Absolute Sunset (2 page)

“Help me get out!” she called out to the bird. She tried to climb up the poolside, but it was covered in algae and slippery as a sheet of melting ice.

“No,” the raven replied.

“Please, help me!” Hanka kept trying to get out of the pool, but the stingrays were biting her legs, holding her there.

“Get into the water and catch them!” The bird pecked Hanka on the head. Stunned, she slipped away from the edge and went down, where the fish took care of her. They tore her pyjamas off, poking her with their tails, gnawing at the soft parts of her thighs and belly. Hanka screamed and water poured into her mouth. From time to time she managed to get her head above the surface and catch her breath. In the moments when she was above the water, she could hear the raven repeating a nonsensical rhyme:

Deep water reaches silent ears

Below—surprise—are lurking fears

You’ll never leave these depths of green

Because you can’t avoid the sting.

The raven went through the rhyme over and over again. Whenever Hanka managed to approach the edge of the pool, he would jump forward and push her back into the water. She ran out of breath and the fish never paused, stabbing her and nibbling at her from every direction.
I’ll try one last time
, she decided and pushed off from the bottom of the pool with her legs. It worked. Her head burst through the surface abruptly, like a buoy surfacing.

“Dad, dad!” Hanka cried out and sank again.

Janusz—Look At The Sun And Forget

“Damn it, she’s howling again!” muttered Sabina, who was sleeping on the left. Her breath smelled of digested dry wine. Traces of Oui Oui perfume, which she thought was chic, still clung to her dirty hair. She preferred to simply spray her braid with it, rather than actually wash the hair. She turned onto her other side and hid her head under a pillow. Her unbuttoned nightdress revealed a flabby breast. Nothing interesting there. Janusz felt like going out on the balcony to breathe some fresh air and clear the sight and the smell of her from his mind.

“Dad, dad!” The cry came suddenly from the other room, and he realized what had actually woken him up. He threw back the stale duvet, which fell to the floor with a sound like a snort, and sprang to his feet. Stumbling over his flat slippers, he ran to Hanka’s room. His daughter’s voice was so urgent that his mouth went dry. He took a sharp turn by the wardrobe, skidding on the beaten rug, and in a few more strides reached her bed.

She sat with her eyes wide open, probably unaware that she had woken. Her small hands clenched repeatedly, as if catching at something in her dream. Sweaty pyjamas stuck to her skinny back like a cape soaked in a downpour. Janusz felt a lump in his throat.

“Calm down, calm down,” he whispered as he sat down beside her. “Quiet.” He hugged her shaking body and smoothed down her messy hair.

Hanka was so slight—small even for seven years old, but smart. Blood of his blood! She had always woken up in the night like this, calling Janusz, having terrible dreams that she couldn’t describe. Each time he came to her she would whimper and sob, then slowly fall asleep in his arms. Sometimes he sat with her until dawn, unable to bear to put her back to bed. It was a time for them to be on their own. The birds would begin to sing outside the window at dawn, enthusiastically rushing to start the day for no obvious reason.

As usual, Janusz looked at the dying light of the street lamps outside and whispered calming mantras. In the distance he could see the pit shafts wrapped in fog and smog, bleak and hopeless. Red lights flashed at the tops of the chimneys, as if it were the sex district. The neighbour’s miniature pinscher barked squeakily, keenly, on the stairs.

“Fuck! Hush him up!” Janusz heard Sabina’s voice coming from the bedroom and he shook his head. So pathetic.

Once, Sabina had lost her temper with the dog, which had been barking right under her window, and had thrown a cake tray at it. Then two fistfuls of nuts. Janusz had to go and ask forgiveness for his wife’s behaviour, as always. He’d often apologized for Sabina to their neighbours in the
Tysiąclecie
estate. She simply loved to yell angrily at people. Once someone had slapped her. She’d been completely drunk and, to be honest, she’d deserved it. Janusz glanced toward the bedroom to see if his irritated wife was crawling out toward them. Silence. Good. He wasn’t going back there.

He’d been married to Sabina for ten years now, and still didn’t understand her. He could understand that she hated her dream being derailed, but his wife’s attitude toward Hanka astounded him. It seemed as if giving birth to Hanka would be the first and the last thing Sabina ever did for her daughter. And she hadn’t even wanted to do that. If she’d had the choice, she’d have preferred to have an abortion. Janusz gave a heavy sigh. Sometimes he thought all he did was let out damned sighs.

His own mother had always taken care of him, always been by his side to feed him, to wash him, to change his clothes, to dress his scrapes and bruises. An exemplary housewife. Sabina didn’t bother with things like that, despite the fact that she didn’t have a job to take up her time. Apparently, women differed from each other. Well, such is life. Janusz hugged his daughter even more firmly.

“What did you dream about?” he asked gently, kissing Hanka’s cold cheek.

“Spikes. I was in the water, and there were spikes everywhere. Fish were stinging me. And there was a raven. He didn’t want to help me. I was afraid. I called out, but nobody came to help me. I was swimming in the pool and I couldn’t get out. Water, water—I couldn’t breathe! They bit my hands! They stung me!” Hanka burst into tears.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a dream,” Janusz assured her. It wasn’t the first time that she’d told him about the raven. Everyone has his or her own recurring nightmare, and clearly Hanka had her bird. “You’ll look at the sun in the morning and it’ll help you forget. You’ll forget.”

Hanka calmed down slowly. Her body became slack and her breath became even, like the ticking of a clock. Janusz gently laid her on the bed and stretched himself out on the floor. He was a bit sleepy. He stared at the cracked ceiling, emptiness crossing his mind. There was nothing really to think about.

“Sleep my darling, you’ll forget with some help from the sun,” he murmured to sleeping Hanka, then closed his eyes.

As always, Janusz was the one to prepare breakfast for Hanka and himself. He put a bowl of cereal in front of her. Without milk. She hated milk—she would sometimes vomit at just the smell of it. He slurped his coffee. It was as sour as pickle juice. The shops only sold rubbish these days—shit and rubbish. Maybe if they could afford Jacobs instead of Fuego it wouldn’t be so acidic—the acidosis of poverty. Janusz shrugged and scolded himself for his pessimism. Sometimes he was fed up with his own behaviour.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked his daughter, pretending that he didn’t remember her night terrors. He forced himself to smile, then realized that he actually did feel like smiling. And why not? Against all odds!

“Yes, dad,” Hanka replied, crunching her food mercilessly and spilling cereal everywhere. Janusz reached for the broom to sweep it up—if Sabina stepped on crumbs, there’d be a row. And Sabina would use Hanka as her punching bag.

“Did you dream about anything?” he mumbled, crawling under his daughter’s chair.

“No, nothing at all. Why?” Hanka was swinging her legs.

“No reason. Did you look out the window this morning? The weather looks fine, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. I looked. The magpie was sitting on the rowan. The branch almost broke!” She laughed.

“Well. Great,” Janusz said, pouring the breadcrumbs into the trashcan. He put the dustpan back carefully. Even though Sabina didn’t clean, she hated chaos. And she had an exceptional memory—every single thing had its place. He finished off his coffee and took a bite from a slice of stale bread. Then he decided there was nothing more to say and threw a kaiser roll with cheese into his briefcase.

“Well, I’ve got to go!” He smiled at his daughter and stood.

Hanka dug gloomily in the crack of the table with her nail. She moved slowly, and dirty fat rolled up from between the tiles, black and sticky. She hunched as though she were ducking a blow. Sabina often pummelled her, hitting her and calling her a moron. Janusz felt suffocated by a single thought: that in the morning his wife would undoubtedly wake up mad and target Hanka. But he had to go.

He slowly put on his jacket and bent down for his briefcase. When he straightened up, he saw that Hanka was half standing, half hanging loosely from the kitchen doorframe, watching him.

“Bye!” he whispered, and she waved to him and went to her room. In all likelihood she’d sit there for a while, until nine or so, when Sabina would get up and send her to school. But for him it really was time to go!

He went out into the corridor and for a moment fought with the temptation to slam the door as hard as he could. Hard enough to make the plaster fall from the walls and to wake up the sleeping harpy. She’d jump out of the bedding as though she’d been scalded, and then her headache would begin to torture her. Good! Still, he managed to resist the urge and closed the door carefully. As long as Sabina was sleeping, Hanka would have peace and quiet. Maybe his wife would wake up in decent shape for once.

Janusz ran down the stairs, his feet gliding over the edges of the steps. He was neither sliding nor quite walking, like when he’d been fifteen and rushing toward friends waiting downstairs. That was all that was left to him of his youth, this silly rush down the stairs.

He hurried through the metal door, which closed with a squeak. He didn’t look back, just headed toward the bus stop, fighting with the wind all the way. By the time he reached the passage between the blocks of flats, the fine weather of the early morning hours was over. The once-blue sky clouded over and it started raining. Not hard, but even a downpour would have been better than this, if only because it would be less persistent. Sometimes it seemed to Janusz that it rained exclusively for him. As soon as he went outside, rain would appear out of nowhere.

The drops left grey streaks on his jacket. Rain in Katowice looked as if something foul had been dissolved in it—not like the crystal clear water that Janusz’s mother had used to wash her hair so long ago. “It’s the healthiest way to get a beautiful braid!” she would laugh, with her breasts rocking to the side as she soaked her hair in a bucket.

Obviously, he didn’t have an umbrella. And, as usual, he’d gone out wearing loafers, which got soaked in the first few steps. Damn it! Another day in damp footwear. Another wonderful day.

People crowded beneath the roof of the bus stop, repeatedly stepping on each other’s feet and apologising, bumping each other with bags and files. They seethed in the plastic shelter, grey and a little shaggy, like moths in a jar.

Janusz somehow managed to shelter under the roof while he waited. The steam wafting above the crowd smelled of potatoes and cabbage. So typical of Silesia—that smell was literally everywhere. He raised his collar and pressed his nose into it. Since Sabina rarely cooked, the fabric hadn’t yet picked up the odour of stewed meat and beets.

A pack of stray dogs ran across the field behind the stop. They barked at each other, rushing after a piece of rubbish driven by the wind. A few of them limped. They often attacked people, mainly kids and old ladies, but they were intimidated by the crowd at the bus stop, running past while casting a few bleary-eyed looks at the waiting people.

Surprisingly, the bus came on time. Full. The passengers, flattened against the windows, could barely breathe. Janusz jumped onto the step and leaned inward. The door closed with a hiss, and he was immediately shoved back by the crowd and pressed against the window pane. If the door opened suddenly, he would undoubtedly fall into the street. His skull would crack, his blood would stream. They would rob him of his briefcase and wallet and then call the police. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted it to happen or feared it.

The stink of dirty clothes nauseated him.
Why wash your clothes every day? They’ll get dirty at work anyhow.
Janusz jumped out of the bus every time it stopped in order to let passengers out and to let new ones in. Then he crammed back inside, going last just so he could enjoy the fresh air as long as possible. It might not have been bracing and crystalline, but at least it didn’t make him retch. In the end, exhausted from jumping in and out and pushing into the crowd, he got off the bus two stops early.

His mine appeared at the end of the road—a straight road, built just for his unit. Once a great power, the
Śląska
mine had become a bottomless money pit. Old, creased photographs of the opening and other important events hung on the walls of the cloakroom. It was hard to believe that such things had ever happened here, that someone had actually gotten some record-breaking results.

Today, in a time when the expression “black gold” provoked nothing but laughter, the miners, longing for an early, generous retirement, weren’t mining very much. Even if they’d wanted to do more, they didn’t have the equipment. They went down the mine because it was something their grandfathers and fathers had done. For glory. For tradition. Janusz was an accountant, though, not an actual miner. A mediocre pencil-pusher in a small department, just ten people all together. Sabina despised his job. “If you were tough, you’d go down!” she would say, mocking him.