Cold Sea Stories

by Pawel Huelle

  ‘From this year,’ he said, looking up at the sky, ‘you’re going to study music – Jonatan will come to us three times a week. You have plenty of time until the autumn to make your choice.’

  ‘But,’ I asked rather uncertainly, ‘what am I to choose between?’

  ‘What do you mean? The violin or the piano.’

  He definitely preferred the piano, but he didn’t say a word. Only when his father was tapping out the ash from the bowl of his pipe against the wet edge of the pond did he inquire: ‘So what about the Prussians? Did they live in our house?’

  His father laughed long and loud.

  ‘But I told you, there’s nothing left of them. Well, almost nothing. Just a few words, that’s all. For instance, our lake has two names, even in the official atlas. Krzywe and Ukiel. And the Prussian name, Ukiel, means just the same as Krzywe: “crooked”.’

  Back in his tiny bedroom in the loft, as he listened to the endless croaking of the frogs punctuated by the hooting of an owl, he kept mindlessly repeating: ‘Ukiel-dukiel, crooked crook-iel’, as if it were a sort of incantation.

  Now there were some belated party-goers driving down the street. A dirty Land Rover was dragging a chain of strung-together cans behind it. One of the drunken passengers kept firing a shotgun again and again into the sky and shouting: ‘Socialismo o muerte! Venceremos! Viva Fidel!’ Somewhere nearby a car alarm started to wail and some stray cats began to yowl, which the new, centre-right district administration had been battling with for a few months to no avail. He fetched his address book and chose Marta’s number, which he hadn’t called for about seven years. After a long wait he finally heard a ringing tone, and straight after that a soft, female voice.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Marta?’

  ‘No, it’s not Marta. Who’s that?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. This is Joachim. Is Marta there?’

  ‘I’ll just fetch my mum.’

  Finally he heard his sister’s voice.

  ‘Is that really you?’ she asked. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. I just wanted to come. For a few weeks. Is there a chance you can put me up?’

  Marta did not reply immediately. Only after a few seconds, as if she had to have a good think about it, did she answer in a hushed tone: ‘But yes, of course, come over!’

  III

  The snow came like salvation. On the third day after the wet, grey holidays, large flakes of it began to fall on Jesionowa Street, coating the overflowing dustbins, cluttered little gardens and dog messes at the edge of the bald lawns. Joachim was delighted: the whiteness engulfed not just the world of things, but also spread itself like a soft mantle over his skittish, anxious thoughts. Even the places he had missed, and which immediately after his arrival had seemed to him hideous and unrecognisable, now took on a neutral softness thanks to the fluffy white snow. In fact, from the slightly bow-shaped street, built up on either side with angular terraced houses, he’d been unable to reconstruct the old road that passed the pond and led to the woodshed; but once a thick layer of snow was covering them, the ugly, identical houses no longer looked as awful. Even the mechanic’s workshop, which had been erected on the site of the old pond – a heavy concrete lump with a row of dirty glass bricks running under its flat roof – did not offend Joachim’s gaze as painfully now that it was covered by a white hat.

  It went on snowing for four days. Then, along with a cold, icy wind from the east came a powerful frost. At last it all calmed down and, at a temperature of minus fifteen, the sunlight brought an austere brightness out of the wintry landscape.

  Joachim went down to the cellar. Among the empty jars, cardboard boxes, broken furniture and piles of magazines he discovered a pair of old ice-hockey skates. They had probably belonged to Andrzej: his brother had the same shoe size as him. As he was perching on a small stool in the hall polishing the leather – dried stiff by time – Marta came out to him from the kitchen.

  ‘Are you angry?’ she asked, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘No, why should I be? But your son-in-law is an awful yob. Fancy sending away the piano tuner the day before Christmas! I’d have paid him, since I ordered him. Couldn’t you have called me down from upstairs?’

  Marta took a small glass jar from her apron pocket and tapped ash into it.

  ‘And those comments,’ he calmly went on, without looking up from the boot, ‘those stupid allusions. So I’ve come here to get my money back, have I? Couldn’t you have told him I gave up my share in your favour long ago?’

  ‘I did tell him,’ said Marta shaking her head, ‘but you can see for yourself. He bosses everyone around. With four children.’

  He wanted to add that in his view all four of them were dreadfully badly behaved and nasty, just like their father, or rather not brought up at all, but as soon as he looked at Marta, he went straight back to his interrupted job. There were tears in her eyes.

  ‘You have no idea how hard it is,’ she said, slowly stubbing out her cigarette. ‘Ever since Marian died, I’ve lost all my energy. Are you really going to skate on those?’ she asked, changing the subject. ‘Wait a moment, I’ll get you some woolly socks.’

  As he walked down hill to the lake, Joachim felt depressed. He couldn’t shake off the stifling, unpleasant atmosphere in the house. He felt sorry for Marta, but he had no influence on her life. Everyone, including her daughter, seemed to ignore her. And exploit her. The retired librarian cooked, washed, ironed and did the shopping, but was shown absolutely no respect for it. She was like an old servant who is only spoken to in case of need. All these days she had avoided talking to him one-to-one. He’d noticed that as soon as her son-in-law appeared, she fell silent. And yet there was at least one thing they ought to clarify. For years on end, month in, month out, Joachim had sent her 150 US dollars. Nowadays it was an almost ridiculous sum, but under the communists, converted into the zlotys of the day, it was rather a lot. When he wrote to say he couldn’t support her any more, that he was having some temporary problems and that he hadn’t been able to pull himself together since Julia died, she hadn’t answered, nor had she written for several years. He realised she had her own troubles, but after all this time shouldn’t she at least – even just a word or two – say thank you?

  Luckily the sun was shining, and the powdery snow was crunchy underfoot. Down by the lake Joachim spied out the abutment of the old landing-stage, where he sat down and quickly changed his boots. The wind, which had been raging the previous night, had formed deep drifts in some places, but there were also whole expanses of ice that were free of snow, as if specially cleared for him. He raced ahead at great speed, turned wide circles, spun large and small figures of eight, and felt a surge of happiness. As he was returning to the house, the violet shadows of early dusk were already being cast on the snow. The family dinner was over by now, but Marta was waiting for him specially, and they ate together, the two of them, in the kitchen.

  ‘Do you remember the old, abandoned barn on the hill?’ he asked.

  She did. The three of them, including Andrzej, had crept up there on the dot of noon. The air was rippling in the heat as they ran round the wooden skeleton chanting: ‘Bare-bottomed man, come out of the barn! Bare-bottomed man, come out of the barn!’ As soon as something moved inside, they raced off all the way to the grave, shouting at the top of their voices.

  Why exactly had they called that place the grave? Old Maudzis, who did his ploughing every spring with a horse harnessed to a ploughshare, was always finding disintegrating clay pots there. Then he would cross himself and shout against the wind: ‘By Potrimpe, by Patollu, by Verszajte divine, touch thou not this grave of mine!’ Andrzej did the funniest imitation of him. First he crossed himself just like the old man, then he stuck his bum out in his direction, puffed up his lips, and let out a monstrous, raucous fart. Maudzis would yell swear words and throw clumps of earth at them. Sometimes he threw a shard from a clay pot.

  ‘I’m paying him back now,
’ said Marta about Andrzej. ‘We haven’t seen each other since Mother died. Do you correspond?’

  Joachim said no. Zdzisław, the son-in-law, entered the kitchen. In a conciliatory way he set a decanter full of fruit liqueur and two glasses on the table.

  ‘Don’t be angry,’ he said, pouring a glass for himself and Joachim. ‘If I’d known you ordered the piano tuner, I’d even have paid him myself. But the man was standing in the doorway, I’d just dropped in from the workshop for a moment, and I thought he was some sort of conman, a Jehovah’s witness or something. So what happened, happened. But I’ve ordered him for tomorrow. At my expense.’

  ‘Well I never, sir!’ Somehow Joachim couldn’t get onto first-name terms with Marta’s son-in-law. ‘Why not pour a drink for your mother-in-law? Marta, will you have a drop with us?’

  Without a word, Zdzisław fetched a third glass from the sideboard.

  The cherry brandy was weak and too sweet.

  When Joachim made a move to go up to his room, Marta grabbed him by the wrist.

  ‘Just tell me one thing. Why did you stop playing? Actually, why did you never start? I mean the stage, your career – well, why?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You were the only one of us who could have achieved something. Teachers, lessons. Just you. You went away, and nothing came of it! Nothing!’

  ‘Well, quite,’ said Joachim, kissing Marta on the cheek. ‘Nothing worked out for me either. But is that such a big sin?’

  As he lay in bed, he thought about the nightmare Christmas Eve from a few days ago. The television switched on, the teenagers bickering, Marta forever on the go, and finally the piano that hadn’t been tuned for years, at which he had pointedly sat down and furiously played a carol that sounded dreadful.

  Now he regretted it, like a schoolboy prank. But soon he was dreaming. Large snowflakes fell silently on the ash tree, under which his mother was arranging some gift boxes. Above the large, old tree a star was twinkling. The Pole star, not the Star of Bethlehem.

  IV

  The piano tuner rang to say he was ill and could only come in a week at the soonest. Zdzisław tried to find another one, but with no result. Joachim was not in the least upset. Every day, taking advantage of the frosty, sunny weather, he went out skating. He toured ever more distant corners of the lake. In some places the new estates and housing districts came right down to the shore, wound around the bays and occupied the hills. He often passed speeding ice yachts, or nearer the buildings, boys playing hockey. One day, a single skater separated himself from one of these groups and, to Joachim’s amazement, started to keep him company. It was a very strange impression: the man was skating in parallel to him at a distance of about thirty metres, copying his every movement like in a mirror. When Joachim stopped abruptly, so did that fellow, and he slowed down in just the same way. When Joachim turned a figure of eight, that man turned one too. When he skated on just his left foot for a while, holding his right leg up like a crane, that fellow did the same.

  ‘I haven’t gone mad, have I?’ wondered Joachim, glancing into the bright blue sky (the man glanced skywards too). ‘He’s not my lookalike!’ Indeed, he didn’t look like Joachim at all; he was smaller, with a slight build, and he was dressed differently too. From afar he seemed to be wearing rather theatrical, old-fashioned clothes. But it was impossible to get any nearer: whenever Joachim moved towards him, the fellow immediately moved exactly the same distance away. When he did a low, rather clownish bow, the fellow bowed back in an identical manner.

  ‘Once I press him to the shore,’ the simple idea dawned on him, ‘he’ll have to go past me. Unless he flies off straight onto dry land. But then I’ll catch up with him...’

  First he sped off towards Likusy, then he made an abrupt about-turn in the direction of the Old Manor, and finally built up incredible speed as he headed straight for the Podlesie shore. And it happened; with no space to escape into, right by the shore the stranger did in fact turn round and glide straight towards him. But it was an unnaturally rapid manoeuvre, devilish quick somehow; at the last second Joachim dodged, but not soon enough to slow down, so he crashed headlong into the shore, luckily landing in a deep snowdrift.

  He even found the situation amusing.

  Could I really have encountered the devil? Things like that only happen in stories, especially nineteenth-century, and best of all, Russian ones, he thought as he wiped his face, pleasantly cooled by the snow.

  He had seen that figure somewhere before: in a black frock coat, with the white splash of a cravat, in a fanciful hat, and with those funny skates, which were strapped on to some flat-soled boots. But where and when?

  The whole way home he kept looking behind him, but the stranger had vanished. As he was climbing the rise to the estate, he turned to look at the lake again, and then he caught sight of the fellow, standing on the ice a few dozen metres from the shore, bowing and politely tipping his hat.

  ‘I haven’t gone mad, have I?’ Joachim said to himself several times over, as he walked down Jesionowa Street. ‘Someone’s having a joke at my expense. Must be some local oddball. There always were plenty of oddballs around here.’

  That evening Marta gave in to some painful memories. One single word was like a concentrate containing the ultimate cause of all their family disasters and failures: Wadąg. That was the name of their father’s favourite lake, where he had his own boat, where once – probably in 1966 – he caught a fifteen-kilo catfish, and where, in a small, wooden cottage on a headland, lived the pastor’s wife, widow of the Reverend Eberhard Jellinek.

  ‘What did he see in her?’ said Marta, pouting with contempt. ‘That Evangelical old witch! That hussy! That Protestant whore!’

  Joachim tried to calm her down. Why get upset, why curse, when none of them were alive any more? What could it matter nowadays?

  ‘Maybe you don’t remember how much Mother suffered!’ – Marta was not inclined to forgive the pastor’s widow – ‘And how embarrassing it was when he died there, at her place, in that house, in their marital bed, apparently!’

  Joachim had forgotten that detail. Whereas the sight of his father, always cheerful – as he drove up to the house on his powerful Zundapp motorbike after a night or two at Wadąg, as he walked across the yard with a net full of handsome pike and zander, still flapping – that sight brought back pleasant memories.

  ‘Well of course,’ said Marta, refusing to give up, ‘you men always prefer to remember nothing but the pleasant things. Hush it all up and sweep it under the carpet!’

  Despite their difference of opinion, somehow their conversation was affectionate. Marta admitted that they had cut down the big ash tree illegally; it was well over a hundred years old. Marian, her husband, had started building the workshop adjoining the house.

  ‘There was no alternative,’ she said, suddenly downcast, ‘but you know, once it was gone, once they had taken away the chopped-up trunk and the branches, I felt it was a bad omen. And that came true. Marian never finished the building. Only our son-in-law, years later. And it’s not so great now either, there’s too much competition.’ Marta drank a sip of tea from a chipped cup with a gold stripe. ‘They’re all lowering their prices, as if they were deliberately conspiring against us.’

  Joachim spent half the night sitting over his laptop, online. He searched for all sorts of different things, from images of the devil, through to the history of skating. But in vain. Only when he remembered a visit to the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, where he and Julia had once been, did it finally dawn on him. And how simple it proved to be! Sir Henry Raeburn’s painting of ‘The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch’, that ironical image of the skating minister, was exactly what he was looking for. The same black stockings, the same jaunty hat, cravat, flat-soled boots and strapped-on skates. But after a brief moment of satisfaction, he suddenly felt troubled: was it really possible, in this remote corner of the world, on Lake Ukiel, for someone to hav
e come up with such an insane and yet sophisticated idea? To make himself look like the Reverend Robert Walker he must have obtained the right costume, the boots and the old-fashioned skates. And why was he following Joachim, of all people? Perhaps, he rationalised, this oddball had simply headed onto the lake and picked out the first skater he met to play all those mirror-image tricks on him. And if so, Joachim decided, he really must catch up with the joker and have a chat with him: how had he come up with this idea? Did he only know the image of the skating Reverend Walker from a reproduction? In spite of these probable, if eccentric theories, or rather attempts at an explanation, Joachim felt rising anxiety. No, it wasn’t normal. To meet someone on the ice at his home lake who made himself look like a figure from a little known Scottish painting was something bordering on mental aberration.