My sister says to me:
‘Don’t you dare respond to that ad! Some jolly old bloke in a jacket will show up, beret cocked on one side of his head, holding a rose to make sure you recognise him; then he’ll come up to you and say: “Michał, I presume?”
‘Then he’ll escort you, Michał, to his Trabant, and introduce himself, and his name will be Ambrose!’
I always feel rotten about turning people down, especially when they’re angling for a date. But then everything turns out just as expected: a senile, groveling old git shows up with his flowers and his avuncular sense of humour – Ambrose – and asks me if I like The Cabaret of Elderly Gents. And I say I do, to be polite, and dream of assertiveness. Of assertiveness, which comes out when I’m writing, when I don’t have to see anyone, and at night I churn out my letters to the world and slap people right across the face with them – though I can’t imagine talking like that to anyone face to face.
The Old Dears (Cont.)
‘I don’t like it. It’s not that I’m intolerant, but I just don’t like it when those straight blokes come here with their tarts and bugger off into the dunes to relieve themselves, absolutely clueless as to what sort of place this is. What, isn’t your straight nudist beach enough for you? I say to them. Isn’t the normal beach enough? Isn’t the entire straight normal world enough?!’
One Old Dear put on a pair of large, horn-rimmed glasses and did the crossword; of course she’d later be sending it in in hopes of winning a prize. They were always happy to take part in competitions. They sent in whatever was asked for, peeling and rubbing off code after code, forever dialling the number on the screen. One of them, somewhat younger, won a whole month’s pass to a solarium once, with unlimited access. She practically fried her skin. Which was a miracle, since that was in the early nineties, when the lamps weren’t as strong. Another one got a trip to a spa from some mineral water company (the code was under the bottle top). But when she arrived, they told her:
‘This competition was meant for women…’
But she went ahead and milked that vacation all she could regardless; she joined the ladies for aerobics, and in the mud bath, and for the makeover. There were two other gentlemen there as well, so she had an excuse: she wasn’t the only man…
Those two gentlemen and our Old Dear (Wiesław) always sat down to eat in the same dining hall as the ladies on the ‘Diet Boot Camp’. Only they got to eat whatever their hearts desired, while the ladies had to make do with a lettuce leaf, half an orange, a crust of stale bread, maybe a bit of fat-free kefir. Two in particular were going crazy with hunger; they hadn’t eaten anything since morning, and the trainers had driven them up and down the mountains all day. In the end they couldn’t take it any longer; they kept looking over at the men’s table piled high with food and they attacked it all, devoured everything! Puddings, ice cream, everything! The two men came back, looked and said: ‘All gone.’ That’s how our Wiesława recounted it, standing there, fanning herself with her bodice-ripper.
‘All gone – can you believe it, Michał? And those men always sat together, and they were so well-groomed, the one with highlights, the other one with highlights…’
I was succumbing to slumber, the sun’s hot tongue lapped at me, the waves glinted blindingly. I nuzzled my face in the blanket and felt hard sticks and pine cones bulging under the fabric… I felt languorous, sated… I wanted to fall asleep in the sun, amidst the drone of flies and sough of waves, and later I would get up and have a swim and go back to sleep. Then Old Dear No. 1 shows me what a wonderful, orange windbreak she’d got, with the Kolastyna logo on it; they were giving them away free at Rossman’s with the purchase of any sunblock. I open an eyelid, That’s really super… What time is it? Only three.
‘But we’re supposed to have good weather till Sunday. Sunny and warm tomorrow.’
There’s a howling in the distance, like a motorboat or a coast guard vessel. I look over: coast guard. What’s even funnier, the Poznań team have changed into some tight special clothes and are trying to surf, only the sea is as still as a lake… I shut my eyes. I’m dying to smoke, but can’t be arsed to reach into my bag for a cigarette; and among other things, my watch is in there, and I’d like to avoid getting sand in it…
…
‘They’ve forecast thunderstorms and a drop in temperature on Monday. They said on the weather it’ll affect the whole country, but only after Sunday…’
…
‘Well, excuse me, but Robert got her everything from that wholesaler, everything she wanted. I went to Łódź to get tomatoes from my allotment, but when I came back, my flat…’
…
‘It was Kunicka who sang that, not Jarocka. And it was Laskowski who sang “Beata of the Albatross” – I remember.’
…
‘Evidently she had a mammogram, but who cares?’
…
‘Look how worn out I am, I don’t know, maybe it’s blood pressure, but I’ve already had a cup of coffee or two…’
…
‘Those queens always did go gaga over him, one of them had her gold teeth removed…’
…
‘I’ve seen that one’s flat, what a place the old harlot had, with those paintings that are just two lines crossing each other, but they’re awfully expensive… what did she call it? “Contemporary art”, makes it sound really brainy…’
…
‘What do I know? Not that long, just enough to get them a bit browned…’
‘Ooh, but don’t you have pretty swimming trunks…’
‘I paid dollars for them.’
…
‘So I says to her, “Listen here, you dumb cluck…”’
…
‘A UFO like that, how much petrol would you need to run a UFO like that? Oh, but you know they have their contacts, the top brass in Israel…’
And the last thing I saw through my heavy-lidded eyes was an aeroplane flying past, leaving behind it in the sky a big slit covered with cotton wool.
Private Styling
…
‘Twenty-two down: seven-letter word for attack, starts with a–s–s… – Ooh, assault fits…’
I wake up slowly, try to turn on to my other side, and feel a searing pain. Pain, sunburn: my whole side, there and there and there, from my ankles to my shoulders. It burns. The Old Dears put away their crossword and offer to rub cream into me; but even the lightest touch hurts – it hurts. It stings and burns. I stand up, walk by myself into the shade, over to the dunes, the Bois de Boulogne even, but my head is spinning, black shreds float past my eyes. I drape a shirt with my face printed on it over my shoulders and keep walking. The bushes are aquiver in all directions, despite the protestations of the team from Poznań (I recognise a few of them), everyone’s naked, and a certain Zbigniew (queen or no? it’s hard to tell…) says to me, Girl! Come on! You need to shave! Don’t be such a peasant!
When I return to my digs at the Deaf Hag, the nearest guesthouse to Lubiewo, I bolt my door; she’s always so inquisitive about me: the minute I walk out she starts going through my stuff, sticking her fingers in my creams, reading my journals; now she knows everything about me. I decline her offer – she wanted to make a sour milk compress for my sunburnt back – so she leaves. I try to create a little atmosphere, put on some music, turn off the lights, take off my briefs, grab my scissors and comb and begin cutting, because it seems a better idea to trim everything down before starting with the shaving cream and razor. But all that hair, black and curly, is now all over the pillow, as I’m sitting on the dishevelled bed, resting against the kilim – a straw mat covered in postcards. I blow at it, it scatters all over; and when I cut too close, in the space where my thighs meet, it stings, it really stings. Now everything down there is stinging, everything feels different, as if it wasn’t mine. Genitals. That’s not a cock any more, I’ve made a penis out of it; and my balls – they’re just testicles now. Caught off guard, naked, stinging, looking li
ke a shameless, crooked mushroom. Then I think: I’ll be really original and give myself an asymmetrical shave down there. Once when I was in Germany I saw a sign for an Intim Friseur* – who did bleaching, piercing, punk-style, in green, with sugar… But then I examine my pubes more closely, I even grab the lamp I use for reading my academic books off the table and hold it up to them, and what do I see? White and black and microscopically tiny dots, practically a powder of them covering my loins – my loins! Ungirded, deforested. A powder, Lord help me, please don’t let it be lice! Lice! I’ve been infested with lice! I’ll have to cut it all off, shave everything, depilate! And burn my knickers – or maybe I don’t need to burn them? Hang on! Where are they? Thrown in the corner. What about washing? Then they’ll drown, but oh fuck, maybe they’re waterproof? And my trousers? And the hair on my head? Maybe they got transplanted there, maybe I touched my hair too… Now I understand why all those slags are shaven from head to toe! I look around – everything’s covered with my cut hairs, accursed locks! And now I’m getting obsessive-compulsive disorder: wherever I look, pubes, lice! Whatever I touch: infested! I grab all my sheets and dirty clothes and shove them into a bin liner, and wearing clean clothes pulled straight from my suitcase take off into town to buy new ones. But it’s already dark out, night. Only the chintz dealers on the boardwalk are still there, selling their chintz. White jeans with silver stripes and the word LOVE stitched in pink across the bum. D&G knockoffs, knockoffs of knockoffs. As if the whole world had been left at home, in whatever cities people came here from; and the things here, just as in Plato, were but echoes of it. What would the Style Queens say if they saw me wearing that crap tomorrow? Tinsel Tina! Oh, she’d be the queen of good taste on that promenade! But they don’t have knickers here anywhere. Playboys aren’t interested in what gets worn down below, it can’t be seen anyway. No luck, I’ll just have to buy something at the shopping centre tomorrow. And stop by the chemist’s for whatever shite. But how will I do it? What will I say? There are always such queues in Międzyzdroje since there are only three chemists; people all standing there, waiting for their antibiotics, and I’m supposed to go up to the lady and be like:
‘Excuse me, do you have anything for pubic lice?’
…
On the other side of my door is a television room, where the other guests of the Deaf Hag congregate. I lie naked, cradled in the sound of their chatter:
‘07 Do You Copy? is on tonight after the news, with that Captain Borewicz… I can’t wait…’
‘But you do know that Captain Borewicz is…’
…
‘All they do is line their pockets… Send them down the mines…’
…
A gasp goes around the TV room at the report about bonuses of the former executive board of Orlen, the huge sum, two and a half million zlotys. Knowing whispers, glances, sighs. Then comes the paedophile case. A statement from Lech Wałęsa. Everyone has it in for the priest. One of the ladies says:
‘I’d rip that bloke’s balls right off.’
Then came a toothpaste advert. One of them turns to me:
‘Of course it whitens them, but with what…?’ – I return to my room, doze off…
…
‘How many autographs have you got off the boardwalk so far?’
‘One from that queen from Clan…’
‘I saw Błaszczyk yesterday, she was sitting very discreetly in a café, all in black, very discreet, no bodyguards or anything, you’d never know she was a big star.’
‘I saw Jacek Cygan…’
‘All I can say is that to be an actor you’ve got to be part monkey or something, to put yourself out there like that for the public…’
‘Well, I for one would…’
The Deaf Hag’s Complaints
Knock knock! Who’s there? The Deaf Hag.
‘Ooh, Mr Witkowski, how lovely of you to come and stay with us, to rent a room. But you do know, don’t you, that we only ever have lonely, single gentlemen staying here, renting rooms from me, from May to October?’
‘Like who?’
‘What?’
‘Like who!!!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘WHO, FOR INSTANCE?!!’
‘Well, for instance, that man from Bydgoszcz, the one that famous artist always comes to see…’
‘Which artist?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Which artist?’
‘Which what?’
‘Who?!’
‘You know, you’re all tarred with the same brush, you all go to that nudist beach of yours… You think I don’t know… Artists, the lot of you…’
‘Excuse me, madam, but I really am an artist, you know.’
‘I know, that’s what I’m saying, you’re all artists…’
‘No, I actually write books.’
‘What?’
‘I’m an artist because I write books!’
‘Oh, this sort of book, right?’ And here the Deaf Hag gesticulates with her hand as if she’s jerking off!
Exactly, this sort of book…
Virgin
Virgin worked for the city, in a branch of local government. All through communism she’d set up queens with jobs and, when things got bad and they had no money, free meals.
‘Those girls would wolf down chops like there was no tomorrow.’
She was a good woman, but fairly mercenary when it came to things like that. Often she would pull her strings pro bono, but just as often she’d want sex in exchange. And that’s how her friendships with Desirée and Radwanicka worked during the communist era; she was always arranging something for one or the other of them. For example, she got Radwanicka a job with the Gypsy folk orchestra (Radwanicka: ‘I sucked off each and every one of those Gypsies, but they never wash! I mean, really!’).
Virgin was killed by grunt in her own flat. Seventy-seven knife wounds, tied to a chair. Half the picket line was at her funeral (a whole busload drove by the town hall), everyone sobbing, because she was such a good person and all, but when they started singing ‘O noble and blessed Virgin…’ and ‘immaaaaaculate Virgin,’ the queens lost it and totally cracked up. Some immaculate virgin!
Radwanicka
I’ll tell you about Radwanicka, Michał. But if she finds out I was talking trash about her, just promise you’ll pay to get my teeth done! Tell me you’ll pay for my new teeth when that whore beats the shit out of me, let me go to Germany and get new porcelain ones!
In The Great Atlas of Polish Queens, on the page dedicated to Radwanicka, there in the lower right-hand corner, is a grinning skull. A deadly poisonous toadstool that might seduce you with its amiable, appetising looks, the looks of a smiling, spruced-up old gentleman – but that will lay you out on your bed a month later! A truly villainous queen, worse than Doctor Mengele! As a little girl, she used to heat the water in the fish tank with a heating coil, and she enjoyed it so much she boiled the fish and even ate them too, for all I know.
She strolls through the park in her white coat and hat, and everyone thinks: what a high-class dame. Then an hour later you see her queuing up at the soup kitchen, waiting for a cheap meal.
God help you if she latches on to you while you’re walking through the park on the arm of some young grunt. First she’ll come on sugary as a communist-era sweet; then she sends you off for cigarettes, for whatever, the latest issue of Nie, batteries. Then she starts interrogating your grunt, and when she figures out he has no idea who she is she’ll say to him: ‘Are you really hanging around with that banshee?’ (she means you). Then she pulls a long face and leans into the grunt’s ear, as if she had some painful truth she needed to tell him against her will, in order to save his life:
‘I’m so sorry to have to say this, I mean, you came here with that person and all, and now he’s gone off for batteries, the newspaper, but…’ – she leans in even closer – ‘don’t throw your life away, lad. Don’t ruin yourself. You’ve no idea; you’ll have a hard time
finding a slapper worse than her. A slut like that, sick and poor. Why, back in the seventies she infected everyone around her, laid up with syphilis three times before you were even born, lad… You’re better off hanging around with me,’ she says, all so she can toss off a young lad that night. And then, when you return from the errand she’d so perfidiously concocted, she’s all milk and honey again, because she’s already seeded her poison in the grunt’s ear.
The whore sits on the bench, smiles affably, talks about Fredka:
‘What a good soul our Fredka is. It’s so important to be a good person!’ And the young grunts, runaways, gaze at her as if she was an altar piece, and it doesn’t occur to any of them what kind of old slag they’re going around with…
Radwanicka was living with Desirée then, biding time until Desirée kicked it, because she was hoping to inherit the flat. Whatever gave that slut the idea that Desirée was going to leave her her flat – which was dilapidated and mildewy, but had a good layout – when her family would never let Radwanicka get a thing? It was enough that she dressed up as Virgin at night, counting on Desirée’s weak heart, appearing before her saying:
‘It’s time to come to me. Come to me…’
Wearing a sheet, or not… I’m not sure any more how she pretended to be Virgin’s ghost, but she was a dreadful old slag anyway. She came here from the East. Someone I know once went there, came back talking about the mud huts, the poverty and hunger, God help them! First Radwanicka escaped to Warsaw, hitching a ride on a logging wagon. That’s how the movie about her might start: Radwanicka riding the logging wagon, escaping the famine of the countryside. In Warsaw, she stole, went to jail, stole again, then things got too hot, and that’s when she bloody well had to come here. She’d been shacking up with this one bit of grunt there, see. One day the grunt pretended he was going out, but instead he hid himself so he could spy on that trollop, and of course she immediately started rummaging through all his cupboards and drawers! So she buggered off back east for a bit, then landed here, to get away from the police. All those shoes she stole in Germany. Even today, even though that whore lives in utter poverty, with nothing at all, not even claiming benefits, she always wears the most expensive clothes and shoes. The poofs all wonder how she can afford it, but only the ones who don’t know her. Anna once said to me:
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