Absolute Sunset (21 page)

Janusz—The Journey Of A Lifetime

Janusz was planning to take the train to Warsaw. He would leave on Tuesday, at 6:12 a.m., getting to Warsaw just as the visa department opened for the day. He would file the applications and about noon, listen to whatever the immigration officer had to say, and he’d still have time left to take a walk through the streets of the capital. He liked doing that. Then, in the afternoon, he’d go back home.

“Sounds good!” Hanka was glad to hear it and blew him a kiss over the peeled potatoes. Janusz smiled. Ever since they’d made the decision to leave, Hanka had been as happy as could be—and he’d actually been in pretty good mood, too.

On the Saturday before the trip some guests dropped by. Stach and Anka, a married couple that Janusz had known for ages. Stach had worked with him in the mine, then quit. He’d opened a small accounting office, hiring his wife, who also knew a little about accounting. They’d worked hard and had made a small fortune. They visited Janusz from time to time to show him photos from Egypt or Turkey. He envied them, but he always turned down Stach’s job offers.

“Doing business together ruins a friendship,” he’d say.

This time Stach and Anka wanted to talk about the plans for their next trip.

“On Tuesday we have a day off and we’re going to Warsaw. For the entire week,” they announced.

“Oh that’s perfect—I’m going there, too!” Janusz said.

“We’ll give you a ride, we’re taking our car,” Stach clapped his hands.

“Great! What time should I be ready?”

“Seven a.m.?”

“Okay.”

Hanka came in at that moment. She put the tray on the table and served the guests coffee. She put a plate in front of each person, and in the middle of the tablecloth set a slice of
babka
.

“Did you bake it?” Anka asked.

“No, I bought it,” Hanka admitted. “But it’s quite good.”

“Don’t worry, we don’t need much!” Anka stroked Hanka’s back. Janusz was grateful for the gesture—for his part, he felt awkward kissing Hanka. His little girl was already a grown woman. Do grown children get kissed goodnight? He shook off the strange thoughts and smiled, then smoothed his trousers.

“You hear that, Hania?” he asked. “Anka and Stach are driving me to Warsaw. I won’t have to go by train.”

“Really?” Hanka sat in the armchair. “What are you up to in Warsaw?”

“We’re going to visit the festival of circus arts. Can you believe it?” Stach jumped up with excitement, giggling like a little kid. “Tightrope walkers, acrobats,” he explained. “Fireworks, the theatre of light! The entire week! And at the end, a dressage show. They’re bringing the horses all the way from Madrid or from Vienna. Performances take place in the Zalewski Circus.”

“Excuse me,” Hanka interrupted him abruptly and a little rudely. She got up, bumping the table. Some coffee spilled. Janusz glanced at her surprised.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing, nothing, dad. I’ll clean this up in a minute. Sorry,” Hanka muttered and escaped to the kitchen.

“Hanka, what happened?” Janusz asked later, after the guests had gone.

“With what?”

“Hanka, you know. Earlier, in the living room. Did something upset you?”

“No, dad, nothing happened, really,” Hanka’s hands were shaking.

“Hanka! Please, I can see that something’s wrong.”

“I just don’t feel good,” Hanka said in the end. She turned to the sink and started washing the dishes, her movements were quick and nervous.

“Leave it, I’ll finish,” Janusz moved his daughter aside and took care of the dirty cups. “Sit down. Have some water. Is that better now?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Yes. Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you go to Warsaw by train anyway?”

Janusz turned the water off and wiped his hands.

“Why?” he asked calmly.

“I have a bad feeling.”

“A premonition?”

“You know, there are a lot of car accidents these days. The train is safer. I’m afraid to let you go with Stach and Anka. He’s so hotheaded! He’ll overreact, drive too fast...”

She was right. Stach had always played with fire on the road—they could see his heavy foot on the accelerator even just pulling out of the parking lot. He had a dark blue Audi. A little bit used, but jaunty. Cuts the air as like a razor blade!

“Dad?” Hanka looked Janusz in the eye. “Please, say yes!”

“Because of your premonition?”

“No, because of me. I’ll feel better knowing that you chose the train.”

Janusz shook his head. Hanka could still twist him around her little finger. A single glance was enough, a single wan smile—beseeching, but also with the threat of an outburst of hysteria. The same look she used to give him when she was a six-year-old girl asking for a lollipop. One hundred percent effective.

“Well,” he said in the end, “I’ll call Stach. I’ll make up something—I’ll say that the timing doesn’t work for me and I’m going by train.” He kissed Hanka on the top of her head and went back to the washing up.

Hanka—Didn’t I Mention

Janusz called in the afternoon. Hanka has just come back from work and unpacked the things she’d bought. The phone rang while she was arranging apples in an elegant pile. She bumped them with her elbow as she fumbled for her cell phone and they fell to the floor, banging loudly.

“Yes?” Hanka said, not looking at the display.

“Hi, baby,” Janusz answered. “I’m done. I’m at the railway station. The train is leaving Warsaw on schedule,” he said. In the background Hanka could hear indecipherable announcements about arrivals and departures.

“When will you be home?” she asked. She crawled under the kitchen table, retrieving apples from under the radiator.

“According to the schedule, at 7:07 p.m. But you know what it’s like with our trains.” Her father chuckled.

“I’m not going to be at the station to get you. It’s too late and in the evening there are too many creeps and muggers out there. I’ll wait at home.”

“Good.”

“I’ll make supper.”

“Okay, Haneczka, but get some rest, too.”

“Okay. Bye, dad!”

“Bye!”

Hanka started making supper as soon as she’d hung up. Cooking always took her a lot of time. In the kitchen, if it were possible, she’d misplace her own head. She put the pepper on top of the cupboards, a frying pans on a stool, and threw peeled potatoes into a drawer. She was capable of losing literally everything, even in such a small space.

She’d planned a steak tartare for that day. Before she started cooking, she prepared everything, laying everything in a row on the tabletop. The meat and a mincer. Two eggs. One onion. Pepper and salt. A bowl. A knife. A cutting board.

Having checked that she had everything, she went into the living room to lay the table, taking the tulip-printed tablecloth from the chest of drawers. She spread it and smoothed the creases with her hand. The tablecloth had a small hole in the middle, burned by a candle and Hanka decided to put a basket with bread on top of it.

She returned to the kitchen, put on her apron, and started with the meat. She cut it into cubes with the razor-sharp knife, threw it into the mincer, and turned it on. It started working and Hanka peeked inside it. After a short time she saw the first threads of meat come out, but they looked disgusting rather than dry and well-toned.

Hanka touched the minced meat with her hand and a piece of pulp fell into her palm. She squeezed it and thin blood trickled out. Icy. She shivered. The phone rang just that moment. Hanka hurled the meat into the bowl harder than she’d meant to. She pressed the button to pick up. A little bit of gunge stuck to the screen.

“Yes, dad?” was what she’d meant to say, but she was stunned into silence by the sounds coming from the other end of the line.

The screams were loud, and she heard a cavernous rumble. From time to time there was blast of wind. And there were distant groans.

“Dad,” Hanka whispered.

“Hanka, I’m okay!” Janusz answered.

“Dad, where are you?”

“There was an accident—a disaster. The train went off the rails. I’m in the carriage, it’s been knocked over. Oh Lord—people—people—so many injured!”

“Dad! Run!”

“I’m in my compartment. I can see a broken window.”

“Leave!”

“I can see the passage, maybe I can get through it.”

“Dad, go!”

“But other people, I’ll take some of the others with me!”

“Dad, don’t—just run!”

But the connection was gone. Hanka raced to the TV set, banging the switch with her fist. It came on. Journalists—the vultures—had already detected the odor of carrion. The first channel showed photos taken from a helicopter. Carriages lying on their sides. A bent railway engine. Fields on fire around them. Black smoke. At the bottom of screen was the inscription: “Rail crash in Baby.”

Hanka lifted the phone to her eyes, still gripping it tightly in her hand. She called Janusz. He didn’t pick up. Then again. He didn’t pick up. She turned to the TV.

“It’s not known what caused the train to derail on the Warsaw-Katowice line,” the reporter said. Behind her, people were running toward the train, rushing to tear at the metal with their bare hands to try to save the passengers.

“But it’s thought that bad track conditions may have been the cause. Emergency services are already on the scene—arriving exceptionally quickly, it’s worth noting—and the Minister of Health is already on his way.”

Indeed. Above what looked like a battlefield, helicopters hovered like giant hornets. Ambulances and fire trucks raced through clouds of dust. Many of them already stood near the site of the crash, lights flashing. The area around the train seethed with emergency personnel in red uniforms. Yellow helmets flashed as firefighters moved quickly through the wreckage in search of a way through to the victims imprisoned inside.

“Find him!” Hanka urged them.

The emergency workers slowly managed to start getting people out of the carriages, helping them to the ambulances. Victims were limping. Victims were bleeding. Sometimes they raised their eyes and made the sign of the cross. Here and there black bags lay on the ground—corpses.

Then the camera showed the image from above again. Hundreds of people were scattered around the train. They swarmed the crashed railway engine like ants on a dead earthworm—searching, milling around. The announcer kept her professional composure.

“This is the biggest rail crash since the 70’s, when more than thirty people died. We don’t know the death toll yet, here in Baby, but emergency personnel are estimating it at more than fifteen people. Dozens are injured, and many are being transported to hospitals around Silesia.” A helicopter rumbled over above
Tysiąclecie
with a roar, probably coming from Baby. It dashed towards Jastrzębie.

“There is a telephone number, which members of the public can use to inquire about relatives travelling by the train, displayed on your screen right now. Two-two, seven-eight-one, four-oh, one-three.”

Hanka got through almost at once.

“Hanna Borowska. Janusz Borowski. My father. He was on the train.”

“Hold, please.”

Sheets of paper rustled. The operator covered the receiver with her hand—speaking to someone.

“Excuse me,” she said finally. “I had to check something. Mr Borowski is deceased.”

“How do you know?”

“I have him on the list.”

“But he called me right after the crash from the inside of the train!”

The operator covered the receiver once more.

“Hello?” she said after a moment. “Yes, he may have called you.”

“He
did
. How did he die? How do you explain that?”

“Please, madam. Your father had a—he was decapitated when—he tried—um, to get out. A window pane fell, what was left of it. Sharp as the blade of a guillotine. He died. I am so sorry,” a woman finished quickly and put the receiver down.

Hanka—Dead Silence

Hanka put the receiver down as well, intending to dial Ada and Mietek’s number. She hesitated, calculating the time difference. When she figured out that it was early afternoon in Toronto, she finally dialled.

“Hi, Ada,” she greeted her cousin.