Absolute Sunset (14 page)

“Do you regret it?” Sabina asked.

“No,” Ilona replied, narrowing her eyes. “I’d kill him again. But I’m sorry for the kids. They landed in an orphanage. I miss them. Two more years and I’ll apply for a conditional discharge. Just because I fucking miss them,” Ilona began to cry.

Sabina started to miss Hanka. She wasn’t able to say what she missed exactly. Simply the child herself. She even wrote a few letters. To Hanka. To Janusz. All of them came back. They didn’t want to know her anymore. When she got out she would visit them. She would have a talk with them. She wouldn’t give in to despair.

A year passed. Sabina changed her hairstyle. She shaved half of her head, brushed her hair to one side or the other, or pulled it together in an untidy bun. She worked. She read quite a lot—something she had never done before. She learned to play cards. She smoked unfiltered cigarettes. When asked what she’d been jailed for, she replied vaguely. The other inmates didn’t insist on a better answer—no need to reopen old wounds.

One day there was a fight. It wasn’t the first and it wouldn’t be the last. The women were about to go for a walk, when Jagoda rushed old Wieśka and began beating her mercilessly. Sabina was the closest. She grabbed Jagoda by the hands and twisted them firmly behind the woman’s back.

“Leave her alone,” she hissed, and tried to turn so that Ewa, who was on duty, wouldn’t see what was happening.

“That old cunt took my cigarettes!” Jagoda howled.

“You slut!” Sabina caught her more firmly and tried to hush her up. “Shut your mouth—we’ll talk later.”

But Ewa was already headed in their direction. She didn’t ask who had started the fight, just aimed her baton at Sabina.

“You! Let her go!”

“Okay, okay,” Sabina raised her hands in the gesture of surrender.

“Follow me to your cell, you’re not going for a walk.”

“But I didn’t start it!” Sabina wanted to go out badly. Besides, arguing with the staff was good form.

“You didn’t kill your child either, did you?” Ewa yelled back.

The unit went silent. All eyes turned to Sabina. Ruthless eyes.

On her return from the prison yard, Ilona didn’t acknowledge Sabina.

“Something stinks in here—must be some kind of shit,” she said loudly, then went to bed. The following morning during breakfast, Sabina sat alone. Former friends avoided her, spat when they saw her.

“Just wait, you’ll get what’s coming to you,” they threatened in whispers. “First chance we get we’ll do such a number on you, you’ll never forget it.”

They didn’t have to wait long. Just until the next walk. They leapt at the opportunity as soon as there was no guard paying attention. They surrounded Sabina. Two of them caught her by her shoulders. They pinned her down to the wall. Ilona removed a thin brick from of it. Sabina knew about this—it had been prepared beforehand for situations like this.

“Here you go, you rag!” Ilona muttered, lisping through the spot where her front teeth should have been. It seemed funny to Sabina. Ilona raised her hand. She swung so firmly that she grunted. The brick hit Sabina’s head. Something popped, like the bursting of a balloon. Something crunched. Blood flowed. Sabina passed out. She was transported to the prison hospital, unconscious, her blood splattered all over her shirt. Her feet trembled. The doctors took care of the prisoner reluctantly. They had taken an oath, so they had to save her. But it wasn’t enthusiastic about it. They x-rayed her head.

“Cerebral edema, the effect of a blow. Bones are okay, she’s in coma,” That was the diagnosis.

As for a prognosis, no one gave an opinion. She was put in intensive care. Just in case, they shaved her head so they could open her skull if they had to. But nobody was anxious to do it.

Sabina regained consciousness two weeks later. The moment she opened her eyes, she began to laugh. She knew very well where she was! In the movies the patient never has a clue where they’ve been taken! She giggled so loud that two nurses came running from the duty office.

“What’s going on? What’s going on?” they demanded, firing questions at her.

“Nothing,” Sabina began to hiccup.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because I know where I am.”

The nurses turned away from the machines that monitored Sabina’s condition for a moment. They looked at one another. They blinked.

“We’ll get the doctor,” they declared. Leaving the room, the taller woman whispered to the shorter one that Sabina was probably nuts.

“I heard that!” Sabina screamed, still laughing.

She spent more than nine months in hospital. She had problems with her eyesight as a result of the blow to her head. It was something to do with light. Bright light meant a piercing headache. A granny sharing a room with Sabina offered her a pair of red plastic Donald sunglasses.
What are you doing in prison, Granny? Did you kill your cat, or your parrot?
But there she was. Strange. She handed Sabina a small, transparent box.

“They’re from my granddaughter, take them,” The old lady shook the glasses. Sabina had a problem reaching them. She didn’t do well with distance. She would end up either clenching her hands in air in front of the object, or reach behind it. She would bump the glasses that stood on the cupboard, or hit the table with her spoon instead of dipping it into her soup.

“Damn,” she swore inarticulately. She could hear that she was mumbling. Something had happened with her mouth and cheeks. On the left side of her face. Everything was stiff. She concentrated. She had to have those glasses!
It’s so sunny! My eyes!
She stretched out her arm, explored the area. She caught hold of them. As soon as she put on the glasses, she felt relief.

“You might get parole,” a doctor told Sabina during one of her examinations. He didn’t look her in the eye.

“How?” Sabina asked.

“Ask our legal adviser. He’s on duty on Tuesdays and Thursdays from four to six p.m. It shouldn’t be hard. In your condition, you should leave the prison. Nobody will help you here.”

Sabina met with the lawyer. A young idealist. Her history touched him. A youngster! He didn’t condemn her.

“Everyone deserves a second chance!” he said tenderly.

He wrote some letters for her, sent them where they had to go. He made some phone calls. He set a date. He hoped for the best. “We have a chance, believe me!” He was pleased. A youngster—they’re always premature.

As soon as Sabina saw the judge she knew there would be trouble. He stomped fiercely into the room, threw a file onto the table, and sat down in a chair as if he were on a throne. He scanned the room with malice in his eyes.

“Sabina Borowska!” he barked.

“Good morning,” Sabina replied.

“Records!” he ordered his assistant.

A blonde dressed in a cheap suit crept timidly to the judge and handed him a thick file. He put it down, grunted, and eyed the room again, finally settling his gaze on Sabina. He squinted. But before he could say anything, Sabina’s lawyer spoke up.

“Your Honour,” he began. “We are petitioning for a conditional dismissal based on the bad health of the inmate...”

“I know!” the judge interrupted bluntly. Sabina felt sorry for the young lawyer. He was so nice and he was about to be owned. And in her case.

“The inmate needs professional medical assistance...”

“Silence!” the judge hollered. “There will be no
assistance
! She throws a child from a bridge and then suddenly gets ill? I know you! All your type! All the same! Malingerers!”

“But there are documents from the hospital...”

“I’m not a doctor, I’m not going to read those! I am not granting any conditional dismissal! There are getting to be more and more of you—pathetic mothers! You give birth and then throw away your children. Or murder them. You need to be punished! Severely! To show the others that it’s not so easy—kill your kid and then get out of prison because of some supposed ailment! Because of headaches? Get out!”

The judge stood and pointed Sabina toward the door.

Janusz—Disappear From My Life

Sabina’s disappearance came as suddenly as the bursting of a soap bubble. Hanka cried a lot. She lay on the sofa, her head covered with a blanket, and cried. If she howled, it was easier to tell her to stop. “Stop howling! Quiet!” Just like that. But Janusz couldn’t do anything to stop this non-invasive despair, this quiet suffering under the blanket. He bought Hanka a new pony. A rubber one, in a furious shade of blue and produced in the west. “Made in England.”

“You can even comb the mane!” the seller had said enthusiastically.

But his daughter barely noticed it. She unpacked it, stroked it, took it in her hand, and went back to the couch to cry in the company of her new toy, which she named Cucumber. Their old neighbour, Mrs. Ram, who took care of Hanka from time to time, shook her head.

“So much suffering during childhood is a bad omen,” she said. “A child should be happy. And here... so much crying. It’s too bad.”

She tried to comfort Hanka with dumplings and sugar. And a baked apple. And pudding.

Janusz took care of Bartek’s funeral. He decided that there would be no wake. He didn’t post any notices. He didn’t call any friends. He just called the priest. He bought a plot in the graveyard. He arranged a meeting with the funeral company to arrange everything. “To discuss the celebrations.” Neat euphemism.

“How tall is the child?” a woman sitting behind a desk asked him. She was dressed in black and coiffed respectably, with a Concordia pin on the lapel of her jacket. She had put a bit too much pink blush on her pale cheeks, making her look a little like a doll. A sad doll. She was unhappy. But so was her work.

“Height?” Janusz had to think for a while. “About eighty centimetres,” he answered. It was just a guess.

“Colour? Corner pieces?” she thrust a catalogue at Janusz so abruptly that he felt a little taken aback. In the pages of the thick book he saw specimens of wood and decorative metal pieces in a range of colors. “What do you like?” she asked, rushing him.

What’s the fucking difference?!
Janusz wanted to scream.
It-does-not-fucking-matter!

“Oak,” he replied.

“Corners?”

“Simple.”

“Gravestone?”

They picked one from the catalogue. Small. Janusz couldn’t afford a large monument. He examined the kneeling angel figures closely. “Very appropriate for the child,” the woman suggested. No. Too expensive. He chose a square plinth with an inscription.

“A photograph?” The woman took another catalogue from a drawer. “We guarantee the most beautiful sheen on the enamel, the clear white of the china, and the permanence of the image and the colour in any weather conditions,” she said, quoting the advertising copy.

Janusz didn’t want one. He didn’t want to see Bartek printed on convex china. An elderly man might look honourable in an image like that. But a child? Was this woman nuts? How would these innocent eyes look—the eyes of a happy, silly child—on this fucking ceramic?

“No photo.”

“Maybe in colour? It would be nice...”

“No.”

“Inscription? On the gravestone?” She wasn’t about to let it go. Janusz patiently waited. He wanted just to get through this.
When will it end?

He was alone in the graveyard. Icy rain poured down just as if it had been ordered for the occasion—small, stubborn drops. Gusty wind. Yes. It should be like this at a child’s funeral. In the chapel he prayed alone with the priest, then they came to the graveyard. A funeral procession consisting of two men. There were more gravediggers than mourners. A hole in the ground, a small one. They filled it in quickly, put a cross on top.

“May you be fine in heaven,” the priest started officially. He raised his hand to make the sign of the cross. And he faltered. Suddenly he burst in tears. From deep in his heart. Such a fearsome, male sobbing. Terrible. He was a priest, who was supposed to believe in eternal life, and yet he was crying in pain. He fell down to his knees in the mud. Now he prayed in earnest.

“Dear Lord, let this soul go straight to You and have some peace, as it did not have it here!”

The wind tousled his tippet and dashed its ends into the mud. Heresy! Janusz stood, hunched. He was waiting. For Sabina. If they had both been here, it would have been easier to cope. If she had given some kind of explanation. It’d be easier to carry on. “It was an accident.” That would have been enough. But she didn’t come.

Janusz helped the elderly priest get up. He stopped by at the presbytery. To have some sweet tea. The priest continued to cry. Janusz poured some cognac for him. Then he left. He stopped by the flat.

“Good morning,” he said to Mrs. Ram and went to the bedroom. After a moment he came back, his black suit replaced with normal trousers and an old shirt. His neighbour said her goodbyes. She left in a hurry, thumping on the stairs.

“Dad?” Hanka didn’t witness what the old lady had seen. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing, I’m going to tidy up.”

He dragged some duvet covers out of the drawer. Big—good. He didn’t have any trash bags. He opened the shoe cupboard. Here they were! Her sandals, her flip flops, her boots. Out! He started filling the duvet covers. He threw shoes, coats, shawls, scarves, underwear, cosmetics, and jewellery into them. All of it! Out! Out! Hanka burst into tears.