The Lullaby of Polish Girls (15 page)

They sat on the terrace, shivering in their winter coats, sharing a pack of smokes and talking about everything except for Paweł. By midnight the walls were spinning. Tucked in her bed, she sang her favorite Perfekt lyrics,
Nie płacz, Ewka, bo tu miejsca brak na twe babskie łzy, po ulicy milość hula wiatr w
ś
ród rozbitych szyb
, over and over.
Don’t cry, Ewka, there’s no room here for your girly tears. On the streets, the wind hurls love among smashed windowpanes
. As she drifted off to sleep she imagined Paweł looking down at her, lying on their old
wersalka
.

Justyna has spent the last seven days aimless like jetsam. Thank God Damian was staying at
Babcia
Kazia’s; she had no energy left for mothering. Her limbs felt like they had a life of their own now, carrying out her life. She still took a shit in the morning, still picked at food when she felt hungry, watched TV, and sometimes remembered to brush her teeth at night. She said things without even thinking (
We should get a Christmas tree soon. Can I change the channel? Have you seen my black leggings?
). She took the dog for a walk. But every day she felt a new fissure inside, as if her bones were cracking, bit by bit, and soon, soon, she would collapse into a lifeless heap.

The best part of being drunk, it turned out, was that she didn’t dream. In the morning, however, she felt like an octogenarian, her joints creaking, her head throbbing. She got out of bed and prescribed herself the hair of the dog, which turned into an entire day of drinking. She could suddenly see how her dad had turned into a drunk so quickly after his wife’s death.

In the afternoon, she had willed herself to go to the grocery store. The kids were coming home later, and the fridge was empty, except for some expired cheese and a two-liter of flat Coca-Cola. Justyna wandered the aisles at the supermarket, grabbing Damian’s favorite junk food: Monster Munch chips and
prażynki
, chocolate Prince Polo wafers, cartons of apple mint juice and some ripe tomatoes. Damian loved it when she sliced a tomato in half, sprinkling each top with salt. He sucked on them like they were ice cream cones. At the register, she had a tough time picking out the correct change and finally just dumped the contents of her wallet onto the counter and told the disdainful clerk, “Go for it.”

Now at her front door, Justyna finally fits the key into the lock. She kicks the door open and drops the grocery bags to the ground, realizing right away that the eggs must be goners. She pulls off her boots with effort and leaves the groceries on the floor. And that’s when she notices the sound of hammering coming from upstairs. She wonders why Paweł is home from work so early, and then she remembers he can’t be.

The Zator home is three stories high, each floor in a worse state of disrepair than the next. Since Teresa’s death, seven years ago, Justyna can safely say the floors have been mopped twice. But the house had always been a pigsty, even when Teresa was alive. Back then, there were shoes thrown about every which way in the downstairs foyer, clothes in knotted heaps, toppling out when someone opened the closet doors. There were dishes stacked on counters, with food crusted on them. The bathrooms all smelled like public restrooms. There were mildew stains on the ceilings and coffee spills on the linoleum. Everything was sticky and filmy and in need of a scrub, but it didn’t matter. There had always been laughter in the house and radios blaring. Neighborhood kids charged up and down the stairs, friends were always in the
kitchen, they came over uninvited. Her mother was forever throwing parties, especially in the summers, the adults danced, grilled
kiełbasa
, clinked shot glasses, and stayed up till dawn, trying to outdo each other with dirty jokes. The younger kids would fall asleep just about anywhere and wear the same rumpled clothes the next morning, going days without brushing their teeth.

Justyna takes the stairs on her hands and knees. When she reaches the last step, the hammering stops, and she wonders for a split second if it had been in her head all along.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Justyna lifts her forehead and sees her sister sitting in the middle of the floor, a long 8×4 piece of wood in her hand. There are nails everywhere. A few hammers and a stack of plywood sit next to Elwira. The entrance to the bathroom has been boarded up halfway. The plastic rack where she and Paweł kept their towels, her vanity mirror, the mildewy shower curtain, and the wooden crate that served as hamper are leaning against the hallway walls. Everything that wasn’t nailed down sits next to the door in plastic bags. Justyna spies Paweł’s dirty work sweaters, his denim vest, which he used to iron meticulously, and his lucky Korona Kielce cap. Without a word Justyna lunges toward Elwira, pinning her with her body. She grabs a fistful of her sister’s hair and yanks. Elwira screams and scrambles for a hammer.

“Oh, really? Is that your weapon of choice? What, don’t have a knife on you?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Elwira screeches as Justyna slams her head against the floor. Finally, Elwira manages to wedge the handle of the hammer under Justyna’s chin and presses with all her might against her throat, shoving Justyna off. Justyna lands on her ass, strands of Elwira’s hair in her hands.

“What’s wrong with
me
? Who gave you the right? Who gave you the right, you god-forsaken fuck?” Justyna’s words slur, and she’s gasping for air.

“Calm down!” Elwira stands up and rubs the sides of her head, feeling for the extent of the damage. “You didn’t even give me a chance to explain. God, how much have you had to drink?”

“Shut up, you
pizda
. You’ve got an hour to move all our stuff back, and if you don’t, I’m gonna kill you. You’re already dead to me as it is.” Justyna stumbles to her feet, starts tugging at the boards, but they don’t budge.

“It’s just a fucking bathroom. And it gives me the creeps every time I walk past it! I can’t do it anymore,
rozumiesz
? Can you? Have you even taken a single fucking dump in there since it happened? Have you? You told Damian not to use the potty in there ’cause of the ‘spiders’! You and Damian can move downstairs and I’ll stay on the third floor with Cela. And this floor, we’ll pretend this floor never happened.”

“And what, we’ll sail through the house on a magic carpet? We’ll
pretend
it all away?”

“You’re such a hypocrite, Justyna. You haven’t even told your son his father is dead. Who’s the one pretending?”

Justyna walks over and grabs the Korona cap, twisting it in her hands.

“What scares me is that you’ve been planning this. Was this your idea of an early Christmas present? You didn’t even ask me, didn’t even broach the subject.”

“You don’t let me broach the fucking
weather
with you. It’s like I don’t exist, Justyna. It’s not my fault he did this!”

“You brought him into this house! He mooched off you and instead of kicking him to the curb, you let him beat you, you let him—You’re not the landlord, Elwira. I don’t turn to you for living arrangements and I never will. Go to
Babcia
’s. Go to fucking Timbuktu if you want, but you can’t do this. I won’t let you do this.”

Just then they hear
Babcia
Kazia’s voice. “Justyna! Justyna? You shouldn’t leave the door open like this,
do jasnej cholery
!” They hear footsteps running up the stairs, and then Cela’s there, buttoned up in her purple wool coat, a knit hat with a pom-pom bouncing on top of her head. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold. She’s holding a small wire cage in her hands, with a rodent in it.

“Guess what? Guess what?” Justyna and Elwira stare at her and say nothing.

“
Babcia
bought us a hamster. A real live hamster! His name is Miki and he’s so cute but he bit Damian’s finger this morning.” She laughs.
“And his
kupa
looks like watermelon seeds and I’m gonna have him for a week in my room and then Damian in his.
Babcia
said it’s called ‘joint custody.’ ”

Damian appears, gnawing on a
rogalik
.

“I was trying to see if he had teeth. They look like tiny knives. That little fucker.” He walks over to the pile of wood.

“Where’d you get these boards? Can I have some? I can totally build a skateboard.
Tato
can help me when he gets back.”

“You can have as many as you want.” Justyna looks at her son, at the poppy seeds stuck between his teeth, at Paweł’s old
Knight Rider
sweatshirt he’s wearing. He’s swimming in it. She pushes past the kids but not before slapping Paweł’s cap on Damian’s head. It falls over his eyes. “Help
Ciotka
clean up this mess, both of you.”

Downstairs
Babcia
Kazia is unloading food, slamming things left and right. The kitchen fills up with the aroma of fried
kotlety
and pickled beets. Justyna regards her grandmother with disdain. “Nice one. You think a hamster’s a proper replacement?”

“I stepped in egg,”
Babcia
Kazia replies as she bustles around. “And I want you and Elwira to empty out this refrigerator. You’ve got crap in here that’s expired, it’s disgusting and I have no room to put all this.” She motions to the small pots on the counter, undoubtedly filled with tripe soup, dumplings, and all sorts of goodies. “But first, sit down.” Kazia turns from the rancid fridge to face her granddaughter.

“We stopped at the
warzywniak
, and the checkout girl told me you were in there today, hammered. That you were knocking things off the shelves.
Wstyd!
A week in the ground and you’re making a mockery of him, a mockery of this entire family. How dare you?” She walks over to Justyna and smacks her across the face. Justyna fights the urge to smack her grandmother back.

“Hit me, hit me!” Kazia shrieks. “I’ll have the police down here faster than you can say
mam cie
. I’m sure they remember the address. They’ll take Damian from you.”

“Good.”

“If your mother were here, none of this would have happened. You’re rotten through and through, Justyna, and you’ve been that way since
you were little. I tried all my life, I tried to do right by Teresa. But she’s no longer here and I’m tired, goddamnit. I didn’t sign up for this!”

“And I was first in line?”

Justyna walks out to the front yard and sits on the steps. A light snow is falling. She is flooded with memories. Paweł proposed to her here. He was tipsy and she had laughed in his face until he fished out an actual ring from his pocket, a gold band with green stones placed like the petals of a flower. She once gave him a blow job in the bushes at the side of the house, which turned out to be rampant with
pokrzywa
, and they scratched their blistered feet and knees for days, giggling. Things rush at her, snippets from a previous life. Paweł rocking baby Damian to sleep for hours at a time, while Justyna naps on the couch. Paweł in the kitchen drinking black Nescafé, reading motorcycle magazines until she grabs him by the hand and leads him to bed. Paweł, on his knees, showing Damian how to tie his shoes. Paweł, bringing home a pack of smokes every day after work and tossing them into Justyna’s open palms.

“You’re so lucky, Justyna,” her friends would tell her. She had been lucky.

Thirty-six Witosa Road is now a Smithsonian of memories. The absence of her husband stuns her daily to the point of paralysis. There is no end in sight, no end to the sinking feeling she has every morning when she turns her head and sees no one there, and every morning the surprise of it is overwhelming.
Where are you?
she asks, when she opens her eyes.

Justyna hasn’t cried once since it happened. She’d never been a crier, not even as a kid. Her mom used to joke that the last time her daughter wept was at her own birth. Now, when Elwira hears the wail, she comes running outside and stops in her tracks. She watches Justyna, head in her lap, shaking, rocking herself back and forth. She takes off her black sweater and drapes it on Justyna’s quaking shoulders, and without a word, she goes back into the house.

Anna Wrocław, Poland