Part 26 (1/2)

He put his gla.s.s on the tabletop and fetched out two deep plates with a blue border. They reminded him of the canteens at the old workers' holiday camps. The kitchen, though long, was hopelessly narrow. He turned round with the plates and for the first time that evening gazed into her eyes. She immediately looked away, but in that moment he found her beautiful. He thought how he'd like to wake up beside her, at least once.

Feeling embarra.s.sed, he picked up his gla.s.s and went into the sitting room to poke around in the bookshelf. This whole situation seemed comical. What was he doing? He'd agreed to meet a pretty girl for coffee a few days ago, and instead of just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her, forgetting her and seeing to his wife, as everyone else did, he was gazing into her eyes and dreaming of breakfast together. Unbelievable.

At the thought of Weronika and Helka he felt a stab of regret. A sense of guilt? Not necessarily. More like sadness. Everything in his life had already happened. He would never be young again, he would never fall in love with the feelings of a twenty-year-old, he'd never be so deeply in love that nothing else mattered. So many emotions were always going to be repeats now. Whatever happened, he'd always be a guy - just a middle-aged one for now, then an older and older man - who's been through a lot, with an ex-wife and a daughter, with a flaw that's obvious to any woman. Maybe some woman would want him for shallow reasons, because he still looked quite good, because he was slim, had a permanent job, and you could talk to him. Maybe he'd accept someone, because in the end it was easier to live in a twosome than on your own. But would anyone ever go crazy with love for him? He doubted it. Would he? He just smiled bitterly and felt like crying. His age, his wife, his daughter - at once it all felt like a sentence, an incurable illness. A diabetic can't eat pastries; someone with high blood pressure can't run up mountains; Teodor Szacki couldn't fall in love.

She put her hands over his eyes.

”A penny for your thoughts,” she whispered.

He just shook his head.

She snuggled against his back.

”It's so unfair,” he said at last.

”Hey, don't go over the top,” she said with artificial cheerfulness. ”A little is more than nothing.”

”A little doesn't interest me.”

”More isn't always possible.”

”Maybe never.”

”Did you come here to tell me that?”

He hesitated for a moment. He felt like lying as usual. Since when had it come to him so easily?

”Yes. And it's not just to do with...” he broke off.

”Your family?”

”Yes. Something else has happened, I can't tell you the details, I've got tangled up in a murky affair, I don't want to drag you into it.”

She stiffened, but didn't let go of him.

”Do you take me for a fool? Why don't you tell the truth, that you got me to fall in love with you for fun, that it was a mistake and now you've got to get back to your wife? Why all the fibbing? Next you'll be telling me you're a government agent.”

”In a way that's true,” he said, smiling. ”And I swear I'm not lying. I'm afraid they might use you to get at me. And as for making you fall in love - believe me, it's completely different.”

She snuggled up to him even closer.

”But will you stay today? You owe me that at least.”

He had imagined this scene earlier in every possible way, but he hadn't envisaged this scenario. He followed her through the hall into the bedroom, and suddenly he had a terrible urge to laugh. You're waddling, he thought. You're waddling like a satyr with bandy hairy legs. You're waddling like a constantly h.o.r.n.y bon.o.bo chimp with a red behind. You're waddling like an old dog on the scent of a b.i.t.c.h. You're waddling like a middle-aged fool. Right now there's nothing human about you.

When she opened the bedroom door ahead of him and smiled flirtatiously, he had to bite the inside of his cheek hard to stop himself from bursting out laughing.

They were very gentle, exploring each other like school-children, not like mature people who had decided to go to bed together. Unb.u.t.toning her shorts, watching her lying on the bed as she raised her b.u.t.tocks to pull them off and then pulled her T-s.h.i.+rt with the Hopper reproduction over her head - all he felt was cold curiosity. And soon after, as he lay naked beside her and stroked her body, he ceased to feel anything.

He was horrified. He knew she was very lovely. Young. Attractive. Different. Above all, different. He had seen how men looked round at her. He had imagined every part of her body a hundred times. But now, when this body was lying in front of him, hoping for s.e.x, he had become totally indifferent to it. He was horrified, because he had suddenly realized he wouldn't be able to perform as a man. His body didn't want her body, and was utterly indifferent to all the efforts his brain was making. His body refused to be unfaithful. And if it weren't for the thought that nothing was going to come of it, maybe it all would have gone differently. But that very worst of all the thoughts that can occur to a man was making him go stiff - unfortunately not in the key areas. He was half filled with panic, half with embarra.s.sment. There was no room left for desire.

He wanted to vanish.

Finally she forced him to look at her. Amazingly, she smiled.

”Hey, silly boy,” she said. ”You know I could just lie here next to you for weeks on end and I'd be the happiest woman in the world?”

”I'm sick,” he moaned in despair. ”Fetch me a razor blade. I don't want to go on living.”

She laughed.

”You're silly and tense as a schoolboy. Cuddle up to me and we'll sleep a few hours. I've been dreaming for days of waking up beside you. I'll never understand it.”

He didn't get it. He wanted to die. She made him lie on his side, nestled her back against him and fell asleep almost instantly. Amazing, but, as he was wondering if she were already fast enough asleep for him to make his getaway, he too soon drifted off.

He woke up a few hours later, sweaty because of the sultry night. In the first instant he didn't know where he was. He felt alarmed. But only in the first instant.

It had been - well - maybe not fantastic, but decent. At the key moment he remembered the story of a school friend who, when he finally got the girl he'd been fantasizing about for years, came to school next day and, still wistful, admitted over a cigarette: ”You know what? I had more fun with her when I was whacking off in the bog.”

He had to bite his lip again.

The car clock showed a few minutes past five, and the sun was already quite high as he parked outside his house on the other side of the city. He quietly went inside, got undressed in the hall and shoved his underwear to the bottom of the linen basket so Weronika wouldn't smell the scent of another woman. In their sitting room c.u.m bedroom there was a computer game lying on the table, tied with a thin ribbon - the latest part of Splinter Cell. And a note saying: ”For my sheriff. W”. He smiled bitterly.

11.

Friday, 17th June 2005 The health-protection agencies in all the European Union countries are planning to withdraw food products that contain paprika, turmeric and palm oil. Carcinogenic food colourings have been banned. Research shows that Russians do not notice severe censors.h.i.+p in the state media. Doctors at a conference in Toru conclude that Polish women are less s.e.xually active than German or French women. Thirty per cent of women suffer from frigidity. The Inst.i.tute for National Remembrance's team triumph in a shooting contest for security-firm employees. Extreme nationalist politician Andrzej Lepper is suggesting that Prime Minister Marek Belka, head of the National Bank Leszek Balcerowicz and Marshal of the Sejm Wodzimierz Cimoszewicz all collaborated with the SB. Meanwhile, the last mentioned is having fun with President Kwaniewski and his wife at Lech Wasa's name-day party. The inc.u.mbent president gave his predecessor a bottle of red wine. In Warsaw the standard-bearers of ”normality” - League of Polish Families party leader Roman Giertych, All-Polish Youth and the skinheads from the National Radical Camp - march in their parade. They shout: ”Paedophiles and pederasts are Union enthusiasts.” Citizens can visit the capital's museums and galleries at night, and in the metro they can hear the children of refugees announcing the names of the stations in garbled Polish. Maximum temperature - eighteen degrees; cloudy, a little rain

I.

How Szacki managed to get through Thursday was a mystery to him. He had woken up - or rather been woken - with a headache and a temperature of almost thirty-nine degrees. When he had dragged himself out of bed to be sick, he had almost fainted on the way to the toilet, and had had to sit down on the floor in the hall until the black spots before his eyes had gone. He had called work to say he'd be late, taken two aspirins and gone back to bed where - he was sure of it - he hadn't fallen asleep but pa.s.sed out.

He had woken up at two p.m., taken a shower and gone to the prosecutor's office. On the way up to the second floor he had had to stop every few steps to catch his breath. He told himself nothing was wrong with him, it was just his body's reaction to a concentrated dose of the emotions he usually experienced over the course of several years, not a single day. But it didn't make him feel any better.

Once at his desk, he finally switched on his mobile phone. He ignored the text messages from Monika and listened to the voicemails from Oleg, who had left several, each more furious than the last, screaming that if Szacki didn't call him back immediately he'd put out a warrant for him.