Absolute Sunset (9 page)

After the baptism party things got even worse. Sabina perhaps assumed that—now that God was looking after Bartek—she didn’t have to do anything at all. She paid no attention to him. She didn’t even look at him. She touched the baby only when she had to. “You don’t have the right to exist,” was her attitude. “You’d better disappear.”

Sometimes Hanka wondered, if dipping deep into the well of memory would bring back recollections of such solitude from her own early childhood. Of the terrible loneliness of the small child. Of a longing for caresses. Of crying until you are hoarse. Thoughts like these always made her cry. She choked with them. She hoped her mother had been different with her. Poor Bartek...

Meanwhile, Sabina lay decaying in her dirty bed for days at a time. She remained in the bedroom, keeping it as dark as a crypt. She had her bottle. Sometimes she rustled with blister packs of diazepam. Hanka had to take care of everyone. No matter whether she wanted to or not. No matter whether she could or not. Never mind that.

Her father kind of helped sometimes, kind of tried. Like all fathers do. Sunk in financial worries, absent-minded and tired out, sometimes he fell asleep while rocking Bartek in the pram. His hands continued to move, even after he himself was asleep. He took additional work. Sometimes at night he counted something and typed on a calculator. Hanka didn’t like the clatter.

It somehow happened that Hanka was the one who had to care for the baby, although she had never asked for a brother. It was a lot like the situation with the goldfish. Hanka had gotten it for her birthday two years before. It had had ugly, bulging eyes. Hanka hadn’t liked it at all. But with the fish in the house, someone had to look after it. It was the same with Bartek—she looked after him, although she was disgusted with the stinking, greenish poos that smudged his thin cheeks. With his dirty nails. With his ugly face, covered with a crust of dried milk. With his dull eyes—Bartek didn’t even seem to recognize her. And, at the same time, she also had to look after Sabina. And, of course, her father, overwhelmed with work. Her responsibilities were forever on her mind!

Instead of going out with friends to collect the wild lupin, she hurried home from school, just like a busy mother rushing from work to her family. And the whole way she wondered—would she find Bartek alive? Healthy? What about her mother? Would she be drunk? Would she be grumbling? Would she pass out, dazed by alcohol? Please, let her fall asleep! Maybe she needed to call the doctor? Her mother would talk nonsense. Maybe she’d gone crazy. Or is she simply gibbering in a dream?

As soon as she got home, Hanka would prepare some food. Why did they run out of bread? Money? Where’s the money? Not enough, not even for half a roll. She would clean, more or less. Sometimes she even did laundry. She just couldn’t wear dirty underwear any more. It was humiliating to change out of dirty clothes before P.E.!

Then she worried about her father. Where was he? Why hadn’t he come back yet? Was the bus late? Had there been an accident? Bartek was crying, he was cranky. When will he fall asleep? For heaven’s sake! After all, she had a homework to do! Worries, worries, worries. Hanka was slowly becoming fed up with the situation.

“I can’t stand it no more,” she quoted the lines heard in some TV series while talking to Agata. It was one of the rare days when Janusz had a day off and was taking care of the house, Sabina, the baby, and all the other stuff.

“Uh-huh,” Agata was chewing gum, so she wasn’t saying much. She smelt like sugar.

“My mother is sleeping through entire days,” Hanka continued.

“M-hm.”

“She does nothing. Sometimes she shouts. She avoids Bartek. She makes a mess at home. What’s going on? She’s gone nuts!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Agata! Spit the gum out!” Hanka was irritated with her friend’s lack of compassion.

“Sorry,” Agata muttered and spat the gum into her hand. Pink pulp smudged between her fingers, forming a membrane like a web. Agata began to nibble at it.

“What would you say?” Hanka hoped for some specific advice.

“Hmm... It was the same with us after the twins were born. My mom... She used to cry all the time for a good half a year. Then she got better.”

“But she took care of them!” Hanka sulked. Agata was clearly trying to downplay the problem.

“Yeah, that’s true... She did,” Agata’s gloom deepened.

“And?”

“Maybe you should tell somebody about it? Your teacher? Or a doctor?”

“Hey! You don’t care at all!” Hanka, hurt, sprang off the swing and ran toward home.

They made up soon after. Agata found Hanka at the compost bin. She offered her chewing gum. Hanka accepted the apology and the gum—all in all, it wasn’t worth wasting time on arguments. After a few weeks, Sabina did actually feel better. She started to get up in the morning. She washed herself, dressed up, and took Bartek for walks.

“Yeah, you see?” Agata summed up the case.

She and Hanka ran together to the stationery store to get some new markers.

Sabina—Love Is Blind

Mariusz. The deliveryman. In Sabina’s opinion the word “deliveryman” was completely inappropriate. Misleading. Suggesting a nonentity with a fat belly, maybe a fan of Ich Troje. She would prefer to call him a dancer, a photographer, or a musician. Perhaps Mariusz would have become an artist, if not for fact that his family never had enough money. So at the age of eighteen he sat behind the wheel of the white Mercedes—German scrap metal, covered in dark rust. He began delivering vegetables to stalls and shops.

The early days were difficult. Cold mornings, tricky wholesalers. Negligent clients, a constant shortage of cash. And naivety. Nevertheless, five years later Mariusz and his Mercedes took control of the west end of Katowice. Including the
Tysiąclecie
housing estate. He could afford the most expensive jeans and stylish sneakers, and he wore a thick silver chain around his neck. “Gold is
passé
,” he said.

Sabina met him for the first time when she was walking with Bartek. She took the baby outside because he was crying and crying. She was traipsing along the pavement, rocking the pram.
The little shit will have to finally fall asleep.
But instead he was waving his hands and legs. Sleep? No way. Sabina stared at some dandelions. Why hadn’t they blown away yet? It was already a middle of July!

“If you put him up to the sun, he’ll close his eyes and eventually fall asleep,” she heard suddenly.

She looked up, intending to hurl some choice epithets at the person who had intruded. Instead, she froze. She saw a handsome, young guy rather than what she’d expected: one of the grandfathers who trailed around between the clinic and the grocery store, looking for victims to chat with. She straightened up. She fixed her hair, but immediately realized the hopelessness of the attempt.

“Yeah, up to the sun. I’ll do it for you,” he said, and folded the umbrella that was attached to the pram. Without waiting for Sabina to agree, he gently turned the pram. Intrusive rays immediately touched the pale face of the child. Bartek closed his eyes and stopped moving, either satisfied or stunned. The stranger gave him the pacifier.

“He’ll sleep right away,” he said and started rocking the pram. After a moment, Bartek’s head started to roll from side to side along with it. The pacifier fell out of his mouth—the baby was asleep.

“There, you see,” the young man seemed pleased. “I’m Mariusz.” He bowed in an old-fashioned manner and offered his hand to Sabina, taking the lead with a modern
savoir-vivre
that would normally be considered gauche.

Sabina didn’t pass judgment, though, just shook his tanned hand. For a single moment, when her fingers touched Mariusz’s hard palm, she felt excitement. She blushed, but only a little.

“Would you mind having a Coke with me in front of the shop—since he’s sleeping?” the young man asked.

“Not at all,” Sabina nervously fixed the strap of her bra, which had slipped down. It showed under the short sleeve of her blouse. It was grey. Depressing.

They sat down on the windowsill of the low pavilion whose sign read “Vegetables—Fruits—Sweets.” Mariusz opened a can for her, then his own. The Coke was lukewarm. Very sweet. Sabina drank slowly. She didn’t want to burp.

“Cigarette?” asked her new companion.

“Yes, please!”

They smoked. The smoke rose and twisted above Bartek’s pram and Sabina turned him away a little bit. She didn’t want Mariusz to think she was stupid. The baby’s health could be endangered by cigarette smoke. Mariusz nodded his head in recognition and Sabina felt relieved.

They sat, saying little. Local chatterboxes gave them furtive glances and rushed to hide in staircases to jabber away, to rattle on. “Sabina’s hanging around with somebody again!” “Sabina’s talking to the vegetable guy.” Sabina didn’t give a shit.

After their first meeting, she was on the lookout for Mariusz around the vegetable store. She went for a walk with Bartek and circled around it. She succeeded and congratulated herself on her cunning.

“Oh, we meet again!” she heard a few days later. She jumped up so she would seem surprised, as if she had come to the spot by accident. “Fate!” laughed Mariusz.

“Good morning!” Sabina answered, as enthusiastic as a teenage girl. She could flirt, you bet! “I’ve been walking, you know—fresh air’s important for the baby’s health,” she lowered her head modestly, like a pure-bred Polish Mother. But she let her hip swing to the right, temptress. Mariusz pawed at her with his eyes. It worked!

“Wait, I’ll unload the delivery and we’ll take a walk,” he promised, disappearing inside the car.

Then they actually went for a walk. One time. Another. The next. They stopped for coffee at a nearby dive. A café, Mariusz called it. In fact it was a beer house, where they also served cheap vodka. Better that then nothing. Sabina didn’t complain. They headed into the sweltering centre of Katowice to have some ice-cream. Then they dined in hurry in some bar, eating as they stood at the counter.

“No restaurants with the baby,” Mariusz said, and Sabina agreed. The Polish Mother. The cheap dinner tasted good. She was with Mariusz. She touched him, just like that, in passing. Oh, all right. Everything happened so quickly that she didn’t have time to think.

As it turned out, he lived in her neighbourhood. Literally two streets away. Why hadn’t she noticed him earlier? She could reach Mariusz’s place either by taking a walk on a shabby promenade that stretched around the high-rise block or by taking a shortcut and using passages that ran right through the long buildings. Sabina preferred the second option, even though the passages stank of urine and would sometimes come across derelicts. And it was windy there.

August came around. Mariusz invited her to his flat. Sabina prepared for the visit for several hours. Eyeliner on her eyelids, mascara, perfume. Shaved her legs. She knew what to do—you have to doll up. She imagined an elegant one-room flat, one spacious room, with little furniture. No carpets with Persian flourishes. No curtains, veils, drapes of cheap machine-embroidered tulle. She could see modern equipment inside. Big, respectable TV. A toaster, silver and shiny. Water bed.

But Mariusz’s flat was the complete opposite—dark, small, and boring. Cluttered with appliances collected from acquaintances and family members. Armchairs worn out by thousands of buttocks. Tables with hollows made by a few hundred pairs of elbows. And these bloody curtains, exactly the color of tomato soup. Dust everywhere.

“Welcome to my kingdom!” Mariusz announced, greeting her when she appeared at his door for the first time. “Come in!” he bowed low, the way a servant might do. She didn’t want to disappoint him. She came in. She stayed.

Mariusz’s flat had one undeniable advantage. It had a sizeable hall, where Bartek’s pram fit perfectly. It connected the living room to the kitchen. Sabina would leave Bartek there. He usually slept, and when he didn’t he still remained quiet. She would give him a bit of sedative or luminal. Just a bit.

She would enter the room and carefully close the door. She greeted Mariusz with a shy and unnecessary smile. And with an awkward gesture, like a small wave of the hand.

She would fall down on the unmade couch, which was always unmade, straight into the tangled bedding. Mariusz would already be waiting. Young and naked. Ready and hungry. Hard and passionate. Sabina would gasp under him for hours. She wanted to stay in that room forever. To forget about the curtains that she had begun to hate. The light that filtered through them painted her skin red.

She was in love. She literally lost her mind. Her eyes glowed. Her hair shone. Her breasts became firm. She felt incredible. Sometimes she caught Janusz glancing at her. He was trying to figure out what was going on. The old fool certainly suspected something! Sabina didn’t really care.

She started to go to Mariusz even in the evenings. She would leave her family for a while, excusing herself because the rubbish was overflowing the bin. She just had to take it out to the main trash. She’d rush through the stinky passages, cursing the lushes, and eventually reach Mariusz’s place. She would kiss him right at the door, then have a quickie and go back home.