Like a Good Boy

Children swung from the bars of the frame. Their voices were small and hard as pebbles. Even the smallest ones clambered up the metal ladder and were fearless of sliding down. Legs and arms were nut brown from the sun. Summer had started early; there had been a full month of such weather.

In the city he came from such a ramshackle climbing frame would have long been cordoned off. The sandpit too would be closed for safety reasons. It might conceal dog shit and children could pick up diseases.

Mothers and grandmothers sat on the bench and smoked. They ignored the childrens' tireless squabbles. A mess of cigarette butts had accumulated beneath them. The sandy loam continued from their feet to where the children played, and backwards from the bench to the steps of the blocks. The pit where the children played was a zone of deeper, cleaner sand.

"Aunt," said Anna, "Can we leave these upstairs?"

"Is it yourself?" squealed the woman in delight. "Who is the young man you have?" Anna flapped her hands impatiently.

"Stefan. You'll meet him later. Is there anyone to let us in?"

The aunt leaned back her head. "Just himself."

"How is he?"

"Sitting up there recording away."

Stefan pushed open the sheet-iron door and let Anna in front. The steps were bare and gritty. The walls had a smooth finish with the appearance of salami in greytone. They bounded up the stairs, glad of the cool air.

Anna knocked at number 462. A leathery face peered out. Eyes sunken in, teeth exposed in a grimace. Thin lips worked soundlessly for a couple of seconds. "Anna," he blurted. "You're back."

"I'm often back Bartek." She pushed ahead to the kitchen and unpacked bouquets and presents. Bartek followed her, looking astounded. He walked with carefully-placed steps, not feebly, but the walk of someone who does not quite trust the ground. Then he noticed Stefan.

"Take a seat. I'll get you coffee, sit down." The room they entered was a black cavern. Heavy curtains hung over the windows. The air caught at Stefan's throat, his tongue felt clogged. His mouth tasted cigarette tar. "Don't mind the things there." A pair of long scissors and something like a box of medical equipment lay on the table.

"You develop your own photographs?" asked Stefan.

"Which? No. That's audio tape." The thin man seemed pleased at the mistake. "See?' he said and unwound a strip from a reel.

Stefan's eyes adjusted to the dark. He made out stacks of glass-fronted cabinets. Row upon row of labelled boxes. Audio reels, each labelled and dated. He flopped down on the low couch. The long open box held several instruments of dull-grey surgical steel. Aged but flawless.

"Do you see how this thing can splice the tape? Do you see the angle it cuts at?" Bartek leaned over. Stefan caught the whiff of a deviant body chemistry. An inorganic smell that shrivelled his stomach to a knot.

"Uncle," said Anna, "where is Monika?"

Bartek stared hard at her a moment. His lips struggled, perhaps forcing back a curse. When he spoke it was in a subdued tone. "She plays in the playground all day, as far as I know."

"Oh Jesus she was one of the girls on the swings and I didn't even notice," Anna put a hand to her mouth. "I think I was looking straight at her."

"This is the tweezer, German production, and this the guillotine, and this is masking glue."

"You have the old style audio reels."

"That's it. High fidelity."

"Uncle. This is Stefan. Will I make some coffee?"

"Stefan, oh yes, I believe you lived abroad for a while?"

"I was in London for five years."

"Dead right to get the hell out of here. Me? I'm too far gone now. Nobody wants to employ a living skeleton." He rose up, gaunt and leathery. Sucked in a breath through his nostrils. "I can't offer you a beer. I don't keep any in the house. One whiff of alcohol and an inner battle begins." He held his ribs. "Sometimes I cannot even walk past a shop where beer is sold. I take a walk the odd time to get air. At night though, when they are all closed." He gave a nod towards the kitchen and lowered his voice. "It's a shame that I cannot drink a beer with you. If I was a decent uncle, me and you, we'd get blasted drunk together so I could see what kind of person you really are. That's the way we do it here."

He sat again, resumed splicing the tape. His mouth smacked drily in concentration.

Jestadaj, the labels said. Yesterday. Stefan walked along the cabinets reading dates in the dim light. 1971 - 1976, not a month missing. The longhand script was meticulous. Strokes of ink leached shadows of red and orange. With every step a sick feeling in his stomach intensified.

"Jestadaj," Stefan read aloud.

Bartek took up the song in a tuneless chant. "All my troubles seemed so faw away. Now a need a place to hide my way." He sprang up and opened a cabinet. "Bay City Rollers, do you know these?"

"Yes. I only want to be with you."

"Yes, yes. Now you have it. Gilbert O'Sullivan?"

He shook his head.

"You don't know Gilbert O'Sullivan?"

"No."

"I told you once before and I won't tell you no more get down get down get down." He stamped the floor viciously on the last three beats.

"Where did you get all this music?"

"I recorded it from the longwave. The authorities wouldn't have liked that. The evil influence from the west. Creeping into our innocent little country like the Colorado beetle." He took down a squat black jar, set it flat on the table. He eased the lid around and it came loose in the palm of his hand. A thick black liquid lay within.

A wild idea ran through Stefan: This was the drug that kept him alive, kept those jaws moving, blood pumping, muscles twitching, long after the body should have turned soft and decayed.

"You'll have one too?" Bartek took out a pouch of tobacco and rolling papers. The life-breath whistled hoarsely in his nose as he tapped and rolled. It took concentration to keep his fingers from trembling. His tongue searched for enough moisture to seal the cigarette. They both sat back on the couch. Stefan rolled the smoke in his mouth and inhaled lightly. Bartek sucked and hissed at it, his dry lips unable to form a seal around the cigarette. The tip at last glowed and kindled.

"I dip them in here when they're finished." He indicated the jar of tarry liquid.

Stefan had given up smoking years before for the good of his health. But such concerns were remote, almost shameful to mention. He looked at the dark wall. A framed photograph of three long-haired young men. They lounged against a shop entrance, big sneering grins. He did not recognise Bartek directly, only by eliminating the other two. They too were the damned. He did not know what they were doing now, but knew enough not to ask.

"Do you go out much?"

"It's as much as I can do to go to the shops. I get dizzy in the heat of the sun. The doctor said," - and here he jumped up again, as he did frequently during the visit - "he cannot understand the nature of my physical organism. He says he measured my blood pressure and sugar levels and I should be dead twice over. One drop more, he said, will kill me. And I believe this. I truly believe this." His eyes challenged Stefan to refute him. "When I came back I drank sixteen cups of coffee a day. I needed to have something going into my blood to keep me steady. They gave me tablets at the clinic. But I pushed them away. I didn't battle alcohol to get addicted to these. Keep the little white tablets. They're only a sedative, she said. No, keep the damn things, I said."

"When was this?"

The man counted in his head. "Fifteen years ago, more."

A noise came from the kitchen. "You and Anna, hey? You like her, yeah?" Stefan snorted in reply. "You'll be happy with her. She's got a nice figure, short and stocky, but that's the best kind. And she's been well brought up." Bartek crossed himself, forehead to hand, and left to right shoulder. "Nominen bominen bubblegum bubblegum," he said. "It's a great world when you can believe the priest at mass. Stick to the home and the church and you can be happy in a place like this."

"It's been a while since I was in a church," said Stefan.

"You've been abroad." (The way he said it the word held some of the meaning it used to have - the West, freedom, the real world outside.) "Tell me, you've seen the candles. Do other places have this fucked-up religious psychosis?"

He had seen the candles. Stretched out along Ulica Marcinska for five kilometres. Normal street lighting had been turned off. No light came from any business or shop, just the glow from thousands of lanterns. The smell of wax rendered the air itself sacrosanct. It had been like that in every town and city for three days.

"You'll be happy," he assured Stefan again. Anna was in the hallway now, turning the bolt. "You're not the type to make life difficult. You're taking good care of her, eh? Not rushing her, know what I mean? You're a good boy, I can see that."

The sun shone on the concrete slabs. Green weeds strayed up through the joints. In another month they would be baked away by the sun. A drift of sand lined the new tarmac road. The slabs, the blocks, the road too all looked like they had been set haphazardly on a shallow bed of sand.

He approached her slowly, not knowing if this was the goodbye scene. But she was jumping with impatience and he reflected, maybe last night was not as significant as he had thought. He was glad to see her in good humour and broke into a jog.

"Quick," she said, grabbing his arm.

"Why did you wait outside? I would have gone up to collect you." He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. It was not hot, but soon would be.

"I don't want my family fussing over you."

"Oh the family," he mocked. He wound his free arm around her, pressing her backwards.

"We have to go," she wriggled. Then fell limp, let him have his way. "That's my mother over there."

A small round woman stood opposite with hands on hips, dressed like a peasant, long skirt and scarf. Oh MY God, she squealed and ran inside.

"Will you get into trouble?" he asked.

"Don't mind her," said Anna. Bells rang out. It was a thin, dislocated sound. "Come on, we have to hurry. Jesus, I don't even know where it is."

She clutched her things and ran straight-legged across the tarmac. In this part of town the apartment blocks stood haphazardly around. Wide spaces stretched between them.

"Are you sure it's this way?" The sound seemed to him to come from a different direction.

"How should I know? It's a new church."

"It's your town. I say we go this way." They walked and ran in spurts. A low circular building lay off the road ahead of them, surrounded by tilled land. Cars had pulled up outside. Some drivers, with no sense of decorum, had driven right up to the doors.

"Asha is my only cousin. We didn't know each other at all as children. I remember meeting her at confirmation or something, but that was all. She didn't go to the same school. Somebody asked me once, that Asha, she's your cousin, isn't she? And I said, Nooo, I don't think sooo. I was embarrassed that I didn't know her, that was all. I was afraid she might ask me something about her. And just imagine that person went straight back and told Asha and then her mother knew and she said never speak to those people again. So I used to see someone like her in the street and think hmmm, maybe that's her, but she doesn't look like someone who's just had a baby. She probably doesn't recognise me any more. I grew up quickly. For a while. People said they didn't know me."

Anna spoke rapidly. He found it hard to follow her sometimes.

"But you got to know each other?"

"Oh yes. I jumped out at her and said, you're my cousin. Straight away we got on well. She's just like me. Same fashion, same way we laugh at mad things. But a different physical shape." She closed one eye and traced a curved outline with her finger. The woman standing before them now tilted her head, made a pretend frown.

"This is my favourite cousin, Asha. Asha, this is Stefan."

'Pleased to meet you." Asha wore a dull brown bodice with criss-crossed strings drawn in a knot. She looked wholesome.

"We're late," Anna remembered. She ran the last few yards to the church, heels clacking up the steps.

They filed along the pews. Each clasped something in the hand: Stefan his jacket, Anna her handbag, Asha her décolletage. They sat bolt upright and prepared their minds for an hour of blankness.

Children stood patiently in the aisle, swaying perceptibly. "Child psychologists agree," the priest said, "that the age of criminal responsibility begins around eight years. Though you may teach these children, they are not a product of that teaching. What is the nothing out of which a child creates a conscience?" These were strange words for a priest. Stefan looked up to check for the white collar. He tried to follow the sermon, if it was the sermon, for he was not sure what stage of the mass they had come in at. But the words seemed to fall back to traditional priestly matters. The woodcut stations of the cross, stained glass windows, smoke from incense imposed their own discipline. He woke from this to realise it was still the homily and there was at least an hour left to go.

One child turned his head, grinning and inviting others to grin with him at this outlandish garb. Never been in a church before, Stefan could see, looks delighted at the whole dungeons and demons atmosphere.

One of them was hers. Maybe even this one.

The thought made him queasy, the profane secret hidden at the heart of the world. He eyed her sideways, this Asha, the tied cleavage she wasn't thinking about, the country garb she wore. She looked like any girl who might catch his eye in a bar. There was nothing to suggest another person had come out of her, all those years ago when he had been repeating his school certificate, never as much as pummeled a girl's ass in his hand. He would have been the one to snicker when she walked past in the yard. Could she tell that when she shook his hand?

Anna on his left tugged at his elbow. Time to kneel. She joined her hands and bent her head forward. Her genuine fervour shocked him. During the six weeks he'd known her there had been nothing to suggest this. Perplexed, he fell to his knees beside her. As he did so his abraded penis caught in his underwear and he winced.

They had gone to the sports bar the night before. This was a flat-roofed building built to be a changing room for bathers at the lake. A gully ran down the centre of the room. It didn't feel right to get drunk in a place of hard tiled surfaces. Three old men stood by the door and drank their beers. It was perhaps more comfortable than sitting on the steel chairs.

"Here is where me and the girls used to sit. We spent all the last year of school here, every night. Then I passed the exams and never came back. The barman asked one time, Where's the spiky-haired girl with the, and he trailed a strand of hair between his eyes, like I always used to have. Will she ever be back, he asked."

She was happy for him to see these places that now felt like relics of the past. He too thought back six years, a noisy disco night, a gaggle of girls at tables, and just one among many he could have got to know, though of course he didn't really know her yet.

They stumbled through the woods surrounding the lake. It was another secret place. He tripped her up and let her fall on top of him. Twigs and briar ground into his back. She didn't get off him and he moved his hands over her. Lights from the street filtered through the trees. He knew that from the bright road nothing could be seen in the pitch black forest. But it is hard to believe in one's own invisibility. He backed her up against a tree, both trying to find a foothold on the bulbous roots. People walked home from the bar on the road outside, talking in loud voices.

They waited until no-one was on the road before emerging. The undergrowth caught at their feet, scratching and stabbing their ankles.

"So this is where the town girls bring their boyfriends," he said.

It was the wrong thing to say.

"Do you think I take boys in the woods to fuck?"

"No," he said.

"Do you thing it's my habit to take boys in among the trees to make them spew?" Her face was pinched together in hatred. She walked on ahead of him. He jogged up alongside. She swerved so as not to see his face, walked with straight steps, seeing nothing but the path at her feet.

"I didn't know what I was saying," he tried.

"You bastard. You could have said something to make me happy. And instead you come up with the most horrible thing."

She cried all the way home. He felt exposed; people would see them. A stranger in town, a sobbing local girl. This was the end of the road. He had not thought that words could have such an effect. He had not meant anything. It felt trite to just say sorry. Like putting a penny in the right slot.

He caught up with her again at her doorstep. She faced him, letting him see her tears, the wrong he had done her. "Say something," she said, "Say something that would make me happy."

And so he did.

The children craned their necks to see the action; two priests blessing a basket of loaves. And now the procession came down the aisle at a stately pace, a loaf was handed to each child, who kissed it and held it forward with horizontal forearms. A pose more iconic than the modern paintings in the alcoves. The new church could not yet afford statues. A teacher passed along, keeping order in the lines. Close to the end now, Stefan thought to himself, took a deep breath and glanced around for a window to look through. He was thinking the same thing again half an hour later when the priest was reading out a list of those to thank: the parents, the flower arrangers, the bakers and many others.

It was over. Anna bent over to exchange whispers with one of the communion girls in long satin robes. The girl was brimming with excitement, her braided rope flailed out. Her fingers dug into the thin crust of the loaf. She tripped inside her long robe, two and a half steps to every one of Anna's.

"This is the most cleverest and sexiest girl you'll ever meet," said Anna.

The girl squirmed in giggles.

"And she had to memorize pages of things for today." The girl took a rolled sheet from her sleeve and handed it to him. She looked nothing like Asha.

"And her name is Monika."

"Hi Monika."

"Say something funny to Monika."

The garden was already full when they got there. The church was too small to hold everyone. Guests milled about from table to table. A few men stood under the eaves closely observing the activity. They had the look of people waiting for their chance to come. From time to time one offered a hand to the women carrying out trays of food. Wide boards of shaped melon with strawberries and kiwis, plates of cold meats, white sausage, gherkins, chicken drumsticks.

Then a screech of excitement, the communion girl, dragged her by the hand to meet the grandmother. Stefan felt his hand firmly gripped. He was thinking of the mother's puzzling behaviour that morning. He felt closed in by the tables and cluttered trays of food, and the men standing so still and pointlessly against the wall. Though he hadn't eaten breakfast he was not at all hungry.

"This is my grandmother. She has all her wits about her, and isn't doddery at all yet." said Anna.

The old woman placed her hands on his shoulders so he had to stoop down. Hunker down Stefan, like a good boy. Where are you from, she asked him. She told him she had lived there for five years, the people there were nice people and could be trusted. Stefan nodded sincerely.

There was no beer or vodka on the tables; it was not that type of occasion. He chose some cold cuts on a plate for himself. "Whow," he breathed out. It was meant to indicate how hot it was. Asha smiled at him and tightened the lowest string on her décolleté. He rolled his eyes to show how ridiculous an idea it was that he would be looking at her cleavage.

Time for photographs, Asha and Anna under the cherry blossom, little Monika between them. Wait, Asha said, running to pick up an axe that was lying outside the woodshed. Monika squealed and struggled to escape. Asha held her by the shoulder and poised with the axe aloft. Cameras snapped, people chuckled uneasily, a voice called out for a proper pose.

The mixture of roast meats and exotic fruits was intoxicating enough for Stefan. Some of the men sneaked out and came back to stand by the shed with bottles of beer behind them on the windowsill. He was offered one, but didn't accept. It was all right for them, but perhaps not for him.

"What was the axe for?" he asked Asha. Music was playing. "What?" she said and leaned forward. With a slow movement he reached down and tightened her front strings. "My goodness," she laughed, flinching back at last, "you'll have to watch yourself." He picked up a slice of melon, panicking at the thought that the daughter - was her daughter, and he really had forgotten the connection. Her brown eyes mocked him, as though forgiving him a boyish joke.

"Have you ever been abroad?" he sought a random exit from the situation.

Anna came back, and the two women were soon laughing about the old days, growing up as kids (apart), and a place called the cellar.

"Her father is such a madman. You wouldn't believe it. He used to pour methylated spirits through a loaf of bread and squeeze out the alcohol. So one morning he went to the local shop and said 'a loaf of bread please'. The shopkeeper narrowed her eyes at him. 'What do you want it for? Your good wife bought bread at eight this morning, why do you want bread at this hour?' And she threw him out like a stray dog.

"So he went to the cosmetics kiosk and says, 'Good morning madam, a bottle of Przemyslaw aftershave please.' And the lady moves the packages and looks him in the eye. 'I know your type,' she says, 'A half-litre of aftershave, eh? And you with a wife and child.' And Bartek throws up his hands. 'Jesus fuck. No bread, no aftershave? I'm going for a beer.'"

The chair legs squeaked across the boards. "Steady on," he said, and pushed the mass of female limbs back into position. A hand clutched at the tablecloth and tugged it in spasms. "No bread, no aftershave," Anna squealed again, "God, he was a laugh."

"And what was that about the cellar?"

"When Asha was little Bartek went mad and chased them round the kitchen with an axe. Parasites, he roared. You're sucking the life from me. Asha and her mother ran out of the house and down to the cellar. Later when he was asleep they sneaked back and took mattresses and blankets with them, and set up house in the basement. They threw out the old junk he had there and made it nice and comfortable. Set up a bed on several logs, brought down a radio."

"It was so embarrassing to go to the shops," Asha smiled, "They used to give me extra food. I wanted to stay in all day and hide. We lived off instant soups."

"And meanwhile 'the lord of the realm' roamed freely in the three rooms upstairs, playing music at maximum volume day and night and night and day."

"Bartek," Asha explained, "had dreams of being a star. He ran a rock 'n roll radio station for three days, until the police drove up and took away the equipment. The three days of being a radio star went to his head. He was never the same after that. He used to write letters to foreign DJ's, even to the bands themselves in England and America. There was never any reply. Those bastards have me on their files, he used to say."

"More likely the British radio stations had him on their files. Warning: Don't answer this Polish nutter."

"That explains the audio tape. He's still a big music fan. I know more about music than anyone else in this godforsaken village, that's what he said to me."

"He probably does," conceded Asha.

"The maestro of the absolutest crappiest seventies hits," said Anna.

"Will he be along later?"

Asha looked at him, puzzled. Was this a joke that has gone over her head?

"Invite Bartek?" said Anna. "You mean, the Bartek we were just talking about? Are you mad? He'd drink the water from the flower vases."

"Nobody here would speak to him," said Asha. "He hasn't left the room in years."

"But he is well remembered," laughed Anna.

Stefan laughed too. He had tried to think things back into the domain of the normal. That all things were, at the back of it all, ordinary. But they weren't. In a room on the fourth floor the dead man sits at a table splicing reels. Nobody here pretended it was otherwise. Blood like creosote, preserved beyond his time. He'd make a good corpse, laid out straight in a coffin of the same colour. A fine noble corpse.

He looked with mixed admiration at this ruthless woman, incredibly a year younger than him in years. She smiled at him, a patronising smile, to one who could never understand the intensity of her life, a mocking smile to one who will touch with fingertips and withdraw from the burn.

"Monikoo, show 'Uncle Stefan' your presents." The chubby little communion girl trotted over. He followed her into the house, down a corridor to a newly-furnished room. She showed him her set of beads made from milky purple amethyst stone.

"How much money did you make today?" he asked. She was momentarily shocked, waited for a sign that this was a joke.

"I'm only keeping a hundred and giving the rest to mama."

"You're a good girl. A hundred is enough for anyone."

"It's loads of money," she agreed. "Have you got one of these?" She showed him a pocket games machine.

"No. I couldn't afford one."

Monika looked pleased at this. She was an ordinary plausible kid, he thought. He didn't think at all of Asha when talking to her. And it was good so.

The girl went back out to the yard. He poured a jug of water in the kitchen. It was as warm and humid as May can get. The promised rain had not arrived. "Asha," he said to the cupboard. She had given herself to some sneering local fuckwit who probably boasted to his mates over a bottle of mocne. And he at that age would have been the one to listen in and snigger. Afraid to look any good-looking girl in the eye.

Six years in London had changed him. He was above village taboos. The child made no difference to him, she was a nice kid, that was all. He was ready to bear any consequences. His was the kingly power, he had seen what he wanted and was worthy of it now. She thought herself beyond touch because of the child. She had learned to despise the small-town admirers.

She walked past, he blew her a kiss.

"Asha, it's good to see you."

"Anna was wondering where you are."

"Anna is a nice girl."

"I'm sure she is," she laughed. "You already got some water? Better take some glasses too." Her bare arms stretched past him to get some. He passed his hand around her, lightly, so she turned to him, a puzzled look on her face. Their bodies shifted off balance, crushed against each other.

Then a dizzying crack to his jaw. Tears clouded his vision and he stumbled back thinking, that noise, that was me being hit. And then he thought, that was no slap, that was a punch, and to his amazement he's on the floor and she's not there. He was ashamed: under an evil influence he had attempted to assault a young mother, to take sexual advantage of her, no, he was shocked: the violence bred into her had reared its head. There were no borders to what she was capable of. Or no, she had only intended to slap him, but the glass was in her hand. Perhaps she hadn't noticed the glass in her hand. All posibilities are equal, there is no starting point to think about what has happened, no reason, no proportion. She was nice to hug.

A sharp pain shot vertically up his cheekbone. He realised now why it is named the eyetooth. Realised too, that those who have been chased to the basement by a man with an axe do not know the bounds of normality.

He got up, staggered for the bathroom. In the corridor he saw the front door open, and thought, briefly, about leaving. He splashed water into his mouth and spat. Gargled and spat several times but the water still ran red. His heart was pumping too fast, the blood flowed too fast. Holding back his head, he cooled his forehead with a wet cloth. Slowly he reasoned himself back to normality. She had hit him with a heavy water tumbler. No teeth were broken, only a bit loose. No sirens were wailing for him, or her, no women screaming.

He waited as long as he safely could before he would be missed, freshened his face one last time in the cool water.

"Tooth infection. Flared up on me again," he mumbled his way past a couple of the leaning men. At the end table three pairs of eyes watched him, awaiting his next move. He had no idea what they were thinking.