Jacek stopped to say something. Paweł muttered, “I don’t remember,” and walked on quickly toward Borowskiego, a stretch of brick huts, warehouses, garages, and the telecommunications depot with a row of orange vans in the yard. The cheerful Żuks and Nysas—no trace of them. It occurred to Paweł that aside from bills he had only received three or four letters in his life, hadn’t sent more than that himself, and this would never change. Then Ratuszowa, a 6 tram was turning carefully at Targowa. Jacek caught up with him and asked:
“Have you been to see your folks?”
“They don’t have anything,” was the answer.
They followed the tram. Outside the school stood a bunch of kids in wide pants and their caps on backward. They were passing something from hand to hand with furtive glances. Paweł and Jacek walked through the group, and Paweł said:
“I was here yesterday. Remember Bogna?”
“Not really.”
“She didn’t have anything either.”
“Does anyone have anything?”
“I already tried the people who do, and they don’t have anything either.”
They cut across 11 Listopada and were swept up by the main current of Targowa. From the bus stop by the Four Sleepers monument a mass of men moved diagonally across the intersection and into the open doors of local trains: Ząbki, Drewnica, Zielonka, Kobyłka, and Tłuszcz were reclaiming their citizens after the first shift at the FSO plant. The lights were red, but the men walked like the old-fashioned working class, shoulder to shoulder, with the heroic feeling that the world still belonged to them and that the permanently smiling Koreans from Daewoo were a phantom only or a joke that would end before it turned ugly. Colorful Gypsy women stepped out of their way, while the pickpockets had no interest in the men’s wallets, which contained nothing but pictures of wives and children and loose change for cigarettes. It was an age till pay day Everything smelled of sweat, metal, and a hurried wash after the factory whistle, and even at night in their beds lingered the stink of the factory, because fathers had passed it down to their sons, the way talents and traits are passed down. The stink of hot aluminum, steel, enamel, rubber, of air burned by arcs.
“Where are we going?” asked Paweł when they found themselves on the other side of the human wave.
“You wanted something to eat.”
They went down into the underpass, where the neon was like fog, blurring everything. In this place people regained their shape only when they emerged again by the post office and went to catch a 4 tram or a 26 or a 34 and found themselves across the river, where the world was completely different. For decades they’d been getting out of trains and suburban buses at Wileński station dressed in garish clothing to invade, to conquer Downtown with its wonders, glitz, and glamour. From Łochów, Małkinia, Pustelnik, Radzymin, Poświętne, Guzowacizna, and Ciemne, from all those little backwaters with their roosters crowing at five in the morning, their fire stations and flat, plowed horizons, where instead of the sun the great city rises like a mirage magnified by the tales of those who have been there, seen it, touched it, or heard the legend. It was to tempt them that the Różyckiego bazaar appeared two streets on. By Brzeska, the smell of the country. White pyramids of heartshaped cheeses, eggs, pickled cucumbers, bundles of dead chickens, their pale, plucked bodies, live birds in shit-stained cages, carrots, parsnips, cream in metal cans, black rapeseed oil in old vodka bottles, sacks of wheat, linseed, poppy seed, dried peas and beans, barrels of sauerkraut, pigs’ heads, cows’ udders, flies, the stink of burnt feathers, the dry smell of burlap sacks, old women’s armpits, honey in bottles, lard in jars, buckwheat, rhubarb, blueberries measured out in a half-liter mug, and the sour stench of cottages in which the air hasn’t changed for generations.
But a moment later, the smell of shiny plastic, celluloid, and non-iron fabric. Beatles boots with stacked heels and turned-up tips, Plexiglas cuff links with naked women inside, neckties on elastic bands pre-tied and labeled “de Paris,” gold chains, crimson lipstick, Dacron, nylon raincoats with silver buttons, Cossack boots with zippers, baggy pants with a permanent crease, blouses tight as diving suits, badges, belts, buckles, bags, and beads—all made of bright psychedelic polymers as in a child’s kaleidoscope. From the reek of cabbage you entered a world of glistening, sterile color, everyone did, those too who had hardly anything, who had seen these man-made hues only in their churches during May services. And that was the real revolution, because it took place in their hearts and eyes, and from that time they were destined and nothing could stop them in their march from the eastern plains of Sokołów Podlaski all the way to Ostrów Mazowiecka, from Kałuszyn to Wyszków, from Mińsk Mazowiecki to Ciechanowiec. First they sent spies, then an advance guard, and eventually captured bridgeheads in Ząbki, Żielonka, Rembertów, on the Otwock line, in places where at sunset you could see the tattered line of the Downtown skyscrapers, with the Palace of Culture and Science against the disk of a sun as red as the Sacred Heart.
While Jacek phoned, Paweł stared at a youngster in a leather jacket who held black-strapped Casios on the fingers of both hands and twirled them like a juggler. Next to the kid stood an old man selling fluffy slippers, and a pisshead in a light jacket held out a pile of LPs with the band Christie on top. But mainly there were the Vietnamese, selling tracksuits, T-shirts, Puma and Adidas knock-offs. Their small, frail figures like theater puppets, or immaculate dolls whom someone had locked in the cellar but who kept their good humor and elegance.
Paweł went to a stall and touched a black tracksuit.
“How much?” he asked.
The girl in the quilted jacket smiled and said:
“Sis hundre.”
“Good deal,” he said. She looked him in the eyes and nodded.
“You buy thuree, one million fi hundre.”
He turned the packet in his hands and tried to feel the material through the plastic.
“You want see?” she asked.
“Yes. This one.”
She took out a turquoise blouse with an eagle on the breast. He rubbed the fabric between his fingers.
“Chinese.”
“Not China,” she said in English, shaking her head. “Hong Kong.”
“It’s really cheap,” he said. “What about those T-shirts?”
She fanned out a pile of white Ts bearing a comic-book drawing of a man’s face.
“Che Guevara one hundre.”
“What?”
“One hundre thousan. For thuree, two hundre fitty.”
He couldn’t tear his eyes from her long, dark, delicate fingers. Her nails had a pearly sheen and were convex.
“What about for five?”
“Fou hundre.”
She wore no jewelry. Fine sinews moving under brown skin. The cadaverous light of the underground passage did not affect her hands: he was certain they were warm. He asked her to show him a dark-green dressing gown patterned with brown and gold flowers. She held it up to her own body. Too big for her, it almost reached the ground. He leaned over the table and saw her feet in small, shining white sneakers.
“Million,” she said. “Look good. For wife?”
“No, not wife.” He was about to say something nice to her but felt someone touch his arm.
And Bolek and Iron Man were sitting in the Beamer drinking beer. To the left, a little store on the first floor of a crumbling apartment building. To the right, another building like it. On the dirt courtyard a kid bounced a ball and took shots at an iron ring fastened to a tree. Two others appeared. He passed the ball to them. One had bandages on his arms. They tried a few times more but kept missing, so they began kicking the ball about. The other houses on the alley were single-story. Some with bullet holes. Jars of food on windowsills. Someone went into the store and immediately came out again. An elderly woman with a walking stick carried bottles in a bag. The sky was blue. The view down the street was blocked by a railroad embankment.
They drove slowly. The black roof flashed in the
sun. From a window over the store a forty-year-old woman wearing makeup and a housecoat was watching them. She took a drag on her cigarette. She had red nails. Her name was Bożena. She turned around and shouted into the apartment. In the building opposite, on the second floor, a boy and girl lay on an imitation leather sofa and watched Walker, Texas Ranger. The boy slipped his hand under the girl’s dress.
A left turn. A narrow cinder road led through a stand of pines. Beyond, a small green patch of winter crop. Houses reappeared—small dwellings assembled from brick, asbestos tiles, and reed mats roughly plastered over. A man cut firewood in one of the yards. His son digging in a vegetable patch. The mother baking a cake in the kitchen.
A right turn, stopping at the asphalt to let a bus go by. The doors of a church open. A little girl walking up the steps with a bouquet of white flowers. Her silhouette disappeared inside as if into dark water. A cat lay in the road, flattened, dry. By a kiosk a full trash can smoldered. A kid rode up on a bicycle and without getting off asked for a carton of Klubowys. There was no wind. Bare poplars cast graceful shadows. The air soft and sickly.
Iron Man popped another beer and passed it to Bolek. He opened one for himself too. They passed an overgrown villa with a veranda and columns. In the yard someone tinkering with a red Zastava, but they couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman because of the raised hood. Smoke rose from the chimney of a small bakery. On the square, once a playing field, was now an unfinished house. A woman in a pink sweater taking a shortcut through the bushes, smoking and talking to herself. Her high heels sinking into the earth. A green Laguna with a CD dangling from the rearview mirror moved toward them. Behind it a lumbering orange Kamaz truck carrying a full load of rubble. Young birches, a golden haze, two teenagers playing with a condom, blowing it up and releasing the air with a shrill farting sound.
The Beamer moved heavily, sensuously. At the tracks the silver razor of the rails lay on the high embankment, so bright that they couldn’t see which signal light was on. The brown woods in the distance as if cut in two. They reminisced about when trolleys with old Warszawa chassis traveled the rails and the ties were made of wood and smelled of dynamite, urine, and grease. Waiters in the buffet cars of long-distance trains would toss out sacks of trash. The boys would find them torn open and scattered along the embankment. Sanitary napkins, glass, filthy stuff, nothing special, but occasionally Coca-Cola bottle caps and empty packs of foreign smokes. Once they found the queen of spades from a pornographic pack of cards, a woman spreading her legs. They followed her trail and found the ten of hearts with an ingenious threesome. They continued to the last houses but were unable to complete the pack to play any sort of game. They rooted in the ditch, scoured the bushes, walked in the middle of the tracks, then turned and searched the slopes. It was autumn, the grass turning brown and yellow, taking on the color of human bodies. The jack of diamonds was such a tangle of flesh, they couldn’t figure out which side was up. Scraps of paper, bottles, cans. An express train drove them off the tracks. The king of clubs lay on the path that ran alongside the ditch, distinct but incomprehensible. At dusk, an October chill rising from the earth. They hopped like sparrows from one piece of trash to the next. Bolek had three cards, Iron Man only one. Desire kept them hoping. An occasional glance at what they held, as if sneaking a look at a crib sheet. Zigzagging along the track, embankment, ditch, and path. Iron Man found half of the ace of clubs, the top half of a blonde with eyes closed and mouth open. Then smaller pieces, fourths, that showed nothing. Night was falling, and they didn’t even show each other what they found, just stuffed the cards into their pockets and ran faster, farther, covered with sweat. Finally picking up anything that was visible, flat, and felt like stiff paper. They stopped only when they saw the lights of the next station. They returned breathless, silent, with their fingers trying to feel what they had in their pockets.
Now, adults, they slowed to a walking pace because the Beamer was lurching over potholes and scraping its belly on the cinders. To their right, a long building roofed with tar paper. Several of the chimneys smoking. Life was going on in ten one-room apartments. People sitting together and watching television. Women opened doors and let out kitchen smells. Men pottering about in small sheds behind chain-link fences, fixing mopeds or cars that would never drive again. Between chicken coops, old discolored refrigerators, things still kept in them. Objects rarely used or completely unnecessary, but even when thrown out they remained in reach and were property. A crow perched on a satellite dish.
“They probably still eat rabbits.”
“Rabbit is good,” said Iron Man. “But I hated it when the old man killed them. You start to be fond of the thing, then it’s the holidays so grab it by the ears and no more bunny.”
“Are we going to stop?” asked Bolek.
“Why? I don’t know anyone around here now. They’re all new.”
“You sound like the old folks.”
“Beirut, Bolek; this place is Beirut.”
“We could take a piss on it, then torch it.”
“Come on. You’d torch your family home?” Iron Man reached for his beer.
“I have one more job for you,” said Bolek.
“I just hope it’s not a big one,” said Iron Man, and they moved off in the direction of the city.
“She’ll be out in a minute,” said Jacek, and flicked his butt into space.
They were sitting on a bench and staring at the longest complex in the city. Like a wall with holes, or a precision-made cliff face. Jacek and Paweł were small, almost invisible; no one took notice of them. People hurrying to eat something or buy food. Only the children weren’t hungry: on Rollerblades and skateboards they did stunts in amateur imitation of their black brothers across the ocean. Freckled, pink, chubby-cheeked, in wide pants and tracksuits, they whizzed through the labyrinth of the yard beneath spray-painted graffiti that read Harlem, Bronx, Luśka gives head.
“She said we couldn’t because of her mother,” said Jacek, and lit up another. Plastic clattering on concrete, an echo skyward, resembling gunfire—probably the point. A young kid sped past them backward. He crouched, ducked under the carpet-beating frame, circled the sandbox, and vanished.
“You see? In curves,” said Jacek. “And if they fall, they get up and start over.“
“So?”
“I’m just saying. They don’t go in a straight line. Kids used to. These guys turn.”
“It’s not like they have anywhere to go.”
“Right.”
Then they saw her. She was walking toward them in her green army jacket, carrying a plastic bag. She came up, stood in front of Jacek, lifted the sack:
“Lots of goodies. We’re going to my girlfriend’s.”
Again he was watching the rapid kitchen knife. The blade clicking on the cutting board. Pieces of leek scattered in thin rings, mixing with the slices of carrot, cubes of celery From time to time she would push the pile to one side; the rhythm would be broken, and her breasts would fall still under her black blouse.
“You didn’t bring any meat?” he asked.
“No. My mother keeps it in the freezer, but she’s got it all earmarked.”
Somewhere behind him, from the other side of the dark hallway, music. Jacek came out of the bathroom, went to the girl, stroked her hair.
“The usual?”
“Yes,” she answered, “but different proportions.”
“Proportions are important,” he said, and stared out the window. The music grew louder. A door slammed, and a girl in a miniskirt and black tights poked her head into the kitchen. Large gold earrings glittered in her dark-blue hair. High heels with a leopardskin pattern. Paweł said hello, didn’t hear a reply, maybe he had missed it. Jacek, back turned, tapped out a rhythm on the windowsill.
“You have everything?”
“Yes,” said Beata. “Except I couldn’t find any oil.”
“There’s butter.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“I know. But there isn’t any. Yesterday we made french fries, and the oil got so dirty, I had to throw it out.”
She almost brushed against Paweł and started rooting in the cupboard. Musk mingled with coffee, cinnamon, and pepper. Tiny freckles on her arms. He figured she was a redhead. She slammed the last door shut.
“There isn’t any. Send one of them to the store. And by the way, why are they standing around like that?” She turned to Paweł. “Sit down, or you’ll get tired. Or come into the living room and let them run the show here.”
Against the window she was a sharp shadow. Moving her hips slightly. The rhythm made her exquisite, mechanical. At first he thought it was for his benefit, but then he realized that she’d simply returned to her music, permanently linked to it, moving as long as it was on. When the song ended, she turned and rested her ass on the windowsill. He thought she would say something now, but the next song began and her knee took up the pulse. The Lycra like a reflected sunbeam. Now planting her feet wider, she was a guy perched on a fence waiting for a bus. His gaze strayed about the room but kept returning to the darkness between her thighs.
“What is it?” He nodded at the hi-fi.
“Don’t know. Got it yesterday. Cool, huh?”
“Is there singing?”
“No, it’s just music.”
Now tapping with the tip of her shoe. First straight, then to the sides, pivoting on the heel. Her right thigh shifted and let through a little light.
“That guy of hers is a little wacko, right?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“He looks like trash. Must have got that suit from his father. You known him long?”
“On and off.”
Nine Page 9