Absolute Sunset (11 page)

“Wait—worms will come out from those pustules. They are the thing that’s contaminating him,” the raven said, calming her down.

“But he’s screaming, I have to take him out!”

“No, you mustn’t!” the raven shouted. “Hold on, you idiot! You mustn’t!” he parroted, rocking to and fro, while all the time the child kept screaming.

After a moment, the pustules bulged and began to crack one by one. Grubs wormed their way out. But they didn’t fall into the liquid, holding onto the baby’s skin with hooked legs.

“Tear them away!” the raven ordered.

Sabina started picking off the bugs, plucking them from Bartek as if he were a sweater covered with pills of fabric. Still, more and more grubs appeared on his skin. As soon as she tore one away, another would already be waiting. Again and again. Sabina was sweating, hovering and hurrying over the warm bathtub. Sweat poured from her forehead. Her son screamed continually, his voice now hoarse.

“No, mum, no, mum, please, take me away from here, mum, no!”

She tore the worms away as quickly as she could. But Bartek kept crying! His screaming distracted her from the work, slowed her down.
Shut up! Be quiet! I’m trying!
Worms crept out by the hundreds. Sabina sobbed with disgust. Unexpectedly, the raven put an end to the torture.

“He’s absolutely verminous—this is useless,” he declared. “Take him out! We need something better! Come back tomorrow.”

The next day he led Sabina into another room. Inside stood a striped high chair with and a table—nothing else. A jar of yellow liquid stood on the table. A thick skin, like the ones that form in jars of pickled cucumbers, floated on the surface. A spoon stood in the jar.

“Put the child on the chair and fasten the belts,” the raven ordered. “And then feed him this.”

Bartek began to beg for mercy all over again. But the raven was implacable.

“He must eat it, it’s medicine!” he insisted.

Sabina grabbed her son by his cheeks. She squeezed them on both sides, as you would to force open the maw of a naughty puppy that was chewing on something it shouldn’t and wouldn’t let go. The boy opened his mouth. Sabina forced the first spoonful of liquid inside. The boy choked, waving his hands and kicking.

“Very good,” the raven said, satisfied. “Now it’ll begin!”

Suddenly grubs began crawling from Bartek’s mouth—the same ones as the day before, white and fat. Disgusting!

“Scoop them out with the spoon and keep feeding him! You need to poison them all!” the bird ordered.

Sabina did as she was told, though it didn’t seem to make any difference. The worms kept on coming. The ones that crawled out of the boy’s mouth went back in through his nose, or fell onto his knees, where they bit him and then crawled inside through the wounds they’d made. Bartek choked continuously, but Sabina didn’t let up, spooning the liquid into his mouth. The raven jumped and cawed excitedly.

Finally Sabina reached the bottom of the jar. Worms now carpeted the floor of the room. Bartek had lost consciousness. The raven alighted on his head. He looked into the boy’s muddy eyes.

“Shit,” he said. “Holy shit. They’ve gotten into his brain. Come back tomorrow.”

Sabina took Bartek for treatment four more times. It was necessary. For his well-being. Treatment with electricity. Treatment with fire. Putting his hands and legs in a wringer to crush the worms. All for nothing. They simply wouldn’t leave the baby’s body.

On the seventh day she came to the raven early in the morning. As usual, she undressed Bartek and put him on the sofa. The bird barely glanced at him. He sat on the back of the chair, as puffed up as a wet hen. His black eyes were muddy. Sabina thought he seemed a bit sad.

“Well?” she asked.

“Nothing...”

“Nothing?”

“This is hopeless. We could risk it, but I don’t think he’d survive the next treatment. It’s not worth torturing him. The chance of the success? Ten percent, maybe. And maybe not. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“But...”

“That’s enough!” The raven jumped onto the desk and struck its surface several times with its beak, causing a few wooden chips to fall to the floor. He stretched his wings. They unfolded suddenly, loudly, like a pair of fans. He looked at Sabina with one eye and began to recite:

Joy for long will never last

Sorrow it becomes so fast

Life is brittle, it’s too late

Do not try—you can’t change fate

If the young must go and die

We can’t help him, you and I

Better die just like today

’cause agony is pure pain

Better die than gamble on

Suffer, suffer, and so on

Better sudden death than that

Especially for a child

Quickly let his eyes close shut

Quickly make the heart just stop

The raven finished, then jumped to Sabina’s shoulder, touching her gently with his head in a comforting gesture. And disappeared.

Janusz—Sometimes I’m A Father

Janusz bent down and looked into the postbox. Their pigeonhole was located at the very bottom. He felt a pain in his lower back, probably caused by constantly working on papers. He put his hand on the spot that was hurting and turned his head. Through the small holes he could see a notice of some kind inside the box.

He forced the door with the key ring—the lock on the box had been broken for ages and the post hadn’t bothered to exchange it. Crap, crap everywhere. He reached inside and took the sheet out. It was from the clinic. He read the message out. “Final notice.” It concerned Bartek. Sabina hadn’t brought him in for vaccination, not three months ago and not last month. Now the clinic was threatening to contact the police. With penalties. Bloody idiot, she just ignored it!

Forgetting about the backache, Janusz ran up to the first floor simmering with anger. He didn’t bother to take his shoes off, just entered the flat and raced straight to the kitchen. Sabina sat by the window, as usual, holding the inevitable cigarette. There was no trace of Hanka and Bartek was asleep. And she, of course, was resting!

“What’s this?” Janusz demanded, throwing the notice onto the table. It kept going and fell to the floor. As he bent down to get it, he felt another crick in his back. He picked up the paper and pressed it to the top of the table with his palm.

“I don’t know,” Sabina answered.

“Read it.”

“Yeah okay, I don’t have to read it. It’s from the clinic. About vaccination.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw it this morning. I put it back in the postbox.”

“What?” Janusz sat down on the stool. He couldn’t put up with his wife any longer. He simply didn’t have enough strength to deal with her!

“I put it back! Maybe they’ll think we didn’t see it, or that we weren’t home.”

“Sabina! That’s not a solution!” Janusz yelled so loud that he woke up Bartek, who started to cry. Hanka entered the flat at that moment.

“Yeah, see? See? Now he’s crying because of you!” Sabina said, irritated. “Hanka, go, do something with your brother!” she ordered. Hanka put down her school bag and went to Bartek. Janusz watched her go, saddened.

“Hanka isn’t your baby-sitter,” he stated calmly, feeling a burn in his throat, as if he’d eaten a chili pepper. He tried to stay calm, to be constructive, to talk without screaming. The more he tried, the more his throat burned. “Calm down, calm down,” he repeated to himself.

“I can’t deal with him alone, with everything, I just can’t!” Sabina replied.

“And what do you have to do, actually? Apart from taking care of the house and the children?” Janusz asked. He didn’t mean to provoke her, simply to find out what the problem was. Why is she like this? But Sabina took it all wrong.

She sprang up from her chair and took her I-am-so-tired tone.

“Everything! Everything is on my head! You are not helping me at all!” she was screaming and wandering around the kitchen like the like a bear with a pain in its head. “You just fight with me, that’s all you can do! But when I need your help? No, no! Idiot!”

“Sabina, stop! I’m working two jobs, I’m taking work home. I’m trying!” Now Janusz became furious.
That’s enough!
He sweats for this bitch and what does she do? She smokes, she drinks, and she doesn’t give a shit about anything! But he couldn’t continue the argument—Hanka entered the kitchen with Bartek in her arms.

“I have to prepare the milk, he’s hungry,” she whispered. Janusz saw just how scared she was of her mother. Poor child! He got up to help his daughter, but before he could even reach for the packet with the powdered milk Sabina stopped him.

“Out!” she screamed, in such a terrible voice that Janusz actually jumped.

She yanked the flip-flop from her foot and hit Hanka on the head as hard as she could. The girl closed her eyes, grimacing in pain. Then she raised her hand again, this time aiming at Bartek.

“No!” Janusz pushed her away. Sabina flew back as far as the entrance hall. She slammed into the wardrobe. The French-polished door rattled, the hangers inside jingled. Janusz felt a strange joy. “Leave them alone!” he said, pointing a finger at his wife. “Don’t you dare!”

For a single moment he was afraid that Sabina would attack again. But his wife dropped the shoe. She brushed her hair away. She sat down on the floor and began to cry. Janusz didn’t really care.
It serves you right!
he thought, and went back to children. He examined Hanka’s head. He fed Bartek. Only then did he come back to Sabina.

“Tomorrow you will go to the clinic. Or I will kill you, I swear to God,” he promised, knowing full well that he would live up to his threat. For the children! For himself! He was fed up with Sabina.

Sabina—Last Journey

Sabina used to be beautiful. A beautiful girl with hair like a horse’s mane and buttocks like a horse’s round rump—a hot-blooded, skittish mare. She liked to imagine herself this way while she brushed her hair for hours, sending her parents casual smiles. She loved the worship in their eyes. They were proud of her beauty. Sabina always got what she wanted.

“I have everything!” she repeated to herself proudly, as if she had actually earned all the extravagant, crazy gifts her parents gave her.

Her father was a miner. He had made a fortune. His brothers had worked in Germany. They had made their own fortunes. Sabina liked to spend that money. Dresses, coloured pencils, chocolate, dolls, elastic hair bands, notebooks, medicines, vitamins, oranges. Shoelaces, hats. Everything had come in packages from Germany. Nobody she’d known had had so much.

“It’s too much!” Sabina’s mother used to say sometimes. She was a proud Silesian, the lady of the house, with boundless reserves of energy. But Sabina’s father laughed at her. She took offence and responded by forcing her daughter to do housework, only to abandon the idea after a few days of Sabina’s sorrowful eyes, her hands red from scrubbing the floors.

Soon fashion magazines weren’t enough for Sabina, playing with toys and sitting on the sofa with a mirror for company wasn’t fun anymore. She developed a desire to feel the worship of crowds. She came to see the housing estate as waters far too shallow for her beauty. So she sailed out into the city.

Katowice happily took her. Sabina went wild at discos, parties, and bonfires. She cast happy glances at everyone she seduced. She kissed boys, hidden in the bushes. She drank red wine and smoked. In the end, her parents couldn’t take it. One quarrel, then another. Her father used his belt. One, twice. It didn’t help at all.

“I like it!” Sabina said, and her father simply gave up. Next they apologized. Eventually they began to beg her.

“Sabina, stay at home, please!” her mother implored.

“Sweetie, don’t leave!” Her father had tears in his eyes.

Nothing. All for nothing. Sabina was lost. When she was sixteen years old she went to a party and didn’t come home—disappeared. Her parents went crazy. They were running from one window to another, when suddenly someone rang at the door. They raced to answer it, pushing their way in the corridor.

“Sabina!”

But a man stood behind the door. He was more or less their age.

“Mr and Mrs Neiman?” he asked.