. The sharp September sun woke him. He lay on the sand of a bright, cool beach, gray clouds drifting overhead, occasionally revealing the blue sky. His head ached, his tongue felt dry, and the roar of the gray-blue sea and the cries of seagulls echoed loudly in his heavy head. But he lacked the strength or courage to get up. He didn't know how he'd ended up in this remote place, much less where the girl next to him had come from, her back turned to him, wearing a short black dress over blue jeans, curled up in a ball, breathing lightly, muttering sleepily to herself.
He tried to remember something, anything that would clue him in on how he'd gotten here. He closed his eyes and recalled his earliest memory from last night.
The pub. Evening; he couldn't remember which beer he'd had, not his third, not his fourth. Not even his fifth. He was talking to the girl at the bar. The same one who was now lying next to him.
"I think we know each other from somewhere?" he began.
He couldn't remember what she'd said, nor her face; it was blurry. Later, he'd left the bar with her and gone to the river. They'd talked, he couldn't quite remember what about; he thought he'd mentioned something about his girlfriend, but she wasn't particularly bothered. Later, he remembered buying champagne but not opening it. They were planning something. Something crazy and stupid.
The next scene was the train station. A large, spacious building, almost empty at this late hour. Their footsteps and laughter echoed loudly. They stopped at the timetable board and tried to read it. Then he bought their tickets and went to the platform. He also remembered their compartment, unremarkable, and the gray-haired conductor with enormous sideburns. At the word "tickets for inspection," they both burst into loud laughter.
He still couldn't see her face, but he remembered how she laughed. Her mouth was open in wild laughter, her eyes fixed on his, as if testing to see if he found it funny too. It felt strangely familiar; surely someone had laughed like that in his presence before. Someone he'd known before, he just couldn't remember who. It was a bit like déjà vu.
His head still heavy, he looked at her slim back and shapely butt. He couldn't see her head at all; it was probably cradled somewhere in his arms, out of his sight. He could have sat up and simply looked at her face; it wouldn't have been blurred now. Instead, he stared back at the glaring gray sky.
With a sluggish movement of his hand, he reached into his pocket for his phone. It was dead, he couldn't even check the time. Finally, he forced himself to sit down on the sand, still not looking at the girl's face. He glanced back and saw a path through the woods, probably leading to town. He glanced at the girl lying next to him, but carefully, so as not to see her face yet. Then he looked again at the path, then at the girl again, and decided to wake her. He leaned close to her face and was about to say something—he didn't know what yet—when he was suddenly frozen. He froze, his mouth hanging open awkwardly, a shiver ran down his spine, and a cold wind blew in from the sea. She woke up; probably because of the wind, looked ahead, and pushed herself up onto her hands. She turned her head and stared into his terrified eyes.
"Marek?" she asked as if still in a dream, as if she hadn't seen him yet and wanted him to suddenly appear.
"Iweta?" he asked in disbelief.
"Who were you expecting?" She sat down across from him, crossing her legs and rubbing her eyes. She wore no makeup, so nothing smudged on her face. She didn't need makeup, anyway; her thick, expressive black eyebrows perfectly complemented her dark eyes and straight, shoulder-length black hair. That was enough for her to be beautiful. "You look terrible," she said. "
I guess," he replied. "You, on the other hand, as always, blended in wonderfully with the landscape."
She looked around. Everywhere was gray and gloomy; somewhere in the distance, a newspaper or other piece of trash danced with the wind and the roar of the sea, which would have looked frozen if it weren't for the constant movement.
"I'm not that..." She made a vague gesture with her hands, accompanied by a strange grimace; as if she wanted to show him the entire landscape at once and in that gesture encompass its full depth.
"I know," he said, "it's just a joke... Let's go eat something. And drink. Most importantly, drink."
They both stood up and headed toward the path. On the way, they passed an empty bottle of Russian champagne, the kind that cost five, maybe six zloty. Marek noticed it, almost stopped, as if he'd seen something unreal, something he'd once dreamed of but didn't actually exist; but she continued on, unfazed.
***
They walked along the gray sidewalk of the gloomy seaside town. They passed signs announcing vacant rooms and the few cars of off-season, weekend tourists. They walked quickly toward a corner pub with a garden facing the sea. Marek held a one-liter carton of juice in his hand and sipped every few steps. A moment later, they were seated at one of the tables overlooking the sea, waiting for the waiter to approach them.
"What can I get you?" he asked casually, before he even reached their table.
"A beer and something to eat for me," he said. "And for you?
" "The same for me."
"What can I get you for food? Yes, you know, specifically.
" "I don't know. It depends on what you have," he said, taking a sip of juice.
"We have all sorts of things..." the waiter said, grimacing as if thinking was causing him excruciating pain. "But people usually order grilled fish and chips."
They looked at each other in silence for a moment.
"Fine," she said.
Marek reached into his pocket for the half-opened packet of painkillers and took one pill. He washed it down with juice .
"This is the third one," she said. "Aren't you exaggerating? Those pills really mess with your body.
" "Yes?" he asked, then took another pill and washed it down with the rest of the juice. He looked into her eyes and waited for her reaction. She laughed a little artificially and stared at the white plastic table.
"You haven't changed a bit," she said. "Nothing in three years, nothing at all.
" "You haven't either.
" "How do you know?" she asked. "Don't pretend you remember anything from yesterday. You were drunk like never before." Maybe only more so when you met me, but you needed it less then.
"Okay," he tried to smile, but he could never fake a smile, and it always came out even sadder than if he hadn't smiled at all. "I don't remember anything. I don't really know how I ended up here, much less with you. Maybe the fact that I was drunk as usual is an explanation; I've done more than one pointless thing when I was drunk. But how on earth did YOU end up here with me? Unless it was me who ended up here with you?
" "It's true," she began. "It's true that it's my fault we're here, but I thought you wanted it too.
" "Where did you get that idea?
" "Or at least you did once," she continued, as if she hadn't heard his question. "Back in high school, we really wanted to escape this town. Me and you; don't you remember? Run away somewhere, take the first train we found and never come back. But we broke up..." she sighed. "I guess we realized there was nowhere to run."
"It's not like that," he said, "there's nowhere to escape to, not nowhere to go. There's simply no reason to escape anymore. And there weren't any then either. We invented them because we were convinced that a good escape requires a good reason. But there wasn't one at all. That's why we didn't succeed.
" "We succeeded," she said. "We're here. Over a hundred kilometers from home; it's not the other side of the world, but at least it's a good start."
He smiled, a little more naturally this time, and started to reply, but the waiter brought their meals and beer, so they began to eat. They ate in silence for a while, then he said, a little shyly,
"Now I know you haven't changed at all. You had to stand your ground; if you planned an escape, it had to happen. There was simply no other option."
"Indeed," she said. "There was no other option.
" "Don't think like that anymore. You succeeded because I was drunk, but it's the end of our, or rather your, great escape from nothing."
A strange grimace crossed her face, but it wasn't disappointment.
"Yesterday you seemed nicer."
"Yesterday I was drunk and everything amused me, today I'm hungover and everything annoys me."
They were silent for a long moment, having finished their fish and now only ate their fries and drank beer. The sky had brightened, and the clouds were slowly giving way to the sun.
"You mentioned Martha to me yesterday," she said. "About your new girlfriend. You said she was a good girl and that she loved you. But you didn't tell me something. I'm sure you were hiding something from me, something important, something that's bothering you. I think that's what you wanted to escape from, and that's why we're here." And, just to be clear, it was your idea to get on that ridiculous train and drink champagne by the sea at sunrise…
"Wait," he said. "You just said it was your fault we're here, and now you're suddenly saying it was my idea…"
He fell silent and began to stare at her as if she were in an interrogation, holding a half-eaten French fry in his right hand like a cigarette. Iweta avoided his gaze, staring down at her plate and blushing like a small child caught stealing candy. Marek couldn't resist, he threw a French fry under one of the tables, causing the waiter watching them to glare at him out of boredom, which, however, only Iweta noticed, and only out of the corner of her eye, not paying much attention.
"You're doing it again," he said. "You can't seem to figure it out any other way. You have to keep lying, constantly plotting and scheming, as if life were a soap opera and you were both its director and leading lady." She didn't say anything, in fact, she didn't move an inch as he spoke. "I don't know why I keep talking to you, or why I'm saying this, because you're never going to change. I've always been the one who had to change, adapt, play your games...
" "Sorry," she said, rising from the table. She walked briskly toward the street, practically running to the intersection, and there she stopped, looking around as if unsure which way to go. Marek couldn't see; the street was behind him. After a moment, he glanced back. He knew he'd see her there; she couldn't get out of his sight; it would be too untheatrical. She stood in her black dress and light jeans, waiting for him to approach her. He cursed under his breath, finished his beer, and started toward her. He was almost out of the garden when the waiter caught up with him.
"Hey, buddy," he said, "and the bill?"
"How much?" Marek suddenly spun around and glared at the thin, though tall, waiter. The waiter stood slightly frightened, leaving a comfortable distance; Marek was much more built than him, looked strong, and with his pale face, a backdrop for the dark circles under his eyes, he didn't look like someone who cared about paying the bill.
"Twenty-six.
" "How much?" He repeated incredulously.
"Twenty-six zlotys. For both courses.
" "Here," he said, pulling the last banknote from his wallet and some change, "and tell the cook the fish was awful."
He walked away toward Iweta, who looked like a hitchhiker wandering aimlessly around the world, waiting for an opportunity to arrive. He tried to approach her very quietly, hoping to surprise her, but it couldn't work; she knew perfectly well he would come for her. He grabbed her small, white hand and turned her around. His face was still firm and tense, only under the influence of her gleaming black eyes did it melt like ice and seem to soften. They stared at each other; they didn't say anything, everything was contained in those glances: all the "I'm sorry" and all the "It doesn't matter," all the "I won't be there anymore," and all the "I know you'll be there anyway, but it doesn't matter." They kissed, or rather, just brushed their lips, then embraced each other. The cool breeze brushing against them chased the clouds away for good, giving the sun free rein.
***
They were silent for a long time, walking along one of the town's few streets. Everything seemed different now than it had been in the morning; bathed in sunlight, it was more cheerful, almost like a vacation, though even for them, the vacation was drawing to a close. But they weren't thinking about vacation, or school, or any of the mundane topics a young person thinks about at the end of September.
"I know you think it's because of me," she said after a few seconds of studying his face. "And I know you're right." Everything that happened three years ago, and the fact that it suddenly stopped happening—I know you think it was because of me and my dreams, which you simply called lies. Because they were indeed lies, only pretty lies. And sometimes shared lies.
"It doesn't matter anymore," he said. "Forget it; we have to figure out what happens now."
He wanted to say something else, but an incomprehensible man's shout interrupted him. A moment later, a tall boy with a hood over his head ran toward him from around the corner, holding a black object. Behind him ran the man who had been shouting earlier, and now he was shouting again, more clearly:
"He stole my wallet!"
Marek wasn't about to move out of the thief's way, though the man seemed to have expected it. When they were only two meters apart, Marek quickly stepped in front of the thief and punched him square in the face. The man, not expecting the blow, didn't even have time to protect himself, flew back and fell stunned onto his back, his head hitting the pavement. He didn't move. The man chasing him stopped beside him and glared at the panting Marek. He wasn't sure if he could safely take the wallet; he was much smaller than Marek, though he looked a bit older. Finally, Iweta reached into the thief's hand and handed it to the owner.
"Thanks," he said.
They all stood for a moment, looking at each other and at the thief lying there like a log.
"Is he alive?" Iweta asked. "He's
alive," Marek replied. "He's breathing; I can see his chest moving.
" "You hit him hard," said the wallet's owner. "Can I repay you somehow?" Everyone looked at each other again. "Maybe you could come over for tea or something?" Unless you're in a hurry somewhere?
"No," she said hurriedly, "we're in no hurry."
The wallet's owner was named Adam and lived with his wife Karolina in a small, single-story house, painted blue, now faded by sun and wind. The interior was modestly furnished; a single sofa faced a small television, and between them was a folding camping table covered with a red tablecloth. The kitchen was separated from the living room by a countertop. There was also a bathroom and a single bedroom. That was Adam and Karolina's entire kingdom, which Marek and Iweta were entering.
"You've settled in nicely," Iweta said. "Have you lived here long?
" "Two years," Karolina replied as they sat down around the ridiculously small table. "It was Adam's idea to live here. He likes quiet, small towns.
" "What do you do for a living?" Iweta eagerly surveyed the entire apartment and the people she found incredibly interesting.
"We both work. I'm a waitress at the only pub in town, and Adam works as a mechanic at the only garage in town."
"Actually, neither of us has much to do during the off-season," Adam pointed out.
"You're right," Marek said, standing up and pointing to a door in the wall. "Which one is the restroom?"
"The one on the right.
" "Thanks."
He headed in the indicated direction and a moment later disappeared behind a rectangle of wood embellished with a round doorknob. In the bathroom stood an old bathtub surrounded by tiles that had once been blue, then pale blue. Marek thought he'd love to take a bath, but he didn't want to abuse the hospitality of his new friends. When he returned to the room, glasses of tea were already on the table. Only now did he notice the lamp hanging more or less above the table, giving off a slightly greenish light, probably because of the green shade that looked as if it were made of tissue paper. Something else hit him along with that: Adam and Karolina were now sitting closer together, and Karolina, snuggled up to her husband, smiled shyly at him. Seeing him, Iweta put down the glass she was about to drink from and, looking him meaningfully in the eye, said,
"Karolina and Adam agreed to let us stay the night.
" "But..." he began, but stopped himself from finishing what he wanted to say. Iweta's bright gaze, heated, joyful, and at the same time cunning, told him almost everything; she was starting one of her games again, building a new self and a new world around her. She was building it on her lies and on the ignorance of these two: Adam and Karolina, now clearly proud of themselves and of helping two young people. "That's great."
***
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