Entanglement. Part 1

Entanglement.

Zygmunt Miloszewski.

Zygmunt Mioszewski, born in Warsaw in 1976, is a journalist and a rising star of Polish fiction. His first novel, The Intercom, was published in 2005 to high acclaim. In 2006 he published a novel for young readers, The Adder Mountains, and in 2007 the crime novel Entanglement. The author is working on screenplays based on The Intercom and Entanglement and is writing a sequel to the latter, also featuring Public Prosecutor Teodor Szacki.

For Monika, times a thousand.

"No one is evil, just entangled."

- Bert h.e.l.linger.

1.

Sunday, 5th June 2005.

The revived Jarocin festival is a big success, with ten thousand people listening to rock bands Dem, Armia and TSA. The JP2 generation takes part in the annual prayer meeting at Lednica. Zbigniew Religa, cardiac surgeon and politician, has announced that he will run for President and that he wants to be the "candidate for national reconciliation". At the tenth anniversary "Aviation Picnic" air show held in Goraszka, two F-16 fighters are on display, prompting an enthusiastic response from the crowd. In Baku the Polish team thrash Azerbaijan 3-0, despite a poor display, and the Azerbaijani trainer beats up the referee. In Warsaw, police distribute grisly photos of car-crash victims to drivers as a warning. In the suburb of Mokotow a number 122 bus catches fire, and on Kinowa Street an ambulance overturns while carrying a liver for transplant. The driver, a nurse and a doctor are taken to hospital with bruising, the liver is unharmed and is transplanted that same day into a patient at the hospital on Stefan Banach Street. Maximum temperature in the capital - twenty degrees, with showers.

I.

"Let me tell you a fairy tale. Long, long ago in a small provincial town there lived a carpenter. The people in the town were poor, they couldn't afford new tables and chairs, so the carpenter was penniless too. He had a hard time making ends meet, and the older he got, the less he believed his fate could ever change, although he longed for it more than anyone else on earth, because he had a beautiful daughter and he wanted her to do better in life than he had. One summer's day a wealthy gentleman called at the carpenter's home. 'Carpenter,' he said, 'my long lost brother is coming to see me. I want to give him a dazzling present, and as he is coming from a land that is rich in gold, silver and precious stones, I have decided to give him a jewellery box of extraordinary beauty. If you succeed in making it by the Sunday after the next full moon, you will never complain of poverty again.' Naturally the carpenter agreed, and got down to the job straight away. It was unusually painstaking and difficult work, because he wanted to combine many different kinds of wood, and to decorate the box with miniature carvings of legendary creatures. He ate little, and hardly slept at all - he just worked. Meanwhile, news of the wealthy gentleman's visit and his unusual commission soon spread about the town. Its citizens were very fond of the humble carpenter, and every day someone came by with a kind word and tried to help him with his woodcarving. The baker, the merchant, the fisherman, even the innkeeper - each one of them grabbed a chisel, hammers and files, wanting the carpenter to finish his work on time. Unfortunately, none of them was capable of doing his job, and the carpenter's daughter watched sorrowfully as, instead of concentrating on carving the jewellery box, her father corrected all the things his friends had spoiled. One morning, when there were only four days left until the deadline, and the craftsman was tearing his hair out in desperation, his daughter stood outside the door of their cottage and drove away everyone who came by to help. The whole town took offence, and now no one ever spoke of the carpenter except as a boor and an ingrate, and of his daughter as an ill-mannered old maid. I'd like to tell you that although he lost his friends, the carpenter did in fact enchant the wealthy gentleman with his intricate work, but that wouldn't be the truth. Because when, on the Sunday after the full moon, the wealthy gentleman called at his house, he drove off at once in a rage, empty-handed. Only many days later did the carpenter finish the jewellery box, and then he gave it to his daughter."

Cezary Rudzki finished his story, cleared his throat and poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos. His three patients, two women and a man, were sitting on the other side of the table - only Henryk was missing.

"So what's the moral of the story?" asked Euzebiusz Kaim, the man sitting on the left.

"Whatever moral you choose to find in it," replied Rudzki. "I know what I wanted to say, but you know better than I do what you want to understand by it and what meaning you need right now. We don't comment on fairy tales."

Kaim said nothing. Rudzki was silent too, stroking his white beard, which some people thought made him look like Hemingway. He was wondering if he should refer in some way to the previous day's events. According to the rules, he shouldn't. But nevertheless...

"To take advantage of the fact that Henryk isn't here," he said, "I'd like to remind you all that it's not just fairy tales that we don't comment on. We don't comment on the course of the therapy either. That is one of the basic rules. Even if a session is as intense as yesterday's. We should keep quiet all the more."

"Why?" asked Euzebiusz Kaim, without looking up from his plate.

"Because then we use words and attempts at interpretation to cover up what we have discovered. Meantime the truth must start to take effect. Find a way through to our souls. It would be dishonest towards all of us to kill the truth through academic debate. Please believe me, it's better this way."

They went on eating in silence. The June sunshine was pouring in through the narrow windows that looked like arrow slits, painting the dark hall in bright stripes. The room was very mo dest. There was a long wooden table with no tablecloth, a few chairs, a crucifix above the door, a small cupboard, an electric kettle and a tiny fridge. Nothing else. When Rudzki found this place - a quiet refuge in the very heart of the city - he was thrilled. He reckoned the church rooms would be more favourable for therapy than the agro-tourism farms he had previously hired. He was right. Even though there were a church, a school, a doctor's surgery and several private businesses located in the building, and the azienkowska Highway ran past it, there was a great sense of peace here. And that was what his patients needed most of all.

Peace had its price. There was no kitchen, and he had had to buy the fridge, kettle, thermos and cutlery set himself. He ordered the meals from outside. They stayed in single cells, and also had at their disposal the refectory, where they were sitting now, and another small cla.s.sroom where the sessions were held. It had cross-vaulting, supported on three thick columns. It wasn't exactly St Leonard's Crypt in the Wawel Cathedral, but compared with the tiny room in which he usually received his patients, it almost was.

Now, however, he was wondering if he hadn't chosen too gloomy and enclosed a location. He felt as if the emotions released during the sessions remained between the walls, bouncing off them like rubber b.a.l.l.s, and hitting anyone who had the misfortune to be there on the rebound. He was barely alive after yesterday's events, and he was glad it would soon be over. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

He drank a sip of coffee.

Hanna Kwiatkowska, the thirty-five-year-old woman sitting opposite Rudzki, was turning a teaspoon in her fingers, without taking her eyes off him.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I'm worried," she replied in a wooden tone of voice. "It's a quarter past nine already, but Henryk's not here. Perhaps you should go and check if everything's all right, Doctor."

He stood up.

"I will," he said. "I think Henryk is just sleeping off yesterday's emotions."

He went down a narrow corridor - everything in this building was narrow - to Henryk's room. He knocked. No reply. He knocked again, more firmly.

"Henryk, time to wake up!" he called through the door.

He waited a second longer, then pressed the handle and went inside. The room was empty. The bed had been made and there were no personal belongings. Rudzki went back to the refectory. Three heads turned in his direction simultaneously, as if belonging to a single body. It reminded him of the dragons in children's book ill.u.s.trations.

"Henryk has left us. Please don't take it personally. It's not the first or the last time a patient has given up the therapy rather abruptly. Especially after such an intensive session as yesterday's. I hope what he experienced will start to work and he'll feel better."

Hanna Kwiatkowska didn't even shudder. Kaim shrugged. Barbara Jarczyk, the last of his three - until recently four - patients, glanced at Rudzki and asked: "Is that the end? In that case can we go home now?"

The therapist shook his head.

"Please go to your rooms for half an hour to rest and calm down. At ten on the dot we'll meet in the cla.s.sroom."

All three - Euzebiusz, Barbara and Hanna - nodded and left. Rudzki walked around the table, checked to see if there was still some coffee in the thermos and poured himself a full cup. He cursed, because he'd forgotten to leave room for the milk. Now he had the choice between pouring some away or drinking it. He couldn't stand the taste of black coffee. He tipped a little into the waste bin. He added some milk and stood by the window. He gazed at the cars going down the street and the Legia soccer stadium on the other side. How could those bunglers lose the league again, he thought. They won't even be the runners-up - slaughtering Wisa and the 5-0 win two weeks ago were all for nothing. But maybe they'd at least manage to win the cup - tomorrow was the first semi-final against Groclin. Against Groclin, whom Legia had never once beaten in the past four years. It's like another b.l.o.o.d.y curse.

He began to laugh quietly. Incredible how the human brain works - able to think about the soccer league at a time like this. He glanced at his watch. Half an hour to go.

Just before ten he left the refectory and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. On the way he pa.s.sed Barbara Jarczyk. Seeing him go in the opposite direction, away from the cla.s.sroom, she gave him a questioning look.

"I'm just coming," he said.

He hadn't had time to put the toothpaste on his brush when he heard a scream.

II.

Teodor Szacki was woken up by what usually woke him on a Sunday. No, it wasn't a hangover, thirst, or the need to pee, the bright sunlight that was coming through the straw blinds, or the rain drumming on the balcony roof. It was Helka, his seven-year-old daughter, who jumped onto Szacki with such force that the Ikea sofa bed creaked beneath him.

He opened one eye, and a chestnut curl fell into it.

"Do you see? Granny put curls in my hair."

"I see," he said, pulling the hair from his eye. "Pity she didn't tie you up with them."

He kissed his daughter on the brow, pushed her off and got up to go to the toilet. He was in the doorway when something moved on the other side of the bed.

"Put the water on for my coffee," he heard a mumble from under the duvet.

Housewives' Choice, like every weekend. At once he felt irritated. He had slept ten hours, but he was incredibly tired. He couldn't remember when this had started. He could lie in bed half the day, but even so he got up with a bad taste in his mouth, sand in his eyes and a pain flickering between his temples. It made no sense.

"Why don't you just ask me to make you coffee?" he said grudgingly to his wife.

"Because I'll do it myself," she said, though he could hardly distinguish the words. "I don't want to bother you."

Szacki rolled his eyes upwards in a theatrical way. Helka laughed.

"You always say that, but I always make it for you anyway!"

"You don't have to. I'm only asking you to put on the water."

He peed and then made his wife some coffee, trying not to look at the pile of dirty pots in the sink. A quarter of an hour washing-up, if he wanted to make the promised breakfast. G.o.d, how tired he was. Instead of sleeping until noon and then watching television, like all the other guys in this patriarchal country, he was trying to be a super-husband and super-dad.

Weronika dragged herself out of bed and stood in the hall, examining herself critically in the mirror. He gave her a critical look too. She'd always been s.e.xy, but she'd never looked like a model. However, it was hard to find an excuse for the double chin and the spare tyre. And that T-shirt. He didn't insist on her sleeping in ribbons and lace every night, but b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, why did she keep wearing that T-shirt with the faded message "Disco fun" that must have dated back to the days of food parcels? He handed her a cup. She glanced at him with puffy eyes and scratched herself under her breast. She said thank you, gave him an automatic peck on the nose and went to take a shower.

Szacki sighed, pa.s.sed a hand through his milk-white hair and went into the kitchen.

"So what's really the matter with me?" he thought, as he tried to unearth a washing-up sponge from under the dirty plates. Making the coffee took a moment, the washing-up a second moment, breakfast a third. Just one stupid half-hour and everyone would be happy. He felt even more tired at the thought of all the time that went trickling through his fingers. Hours stuck in traffic jams, thousands of hours wasted in court, pointless gaps at work when the most he could do was play Patience while waiting for something, waiting for someone, waiting for waiting. Waiting as an excuse for doing nothing whatsoever. Waiting as the most tiring profession in the world. A coalface miner feels more rested than I do, he mentally pitied himself, as he tried to put a gla.s.s on the drying rack although there wasn't any room for it. Why hadn't he taken the dry things off at the start? d.a.m.n it all. Does everyone find life so tiresome?

The phone rang. Helka picked it up. He heard the conversation as he went into the sitting room, wiping his hands on a tea towel.

"Daddy's here, but he can't come to the phone because he's doing the washing-up and making us scrambled eggs..."

He took the receiver from his daughter's hand.

"h.e.l.lo, Szacki here."

"Good morning, Prosecutor. I don't want to worry you, but you're not going to fix scrambled eggs for anyone today. For supper maybe." He heard the familiar voice and sing-song eastern accent of Oleg Kuzniecow from the police station on Wilcza Street.

"Oleg, please, don't do this to me."

"It's not me, Prosecutor, it's the city that's calling you."

III.

The large old Citroen sailed under the central support of witokrzyski Bridge with a grace that many of the cars appearing there as pushy product placement in Polish romantic comedies would have envied. "Maybe that Piskorski is a scammer," thought Szacki, remembering the scandal about the financing of this and a second new bridge that had lost the former mayor of Warsaw his job, "but the bridges are standing." Under Mayor Kaczyski it was unthinkable that anyone would dare to make a decision about an investment on that scale. Especially before the elections. Weronika was a lawyer at the City Council, and more than once she had told him how the decisions were made nowadays - to be on the safe side, they weren't made at all.

He drove down into the Powile district and, as usual, breathed a sigh of relief. He was on home ground. He had lived in the Praga district across the river for ten years now, but he still couldn't get used to it. He had tried, but his new mini-homeland had only one virtue to his mind - it was close to central Warsaw. He pa.s.sed the Ateneum Theatre, where he had once fallen in love with Antigone in New York, the hospital where he was born, the sports centre where he learned to play tennis, the park that stretched below the Parliament buildings, where he and his brother used to fool around on sledges, and the swimming pool where he had learned to swim and caught athlete's foot. Here he was in the City Centre. At the centre of his city, the centre of his country, the centre of his life. The ugliest axis mundi imaginable.

He drove under a crumbling viaduct, turned into azienkowska Street and parked outside the arts centre, after a fond thought about the soccer stadium that stood two hundred yards further down, where the capital's warriors had only just made mincemeat of Wisa, the Krakow team. He wasn't interested in sport, but Weronika was such an ardent fan that, like it or not, he could recite by heart the results of all the Legia matches for the past two years. Tomorrow his wife was sure to head off to the match in her tricolour scarf. The semi-final of the cup, wasn't it?

He locked the car and glanced at the building on the other side of the street, one of the weirdest constructions in the capital, next to which the Palace of Culture and the elazna Brama estate seemed like examples of far less invasive architecture, quite discreet really. There used to be a parish church here, the Virgin Mary of Czstochowa, but it was destroyed during the war, when this was one of the points of resistance during the Warsaw Uprising. Left unreconstructed for decades, it had been a creepy place full of gloomy ruins, the stumps of columns and open cellars. When it was finally resurrected, it became the epitome of the city's chaotic style. Anyone who drove down the azienkowska Highway got a view of this redbrick chimera, a cross between a church, a monastery, a fortress and Gargamel's palace. And now a corpse had been found here.

Szacki adjusted the knot in his tie and crossed to the other side of the road. It began to spit with rain. A patrol car and an unmarked police car were standing by the gate. A few rubbernecks emerged from the morning mist. Oleg Kuzniecow was talking to a technician from the Warsaw Police Forensic Laboratory. He broke off the conversation and came up to Szacki. They shook hands.

"Off to Party headquarters on Rozbrat Street for c.o.c.ktails afterwards, eh?" quipped the policeman, straightening the facings of his jacket for him.

"The rumours about the politicization of the Public Prosecution Service are just as exaggerated as the gossip about extra sources of funding for Warsaw's police," retorted Szacki. He didn't like people making fun of his clothes. Whatever the weather, he always wore a suit and tie, because he was a public prosecutor, not a greengrocer.

"What have we got?" he asked, taking out a cigarette - the first of the three he allowed himself daily.

"One body, four suspects."

"Christ, not more alcohol-induced slaughter. Even in this b.l.o.o.d.y city, I didn't think you could find a drinking den in a church. And to cap it all they've done it on a Sunday - there's no respect." Szacki was genuinely disgusted, and still furious that his family Sunday had fallen victim to the killing too.

"You're not entirely right, Teo," muttered Kuzniecow, turning in every direction to try and find a spot where the wind wouldn't blow out his lighter flame. "As well as the church there are all sorts of businesses in this building. They've sub-let s.p.a.ce to a school, a health centre, various Catholic organizations, and there's also a place for religious retreats. Different groups of people come here for the weekend to pray, talk, listen to sermons and so on. Right now a psychotherapist has hired the rooms for three days with four of his patients. They worked on Friday, worked on Sat.u.r.day and parted ways after supper. This morning the doctor and three of the patients came to breakfast. They found the fourth one a little later. You'll see what state he's in. The rooms are in a separate wing; it's impossible to get there without going past the porter's lodge. There are bars on the windows. No one saw anything, no one heard anything. And so far no one's confessed either. One body, four suspects - all sober and well-to-do. What do you say to that?"

Szacki stubbed out his cigarette and took a few steps over to a dustbin in order to dispose of it. Kuzniecow flicked his own dog-end into the road, straight under the wheels of a number 171 bus.

"I don't believe in stories like that, Oleg. It'll soon turn out the porter slept half the night, some yob went in to steal some money for booze, b.u.mped into the poor neurotic on the way, got even more scared than he was and stuck a knife into him. He'll crow about it to one of your narks, and that'll be the end of it."

Kuzniecow shrugged.

Szacki believed in what he'd said to Oleg, but he felt rising curiosity as they entered through the main door and headed down a narrow corridor to the small cla.s.sroom where the corpse was lying. He took a deep breath to control his nervous excitement and also his fear of coming into contact with a body. By the time he saw it, his face was the picture of professional indifference. Teodor Szacki could hide behind the mask of an official, a guardian of law and order in the Polish Republic.

IV.

A man in a pale-grey suit, aged about fifty, a bit stout, with lots of grey hair but no bald patch, was lying on his back on the floor, which was covered in a greenish lino that didn't go with the low cross-vaulting at all. Next to him stood a grey old-fashioned suitcase that didn't have a zip to close it, but two metal locks, and was also secured by some short straps done up with buckles.

There wasn't much blood, almost none at all, but Szacki didn't feel any the better for that. It cost him a lot to take a firm step towards the victim and squat down next to his head. He let out a bilious belch and swallowed his saliva.