by Sue Gee
‘Do you really? And now you’re working here as a skivvy. Is that right?’
She didn’t answer or look up.
‘No jobs in Poland? Nothing you could do there?’ He held out the passport. ‘If I were you, I’d go back to Poland the minute that visa runs out,’ he said. ‘You understand?’
‘Yes.’ She took the passport and watched him go to the door. He didn’t turn round or look at her again, simply opened it and walked out, closing it behind him. Danuta sank on to the bed, and burst into tears. She felt her damp towel begin to slip until it fell on to her shoulders, and she picked it up and hurled it across the narrow, shabby room. It hit the wardrobe door and fell to the floor. She ran her hands through her wet hair, still crying. What was she going to do? She’d have to leave the hotel, and look for somewhere else. Was she really going to have to go back to Poland? She thought of her parents, of being safely with them at home, of her mother bringing her tea in bed, hearing her father calling goodbye as he left for work, and she couldn’t even remember why she’d left. Then she thought of cold dark winter mornings, of she or her mother getting up at six to go and queue, for bread, for flour, for meat, for everything.
If I go back, she thought, there will be a job perhaps as a filing clerk, with nothing to hope for. If I stay here, I have the thin hope that perhaps, once my English is fluent, I can get a work permit, a good job, a proper job, with proper money to send home, I can visit Mama and Tata, even bring them over here to visit me. God, I never imagined all this! I thought it would be so easy – a fortune saved in a few months, and then I’d go home, I suppose, and try again. I’m not going back with nothing! But supposing I don’t get a proper job here? Well, then I’ll have to go home.
She reached for the tissues on the bedside locker, and blew her nose. Then she got up, picked up the towel and shook it, and began angrily to rub her hair. She thought: I am twenty-three years old, I am educated, with a good degree, I should be at the start of my career. Instead, I have the choice between certain poverty and possible poverty, while my parents, who have worked every day of their lives, live on rationed food in a cramped apartment and look forward to a retirement spent in queues, counting every złoty.
She finished rubbing her hair, and looked round for her spongebag, with her washed hairbrush in it. It was on the bed, where she had dropped it when she came in with the men from the Home Office, and beside it was her passport. I was lucky, she thought, running the brush through her hair, or he was kind. Then she remembered Enrico, struggling and shouting as they hauled him up the stairs, who by now must be sitting in a police cell, waiting to be deported. Enrico didn’t have a degree, he could barely write. She drew a deep breath, and finished brushing her hair. There was an urgent knocking on her door.
‘Yes?’ She hurried across and opened it. The girl from Wroclaw stood outside, and clearly had been crying, too.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Danuta. ‘I was lucky. Are you?’
‘Yes. It was the Colombians they were looking for. Did you hear Enrico?’
‘Yes. I was just thinking about him.’
‘I’ve been up to the kitchens, they’re making tea. Apparently one of the cooks, Franco, you know that one? He jumped out of the window when they went in. He’s sprained his ankle, but he’s okay.’ She put her arm round Danuta. ‘Do you want to come up and have some tea? We’re all right – not our turn yet.’ She grinned wryly. ‘Come on.’
Danuta went upstairs with her. She stayed up late, drinking tea in the neon-lit kitchen and talking. She wanted to wait up for Basia, but by half-past eleven she couldn’t stay awake any longer. She crawled into bed and switched off the light. Out in the street, a group of boys went by, laughing and shouting. She could hear guests coming up the steps to the hotel front door, back from the West End. There was a coachload of Scandinavians arriving tomorrow, she remembered Lisa telling them. Twenty rooms, not fifteen, to do in the morning. She turned over, and fell asleep.
In the morning, over breakfast, she told Basia about the raid.
Basia shook her head. ‘I’m leaving.’
‘Where will you go?’
She hesitated. ‘I’ve been going out with one of my customers from the restaurant. A French guy – he’s very sweet. He’s offered to let me stay with him, he has a lovely apartment near Sloane Square, I think he’s extremely rich.’
‘Oh.’ Danuta looked at her. Basia was so pale and thin these days that in another age you might have thought she had consumption. ‘But – what about your boyfriend?’
Basia pushed back her soft blonde hair. ‘I don’t know – I haven’t written to him for a few weeks. Perhaps he’s forgotten me.’ She looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Come on, we’d better go up.’
It felt strange to collect their plates and not see Enrico, cursing at the sink as they passed them to him. They climbed the stairs, and prepared for the Scandinavians.
As she finished the last room, Danuta thought: But there must be someone here who can help us, some organization for Polish people. After lunch, before leaving for school, she went into the foyer of the hotel where, next to the glass case of plastic dolls holding union jacks, and plastic models of Big Ben, there were two phone booths, and directories. Even now, it felt strange to be up here, among all the tourists, looking, once she had changed out of her overalls, like a tourist herself, but feeling so different. The coachload had arrived: the foyer was filled with enormous blonde people heaving suitcases. She pushed her way through to the phone booths, and pulled out the L-R directory. She rifled the pages until she came to P and Polish, and ran her finger down the column. Polish Air Force, Polish Airlines, Bookshop, Catholic Centre … There was a committee for refugees. She wasn’t a refugee, at least, thank God, so far she wasn’t that, but the address was in the West End, she could go there after school, perhaps, and they might be able to advise her about how best to stay here, her chances of getting a work permit. She wrote down the number and address, and put back the directory. Then she looked at her watch and thought: I’ll try them now. But when she dialled the number, it was engaged. She waited a few minutes, dialled again. Still engaged. Behind her, a Scandinavian was waiting.
‘You have finished, miss?’
She put down the receiver. ‘Yes.’ She hurried across the foyer and down the steps. Basia wasn’t coming to the school, perhaps she wasn’t going to come again at all, now she had her Frenchman.
Danuta walked along the street towards the Bayswater Road, and crossed over so that she could walk alongside the park, beneath the trees. The sky was overcast, it was humid, debilitating; she felt suddenly so tired that the thought of going to sit in a class for two hours was almost unendurable. Also, she had a sudden vision of going back to the hotel tonight to find that there had been another raid. She had been given a chance, last night – next time, if it came, might be very different. I’ll go to this refugee place now, she thought, and stopped and pulled out her A-Z.
The office was in a long street running parallel to Oxford Street. In the oppressive closeness of the afternoon, it took her about half a hour to walk there, and find the brass plate outside the door. There was a Polish clinic here, too – that might be useful.
The clinic was on the first floor. Through an open door, she had a glimpse of a very old, beautifully dressed woman talking softly in Polish to a girl in dark blue behind a typewriter. Then an old man in a tweed jacket and glasses came out of a door further along the landing; he closed it quietly behind him, and came past her.
‘Proszę …’ He said it to the air, rather than to her, and went in to the office. He was one of the doctors? Danuta tapped on the open door.
‘Tak?’
‘Excuse me,’ she said in Polish, and explained who she was looking for.
‘On the top floor.’ The woman smiled at her, vaguely.
‘Thank you. And – may I use the bathroom?’
‘Well … yes. It is through here.’
‘Thank you.’
She walked through the little office, up a couple of steps and pushed open a door with a brass handle. The bathroom which lay beyond it was cool and spacious; set among the plain white tiles were some which were hand-painted, oriental-looking, figures in crimson and prussian-blue robes. The bath and basin were enormous, with brass taps; soft net curtains hung at the open window. Danuta went to the lavatory, and washed her hands, and thought: I wouldn’t mind living in here for a few days. Then she went out, and up the stairs, which as they approached the top floor became narrow and were no longer carpeted. There was a closed door on the top landing. She knocked, and waited. There was no answer. She knocked again. When there was still no answer, she tried the handle. The door was not locked; it opened, and she walked into a square room with a window at the far end. There were three desks, an unlit gas fire beneath a mantelpiece, and large, very old-looking filing cabinets. On the walls were two large posters: Danuta stepped a little further into the room, and stood looking at them.
On one an emaciated man was crawling across a pile of rubble, or perhaps emerging from a sewer hole. The man was exhausted, probably wounded, an arm upraised as he struggled forward, gasping. Behind him lay the ruins of defeated Warsaw. There was a date on the poster: 1944. And an inscription: Their struggle is your struggle, their fight your fight. The other poster was on the wall near the door. Again, the piles of rubble, and skeletal, devastated buildings, very dark. There were no words here, just the full-length shadowy silhouette of Christ, in the crown of thorns, walking silently through the ruined city.
Danuta looked at them for a long time. There were no other posters, nothing to suggest Solidarity even existed. She waited in the empty office for someone to return, and offer to help her, but no one came. After a while, she felt like an intruder, and went out and closed the door. She went slowly down the stairs to the clinic.
‘Excuse me – there is no one upstairs.’
‘No?’ The woman shrugged, not indifferently, but not quite knowing what to suggest. ‘They must be out – I think they have an old people’s home somewhere in the country. Perhaps they are visiting … You can always come back.’
‘Yes,’ said Danuta. ‘I can always come back. Thank you.’
She went out, and down the wide clean stairs and out into the street. Then she walked slowly through the street behind Oxford Street, towards her cafe on the edge of Chinatown, and her evening job.
Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-pip. Then a coin, pushed into the slot quickly. Then a voice.
‘Ewa?’
At once, the rush of happiness, hearing his voice.
‘Yes,’ she said, having known from the first pip who it was. She had waited for five days for him to call, jumping each time the phone rang. No one else needed to ring her from a phone box.
‘It’s Stefan.’
‘Yes.’
‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘What have you been wearing to work?’
‘I borrowed a pair of overalls from my boss,’ he said, and she could tell he was smiling.
‘Oh. Good.’
There was a pause. She had thought he would phone her the next evening – for the overalls, but also … He had borrowed a pair from his boss. So there had been no problem. And no need for him to phone.
‘Ewa? Are you angry with me for not calling earlier?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, because of course she had to say that, it was absurd that she should have been angry, or worried, or hurt. Or to be feeling terribly nervous, now.
‘I didn’t phone you because I was thinking.’
‘Oh.’
‘That you were right not to give me your number.’
‘Oh.’
‘For both our sakes.’
‘Oh. Yes.’
Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-pip. Another coin.
‘Hello? I’m sorry. I can’t get used to these things.’
‘Shall I call you back? Where are you?’
‘I’m in the hostel,’ and she could hear, now, voices behind him, echoing, as if in a foyer or hall with a very high ceiling. ‘They don’t take incoming calls.’
So his wife couldn’t call him from Warsaw, either. That must be strange. That must be horrible.
‘Ewa?’
Ewa? Always, on that tender, inquiring note, as if it were a name that really mattered. Fool! How could she think such things?
‘You understand what I’m saying? That you were right, that it’s better we don’t see each other again?’
Outside the window overlooking the long, tangled garden behind the house, it was raining, a light, summer evening fall. Ewa, at her desk, held the receiver in one hand, and put her head in the other, and shut her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes.’
‘But I won’t forget you,’ he said. ‘Even though it was only one meeting. We won’t forget each other, will we?’
Stop it, stop it. ‘I don’t know,’ she said flatly. ‘Anyway – thank you for phoning. I hope everything goes well for you.’
‘And you, Ewa. And you.’ A pause. ‘Be happy.’
Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-pip. Always, there were a few seconds after the pips in which you could say a quick goodbye. But he wouldn’t know about those, and anyway – anyway. She put down the receiver, and sat with her head in her hands. Ridiculous, absurd, shaming, to be so … stricken.
And yet. And yet. To find someone she liked so much … She pushed the thought away, and got up quickly. Her cigarettes were on the desk, and she lit one, remembering his voice. Ah, the Camel. He is everywhere in Warsaw. She went out to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, hearing Toby and Ben come into the house, banging the front door and calling: ‘Mum? Mum!’ She put on the kettle, and the phone rang. She ran to answer it, stubbing her foot on the door.
‘Hello?’
No pips.
‘Hello, Ewa.’
‘Oh. Jerzy.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine, I just banged my toe … Hang on.’ She put down the receiver, and the cigarette in the ashtray, and rubbed her foot. There was something, wasn’t there? Stop it, stop it! She picked up the receiver again.
‘Sorry. Sorry, how are you?’
‘I’m fine. Is your toe all right?’
‘Yes, my toe is fine, it’s just the rest of me. Never mind. What do you want?’
‘Would you like me to ring back later?’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve had a bad day. How are you? How’s Elizabeth?’
‘We’re both perfectly all right. I just thought we hadn’t heard from you for a little while, and Mama said last time she spoke to you, you sounded a bit … odd.’
That was yesterday, when she’d thought it was Stefan phoning.
‘Well, I’m all right, it’s just been a bit hectic at work. Would you and Elizabeth like to come to supper? This weekend? You haven’t been for ages. Come on Saturday.’
‘Okay, thanks. I’d better just check.’ She heard him cover the receiver with his hand, and muffled voices. I don’t mind if Elizabeth says no, she thought, or if I hear her saying no. She’s not going to say anything else, is she? That I shouldn’t hear?
‘Hello,’ said Jerzy. ‘Yes, that’s fine. Actually …’ He hesitated. ‘Actually, there was another reason for phoning, to tell you something … but perhaps we’ll tell you on Saturday.’
‘Tell me now,’ she said, knowing at once what it was, for what else could it be, with those two? ‘But you don’t need to, I know what it is.’
‘What?’
‘You’re getting married.’
‘Yes. Ewa? Are you pleased?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course I am. It’s lovely.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘What does it matter what I think about it? So long as you’re happy, I don’t care what you do.’
‘Hey! What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing! I told you,
I’ve had a bad day, do I have to explain every blessed thing to my family? I’m delighted you’re getting married, and please give my love to Elizabeth. I’ll look forward to seeing you on Saturday. Goodbye.’
‘I’ll phone you in the week,’ said Jerzy slowly. ‘I hope you’re okay. Bye.’
He put down the phone, and Ewa banged down hers, and picked up her cigarette again. It was raining harder, and it was growing dark; she leaned across the table and snapped on the little lamp. It made a gentle pool of light, on the books and papers, the magazine of the Polish Solidarity Campaign, and she reached up and drew the curtains, hearing the kettle come to the boil, and thinking: it looks like a home. Then she went and switched off the kettle, and ran a bath, and lay in it for a long time, with the water very hot and the radio on very loud.
Afterwards, she lay on the sofa in her dressing gown and had her supper on a tray. There was a concert on Radio Three from the Festival Hall: two of the Brandenburgs, they always had them in the summer, for the tourists. When they had finished, in a thunder of applause, she turned off the radio, and lay listening to the rain, falling through the trees on the garden, and against the window panes. When the telephone rang, she was almost asleep.
She jumped, and sat up, scrambling over the back of the sofa to reach the receiver.
‘Hello?’
Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-pip. A coin pushed in, and then two more.
‘Ewa?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Stefan.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She could hear him take a breath. ‘Do you mind me phoning?’
‘It depends what you’re going to say.’
Another pause. Then: ‘Something that I shouldn’t say.’
Ewa thought: If I let this man think he can pick me up and put me down again as he chooses, and I say nothing, I will never, never have any respect for myself again. I’m afraid to tell him, because I’m afraid of men, that’s how it is, but – I have to say it. And she said carefully:
‘Will you please stop playing cat and mouse with me?’
There was a silence. Ewa could hear again the echoing voices behind him in the hall; she imagined a blue neon light, a smell of disinfectant, a book on a counter where you signed yourself in and out. Was that how Stefan was living? Away from his home and his family? Was that why he was phoning her, late at night?