Absolute Sunset (12 page)

“Yes,” Sabina’s mother dug her fingers into the wall, scoring the wallpaper.
What about Sabina? What about Sabina?
she wondered, fearfully.

“Jan Panek,” their guest introduced himself. “Can I come in?”

So he did. They served him tea. Quickly. And a cookie. Sabina’s parents sat down at the table in the living room.

“What’s the problem?” they asked.

“Sabina, as you must have guessed,” the man began. Sabina’s mother fainted.

Sabina had painted the town red. She had passed out and somehow landed far away from Katowice, in some godforsaken small town. Nobody knew what she’d been doing there. She was alone. Jan Panek found her in a ditch. He heard some groans as he was coming back from an evening walk with his dog, around midnight. He was in the habit of going to bed late. Sabina was lying there amongst burdocks. Her dress was rolled up on the back. She had no pants on.

The man took her with him. He and his wife washed the girl and put her to bed. They didn’t know who she was, so they locked her in a room upstairs. Maybe she was a thief. Before they locked her up, they took her ID. And that was how Jan Panek knew the address. And so he had arrived.

“We have children. We just had to help...” he finished his report. Sabina’s father went pale.

“Let’s go get her,” he said, and raced off to their Fiat 126p. His guest barely kept up with him.

It ended with a beating. A serious one, with a cable not a belt. Sabina had marks all over her body. Her father tore her hair out. He ripped the clothes from her. Her mother just stood by, not intervening at all. It had to be done.

Later Sabina got smarter. She hoofed it far, for a long time. She was madly in love. But the guy got bored with her after a few months. He took her to her parents, then travelled west alone. Then it was another “fiancé.” And another, and the next. They all went away. Why? Sabina didn’t have a clue. Did she regret it? Did she miss them? Did she cry? Always.

Finally, she found Janusz. Older then her, serious, with a good job. Maybe not rich, but with prospects. He was an orphan. His parents had died when he was twelve. Kind-hearted soul! She didn’t love him. But she liked him, and she loved the way he adored her—in such an old-fashioned style. He was supposed to have been a little change of pace between other affairs.

Sabina’s parents quickly organised a wedding. Janusz probably wouldn’t have been so willing to get married, if not for their pressure. Sabina had always suspected that, upon seeing a reasonable candidate, her mother would somehow force him to marry her. Her father probably insisted on it, too. They wanted to get rid of her, they wanted him to lift the burden off their shoulders. “I will give my daughter into good hands.” Sabina didn’t resent them. She understood.

They got married at the Registrar’s Office. Then they had a modest party in the flat. Janusz moved in and they lived with Sabina’s parents. Sabina hoped it would be all right. Not much space, but a nice atmosphere. Boring, reliable Janusz. Hanka’s birth. Nothing special.

Sabina has often dreamed about her parents. Such a tried-and-tested tear-jerker, about mom coming closer through a field of rye and cornflowers. She and Sabina had never been there together, but Sabina knew that the dream wasn’t lying. Mum would move just like that! Her father, with his arms full of packages, stood on the rough grass that separated two fields.

“This is all for you,” he smiled to Sabina.

This dream—she had it again when she went to bed angry with Janusz over the whole vaccination thing. She woke up in the middle of it, just at the point when she was opening the first package. The paper rustled promisingly and it sparkled. Suddenly everything disappeared. Beside her, Janusz snored. She sighed and looked at the clock. Twelve minutes past one. She wouldn’t fall asleep again.

She got up and went to the kitchen, sat down with a sigh. In the dark, the tiny ember of her cigarette gave just enough light. She reached for the leftovers from the tea. She didn’t feel like drinking vodka.

Sabina’s parents had died in an accident not long before Hanka’s birth. If they had lived, probably everything would have gone differently. Sabina would have had someone to visit or to talk to. Mum would have reminded her how to mould Silesian potato dumplings. How to prepare leavening for the borscht. She would have helped with the children, Sabina would have had some time to herself. Dad would probably have given her some money for the hairdresser or the beautician. On grandchildren he was strict, but she could always count on him. Maybe he would have contributed to the purchase of a used car? Sabina could correct everything, or simply start from scratch. Everything had gone wrong.

The following day, Sabina decided to go to the damn clinic. First thing in the morning. For peace and quiet. She wasn’t afraid of Janusz at all. She simply wanted him to give her a break, focus on his own stuff. Get lost. Give up the performance.

“Get dressed. I’ll walk to school with you and then I’ll go to the doctor’s with Bartek,” she said to Hanka, starting to dress Bartek in overalls. It was November. A cold one, almost frosty. Whether he liked it or not she had to put some clothes on him.

Sabina carried the pram down and pushed open the icy door of the staircase. She had the feeling that if she touched the metal surface of the door with her tongue, it would freeze there. Outside, it smelled of a winter. Her breath condensed, like steam. It would probably snow soon.

Hanka joined her mother. She put on a jacket, which Sabina hadn’t seen before, probably something Janusz had bought. She’d had a lot of other things on her mind to think about. They walked in silence through the housing estate. Sabina had no clue what she could talk about with her daughter. About dolls? Or maybe about boys already? Is it bad that she doesn’t know?

“What lessons do you have today?” she asked in the end, and Hanka jumped a little, frightened.

“So... the usual,” she answered, looking at the ground. Sabina didn’t press the subject.

They walked slowly, passing bald hedges. Single leaves still clung to the trees. They held on desperately, as if they didn’t want to surrender to the inevitable. Sabina thought they were stupid. She tied her scarf tighter and tucked her nose into it. They reached a crossroads. Directly opposite was the school. The road to the clinic led to the right.

“Well, here we’ll say goodbye,” Sabina said, stopping.

“See you soon,” muttered Hanka, without stopping.

“Wait!” Sabina said. She felt that she should do something more for her daughter. It’s necessary to do
something
. Absolutely!

“Yes?” Hanka said, surprised.

“Take care of yourself,” Sabina whispered, zipping the girl’s jacket up to Hanka’s chin. She bent and firmly kissed Hanka, then hugged her for a second. Hanka was stiff, stunned.

“Take care of yourself!” Sabina repeated. “Bye!” she turned and quickly moved on. She didn’t look back.

She took exactly forty-four steps. She counted. She came to the footbridge above the roadway. Thirty-eight steps. Beneath the footbridge workers were patching a road full of holes. Crummy time for that kind of work. The frost would break everything again right away. Despite that, road-menders put more and more gravel onto the road. A machine thudding along beside them produced asphalt. Workers jumped around her like devils around a dreadful fire. Their faces were black. Pungent mist plumed up from the cauldron. It swathed the footbridge in a thick cloud. Sabina couldn’t see the other end—it disappeared amidst the stinking clouds. Although she was afraid there might be a hole in the bridge, she moved in the direction of the other side. As she entered the pall of smoke, she momentarily went blind and deaf, as if her ears were tired of the noise of the machine working below. After a moment she emerged back into the fresh air. The world returned. Such a pity...

The clinic was crowded. Very crowded and stuffy. Very crowded, stuffy and warm. Very crowded, stuffy, warm, and stinking of illness. In front of the paediatrician’s office a throng of kids occupied the only available table, on which a few sheets of paper lay along with a single, chewed coloured pencil. Almost all the children had colds. Some were coughing. The majority of them were howling.

From time to time a nurse peered out of the treatment room where children were vaccinated, letting a mist of spirits into the corridor. It attracted the elderly people who circulated in front of the GP’s office, craving conversation, avid for health and entertainment. Sabina hoped they wouldn’t talk to her. After some time it was finally her turn.

“Could you please take care of my pram?” Sabina asked one of the women waiting with her. She took Bartek and went inside, where she saw a young doctor. Not too tall, and with dusky skin. Handsome. Sabina noticed it all—yes, she did. But she wasn’t in the mood for flirting.

“Good morning,” she said and started undressing Bartek.

“What’s the problem?” the doctor asked curtly. He had no time for courtesies.

“Vaccination.”

“Which one? I don’t remember all of my patients!”

“It’s in his record.”

The doctor ran through some forms. He wrote down some bullshit. He started asking questions. Poops? Pee? How much does he sleep? What does he eat? How much? Has he started to sit up yet? Or raise his head? Sabina answered with anything she wanted, poops are good. Her son sleeps quite a lot, eats well. He can do everything, whatever’s necessary. The doctor seemed to have gotten wise to her lying. He smiled ironically.

“Move away, please,” he ordered, seeing Bartek ready for the examination. “I’ll examine the child. I need to be sure that he’s healthy before I give him a vaccine.”

As soon as he took a look at the little boy, he made a wry face.

“He’s far too thin,” he said. “And he has a very dry skin, cracked in some places. Are you bathing him at all?” the doctor was murmuring.

He put the stethoscope on Bartek’s skinny, chicken-like chest. He went quiet. He frowned. He had found something! Sabina clenched the edge of her blouse in her hands. The doctor kept checking on the boy. In the end he put his equipment aside—with a specific, characteristic medical gesture. As a little girl Sabina had often practiced it. She had wanted to become a doctor. For the sole reason that she could then have a stethoscope and remove it with this special gesture.

“Your son is suffering from serious pneumonia,” the paediatrician announced. Then he paused and waited for Sabina to excuse herself somehow. “He looks bad,” he continued after a while. “I have no idea how you could have overlooked it. And what vaccination are you talking about? Look, the child has a fever!” the doctor shook his head.
Another idiot
his eyes seemed to say.

“So, now what?” asked Sabina without a trace of remorse in her voice. It wasn’t her fault that she overlooked it. Bartek was just calm. How could she have known that he was ill? Come on! They called her to the clinic, so she came.

“Hospital,” the doctor ordered, hurrying to write out a referral. “The prognosis is rather poor. He must be taken to hospital immediately if he’s to have any chance. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Here you are, the referral. Go straight to Wolska, to the paediatric hospital. Dress the child decently, cover him well. I’m not going to call an ambulance—with the crappy service we get they probably wouldn’t bother to send one. Go straight to the hospital, do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sabina confirmed.

“I’m serious. He could die. He’ll be lucky to get better. And you’ll be lucky. Because if he doesn’t make it, I’ll report it to child care services. I’m not joking, believe me,” the doctor got up, enraged at Sabina’s careless tone.

“Well—well—we’re going to the hospital,” Sabina promised and left the office.

“Next!” she heard, as she closed the door.

She went to the hospital the same way she had reached the clinic. Straight ahead. To the footbridge. Up the steps. Pushing the pram with an effort. As Sisyphus did with his stone. She stopped, breathless, at the top of the steps. She went a few more paces and decided to take a rest.

She stood almost perfectly in the middle of the bridge, in the place where it bent over because of gravity, creating a concave meniscus. Cars rushed past below. Muddy water spray burst from under their wheels. She took the baby out of the pram. The boy opened his eyes, curious at the change. Sabina sat him on the fence.

“See, cars are driving down there,” she said quietly, but Bartek didn’t really care. He went back to sleep. His head fell back on his mother’s shoulder.

Sabina looked down. The traffic died out for a moment. The footbridge was empty. Somebody ran along the pavement toward the bus stop. She relaxed her grip. Bartek sat on his own for a while. She moved away from him. Maybe she gently pushed the sleeping baby. Or did he just lose his balance?

He fell, just like that. Overalls puffed up with air. He hit the asphalt. Without a cry, quietly. Sabina stuck her head over the rail. Bartek lay on the road, flat, like a frog that had been run over. Blood drained from under his striped hat. Dark, it mixed with the water that stood in the rut.

People stuck their heads out of the shelter of the bus stop. Then they lifted their eyes up. They saw her. Then they saw the dead child. They shouted something and waved their hands. Somebody jumped out to the middle of the road. He ran to Bartek. He sobbed. He vomited on his own shoes. Sabina headed home.