Entanglement (25 page)

Suddenly she broke off.

“I’ll tell you something,” she said, pointing at him with her latte spoon and then digging the rest of the froth out of the tall glass. “But don’t laugh. Either say no, after all, I don’t know you at all, or yes - ultimately in a way it concerns you. I don’t know myself.”

“Do you want me to interrogate you?”

Once again he almost burned with embarrassment, and she laughed again.

“You see, I’d like to write a book. A novel.”

“It happens in the best families.”

“Ha, ha. It happens to every graduate and almost-graduate of Polish studies. But never mind. I’d like to write a novel about a prosecutor.”

“A crime story?”

“No, an ordinary novel. But the hero would be a prosecutor. I had the idea a while ago, but when we met recently, I thought it really isn’t such a bad one. What do you think?”

He had no idea what to say.

“And this prosecutor—”

“Ooh,” she cut him short. “It’s a long story.”

He glanced discreetly at his mobile phone. Christ! He’d been sitting here for an hour and a half already. If their friendship was going to develop he’d have to murder someone every three days to justify these absences to Weronika in some way. He promised
Monika he’d be happy to hear the plot and equally happy to let himself be exploited. He’d tell her everything she wanted to know. But not today.

When the waitress brought the bill, he reached for his wallet, but she stopped him.

“Don’t worry. It’s very kind of you, but you paid last time and I’m a feminist, I work at an almost-private firm for almost-decent money, and I’ve got to corrupt you a bit so you’ll be willing to cooperate.”

He wanted to ask just what sort of cooperation she had in mind, but he decided against it.

He evidently wasn’t the master of bold flirting.

“It’s embarrassing,” he said.

She put the money on the table.

“It’s embarrassing that you’re an educated man who chases bandits at God knows what cost, while I messed up my studies, write bad articles and earn more than you. Don’t be so macho - it really doesn’t matter.”

“It matters enormously.”

“How come?”

“If I’d known you were going to pay I’d have ordered soup and dessert too.”

 

She admitted to living in the Żoliborz district, but she didn’t want him to take her there. She was planning to go to the Empik bookshop first, to look for something interesting. She talked a great deal, and that suited him very well. He had once read that everything we most like at the start of a friendship will irritate us the most later on. Absolutely true. He used to adore watching Weronika turning all the flowerpots a fraction each evening so they’d get equal sunlight, but now it really annoyed him when he heard the daily scrape of the pots being turned on the terracotta tiles in the kitchen.

She’d only just vanished round the corner of Nowy Świat Street when his mobile rang. Kitten.

“Where are you?”

“In the car,” he lied. “I’m driving from Wólka to Koszykowa Street, I’ve got to look something up at the library.”

“So how long did that funeral go on for? Three hours?”

“It started late, it went on for ages, I wanted to see it all properly, you know what it’s like.”

“Of course I do. It happens to me three times a week. Nothing but funeral after funeral. Will you pick us up from Ujazdowski Park in two hours’ time?”

“I don’t know if I’ll make it.”

“Try. Your daughter mentioned that she’d like to be reminded what her father looks like.”

“OK,” he said, wondering why he’d only just had the idea of going to the library.

He liked this place. While he was at college he’d always preferred coming here than to look for a spot in the eternally crowded university library. The main reading room was fabulous, like the ballroom in a classical palace. Two storeys high, it was decorated with pilasters and stucco, with light pouring in from the Koszykowa Street side through two rows of windows. There was something of the atmosphere of a church in here. Except that instead of the chill of stone walls and the odour of incense, there was a fragrance of oak parquet flooring and a nutty smell of old paper. The little tables that filled the room reminded him of church pews, and the small chairs next to them were just as uncomfortable as pews. But the unique atmosphere of this place came from the brass lamps with green glass shades that illuminated each table. On a November evening the reading
room at the main city library was undoubtedly the most magical place in Warsaw.

He was looking forward to this mood as he parked down below, but the periodicals reading room turned out to be in an impersonal area on the fourth floor, a kingdom of laminated desks, fluorescent lamps and chairs upholstered in brown fabric.

In the computer he found catalogue numbers for the daily
Życie Warszawy
and the evening paper
Express Wieczorny
, filled out reserve slips for the binders dated September 1978 and September 1987, and waited. He spent a while watching the librarian filling in some forms. She had the archetypal look - long black hair with a centre parting, large, unfashionable glasses, a green, long-sleeved, polo-neck top and caricature-big breasts attached to a slender figure. She must have felt his gaze, because she interrupted her work and stared at him. He turned away.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the meeting at Szpilka. He went back over every word, wondering what she’d been thinking and how she’d understood what he’d said. Hadn’t he said something she might take wrongly? Hadn’t he made too much fun of his colleagues at work? She might think he was a misanthrope and a braggart all at once. And was she actually pretty? She was sweet, it was true, very sweet even, but pretty? Her shoulders were a bit too broad, her breasts too small, her bum too low, and on top of that her legs were ever so slightly bowed.

Even if he was seeking out the imperfections in it, thinking about her body made him feel an immense urge for sex. He couldn’t stop picturing the moment when, twisting slightly, with her skirt hitched halfway up her legs, she’d shown off her new shoes. He imagined her hitching her skirt even higher. Until it made him squirm. He closed his eyes and imagined it even more precisely. Not in the café, but at her place on the sofa.

I can’t, he thought, I can’t do that. I’m thirty-five, nearly thirty-six. I cannot go to the toilet at the main city library to wank, while thinking about some lassie with bandy legs.

But off he went.

When he came back, the newspapers were waiting for him.

 

He started with
Życie Warszawy
- “Warsaw Life” - from 1978, although he didn’t think the case would go that far back. Henryk Telak was nineteen then, and his parents were already dead. The 17th of September fell on a Sunday. He leafed through the pages. The coldest summer of the decade was ending, the final phase of the harvest was proceeding efficiently, there was an aeroplane exhibition at Zwycięstwo Square to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Polish People’s Army. All very boring. Writer Zenon Kosidowski and eminent ophthalmologist Witold Starkiewicz had died, in the Tatra mountains a tourist had succumbed to a heart attack, and a mountaineer had fallen off a peak called Mnich. Could it possibly be to do with one of them? No. Curiously,
Życie Warszawy
had published a series of articles in the run-up to the sixtieth anniversary of Poland regaining independence after the First World War. Strange - he was sure that in Communist Poland 22nd July had been celebrated as Independence Day. Which wasn’t so dumb - celebrating anything in mid-November makes no sense. It’s always cold, pouring with rain, and no one even feels like watching a parade. He carefully read all the minor reports, especially from the capital, in search of information about a car crash or a killing. Instead of that he found reflections on the fact that “computers have made a rapid rise in popularity. At times their expansion even stirs anxiety.” He automatically checked to see what was on TV on the evening of 17th September. Part one of the classic serial
The Doll
starring Jerzy Kamas and Małgorzata Braunek, and on Channel Two
A Soldier’s Love
- a Yugoslav film production.

In the Ochota district a car ran two people over, one of them died. He meticulously wrote down the names of all the deceased. Including Professor Sylwester Kaliski, minister of science, higher education and technology, Polish United Workers’ Party member and member of parliament in Communist Poland.

Sport. In the competition for ski-jumping on an artificial surface Tadeusz Tajner came sixth. A relative of the skiing champion Apoloniusz Tajner, perhaps? National soccer team trainer Jacek Gmoch’s charges are preparing for their next match in the European soccer championship qualifying stages. They have already won against Iceland, and will now play Switzerland; Holland and East Germany are waiting their turn. The editor couldn’t have known what Szacki knew in 2005 - that Poland had not played in the finals of that European championship or any since.

He went on looking, noting down the names in the death announcements for all the people who had died on 17th September. Most of them had died of old age, “after a long illness”, or simply “departed”. He thought it comforting that so few people were killed in accidents. It looked as if statistically he too had a chance of quietly reaching seventy. In the edition dated 20th September he finally found something interesting: “On 17th September Marian Kruk, aged fifty-two, and Zdzisław Kruk, aged twenty-six, died tragically”. Two death notices of identical size and content, the only difference being the signature. In the first, “wife, mother and family” were bidding farewell to their “beloved husband and son”, and in the second, “wife, daughter-in-law and family” to “beloved husband and father-in-law”. So a father and son had died together. One accident, two deaths, a massive family tragedy. An earthquake within the system. He circled their names in red in his notebook. He’d have to check the circumstances of that incident.

He reached hopefully for the
Express Wieczorny
- “Evening Express” - expecting to find some juicy crime reports and gory descriptions of tragic accidents, but he was disappointed. The paper radiated nothing but dreadful boredom - he couldn’t understand why its legend had endured for so many years. Maybe he was just unlucky and had hit upon some poor editions. The only information that grabbed his attention was the news that Andrzej Wajda had started filming
The Maids of Wilko
, with Daniel Olbrychski in the leading role. Once upon a time they made good films, he thought.

In
Życie Warszawy
dated 17th September 1987 - this time it was a Thursday - there was no mention whatsoever of the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Just like nine years earlier, and every year. However, there was a lengthy piece about the anniversary of the Nazi bombing of the Royal Castle. And about Wojciech Jaruzelski, who was having talks with Erich Honecker during a working visit to East Germany. It won’t last much longer, you bastards, thought Szacki vengefully. A year and a half and you’ll all be put out to grass.

On television there was a British crime series,
Cover Her Face
, world championship gymnastics, a programme called
Vodka, Let Me Live
and the International Congress of University of the Third Age associations. It looked as if on 17th September 1987 only a few hours of communing with the telly would be enough to make you slit your wrists out of boredom. Part of central Warsaw had no gas. Failure in the heating supply. Szacki impassively ran his eyes over the headings. In the autumn a Gorbachev-Reagan summit meeting. Despite an extremely difficult harvest, the grain crop reached twenty-five million tons. A murderer wouldn’t admit his guilt. He had been apprehended. It was a Warsaw murder. On 17th September.

“All Warsaw is talking about the tragedy that occurred yesterday in the city centre. Dozens of people witnessed the incident. At
4.15 Danuta M. was murdered at 125 Jerozolimskie Avenue in the sight of passers-by and people waiting at a bus stop. The murderer, fifty-three-year-old Ryszard W., stabbed her in the neck with a knife. The woman died on the spot, and members of the public apprehended the killer. The inquiry is being conducted by the Ochota District Office for Internal Affairs.”

The District Office for Internal Affairs? What the hell is that? wondered Szacki as he made notes. The militia? The prosecutor’s? A sort of camouflaged secret-police unit? The case was striking, but it smelled of illegal alcohol a mile away. Later he read that the culprit was drunk, so was the victim, and he’d stabbed her because she’d refused to go and get him cigarettes from a kiosk.

He went on looking.

The Polish film,
The Mother of Kings
, won the “Golden Lions” award at the Gdynia film festival. He almost whistled as he read the list of other prizewinners - nowadays any one of those films could win that festival hands down with no fear of competition.
The Magnate
,
On the Niemen
,
Blind Chance
,
The Faithful River
,
Inner Life, Train to Hollywood
. Nothing but classics, and all in the same year. Incredible.

In the
Express
dated 21st September he found a short note, just a few sentences: “The body of twenty-three-year-old Kamil S. was found by his nineteen-year-old sister in a city-centre flat on Mokotowska Street. ‘The whole family was meant to be on a belated holiday,’ we heard from Captain Stefan Mamcarz of the district Civic Militia. ‘The boy stayed behind, and that was his undoing. The robbers expected the flat to be empty, and when they broke in and saw him there, they panicked and killed him.’ The militia claim that the tragedy occurred on 17th September in the evening. An intensive search is under way to apprehend the criminals.”

He made a note and tapped his disposable ballpoint on the historic newspaper, leaving some black spots on it. Again he felt
a tickling in his brain. Either instinct was telling him this could have a connection with the case, or he had cancer. Except that he was looking for a dead girl, and this was a boy. Maybe it was to do with the sister who found the body. Telak’s former girlfriend, perhaps? Or maybe this Kamil and Telak… No. All because of the homophobic panic - now he too thought he was seeing gays everywhere. But he’d have to check up on this case. It would be good to know the surname.