Absolute Sunset (17 page)

“Here you are,” he announced, and threw the sheet aside. He smiled, like a proud sculptor at the dedication of a monument he’d created. Janusz felt like slapping him in the face. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes for a moment or two, counting to ten.

“Thanks,” he ground out.

“When you finish, come get me and I’ll put her back and we’ll have a word about what to do next.” The guy saluted idiotically and left.

Janusz stood, alone with Sabina, examining her. Her hair, once red and luxurious, had been cut short, shredded and uneven. Here and there he could see streaks of white. Had she aged so much?

Her face: dark, bluish circles under her eyes. Her lips were blue, too. Her eyelashes, once soft, and her eyebrows, once delicate, were gone, the spots where they’d been bald. Her freckles had disappeared. Her nose was longer, her chin more pointed. Her ears were deformed! Jesus!

Her body was skinny rather than fit, her chest hollow. There was thick hair on her legs, which once she’d proudly shaved smooth.

Her fingers were stained with cheap tobacco and greenish at the tips. A tattoo on her forearm, a raven. Carelessly drawn, it must have hurt. Had she done it herself? Had someone helped her?

Sabina. She had been so beautiful! He had stood by the altar, dressed in his too-tight suit, strangled by the tie on his neck. Behind him the guests had whispered, just a few of them in the large church, and every word flew up to the vault. Sabina had come out of the sacristy, her white dress rustling as if it were made of tissue paper, the veil gleaming with golden flecks. Beneath it, that red hair, the color of saffron milk caps. And the smile of an angel, as if she’d just alighted from a scene in the stained glass. He remembered nothing else about the ceremony apart from putting the ring on her slim finger. It had been a bit too big and later Sabina lost it somewhere. She’d always been skittish, spontaneous, a messy woman.

Janusz bent and kissed the dead woman on the forehead. He stroked what remained of her hair.

“Bye, baby,” he said. Once he had talked to her this way and she’d laugh and clap her hands in delight, back when they’d still talked normally to one another.

He came back to the butcher, who was finishing a sandwich.

“I’m done,” he said. “Now what?”

“Will you arrange the funeral or should we take care of her?” the Doctor Butcher asked.

“I’ll take her,” Janusz sighed. “I’ll take care of her.”

Hanka—The Funeral

“Hanka, let’s have a word,” Janusz said one day.

Hanka sat down eagerly, a mug of tea in her hands. She expected a story about pickpockets on their bus route, the 512 line, or a story about the time when her father was a little boy. The suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box, the topic of her mother leapt out.

“Hanka, your mum died,” her father announced. As if he were saying “Hanka, it’s raining” or “Hanka, put your sandals on.” As if nothing had happened. “Your mum died.” Hanka felt her lips become numb. Her face burned, like she’d spent a day in the sun. Her hands started to shake.

“What?” Perhaps it was a mistake? Had she misheard? Yes, she must have misheard!

“She died in prison. Darling, I know. I’m so sorry, too. But...”

Hanka lowered her head. For a brief moment she tried to prevent the tears from coming, but they ignored her, stubbornly streaming from her eyes. A whine escaped her throat. Hanka howled as an old dog does after its beloved master. In the end she had to scream her longing, the entire afternoon, until she was hoarse.

Her father got her a new dress for the funeral. Fourteen-year-olds like pink and red—Hanka had nothing black. Janusz also bought a pair of black knee-length socks. Black shoes with tassels made from strips of leather. Hanka liked them very much. Only once she’d put them on over the black socks did it occur to her that taking pleasure in funeral clothes wasn’t appropriate.

The graveyard was nearby, so they walked, heading for the little chapel. The ceremony would be small, with just a few guests, so the chapel would be enough.

The old door creaked and Hanka entered cautiously. The fragrance of incense surrounded her. Rays of the light from the windows fell across the floor. In the middle of the church, in front of the altar, was a coffin.

“You can go and say goodbye, Hanka,” her father said, gently pushing her in that direction. “Then they’ll close it and mass will begin.”

Hanka hesitated a little, but then made up her mind to go. She rested her hands against the edge of the coffin, held onto it. After her ceaseless crying and mad mourning, her father had given her tea with a tranquilizer in it and it had made her dizzy. She blinked rapidly, then bent down toward her mother.

The staff at the funeral parlor had prepared Sabina, so there was makeup on her face. They’d used quite a bit of pink and a lipstick that didn’t match very well. Her mother would have been furious. They’d dressed Sabina in a dark blue women’s suit, more appropriate for an old lady than a woman who was still quite young. Her mother would never have worn something like that—no way.

Sabina’s left jacket sleeve was slightly hitched up and Hanka leaned over the edge of the coffin to fix it. She pulled the fabric higher by accident and saw the tattoo. She moved the sleeve away a bit more. “Oh, my raven!” she thought, now that she’d seen the entire image.

The parish clerk pulled a rope, making the bell toll, and the priest left the sacristy. Hanka stepped quickly back from the coffin and sat down on the bench in first row.

Hanka—Silent Murderer

Hanka was on her way home from work, following her usual path. She knew every hole in the broken pavement by heart. Every treacherous curb, every slippery step. She had lived here for almost a quarter of a century and
Tysiąclecie
hadn’t changed much.

She had changed, though. She’d finished college, studying accountancy just like her father. Janusz had helped her with her homework, and with a little boost from him—a word here, a word there—she’d managed to find a decent entry-level position as an accounting assistant. She hoped that one day she’d be able to save enough money to pay for the next level of coursework and get a chief accountant’s diploma. But for that moment what she had would have to be enough.

She’d started dyeing her hair and wearing eye shadow. Sometimes she painted her nails, but not often. They didn’t look very nice, cracked and broken in places, and nail polish only made things worse. She’d sometimes hook up with men—no commitments. And she’d gone to pubs and discos, but only rarely. Her father hadn’t been able to sleep when she was out. He’d wait for her, watching from behind the curtains.

“I’m not worried, but I like to know when you’re back,” he’d say.

Hanka stepped over a sizeable dog poop that lay in the middle of the promenade. That was normal at
Tysiąclecie
, so you had to be careful. Especially in winter, when dog owners didn’t want to go too far with their pets. Janusz once told her that if someone stepped in dog poop and it sticks to their shoe, it means that they’ll be rich. Maybe Hanka was being too careful. She didn’t own much. Maybe she should just step in dog shit intentionally one day—but not when she was wearing her brand new boots.

She reached her building. There were more and more spots where plaster was falling off on the exterior and a few rows of windows had been changed from glass to plastic. Apart from that, it hadn’t changed at all. Even the residents were the same. Agata lived next door, just as she had years ago. They were still friends. Agata had married and had had two children. Mrs. Ram, whom Agata referred to as one of the living dead, still clung to life in her third floor apartment on the left side. She was old and wrinkled, but still lively. On some balconies there was more rubbish than there had once been, while on others satellite dishes appeared.

Hanka went upstairs. She didn’t knock, though her father must be home. He often dozed after work and she didn’t want to wake him up. She opened the door, took off her shoes in the hall, and went in.

“Hi!” Janusz greeted her. He was in the other room, trying to shout down the TV set. “The match!” he informed her.

Hanka understood. She took off her scarf and jacket, then carefully hung them on a clothes hanger. She put her boots on the mat so as not to wet the linoleum.

“Keep watching, I’ll have a snack,” she shouted back to her father, heading to her room.

She lay down on the bed. She closed her eyes, though she didn’t want to sleep. When she was asleep, sometimes the raven appeared. Her old pal. She wasn’t afraid of it now. Did she get used to it? Has she become immune? Twenty years of friendship with the bird—very strange. He came, sometimes they talked, and sometimes he took her somewhere. She put it out of her mind. She used to watch the sun in the morning, as Janusz had advised her to do a long time ago, and in that way she could forget.

During the evening it got frosty. The icicles hanging on the balconies seemed to shine with their own light. The frost even managed to defeat the smog, and you could see the stars clearly. An icy breeze blew in the windows, so that the net curtains billowed and the lighter ones in the kitchen stood out almost horizontally.

“Cold,” her father complained.

Hanka covered the gaps in the window frames with old towels and blankets. The coolness didn’t disturb her, but Janusz was already quite old and it wasn’t good for him. The previous winter he’d had pneumonia and Hanka worried about him. In the end she made him go to his bedroom.

“Go to bed, you’ll be warmer under the duvet,” she said, serving him milk with garlic which he drank grudgingly. He smiled and hid in the bed, falling asleep almost immediately. Hanka envied him a bit.

She washed herself quickly—it was terribly cold in the bathroom. She didn’t feel like taking a bath. Maybe tomorrow. She went to bed. In the morning she would have to get up earlier than usual since the buses would be running behind schedule on account of the frost. If they came at all—she might have to walk.

It was noisy at Agata’s. Hanka could hear every word through the thin walls. The sound of water running into the bathtub, the rustle of a newspaper. Hanka was accustomed to the voices of the kids and their parents, to the roaring TV set and the squeaky toys. But this evening Dotty—Agata’s super purebred Dalmatian—was whining manically, so she couldn’t fall asleep.
Stupid animal
, she thought, irritated. She got up, put on her dressing gown, and went to see her friend.

“What’s going on?” she asked as soon as Agata opened the door. Her friend started laughing.

“Dotty visited a bitch, for breeding purposes. Come in, I’ll tell you,” Agata moved back into the entrance hall to let Hanka in.

“Well, so does he miss her or what?” Hanka asked, her anger gone.

“I think he rather regrets what happened. Instead doing of you know what, he ran around the garden of the bitch’s owners. Then his time was up and he missed his chance. Come on, have a drink with me and he’ll calm down right away.”

They sat down in the living room. Agata poured compote into glasses. They whispered, because Agata’s husband was dozing in the armchair. Apparently he’d had a tough day. He worked in a warehouse and he’d had a big shipment that day. Agata got up and covered him with a blanket—a good wife.

“Kids, it’s bath time,” she ordered after a moment.

Hanka helped her to wash the kids and put them to bed. They were three and five years old, a girl and a boy. Hanka wanted to have kids, but with whom? Agata was a lucky woman. They chatted for a while and laughed, but Robert started snoring.

“I have to go.” Hanka got up and went back home.

Although it was late, she decided that a warm tea with juice wouldn’t do her any harm. She drank it very hot, almost boiling, slurping and hissing as she did. Then she put thick socks on and opened the window. She had trouble sleeping when it was stuffy. She lay down and wrapped herself in the duvet. Outside the window the street lamps were shining and willow branches swung lazily, like algae waving in the water. Dotty finally shut up. Hanka fell asleep.

In her dream she saw a tunnel, narrow and dark. A series of candles—frail and twinkling and dripping wax—produced a little light here and there. Hanka knew she had to go through, but she didn’t want to—she wanted to turn and run, but that wasn’t an option. At the end of the passage something waited for her.