Swimming in the Dark - Tomasz Jedrowski Page 0,50

swans and the squirrels, had seen the other, complete families – mothers, fathers and children. We’d visited the white palace on the island of the lake, the same palace that had been part of the king’s pleasure gardens and now served as a distraction for good workers and their families. As we were leaving, climbing up a gentle slope, we’d seen a man stacking blocks of hay under a small thatched roof. ‘Who is this for?’ Mother had asked him. She was so elegant that day; I remember the moss-green hat she wore, the matching gloves. ‘The deer,’ he’d said, and continued working. This had seemed incredible to me. That deer should live in the park, hidden from everyone’s sight.

That Saturday night, when it was already dark and the gates of the gardens were locked, I imagined them, the deer, racing unhindered through the grounds, across the untended meadows, up and down the hills, along the tree-lined paths, their hooves clattering on the gravel and stirring the sleeping swans. What freedom to live like that, protected and boundless at once.

You were waiting for me in the light of a street lamp. You wore a brown corduroy jacket and your hair was combed to the side, like that time you’d stopped me in the street in your suit, the day of the flyers. Like that day, you looked like a different person, and this both scared and excited me.

‘Very chic,’ I said, clicking my tongue, hiding my discomfort.

You smiled. ‘You look great too.’

I’d worn my only jacket, a white shirt and my good shoes. ‘Are you sure it’s not strange for me to go to her party?’

You laughed briefly and placed your hand on the back of my neck. ‘There’ll be lots of people there. You’ll blend right in.’

We walked down the avenue along the park, past the tall government buildings patrolled by soldiers in berets. Only some windows were illuminated, the rest dark and dormant. You led us into a side street, lined by pre-war buildings with large balconies on each floor. In front of us a woman in a fur coat and high heels was walking a sausage dog, her coat as shiny as her pet, a cigarette burning lazily in her gloved fingers. We stopped by a large entrance gate.

You pressed a button on the domofon, and a crackling man’s voice came from the grid, asking who it was. You said your name. There was a buzzing noise and you pushed the massive door open with the weight of your whole body.

I had never been to a house like this. It was a splendid kamienica, an apartment building from before the war, one of the few that had survived. The entrance hall was high and vaulted, the ceiling covered in stucco flowers. A carpet led towards another set of doors, revealing a staircase, old and curved, with iron railings. You called the lift. We got in and rose weightlessly in the little silent box. In the glow of the single light bulb we inspected ourselves in the mirror. We looked serious and strangely put together, more grown-up than I’d ever seen us. The lift came to a halt and we got out, and you rang the bell by a wide double door. Subdued music and chatter emanated from behind it. Footsteps approached, the door opened and a hulking figure appeared.

‘Janusz!’ He opened his arms wide and you embraced, kissing each other on the cheek. It took me a moment to realise it was the friend I’d seen you with at camp, Maksio Karowski. He wore a velvet jacket and a shirt with a big collar, and had the same confident and indifferent way about him that had struck me before. We shook hands, his almost crushing mine.

‘Nice to meet you,’ he said, his hand strong and warm, something about his momentary attention making me feel strangely charmed.

We followed him through a wood-panelled corridor into a large room filled with smoke and people. Music blasted throughout the place, hot and loud, rockingly hypnotic. Couples danced in the middle of the room or lay spread out on a white yeti carpet. The only light came from lamps on the floor, one by a large television, another behind a pair of giant palm trees in pots. Maksio led us to the end of the room, where grand bay windows looked out on to the dark and seemingly infinite treetops of the park.

‘Help yourself,’ he said, pointing to a table covered in