Entanglement (38 page)

On small ugly chairs with metal legs and brown covers the cop and the prosecutor sat next to each other in silence. Lost in thought, Teodor Szacki started laughing quietly.

“What is it?” asked Kuzniecow.

“You’ll laugh, but I was thinking about what Helka will look like in fifteen years from now. Do you think she’ll still look like me?”

“Fate could never be so cruel.”

“Very funny. I wonder how children can be so unlike their parents.”

“Maybe because first they’re themselves, and only then someone’s children?”

“Maybe.”

They turned up punctually, almost simultaneously, as if they’d all come on the same bus. Jadwiga Telak was as sad as usual, in beige linen trousers, a polo neck of a similar colour and elegant shoes with heels. Her hair was tied in a plait, and for the first
time during the inquiry she looked like an attractive, well-preserved forty-something of elegant, proud beauty - rather than her sister who was fifteen years older. Cezary Rudzki had fully recovered. Once again he was the king of Polish therapists - thick grey hair, white moustache, a piercing look in his clear eyes and a simpering smile encouraging you to confess, “what are you really feeling as you talk about this?” Good jeans, a sports shirt buttoned up to the neck. A dark-blue tweed jacket tightly hugged his broad shoulders. Without a word they sat down next to each other on the ugly chairs. They waited. The prosecutor could sense the atmosphere was solemn.

Hanna Kwiatkowska did not disturb it. She lacked her typical quivering, perhaps because she seemed extremely exhausted; her make-up failed to conceal the dark shadows under her eyes. Her hair was still mousy, her suit still wasn’t in any way different from tens of thousands of other suits parading about the capital city, but the low neckline of her blouse and the height of her stilettos made Szacki wonder if he hadn’t judged her a bit hastily, in labelling her an asexual covert nun. At the same time as Kwiatkowska, Barbara Jarczyk entered the room - once again she looked exactly the same as the first time Szacki had seen her, and may even have been wearing the same clothes. She smiled at the prosecutor, who thought she must once have been very pretty, and now - if it weren’t for the mascara - she’d have deserved to be called handsome. Euzebiusz Kaim arrived last, a minute after twelve. As usual, he radiated self-confidence and class. Even the SB bastard would have regarded his outfit as elegant - not just smart. His shoes and trousers alone must have cost as much as Szacki’s entire suit. His heavy white shirt with rolled-up sleeves looked as if it had come straight from Brad Pitt’s wardrobe.

Once they were all sitting down, Szacki asked if anyone wanted to use the toilet. They didn’t.

The prosecutor took a deep breath and started to talk.

“I have assembled you here to conduct a trial experiment that will help me and Superintendent Kuzniecow to understand better what happened in this room two weeks ago. Of course I am familiar with all your accounts, and with the theory of constellations - many thanks to Mr Rudzki for explaining it - but in spite of all that, I feel it essential to conduct an experiment of this kind. Forgive me for forcing you to come to this place again, which is sure to prompt negative feelings in you. I realize that being here must be painful, and I promise I’ll do my best to make sure the whole thing takes as short a time as possible.”

He recited the speech he’d prepared in advance, conscious of how wooden it sounded, but he couldn’t give a damn about its style. The point was to put them off their guard, make them believe it was just about a simple repetition of the therapy from two weeks ago. He tried not to look at Oleg, who was standing in the corner of the room, absorbed in chewing his fingernails.

Rudzki stood up.

“Am I to position the patients in the same way as they were standing then?” he asked.

“There’s no need,” replied Szacki calmly. “I’ll do it, and then I’ll be better able to understand how the mechanics of it function.”

“I am not convinced—” began Rudzki in a superior tone.

“But I am,” the prosecutor interrupted him brutally. “This is a trial experiment being conducted by the prosecution in connection with an inquiry into a case of the most serious crime, not a lecture for first-year students. That wasn’t a polite request, but information about what I’m going to do, so please let me do my job.”

Szacki went a bit too far with the bluntness, but he had to put the doctor in his place at the off, otherwise he’d start questioning every move he made. And the prosecutor couldn’t allow that.

The therapist shrugged and scowled disapprovingly, but shut up. Szacki went up to him, took him by the arm and positioned him in the middle of the room. With his mocking smile, Cezary Rudzki can’t have suspected that the spot where he was standing - just like for all the others - was not accidental, but the result of the very long conversation Szacki had had the day before with Dr Jeremiasz Wróbel.

He took Barbara Jarczyk by the arm and arranged her next to Rudzki. Now they were standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the door. The mocking smirk had left the therapist’s face, and he was staring anxiously at the prosecutor. Szacki permitted himself a glance in his direction.

Next he arranged Hanna Kwiatkowska opposite Rudzki and Jarczyk, so that she was facing them. He positioned Kaim to one side, slightly out of the line-up, and told him to look at a point more or less halfway between Kwiatkowska, and Jarczyk and Rudzki. Near this point he arranged Jadwiga Telak, who looked at him in surprise when he took her by the arm. She probably wasn’t expecting to have to take part in this. But she stood politely near point X, turned to face it, far enough to the side for Kwiatkowska, Jarczyk and Rudzki to be able to see each other easily.

Rudzki was as pale as the wall. By now he must have known where Szacki was heading. But he was still hoping it was an accident, and that the prosecutor was fumbling in the dark, just hoping to chance upon something.

“Doctor Rudzki,” said Szacki. “Please tell everyone what the most important question is during a constellation. Or at least one of the most important. The kind you’d ask yourself if someone showed you a line-up like this one.”

In the empty room every utterance sounded unnaturally loud, on top of which it was followed by a low echo, and so the silence that fell after Szacki’s question was all the more intense.

“It’s hard for me to say,” replied Rudzki at last, shrugging. “It looks quite random, I can’t see any order. You must understand that—”

“In that case I’ll tell you, as you don’t want to say,” Szacki cut him short again. “The question is: who’s not here? Who is missing? And indeed, it now looks as if you’re all staring at someone who isn’t there. Instead of that person there’s an empty space. But we can easily solve that problem, by putting Superintendent Kuzniecow in that place.”

Szacki went up to the policeman and took him by the arm, at which he blew a gentle kiss in his direction. Szacki made himself a mental promise to murder the cop afterwards, and led him to point X, right in the middle between Kwiatkowska, and Jarczyk and Rudzki, very close to Jadwiga Telak. He positioned him so that he and Jadwiga were looking at each other. The woman gulped and motioned as if wanting to withdraw.

“Please stay in place,” barked Szacki.

“Please let me see her at once,” cried Jarczyk, trying to lean so that she could look at Kwiatkowska. “Please let me see her at once, do you hear me?” Her voice was quivering, and she was on the edge of tears.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Prosecutor,” hissed Rudzki, at the same time putting his arm around Jarczyk. The woman huddled up to him. “You don’t know what forces you’re toying with. I’m glad this entire ‘experiment’ is being recorded, I hope you know what I have in mind as I say those words. And please hurry up.”

“Yes, you really should hurry up,” muttered Kuzniecow, gulping. “I don’t believe in fairy tales, but if I don’t move from this spot instantly, I’ll faint. I feel truly awful, as if the life were leaking out of me.”

Szacki nodded. Victory was close. Kuzniecow took a deep breath; opposite him Jadwiga Telak had tears pouring from
her eyes. She was following Szacki’s instructions and standing on the spot, but she was leaning her body in an unnatural way, trying to get as far as possible from Kuzniecow. However, she had not averted her gaze. Jarczyk was trying hard to control her sobbing in the arms of Rudzki, who was staring fearfully at the prosecutor. Now he could no longer have any doubts what Szacki was intending. Kwiatkowska had not stopped staring at Kuzniecow’s broad back for a moment, and was smiling gently. Kaim stood quietly with his arms crossed on his chest.

“Well, yes, but are we now playing Mr Telak’s family, with the inspector as Henryk Telak?” asked Kaim. “To tell the truth, I don’t fully understand who is who.”

Szacki took off his jacket and hung it over a chair. Fuck elegance, he was sweating like a pig. He took in a deep breath. This was the key moment. If they kept calm once he had said who they were playing, if they had foreseen it and knew how to behave, that was the end, and he’d have nothing left to do but bid them a polite farewell and write a decision to suspend the case. If he surprised them and they broke - one of them would leave the unwelcoming religious classroom in handcuffs.

“Superintendent Kuzniecow is indeed the key figure in this constellation,” he said. “But he’s not Henryk Telak. In a way, quite the opposite - he’s the man who died because of Henryk Telak.”

Jadwiga Telak groaned, but Szacki ignored that and went on talking.

“You,” he said, pointing at Kaim, “are this man’s best friend, his confidant, confessor and mainstay. You,” he addressed Jarczyk and Rudzki, “are his parents. You,” he quickly turned to face Kwiatkowska, “are his sister, who in dramatic circumstances discovered her brother’s death. And you,” he looked sadly at Mrs Telak, “are this man’s greatest, truest, sincerest love, and his name was…” He pointed at her, wanting her to carry on.

“Kamil,” whispered Jadwiga Telak, and tumbled to her knees, gazing adoringly into Kuzniecow’s face, who also had tears running down his cheeks. “Kamil, Kamil, Kamil, my darling, how I miss you, how much I do. It was all meant to be different…”

“Show me my daughter,” yelled Jarczyk. “I can’t see my daughter, he can’t keep my daughter hidden from my sight - he’s not alive, he’s been dead for so many years. I beg you, please show me my daughter, I want to see her.”

Szacki moved Kuzniecow back a few paces so that he wasn’t standing between Jarczyk and Kwiatkowska. Without a word, Kwiatkowska, smiling sadly throughout, followed the policeman with her gaze; Mrs Telak held an arm out towards him, as if wanting to detain him; Jarczyk calmed down, and gazed at her daughter. Only Rudzki stared with hatred at the prosecutor, standing to one side.

“I demand that you stop this immediately,” he said coldly.

“I don’t think in the present situation you can demand anything of me,” replied Szacki calmly.

“You don’t realize what this means for these women. Your experiment could leave a permanent mark on their psyches.”

“My experiment?” Szacki felt his blood pressure rise abruptly, and found it hard to control himself. “My experiment? It has just turned out that for the past two weeks of the inquiry you people have been lying to the police and the prosecution. It’s not my job to worry about the psyche, especially yours, but to bring people who break the law to justice. Besides, we haven’t yet discovered the answer to the most important question: which of you committed the murder of Henryk Telak in this room on the night of the 4th to the 5th of June this year? And I assure you I will not stop ‘my experiment’ until I’m sure one of the people present is going to be led away by the police.”

“We didn’t want to kill him,” said Hanna Kwiatkowska, speaking for the first time since entering the room.

Prosecutor Teodor Szacki slowly let the air out of his lungs.

“So what did you want to do?”

“We wanted him to realize what he’d done and commit suicide.”

“Shut up, girl, you haven’t a clue what you’re saying!” screamed Rudzki.

“Oh, stop it, Dad. You have to know when you’ve lost. Can’t you see they know everything? I’ve had enough of these endless plans, all these lies. For years and years I lived as if I were in a coma, until I finally came to terms with Kamil’s death - you have no idea how much it cost me. And when at last I was starting to live normally, you appeared with your ‘truth’, your ‘justice’ and your ‘compensation’. I never liked your bloody plan for revenge from the start, but you were all so convinced, so sure, so convincing.” She waved her hand in a gesture of weariness. Szacki had never heard so much bitterness in anyone’s voice. “And you, and Euzebiusz, and even Mum. Oh my God, when I think what we’ve done… Please, Dad. At least do the decent thing now. If we go any deeper into these lies, there really will be ‘permanent marks’ on our psyches. And believe me, they won’t be caused by the prosecutor’s doings.”

She sat down resignedly on the floor and buried her face in her hands. Rudzki stared at her sorrowfully and silently; he looked crushed. Yet he said nothing. They were all silent. The stillness and silence were perfect; for a moment Szacki had the strange impression that he wasn’t taking part in a real event, but was looking at a three-dimensional photograph. He watched Rudzki, who in his turn stared back at him with his mouth clenched shut and waited. The therapist had to start talking, though God knows how much he didn’t want to. He had to, because he had no alternative. As they stood without dropping their gaze, both men were fully aware of that.

Finally Rudzki gave a deep sigh and started to talk.

“Hanna is right, we didn’t want to kill him. That is, we wanted him to die, but we didn’t want to kill him. It’s hard to explain. Anyway, perhaps I should speak for myself - it was I who wanted him to die, and I forced the others to take part in it.”