by Michel Faber
‘Thanks, Uncle. But it’s all right. I want to go back to Poland.’
He nodded, frowning. Outside, a car alarm began to whoop irrepressibly.
‘Write and tell me what it’s like,’ he said, raising his voice to a clarity and intensity unusual for him. ‘All I get from my sisters is lists of what’s in the shops. You’re a sharp kid. Write to me. About Poland. The Poland that you see.’
Kasia blushed, for the first time since she could remember. ‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘Of course I will, Uncle Jarek.’ Then, ‘Can I have some soup?’
They ate soup together. In time the car alarm stopped and let the silence return. Kasia tried to imagine herself sharing with her uncle the perceptions she had had tonight, on the toilet in the Delta Hotel, in the arms of the already nameless man from the Spiritualized gig. She could almost imagine it. The words were not far away.
After another little while, out of the blue, her uncle said, ‘You know, my father, your grandmother’s kid brother, wasn’t the loser he’s made out to be.’
‘I hadn’t heard anything about him,’ said Kasia.
‘He never made any money. Making money didn’t suit him. The family never forgave him for that.’
‘I hadn’t got that impression,’ said Kasia, peeking over the rim of her steaming coffee mug.
‘My father was a poet. He died in Buchenwald.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Kasia, putting the mug down, cradling her hands around it, attentive.
‘One of your great-aunts had a stroke a few years afterwards and it knocked out the part of the brain that stops people speaking what’s really on their mind. I was there for dinner once, and the subject of my poet father came up, and she said: “Trust him to die in a concentration camp nobody outside Poland ever heard of.”’
‘That’s not very funny,’ said Katarzyna.
‘What she didn’t say, what nobody ever mentions, is that my dad is buried in the Avenue of Meritorious Persons in the Powazki cemetery in Warsaw. That was for his poetry, that was. Not for making shoes or hubcaps or battleships or … or … soup, but for poems.’ Uncle Jarek picked up the old book from the bread-basket. ‘These poems.’
‘Cool,’ said Kasia, her eyes lighting up. ‘Can I have one?’
‘What do you think I am?’ protested Jarek sharply. ‘A Hare Krishna bookshop? Free poetry books with every meal? You think I’ve got a crate of these upstairs?’ He held the book up to her face like a mirror, firmly gripped. ‘This is my copy of Bolesław Szajna’s poems.’
‘So how can I get one?’ challenged Kasia.
Jarek smiled condescendingly. ‘You go to a good bookshop in Poland. You ask them if they’ve got a copy of Bolesław Szajna’s poems.’
‘And if they haven’t?’
‘Do I have to explain the principles of capitalism to you? You ask them to order it. If they can’t help you, you try somewhere else. Eventually, somebody will get hold of one. You hand over some money, they give you the book. Maybe the week after, somebody else asks for the same book. That’s the way books survive, yes?’
‘I just thought … with things in Poland the way they are …’
‘Well, you check it out. Write to me about it. My sisters tell me you can get car phones and Reeboks in Poznań. You tell me what you can get in Warsaw, as far as Bolesław Szajna books are concerned.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘People never want to pay money for the really valuable things in life!’ exclaimed Jarek in exasperation. ‘They save up for years to buy a car from the assembly line, but the unique poems of an individual man they want to be given free.’
‘OΚ, OK, I’ll look, I’ll look,’ placated Katarzyna. ‘What’s the book called?’
‘Easy to remember,’ said Jarek, tossing his empty soup bowl into the sink so emphatically that he had to check if it had smashed. ‘The first line of the Polish national anthem.’ He sang sweetly and accurately, ‘Jeszcze Polska nie zginȩła …’
‘Poland is not yet lost,’ Katarzyna repeated after him.
‘That’s another thing that pisses me off,’ continued Jarek, as if there were a hotplate under him that no one had yet managed to turn down. ‘He wrote that poem, the title poem, a few days before he was carted off to Buchenwald. He was already under house arrest. People read that poem nowadays, and they assume that my dad was either a crazy man, living in a dream world, or else he was being ironical.’
This last was not a word Kasia knew in Polish, but it seemed wrong to ask her uncle to explain it.
‘That’s the main way this world has changed, you know,’ he sighed, running out of steam at last. ‘People can’t imagineanymore how somebody can hope for something beyond his own life.’
Kasia opened her mouth to speak, but, helplessly, yawned instead. So did her uncle. They both laughed.
‘Bedtime,’ Jarek declared. ‘For me, anyway. You’ll do as you please, as always.’
‘Wake me in the morning,’ said Kasia earnestly. ‘You shouldn’t have to face Halina Kozłowska on your own.’
In the morning, however, her uncle Jarek let her sleep in. When she eventually arrived in the restaurant, showered, spruce, and rather sick in the stomach, Halina Kozłbwska was long gone and two of the other regulars were there instead, already served and eating.
‘This soup was sucked out of a pig’s arse-hole by a toothless whore,’ pronounced Andrzej.
‘Shut the fuck up, there are people eating.’
‘Well, they’re eating shit sucked out of—’
‘They’re eating all kinds of stuff, Andrzej; they didn’t all choose the soup. You chose the soup because it’s the cheapest thing on the menu.’
‘In the old days I could buy a Volkswagen for what this soup is costing me.’
‘You must have got your Volkswagens cut-price from the Nazis, then.’
‘Don’t get me started.’
‘Eat your soup. You’re drunk. The soup will help.’
‘Pouring booze into it would help.’
‘Eat the bread roll, then.’
‘It’s stale.’
‘It’s not stale. It’s fresh Polish bread. It isn’t pumped full of damp air like buns from McDonald’s.’
‘Here – here – call that fresh?’
‘Just eat the fucking thing.’
‘Jesus, look at the tits on that little whore.’
‘Gentlemen, a little respect, please!’ bawled a fearsomely loud voice from the kitchen.
Katarzyna took a deep breath and stepped forward.
‘Anything else?’ she enquired coolly.
Two days before she left London, Kasia lugged her suitcase of T-shirts to the U-DESIGN-IT T-shirt shop in Notting Hill Gate. There, according to pre-arranged agreement, she paid an Asian man to take down her precise instructions as to which designs were to go on which T-shirts. The promotional material from the music stores came in very handy for images and logos; so did the full-page advertisements she’d selected from music magazines. There were only a couple of images she’d brought with her from Poland, just in case she had trouble finding them in London: the ones of Phil Collins and Dire Straits. Those would sell like crazy back home, especially to older types with lots of money, so she could experiment with what she could charge. She would probably have to charge less for Spiritualized, Future Sound of London, Tricky and the rest, but their uniqueness would be on her side: no one else would be filling this niche. She could even guarantee her customers that if they found her T-shirts on sale cheaper anywhere in Poland she would give them double their money back. The Poles were pushovers for that sort of thing: it was so American.
She did the rounds of the bureaux de change and selected the one offering the best deal on converting her unused English pounds to American dollars; she was in no hurry to clutter up her purse with złotys, and left herself with only a few pound coins to last her through the next couple of days. The tube fare to the airport, a McDonald’s milkshake maybe: anything else, other people
could take care of, both here and at the other end. As if on a mental notepad, she checked a list of the things she needed to remember: American dollars, yes … black plastic bin bags, yes … roll of adhesive price tags, yes … passport … sanitary pads … the crap House of Windsor tea-towel for her mother … her folder of notes … oh yes, and …
Bolesław Szajna … Jeszcze Polska nie …
The Tunnel of Love
HAVING READ THE signs carefully, I confirmed that I was over eighteen and that explicit nudity didn’t offend me, so I walked into the Tunnel of Love to find a job.
As an unemployed advertising executive, I had no previous connection with the sex industry, unless you want to claim there was something phallic about my roll-on antiperspirant commercials. What my previous career had left me with, however, was a habit of seeking out gaps in the market, no matter how tacky. I figured that whereas there must be thousands of out-of-work executives trying to to get into show business, academia, the public service, or, failing those, politics, there wouldn’t be many people queueing up for a job in a porno-cinema-cum-dirty-bookshop.
Anyway, it was a last resort. Even before my old job had been hosed down the drain, I’d already done all the right things, like applying for positions with other ad agencies from Perth to Pennsylvania, but none of that had come to anything, so here I was, trying to sell myself to the manager of the biggest ‘Sinema’ complex in Melbourne.
‘So, what do you think you have to offer us?’
It was that same old job-interview question, coming from a man who looked the same as any other employer might look: well-dressed without tie, slightly overweight, on the ball, faintly suspicious. In his neat air-conditioned office not one penis reared its ugly head, and if there were any vulvas they must have been in his filing cabinet.
‘I want to work for you as a spruiker,’ I said. (Better to be that, I’d decided, than be the guy who has to mop out the coin-op cubicles.)
‘I’ve already got a spruiker,’ the manager pointed out.
‘You’re thinking of getting rid of him, though,’ I guessed. ‘Because no one takes any notice of him whatsoever.’
‘True,’ he admitted. ‘But what makes you think you’d do any better?’
‘My experience in advertising,’ I said, leaning back in my chair, unfazed by the startling creak. ‘Most spruikers, and the one you’ve got is no exception, obviously have no experience in selling a product. They stand out there and mumble things like, “Great show, great show, come on down, don’t be shy” – that sort of rubbish. They sound bored to tears. In advertising, I learned that to sell a product, you’ve got to convince people it’s the best – in fact, you yourself have got to believe it’s the best.’
‘So, do you believe our show is the best?’
‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen your show.’ Observing his torso starting to expand with a deep sigh of annoyance, I added, ‘Which just goes to show you need a better spruiker, doesn’t it?’
‘OΚ,’ he grinned, leaning forward. ‘How about you convince me our show’s the best – right here and now.’
‘Oh well,’ I said hastily (I had nothing prepared), ‘I don’t think I can perform, you know – until the time comes.’
‘Jesus!’ he scoffed, rolling his eyes up. ‘One day I’m gonna meet somebody who doesn’t think like a prostitute.’
As a way of winding up the interview he said he’d ring me, and I left his office convinced I’d blown it. But then something happened that changed my mind. As I walked out of the luridly flashing entrance/exit of the Tunnel of Love, I had to squeeze past the spruiker.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, briefly establishing eye-contact with him, and he let me through. Out on the footpath I walked a few steps, then realised I was heading in the wrong direction and walked back; the spruiker immediately called out to me in a voice that was equal parts blasé and forlorn:
‘Come in ’n’ see the show, top girls, top girls, do y’self a favour, hottest acts in town.’ I looked back at him: obviously, as far as he was concerned, he’d never seen me before.
That’s when I thought: I’ve got the job.
And indeed I had.
I started work at the Tunnel of Love four days later, long enough for me to receive another two rejection letters from advertising agencies in Toronto and Auckland. One letter explained: ‘Our staff has already been cut from twelve to eight. The reason is a simple sign of the times: nobody wants to buy anything.’ Except sex, I added silently. At the railway station news-stand near my new workplace, the covers of all the bestselling magazines promised me bonking secrets of the stars, S&M, better orgasms, and sex that lasts all night. Even computer magazines had digital babes inviting all comers into the Playstation. Clearly, I had landed on the horn of a growth industry.
So: I had a job, in a business that was thriving. My only concern was therefore, would I get along with my workmates?
Well, my fellow staff members at the Tunnel of Love were decent people, all of them – at least comparatively. By this I mean that I didn’t have an overwhelming impulse to wash myself after meeting them, the way I used to have after dealing with some of my advertising agency’s clients.
George was the boss, hard-headed, reasonable, rarely seen. Dennis ran the cinema and tended the machinery in general, a sleepy-looking man in his late fifties, reusable only by disgruntled cries of ‘Focus!’ or the challenge of a coin-op booth that refused to switch off the action after the statutory sixty seconds. Fortyish Karen ran the bookshop with a cool, sexy efficiency of her own that promised unbearable humiliation to anyone caught shoplifting. Mandy and Kelly performed erotic dances during the intervals between movies. They sometimes did a double act in which they sucked on opposite ends of a salami, subject to availability of salami and of Mandy, who was often away in search of heroin. At her best, though, Mandy was talkative and friendly, a country girl who had once been a vet’s assistant and whose happiest memories were of watching cats wake up from anaesthetic. Kelly used to be a taxi driver. She didn’t say much. Andrew was the guy who mopped out the booths, the guy I had decided I didn’t want to be; he also fetched lunches, unpacked boxes and was trying to get a driver’s licence so he could be more useful.
Initially, I got along best with Mandy, because of her air of being an out-of-towner suffering a harder welcome than she’d hoped for. Despite the fact that she’d been dancing naked and sucking salami for almost two years now, she talked as if she, like me, was still a newcomer. This place which employed us both seemed somehow connected, in her mind, with a carnival her parents had taken her to when she was eight, in Bathurst.
‘The carnival had this thing – this sideshow – called the Tunnel of Love. You remember that?’
‘I’ve never been to Bathurst.’
‘I thought Melbourne might’ve had a sideshow like that, at Luna Park.’
‘I’ve never been to Luna Park.’
‘No kidding … Neither have I. Funny, isn’t it? It’s so close and everything. Anyway, I never went into the Tunnel of Love – I was too young – not interested. I went on the Ghost Train, though. Things would spring out at you from the dark. Ugly faces – hairy paws – slime everywhere.’
We looked at each other and at our surroundings.
‘What are you two laughing at?’ yelled George from his office.
In the long run, though, it was Karen I became friendliest with, because she proved to be an amazingly smart lady. Her strong point was analysis, and this came in very handy when I was struggling to establish myself as God’s gift to peepshow spruikers. I had done a bit of analysis myself, and rethought every aspect of the job. Levi’s, pullover and dressy leather jacket replaced the white shirt and baggy dark suit of the classic spruiker: why look like a guest at a Greek wedding waiting to get to the booze? Making myself heard in the busy street, right next to the traffic, was a challenge too: I got myself a microphone, and wrapped its shaft in a dildo, to attract anyone who might have a sense of humo
ur. My script was advertising copy of the most calculated virility.
‘Sex acts close enough to touch!’
‘We’ve found a loophole in the law, folks, so we can show you what’s always been banned.’
‘Your most explicit fantasies happen in here, for real!’
‘Yes, this is the place where you’ll experience women doing everything you’ve always wanted.’
Nobody unexpected came in.
Oh, the regulars: Japanese tourists, sales managers, the odd drunk. But certainly no influx of new blood or indeed any other bodily fluid. Across the street, a fat lady stood in the doorway of a clothing store, explaining in a barely audible, faintly desperate monotone that there were opportunities too good to pass by. Passers-by trotted meekly into her shop, one after another.
‘How’s it going, hotshot?’ It was Karen, on her lunch break.
‘Not so good.’ I pointed out the success of the clothing-store spruiker, who was silent just then, staring down at her shoes as if embarrassed by the customers’ enthusiasm.
‘I don’t understand it,’ I said.
Karen smiled, her big lips revealing eccentric teeth. Out in the daylight I noticed how real she was: the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, the softness of her hair, the stitches in the seams of her jacket.
‘Sure, people go into that shop all the time,’ she conceded. ‘But they go out of it all the time, too, usually after about thirty seconds. That’s the secret.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘In a clothing store,’ explained Karen, ‘you go in, you have a peek at the gear, maybe pick up a shirt and put it down again, and if you don’t see anything you like, you just leave. Easy. A place like ours is different. Once somebody makes the decision to go in, he knows he’s going to pay for something. I mean, he knows that the other people on the street who watched him go in are thinking, “Look at that slimeball going into that sex shop.” Then once he’s inside, he knows everyone in the shop is thinking, “Look at that loser, he’s got a hard-on and nowhere to put it, poor ugly bastard, no wonder he can’t get himself a girlfriend.” Then when he leaves, there’s more people out in the street thinking, “Look at that slimeball coming out of that sex shop – what’s he been doing in there? Probably just finished wanking!” Now, do you think a guy’s going to go through all that for nothing? No way! He’s going to spend a heap of money on a dirty movie, maybe a stripshow, magazines – anything to make it worthwhile coming in. And all the guys you’re calling to know that. That’s why they don’t come in!’