Nine Read Free Page A

in the sink, scraping the leftovers into the trash, the half-eaten egg on the draining board. She didn’t look at him once; her hands shook.
    In the gray light, in the silence, the clatter was hard to bear. Then she said finally, “Sorry I left you like that. I had to get there on time. The director is a dragon, and I owe them from last month.” She glanced at the green plastic clock on the wall. It read 8:22. “What do you want? Coffee or tea? I have to leave in a minute.”
    â€œWhen does the kid start school?”
    â€œNext year. I’ll make you coffee.”
    He sat on a chair and looked at her legs. Her feet, in their blue slippers with raised heels, pattered between sink and stove. She liked to look smart, even at home. She never wore her tattered slippers. Pat, pat, pat, and a cup and spoon, pat, pat, the coffee jar, the whistle of the kettle. “With cream?” “Whatever,” he answered, and stared at her ass under her beige dress. Not a crease, so she must have got up at some ungodly hour to see to herself and the child. And do the ironing—he remembered the warm iron. Her dark hair was tied at the back.
    â€œWhat’s going on with you?” she asked.
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œYou come here after all these years, at the crack of dawn, and you say nothing’s going on?”
    â€œI was passing by. I thought I’d just check to see if you still live here.”
    â€œWhere did you think I’d be living? California?”
    She put a brown cup with a green stripe in front of him. He caught the scent of her perfume and the warmth of her body and suddenly noticed that it was cold in the apartment. When she leaned forward, he glanced at her breasts. That was where the scent was coming from. Little bits of heat stole out from under her dress, rising from her pussy to her stomach and flowing out between her tits like water from a fountain. He thought of putting his hand there after all these years, to see what would happen, if something could be done with time, curious. But this lasted only a moment. She straightened and moved away. Again he found himself in the cold, empty air of a home that rarely has visitors.
    â€œHow’s Jolka?” he asked. “And the rest?”
    â€œShe married a Greek guy and emigrated. Bolek . . .”
    â€œYes? I met him on the street one time. He was in a hurry.”
    â€œHe’s making money. Actually, it seems to make itself for him. He sells, buys—I don’t know what.” She set her cup down on the sill. Gray dust dropped from the window, the ceiling, the wall; a dog barked in the courtyard; beneath the radiator lay a wounded plush toy.
    â€œI go see him sometimes.” She took the cup to the sink, came back for his. “I really have to go now.”
    â€œHe’s still living in the same place?”
    â€œYes.”
    Â 
    An almost empty number 26 took her into the distance due west, by the putrid branch of the river—a minute in space when from the other bank the city looks like a model of something that hasn’t been built yet. Little towers try to touch the sky, as always—they are always too short.
    Without thinking he followed the tram. He cut across Jagiellońska, turned into the park to think. The brown tree trunks shone with a moist gleam that made things even darker. He passed a bum on a bench, who looked like an old mannequin. The man didn’t look up. He was smoking a cigarette in a dark holder, his hands thrust into the pockets of an army coat. “This April’s like fall,” Paweł thought. He reached a broad avenue that led to the zoo. But he had no time for monkeys or penguins. He turned left, went back to the street. Seeing a kiosk reminded him he was out of cigarettes. He rummaged through his pockets, adding bill to bill. A hundred and twenty thousand, not a penny more. A Zippo knock-off, keys, a used-up phone card, no ID, two tokens. He