Part 16 (1/2)
Boniczka fell silent. Szacki and Nawrocki held their breath. The whirr of the tape recorder suddenly became perfectly audible.
”It's funny how very unlike their parents children can be,” said Boniczka, and Szacki involuntarily shuddered. It occurred to him that someone else had said the same thing to him recently. But who? He couldn't remember.
”Everyone always used to say how like me Sylwia was. The same eyebrows, the same eyes, the same hair. The spitting image of her dad. But she wasn't my daughter. There wasn't a drop of my blood in her veins.”
”How's that?” asked Nawrocki.
”Iza, my wife, was raped a month after our wedding. One evening she was on her way back from the station to my parents' house, where we were living then. Sylwia was the rapist's child. When Iza got home, all she kept talking about was the lilac. It was the end of May, and there really was a smell of lilac everywhere, most of all near the station. Enough to make you feel sick when you walked past. And she kept going on about that lilac. Then she stopped. We never talked about it again. Not about the rape or the lilac. We pretended Sylwia was our daughter. It's a very small town, so it never even crossed our minds to go to the police about it. Except that Iza was never again the woman I'd married. She was empty. She went to work, took care of the child, cooked, cleaned, baked on Sundays. She stopped going to church, and I had a hard time persuading her that we should have Sylwia christened. She didn't come to her first communion because the entire church was decorated with lilac. She saw that from a distance and went back home. Sylwia cried. But we didn't talk about it then either.”
Boniczka fell silent again. For a long time. There was nothing to suggest he'd return to the subject that most interested them.
”And that night at the school you thought...” Nawrocki gently led him on.
”I thought I didn't want my daughter to be like my wife. Empty. I thought that sometimes death might be a solution. That if I were her, I wouldn't want to stay here either.” Boniczka gazed at the palms of his hands. ”But I couldn't kill her. I fastened the cord and went outside. I decided I'd go back in ten minutes, and if by then she hadn't made up her mind, I'd join her in pretending nothing had happened. As if I didn't know why she refused to wear shoes with heels, although she wasn't very tall.”
The ca.s.sette ran to its end and the tape recorder stopped with a loud click. Nawrocki turned the ca.s.sette to the other side and pressed the red ”record” b.u.t.ton.
”When I came back, she wasn't alive. Before that she'd taken the shoes and put them neatly by the wall, next to mine. One was standing straight; the one without a heel had fallen on its side. I kept it as a memento.”
”What about Sylwia?”
”I knew they were finis.h.i.+ng repairs to the water main at the playschool and that next day they'd be covering it over. I threw her in and shovelled on some sand. No one worked it out. I often used to come and light a candle there.”
Szacki couldn't get his head round it.
”Why didn't you bury her at the cemetery?” he asked his first question that evening.
”Because of my wife,” replied Boniczka. ”If they'd found her hanging at my workplace, there'd have been an inquiry, police interviews, lots of talk, reports of the rape in the papers. They'd have been sure to lock me up. My wife would never have survived that.”
”But her child could have lived. Wouldn't that have been better?”
”Death is a neat solution. Often far better than life. Or at least that's what I think.” Boniczka shrugged.
”Are you going to lock me up?” he asked after a pause.
Nawrocki glanced at Szacki. The two men left the room to confer in the corridor. They agreed they'd have to write out the clairvoyant's story as Boniczka's detailed account and give it to him to sign. On this basis they could instigate the rape case and lock up the guilty parties. And keep everything as secret as possible so the papers wouldn't write about the case.
”What shall we do with Boniczka?” the policeman asked the prosecutor.
”I'll put him on probation and charge him with desecrating a corpse.”
There must have been an awful lot of dust in the corridor, because Nawrocki started sneezing like mad. Once he'd calmed down and wiped his nose, he looked at Szacki with watery eyes.
”Please let him go, Prosecutor,” he said. ”He's not guilty of anything. He's a victim, just like his wife and daughter. You'll only make matters worse.”
Teodor Szacki straightened the knot in his tie. He was ashamed of what he was planning to say, but he had no alternative - that was his job.
”As you know well, Superintendent, every case is full of human tragedy, injustice, countless nuances, shades of meaning and doubts. And that's exactly why the state pays a salary to b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like me. I know you're right, but my only concern is that a paragraph of the penal code has been infringed. I'm sorry.”
IV.
Luckily, when he got home, Helka was already asleep. He kissed her on the forehead and moved her away from the edge of the bed. It wasn't high, but he was always afraid she'd fall. She mumbled in her sleep and hugged her toy anteater tighter. The creature's long nose was bent out of shape by this sudden affection. Szacki knelt by the bed and looked at his daughter. She was breathing through her open mouth, her brow was sweating slightly, and her small body was emitting a warmth that had a pleasant fragrance of fresh bread.
A person stops being a child when he starts to stink, thought Szacki. When he starts to have bad breath, his sheets smell sour and his socks sweet. When he has to change his s.h.i.+rt every day and his pyjamas every other. Weronika was in the habit of sleeping in the same T-s.h.i.+rt for a week. He couldn't bear that, but he was embarra.s.sed to tell her. Just as he tried not to notice the tops that had gone yellow under the arms. What could he tell her? That she ought to buy new ones? Then she'd reply that he should give her the money. Anyway, he himself was wearing yellowed underpants beneath his neatly creased pinstriped trousers. Could she possibly like that? Could Monika like that? Or any lover at all? How pointless. He knew this sort of reasoning was a trap, but he kept thinking more and more often that a stupid two hundred thousand would solve all his problems. He'd pay off his debts, take a year off, have a rest, see a bit of the world with the girls. And he'd be able to afford to stand Monika a coffee without feeling guilty for spending money meant for the most urgent domestic expenses.
He was glad Helka was asleep. She might have been able to see in his eyes the shadow of the story he'd had to listen to earlier. Did everything he experienced at work stay inside him? Did all those murders and rapes hover around him like a swarm of bees, stinging everyone he came near? He was afraid he was the carrier of all that hatred, that he spread germs of aggression, infecting his wife and daughter with the worst things in the world. It wasn't visible now, but one day the disease would show itself.
He found this thought so painful that he instantly left his daughter's bedside. He was taking a shower when Weronika came into the bathroom. She was only wearing knickers, but his eyelids were drooping despite the cold water pouring onto him. He hadn't the strength even to think about s.e.x.
”What are you showering like that for? Have you been seeing someone?” she asked, as she brushed her teeth. She did it very energetically, making her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounce comically. That didn't excite him either.
”I had a meeting in town with a lady s.e.xologist. I didn't think a person could be so stretchy. From now on the phrase 'let's change position' will always remind me of gymnastics. Do you fancy vaulting the horse?”
”You idiot. Finish your shower and come to me.”
They made love under the duvet, lazily, quietly and with satisfaction; calm with the calm of lovers who after fourteen years know perfectly where and how to touch each other. It was as fabulous as ever. With stress on the ”as ever”, thought Szacki, as they were lying side by side.
The digital clock showed 23:45:34. The figures showing the seconds kept changing steadily. They were driving him nuts, but he couldn't take his eyes off them. Why the f.u.c.k had he bought a clock that showed the seconds? Did he work at the air traffic control centre? On top of which the thing shone like neon - there was even a reddish glow on the wall. He'd have to buy something new. Wonder how much for.
Weronika cuddled up to him.
”What are you thinking about?” she said, blowing a smell of toothpaste and slightly tart saliva into his face.
”You.”
”And really?”
”How great it'd be to win the lottery.”
”So give luck a chance,” she muttered, almost asleep.
”OK. Tomorrow's Sat.u.r.day, I'll buy a few tickets with random numbers.”
She opened one eye.
”Decided on the tenth of June 2005 at twenty-three fifty-one and thirteen seconds,” she said. ”Maybe you should write those very figures on the coupon, eh? Take some trouble over it.”