The Lullaby Of Polish Girls Part 8

"No. My husband he don't eat what I offering him. He no have the appet.i.te. But I ... starving." Kamila can't believe the words are out of her mouth, and in semi-coherent English at that. But Kevin smiles.

"I bet," he says, signaling the bartender for their check.

He kisses her in the backseat of the taxicab, and she can't get enough. By the time they are in the elevator going up to the twenty-third floor, she is a puddle, melting almost. For a minute a morbid vision of her mother identifying her naked, bruised body flashes in her head. But if this is the end, she's ready to take the risk.

The s.e.x is strange and surprising. Kevin is in turn rough and tender, biting her nipples, stroking her thighs, brus.h.i.+ng away years of neglect. He urges her to talk dirty in Polish and she does, because at this point, why not? She arches her neck, recalling the few X-rated movies she's seen and groans, "Wicej, dalej dalej ..." He pants in her ear that she is the s.e.xiest girl he's ever f.u.c.ked, that he's going to c.u.m all over her face, which he does. It stings and she asks for a paper towel.

Later, he brings a Tupperware of cold cuts to bed and they sit up, naked, eating slices of prosciutto and salami in silence. Kamila swallows the meat with gusto, forgetting to chew. They don't talk much even though Kamila wishes she could tell him everything. Kevin's dog wanders into the bedroom, and Kamila throws him bits of ham, which he catches in his mouth every time. "I got full custody of Pepper and my wife got the house. A fair trade, don't you think? What a b.i.t.c.h." It's the last thing he says before he falls asleep. He sleeps with his mouth open, breathing heavily. Kamila stares at him for a long time, and then gets dressed. Pepper follows her to the door, and she nuzzles his neck before leaving.

It takes her a while to find a taxi, but when she does, she throws herself in the backseat, suddenly exhausted and spent. The cab makes its way through the slush, toward Wyandotte. Kamila is no longer afraid to face her mother. Just this morning Kamila had felt close to killing herself over Emil, but now it all seems petty. She must go back to Kielce. She'll give herself a week or two to sleep off the remnants of her fear, and then she'll go. It'll be easy to change her return ticket. Easy to pack up her belongings, most of which she'll leave behind anyway.

Kamila leans her head back and closes her eyes, replaying the night in her head, from the moment she first spotted Kevin ordering his martini, to the last glimpse of his glistening torso heaving softly in slumber, his p.e.n.i.s limp, slumped on its side. Kamila wonders if the Pakistani driver can smell the s.e.x on her. She hopes that he does.

Justyna.

Kielce, Poland.

Most people get wasted for one of two reasons: to forgive or to forget. Justyna never had much reason to do either; she drank because it was fun. Other girls needed half a bottle of hard liquor to abandon their inhibition. The boys Justyna grew up with needed half a bottle to forget about their deadbeat dads and their alcoholic moms. But Justyna had always been content with her lot, simply sidestepping every pitfall that came her way. Since Pawe died, she hadn't touched a drop, but when her neighbor dropped by with a bottle of white wine to see if she was doing okay, Justyna replied, "I'm doing fine," and went to get two gla.s.ses.

They sat on the terrace, s.h.i.+vering in their winter coats, sharing a pack of smokes and talking about everything except for Pawe. By midnight the walls were spinning. Tucked in her bed, she sang her favorite Perfekt lyrics, Nie pacz, Ewka, bo tu miejsca brak na twe babskie zy, po ulicy milo hula wiatr wrod rozbitych szyb, over and over. Don't cry, Ewka, there's no room here for your girly tears. On the streets, the wind hurls love among smashed windowpanes. As she drifted off to sleep she imagined Pawe looking down at her, lying on their old wersalka.

Justyna has spent the last seven days aimless like jetsam. Thank G.o.d Damian was staying at Babcia Kazia's; she had no energy left for mothering. Her limbs felt like they had a life of their own now, carrying out her life. She still took a s.h.i.+t in the morning, still picked at food when she felt hungry, watched TV, and sometimes remembered to brush her teeth at night. She said things without even thinking (We should get a Christmas tree soon. Can I change the channel? Have you seen my black leggings?). She took the dog for a walk. But every day she felt a new fissure inside, as if her bones were cracking, bit by bit, and soon, soon, she would collapse into a lifeless heap.

The best part of being drunk, it turned out, was that she didn't dream. In the morning, however, she felt like an octogenarian, her joints creaking, her head throbbing. She got out of bed and prescribed herself the hair of the dog, which turned into an entire day of drinking. She could suddenly see how her dad had turned into a drunk so quickly after his wife's death.

In the afternoon, she had willed herself to go to the grocery store. The kids were coming home later, and the fridge was empty, except for some expired cheese and a two-liter of flat Coca-Cola. Justyna wandered the aisles at the supermarket, grabbing Damian's favorite junk food: Monster Munch chips and praynki, chocolate Prince Polo wafers, cartons of apple mint juice and some ripe tomatoes. Damian loved it when she sliced a tomato in half, sprinkling each top with salt. He sucked on them like they were ice cream cones. At the register, she had a tough time picking out the correct change and finally just dumped the contents of her wallet onto the counter and told the disdainful clerk, "Go for it."

Now at her front door, Justyna finally fits the key into the lock. She kicks the door open and drops the grocery bags to the ground, realizing right away that the eggs must be goners. She pulls off her boots with effort and leaves the groceries on the floor. And that's when she notices the sound of hammering coming from upstairs. She wonders why Pawe is home from work so early, and then she remembers he can't be.

The Zator home is three stories high, each floor in a worse state of disrepair than the next. Since Teresa's death, seven years ago, Justyna can safely say the floors have been mopped twice. But the house had always been a pigsty, even when Teresa was alive. Back then, there were shoes thrown about every which way in the downstairs foyer, clothes in knotted heaps, toppling out when someone opened the closet doors. There were dishes stacked on counters, with food crusted on them. The bathrooms all smelled like public restrooms. There were mildew stains on the ceilings and coffee spills on the linoleum. Everything was sticky and filmy and in need of a scrub, but it didn't matter. There had always been laughter in the house and radios blaring. Neighborhood kids charged up and down the stairs, friends were always in the kitchen, they came over uninvited. Her mother was forever throwing parties, especially in the summers, the adults danced, grilled kiebasa, clinked shot gla.s.ses, and stayed up till dawn, trying to outdo each other with dirty jokes. The younger kids would fall asleep just about anywhere and wear the same rumpled clothes the next morning, going days without brus.h.i.+ng their teeth.

Justyna takes the stairs on her hands and knees. When she reaches the last step, the hammering stops, and she wonders for a split second if it had been in her head all along.

"What's wrong with you?"

Justyna lifts her forehead and sees her sister sitting in the middle of the floor, a long 84 piece of wood in her hand. There are nails everywhere. A few hammers and a stack of plywood sit next to Elwira. The entrance to the bathroom has been boarded up halfway. The plastic rack where she and Pawe kept their towels, her vanity mirror, the mildewy shower curtain, and the wooden crate that served as hamper are leaning against the hallway walls. Everything that wasn't nailed down sits next to the door in plastic bags. Justyna spies Pawe's dirty work sweaters, his denim vest, which he used to iron meticulously, and his lucky Korona Kielce cap. Without a word Justyna lunges toward Elwira, pinning her with her body. She grabs a fistful of her sister's hair and yanks. Elwira screams and scrambles for a hammer.

"Oh, really? Is that your weapon of choice? What, don't have a knife on you?"

"What the f.u.c.k is wrong with you?!" Elwira screeches as Justyna slams her head against the floor. Finally, Elwira manages to wedge the handle of the hammer under Justyna's chin and presses with all her might against her throat, shoving Justyna off. Justyna lands on her a.s.s, strands of Elwira's hair in her hands.

"What's wrong with me? Who gave you the right? Who gave you the right, you G.o.d-forsaken f.u.c.k?" Justyna's words slur, and she's gasping for air.

"Calm down!" Elwira stands up and rubs the sides of her head, feeling for the extent of the damage. "You didn't even give me a chance to explain. G.o.d, how much have you had to drink?"

"Shut up, you pizda. You've got an hour to move all our stuff back, and if you don't, I'm gonna kill you. You're already dead to me as it is." Justyna stumbles to her feet, starts tugging at the boards, but they don't budge.

"It's just a f.u.c.king bathroom. And it gives me the creeps every time I walk past it! I can't do it anymore, rozumiesz? Can you? Have you even taken a single f.u.c.king dump in there since it happened? Have you? You told Damian not to use the potty in there 'cause of the 'spiders'! You and Damian can move downstairs and I'll stay on the third floor with Cela. And this floor, we'll pretend this floor never happened."

"And what, we'll sail through the house on a magic carpet? We'll pretend it all away?"

"You're such a hypocrite, Justyna. You haven't even told your son his father is dead. Who's the one pretending?"

Justyna walks over and grabs the Korona cap, twisting it in her hands.

"What scares me is that you've been planning this. Was this your idea of an early Christmas present? You didn't even ask me, didn't even broach the subject."

"You don't let me broach the f.u.c.king weather with you. It's like I don't exist, Justyna. It's not my fault he did this!"

"You brought him into this house! He mooched off you and instead of kicking him to the curb, you let him beat you, you let him-You're not the landlord, Elwira. I don't turn to you for living arrangements and I never will. Go to Babcia's. Go to f.u.c.king Timbuktu if you want, but you can't do this. I won't let you do this."

Just then they hear Babcia Kazia's voice. "Justyna! Justyna? You shouldn't leave the door open like this, do jasnej cholery!" They hear footsteps running up the stairs, and then Cela's there, b.u.t.toned up in her purple wool coat, a knit hat with a pom-pom bouncing on top of her head. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold. She's holding a small wire cage in her hands, with a rodent in it.

"Guess what? Guess what?" Justyna and Elwira stare at her and say nothing.

"Babcia bought us a hamster. A real live hamster! His name is Miki and he's so cute but he bit Damian's finger this morning." She laughs. "And his kupa looks like watermelon seeds and I'm gonna have him for a week in my room and then Damian in his. Babcia said it's called 'joint custody.' "

Damian appears, gnawing on a rogalik.

"I was trying to see if he had teeth. They look like tiny knives. That little f.u.c.ker." He walks over to the pile of wood.

"Where'd you get these boards? Can I have some? I can totally build a skateboard. Tato can help me when he gets back."

"You can have as many as you want." Justyna looks at her son, at the poppy seeds stuck between his teeth, at Pawe's old Knight Rider sweats.h.i.+rt he's wearing. He's swimming in it. She pushes past the kids but not before slapping Pawe's cap on Damian's head. It falls over his eyes. "Help Ciotka clean up this mess, both of you."

Downstairs Babcia Kazia is unloading food, slamming things left and right. The kitchen fills up with the aroma of fried kotlety and pickled beets. Justyna regards her grandmother with disdain. "Nice one. You think a hamster's a proper replacement?"

"I stepped in egg," Babcia Kazia replies as she bustles around. "And I want you and Elwira to empty out this refrigerator. You've got c.r.a.p in here that's expired, it's disgusting and I have no room to put all this." She motions to the small pots on the counter, undoubtedly filled with tripe soup, dumplings, and all sorts of goodies. "But first, sit down." Kazia turns from the rancid fridge to face her granddaughter.

"We stopped at the warzywniak, and the checkout girl told me you were in there today, hammered. That you were knocking things off the shelves. Wstyd! A week in the ground and you're making a mockery of him, a mockery of this entire family. How dare you?" She walks over to Justyna and smacks her across the face. Justyna fights the urge to smack her grandmother back.

"Hit me, hit me!" Kazia shrieks. "I'll have the police down here faster than you can say mam cie. I'm sure they remember the address. They'll take Damian from you."

"Good."

"If your mother were here, none of this would have happened. You're rotten through and through, Justyna, and you've been that way since you were little. I tried all my life, I tried to do right by Teresa. But she's no longer here and I'm tired, G.o.dd.a.m.nit. I didn't sign up for this!"

"And I was first in line?"

Justyna walks out to the front yard and sits on the steps. A light snow is falling. She is flooded with memories. Pawe proposed to her here. He was tipsy and she had laughed in his face until he fished out an actual ring from his pocket, a gold band with green stones placed like the petals of a flower. She once gave him a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b in the bushes at the side of the house, which turned out to be rampant with pokrzywa, and they scratched their blistered feet and knees for days, giggling. Things rush at her, snippets from a previous life. Pawe rocking baby Damian to sleep for hours at a time, while Justyna naps on the couch. Pawe in the kitchen drinking black Nescafe, reading motorcycle magazines until she grabs him by the hand and leads him to bed. Pawe, on his knees, showing Damian how to tie his shoes. Pawe, bringing home a pack of smokes every day after work and tossing them into Justyna's open palms.

"You're so lucky, Justyna," her friends would tell her. She had been lucky.

Thirty-six Witosa Road is now a Smithsonian of memories. The absence of her husband stuns her daily to the point of paralysis. There is no end in sight, no end to the sinking feeling she has every morning when she turns her head and sees no one there, and every morning the surprise of it is overwhelming. Where are you? she asks, when she opens her eyes.

Justyna hasn't cried once since it happened. She'd never been a crier, not even as a kid. Her mom used to joke that the last time her daughter wept was at her own birth. Now, when Elwira hears the wail, she comes running outside and stops in her tracks. She watches Justyna, head in her lap, shaking, rocking herself back and forth. She takes off her black sweater and drapes it on Justyna's quaking shoulders, and without a word, she goes back into the house.

Anna.

Wrocaw, Poland.

The morning of Anna and Kowalski's romantic getaway to Wrocaw, Anna finds herself at it again, standing in the kitchen, spying on Lolek through the lace curtains.

Every morning, Lolek stands outside his klatka, staring straight ahead, in the same teal blue sweat suit he has worn for days in a row. Every morning since Anna arrived in Poland two weeks ago, she has peeked through the curtains and watched him. Sometimes he'd still be outside when she left Babcia's apartment. She'd sail past him with her heart thumping, fearing that if she actually looked at him, she'd see the image of his naked torso and his sagging man t.i.ts, pressing onto her own b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Three years have pa.s.sed since that night in the tent with Lolek, and Anna hasn't been back to Poland in all that time. For three years she found excuses not to come back. She had to save money now that she was in college, and thanks to her father's depression, Anna's mother needed her more than ever. She didn't want to believe that the real reason she wasn't going back to Poland was fear.

When Lolek joked that night at the Sielpia campgrounds that he was finally going to have his way with her, Anna rolled her eyes and fended him off with playful swats. "You're wasted, buddy," she p.r.o.nounced. "Out of my tent!" When he started kissing her, she let him for a few seconds, because why not; he was her oafish best friend. But when she tried to stop him, he grabbed her face with so much force that he drew blood. She didn't even remember what he felt like inside her. She recalled only that the whole thing hurt and that it was over quickly.

Afterward, Lolek kept murmuring, "My Ania," until he finally pa.s.sed out and Anna wanted so badly to escape but felt paralyzed. In the morning, just as Anna was about to sneak out of the tent, Lolek rolled over and said, "Oh f.u.c.k, I feel like s.h.i.+t. Will you see if anyone's got some aspirin?" Anna had looked past him, past his stained sweatpants, and crawled out. She spent the day in a daze, wondering if she should press charges or if the whole thing had been a figment of her imagination. The rest of the summer, Lolek acted a bit sheepish but definitely not like he'd commited a crime. And so Anna never told anyone; truthfully, she didn't know what to say.

Anna started senior year of high school with a heavy heart. One night at a party a boy named Malachy Sullivan approached her. He was a senior too and they shared a few AP cla.s.ses. They talked about Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and then Malachy kissed her. It was a gentle kiss. They fell in love but broke up after graduation, and in the fall Anna went off to study theater in Pittsburgh.

A month before freshman year at Carnegie Mellon was over, Anna received a letter from Kamila. Where have you gone, Aniusia? I miss you terribly. I'm still pining for Emil, and now, it seems, for you too. Please come back. The letter made Anna cry and she did as told. She came back. Two weeks ago, her plane landed in Warsaw and Anna had taken the train to Kielce. She spent the three-hour ride sitting with her carry-on bag in her lap, staring out the window past the rolling fields and the sleepy wioski, past the birch forests and hay bales, and she couldn't stop smiling.

In the hotel room in Wrocaw, Anna and Kowalski are lying around listening to the radio, and before signing off the announcer says "and, finally, forty monkeys escaped the Vienna Zoo this morning. Authorities say they are headed west." Anna turns the volume down and looks toward Kowalski, who is sprawled on the pullout, buck-naked.

"Maybe they're running toward us." Kowalski laughs and holds out his hand. Anna slinks toward him. He pulls her on top of him and wordlessly slides down her panties.

"Again?"

He nods his head; the condom is somehow already on. Yesterday, when she had interrupted their first frenzied go at it by asking him if he had protection, he was incredulous. "Against what?" he'd panted, confused. Anna had quickly reached for her pack of Eros-O-Lex, praying they were as good as Trojans, and then demonstrated how to put one on.

"But it's like swimming with a cap. It doesn't feel natural," he had whined.

"Does AIDS?" Anna snapped back and he shut his mouth. Anna didn't even want to think what his inexperience with the condom meant. He used to be the shy one, the hesitant one, always standing off to the side. Now there was no end to his s.e.xual appet.i.te, and, amazingly, no end to his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. It didn't turn her on as much as she thought it might.

Kowalski vigorously pumps for a few minutes and then she feels his body tense up and shudder. When it's over he falls asleep immediately and Anna gently removes herself from his arms. She throws on a T-s.h.i.+rt and goes out onto the narrow balcony. The hotel's neon sign, attached to a nearby railing, is already lit, even though it's barely dusk, and Anna goes back inside and grabs her camera. She snaps a photo of the blinking letters, spelling out H-O-T-E-L, with the steeples of Wrocaw looming in the distance. The sunset has left the heavens smudged with red, purple, and cobalt, like the work of a finger painting. It's beautiful.

Maybe when Kowalski wakes up, they'll go to the Chinese restaurant near the hotel. Anna wants to take a picture of Kowalski holding a pair of chopsticks.

Back in the room, Anna goes to the phone. She crouches by the wall while Kowalski snores peacefully, his small, firm a.s.s on display.

"Kamila? It's me."

"Hi! How's your rendezvous?"

"Well, Wrocaw is pretty, but the entire city is under renovation, so there are bulldozers and cranes everywhere. We went to the zoo this morning."

"And?"

"The monkeys were cute."

Kamila sighs on the other end. "No, dummy. And? How's Kowalski? Are you in love?"

Anna mulls the question over silently. Somehow, after all these years, Mariusz Kowalski had grown some b.a.l.l.s and a few days ago, he walked her back to her klatka, grabbed her shoulders, and started kissing her, just like that. "I didn't think I'd miss you so much. Thank G.o.d you came back. I could eat you up, right here, right now." Anna had been pleasantly surprised. She had always thought Kowalski was cute. Anna needed to get away from Kielce for a bit, and she invited Kowalski to take a trip with her.

"Where?"

"Anywhere," she replied.

"Okay. How about Wrocaw? I hear there's a great zoo there."

Anna had smiled and nodded. "Wrocaw it is."

Now, she glances at his rump, his dupa, on the couch. "In love? With Kowalski? We're having fun, Kamila, but the man can't string together a sentence. And he only packed one s.h.i.+rt. For three days."

"I told you!" Kamila laughs. "Well, at least you're getting laid. Emil still doesn't wanna do it. I think I'm just gonna have to get him drunk and rape him and call it a day."

"Desperate measures," Anna says quietly.

"I'm serious, Ania. I just don't know anymore." Kamila sighs into the phone. "I love him, he says he loves me, but he hardly even slips me the tongue when we kiss. You'd tell me if my breath was the problem, right?"

"Your breath is fine, Kamila. That's not the problem." Anna wants to tell Kamila that her problem is that she's probably in love with a h.o.m.os.e.xual, but you can't say h.o.m.os.e.xual in Kielce, not in the circles they run with.

"Well, have your fun and hurry back. Besides, I'm rotting here without you. And, we should go visit Justyna. You gotta get over it."

Anna doesn't say anything. Justyna's baby made the differences between her American life and her Polish life so much more palpable. She didn't want to think about it. Just then Kowalski lets one rip. It's a long, laborious fart, like a foghorn.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?" Kamila asks.

"A sign from G.o.d," whispers Anna and blows a kiss through the receiver. When she hangs up Kowalski rolls over, and much to Anna's chagrin, he's ready for action, still cloaked in a used jimmie. Anna wants out. Out of the room, out of Wrocaw, and out of his reach.

"No, thanks. I need a shower."

"All right. But I gotta take a dump something awful," Kowalski announces and gets up off the couch.

Anna stares at the wall. "I was thinking, you know. Since we've gone to the zoo and all, maybe we should get back on a train tonight. Plus, I'm running out of cash. We can make the eight o'clock if we hurry."

"No c.h.i.n.k food?" Kowalski calls out from the bathroom.

"I lost my appet.i.te," Anna says quietly and starts packing.