Absolute Sunset (25 page)

“There’s no need!” they said.

This time Hanka decided to change her approach and not even ask for permission to talk with some of the residents. Getting inside the homes had taken her two months, but without any tangible result. Some places let her in, but simply showed her around a little, letting her see a few bedrooms and kitchens. She even managed to get work in three of the homes, staying for a few days each to see what was going on inside. But nothing suspicious had turned up. Time had passed and she hasn’t solved the riddle yet, so when the guard disappeared to get the boss Hanka followed him rather than sitting on the rickety chair in the vestibule.

She ducked into the first room she could, simply to get out of the corridor and out of sight as soon as possible, and found an old man was lying in bed. His eyes were closed and he might as well have been dead, if not for the fact that his chest moved evenly up and down. Hanka approached the bed and looked at his wrinkled face. Within his half-open mouth she saw toothless gums. Would old Janusz have looked like that, too? Oh well, it wasn’t any time to be thinking about things like that. Hanka sat at the foot of the bed, waiting for the elderly man to wake up. The guard would probably think she’d left, in which case he wouldn’t come looking for her.

She must have fallen asleep for a moment, lulled by ticking of the clock, because she was brought round by the old man hawking. He opened his eyes suddenly, looked at her, terrified, and began kicking with his stringy legs.

“Go away, go away!” he said in a hoarse voice, trying at the same time to hit Hanka and to get up somehow. He was so decrepit, though, that there was no way that he could walk on his own.

“Calm down, please, I won’t hurt you!” Hanka jumped aside and tried to calm the man. He might call the guard.

“Go away, don’t beat me!” the man didn’t have enough strength to argue or even to wave his hands, so he just cried, sounding like a little child.

Hanka looked at him, terrified by his old man tears. She approached him cautiously, so as not to expose herself to an attack, and hugged him firmly. He was fragile, like he’d been pieced together with sticks and he smelled of naphthalene. Hanka stroked his bald skull.

“Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you!” she whispered. “Everything’s okay, don’t be afraid, nothing bad will happen.”

The old man stopped struggling, pleased with her caresses, but still distrustful.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, when Hanka eventually let him go.

“I came to help. I know that somewhere in a retirement home terrible things are happening, beatings and stuff like that. Do you know about this? Does it happen here?”

“No, my dear. Here it’s like paradise! Great! But I wake up terrified because of them, the other ones. War is nothing compared to them, believe me.”

“But who are you talking about?” Hanka asked.

“About the people at the home called Under the Pear Tree. About them, about these monsters without hearts!”

Franciszek—that was his name—had landed in Under the Pear Tree the year before. His son had left him there because he’d had to travel to Germany for work. He had meant well. His father was over eighty years old—he couldn’t manage on his own. And he had arthritis. The retirement home was a perfect solution.

“You’ll be given something to eat, someone will wash you, you’ll have friends.” Franciszek’s son had convinced him—and had convinced himself. He hadn’t wanted to simply leave the old man. But life is brutal. There was no work for an ageing handyman in Poland. Yet, in the West it was possible to earn a lot! “I’ll work a little—three, maybe four years. I’ll come back for you, dad!” His son had had tears in his eyes.

Franciszek ordered him not to worry, just to do his job. Under the Pear Tree looked fine—he’d take it somehow. But he’d been sad about the cat. They didn’t allow residents to keep animals, so he’d had to give it to a shelter.

As soon as his son left, bad things started to happen at Under the Pear Tree. None of it was new, but Franciszek hadn’t known about it before this. The residents were never allowed to leave their rooms. The ones who banged on their door and demanded to be let out got tied to their beds. They had to pee into nappies, which were changed once a day, and they were always thirsty, because the less they were given to drink, the less they had to pee, and the less work the staff had to do. They were also fed once a day, like a dog, and sometimes not that often.

Those who kept quiet didn’t do much better. Every tumble, every drop of the tea spilled, was punished with a cruel beating. Franciszek had been kicked by nurses wearing clogs.

When the staff wanted peace and quiet, they’d medicate the residents. Diazepam, Luminal. They stuffed the old with pills by force like they were chickens. They were ordered to swallow, then tied to their beds. The staff would leave them in their rooms, sometimes for several days. During their absence, old men dropped like flies.

“Like in a camp, my dear, just like in a concentration camp.”

Franciszek had managed to escape. They’d tied him up for the night, but not firmly enough. He’d managed to free himself and leave through a window, his room being on the ground floor, then headed to the nearest house.

“I remember nothing, only the telephone number for my son,” he had lied.

His son had arrived immediately, picking his father up at the reception shelter where the police had eventually put him. He’d listened to the stories about Under the Pear Tree in silence, then banged his fist so hard on the doorframe that paint chips came off.

“Just you wait!” he shouted.

He went to the retirement home. They laughed at him, didn’t him let in. He notified the police and other services. They did nothing. They said Franciszek must be suffering from dementia. That he was lying and was a beastly old geezer.

“But are they still doing this?” Hanka asked, was shocked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they got scared when my son gave them an earful. But they probably kept going. I ran away more than five months ago.”

“Where? Where is it?” Hanka was by the door, ready to go.

“I don’t remember. But you’ll find them. Please, find them. And make them pay for what they’ve done!”

Leaving the shelter, Hanka searched the list of addresses.
Here it is!
Under the Pear Tree, Dobra Street 71, Giszowiec District, Katowice.

She went at once, nearly running all her way from the bus stop, checking buildings along the street, searching for the right number.

“There!” she screamed at last. The next house had a sign with name of the retirement home on the wall. She stopped at the gate and was about to yank on the door handle, when a lady leading a dachshund on a leash passed the corner and emerged in front of her. The dog started to bark and the owner pulled on the leash, then addressed Hanka.

“Are you looking for Under the Pear Tree?”

“Yes, I am.”

“They’re not here anymore.”

“What happened?”

“Well, you know. It was quite a scandal.” The lady with the dachshund was clearly well-informed. “It turned out that the owner, you know, the one who always wore that black dress, she had a funeral company as well. She wanted the old people she kept here to die quickly. Then she buried them and made their families pay. Most of the residents had kids living abroad. The young people were pleased that somebody took care of the funeral for them. They didn’t ask questions—they paid and that was that. And she made a fortune.”

“And?”

“Nothing. Some of the old people ran away. Others used to scream through the windows. They called for help, but most people didn’t care. Everyone knows grandpas sometimes have dementia. But eventually somebody noticed. There was a complaint—one, another—and then an investigation. It turned out that there were too many deaths in Under the Pear Tree. The residents were questioned and they described their treatment in detail, even though they were afraid that they might be killed. So finally the business was closed.”

Hanka held on to the fence to keep herself from fainting. The lady with the dachshund continued to twitter on about what had happened to the owner, but she had stopped listening. She’d been so close. So close. Next time she would be on time.

Hanka—A Way Of Life

“Well, you blundered around too much with Under the Pear Tree,” the raven said at their next meeting.

“But I was so close!”

Actually, not that close. Hanka thought she’d wasted too much time going door to door. It would have been better to come up with a plan at the beginning rather than running around chaotically, chasing things in every direction.

“Now, do you believe me? I really did give you everything you needed to read the prophecy.”

“Ok, but you could be more precise! How could I possibly know that I had to connect the tree with the name of the home?” Hanka was acting offended, but deep down she felt that she’d made an inexcusable mistake. After all, the riddle had been fairly straightforward. Or maybe it only seemed that way now, after the fact. The raven interrupted her thoughts.

“Uh-huh—trying to think of an excuse?” he croaked.

“I’m not. It’s just—well. Next time I’ll move faster.”

“Does that mean you’re ready for the next riddle?”

“I am. I’m ready.”

They landed in a large square, enclosed within a palisade. In the middle stood a little shed, just something thrown together with a few boards, barely holding together and covered in slippery moss. Hanka looked around, vigilant, trying to anticipate what might happen.

A double door in the palisade flew open with a piercing clatter, the doors banging against the walls and sending a small shower of splinters to the ground. A large group of naked women ran into the square. They rushed forward, screaming, stumbling over one another, with their breasts dangling and their shivering, white buttocks flashing. Floods of tears dragged mascara and eye shadow down their cheeks.

A devil, dressed in red, came treading behind them. He brandished a whip, which he used to lash at his herd. The women tried to avoid the blows, which left bloody marks on their backs and shoulders.

“Stop!” the devil cried suddenly, in a voice that made Hanka think of the mad buzzing of a thousand flies.

The herd stopped by the cottage, forming up in a straight line. The devil wrapped the whip around his forearm unhurriedly and sniggered. He moved along the row, examining the women one after another. He grabbed one by the fold of fat on her belly, another by her hair. In the end he made a decision.

“You!” he said in a deep voice.

“No!” the woman cried.

“You!” The devil caught her hand firmly and dragged her to the cottage.

After a moment they heard sounds. Wheezing, panting. The smacking and soft “phew” of punches.

“Keep going, you whore!” the devil screamed.

Hanka looked at the remaining victims, all of them standing still, staring at their feet. Weren’t they going to help the one in the shed?

“I’m going inside!” she said, and tried to take a step toward the shed. Nothing happened. She couldn’t. She couldn’t move! “Let me go!” she shouted at the raven.

“Relax, you can’t help her,” the raven said. “And you’d better watch closely—it’ll end in a minute!”

And he was right. After a moment, the devil jumped back out into the square. He was naked from the waist down.

“Stick!” he commanded, and a branch with a bark on it, as thick as a man’s forearm, appeared in his hand.

“No!” Hanka wanted to shout, but she couldn’t speak.

“Quiet, don’t talk, look,” the bird reminded her.

The torturer returned to the shed. Before going in, he turned to address the women standing in the courtyard.

“Impalement, that’s what’s coming!” he screamed, excited. “Listen to the sound, because any one of you may be next!” He leaped inside and slammed the door shut behind him. After a moment, an inhuman whine came from inside. It seemed to Hanka that no human being could howl so terribly.

“No, no, don’t, please, no...”

The tortured woman’s words dissolved into an inarticulate bellow at the end. Then there was silence.

Finally, the devil and the woman came back into the square. He walked in a jaunty way, swinging the branch, which was covered with blood. She barely managed to trail behind him on her on knees. Her face was swollen and her hair was matted with snot. Dark brown gunge ran down her thin thighs. The devil stopped and glanced at her with disgust—he shook his head.

“Underground,” he ordered and snapped his fingers.

The earth before him opened, forming a roughly rectangular hole. A grave!

“Inside.” The devil pointed the crack.

“No...” But the kneeling woman’s resistance was just a formality.

“Yes!” The devil kicked her and his victim tumbled down into the hole. The devil snapped his fingers and the earth slowly collapsed, burying the victim’s shout, covering her beaten, blue body.

The dream disappeared, only to return, exactly the same, on the following night. And then once again that week. The devil chose the same woman, raped her brutally in the shed, and then buried her alive. Hanka, enchanted into immovable stone, was compelled to watch. When she woke, she would be trembling.