, she’s holding a wild rose and this most surely indicates sinful and forbidden love.’
‘I’d never have thought it. Then why did they paint such filth?’ he asked laughing, looking at the apparently innocent scene again.
‘See what an imagination they had. It’s a censored version of the story of sin, as a warning, so women looking at it knew what vain sensual love looks like and where it can lead. If you like I can show you how real love, married love of course, was represented and praised…’
‘No, thank you. Perhaps some more of that sensual love,’ he said, slowly brushing behind her ear the strands of auburn hair which had broken loose of her grip and fallen in all directions.
She didn’t say anything, which was a good sign; nothing in the vein of ‘wait, let’s get some more work done, I’ve just remembered something’.
With a touch of irony, she merely asked: ‘Is this how you want to release creative energy? A brief leap into Chaos and back.’
‘That’s exactly the sort of journey I’m in the mood for right now.’
‘And what would you like to know?’
‘What, for example… does an ear exactly represent in this context?’ he asked and started kissing her ear, lazily, as though there, on the inner side of the lobe, he’d be able to find the answer.
‘In this context, you say…’ she repeated, stretching out her words and body. ‘It is, above all, greedy for flattery, or rather… lip-homage…’
He didn’t wait for further encouragement.
After a lengthy interlude, she was the first to speak: ‘That’s not all. It’s also exceptionally sensitive to vows or compliments, if you prefer…’
‘About your breasts, for example?’ He pulled down the right strap of her bra.
The strap didn’t resist, fell gently, revealing one breast.
‘For example…’
‘And what, for example, does such a liberated breast stand for?’ he asked, toying with her nipple.
‘Well… It could signify sincerity, fertility. Or perhaps simply the jealousy of the other, imprisoned one… I don’t know yet…’ she replied.
‘Well then, perhaps we simply have to do something about it, explain it to the other one,’ he said, pulling down the other strap. ‘There’s no hiding the fact, it’s waiting for an apology… impatiently. Shall I take care of it?’ He didn’t wait for her assent.
A moment later, he looked at her again; she, too, opened her eyes.
‘What’s waiting for an explanation now?’ she asked.
‘The hair grip.’
‘Both my naked breasts are smiling at you and it’s my pinned-back hair that’s putting you out,’ she laughed, her eyes on his imploring face. ‘All right, unfasten it.’ As clumsily as he’d pulled the grip out of her hair, so very accurately did he throw it into the wastepaper bin.
‘We didn’t like each other at first sight,’ he declared, spreading her hair as it tumbled over her shoulders.
‘See,’ she said, winding a strand around her finger, ‘and I thought that loose hair as a symbol of power to magically enslave men was a bit of an exaggeration.’
‘Not in the least… Now just the dress… I ask it…’ The dress consented with unwitting encouragement.
‘And the feet?’ he asked, seeing them instinctively rub against each other.
‘That’s for the prince… I’ve no idea what he did with the slipper during his tedious search for Cinderella,’ she answered, unbuttoning his shirt, then belt, then trousers. ‘What can that be compared to?’ she asked herself.
‘Aren’t there any symbols for it anymore?’
‘Come on, there are masses. In fact everything that’s hard and erect.’
He eased her onto her back and started kissing her stomach.
‘You’ve reached the seat of ecstasy and sinful desires.’
‘And where will I get to in a minute?’
‘Could be… the pomegranate, or fig maybe…’
‘I’ve never tasted one but it’s probably my favourite fruit…’ Again he didn’t get enough sleep, and again didn’t regret it.
Much to his own surprise he left Poznań exactly as he’d planned although not everything had gone according to plan. He’d just been about to phone Polek when the latter had called informing him that he wasn’t going anywhere, that he was having problems with his family and would Bartol cover for him should the need arise. Bartol agreed without asking any questions but knew the unwelcome conversation no longer wished to be postponed, and at most could wait until the following day and not a day longer.
That’s what he decided, and then focused exclusively on the purpose of his journey.
For two weeks he’d been gathering information about Elżbieta Ogrodniczak. At moments he was fascinated, at moments horrified. He didn’t know what to think of the woman. She kept slipping through his fingers, refused to be pigeonholed; as if she were made of pigeonholes: locked, left ajar, open, ones which could no longer be closed.
He had no idea who he was going to meet.
A hard, efficient chairwoman who employed seventy people and had long ago erased her twentieth birthday, one she’d spent behind bars?
A clever tart who had stopped earning with her body soon enough and had started using her head in order to run an exclusive dating agency long before that’s what they were called, and ended her career running a legal, profitable business in a related field?
A young woman for whom three years in prison had not been enough to form a bond with the child to whom she’d given birth there?
The woman who’d later had a pair of twins of whose fatherhood many a prominent figure in the country had been suspected, a woman who’d never confirmed or denied anything, brought the children up alone for twenty years just to bury them later in the same cemetery as the one into which they’d crashed their light sports aircraft?
He knew about this from the newspapers; from newspapers, too, he'd cut out two photographs of her. There, in the third row at some gala event, the photographs too small to read anything from her face.
He was scared of the conversation.
During the entire journey, he prepared himself, thinking almost exclusively of Elżbieta Ogrodniczak, his thoughts escaping to Magda only briefly. Even more briefly, to his child. When almost at his destination, he started running through his conversation with Pilski and covered nearly a whole kilometre before realising he’d passed a factory. He turned back.
It could easily be mistaken. The building looked like a warehouse or production plant of some highly specialised equipment. Silver, corrugated, modern, surrounded by a neatly trimmed hedge, neatly planted trees, neatly parked cars. Nor did the large letters EGFF clarify anything. He didn’t find the sign marked Elizabeth Garden Fun Factory which Pilski had mentioned but, as he parked, sensed it was the right place. As soon as he entered, all certainty vanished.
A door of steel and glass opened. Immediately behind it, on the right, he saw a row of desks on which stood computers behind which sat women wearing headphones. The women simply registered his entry with their eyes and continued to tap away on their keyboards. On the left, he saw a hall with rows of shelves. He didn’t know why he walked towards them. From a distance, the twenty metres of shelving looked crammed with shampoos and conditioners. He was wrong; side by side stood lines of vibrators. Pink ones, green ones, ones made of flowery glass and some whose function he couldn’t quite figure out. It was the same with what looked like a shelf full of pharmaceuticals. They seemed to be medicines but the images on the packaging suggested, in a more or less explicit way, what they were used for. A raging bull, a wild horse, golden rain. The swan on the packaging of some syrup – for potency no doubt – seriously interested him because although the swan’s neck was long and thick he couldn’t work out a connection.
Just as he was thinking he’d have to ask Magda what a swan like that could signify, a young woman approached offering to help. When she heard that he wanted to talk to Mrs Ogrodniczak, she retorted that, unfortunately, Mrs Ogrodniczak wasn’t in. His hint that he was from the police was met with a shrug: so what, the head wasn’t in anyway.
After long negotiations with one of the managers in a beautiful office and another in an even more beautiful office, he was connected to the boss. He briefly told her why he was there. To his amazement the woman invited him to visit her at home – if he’d be so kind. He would be so kind.
The house stood nearby.
Still a little bewildered by the unusual products, Bartol arrived at the given address. He’d presumed the architecture would be modern and now quickly decided never to presume again. Passing through the open gate, he drove in a small circle and parked in front of a small house stylised on a traditional Polish manor.
A tiled roof, brick, wooden shutters. Flowers beneath the windows; he’d no idea what they were called but knew they suited the place. The same as the ivy which wound its way around the pillars, sheltering the front door with a green parasol of not yet fully opened leaves but which, when open, would shroud the door completely.
From these entangled creepers emerged a woman. He hadn’t noticed her before while she, snuggled up to the pillar, must have been observing him for some time.
She now walked towards him. Slowly. Dressed entirely in black. Black, too, were the enormous glasses which covered half her face. The sweeping long skirt, tightly fastened at the waist, undulated. He didn’t know whether it was because of the wind which he didn’t feel or because of the flowing, determined movements which betrayed the self-confidence he sensed.
‘Good morning. Maciej Bartol, I take it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Elżbieta Ogrodniczak. Please come in. I think we’ll sit outside. It’s a beautiful day.’ Without waiting for him to agree as to the beauty of the day, she opened the door wide and walked ahead.
The tone of her voice was in equal measure pleasing and brooking no argument. He followed her.
He knew she was almost as old as his mother but she didn’t look like his mother, even from the back. Her tight blouse clung to a body which could have belonged to that of a ballerina who, despite her age, had not forgotten how to keep a tight rein on herself. Not a gram of fat, not a millimetre’s deviation from the vertical. The long skirt, fastened tightly by a wide belt, emphasised her narrow waist even more. Black hair, also disciplined to lie smoothly against her head, was pulled back close to her nape by an elastic band.
It hadn’t been the wind: the skirt undulated as it floated through the living room. They stepped out onto the terrace. The woman stopped, turned towards him and with a slight, barely perceptible gesture, indicated a large wicker armchair. He sat down, or rather sunk into it.
‘What will you have to drink?’
‘Water, if I may.’
‘You may,’ she replied and retreated into the house again. He wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing that the interview wasn’t taking place in different surroundings. These here intimidated him. He felt as if he were inside some magazine: Idyllic Life or something like that. Lilacs of all shades and colours blossomed; behind his back he heard the murmur of water flowing, probably over pebbles; on the coffee table was spread a tablecloth embroidered with flowers.
Mrs Ogrodniczak returned with a jug of water, half full of ice beneath which swam green leaves, as if part of the green-patterned drinking glasses. He hoped the leaves wouldn’t fall into his glass; he loathed mint and other such extras. They didn’t.
She sat down.
‘I’m listening.’ Her fa
ce didn’t betray any emotions: there was no half-smile, no grimace, eyes still hidden behind the sunglasses. It troubled him.
‘Due to the circumstances I’m compelled to talk to you about matters concerning the past,’ he began timidly and broke off for a second.
:‘You already told me that over the phone, please go on.’
‘Jan Maria Gawlicki has been murdered…’
‘How?’
‘At home. We suspect it’s the same murderer who’d previously killed Antoniusz Mikulski in a similar way.’ He couldn’t be sure but sensed that something stirred the stony face. ‘We’re searching for a connection between the two men. Does anything come to mind…’
‘No, nothing comes to mind.’ And silence.
He now knew one thing: he couldn’t conduct the interview this way. So he started anew; beginning in the simplest way.
‘I have a favour to ask of you. Could you please remove your sunglasses while we talk? I find it hard to speak to you without seeing your face.’
‘Of course, if it’ll make it easier for you.’
It didn’t. The entire surface around her eyes was one yellow-green-red bruise. He was taken aback. He knew from somewhere that she’d been to some exclusive renewal clinic but he’d never expected anything like this.
‘It takes a long time to heal sometimes,’ she explained, sipping her water and half-closing her blood-purple eyelids. Satisfaction with the effect she’d achieved was the first emotion he heard in her voice.
‘Mrs Ogrodniczak, we have reason to believe that if we don’t apprehend the person who committed these crimes, another may be committed. One of our hypotheses assumes that we need to look for clues in the past, Mikulski’s as well as Gawlicki’s. Hence my visit.’
She said nothing for a while; only what could have been a half-smile appeared on her face and swiftly disappeared.
‘Am I a suspect?’
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