Absolute Sunset (13 page)

Janusz—There Will Be No Dinner

Janusz answered the telephone on the seventh ring. He’d been preparing the monthly cost report for his boss and wanted to finish it right away, but the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. In the end, he picked up the receiver. It slipped from his hand and he swore under his breath. He picked it up again.

“Yes?” he said. His well-practised tone suggested that he was powerful, and that he was busy at the moment.

“Janusz, it’s me,” Sabina said.

“What do you want?”

“Come back home.”

“Something happened?” He became worried. Sabina’s tone was desperate. She sounded like she was at the end of her rope. Janusz started picking up his things. Clutch bag, jacket.

“Nothing happened,” his wife said after a long silence. “Just come back”

“Sabina, say something! What’s the problem?”

“Just come back.”

And then he heard nothing but a dial tone. Janusz ran out of work, asking a colleague in the neighbouring office to explain everything to his boss.

“Go—I’ll deal with everything,” Waldek promised.

Janusz raced off to the bus stop. Goddamn! Next bus wouldn’t come for forty five minutes! In the middle of the day they only passed hourly. Lazy vultures, the entire bus company! He’d be home faster on foot! He set off, running in the direction of the Tysiąclecie estate.

After half an hour of running he came to Okólna street, breathless. Bright spots floated in the air in front of his eyes. A rumbling sound echoed over and over in his head. He could barely catch his breath. His heart somersaulted wildly. Finally, he noticed a police car standing at the end of the block. Navy blue and red lights blinked. Police officers were buzzed around a van. Stiff and dangerous. Two of them packed somebody into the back. Sabina! Handcuffed and bent over! That was definitely her worn-out coat!

“Sabina!” Janusz screamed. He leapt toward the vehicle. Police officers stepped forward and blocked his way. Their hands went to the batons that hung at their sides.

“Who are you?” they asked sharply. Janusz stopped and squatted like a dog being told off.

“The husband! Sabina! Sabina!” he repeated.

“I am sorry, but you are not allowed to talk to her. She’s under arrest.”

“But why?”

“First the public prosecutor has to give a consent to the conversation. There’s no way to know whether the two of you conspired. You can’t talk to each other.”

“What conspiracy? Where are you taking her? Why?”

“Manslaughter. Of your son. She threw him from the footbridge above Gruwaldzka street.”

Janusz was silent. As if he might be silent forever.

“She killed the child. We have witnesses. They called us. Then she called us. She gave the address. She already confessed,” the police officer explained.

“When will I be able to talk to her?”

“I don’t know. You have to wait,” the officer said, then climbed into the van. “Concordia company took the boy,” he said. “You know, to prepare him for the funeral,” he saluted and closed the door.

Janusz went upstairs. He couldn’t argue any more. Couldn’t look for the truth, couldn’t act. He had to think. What next? What about Hanka? He felt a dryness in his mouth, as if he had swallowed a handful of sand. In the kitchen, a bottle of water stood on the table. He reached for it. He drank thirstily. His eyes rested on the sink. Inside there was the sieve full of the shredded cabbage. Bloodstained.

Janusz choked. The bottle fell out of his hand. What was Sabina doing? Cabbage soup? For the funeral reception? She cut herself, probably deeply! Suddenly, Janusz heard the door slam. Hanka. He wiped his face with his hand.
Stay calm
, he ordered himself. Hanka appeared at the door.

“Dad, what happened? Why are you at home? Where’s mum?” she asked clearly upset.

“Mum’s not here.”

“So where did she go? When will she be back?” Hanka didn’t let it go. She was watching him carefully. He lowered his eyes. He thought: a child will miss her mother, even a bad mother. He sighed heavily.

“She won’t be back.”

“Why?”

“Darling, there was an accident. Bartek is dead. Police took mum,” Janusz wouldn’t even look at his daughter, couldn’t stand to.

“But...”

“Hania, I have to go to the police station. There will be a trial. Everything will be clear. But mum won’t come back for some time.” He passed Hanka and headed to the entrance hall. She followed him immediately.

“When will you be back?” she asked. It was a question he didn’t want to hear.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll tell Agata’s mum to drop by,” he promised, and hurried out the door.

Sabina—Prison

Five years of imprisonment. That was the sentence. Sabina didn’t question it. She didn’t pretend to be insane or to have any other mental issues. She didn’t try to explain her motivation. She didn’t play dumb—after all, she’d done it and confessed to it. Bartek. Footbridge. Everything’s clear. Is she guilty? Yes, she is.

She was taken in a police minibus to the penitentiary in Lubliniec, where there was also an insane asylum. A closed one. Serious. Surrounded by high fencing. “They probably think I’ll end up there eventually,” Sabina thought. She stared at the fields outside the window.

“We’ll be there in a while,” an officer said. She was young and ruddy. Tight plaits bumped on her shoulders every time the van bounced.

“Uh-huh,” Sabina gave her a quick look and lowered her head. A total waste of words.

“I know, what you did,” the girl persisted. “And I don’t condemn you.”

Excellent, now shut up
, Sabina thought, and pressed her nose with her fingers.

“I disagree with the sentence. But don’t tell anyone,” the girl turned red—she looked like a porcelain doll.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m running some psychological research. I’m doing my postgraduate diploma. It concerns,” the girl hesitated, “infanticides.”

Sabina leaned her head against the wall of the van and fixed her eyes on the officer. “Motives aren’t always what they seem. In my opinion you should have been sent to a mental institution. But don’t worry, there’s a psychiatric wing in Lubliniec, inside the prison. It’s very good. And there’s a hospital, too, just outside. Also very prestigious.”

“Good,” Sabina didn’t know, what else to say. “Lovely” maybe? What?

“I have one piece of advice for you,” the porcelain-like officer kept on. “There are only a few women in prison in Poland serving a sentence for infanticide. The rest are in protective custody or mental asylums.”

“Really?”

“Don’t tell anyone what you were sentenced for or the other prisoners will finish you off. I mean it!” the officer glanced at Sabina—half severe, half sad—and ended the conversation.

The prison resembled a luxurious hotel, surrounded by a solid wall for the comfort of its guests. Sabina had seen photographs of such places in the catalogues of travel agencies. In the Dominican Republic, or Egypt, everything was enclosed. White and angular. Just like here.

A metal gate opened. The car rolled slowly into the prison courtyard and stopped. Sabina looked out through the window.
It’s not a hotel
, she smiled to herself and got out. The porcelain officer dispassionately handed her over to the prison guard. She didn’t even look at Sabina. She didn’t say goodbye. A jack-in-office. Her plaits swung in the air as she turned away and that was all.

“Follow me!” the prison guard ordered, setting off toward a door.

They walked along a narrow corridor. The woman in uniform didn’t look back once. She was considerably older than the one in the van—she carried twenty kilograms too much weight and looked like a tough slut. Sabina sped up so as not to be in her bad books. She might get a strong hit in the head with that grey baton. Or land in a seclusion cell. She’d seen cells like that in movies. Eventually they reached a place the guard called the “admissions room.”

“Would you like to take a seat?” she asked, sitting on a plastic chair that groaned under her weight. She stretched her legs. Her trousers went up. Sabina saw the elastic of knee-high socks biting into the woman’s body. After a moment another guard appeared.

“Administration!” she announced. “You give answers, I write them down!” she grabbed a ballpoint pen from a metal basket.

She threw out questions, one after another, and took notes. Age. Weight. Surname. Name. Illnesses. Allergies. The ballpoint pen ran out in the middle of a form. The woman put it aside with a brusque move, grabbed a pencil, and continued the interrogation. Having finished, she gave something like a smile.

“Undress behind the screen, your belongings go into this basket.” She took a basket form a cupboard. “Put on the uniform and sneakers,” she said, taking out some clothes. “You can keep your underwear and the elastic band for your hair, too, but I’ll take the rest.”

After undressing she sat down on the metal stool, so cold that she got goose pimples. She put on the bottoms of the grey tracksuit made of some stiff linen. Then the top. Sneakers straight onto her bare feet. She was ready.

“Sponge bag!” the administrator gave her a small bag in exchange for her clothes. Inside there was a bar of soap, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste.

“That’s all?”

“Yep. See you in five years, darling!” the woman who’d brought Sabina into the prison and the fat guard burst into laughter.

The gate clanged as the administrator closed the metal door. Sabina was in a room leading to the prison wing. From a distance she could hear inmates’ voices. A clamour like on a chicken farm. She regretted that she wasn’t deaf. Every step brought her closer to the squeaking mass. She walked more and more slowly, until at last the guard turned and urged her on with a gesture.

“Come on, stupid,” she murmured and swayed her hips.

They entered a corridor between rows of cells. From behind the bars, curious prisoners stared at them. They pushed their faces between the bars.

“A newbie, a newbie!” they called. Some of them swore and whistled. Some hands reached Sabina. They pulled her clothes or hair. The guard pushed them off with her baton. Finally, they reached Sabina’s cell.

“Get in,” the fatty ordered, pushing Sabina inside. So firmly that she almost hit the wall.

“Hey, Ewa, you have your period, or what?” a prisoner sitting on the bottom pallet asked. She hid under the top bunk as if she were in a hole. “Give her a break, the girl only just registered.” Fat Ewa snorted and banged the door with all her strength.

“Shut up, Ilona, or I’ll move you to the whores!” she hissed. A key clanged. She walked away.

“Hi!” the woman leaned out from under the bed. She had thin, mousy hair pinned up into something like a bun. She was missing two teeth in the front. But she was smiling as if she had just left a prestigious dental office equipped with the set of gleaming veneers. “I’m Ilona!” she thrust a hand at Sabina.

“Sabina.” Sabina held the sponge bag tightly, close to her belly.

“Yeah, shake hands!” Ilona still held her hand out. “I won’t bite you!”

Sabina cautiously put the cosmetics away. She gave Ilona a hand—anxiously, as if she were touching a rattlesnake. Ilona gave her a heartfelt hug.

“Welcome to my house!” she croaked. Sabina finally smiled. “You’ll sleep up top, me on the bottom,” Ilona patted the mattresses in turn. “Let me give you the tour. Here you have a washbasin, lavatory. Questions?”

“No.”

“What are you in for?”

Sabina didn’t answer.

“For manslaughter?” Ilona tried to guess.

“Uh-huh.”

“All the girls feel ashamed. That they killed. But don’t you worry, you’re not the only one. Was it your old man?”

Sabina remained silent.

“I killed my husband, too.” Ilona clearly assumed that Sabina’s silence indicated agreement. “A son-of-a-bitch, but that’s a long story.” She lit a cigarette and went back to her pallet.

Sabina quickly got accustomed to prison routine. To living according to a schedule. Wakey-wakey, breakfast, work, lunch, walk, supper, sometimes a bath, bed. She started to believe that she would survive somehow. Five years would pass in no time. Every day would be exactly the same, like the identical boxcars on a train as it rushes past while you sit in your car at a crossing waiting for it to be over. She would leave. She would come back. She would fix everything, explain somehow. She couldn’t turn back the time, but maybe she could atone during these five years. She hoped so.

Within a few months she learned the stories of almost all the girls in the neighbourhood. All of them were murderesses. Their victims were mainly their husbands, like Ilona’s. A notorious drunkard. He’d beaten her cruelly. He’d sold her for vodka. His pals, although completely drunk, were still able to do their job. They would hold her immobile and rape her. When they finished, they sometimes vomited directly onto her. For half a litre he’d sold her to Tadek. Ilona’s husband had looked impatient.

“Go on, I need to drink,” he’d urged.

She couldn’t stand it. She killed the son of a bitch. With a tenderiser. One perfectly aimed blow. She remembered the sound of his skull cracking. Like the sound of a balloon bursting. She killed the son of a bitch. For herself. For the children, whom she kept locked in the kitchen during the drinking to protect them from being raped. These sick bastards would have been capable of it.