Eleventh floor

 

The bus door hissed open just in front of her. She stepped onto the sidewalk with some hesitation. She was actually helped by a man with a suitcase standing right behind her, who first cleared his throat slightly, then jabbed her lightly between the shoulder blades with his finger. She gave in to the suggestion and got off at the bus stop almost involuntarily. But she wanted to come here. Right here, right now.

It was Thursday, five in the morning, and a surprising number of restless souls were wandering the dark blue world. From somewhere in the distance, the sound of a police siren drifted through the air. It was amazing that anyone would still want to break the law at five in the morning.

Weronika was beginning to regret not wearing something warmer. She ran out of the house in a thin jacket, good for a nice spring afternoon at best. But she was too preoccupied to think about things as mundane as clothes. She grabbed the first coat she came across, threw it on, and ran to the bus stop. Before she could get really cold—before she could go back for her down winter jacket—the bus arrived. She spent the next half hour in a seat in one of the back rows. She wasn't much warmer, and the bus was almost empty. But she curled up in her seat, hunched over, and there she remained motionless for thirty minutes. It felt good. Comfortable. She stared out the window to her left at the dark blue world outside, at the streetlights, which, in her opinion, were more harmful than helpful. When the bus stopped at the right stop, she struggled to rise from her seat. She felt numb and stiff. Her back ached, and she couldn't feel her legs. She walked as if she had no knees—on stiff, straight legs, unsteady and cautious, as if she were about to fall.

Trembling and chattering, she crossed the empty road on those stilts and continued across the vast lawn. Nominally, it was a lawn, but last year's grass had long since died, and the new grass hadn't sprouted yet. In the meantime, the local dogs had to make do with this patch of crusty, brown earth.

She walked between the apartment buildings, taking each step with increasing confidence, without the overwhelming feeling that she wasn't walking but roller-skating. Heavy winter boots—combined with her summer jacket, a glaring stylistic inconsistency—clacked rhythmically on the asphalt, the sound echoing through the empty streets of the estate, among the gray walls of the apartment buildings.

She stopped at one of the stairwells, beneath the covered entrance, and pressed the intercom button. She waited a moment, and when she heard no response, she pressed it again. Perhaps ten, or perhaps three, seconds passed—but patience wasn't her strong suit, and the biting frost was making her lose it completely.

"I'm listening," a sleepy voice said.

"It's me," Weronika replied curtly, and that was enough, because the buzzer sounded. She yanked open the door and stepped into the warm hallway.

Five in the morning wasn't her usual time here. But Piotr had once told her he'd always find time for her, any time of day or night. If he were a romantic fool, she'd be more lenient. She'd come at eight, maybe nine, because romantic fools like to sleep in, unless you could serve someone a romantic breakfast in bed—and that wasn't until around ten, no sooner. But Piotrek was the man. A bit of a warm mess, but when push came to shove, she could always rely on him. And now Weronika had come to hold him accountable for that promise.

She got into the elevator and pressed the top button. The doors closed, and she slowly made her way to the top floor. Weronika stood in the corner of the shabby cabin, painted some psychedelic mint green. That's exactly what she looked like—like a child relegated to a corner. Despite the harsh, dark makeup, the purple lipstick, and the almost eighteen years of her age, Weronika had the beauty of a doll, or a little girl. Large, perpetually sad, worried eyes, and a permanently pouty mouth. Dressed in worn trousers, a baggy sweater, and a light jacket, she looked like a grunge cartoon.

The elevator stopped on the top floor. Weronika sighed heavily and reluctantly stepped out of the cabin.

Piotr was already waiting for her in the half-open door. In the few moments it took her to get upstairs, he'd even managed to put on some makeshift clothes. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He didn't have time for more. He stood barefoot in the doorway.

Weronika gave him a piercing look, but didn't say a word. Piotr stepped back to let her into the apartment and, without a word, closed the door behind her and locked it.

"What's wrong?" he finally asked. They stood in the hallway, and she stared stubbornly at the ground.

She sighed heavily and looked up at him.

"It's over...

" "What?" Piotr grimaced. "What are you talking about?

" "I can't stand it any longer..." she replied, shaking her head.

"Lala, what kind of bullshit are you talking about? You wake me up at some completely abstract hour and now you're talking complete nonsense to me!

" "We have to talk..." Weronika said in a sepulchral voice. That had to be enough of an explanation. That was enough for Piotr to know that what Weronika had come for would take more than five minutes.

"Come in, sit down... I need to make myself some coffee..." Piotr said. He rubbed his sleepy, sleep-swollen face. "Want some too?

" "Yes."

She entered his room and collapsed onto the old, worn-out couch, completely limp, like a marionette whose cords had been cut. She took off her jacket, struggling with it until she broke out in sweat. The room was warm, hot even, so even in her sweater, she felt stifling. She tossed it carelessly over her jacket. She sat waiting for coffee in a Hello Kitty T-shirt. She scowled at the Anthrax and AC/DC posters above Piotr's bed. It was to the sounds of Black Lodge that they'd met in the pub, and before they'd introduced themselves, they'd chatted for a solid half-hour about their music. Weronika had all their albums; Piotr missed Armed and Dangerous and Among the Living. They'd talked all night—about Anthrax, AC/DC, and life in general. Word by word, she'd fallen head over heels in love with him.

And now he had to listen to her tell him it was over.

He was her best friend, after all.

Piotr set the coffee down on the table by the sofa. He sat down on the unmade bed opposite her and took a long sip of his hot coffee.

"Well, you can talk to me now," he said. "What's the end of it?"

Weronika didn't answer for a long time. She took the glass and prayed over it for a long moment. She sipped slowly and lingered. Finally, however, she put the coffee down.

"I want to end all this," she said. "Leave. Forever."

Piotr ruffled his brows.

"Have another drink of that coffee; I don't think you've woken up yet. You haven't gotten enough sleep, something came over you in the middle of the night, but it'll pass. Take a sip, or get some sleep, you can sleep on my bed. You'll see when you wake up; you'll laugh about it yourself.

" "Piotr..." Weronika sighed heavily. "It's not like it just popped into my head out of nowhere, when I went to the fridge for a drink last night." I've been sleeping three hours a night for the past few days, and today I haven't slept at all.

"Then you should sleep even more, you won't last long.

" "Look... You think I want to end this so badly because I can't sleep... But it's the other way around! I can't sleep because I want to end it so badly. I think about it all the time. I toss and turn, just waiting for the right moment.

" "And when do you plan to?" Piotr asked, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"I don't know..." Weronika shrugged helplessly. "As soon as possible. I'd like to today. But I don't know..."

The boy got up from his semi-reclining position and sat on the bed. He was going to make fun of her a bit, but it wasn't funny anymore. She was starting to scare him. The funny cartoon sounded deadly serious, and it chilled him.

"But... why? What the hell? Why? What's the matter with you?

" "Because it doesn't make sense anymore."

"What doesn't make sense?

" "Nothing."

- What do you mean, nothing? Am I supposed to swallow this? Sorry, but I think I deserve a slightly more comprehensive answer!

Weronika sighed heavily. She took a breath for a longer statement.

"Existence hurts," she said. "More and more. This isn't some metaphorical, metaphysical Weltschmerz anymore. It's neither a hangover nor a headache. Everything just hurts. Every muscle in me aches, every bone aches as if broken in a thousand places, every inch of skin itches. My eyes burn. My ears buzz. I'm parched. I can barely breathe. I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack. I don't want to suffer anymore. I don't want to be here.

" "But understand that all this, all this pain, comes from here," he said, tapping her lightly on the forehead. "You've got it into your head that you're moving out of this body, and that's why you're subconsciously uncomfortable in it. That's why everything hurts. And I have to knock it out of you, and all this pain, the tearing, the burning, and the hangover will be gone in an instant."

"Piotr, it's not going to be okay. You can talk until your throat is raw, and maybe you'll outsmart me, and I'll stay today. But what good is it? You'd have to try to convince me all over again tomorrow. You won't be able to. And even if you're more patient than I think, you'll get bored after a month. Either that, or you'll go crazy, because how long can you listen to a woman who's already booked a one-way ticket to heaven and has no intention of giving it back? You'd end up throwing me out the window, or even jumping yourself.

" "Let's try," Piotr said in a challenging tone.

"Piotr, you're sweet, but naive. You want to treat the symptoms, and that's good, but true treatment involves removing the causes, not just the effects. And you can't do that. You can't fix everything.

" "What do you mean: everything? Isn't it going well with your parents? Something's wrong at school? Come on, that's all there is to it; it's not the end of the world.

" "Of course not. And my problem doesn't end there either." The fact that I can't get along with my mother and that my father is a complete stranger to me is nothing. I could struggle through these few years and then escape to a better life. But, you see, I can't see that better life. I can't imagine it. I, Weronika, won't have the beautiful, sweet life I want. I'd like it to be good. I'd like to have some influence on it, to be able to change something, to do something. But I can't, and that drives me to despair. You can get through anything if you have a goal. But I don't have one. I don't want to. I can't achieve anything anymore. I'm struggling in school. I don't know if I'll pass my final exams. Besides, even if I do, my grades are so poor that wherever I go with this certificate, they'll spit on my head. I can't do anything. I have no talents, no skills. I won't be a seamstress, just like I won't be a singer. So what? What will I be? A supermarket saleswoman? I'd rather just shoot myself in the head right now.

- And the good life is just work?

"I'd like to say no, that there are more important things, but let's face it: for most of the week, all year round, you work half a day or even longer just to put food in the pot, and what's most important in life, to have a few pennies on you that the state can rip off before it starts flaying you.

" "Maybe you'll get lucky?"

"Maybe?" Weronika snorted. "'Maybe' isn't enough. Perhaps statistics are some consolation for optimists. Unfortunately, from my personal statistics, 'maybe' isn't enough. So far, I haven't had much luck, so why should I delude myself that my luck will suddenly take a 180-degree turn and everything will be all right, beautiful?

" "You're not even eighteen. You still have your whole life ahead of you.

" "A whole life... This life is slipping through my fingers! I'll get nothing out of this life if I spend it on something that doesn't bring me any joy. And that's how it's been so far." And it'll get worse, and my fingers will get thinner and thinner, and before I know it, I'll be seventy years old, just as stupid as I am now and a thousand times more tired. And I'm already running out of energy. I'm not going anywhere. I've just been clambering forward my whole life, trying to get out of one mess, and just when I think I've gotten out, I fall into even worse shit. And so on, over and over again... How much longer can I go? Apparently, it's my fate to be at the bottom of this mess, and I refuse to accept that fate. If I can't make my life my own way, at least I can end it. Alone, and whenever I want. After all, everyone dies eventually. So what, should I wait? How long? Ten years? Twenty? Fifty? Wait until I turn into one giant wrinkle, my stomach, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, or I start peeing? Suffer so much just to die anyway? It's illogical and unfair. The world should become simpler the more you know. A person should become stronger with age and better prepared for what is to come. They should understand and know everything they need to know. But that's not the case. And the only thing that prepares us for death is each new wrinkle. Childhood was simple, when I knew little and understood little. It's not easy now, but at least I can still get up on my own, open the window, and jump out. It's a luxury I'd like to take advantage of while I still can.

"You talk as if you were at least forty. Give yourself some time, and you'll see for yourself, there will be something more to this life...

" "What?

" "You'll meet a nice guy, then you'll see for yourself how beautiful life can be, and how little it takes.

" "Piotr, it's not so easy for me..."

"And you think it's easy for me? No matter how you look at it, you have more choices... Many more possibilities than I do..."

Piotr was gay. He preferred boys, and he'd even come to terms with it over the few years he'd had to live with it. But he didn't do anything about it. He didn't lift a finger to find someone. He didn't want to. He didn't need to. He even laughed at himself, because he'd become at least as picky as a straight man who only wanted to date a model on the cover of Vogue. The few gay men he knew didn't suit him in any way. He didn't want an anorexic with a limp wrist, just as he didn't want a woman. Besides, he wasn't exactly a doll-like man either. Tall, well-built. Well-groomed, but not overly so. He didn't go to the pool or tanning salon every day. He didn't dye his hair. That's how he was—in tune with his sexuality, but somehow beside it. He was a pale Anthrax fan with shoulder-length hair, wearing a loose skull T-shirt. He had an impressive rasp in his voice.

"Thanks... Now you've completely killed me," Weronika muttered. "Piotr, I'm not looking anymore. I've already found him.

" "Oh! What's the problem?

" "I love you, Piotr. I've loved you, from the very beginning, from that night.

Actually, he was bi. Or maybe he just wanted to be bi. Anyway, he had a girlfriend. Aneta. Maybe he was bi for her, or maybe he was with her to be bi. He clung to that relationship with his claws and wouldn't let go. He was lovely, wonderful, and masculine—and Aneta liked it sometimes, not other times. She'd trample him into the ground, and the next day she'd bandage his wounds, only to drag him through the mud again the next day. She didn't destroy him by tossing him around like a floor rag. He was sensible—if she'd consistently destroyed him, he would have dumped her. The problem was, she was completely inconsistent. She couldn't decide whether she loved him or not, and as part of her unstable emotional policy, she treated him to alternating trips to heaven and hell. Until she finally broke down and dumped him, a few days before he met Weronika. And that evening, when they started talking with Anthrax and talked all night, he drank heavily. It ended with him crying on her shoulder an hour before the club closed and telling her face—that face radiating with the love that could have saved her—that he hated women. And he never changed his mind. He finally abandoned bisexuality—the belief that he could love either way. He no longer believed in anything. He was gay, though only in passing, in a completely passive way.

Weronika didn't change her mind either.

"Jesus..." Piotr sighed. "Jesus... I'm sorry..."

He stood up. He wanted to embrace her, to hold her. But she pushed him away, so he sat back down on the bed.

"Come on," she muttered. "That would only make things worse. I don't want to know what it's like to be in your arms. I don't. It would kill me. Because it's not for me. I love you, and you don't love me, and that's killing me. I've known for a long time that nothing will come of this. After all, you told me yourself that night that you hated women. I should have backed out then. But I kept coming, thinking something would change. It won't," she smiled bitterly. "This year has been sweet torment. A kind of masochism that I was very comfortable with. But it can't last forever. Because it's nothing concrete. Not love on your part, not simple friendship on mine. This is a tension that will either weaken and leave nothing, absolutely nothing, or it will burst and destroy us both. I can't do that to you, just as you can't let me move in with you. You know it would end badly."

Piotr continued to stare at her in stupefaction. He felt ashamed. He felt like a monster for what he'd said while drunk a year ago. It had been too strong. He didn't hate women. He simply didn't feel anything for them, at least not the way Weronika would have wanted him to. And he was ashamed of that, too, even though he had absolutely no control over what he felt or how he felt.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered. He didn't know what else to say. They had been silent for several minutes.

"Don't apologize... You know, I feel better already..." Weronika said, smiling weakly.

"See?"

He glanced toward the window. Outside, a new day was dawning. A new day. New hope. New possibilities.

"I've spilled the beans, and I feel better already," the girl continued in a more cheerful tone. "Now I have no doubts. I didn't want to leave in anger. There was so much uncertainty. I couldn't know for sure if what I felt was sincere or furious. But a new day has dawned, and nothing has changed," she said with a smile. "I'm leaving at peace with myself. That's... comforting."

Piotr didn't know what to say. He looked at her intently—without anger or fear. And she smiled faintly. He saw in her eyes that Weronika wanted this, and that nothing would stop her. He knew that even if he grabbed her by the hand, tied her to a chair, and locked her in a room, she would find a way. She would take advantage of a moment of distraction and slip away—forever. Besides, immobilizing her wasn't the point. That wasn't the point of making someone happy. He could agree or not, but the decision was hers.

"I'll go now... I'll go..." Weronika said after a few minutes of silence.

Piotr only nodded.

They both stood—she from the couch, he from the unmade bed. They stood a step apart, not moving a muscle. They looked into each other's eyes. Neither reached out. She didn't stand on tiptoe to kiss him, and he didn't bend down. That would only make matters worse.

"I'll go now," the girl said.

She went to the window. Beyond the glass, she could see gray apartment buildings and a gray sky. Gray clouds hung over the world like a dirty floor cloth, polishing the sky to a shine for better days.

She opened the window, and a cold breeze blew into the warm room. It ruffled her cherry-blond hair. She almost recoiled. She was wearing only a T-shirt, and it was chilly outside. Goosebumps rose on Weronika's skin. But it was too late to back down. There was no point in going back for a sweater or a jacket.

She placed her hands on the windowsill and climbed up the radiator. She crouched in the window like a gargoyle. She couldn't straighten up because she'd bump her head on the frame.

She leaned forward. At any moment, she was going to lose her balance and fall a long, long way down. Ten stories. A few very long seconds.

She straightened and pushed off the windowsill. She spread her arms out to her sides.

She spread her wings.

Huge, three-meter-long wings shot out from between her shoulder blades—where the man with the suitcase had jabbed her with his finger to get her off the bus—and ripped her shirt. Her bra burst.

Shreds of gray fabric with a Hello Kitty print slowly drifted down, buffeted by the wind.

Weronika soared on spreading white wings. Snow-white feathers gleamed even in the pale gray morning light. The girl flew into the sky, covering her bare breasts with her hands. She felt no cold. A ray of golden light

pierced the clouds. Weronika smiled. He was her guide. She flew toward him, white wings flapping.

Soon the golden light illuminated and warmed her. She rose on warm currents. The clouds parted before her.

Piotr stood at the window, watching calmly as Weronika left—as she disappeared into the clouds.

The golden ray faded and the clouds moved restlessly, closing the entrance to heaven.