Nine (25 page)

“Too much on my mind lately,” he explained.

“Relax.”

“Right now I can't.”

The kettle whistled, and Luśka took out glasses. The blond man zipped up his pants. His thoughts were quick, touching on things and people with an animal sureness. Luśka put the coffee on the windowsill.

“Maybe you can with her,” she said, her eyes following his. “Women talk more afterward. You know, willing to confide.”

A train pulled up at the platform and blocked everything.

 

The brown bear stood on its hind legs and rocked from side to side. Its red tongue lolled between its yellow teeth. Crows flew to its feet. It paid no attention to them, staring at the brick spires of Saint Florian's. At least it seemed to. Its fur was the same color as the church. Syl threw it a cookie. The crows flapped, but the bear was faster. It dropped to all fours in a second and took the cookie.

“Its nose is like a dog's,” she said.

“Kind of,” said Iron Man.

Stooping, the collar of his jacket up, his hands in his pockets, he looked a little like a bear himself. He was rocking from side to side too, partly as a joke, partly from the cold, because the wind from the river was bitter. He was starting to regret his idea. “We should have kept driving,” he thought. “Gone and sat down somewhere warm and had a drink.” The April sun was cold as ice. He looked at Syl's legs in their panty hose and shivered. He could never understand how women managed like that. He wore long johns until the first of May.

“Do they sleep in the winter?” she asked.

“I doubt it. Too much traffic. The noise of the trams.”

A second bear emerged from the concrete cave.

“That must be his wife,” said Syl.

“Not necessarily. It could be his brother or just someone from the family.”

She tossed cookie after cookie. The bears moved among the yellow disks, confused by the sudden bounty and making no effort to drive away the crows.

“Do you have family, Iron Man?”

“Not really, not anymore. I used to. Sometimes I go to the cemetery,” he added without thinking, because he was troubled: the Japanese, a watch he couldn't identify, and Bolek's words that morning—“Go downtown with her”—made him dread the coming day. “Shit, I haven't been downtown for two years,” he thought. “That cab ride yesterday in the dark doesn't count.” The Asians moved off to the other end of the zoo, and the two of them were alone again in the wind. Syl's nose was blue.

“We could go to the Biedronka,” he suggested, pointing to Świerczewski.

“What for?” she asked.

“We could have some pancakes. They used to be good there.”

“And the shops?”

“There'll be time for that, kid. We saw the bears, now let's get a bite to eat. You said yourself that you never go out.”

“All right,” agreed Syl. “But just for a short while.”

“It takes five minutes to eat a pancake,” said Iron Man, and felt relief.

 

Dust hung in the air. The cooing of pigeons. No light to speak of. They were hunched over, going practically on all fours. Jacek was in the lead. Paweł could hear him feeling his way. Their footsteps strangely resonant on the wood. Then there was light.

“They never put a new padlock on,” said Jacek. “Last fall I pulled the old one off, and it stayed that way.”

He was up to his chest in the trapdoor leading to the roof. At his feet, Paweł said:

“What the fuck are we doing?”

“If they weren't outside the door, they're waiting downstairs by the entrance.”

“So? You think we can fly away?”

“We can cross the roofs and go a few buildings over,” said Jacek. He pulled himself up and disappeared. A blue rectangle of sky. Paweł squinted, gripped the rim of the opening, and entered the wind.

In the great air, the Marriott, the Terminal, the Sucomi Tower, and the shining obelisk of the Eurobank building were close enough to touch. The roof sloped. They grabbed the edge of a ventilation shaft. The sun was behind their backs, over Praga, but its reflection in the glass walls blinded like a magnesium flare. They hunkered down in the shadow of the concrete
cube from which came the smells of all the apartments. The roof fell inexorably toward the nothingness of the street.

“It's only hard at first,” said Jacek. “You get used to it.”

“You want to sit here till you get used to it?” Paweł wiped his nose on his sleeve, dropped to one knee.

“If you stay in the middle, you can't see how far down it is. And don't look up. Keep your eyes on the ground in front of you.”

“You really think they're downstairs?” Paweł was now kneeling on both knees and feeling for something to hold on to, something that stuck out, anything.

“They're waiting by the entrance. Smoking. Two, maybe three of them.”

“What do they look like?”

“Ordinary. Like you, except neater and clean-shaven.”

“How do you know?”

“They like shaving. They buy Gillettes or Wilkinson Swords, and shave twice a day.”

“I used to do that when I still had the time.”

“There you go. They talk about which shaving cream is best.”

“Two or three of them? Like when they came to my place.”

“Right. They never go around alone.”

“Are they afraid?”

“It's not that. They like to talk about old times. In the evenings they drink beer and do that.”

“Everyone does that.”

“Exactly. That's why they're normal. That gun would have come in handy.”

“What gun?”

“Yours, from two days ago.”

“Oh . . . You know guns?”

“First we had a Nagan and a Colt, one time one, then the other, so there were mix-ups. We were young and didn't care about the difference. The main thing, both were revolvers. Then the Mauser came out. Comrade Mauser, the one with the magazine in front of the trigger. Loaded with a clip from the top—funny huh? Because it made the grip like the handle of a file. Churchill had one in the Sudan when he was young. Then Lugers, in other words Parabellums, Walther PPKs, that was James Bond's gun in the seventies before the fashion for the nine mills, and of course the Uzis, all over, Uzis everywhere you looked. Now people use Heckler-Kochs, MP5Ks, because they're small, they fit under your jacket and look nice. Glocks too, because they're futuristic with all that plastic. I'm behind, because I had to sell my TV—”

“There was no gun.”

“No gun?”

“I just said it. For something to say.”

A red blimp in the distance, beyond the skyscrapers, pulling a long banner, but the words were too far to read. The gold star atop the Eurobank building faced Mokotów. The reflection of the sun dazzled even in the shade. Jacek stood and set off along the middle of the roof. “Come on,” he said. “It's only three or four buildings over.”

 

So it's all settled. The key is turned in the lock and drops into an overcoat pocket, and the elevator is setting off from the first floor. The smell of cakes baking comes from the doors of the apartments. Vanilla, cinnamon, and rum fill the stairwell. It's quiet, even with the clatter of pans down the hall and the
children's voices. Silence swathes the body and head, makes thoughts audible. On the elevator wall, a light patch is all that's left of the mirror. Check once that the key is in its place, and the metal door can be closed. For a moment, the old fear that, instead of descending, the elevator will shoot upward and smash to pieces against the roof, the grease-blackened cables whishing. It's better to shut your eyes and pretend it's just a game of peekaboo, till the car finally stops and someone on the other side opens the door obligingly. Just a few more steps, and daylight should drive away all bad dreams, Pankracy. That's why I wore white, so no one would see. At night, black's the thing; in the day, white is invisible. Now the sidewalk, grass, corner store, and not a living soul, as if everyone has left, though the cars are still there gleaming after they were washed for the holiday, and it's so bright, your eyes hurt, and the sky is so blue, Pankracy. Pass the kiosk and the café, turn right, straight to the crossing, then the bus, the tram, another bus. I'm not going into the darkness of the metro, never. Everything's memorized. You just recite the stops and bus numbers. I'll sit outside the door, on the stairs, or on the street. The weather is so nice, and the trees will blossom soon, but why is it so empty here, as if people are hiding, peeking from behind the curtains on all the floors, from every building, from everywhere, but I have to keep going, cross the road, reach the sidewalk, turn left, the stop's there, and the bus will pull in empty, shining, its windows all washed so you can see better. That's the reason for the white outfit, Pankracy, the white coat, dress, shoes, scarf, and underneath too everything is white as the air, so it should work, because he's completely alone, I've known that for a long time, he was just pretending when he made all those phone calls, hardly anyone ever called
him,
and I must stop
being bad like yesterday when I left him as if he was never going to come again.

 

Shirt, underwear, socks. Bolek turned in the bathroom like a fleshy top. From the toilet to the mirror, from the mirror to the gold-and-white cabinet with an even larger mirror on the door, to the glass shelves and back again. The sound of running water in the sink, the toilet flushing, the whirr of the hair drier. He wiped the condensation off one mirror, the other, and couldn't decide which deodorant to use. “Underwear, underwear,” he hummed. He chose briefs. “In a light suit, boxer shorts show,” he reasoned. He sprayed Elements under his right arm, Cool Water under his left. Pleased, he buttoned his salmon shirt. “A man has to have a bit of mystery. A bit of romance. That's what women go for. And he has to be quick, decisive.” He turned off the faucets. The vision of Irina had left and wouldn't return, though he closed his eyes tightly. Only the samovar appeared, and it was cold and barely visible. It didn't even look much like a samovar. Reality is better, he decided, so he had to get ready, get dressed, go while there was still time. It was so easy for lovers to miss each other in this world and never meet again, especially in his line of work. He quaked at the thought of the vast East, where his happiness could be lost forever. You could travel for a week without stopping, get out anywhere, and there would be nothing. He hurried to the closet and took out his suit, the color of unripe plums, loose, glossy, rustling softly like crisp new bills. He bustled, chose which cuff links, thought about the tie, considered the question of socks going with braided moccasins. He thought about an ascot but remembered the men outside the public toilets the night before and their scorn. The big mirror on the cabinet door caught the scorn in his face,
which he examined from the front and in profile. “It has to be a tie,” he said. “Or nothing. It's warm today; I could undo two buttons to show the chain.” He smiled. “A tie's not bad, but gold is gold.” He pulled on his pants and was ready. His clothes all perfect, as if he'd been born in them. But at the door his courage abandoned him. His knees weak, his mouth dry. “She's only a Russian,” he told himself, but it occurred to him that she wasn't all that Russian. He would go down to his car, call on the way, say he had something important to see her about. His hand on the door handle, he turned and looked at Sheikh, who was saying good-bye. The dog loved him but couldn't help. He went back to the living room and poured himself a shot of Johnny Walker. He drank it down, grimaced, and poured another. His courage gradually returned.

 

Her mind went back. She no longer recognized people or places. The things she remembered, she wasn't sure if they had really happened to her. Can you remember what happened to another person? She didn't know. But she let herself be swept away by the tide of images. It was better to accept them. They were all blurry, and slow, as if underwater. She became aware of the cold. Her hands were tied behind her back. She tried to crawl under the bedding, but it was twisted. She pressed into the bedspread with her knees, squeezing, and felt a little warmer. The sun was over Saska Kępa, but the curtains were drawn and the room was dark. The golden circle climbed as it moved south, and the black roofs of Skaryszewska, Nowińska, and Bliska gave off the smell of tar. An articulated 115 bus, almost empty, turned into Chodakowska, passed the warehouses and the wretched city outskirts, the windswept fields and the chain-link fences, emerged on Stanisławowska, passed the cyclodrome
and Wiatraczna, went through the traffic circle, and headed east down Grochowska between the lower and fewer houses, to the Trakt Lubelski, a row of single cottages, tar-paper shacks, unfinished apartment buildings, eventually ending at the edge of the woods. She tried to imagine what lay beyond, but the big green signs saying
LUBLIN
and
TERESPOL
returned her to the dark room.

Again she sank into the past. She was very small, and someone was leading her by the hand. They were walking down a quiet, snow-covered street in Radość or Międzylesie. Coal smoke in the air. She tried to slide on the sidewalk ice. Clumps of snow on the branches of the trees. A dog barked, a train rumbled. The far end of the narrow street was a gray-white point. Everything at arm's length. Icicles dangled from the eaves and gutters of single-story houses, and the tops of the chimneys had curious little tin figures, human silhouettes. She wasn't sure it was her own memory, but the pain eased, so maybe she had been that little girl sliding on the soles of her shoes while someone held her firmly by the hand. A lull in the sounds of the street, and the distorted echo of the station loudspeakers. The metallic voice smacking the stone platforms. “You can't hear whether it's an arrival or a departure,” she whispered. The people outside the door were talking. Someone put something on the stove. The lights must have changed at the Targowa intersection, because a tram squealed by. She felt the cold again. The fabric between her thighs was rough and foreign. Then suddenly she felt that all this had happened long ago and would never happen again, and now only a solitude awaited her that stretched from one end of the world to the other and would continue forever. Fear entered her naked body: it wasn't the pain, it was the void consuming Kijowska like a flame, the
station, trains, cars, people, stores, everything she had seen in her life up to this moment. All that was left was herself curled into a ball on a twisted bed that spun like a paper boat in blackness. She wanted them to come back, to open the door and talk to her and touch her, because human pain is better than inhuman fear.