Part 3 (2/2)
” 'What happened to my friend'? Tell me, Ben-what 'happened' to her?”
”I'm going back to sleep. I have a job to go to. Remember what that's like, Annie, to actually have to rise and s.h.i.+ne?” He's pleading now, he wants to call time-out, but Anna is persistent. She wants to hurt.
”Say it. Name the thing.” Anna's fist pounds the side of the bed.
”Her husband died.”
Anna makes the sound of a game-show buzzer. ”Wrong! Sorry, Bob, the correct answer is: her husband was killed. He did not die. Big difference, right?”
Anna leans across the bed, bringing her face close to his. ”Murder and death are two very different things, my love. Or have you already forgotten?”
She pulls back swiftly, so that his fingers barely graze the surface of her cheek, and runs out of the room.
Anna's version of mourning includes slamming doors and throwing objects across the room. Her grief is the kind that makes noise. She knows that Ben used to love that about her; those mercurial moods, her pa.s.sionate bellows. He used to tell their friends, in the beginning, that Anna Baran roused him like no one else had ever done. Now, Anna and Ben are just an argument waiting to happen. Two months ago, on Ben's birthday, they'd come back from a bar and had drunken s.e.x. Ben hadn't meant to come inside her and a few weeks later, when Anna's period never turned up and, instead, two pink lines on a stick did, there was no discussion of the next step. In a moment Anna knew; not now, and not with Ben.
The afternoon Anna spent at Planned Parenthood was burned into her memory. She sat in a waiting room, in a green paper gown, with five other women. She'd felt sheepish about her engagement ring. One of the girls had a belly that was probably swollen into its fifth month and Anna fixated on it. ”What?” the girl asked and stared Anna down, before going back to her People magazine. Anna flushed, embarra.s.sed by her own hypocrisy; she'd wanted to leap out of the chair and run. But Anna had stayed put until the nurse called her name and managed a small goodbye smile to the women.
Ever since that day Anna's been withering. Ben would come home from work to find her on the couch, staring at the ceiling. ”You look like your dad,” he told her one day.
”f.u.c.k you,” she whispered, without turning her head.
When Ben leaves for work after their fight, Anna is on the couch, eating Cheetos.
”This is all getting out of hand” is the only thing he says, right before he closes the door. Anna spends the entire day in the same spot on the couch, thinking about Justyna, and about breaking free.
The next morning, Anna gets out of bed without waking Ben. In the kitchen, she boils water in a saucepan and scoops a tablespoon of Jacobs Kronung into a mug. She sips the milky instant coffee-the same kind she drank in Poland with her babcia-which she buys for four bucks at a deli in Greenpoint. No Starbucks in the world could ever replace it.
Anna climbs out onto the fire escape, mug in hand. It's cold but sunny. She stares across the rooftops and remembers a day, weeks after their engagement, when she had been waiting for the B43 bus after she returned from an audition in the city. It was drizzling and her hair was damp. Anna stood at the bus stop and fished out a pack of smokes from her purse, and that's when she noticed him: a young man in a leather jacket, with thick, wavy hair like Michelangelo's David. He looked like he was from Montenegro or Serbia, or some other war-torn Balkan state. He looked the way she sometimes imagined Sebastian Tefilski would look all grown up. He was staring at her, openly, his hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans. She looked away and smiled; it was textbook flirtation. The rain misted over her face, the bus was nowhere in sight.
”Would you accompany me for the coffee?”
Anna had been right. His accent was thick. She paused and lifted her left hand, wiggling her adorned ring finger. The man hung his head in mock despair, and placed his hands over his heart. ”Please, anyway?” She laughed as the bus rolled up.
”Sorry,” she mouthed over her shoulder, and as she boarded the B43, for a moment, she actually was.
Anna thought about that man for days. She fantasized about running off with him, and she kept her distance from Ben, confused by her feelings. The idea that Ben wasn't enough, that he would never understand, had been planted.
When she crawls back into the kitchen from the fire escape, Anna's cheeks are raw and she feels like someone realigned her vertebrae or something. The shower is running and she decides to actually make breakfast. The idea comes to her out of the blue, and, aside from piles of take-out menus in the cupboard and a few utensils, Anna is unprepared. She finally unearths a frying pan, after rummaging through a moving box marked KITCHMISC.
Minutes later, three eggs sizzle on a paper plate. It's not much, but it's something. Ben emerges from the bathroom, swathed in a towel, trailing steam. ”For me?” he asks, pointing to the table. She nods and manages a smile. The whole thing-her effort and his approval-feels lacking, as if they both know a bit of protein can't apologize for everything. Ben eats right then and there, water dripping down his arm as he digs in. Anna wishes the sight could arouse her, or at best rea.s.sure her, but she feels nothing except for a small lump of revulsion when, after the last bite, Ben burps loudly. He leans in to kiss her in thanks, and she lets him.
After Ben leaves for work, Anna goes to her desk, and pulls out an old address book. The numbers look like hieroglyphics and her fingers shake as she dials them.
”Sucham.”
Poles answer the phone in a myriad of ways: a basic halo, a polite dziedobry, or an impartial sucham, which translates literally to ”I'm listening.” When Justyna says it now, it almost sounds like a dare.
”Justyna. It's Anna Baran ... from New York.”
”Hi, girl. How are you?”
The neutrality in her old friend's voice takes Anna by complete surprise. ”I'm so sorry. My mom told me yesterday.”
”Yeah ...”
”I wish I could be there.”
”No, you don't.” Anna can hear the smile in Justyna's voice; she knows Justyna is trying to keep the conversation light but somehow it does the opposite.
”How's Damian? Last time I saw you, he was a baby, right? When was that? 1998?”
”Yeah.”
”And then I got that movie and I-”
”-became a star?” Justyna's voice doesn't belie any accusation, but Anna doesn't know how to respond.
”I'm sorry,” she echoes, at a loss.
”Well, you know, s.h.i.+t happens, right? Damian's fine. He's fine.”
”He's six?”
”Seven.”
”Is he a good-does he like school?”
”Hates it. He'd rather, you know, while away the hours whittling.”
”Whittling?” Somehow the conversation has gotten off course.
”Yeah, it was a thing he did with.” Justyna makes a sentence out of what should be a fragment. ”He's a big baby, though. Still wets the bed, but what are you gonna do? He's a handful, wiesz?” Anna nods her head, but, no, no, she doesn't know.
”Justyna. Really, I'm so sorry. If you and Elwira need anything, I can wire you some money and-”
”No, no,” Justyna quickly interrupts, ”we're okay. But thanks. So. How are you? You married?”
”Justyna, there's a Western Union near-”
”Listen, Anka, I gotta go. Tell your mom and dad cze. And maybe one day you'll come to Kielce again, right? I'll tell Elwira you said hi. Trzymaj si.”
<script>