Swimming in the Dark - Tomasz Jedrowski Page 0,58

would be you. Only you would call me so late at night.’

She sounded happy.

‘Granny.’

‘How are you getting on, darling?’

I swallowed. ‘Very well, Granny. Very well.’

‘Are you sure? Do you need money? You know I have almost nothing but I set aside a little. I could send you that …’

‘No, Granny,’ I said, smiling into the receiver. ‘I don’t need money. It looks like I’m going to do a doctorate. I won’t need your help any more.’

‘Oh, Ludzio.’ Her voice sounded teary.

‘Are you proud of me, Granny?’

‘Of course I am.’ She sniffed. I leaned my forehead against the cool metal body of the telephone. ‘And when will you come home, darling? You know, that’s what I care about most – seeing you.’

‘Soon,’ I said, not sure whether or not it was true. ‘Soon. When they confirm my doctorate. When I’m settled. I promise.’

I hung up, stayed there in the telephone box, in the little halo of the light bulb attached to the ceiling, protected by an iron grid, watching the night outside. My life was a tiny narrow corridor with no doors leading off it, a tunnel so narrow it bruised my elbows, with only one way to go. That or the void, I told myself. That or leave.

The next day we met on the Square of Three Crosses, on the steps of the domed church that stood in the middle like a pagan temple. It was cold and overcast and overwhelmingly, despairingly grey, one of those particularly Varsovian days that makes you think the sun has ceased to exist and fear that your mind might suffocate underneath an impenetrable fortress of clouds.

You were already there when I arrived, your bag lying by your feet. We kissed each other on the cheek. There was a strange air between us, as if we’d become accomplices in a game. Your eyes sparkled with mischief and play. ‘Ready?’ you said, piercing me with them.

I nodded, feeling a wave of nausea, pushing it away.

Their car arrived on the square. I knew it was theirs before it had even stopped. Foreign cars were so rare even I could tell them apart from the two other kinds that one could dream of owning in our country: it was neither a Maluch, the tin can Fiat made for the socialist bloc, nor the Trabant, the larger, clumsier model from East Germany. Here was a thing as smooth and elegant as a panther – a black Mercedes.

It came to a halt by the steps of the church. The passenger window slid down and Hania, in a pair of gold-coloured sunglasses, waved at us excitedly. ‘C’mon, boys!’

We grabbed our bags and hurried down. We climbed in, on to the brown leather bench in the back, where Maksio’s blonde from the party was already sitting, like a very expensive doll. She wore a short leather miniskirt and a red bandana around her head. Hania introduced her as Agata, and she nodded at us slowly, as if sedated.

‘Hey, guys,’ said Maksio, turning around from the steering wheel with a smile in his eyes. ‘Let’s do this!’

‘Is anyone else coming?’ I asked.

Hania spun around, her mirrored sunglasses still on, their lenses reflecting and distorting my face, which struck me as silly and pale.

‘Just us,’ she said, and smiled.

We whizzed off, speeding seamlessly and effortlessly along Ujazdowskie Avenue. We passed the run-down palaces of the long-forgotten aristocracy, the ?azienki Gardens with my hidden deer, and the gigantic gates and lines of soldiers that protected the castle that was the Soviet embassy. After that the city turned sparse. We passed endless stretches of identical blocks, blokowisko upon blokowisko with mud fields in-between, where riotous hordes of children played. We passed factories, smoking behemoths, big and solemn like sooty churches. The radio was on, playing something by the Velvet Underground. Nico sang in her low, litanic voice, bells ringing and a guitar jittering, like a flickering mirage.

Throngs of white birch trees came into view, naked in this late autumn and all the more solemn. And fields. Soaked brown fields with women and men and horse-drawn ploughs. The sky was still covered, white-grey like rice pudding, but in the countryside, among this nature, there was beauty in that, like the comforting duvet in a bed one takes refuge in.

We chatted for some stretches, and were silent for others. We rode on and on, rock music playing on the radio, Agata humming along. Light started to drain from the sky and the earth began to undulate. Low hills