Polychrome (8 page)

The situation could have been considered comical although it
wasn’t in the least. The sole natural suspect had evaporated in
a most original manner.

There were more employees from the funeral parlour at
Antoniusz Mikulski’s funeral than people who’d come for the
ceremony. Neither did any potential beneficiary appear.

The search for Mr and Mrs Mikulski’s son also brought poor
results from an investigative point of view. They established
with some difficulty that he had, indeed, been to the United
States and, surprisingly, had realised the American dream:
he’d started working in a small computer company which
had expanded enormously and brought fabulous profits for
shareholders and, consequently, for him.

This set half of the underpaid workers of Poznań’s police
involved in the investigation, dreaming. The remainder joined
in when they heard the reason for the son’s quitting work:
apparently he’d set off on an expedition around the world in
search of something or other.

Only a little more exotic, and somehow maliciously just, was
the unconfirmed information that he’d disappeared somewhere
in Burma or Laos. They couldn’t establish why Antoniusz
Mikulski had been convinced his son was dead, whether simply
because he hadn’t given any signs of life or because someone had
brought Mikulski the news. The solicitor who, as a neighbourly
favour, had drawn out the deceased’s will couldn’t remember
exactly but was quite sure that the estate was to become the
property of some society which looked after monuments and
works of art. Nor had he been greatly surprised when Mikulski
had decided to destroy the will. Old people, apparently, were
easily offended and sometimes successfully managed to exploit
their possessions. Mikulski hadn’t made out another will.

Analysis of the flowers and the cloth wrapped around
Mikulski didn’t bring anything special either, apart from the
fact that the flowers were, indeed, sunflowers, a new but popular
variety produced in Holland, which meant absolutely nothing
since they could have just as easily been bought anywhere in
Europe. They might have been standing there from four to
nine months.

Likewise with the cloth analysis. The material could have
come from China. It contained many dyes prohibited in Europe
but that didn’t mean there’d been any particular obstacles in
importing large quantities. The embroidery was not factorymade but had been made to order using an embroidery
machine made in Italy, equally popular in Poland as in Asia.
Most of the workshops dealing with publicity embroidery were
called but nobody remembered this particular commission.

There was only a momentary stir when, during the
police officer’s visit to the antique market on Stara Rzeźnia
on Saturday, a trader showed Maciej Bartol some cleverly
concealed hiding places in the old escritoire. The latter wasn’t
greatly surprised to find similar drawers in Mikulski’s desk.
In one there’d been pictures of naked women painstakingly
cut out of old German and French newspapers; they looked
like goods smuggled in during socialism, in the ‘50s or ‘60s
perhaps, and carefully concealed from the authorities or from
the authorities and the wife. The police looked through the
photographs longer than any other documents; someone
smiled; someone sighed; someone concluded sentimentally
– so harmless and bland.

Some photographs of the son were also found. He wore
sunglasses in all of them as if he never visited shady places.
The photographs didn’t appear very recent.

Only one drawer contained a latter day piece of paper: a
new business card belonging to a licensed estate agent called
Ksawery Rudzik.

Maciej Bartol sensed it could be important because
Mikulski had remembered the hiding place after many years.
Unfortunately, this too proved a dead end; nobody answered
the phone. The owner of the estate agency where Rudzik
worked wasn’t very talkative. He simply informed the officers
that Rudzik had overdone it in life as in work; he’d been
too quick to jump from a Fiat 500 into a Jaguar – figuratively
speaking and literally – because a couple of months ago
he’d crashed into a tree. When asked whether Mr Mikulski
had ever been their client or whether the villa on Sołacz had
ever been the object of a transaction, he grew very annoyed,
denied it and added that Rudzik might have been doing
something behind his back, it was typical of him – or rather
would have been.

The female employees of the office turned out to have more
to say and to a certain degree explained their boss’s dislike
of their former colleague. Although the women were more
considerate, their attempts not to speak badly of the deceased
– as was the custom – weren’t very successful. They soon
presented Bartol with a dubious picture of an avaricious man
in an avaricious reality. The Jaguar, which he’d driven of late,
belonged to a very wealthy woman who owned a great deal of
property, looked as though she were going to own even more
and was one of their best clients; she bought a lot and bought
it quickly. Rudzik had become her own personal advisor in real
estate– and not only that, no doubt. He’d left his girlfriend –
who apparently was very nice – and the agency. With a licence
he could act as a free agent. Thanks to his ties with the woman
he also took a couple of good clients with him: hence the boss’s
extreme dislike.

Then had come the avalanche: they did away with
exams, any old bungler who’d done a course could do what
he’d worked so hard to do; dreams of an élite, closed circle
had gone up in smoke. Apparently, Rudzik had taken it very
badly. The girl poisoned herself. They saved her but didn’t
manage to save his mother who suffered a massive brain
haemorrhage, maybe because she had high blood pressure,
had no medication, was ashamed and had pined away. One of
the agents knew somebody in the village next to the one where
she lived. Apparently, when Rudzik had arrived there, a couple
of women had stifled their own conscience by shouting that
he’d killed his mother; somebody had even spat at his feet.
Apparently, he’d climbed into his car drunk and hadn’t even
covered ten kilometres. Nobody saw what happened, there
were no witnesses; it’s possible that he drove into the tree on
purpose – so some people say. The girls didn’t believe it though;
they didn’t think it was like him, whereas it certainly was typical
of him to visit old people in their home or press his business
card on everyone whether they wanted it or not. Apparently,
he was terribly ambitious.

The meaning of the Latin sentences given the situation was
elusive although naturally the words made everyone think,
each man in his own way. The ancient saying
Dum spiro spero
found on the piece of cloth – ‘while there’s life there’s hope’
– seemingly wise, in another context – was uplifting.
Expecto
donec veniat
which was found on the card with the flowers was
a complaint made by Job who had argued with God like an
aggrieved party in court and, when translated, literally meant:
‘I’d wait until such a moment arrives’, and when elaborated
upon was supposed to mean: when I can understand that all
this makes sense, that something else exists, that I’ll get to live
– with the latent accusation: the Lord is not really making it any
easier for me which isn’t nice when a mere sign, a hope, would
suffice. All in all, not very original, considering that everyone
wants the same.

The symbol of sunflowers apparently gave no interesting
indication, beyond the canon of European art; family tradition
could neither be excluded nor confirmed; nor had any circle
of friends or lovers or anyone whosoever thanked Mikulski
for anything.

hArpsIchord
, a country mongrel, didn’t bark at the postman
doing his afternoon round as it normally did. It didn’t even
poke its nose out, as if it wasn’t there. It lay curled up in the
corner of the old shed, licked its paws and nervously wagged
its tail from time to time. It was waiting for its master. He was
the only one it trusted.

Olaf Polek, a husband of many years' standing, ate his dinner.
He mashed his potatoes in with the sauce, the way he liked
them. He didn’t tear his eyes away from his plate. He was trying
to be exceptionally agreeable ever since morning and the more
he tried to be agreeable, the more disagreeable his wife became.
He didn’t know what was wrong with her.

Franciszek Konopka, a young farmer, pretended not to hear
his mother call. He wasn’t in a hurry; he was eating the same
soup for the third day running. For two days it had pretended
to be broth, today it was tomato soup. He was watching his new
fighter cockerel.

Magdalena Walichnowska, translator, had eaten her fill and
fallen asleep. The felt-tip pen, clasped ambitiously in her hand
with the intention of still noting something on the sheets of
paper which had fallen on the floor, was now performing the
task of its own accord, scribbling asymmetrical patterns on the
orange pillow.

Daniela Bartol, future grandmother, had already managed to
freeze some of the
gołąbki
, the stuffed cabbage leaves. One never
knew when they might come in useful. She’d made them with
her son in mind. It was always the same: don’t worry, things will
turn out fine. Just like his father. She smiled to herself every
now and again.

The girl, four months pregnant, stared at her belly anxiously.
The creams weren’t helping; the thin marks appearing on
her stretched skin were getting further and further apart. She
wanted to cry, and not only for that reason. Possibly.

Małgorzata Barszcz lay totally motionless; she wasn’t getting
up at all that day. Only her open eyes and the infrequent
blinking of her eyelids showed she wasn’t asleep. Nor was
this an entirely conscious decision on her part. Her body
was slowly ceasing to listen to her. It was heavy, unwilling
and practically unable to move. It was happy this way,
nobody was telling it what to do anymore, wasn’t giving it
unquestioning commands; it simply existed, concentrating
only on distributing oxygen and other nutrients to every
cell individually – more slowly than usual, no need to hurry.
Only the clenched muscles of her jaws had been forgotten
and had not received the order ‘at ease’; the rest were on a
well-earned holiday for which they had waited so long.

Forty years of concentration, tension, vigilance,
subordination. Of hard work over every word, every move,
without a moment’s respite, without rest, because that’s how
it should be, because that’s what her head had come up with
as though it were in an aquarium, separated from all the rest.
Once so proud of her consistent politics to conceal feelings,
favour muscles and skin, she hadn’t expected a rebellion.

After all, the plan had been clear.
Balance: key word, motto, religion.
Not equilibrium but balance, to be precise: at every moment,

In all its guises: to be balanced, to behave in a balanced way,
a balanced style of dressing.
Anything to be unlike her mother, to be normal, like
everybody else.
Not some sort of coloured bird, some sort of artistic soul.
All her life she’d had an aversion to anything that was
different, whether naturally or ostentatiously. Tolerance could
dwell somewhere on the side, but not with her, not in her house.
She’d spent her entire childhood hidden behind glasses,
behind a plait and in navy-blue clothes, locking herself up in
her room as far away as possible from her mother and all those
people who were forever there.
Walking down the street she could always tell who was
going to end up in their house. She knew immediately: the
hair was much longer or much shorter than anybody else’s;
glasses covered either half the face or only the irises; stripes
where others wore checks; everything was exaggerated, more
modern than modern.
That stupid laughter and silly conversations from morning
to night about life, art, the possibility of expressing oneself –
as though one could do it better. The constantly unpaid bills,
strange food, strange music.
‘It’s wonderful, Margaret. What do you want, Margaret?
You’ve got freedom, Margaret, like I never had. Look at the
funky jacket I bought myself, Margaret, you can borrow it.
Margaret, you’re as boring as your father. Maybe you’ll grow
out of it, Margaret.’
She grew out of it to such an extent that on the day she
turned eighteen she legally changed her name to Małgorzata.
Her mother never forgave her, and insisted on introducing
herself as Halika; somebody had lost the ‘n’ from the name
Halinka – ‘and it sounded so cool’. They were never friends.
She didn’t want a grown-up friend; she wanted a normal,
boring mother, red-haired if she really wanted, but not bright
red hair – ‘although she looked so passionately fiery’.
She finished studying medicine: something concrete,
prestige, stabilisation.
She avoided parties, dances and all surreptitious squeezing
of her breasts. She’d seen it hundreds of times.
Living with her mother, she didn’t invite anyone home; the
few chance visits always ended the same way.
‘What a cool mother you’ve got. Super. Not like mine. I’ve
got to go or she’ll moan that she’s got to warm my dinner up
again, that I’m drifting around.’
She tried drifting once and didn’t come home for the night,
slept at a friend’s.
She counted on her mother shouting at her.
She was met in the morning with full understanding, a
conciliatory look and warm words that she might have told
her, that it was normal at her age, that she had a modern
mother, that maybe she’d go straight to using a coil because
who remembers to take the pill, that she wasn’t going to poke
her nose into anything else, the girl was, after all, seventeen,
and that now they could talk about boys.
She left home.
She moved into her boring father’s apartment; he was now
getting bored in Canada and there were no signs of his missing
the soulful mother or mundane daughter. He hadn’t had time
to get used to either one.
Nor did she miss anybody or anything.
She led a balanced life.
She became an optician, wore a late-autumn or early springcoloured skirt suit, went on organised excursions on which it
was possible to see so much, brought back souvenirs, invited
girl friends to dinner where they could quietly talk about work,
savour the food and beautiful porcelain. Nothing makeshift, no
odds and ends, no coloured mugs.
No matchmaking.
One day she mentioned that she’d once got burnt and
that had been enough. She never commented on sighs and
reminiscences that that’s what love is, that’s men for you.
She loathed the memory of it but it nevertheless came back
at times.
The memory of loud music, laughter subsiding, her sleepy
room and that enormous tongue which tried to fit into her
mouth and spread the disgusting taste of stale wine. She’d
managed to scream.
So what if nothing else happened, so what if he’d never
come back, so what if we won’t talk about it anymore, it’s better
that way?
The man never came back; she never spoke about it to her
friends.
All in all, nothing had happened; she’d never drunk wine,
never been kissed, so it wasn’t much of a loss.
When did someone or something upset the construction, as
elaborate and stable as a house of cards? When did someone
disturb such an established foundation?
Was it at the reception during the training course to which
she didn’t want to go? When, as usual, she didn’t have a way out,
everybody was going so she also went, although nobody knew
how much she despised this other, required aspect of professional
trips. The group madness when the calm, balanced, daytime
listeners at various symposia mutated into night-time cowboys
and tavern tarts, forever playing games fit for schoolchildren.
Everyone was prettier, better and free on that intoxicating night,
far from home: because it was all so wonderful, life was so short.
Was it when that man had sat next to her, the one who was
younger than her and wore strange glasses and a gold cross
around his neck; she’d almost suffocated, would have run away
immediately had she not been sitting by the wall. Seven people
would have had to get up and, on top of that, it was still too early,
too rude, not the done thing.
She was worried he’d start flaunting his feathers like a peacock,
that it would take a while before he turned to easier prey.
That’s not what had happened. She’d been greatly mistaken.
From the very beginning when he’d suggested they sit quietly
for a while and talk, at least that way they’d be left in peace,
wouldn’t have to get acquainted and shift from foot to foot, and
he wasn’t planning to fall in and out of love between drinks
because that was so irresponsible.
That he had watched her that day, had immediately noticed
she was so well-balanced, so different from all the others,
different from her friends who were too heavily made-up and
grateful for dim lighting.
That this should be appreciated in today’s world when
everything was for show, had no principles; that it was
important to be well organised in both one’s professional and
personal life; that it wasn’t worth living on credit, literally and
figuratively. That living for the moment was overrated.
She’d started to melt. For a good couple of hours, she’d
talked like she’d never done to any man before. Not that she
had ever given anyone the opportunity. From time to time she
caught the eye of one of her friends who smiled knowingly; she
knew these smiles but that evening she didn’t care.
He’d talked a lot, so had she – like never before.
She’d even told him about her former name, about how
silly it was. He understood her perfectly well, adding that in
a country of Kasias and Asias it must have been difficult and
didn’t suit everyone, certainly not somebody who, at any cost,
didn’t want to be different, that he didn’t like loud women,
preferred stability, peace, seriousness.
They didn’t arrange to meet again, didn’t exchange
numbers; that, after all, hadn’t been the assumption. She was
the one who’d suggested she’d take the glasses to one of the
night shelters in Poznań; she happened to come from Poznań
and she’d certainly take those special spectacles with the Latin
writing to the place he’d asked.
He’d kissed her hand in gratitude. She loathed it, hadn’t
reacted on time. Hadn’t regretted it.
He hadn’t tried to injure her shoulder by yanking her hand
up to his forehead and squashing his dribbling lips on it as
usually was the case.
She recalled those five seconds hundreds of times. He’d
taken her hand so lightly, held it, bowed his entire body and
looked at her – with gratitude, pleadingly, disarmingly? She’d
just felt his warm breath and dry lips which perhaps had
touched her hand or not – it was all the same; her whole body
had become unhinged in a split second, a shudder, sweat, a
pleasant spasm below her navel.
At the beginning, before everything waned, when she’d
just set all the details in order, she could recall that transitory
feeling, that spasm of some sort of plexus of muscles and nerves
about which she knew very little. Sometimes she had timidly
imagined different endings, her hands unknowingly running
over her body more boldly than usual. Then what?
Shame, fear, the door slightly ajar, an unknown direction,
and then what?
Her suit, balanced in shape and colour, clung too closely
to her body which, on top of it all, was covered in sweat.
Shaking inside, she’d finished her drink, gone back to her
room, then home.
Both there and here she couldn’t sleep.
The old method of tiring out her brain and body with work
and sport didn’t work.
She went to that night shelter; she’d always been helpful
– within norms, without exaggeration. This time, too, she had
promised.
This time she even examined the eyesight of people
she always avoided at a distance. But she couldn’t awaken
any empathy in herself. She already knew them all; they,
too, wanted to live differently, had not adapted, were dirtily
colourful – street artists proud of themselves, in love with
maxims and cheap wine. It’s not by chance that she’d
chosen ophthalmology; at least people like these rarely
visited her. They didn’t care whether their vision was clear
or not.
The man who worked there, the man for whom she’d
brought those special frames with the Latin writing, was
also strange, some sort of fanatical do-gooder. Overly
pleasant at first, he didn’t even thank her. He stared like an
idiot and disappeared somewhere, probably used to getting
what he wanted. She’d formed an opinion about people
like him and this had only confirmed it. She wasn’t going to
be a do-gooder, unless it was by correspondence as usual;
some Marysia or Mateuszek falls ill, one text message and
that’s it.
She tore her Achilles tendon playing squash, a common
injury, especially if one plays to win against oneself.
Two jobs at opposite ends of the city had to find a
replacement. For a long time.
In the end, she had to get off the train which never stopped.
At a station in an open field.
A month at home, with only herself, with her thoughts. For
the first time in ages – she couldn’t remember how long – she
began to write prescriptions for herself.