Swimming in the Dark - Tomasz Jedrowski Page 0,51

bottles and plates. ‘I need to check on somebody.’ He winked at us and disappeared in the crowd.

There were vodkas and whiskies and gins and vermouths, and bottles I had never seen before, and colourful plates of aspic meats and pineapple rings and cheese cubes. I wanted to taste everything. I ate some grapes and downed some whisky, feeling the liquid’s journey through my body, earthy and sweet and unburdening. The music and the laughter of the people all merged in my mind, spinning me into its net. I didn’t recognise anyone in the dim light of the room, every silhouette seemed equally important and glamorous: girls in dresses and clogs and hair piled high, boys in high-waisted blue jeans and tight shirts and jackets.

‘This place is out of this world!’ I cried into your ear, over the sound of the music, and you nodded and your mouth formed the words I know.

We had another drink and had just started to move to the music when an arm snaked itself around my waist from behind, orange fingernails and dangling bracelets.

‘I almost didn’t recognise you with that hair, handsome,’ said a mouth by my ear.

It was Karolina. Lips the colour of pomegranates, lashes large and thick and heavy with mascara like clotted spider legs.

‘What are you doing here?’ I pressed her against me, relieved to see a familiar face.

‘I was invited, I swear!’ she cried, taking my head in-between her hands, kissing me on the mouth. I could feel her lipstick rubbing off, the petrol smell of her breath.

She laughed and held her outstretched hand towards you like a lady. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever properly met.’

You kissed the hand obligingly, playing her game.

I took her by the waist. ‘Are you drunk?’

‘As a sailor. It would be stupid not to be.’ She raised her glass, swayed on her heels.

And then the music stopped. The record had come to an end; the low crackle of the speakers could be heard between the suddenly naked chatter of the crowd. We looked at each other, bemused, in anticipation. A new record was placed on the deck by a gangly boy in green bell-bottoms. At once a string of quick, light beats prepared the room, gathered our attention, ecstatic, simple and single-minded. And before we knew it, Blondie’s siren voice had filled the room, sending a rush through us. We didn’t know the words, not a single one, but we understood everything about ‘Heart of Glass’ – all its elation, its decadence, the pleasure of self-indulgence. We made our way through the crowd to the middle of the room, where we dissolved ourselves in her voice, in its high flight, in the rising and falling melody, in the motif of the beat, the beat that was there from beginning to end and begged to be followed. Our heads spun along with the record. Our bodies became instruments of the song, extensions of it, and we formed as one, dancing in a triangle, swaying from side to side as if possessed. When the song had ended, another one began to play, one just as good and catchy and seductive, and we gave ourselves to it. It was as if someone had taken us all and placed us on a platform on top of the world. We danced until sweat ran down our backs and foreheads and we could no longer catch our breath.

Later, the three of us took a break, filled our glasses, smoked by the large windows looking out over the black expanse of the park. The windows had glazed over with our heat, and someone opened one, letting in the cool evening air. That’s when I saw her. On the other side of the room, talking with a blond boy in a pair of dark sunglasses. She wore a long sequinned dress and her hair was large and frizzy, almost standing up from her head. She was an apparition. Then her eyes fell on you and she made her way across the room.

‘How lovely you could make it!’ She threw herself around your neck as if that’s what it was there for, her flowery-spicy perfume enveloping us all. Her eyeshadow was blue and sparkling like Ziggy Stardust’s. Her eyes came to rest on me. ‘I was watching you earlier,’ she said, speaking slowly as if pronouncing a verdict. ‘Fabulous dancing. And that hair suits you.’ She glanced at Karolina. ‘This must be your girl?’

Karolina laughed with her mouth thrown open. ‘No, just a friend,’