Irises

"Ha ha ha," she always laughed like that, fake laugh, when someone said something bad about her. Izabela remembers her mother's words: "Put on a good face for a bad performance." And the outbursts of the ladies gathered around her. Izabela's mother was an actress.

You could feel the dislike for her, infinitely beautiful and delicate, in the air.

"Danusia, can you tell me if I'm not nice?... People don't like me," she once said drunkenly.

"You're quite right. Nobody likes you here.

She doesn't remember it. Which doesn't mean it doesn't stick with her to this day. She doesn't get drunk anymore. She's not confident. Nothing is certain here, not even death. Yes, yes!

She used to wear high-heeled shoes, black and very sexy. When she felt like looking older than she was then (17), she'd put on zero-degree glasses and a red jacket. She doesn't know where she got the money for it. She inspired admiration. But probably only admiration.

A pack of cigarettes pressed to her innocent, small lips, unkissed by anyone at the time. The beautiful scent of irises. She broke down and lit up for the first time at 13. She doesn't regret it, but why would she? Her father suggested it. She didn't know he was her father then. And when she found out, she didn't want to believe it at all. He filled her with immense admiration. She didn't know anyone (she probably wouldn't know anyone) who walked through the supermarket turnstile with their pockets filled with stolen goods with such certainty.

"There he is!" she shouted as soon as they left, kissing him on the cheek. He smiled with one corner of his thin lips and always pulled out a pack of irises.

"Irises for good children," he said quietly. When she was still young, this theft had been a game for her, a childish emotion (similar to waiting for a visit from Santa Claus at Christmas). Then she grew increasingly nervous. Over time, she found Irises for Good Children in her pocket and quickly, greedily swallowed the contaminated air.

"Damn. You're very good," she whispered once, as they both smoked and sat outside the large supermarket hall in the restaurant's garden. Her black hair, unevenly cut, was pulled back into a ponytail, strands flying around her head, carried by the wind. Her eyes were also black and frighteningly similar to the man sitting before her. They had never considered each other a couple. This puzzled Izabela greatly. She often thought: What's wrong with me?

She would hold her two thin breasts in her hands in front of the mirror and assess them with a critic's eye. "I have everything in place," she stated carefully. She walked away from the mirror as if from a sleeping child. Quietly, humbly. She was afraid of her opinion of herself, that one day he would realize: I'm ugly. It didn't happen. Despite this, she felt a strange distaste between her tongue. "He doesn't like me..."

"Show me that blouse," she heard her mother's grave voice behind her one day. She had completely gray hair. She was a very pretty, worn-out woman. Only no one thought of her as a carefree country girl anymore. She didn't fit in.

It was the red jacket she almost always wore when she met him. Ever since she realized she might like her, ever since Ewka whispered in her ear,

"Marcin says you have amazing eyes." The glint in her eyes made her abandon her childhood forever. She hadn't suspected that, brutally torn from it, she would return so often.

The red jacket reeked unmercifully of cigarettes.

"You smoke, great. Who taught you that?" She wondered how long it had been going on. When had she met him? I think it was then, by the garbage cans, when she and Danusia had visited every garbage can since they'd watched a TV program about the percentage of people who threw 100 złoty into the trash a day. They both wanted to be rich. Yes, it seemed simple—to go through the trash cans and simply find it!

That day's fate also proved strange. They found 100 złoty. Exactly 100 złoty, lying on the lid of the trash can, among other papers. Izabela noticed the banknote first. She screamed. Danusia started jumping and laughing.

"We're richaaate!" they shouted. They sat down. Each of them imagined something different. Danusia, a worried owner, and Izabela, a banknote missing its owner. Both burst into tears at the same moment. They

went to return it to the owner. To this day, she doesn't know if her father lied or if he really threw 100 złoty into the trash can that morning, along with the papers. In any case, he was good at pretending, because they both saw the relief on his forehead and the wrinkles in his eyes.

"Oh! Thank you!! You know what, I have a daughter just like you, about your age; I wanted to buy her a Barbie doll with that." Will you come in? They didn't want to come in at all, but they were seduced by the man and the cat behind him. A beautiful, huge, navy blue tomcat.

He didn't do anything to them. He recognized Izabela as his daughter. It's so strange when your daughter comes and brings you a lost hundred-zloty bill. He fed their empty stomachs with tea and cookies (they were very stale; Izabela subconsciously concluded there was no woman in the house).

They both loved him immediately, with the love one loves one's father. Neither of them had any. Danusia's father died ten years ago in a car accident. Izabela's father – he left when he heard he was in the belly of a beautiful, charming woman like her mother.

"A woman is beautiful until you make her pregnant," he said, completely drunk. He ran away and got drunk.

But it was Izabela he decided to win back that day. Danusia had been very jealous of him for a long time when he came to the estate and bought her lollipops. He bought a doll once, but:

"Mom was asking me a lot where I got it..." so he didn't repeat it. He didn't know how to impress her. He was a thief, after all. He'd turned to a "better path." He'd stolen from supermarkets for fun. He truly impressed her with that. She'd stuck to him like a fly to a flypaper. They'd always been together. He'd seen her mature, and that was his greatest happiness. The only thing that hurt him was that she'd abandoned all her friends for him, pinning all her hopes on him. Fine. He didn't know at all that he was ruining her life. But he'd drawn eternal pleasure from the image of her. When she was fully grown: those thin legs, those hands, forever clutching paper. Big, burgundy lips, and black eyes. After him.

"But Mom!! He's not my boyfriend!! He's more of a friend, I've known him for a very long time!! Really!!

"What's your connection to that man??!" She lost control. She slammed everything she could reach.

"Nothing, you know, nothing!! 'Maybe... he's a bit like a father to me. He's much older. '

She calmed down. She didn't tell her to quit, she didn't even encourage her. She just left and never made her breakfast again.

Looking back, Isabella decided her mother had broken down for good. She often lay in the big bed in her room, her eyes open. Across from her was a huge flat-screen TV. When they were both young—one under her skin, the other somewhere deep within her mind—they would snuggle up to each other and watch something. Not necessarily interesting, not necessarily something they wanted to watch. Each of them drifted off into a different world. That was over long ago.

When he went abroad, she lost something that had already been lost. She was afraid she would never see him again.

Then she tried to reconnect with the people she saw every day (well, maybe except for those days when she wore checkered shirts) at school.

Her black, beautiful eyes opened as if for the first time to the world. She saw thousands of situations that happened here every day. Someone loved her secretly, someone secretly hated her. For a short time, she was a confident star. Why briefly? Because then she started going to parties and drinking. She even finally had a boyfriend. Every time she kissed him, she was reminded of her father. Her mother didn't want to know what was happening. But she knew.

"My beautiful Izabell, you were an unwanted child, you know?" she said one day very late in the evening.

"I know.

" "And why are you doing all this? Is it puberty, perhaps? Hormonal surges? Or maybe... maybe it's the lack of a father?... Tell your poor mother to explain herself for being so unparental."

"I think it's because you used to invite all those actresses here when I was little," she said, though she didn't really mean it. Her mother didn't speak again that day. She fell asleep very late. Izabela heard her tossing and turning, her eyes reflecting the streetlight in the darkness.

"Let's go one night like this, so she realizes it's all her fault," she thought.