Absolute Sunset (22 page)

“Hanka!” Ada was clearly glad to hear her voice. “You’re lucky! Today I got home early! I’m leaving right now with dad to buy a new sink because the old one is completely scratched. It’s great to hear from you!”

“Yes. Indeed it is good I caught you,” Hanka replied stiffly, dividing the words into syllables like a talking doll that no longer worked properly.

Ada stayed silent for a moment, and Hanka heard nothing but some quiet crackling on the line. In the end, she asked whether everything was all right—Hanka sounded strange, as if she were in some alternate world. Maybe it was just a bad connection?

“Ada,” Hanka spoke in the same calm tone. “Dad is dead. He died in a rail crash. I learned about it a moment ago. I don’t know when the funeral will be, but it doesn’t make sense for you to come. I’ll settle everything and then I’ll come the way we have planned.”

“What?” Ada started crying. Somewhere in the background Hanka could hear Mietek. He’d probably just come in and asked what had happened.

“I’ll settle everything, I’ll quit my job, I’ll sell the flat, and I’ll come,” still the same, even voice—unemotional, without so much as a tremble. “Ada, can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can hear you. Hanka, are you all right? You’re probably in shock—go to the doctor’s, Hanka! Is everything all right?”

“Yes, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. No shock. It’s just life. Bye.” Hanka finished the call.

She sat down and drafted a detailed plan on the spot. She wasn’t going to run five times to the funeral company or waste time in various offices. She stuck the list of tasks to the refrigerator door. And the next morning, while she ate her breakfast, she read it over again.

“First, call the office and take the day off, then settle the funeral and the wake,” she muttered to herself, sipping her coffee.

She took two days’ leave. She hired a priest, got a plot in the graveyard, and organized everything with the funeral company.

“Do you have a family tomb at your disposal?” they asked.

“No,” Hanka wasn’t going to put her father in the same grave with Sabina.

She picked a place called Patria, where the mourners could gather, and paid it a visit. They had some free time in their schedule. She chose a menu, with broth and pork chops of course, told them the number of guests, and made a down payment.

On her way back she dropped by a shop specialising in funeral outfits. She bought one for Janusz, as the staff at the funeral company had asked her to do, plus one for her. For a moment she thought about the shoes her father had bought her for her mother’s funeral, but she quickly told herself off for indulging in the memory—this wasn’t the time for it. She had to pull herself together and get things done, because her departure date was coming. She wasn’t allowed regret! A ban on crying!

She buried her father with proper respect, sitting stiffly in the front row of mourners, wearing a women’s suit, black, without a single crease. She cautiously followed the coffin and she threw the first handful of soil onto it. She listened to the eulogies and received condolences with dignity. She spent the entire wake eating very little, mostly caring for the others.

Having come back to the flat, she crossed off the first two points on the list, drank a cup of tea, and went to bed—just to avoid thinking about what had happened. The next day she had to deal with her job. That was easy. Hanka handed in her resignation right after the funeral.

“I’m going abroad to join my family and I’d like to have a shorter notice period,” she asked—or, rather, demanded.

Her boss didn’t make it hard.

“If you need a few days off to settle your affairs or to pack, let me know. I’ll organize it somehow,” she offered generously.

For a brief moment Hanka felt like telling her that she already had a few days of unused leave, so the offer wasn’t any kind of favour—she was entitled to either get the time off or be paid for the days. But in the end she let it go. It’d be better if the old bag lived believing in her own goodness. She’d be less of a pain.

Thirty days later, Hanka arrived at the office for the last time. During that time she’d managed to accomplish everything she’d planned. She was packed. She had a passport and a visa and was going to buy the plane ticket in a few days, waiting for a bargain that the travel agency had promised was coming. She hadn’t managed to sell the flat, but she’d agreed to rent it to a cousin of Mrs. Ram’s. The rent would be sent to her in Canada once every few months.

“I’ll keep an eye on it, in case you want to come back,” the old neighbour promised.

“I won’t come back,” Hanka replied, packing old clothes into the next box.

“And what about that stuff?” Mrs Ram asked, interested in the contents. She helped clean up the flat in exchange for piles of stuff that Hanka no longer needed.

“I don’t know. Should I throw it away?” Hanka didn’t really care.

“Leave it. I’ll deal with it when you go.”

The last day at work, a Tuesday, Hanka said goodbye to her friends. She was given a fountain pen and some notebooks as a parting gift. She’d leave those for Mrs. Ram, too. No memories of Poland. None!

“Goodbye!” she said and left the office just after six. Her boss had told her to finish any open cases, and it had taken some time. No problem. Provided that she wanted nothing more. Provided that closing the glass door behind her meant an absolute end to the work in this place.

She got on the first bus that arrived. It trailed along mercilessly, panting and tired, and Hanka looked out the window, beyond which a grey, industrial landscape—without trees, without bushes, without lawns—rolled past. What’s the difference what bus line you take in Katowice? Everywhere it’s the same. Concrete, concrete, concrete.

She jumped out at a stop at the bottom of the complex and walked across a deserted
Tysiąclecie
. When she passed the corner she peeked impulsively into her own window, expecting to see pink light inside them—the lampshade in the kitchen had the furious colour of a boiled sweet. But today day the window was dark. Nobody had turned on the pink lamp in order to heat up a late dinner.

Similarly, nobody waited by the door or called to her from the spot in front of the TV about the daily scandals. Hanka slowly took off her shoes and sat down on the floor in the hall. Coats hanging on hooks seemed to wave, like in cheap ghost movies. The illumination from a streetlight was visible from the hall through the kitchen window. It was penetrating the corners of the walls, touching them, splintering on a few old cobwebs. The phone rang. A single ring. Hanka waited. She didn’t feel like getting up. It stayed silent. She got up and headed into the room.

Somewhere deep in a cupboard she found an open half litre of whisky. Great. Didn’t matter what it was, as long as it could help her get smashed. She brought waffles and some pickles from the kitchen. She’d have to eat something while she drank to keep the alcohol from coming back up. She sat down on the sofa, panting a little, and poured herself a glass. She drank purposefully, at a steady pace, snacking on the pickled cucumber or the vinegary pattypan squash from time to time. Eventually she zonked out.

As soon as she fell asleep, the raven appeared—the first time since Janusz’s death. He was a little bit apologetic, hiding his head under his wing and sitting motionless on a table.

“Begone!” Hanka gibbered seeing him. She rose on one elbow and took a swing at the raven, trying to knock him off the table. She lost her balance and fell on the floor. The ugly bird peeked at her and finally spoke.

“I want to comfort you somehow!” he declared.

“I’m not sad. Fuck off!” Hanka clambered back to the couch. “You could have told me more precisely what would happen with dad!”

“But it’s a riddle! Such a game!” the raven defended itself.

“I’m not playing!”

“You are, and it’s a game in which some things are unknown! You have to think!” The raven explained this to Hanka as if explaining fractions to a dim child.

“I don’t give a shit about your game, get out of here!”

“If you thought, you would have easily guessed what was going to happen!” the bird shrieked.

“Go away! I’m leaving and I don’t have time for your games.”

“If I go, you’ll miss a chance to save Ada and Mietek!” the raven said ominously.

“What!” Hanka was immediately sober.

“They’re going to die. Or at least they might. You can rescue them. If you want play the game, I’ll take you on a trip. Keep your eyes open and you’ll guess. If you don’t want to play, goodbye. I’ll go away and I won’t come back again!”

Hanka’s companion was clearly a little offended, turning its back to her. Hanka pressed her fist against her mouth. For a minute she sat motionless.

“Okay, we’re flying,” she said in the end, and focused hard.

She saw Ada and Mietek entering a restaurant. There was a banner with an African-American man above the entry to the bar. His hair was in dreadlocks and covered with a yellow scarf. The right hand of the figure was turned towards the guests, as if he praised them as they entered. A huge, eye-catching inscription read “At the Shaman’s.”

When the door closed behind Hanka’s cousin and uncle, she automatically followed them inside without having made any effort to do so. It was completely empty, which surprised her—at this hour she would have expected crowds, but there wasn’t a single guest.

Ada and Mietek sat down at a table. A waiter bowed respectfully and handed them a menu and they ordered without requiring much time—they must have been there earlier. The waiter immediately served them wine, and a moment later the boss himself came out of the kitchen carrying their food. Hanka noticed that he resembled the figure on the banner outside.

“Bon appetit!” he said to his guests, then disappeared along with the waiter.

Ada and Mietek ate quickly, as if the dish—which resembled a goulash—was incredibly tasty. It disappeared in a few seconds and they leaned comfortably back, savoring the flavor.

“Is that all?” Hanka was surprised.

As soon as she spoke, Ada and Mietek clutched their bellies in pain.

“Help!” they shouted simultaneously and tumbled to the floor. They curled up like woodlice poked with the stick, their facial muscles trembling.

“Help!” they kept calling, crawling and trying to grab the tabletop to get up, but nobody came. In the end Mietek managed to turn onto his belly somehow, then came up on his knees.

“I’m nauseated!” he gibbered, then vomited blood.

“Dad!” Ada tried to crawl toward him.

Mietek fell again. His limbs become stiff as if they were paralysed, and his entire body gleamed with sweat. Suddenly he began to convulse. For a few moments he banged his head against the wooden floor, but finally froze completely.

“Dad!” Ada cried once more and then she died as well.

“Well, do you know what’s going to happen?” the raven asked when they came back from their expedition.

“I don’t know. You have to show me more!” Hanka said urgently.

“I’ve already showed you so much!”

“I need more information!”

“You’d better stop whining and start working. I won’t tell you anything else. You’re wasting your time!” And with that the raven flapped his wings and disappeared.

As soon as Hanka woke up, she hurried to write down the dream. Her hands trembled with hangover and fear and it was hard to read her lopsided scrawl, but she was afraid that she would forget. She filled twelve pages with notes—read them once, then again.

“Will they die of poisoning?” she thought. That was too straightforward. The raven never provided such literal, legible dreams.

Just in case, Hanka called Canada. One time, then another, and eventually a tenth. No one picked up.
Perhaps they’ve left? Or gone for a walk? Or the phone has simply broken? Yes, it has to be broken!

Just to be sure, she decided to send a message. She slipped into a tracksuit, pinned her hair up in a messy bun, and walked to the Internet café. Ada regularly checked her email when she was at work, so she sent her a short e-mail: “Please let me know if you are all right, your phone is out of order.” She pressed the send button and, while she waited, began searching online for restaurants in Toronto that might be the one in her dream, any place that could be connected, even remotely, with a shaman, or that had a banner or marquee that seemed right. But she found nothing.

“It’s not that—the raven means something else,” she muttered, visiting one site after another. She spent all day in the café, waiting and searching until it closed. No reply came. It didn’t appear the following day either. Nor two days later. Hanka called Canada every half an hour, but no one seemed to be out there.

She looked through every dream book she could find. She visited fortune-tellers. She analysed horoscopes. She bought a deck of Tarot cards and tried to divine something from it. Over and over again she analyzed her notes. She even called the esoteric TV channel with a request for help. Nothing. Nothing. And once again—nothing. She couldn’t solve the riddle.

On the following day she planned to go to the travel agency to buy her plane ticket. She wasn’t going to postpone it—she would fly whether Ada wrote her or not.

In the morning she tried to eat her breakfast, but she could hardly get anything down. In the end she gave up, put some clothes on, and went on foot to the city centre, hoping that the walk would help her calm down.

She got the ticket for a fairly good price. She came back slowly, watching the pavement stones as usual, indifferent to passers-by, the honking of the cars, and the creaking of the trams. She was passing by the shop with the electronic equipment, when a spectacular display caught her attention. In the shop window stood a silver, modern, shiny TV. It was on. Hanka stopped and moved closer to the pane to see the program.

“No,” she whispered. She pulled open the door and ran inside.

Inside was a cool, air-conditioned room, with rows of huge, flat-screen TV sets. She felt cornered by the devices, each of them showing the news channel. An indistinct image flickered on the screens, an inscription glowing at the bottom: “Tragedy at a film premiere in Toronto. Fourteen killed, thirty injured. Madman fires machine gun.” The image on the screens changed. “Yesterday, tragedy at the film premiere of
Kitchen of Doctor Voodoo
. An armed attacker forced his way into the cinema and killed fourteen people using a machine gun. Another thirty people, who were injured, are fighting for their lives.”