Then that Stallion, that Shogun of yours, came over, the lot of you creaming your pants over him, and started whispered something to Doctor Mengele. Psst-psst-psst. In her ear. Then she stood up and said:
‘Excuse me, but I must leave now. I must go to the railway station.’
A saccharine-poisonous smile spread across her face.
Patricia whispered to me:
‘See, they’ve arranged a rendezvous. And now he’ll follow her there. Oh honey, if that Shogun of yours knows Doctor Mengele that’s even more reason to give him a wide berth!’
The Mysterious Blond in the Black Sombrero
Those words revived Old Dear No. 2, who then came out with a story about something that happened to a chanteuse she knew from Tczew, who met a beautiful man at the train station, a blond, dressed all in black, a swashbuckler even, with a black hat on his head…
‘They call it a sombrero. Of course that queen started straight off trying to seduce him. He walked over to her (which was already creating suspicion, a lad like him with that old queen) and gave her a sob story, something about just missing his train and how there wouldn’t be another one until the next day, so maybe they could buy a bottle of vodka and sit on a bench in the park and drink it… She was beaming, of course, absolutely smitten, and – just as he planned it – she said to him:
‘“Why a park bench? Why on earth a park bench, when I live right around the corner?”’
We all laughed; Old Dear No. 2 curtseyed and, satisfied, continued.
‘Of course he agreed – going to someone’s home was just what he was waiting for. They bought the vodka and headed back, an old building, like the ones they have on the wrong side of the station in Tczew. Just picture the two of them: him, young and beautiful; her, old and utterly flaming. They drank. Later, they had coffee. She pulled out some cake and offered it to him. Super. He ate the cake, drank the coffee. He said:
‘“Wow, this coffee’s great!” – at this everyone laughed – “What kind of coffee is it? Could I beg another cup?” That chanteuse was beaming from ear to ear, not only was he beautiful, but he fancied her coffee, too: oh I really made a good call there, she thought, from now on I’m only ever buying Celmar. So she went to the kitchen to make another pot, and did herself up again. She came back with the coffee, beaming from ear to ear. They sat and drank; and of course she fell sound asleep, because he’d slipped some crap into her cup while she was gone. She fell asleep; it was some kind of sleeping pill, not truth serum or anything. And as soon as that queen was completely out of it he punched her in her face with all his strength, and broke something; she flew out of her chair into a corner of the room, and only then did she lose consciousness. That was it. When the queen woke up her flat had been cleaned out of course. She went to the police and they laughed at her. (We did, too.)
‘“Oh, not him again, we booked him for theft in ’85 and again in ’90… Hey, Wacław, Krzysiek, can you go over there, I somehow… I don’t feel like it… It’s that bloke again, the one who’s always getting robbed…”’
We split our sides laughing – although we were laughing through our tears, because this was our fate, too, this was our fate…
‘But “Blackie” had made a mistake. Because the first thing the police did was order a copy of the telephone bill, and there it was! In plain sight! Calls to number such-and-such on such-and-such a day at one in the morning, two calls to Ełk! What happened was he’d rung up his wife. Right? Maybe he’d wanted to tell her the operation was a success or something. At any rate, there was a confrontation down at the police station; they presented our queen with ten blonds all dressed in black, standing behind one of those two-way mirrors. Anyway, the queen goes right up to the second to last, that one there. Right. He got three years in prison. But the queen moved away, she was afraid he’d retaliate. She was so nice, too; really lovely that one…’
The Apothecaress had had quite enough:
‘Well I, for one, would absolutely love it if some nice bloke saw me on the street and came over and fell in love with me on the spot. Where’s the harm in that? It happens to plenty of people… Why shouldn’t it happen to me too? A bloke who’d stand there and be overwhelmed with emotion! And not rob me blind… I mean, to hear you talk, you’d think that as soon as someone shows any interest at all, I mean someone nice, the minute he flirts with you, flatters you, it’s not because he loves you, but because he’s just a thief or a murderer…!’
The Nice Guy
I’m walking through the dunes again. I look over, and there on top of a hill my Nice Guy is standing, the one who disappeared on me when he committed Mistake No. 18. He’s put down his rucksack, taken off his jeans, and is brandishing his stick, smiling at me, oh, what a beautiful smile! So I cast a sympathetic glance at him and continue walking leisurely down the empty (it would seem), well-trodden path between the dunes. And then I hear that Nice Guy walking behind me, step by step, catching up. So I slow down, light a cigarette. And all of a sudden, what do I see walking down that track between the dunes towards me? It’s Eugenia with her monkey friend, shouting in the distance: ‘Alo! Salut! sunt eu, un haiduc…’ and so on, like in the song. I’m thinking, what do I do? They’ll scare him off, they will. But if I don’t stop, don’t talk to them, they’ll figure out immediately that I’m trying to pick up the lad behind me, my Nice Guy. But it’s not like I can just whisper ‘Begone!’ at them. And then my Nice Guy passes me by with a stony face; he keeps walking and vanishes over the horizon together with the sun… o my Sun, my Helios! The two gazelles start up:
‘Hi! We’re on our way back to Międzyzdroje, we went to Świnoujście, but they don’t have those rings any more. They say it’ll be sunny and warm tomorrow…’
Ah well:
Que sera sera…
And so instead of an orgasm, all I got was a bottle of warm Pepsi.
Jessie
‘But that’s just the beginning,’ says Oleśnicka, rubbing her hands together. ‘Now it’s time to light the bonfire, because today is St John’s Eve and I’m having a witches’ sabbat here, like on Bald Mountain.’ And she orders her decked-out little pooch to go and gather twigs and sticks from the dunes and bring them back to our hollow. We, too, spread out, and one by one return with blackened logs so we’ll have something to sit on. Thank God the night’s going to be warm, tranquil; even the sea is like a mirror, and a swim would be nice. Hey! I’m swimming in the water, it’s warm, I’m skinny-dipping! The water’s amazing. Lying on my back, I can see that the fire’s been lit, and they’re all flying in now, maybe even on broomsticks. The air smells of salt, my hair is wet, Oleśnicka’s dog is splashing on the shore, about to swim out to me… Suddenly I feel something in the water! There’s something in the water! Something strange, a slimy body! I feel something. A ghost? A drowned body? Angelica starts howling like a queen who’s been cursed and turned into a dog! Christ, it’s Jessie! She’s come back, surfaced from the depths of hell!
Of course. Jessie’s back to avenge herself. It’s because, though she’s played an integral role in all these stories, she hasn’t been mentioned for, um, polite reasons. So it’s hardly any surprise that Jessie’s bleached her fringe, put on her best blouse, the one with the palm trees (almost new, straight from the USA), laced up her Adidases, the ones with the big, jutting tongues, and headed off for the ball uninvited, a thirteenth fairy godmother.
‘Jessica! Old mate!’
‘Ibiza! Mallorca! Fat English tourists! What on earth?!’ Jessica is beside herself with indignation. Jessica’s about to explode. ‘Why everything’s plastic, American clichés! Look: beaches full of tattooed prettyboys! I’m telling you: plastic, plastic, plastic! Bodies tanned at the solarium, inflated at the gym. Clone faces, they’re all identical! Now listen to me: Night, November, the nineteen eighties… Raining, Wrocław-Psie Pole station… Well, this was an entirely different world. Some drunk soldier comes walking by…’
‘Ooh, honey!’
�
�… walks into a building in Bierut Street. Entryway reeking of urine, the murky light of a dirty lightbulb. He walks down into the cellar. That was the life! And here you are with your Ibiza! Fun in the sun! Why have you made me come to something out of a travel agent’s advert?’
‘First, Jessie, this isn’t Ibiza – you must be seeing things; it’s the Baltic, Lubiewo. And second: get out of the water, will you? Come and join us at the bonfire…’ We start walking, and just look at the crowd of people who’ve gathered! A genuine witches’ sabbat! Cora, Anna, the Countess, Baker’s Roma…
Baker’s Roma
… was very common and very fat. She worked as an announcer at Central Station. One time she was announcing the train from Wrocław to Kraków and forgot to turn off the microphone. And since Babette was sitting right next to her up there, she was swishing it up to high heaven; the passengers certainly got an earful that day… Those girls were such spoilt brats: they’d see a queen they knew walking through the station and decide to have some fun at her expense, so they’d call her by her (male) name through the megaphone, requesting that she ‘come to the station master’: paging passenger Jan Kowalski, please come to the station master, passenger Jan Kowalski…
They’d sit there drinking tea, coffee, vodka, sweet brandy, smoking cigarettes, announcing the trains. And it was as if all that travel rubbed off on them. Oh, look – look who’s walking through the hall. They had a camera, and the monitor gave them a perfect view of the entire main hall of Central Station and all the queens traipsing about with their shopping bags. Being envious types, the moment they noticed one of them cruising some grunt or a soldier, ready to chat him up with some folksy pick-up line, they’d page her in a solemn voice. As long as they knew both her name and surname, they’d get on the microphone and say: ‘Passenger Jan Kowalski, your presence is requested at the train dispatcher’s office. I repeat: Passenger Jan Kowalski, your presence is requested…’ And eventually they’d run out of vodka, thanks to partying with all the queens they’d called up there. Every now and then a queen would come up to see them with some grunt she’d just met, and Roma would announce the trains while the grunt fucked her. People used to say, wait, listen to how Roma makes the announcement. If she does it quickly, then nothing’s going on, but if she speaks really, really slowly, pausing before every word, then it means her eyes are travelling up and down the text of the announcement as she gets it in the arse.
Roma was so plain and so common that grunt would go with her without hesitating. They understood each other, not like us intellectuals. With us, whenever we talked with a grunt, he would tell us how different we sounded, how we talk like an actor, or a radio announcer, how they felt that they were listening to a radio programme, with all these proper expressions… But Baker’s Roma would see a soldier on leave, a guy whom someone better educated would have been incapable of chatting up, and since she was on his level she’d walk right up to that grunt and lisp:
‘Eh, soulja…’
‘Huh?’
‘You from Bsheg? You thtationed in Bsheg?’
And he’d say no, that his unit was stationed elsewhere. And she’d say, Uh-huh, I been there. Then she’d say:
‘Hey soulja,’ – the way they say it in the country – ‘hey soulja, wanna getta drink wiv me?’
And he’d reply, for example, that he was waiting for someone, but that someone wouldn’t show up, so she’d take him home, ply him with a sea of vodka, and say:
‘Hey soulja, you eat yet?’
And she’d make him a sandwich, heat up some soup, do her laundry… She’d say:
‘Soulja, you want I wash sumfin for ya?’
And when she’d got him good and pissed up, she’d say to him just like that, no qualms about it:
‘Oh, soulja, soulja, now that you’ve eaten and drunk your fill, well, you know… I’m a… I’m a ladyman, you know…’ – a fat ladyman, she forgot to add, that Roma of ours. Then she’d pop on a DVD and say, ‘So maybe I can service you, huh?’
Of course there were many times when Roma got it right in her face, but there were plenty of other times when she got it right down her throat.
Once Roma and Babette got all dressed up in white trousers, white blouses, and gold necklaces. They went off to the barracks to see the Russians. They climbed up the wall and landed in the coal, in the soot, because the coal heap was just on the other side of the wall. The soldiers laughed about them for years afterwards; for years they’d recount over glasses of vodka how they’d hauled the two of them, like two she-devils, out of the soot, smeared all over with coal dust, looking like something the cat dragged in. It took a military intervention to get them out.
And then Romek died. He’d spent his whole life with a railwayman, and maybe it’s just as well he didn’t live to see these terrible times… Goodness, how that girl could talk! She’d talk your ear off! Towards the end of her life, when she was living in Opole, she’d ring up me and Patricia to gripe and moan:
‘Sister, what a fine woman you are, I love you so much ’cause you love the army too, just like me! Listen, I was out walking, looking for some action, but there wasn’t nothin’! Eight o’clock, the Opole train station’s empty, I’m shaking my hips, my little net bag, couple a beers in it. I look over, and this uniform walks by. I says to him:
‘“Hey soulja, how long you got left?” And you know what he says to me?
‘“What the fuck you care?” Can you believe it? Young people these days! That’s what I get in my old age… Oh, sister, come and see me, you and Patricia both. I love you both so much, come and see me in Opole, we’ll go for nice long walks, the whole town knows me, they know I’m a queer, an actress… Did you ever go to Szczecin? I used to serve in a unit in Goleniowie, and to get to Szczecin all you have to do is take the tram out to Jezioro Głębokie, the last station on the line, and once in a while out there… you might find something to shag…’
Roma (from a distance):
‘Lukey, Lukey, honey, you’re looking so fine, where you going, what a fine-looking woman you are! Come here, don’t leave me, take a break from studying for once, come on, let’s go and see the soldiers! Lukey, come on, I’ll tell you who I shagged last night.’ We sat down on a bench and she tells me, ‘Lukey, he was this army pilot. I go up to him and say, “Ooh, what a handsome soldier you are! I’m one of those ladymen, you know, I go with lads, come and have a drink with me, screw them, have a drink, come on, I got half a litre here, come on, drink up, no problem, and presto!”’
And that was back when you could only buy vodka with vouchers, and only after one in the afternoon, any earlier you had to run around looking for a melina. So the soldier walked over, Roma explains:
‘And pulled out this fucking cannon. I went down on that, I did, and then I gave him the rose petals, he had no idea. “What are you trying to do to me?” he asked me – he thought I was trying to suck him off – and I says, “Naw, I’m just givin’ you some rose petals.”’
That Roma really was something. And when Radwanicka gave her the what-for, years later, Roma was already on her last legs; that was the second-to-last time I ever saw Romy. She was already in Opole then. The three of us were having tea at Bolita’s place in Jama Micha: Radwanicka, Roma, and me. And Romy was giving me this look, and then she says to me:
‘Lukey, you sure were pretty back in the day. I sure had the hots for you, even though I’m no lesbian. But my, you’ve aged…’
Well, Roma was already on Radwanicka’s shit list, because she’d been spreading the rumour that Radwanicka came to Opole to sponge off her. Though it was in fact true. Radwanicka came to visit, and later on she told everyone that Roma went out and bought a chicken, tossed it in the pot, a whole pot brimming with broth, and for the whole week they kept reheating that broth, and that’s all they ate. Carrots nicked from an allotment, free bread (Roma still did a couple of shifts at a bakery somewhere). I was actually planning to visit her with Patricia, but Patricia’s too tight, it
would’ve meant buying a ticket to Opole and some little gift or something for Roma… In any case, Radwanicka was itching to lash out at her, and she said:
‘What? You fucking minger… And what do you think you look like, you old slag? Lucretia here’s an educated girl, she’s got manners, but that doesn’t mean anything at all to you, does it? Listen here, I’ll smash this ashtray in your face, I’ll fuck you up, I will, the way you look, you old mutton face. You bloody whore. Freak! Come on, Lucretia…’ She stood up and said to me, ‘Let’s go. Come on, Lulu, let’s get out of here.’ And we left poor Roma all by herself at Bolita’s, sitting there with her tea in a plastic cup.
Out on the street Radwanicka says to me: ‘Can you believe that! And she’ll be talking shit about me now, how I only eat processed cheese nicked from the Supersam! That old whore… I can’t understand why the earth hasn’t swallowed her up yet!’
Heavens, and then Romy went and died, having spent her whole life with that railwayman. She never stopped believing she’d one day come back to Wrocław and bring the old days back to life. Sometimes I think it’s better she’s not around; it would’ve crushed her to see how things are now. She was a legend, a mega mega legend! But my god, how she could talk! How she just talked and talked!
ANNA
How Anna Cruised Józek the Lorry Driver
Back in the nineteen eighties the biggest star in all of Wrocław went by the name of Anna. She’d find some stick in the park and start singing songs by Anna Jantar on her microphone:
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