III.
What a waste of time. But what had he been expecting from the funeral? That one of them would come in a red shirt marked "IT"S ME!"? Szacki knew it wasn"t very polite, but after leaving the chapel he quickly said goodbye to the widow, cast a cold glance at the four suspects and ran off to the car park. As he walked down the concrete path, he could still feel the gaze of that older man, who hadn"t taken his eyes off him throughout the entire ceremony. Probably some relative wondering who I am, he thought.
He got in the car and put the key in the ignition but didn"t switch on the engine. Once again he had the feeling that something had escaped his notice. For a split second, there in the chapel, he had felt as if he were looking at something important. He could sense something very vague, gently tickling the back of his head. At what moment had that happened? Towards the end, just after the coffin was carried out. He was standing there, absorbed by the man watching him, who looked as if he were struggling not to smile. He must have been about seventy, but Szacki would be happy to look like that at his age - like Robert Redford"s more handsome brother - and to be able to afford suits like that one. He was looking furtively at the man, people were coming out of the pews and walking slowly down the middle of - let"s call it the nave. And that was when he saw something. Something important.
He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, trying to imagine that moment. The cold room, the solemn music that he didn"t recognize, people dragging their feet. Rudzki alongside Jarczyk, Kwiatkowska and Kaim behind them. And that strange feeling, like deja vu, a sudden discharge in his neurons. Why?
No, he had no idea.
He drove out of the car park, similar in size to the one outside the supermarket, turned into Wojcicki Street, and immediately stopped near Mociski Wood. He changed out of his funeral suit into jeans and a linen shirt, sprinkled mineral water on his hand and ruffled his hair a bit. He tried smiling roguishly into the side mirror. What a tragedy. Like a German pretending to find Polish humour funny. After pausing to think he took Helka"s child seat out of the back and tossed it in the boot, then scooped up a heap of crumbs, the straw from a fruit-juice carton and a Milky Way wrapper. All with the thought that he might have to drive her home afterwards.
This time he arrived at Szpilka first. He sat down on the mezzanine, at a table by the wall. There were better places on small couches by the windows, through which you could watch life go by on Triple Cross Square, but he was afraid Monika would sit on the same couch next to him and he wouldn"t know how to behave. And he had remembered that Weronika was meant to be taking Helka to Ujazdowski Park. He"d rather they didn"t see him here. Monika came a little later, wearing tiny amber earrings, a tight black top with shoulder straps and a long flowery skirt. And sandals with heels and thongs that wound fancifully around her calves. She stopped in the cafe doorway, took off her sungla.s.ses and blinked as she scanned the interior. When she noticed him on the mezzanine, she smiled and waved cheerfully. He thought she looked fresh and lovely. He automatically replied with a smile, far less forced than the one he"d practised in the side mirror, and thought how for years the only girl who"d been so pleased to see him was his daughter. No one else.
He stood up as she approached the table. She said h.e.l.lo and kissed him on the cheek.
"And now please explain to the high court," she said, frowning.
"Why did the defendant choose the gloomiest table in the darkest corner of this otherwise brightly sunlit cafe, eh?"
He laughed.
"It was on impulse, I didn"t know what I was doing. When I came to, I was already sitting there. I swear it"s not my fault. The police framed me."
They sat down on a sofa by the window with a fine view of Saint Alexander"s church. Along the pavement a dozen boys went past in black shirts marked "No camping", with a graphic showing two crossed-out little men having s.e.x from behind. It must have been about the h.o.m.os.e.xuals. Suddenly they started chanting: "Husband and wife, normal family life!"
Szacki thought they looked like a bunch of poufs themselves - a group of men in tight shirts getting each other worked up with stupid slogans - but he kept this observation to himself.
He lied that he"d eaten a big breakfast, for fear of a large bill. Finally he ordered a smoked-cheese sandwich, and she had spinach pierogi. Then two coffees. They chatted a bit about work and why it was so hopeless, and he amused her with a few funny stories about his colleagues at the prosecutor"s office. Then he forced himself to pay her a compliment. He praised her shoes, and immediately rebuked himself mentally for looking like some sort of b.l.o.o.d.y fetishist. All because of that Russki, who"s always regaling me with his fantasies, he told himself.
"Do you like them?" she asked, raising her skirt and turning her foot this way and that so he could take a good look at the sandals. He said yes, thinking she had very shapely feet, and that the whole scene was extremely s.e.xy.
"It"s just a pity you can"t kick them off in a single go," she sighed. "The straps must have been invented by a man."
"What a clever guy. He knew what looks good."
"Thanks. I"m glad I"ve achieved the intended effect."
Just then the TV presenter Krzysztof Ibisz came into the cafe. He ran up to the mezzanine and looked round nervously. Szacki thought it embarra.s.sing to recognize Ibisz - the novelist Jerzy Pilch or the former prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki would have been quite another matter - so he pretended not to notice him. He questioned Monika about her work. He wasn"t really all that interested in stories about the editor from Gorzow who used any excuse to stare at her cleavage, as a result of which she had to keep correcting her articles several times and listening to his tirades about the pivotal point of the text. He found that he liked listening to her. He watched her gesticulating, adjusting her hair, licking her lips and playing with her coffee spoon - her mouth was just a minor element in the way the girl communicated; she seemed to speak with every muscle. He remembered that when a man stares at a woman"s lips, it means he wants to kiss her, so he quickly looked up at her eyes. At once he remembered there were some rules about staring at the eyes too - you should only look long enough to show attention, but not too insistently. Where did he get all this nonsense from?
Suddenly she broke off.
"I"ll tell you something," she said, pointing at him with her latte spoon and then digging the rest of the froth out of the tall gla.s.s. "But don"t laugh. Either say no, after all, I don"t know you at all, or yes - ultimately in a way it concerns you. I don"t know myself."
"Do you want me to interrogate you?"
Once again he almost burned with embarra.s.sment, and she laughed again.
"You see, I"d like to write a book. A novel."
"It happens in the best families."
"Ha, ha. It happens to every graduate and almost-graduate of Polish studies. But never mind. I"d like to write a novel about a prosecutor."
"A crime story?"
"No, an ordinary novel. But the hero would be a prosecutor. I had the idea a while ago, but when we met recently, I thought it really isn"t such a bad one. What do you think?"
He had no idea what to say.
"And this prosecutor-"
"Ooh," she cut him short. "It"s a long story."
He glanced discreetly at his mobile phone. Christ! He"d been sitting here for an hour and a half already. If their friendship was going to develop he"d have to murder someone every three days to justify these absences to Weronika in some way. He promised Monika he"d be happy to hear the plot and equally happy to let himself be exploited. He"d tell her everything she wanted to know. But not today.
When the waitress brought the bill, he reached for his wallet, but she stopped him.
"Don"t worry. It"s very kind of you, but you paid last time and I"m a feminist, I work at an almost-private firm for almost-decent money, and I"ve got to corrupt you a bit so you"ll be willing to cooperate."
He wanted to ask just what sort of cooperation she had in mind, but he decided against it.
He evidently wasn"t the master of bold flirting.
"It"s embarra.s.sing," he said.
She put the money on the table.
"It"s embarra.s.sing that you"re an educated man who chases bandits at G.o.d knows what cost, while I messed up my studies, write bad articles and earn more than you. Don"t be so macho - it really doesn"t matter."
"It matters enormously."
"How come?"
"If I"d known you were going to pay I"d have ordered soup and dessert too."
She admitted to living in the oliborz district, but she didn"t want him to take her there. She was planning to go to the Empik bookshop first, to look for something interesting. She talked a great deal, and that suited him very well. He had once read that everything we most like at the start of a friendship will irritate us the most later on. Absolutely true. He used to adore watching Weronika turning all the flowerpots a fraction each evening so they"d get equal sunlight, but now it really annoyed him when he heard the daily sc.r.a.pe of the pots being turned on the terracotta tiles in the kitchen.
She"d only just vanished round the corner of Nowy wiat Street when his mobile rang. Kitten.
"Where are you?"
"In the car," he lied. "I"m driving from Wolka to Koszykowa Street, I"ve got to look something up at the library."
"So how long did that funeral go on for? Three hours?"
"It started late, it went on for ages, I wanted to see it all properly, you know what it"s like."
"Of course I do. It happens to me three times a week. Nothing but funeral after funeral. Will you pick us up from Ujazdowski Park in two hours" time?"
"I don"t know if I"ll make it."
"Try. Your daughter mentioned that she"d like to be reminded what her father looks like."
"OK," he said, wondering why he"d only just had the idea of going to the library.
IV.
He liked this place. While he was at college he"d always preferred coming here than to look for a spot in the eternally crowded university library. The main reading room was fabulous, like the ballroom in a cla.s.sical palace. Two storeys high, it was decorated with pilasters and stucco, with light pouring in from the Koszykowa Street side through two rows of windows. There was something of the atmosphere of a church in here. Except that instead of the chill of stone walls and the odour of incense, there was a fragrance of oak parquet flooring and a nutty smell of old paper. The little tables that filled the room reminded him of church pews, and the small chairs next to them were just as uncomfortable as pews. But the unique atmosphere of this place came from the bra.s.s lamps with green gla.s.s shades that illuminated each table. On a November evening the reading room at the main city library was undoubtedly the most magical place in Warsaw.
He was looking forward to this mood as he parked down below, but the periodicals reading room turned out to be in an impersonal area on the fourth floor, a kingdom of laminated desks, fluorescent lamps and chairs upholstered in brown fabric.
In the computer he found catalogue numbers for the daily ycie Warszawy and the evening paper Express Wieczorny, filled out reserve slips for the binders dated September 1978 and September 1987, and waited. He spent a while watching the librarian filling in some forms. She had the archetypal look - long black hair with a centre parting, large, unfashionable gla.s.ses, a green, long-sleeved, polo-neck top and caricature-big b.r.e.a.s.t.s attached to a slender figure. She must have felt his gaze, because she interrupted her work and stared at him. He turned away.
He couldn"t stop thinking about the meeting at Szpilka. He went back over every word, wondering what she"d been thinking and how she"d understood what he"d said. Hadn"t he said something she might take wrongly? Hadn"t he made too much fun of his colleagues at work? She might think he was a misanthrope and a braggart all at once. And was she actually pretty? She was sweet, it was true, very sweet even, but pretty? Her shoulders were a bit too broad, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s too small, her b.u.m too low, and on top of that her legs were ever so slightly bowed.
Even if he was seeking out the imperfections in it, thinking about her body made him feel an immense urge for s.e.x. He couldn"t stop picturing the moment when, twisting slightly, with her skirt hitched halfway up her legs, she"d shown off her new shoes. He imagined her hitching her skirt even higher. Until it made him squirm. He closed his eyes and imagined it even more precisely. Not in the cafe, but at her place on the sofa.
I can"t, he thought, I can"t do that. I"m thirty-five, nearly thirty-six. I cannot go to the toilet at the main city library to w.a.n.k, while thinking about some la.s.sie with bandy legs.
But off he went.
When he came back, the newspapers were waiting for him.
He started with ycie Warszawy - "Warsaw Life" - from 1978, although he didn"t think the case would go that far back. Henryk Telak was nineteen then, and his parents were already dead. The 17th of September fell on a Sunday. He leafed through the pages. The coldest summer of the decade was ending, the final phase of the harvest was proceeding efficiently, there was an aeroplane exhibition at Zwycistwo Square to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Polish People"s Army. All very boring. Writer Zenon Kosidowski and eminent ophthalmologist Witold Starkiewicz had died, in the Tatra mountains a tourist had succ.u.mbed to a heart attack, and a mountaineer had fallen off a peak called Mnich. Could it possibly be to do with one of them? No. Curiously, ycie Warszawy had published a series of articles in the run-up to the sixtieth anniversary of Poland regaining independence after the First World War. Strange - he was sure that in Communist Poland 22nd July had been celebrated as Independence Day. Which wasn"t so dumb - celebrating anything in mid-November makes no sense. It"s always cold, pouring with rain, and no one even feels like watching a parade. He carefully read all the minor reports, especially from the capital, in search of information about a car crash or a killing. Instead of that he found reflections on the fact that "computers have made a rapid rise in popularity. At times their expansion even stirs anxiety." He automatically checked to see what was on TV on the evening of 17th September. Part one of the cla.s.sic serial The Doll starring Jerzy Kamas and Magorzata Braunek, and on Channel Two A Soldier"s Love - a Yugoslav film production.
In the Ochota district a car ran two people over, one of them died. He meticulously wrote down the names of all the deceased. Including Professor Sylwester Kaliski, minister of science, higher education and technology, Polish United Workers" Party member and member of parliament in Communist Poland.
Sport. In the compet.i.tion for ski-jumping on an artificial surface Tadeusz Tajner came sixth. A relative of the skiing champion Apoloniusz Tajner, perhaps? National soccer team trainer Jacek Gmoch"s charges are preparing for their next match in the European soccer championship qualifying stages. They have already won against Iceland, and will now play Switzerland; Holland and East Germany are waiting their turn. The editor couldn"t have known what Szacki knew in 2005 - that Poland had not played in the finals of that European championship or any since.
He went on looking, noting down the names in the death announcements for all the people who had died on 17th September. Most of them had died of old age, "after a long illness", or simply "departed". He thought it comforting that so few people were killed in accidents. It looked as if statistically he too had a chance of quietly reaching seventy. In the edition dated 20th September he finally found something interesting: "On 17th September Marian Kruk, aged fifty-two, and Zdzisaw Kruk, aged twenty-six, died tragically". Two death notices of identical size and content, the only difference being the signature. In the first, "wife, mother and family" were bidding farewell to their "beloved husband and son", and in the second, "wife, daughter-in-law and family" to "beloved husband and father-in-law". So a father and son had died together. One accident, two deaths, a ma.s.sive family tragedy. An earthquake within the system. He circled their names in red in his notebook. He"d have to check the circ.u.mstances of that incident.
He reached hopefully for the Express Wieczorny - "Evening Express" - expecting to find some juicy crime reports and gory descriptions of tragic accidents, but he was disappointed. The paper radiated nothing but dreadful boredom - he couldn"t understand why its legend had endured for so many years. Maybe he was just unlucky and had hit upon some poor editions. The only information that grabbed his attention was the news that Andrzej Wajda had started filming The Maids of Wilko, with Daniel Olbrychski in the leading role. Once upon a time they made good films, he thought.
In ycie Warszawy dated 17th September 1987 - this time it was a Thursday - there was no mention whatsoever of the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Just like nine years earlier, and every year. However, there was a lengthy piece about the anniversary of the n.a.z.i bombing of the Royal Castle. And about Wojciech Jaruzelski, who was having talks with Erich Honecker during a working visit to East Germany. It won"t last much longer, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, thought Szacki vengefully. A year and a half and you"ll all be put out to gra.s.s.
On television there was a British crime series, Cover Her Face, world championship gymnastics, a programme called Vodka, Let Me Live and the International Congress of University of the Third Age a.s.sociations. It looked as if on 17th September 1987 only a few hours of communing with the telly would be enough to make you slit your wrists out of boredom. Part of central Warsaw had no gas. Failure in the heating supply. Szacki impa.s.sively ran his eyes over the headings. In the autumn a Gorbachev-Reagan summit meeting. Despite an extremely difficult harvest, the grain crop reached twenty-five million tons. A murderer wouldn"t admit his guilt. He had been apprehended. It was a Warsaw murder. On 17th September.
"All Warsaw is talking about the tragedy that occurred yesterday in the city centre. Dozens of people witnessed the incident. At 4.15 Danuta M. was murdered at 125 Jerozolimskie Avenue in the sight of pa.s.sers-by and people waiting at a bus stop. The murderer, fifty-three-year-old Ryszard W., stabbed her in the neck with a knife. The woman died on the spot, and members of the public apprehended the killer. The inquiry is being conducted by the Ochota District Office for Internal Affairs."
The District Office for Internal Affairs? What the h.e.l.l is that? wondered Szacki as he made notes. The militia? The prosecutor"s? A sort of camouflaged secret-police unit? The case was striking, but it smelled of illegal alcohol a mile away. Later he read that the culprit was drunk, so was the victim, and he"d stabbed her because she"d refused to go and get him cigarettes from a kiosk.
He went on looking.
The Polish film, The Mother of Kings, won the "Golden Lions" award at the Gdynia film festival. He almost whistled as he read the list of other prizewinners - nowadays any one of those films could win that festival hands down with no fear of compet.i.tion. The Magnate, On the Niemen, Blind Chance, The Faithful River, Inner Life, Train to Hollywood. Nothing but cla.s.sics, and all in the same year. Incredible.
In the Express dated 21st September he found a short note, just a few sentences: "The body of twenty-three-year-old Kamil S. was found by his nineteen-year-old sister in a city-centre flat on Mokotowska Street. "The whole family was meant to be on a belated holiday," we heard from Captain Stefan Mamcarz of the district Civic Militia. "The boy stayed behind, and that was his undoing. The robbers expected the flat to be empty, and when they broke in and saw him there, they panicked and killed him." The militia claim that the tragedy occurred on 17th September in the evening. An intensive search is under way to apprehend the criminals."
He made a note and tapped his disposable ballpoint on the historic newspaper, leaving some black spots on it. Again he felt a tickling in his brain. Either instinct was telling him this could have a connection with the case, or he had cancer. Except that he was looking for a dead girl, and this was a boy. Maybe it was to do with the sister who found the body. Telak"s former girlfriend, perhaps? Or maybe this Kamil and Telak... No. All because of the h.o.m.ophobic panic - now he too thought he was seeing gays everywhere. But he"d have to check up on this case. It would be good to know the surname.
Three days further on he found two death notices. The first read: "On 17th September 1987 Kamil Sosnowski was taken from us, our beloved son and brother. Dearest Kamil, we will love you for ever, your Mummy, Daddy and sister." And the second was atypical: "On 17th September Kamil was murdered, our best mate and friend. Old pal, we"ll never forget you. Zibi and everyone."
He didn"t believe anything would come of it, but he decided he should ask Oleg to find the file relating to that case in the archive.
Mechanically he read the article he"d marked earlier with his pen. "Volume II of the Universal Encyclopedia is now available to the public. Issued upon fulfilling the following conditions: presentation at the waste-paper collection centre of a recyclable materials purchase booklet, subscription voucher, ident.i.ty card and payment of 5,100 zlotys."
What nonsense. He couldn"t remember the world of Communist Poland well, but it looked as if the film-maker Stanisaw Bareja"s satirical account of it was entirely true. Though on the other hand everything must have been simpler then. And funnier.
He took the binders back to the book trolley, bowed politely to the buxom librarian and ran down the stairs, quietly crooning the Michael Jackson hit, "Liberian Girl", but changing it into "librarian girl". Only on the ground floor did he switch on his mobile phone and realize he"d spent three hours in the library. b.u.g.g.e.r, he"d f.u.c.ked up again. He swore out loud and called Weronika.
8.
Monday, 13th June 2005.
In America a jury has acquitted Michael Jackson on a charge of paedophilia. Nevertheless the King left the court building looking sad and dejected. In Belarus the militia have apprehended a gerontophile rapist. The youngest victim was sixty-one, the oldest eighty-seven. In Ukraine, councillors in Lviv have pa.s.sed a resolution necessary for the opening of the "Eaglets" Polish war cemetery. In France, Polish actor Andrzej Seweryn has been awarded the Legion d"honneur. In Poland, boring news: nationalist politician Roman Giertych wants to take the Minister for Internal Affairs and Administration to court for not preventing the illegal Equality Parade. Conservative politician Jan Rokita of the Civic Platform party agrees with Law and Justice party leader Jarosaw Kaczyski on the issue of vetting people in official posts to expose Communist-era collaboration and declares: "There is a chance for joint government." Left-wing former premier Leszek Miller has been thoroughly defeated in the primaries within the od branch of the Democratic Left Alliance party, but even so he will be first on the candidate list. In Warsaw the police break up a gang of thieves which stole luxury cars by making the drivers get out to inspect non-existent damage. During the interrogations a gun with a silencer is seized, along with 5.5 pounds of amphetamines and an antique samurai sword. Beautiful weather in the capital city: twenty-two degrees, sunny, no rain.
I.
Bright and early he arrived at Oleg"s place on Wilcza Street. Unfortunately, no one had been murdered that weekend and Szacki was worried that if the policeman didn"t provide him with new information about Telak he"d be forced to work on the drugs case.
They drank coffee out of plastic cups in the police station canteen. In his black fake-leather waistcoat thrown over a greenish T-shirt Kuzniecow looked like a black-market money changer from the old Thousandth Anniversary Stadium that was now home to a seedy bazaar. Szacki was in a grey suit, like a mafia accountant wanting to have a serious talk about business with him.
"I"ve got a voiceprint a.n.a.lysis for you," said Kuzniecow. "Unfortunately it"s not an expert opinion, just an unofficial one. Leszek did it for me as a favour - normally you have to record comparative material in their special sound-a.n.a.lysis studio. They paid insane money for it - even the sound of electrons in the electrical wires has been silenced - and now they refuse to hear of any other recordings. They"ve got big-headed. But Leszek is all right. You know what, he spends most of his time tuning pianos. He has a fabulous sense of hearing, I"m surprised he bothers working for us."