Swimming in the Dark - Tomasz Jedrowski Page 0,43

to thunder. Everyone, including the people in the queue, looked up. A cloud was falling from the sky, white and brilliant in the sunlight, sheets of paper, like wings, light and beautiful, like time, fluttering through the October air. It felt like a dream. Everyone stood still, women with their shopping nets and couples and children, stretching out their hands, looking up and around, letting the paper rain on to them. One of the sheets landed right by my feet. There was a red hand on it, seemingly dripping with blood and grabbing stalks of wheat. ‘Our Land, Our Food. OUT With the Soviets, IN With our Rights!’ it said in black letters. ‘Brothers and Sisters, Rise Up Tonight.’

The words resonated in me like a voice speaking in my head. The crowd’s amazement turned into apprehension as soon as they read the words. A child bent down to pick up the sheets, and his mother ripped them out of his hands, slapped him and tore him away. Some hurried along; others looked up to the windows of the block that towered above us. I stood and watched, my senses in vertigo, my brain peculiarly calm. Already police sirens were howling and the crowd ran towards the blocks, the queue dispersed, people hurrying off like guilty foxes. In the confusion of it all, I bent down and picked up the leaflets, stuffing handfuls into my bag, wads of them, hearing my pulse pound in my ears. With the sirens coming closer, I jumped on to an approaching tram with my heart threatening to leap out of my chest.

Pani Kolecka was in the kitchen when I rushed in. She was leaning against the counter like a small, brittle tree in a dressing gown, caught by a fit of coughing. I helped her back to bed, her weight on me.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

She looked at me with her small watery eyes. ‘Maybe a little better, dear.’

I helped her lie down. There was a large water stain where the blood had been on her sheet. I pretended not to see it.

In my room I took out my radio and turned it on. To cover her coughing. To cover my thoughts. I wanted to drown out the voices in my head that said that even having these flyers was a folly and could get me locked up. I didn’t even hear the music. I sat on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands and my eyes closed.

I remembered the procession, moving slowly against the merciless wind under a sky the colour of concrete, starting from the church where Granny and I thanked everyone who’d come to pay their last respects. Consoling faces pressed against our frozen cheeks. Relief that Father hadn’t shown up. Anger that Father hadn’t shown up. The procession of regret and helplessness moved from the church along the streets of my childhood, the pavements of our games, past our flat and the park full of drunkards. A coffin carried to the cemetery, lowered into a hole. Earth hitting wood. Handful after handful, marking the end of our previous lives. Only Granny and I remained, life having skipped a generation. The flat seemed empty. Gone were the nights by the radio. The news no longer mattered. We no longer cared about outside. We turned inwards. Granny started to attend church every day, getting up at five for the first Mass. She resigned herself entirely to God, handing herself over to heaven like a premature donation. And me, I withdrew into my books. The radio in Mother’s room remained covered for ever. Not even music came out of it again. Not for many years.

I heard Pani Kolecka’s coughing, sharp and thorny. Then I turned to the radio, lowered the volume, and moved the indicator to 101.2, the frequency still etched in my mind after all these years. I lay on my bed, the speakers to my ear, holding my breath. At first it was only music, but already I was calmed. I felt like that music, just for its origin, was cleansing me. And then, not long after, the familiar voice – deep and comforting and clear. There had been several of them who’d read the news over the years, and this was one of them. He was still there. It brought me back to the first time we’d all sat together, the three of us, around the radio in Mother’s room. A voice that could not be