The Lullaby of Polish Girls (18 page)

“We need some beer. Here”—Justyna thrusts Damian toward Paweł—“make yourself useful.” He holds Damian in equal measure of
watchfulness and adoration. Justyna notices the way her friends stare at Paweł, and she smiles to herself as she walks toward the kitchen. Let them see; let them see just how happy she is.

She opens the fridge. From the living room she hears Paweł’s voice, an octave too high, aware that she’d be eavesdropping.

“You don’t know love till you watch your wife shit herself and you think it’s kinda cute. And then the head popped out and
I
nearly shit myself.”

Justyna walks back from the kitchen, four beer bottles expertly balanced in one hand, and she passes them out quickly.

She hands Paweł his Żywiec and he grabs her waist, kisses her on the mouth, and then takes a swig, with the baby between them.

“Maybe I should tell them how when you saw his little dick, you started bawling like a girl.” Paweł turns red and lovingly kisses the top of Damian’s head.

“See this? My man’s turned into a complete pussy,” Justyna proclaims, grinning from ear to ear.

“I can’t get over how quickly you changed his diaper. Did your mom teach you?” Anna speaks up, in awe.

Justyna rubs her eyes and takes Damian into her arms. He has calmed down, and his eyelids hang heavy.

“Dobranoc, kotku,”
she whispers and covers his face in dozens of small kisses. When she’s finished she lets Paweł take him.

“Good night, girls. Don’t let
Mamuśka
stay up too late. We’ve got a four
A.M.
dinner reservation.” As soon as Paweł is out of sight, Justyna flops back onto the floor, digs in her front pocket, and fishes out a flattened pack of cigarettes.

“My mother hasn’t gotten out of bed in months, Anna,” she says after her first drawn-out drag. “We have to change
her
diapers now.”

“I’m sorry,” Kamila murmurs as she holds the Żywiec between her bony thighs.

“I bring Damian upstairs every day and when I lay him down next to her she thinks he’s Elwira.” Justyna frowns; she had forbidden herself to talk about her mother tonight. Who the fuck wants to go into the heinous specifics of cancer in its fourth stage? This is supposed to be a happy reunion.

They make small talk for a bit, and Justyna brings out the wedding album to show Anna.

“You looked like a princess or something,” Anna says, closing the album, smoothing her palms over its cover.

“I know. Some fairy tale, right? Baran, you look good. Your hair looks
ekstra
long. Every time I try to grow out mine, I end up cutting it,” Justyna says, touching her closely cropped hair, still worn in a pixie like Mia Farrow. “But I’m not even gonna comment on yours, Kamila. What’d you dye it with, tar?”

Kamila pats her head self-consciously. “It’s so nice to see that motherhood’s softened you.” The girls erupt into laughter.

“Let’s get out of here.” Justyna stands up. Upstairs, she can hear Elwira, who is on Mom duty tonight. Neither sister takes particular pleasure in spoon-feeding their mother, changing her underwear, or injecting her with morphine, but they make do.

By the time the doctors had done all the ultrasounds and biopsies, the cancer, which had originated in her mother’s left breast, had metastasized to Teresa’s spine and lymph nodes. It was in her pelvic tissue and liver, and heading north to her lungs. Women didn’t die from breast cancer like they used to, except the ones who ignored lumps and bumps and blisters. About a month ago, the hospital had discharged her because there was nothing they could do and there were other patients in line for her bed—other patients who were sick but whose recovery was still a possibility. They couldn’t afford a hospice aide, so Teresa was sequestered to the guest room on the third floor, where she’d been about to take her last breath for weeks now.

Every time Justyna walked in to see Teresa, the smell made her gag. When people talked about death they talked about the sadness of it, the waste, but they never talked about the things that made you want to shut the door on the dying. Justyna would sit on the edge of the bed, talking nonsense while she clipped her mother’s toenails. Teresa was unresponsive, teetering between sleep and God knows what.

“Should I see your mom before we go?” Anna sheepishly asks.

“She weighs forty-eight kilos, Anka. Have you ever seen bedsores?”

Anna shakes her head slowly.

“Well, if you’re remotely curious, now’s your chance. Otherwise …” Talking about a person’s death was easy; coming face-to-face with it was a whole other gambit.

“Fine, let’s just go,” Anna answers.

Ten minutes later, Justyna stands in front of Marex Bar and whistles three times. Moments after, Jacek Szuler comes downstairs. “Fucking fifteen minutes and you’re out. I gotta get up at five and go to the bazaar for my old man.”

“Sure, sure … and turn the music on.” Justyna smiles and waltzes past him, Kamila and Anna follow. On Sunday night most pubs in Kielce are closed. The people who want to get drunk on God’s day of the week are the kind that brown-bag their liquor. But Justyna has connections.

Jacek rests his head on the bar; after a half hour of shuffling shots over to their table, he’s given up. “I used to date him.” Justyna leans in conspiratorially. “Massive
siur
, I mean it fucking
hurt
, which further proved my theory that’s he’s half black.”

Kamila and Anna laugh in disbelief.

“I’m not kidding. Jacek used to do this clicking thing with his tongue, it was like Tourette’s or something, but it might have been Swahili.”

“You’re fucking crazy, Justyna,” Kamila shouts. “Forever Young” starts playing and the girls all chime in.
“Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while, heaven can wait, we’re only watching the skies …”

“Remember how we used to force you to translate all those lyrics? You hated it!” Kamila recalls.

“She didn’t hate it, she loved it. You loved it, right?”

Anna smiles and shrugs her shoulders.

“Hey! Do you remember when Lolek stole that Russian motorcycle? How old were we?”

“Fifteen,” Anna answers, looking into her empty glass.

“Fifteen. My God. He drove us all over town on that fucking thing. Remember, you burned your calf on the exhaust pipe, Kamila, and we put honey on it? And we sat on the bench in front of your
klatka
and all of a sudden these bees appeared and this one”—Justyna points to
Anna—“had like a full-blown panic attack. God, we were stupid.” Images fly at Justyna, swarming her head. She sees it all like it was yesterday, her whole wasted youth.

Jacek finally shuts off the stereo.

“You’re a loser, Jacek!” Justyna shouts but gets up to leave. She watches Anna place a hundred-
złoty
bill on the table. When they step outside the night air engulfs them, the breeze balmy and summery, the sky lit up with stars. The aroma of freshly baked rye bread wafts from down the street where the
piekarnia
is preparing tomorrow morning’s loaves.

“Let’s go see if we can mooch a
bochenek
. A warm slice with gobs of butter melting on it! I bet you have some vodka at your house. We could have a picnic, under the moon.” Kamila giggles.

“Justyna has to get back to the baby,” Anna reminds them.

“No, she doesn’t, Anna,” Justyna retorts hotly. “The baby has a father and the father knows how to heat a bottle.”

“But it’s already after ten and I just got back from Wrocław. I don’t wanna piss my
babcia
off any more than she already is.”

“Then
you
go home. What were you doing in Wrocław, anyway?” Justyna asks.

“She was on a sexcapade with Mariusz Kowalski.” Kamila grins.

“Kowalski! Holy crap. You fucked Kowalski? He’s like a fucking midget, but his …” Justyna glances at Anna. “I heard his cock is colossal. His girlfriend used to brag about it all the time. She’s married to a mafia guy now, from Czarnów.”

That summer was long ago but it’s a thorn in Justyna’s side. She’s not afraid of looking like a chump, or even a backstabber, but she is afraid of looking like a coward. Because the only excuse she has for not intervening then was that she had always been inexplicably terrified of Lolek Siwa.

“I should go home, you guys. This doesn’t feel right,” Anna says, kicking some pebbles out of the way.

“It doesn’t feel right? What doesn’t feel right?”

Anna squats down, hides her face in her hands.

“Your mother. Your mother is dying and you want to get wasted and
talk about cocks? Don’t you want to spend every last minute with her?”

“No! No, I don’t! She’s already gone! And I’ll drink and cuss and discuss dicks if the opportunity arises because I’m nineteen fucking years old and sometimes I need a break. What do you need a break from, Anka? Homework?”

“You’re in denial.”

Justyna paces around Anna and Kamila, arms swinging at her sides. “You know what the most irritating thing about you always was, Anna?”

“Please, you guys—”

“You know what it was? The fact that you pitied us, but flaunted everything in our faces. The fact that deep in your little heart you thought we all wanted to trade lives with you.”

“That’s not true. What did I ever flaunt?”

“Your clothes, your dollar bills, your fucking aspirations.”

“You raided my closet every summer, Justyna Strawicz!”

“Whatever. What gives you the right to get all weepy on my behalf? I haven’t heard from you in years, Baran, and you show up on my doorstep with advice? Grow up! People are born, people get sick, and people
die
.”

For a moment, no one says a word.

“I fucked Emil last night.”

“I’m sorry, Justyna, I’m not perfect,” Anna whispers.

“That’s the point, Anna. Whoever said you were? Marchewska—you what? You ‘fttt’ what?”

“I
fucked
Emil. I FUCKED Emil!” Kamila holds out her hands toward Justyna and Anna. “Now, come on,
pipki
.”

When Justyna sneaks back into the house to grab a liter of Siwusia, it’s dark and quiet. She grabs the liquor and a blanket from the armchair.

They walk up toward the open field past Witosa Road, where they used to sit around bonfires, feasting on sizzling
kiełbasa
. The stars hang low, and the bottle of vodka gets passed around generously.

“My head is spinning. The stars look like disco balls, I swear to
God,” Kamila murmurs, closing and opening her eyes. “I wish we had Anna’s old boom box. When’s the last time you made a mix tape?”

“God, I still have all of them at home.”

“I wanna hear all the juicy morsels about last night, Marchewska. I can’t believe it, you little slut. Does your
cipa
hurt? Did you shave like I told you to?” Justyna slurs.

“Yes, it hurts, but only from shock. He only managed a few, you know, thrusts. And no, I didn’t shave. It was so bad.”

“You should have shaved! Did he cum?”

“No.”

“Great. At least you won’t spend the next month panicking about your period.”

Kamila laughs. “I guess there’s a bright side to everything.”

“The first time always blows. I was thirteen, with my cousin Arek, in the bathroom at Relaks. I told you guys it happened when I was sixteen and I fucking lied.” Justyna laughs. “It was so gross, ugh, I can still smell the wet toilet paper on the floor. We did it standing up and halfway, some old guy came in to take a piss. But then every time after, and with each new guy, it got better and better. You’ll see.”

“Yeah, Anna said the same thing.”

“What, you fucked my cousin too?” Justyna laughs. She laughs because here’s her chance, here’s her chance to come clean, to say
I know, I know what happened
. But she just laughs and the sound of it echoes through the hills like bells.

“No! My first time was with this Spanish guy in high school. It didn’t hurt that bad, but it didn’t change my life, that’s for sure. He had terrible acne.” Justyna stares at Anna, impressed by how smoothly the lie comes.

“I wish we could sleep out here. Hey, you guys”—Kamila raises her head and leans back on her elbows—“we’re like the three musketeers, together again.”

“Like the Summer Triangle,” Anna replies, pointing to the sky.

“The what?”

“It’s a constellation made up of the brightest three stars in the universe, but it’s only visible in July and August.”

“You’re a fucking riot, Baran.” Justyna cackles. “I bet you just made
that shit up.
Marzycielka
.” Anna looks down, and for a second Justyna feels bad. She likes the fact that Anna has always been a dreamer, but being a dreamer was a luxury in life, and tonight the last thing Justyna wanted to do was discuss the fucking stars.

“All right, girls. One swig left. Let’s make a toast. To the goddamn Summer Triangle, and to next summer.”

Justyna takes the vodka bottle last. Before she brings it to her mouth, she looks up for a moment, searching for something bright to call her own.

The girls make plans for lunch on Thursday in town. Justyna watches her friends link arms and make their way toward the taxi stand farther down the road.

When she walks in the house, the kitchen light is on. Paweł and Elwira sit at the table, staring down into coffee cups. A bottle of formula stands on the counter. When they both look up at her, Justyna knows.