Nine Read Free

khakis lay next to thick tracksuit tops. Labels and logos could be seen on the edge of some. He could feel the embroidery or sticky rubber lettering against the back of his hand. Higher up were blouses and skirts. He ran his thumbs over them like two packs of large, flimsy playing cards, pushed them aside, and looked behind them. The little bundle was wrapped in newspaper. He took it out carefully, squatted, set it on the floor. He whistled a dirty song. “Fuck, oh fuck, he made a fucking mess,” as the yellowed page from
Życie Warszawy
crumbled like a wafer and Jaroszewicz’s face cracked in two. In the candy box he found a lock of light hair, a dry rose dark with age, and a stack of notecards with writing on them. He stopped whistling, wrapped it roughly, and thrust it back where it belonged. The scraps of newspaper he kicked under the rug.
    The shelf with underwear was at face level, brassiere cups stuck into one another: black, white, black, flesh, ridiculous and disembodied, pairs of hats side by side, cycling caps without peaks. He stopped and went to the window. The crowd had thinned; the clock on the tower was frozen at a quarter after three on some unknown day. His eyes swept the sidewalks and pedestrian crossings, Świerczewskiego and Wileńska, Targowa. The pane was cool against his forehead. A 101 bus dragged its belly across the tram tracks and pulled up by the Orthodox church. A man in marbled jeans left the line at the kiosk and jumped through the doors as they were closing. Three characters came around the corner, turned into Cyryla, and marched
toward the park, the wind from the river lifting their nylon jackets like wings—black, brown, navy blue. They’d been drinking already and did not feel the cold. He would have liked to be in their place. Another hundred meters, and they’d be among the tangled paths, hidden by the bare bushes, still visible but safe. The trees would close over them like a ceiling. They’d find a bench next to the old men playing checkers. They’d relax, and the smoky sky would provide light all the way till dusk and the moment when, freed of pain and fear, they would head back into a darkness filled with electric stars strewn by the pantographs of the trams moving down 11 Listopada and Stalowa toward the Bethlehem night of Szmulki and Targówek, and they would wait and wait an ocean of time, while time was exactly what he didn’t have.
    They crossed Jagiellońska by the gas station. A 509 hurried them with its horn, but he no longer saw this. He had returned to the open cupboard. He touched the panties. They were like a stack of colorful children’s books. Fairy tales in pastel shades, read to me Mommy, a yellow Donald Duck, a green Funny Ducky, the Adventures of Fiki-Miki, the Tricky Monkey . . . He passed his fingers over them, from top to bottom, back again, then pushed gently between the white and the black ones. He felt himself getting hard.
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    A moment later he sensed that he was not alone. He froze, listened. The tapping repeated. It was barely audible but definitely came from the apartment. He took a breath and closed his lips tightly. He took a step; the floor creaked. He stopped, and there was an even clearer knock. He approached the sofa covered with a white furry throw. He lifted the edge.
    The tortoise stared at him, motionless and cold as a camera. Matte brown, like something very old and leathery. It moved, and the empty cup in which its leg was stuck tapped the floor. “Fucking reptile,” he said softly, and started to breathe again.
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    Just as he closed the wardrobe door, he heard the click of the bolt in the hallway.
    She was wearing a long gray woolen overcoat. He went to help her off with it, but she slipped it from her shoulders with a quick, deft movement and hung it on a hook. She removed her shoes, put on slippers, and went to the kitchen. She started clearing the table, putting the dishes