Vive la champagne!

 

In the whole family, Grandma Mirka is the most honest. She always says what she thinks. Many who have a similar condition have suffered it firsthand, Grandma never has. Despite her sincerity, she's so charming that even if she calls someone a complete idiot, they're still happy. One day, she burst into my room early in the morning, her expression as if she were preparing for a crusade.

"Come on, Dawidek, let's go to the Frogs."

I looked at her carefully; she looked healthy.

"What the hell," I asked. "Grandma hates foreign capital, and everyone knows she shops at the local store, even though the service there is terrible and they rip you off.

" "Did I say we were going shopping?

I went to the Frogs, just for peace of mind. We were walking along, pushing the basket as if you were going to buy God knows what, and then this busty hostess on roller skates pulled up and squeaked.

"What can I do for you?"

Grandma was scared at first, but then she got over it. She narrowed her eyes and hit her with a thick pipe.

"Kiss my ass, you little girl!"

The busty girl almost jumped off her roller skates. We continued walking, and at one point, Grandma started acting like she was insane. She had tics and convulsions, moving like a mannequin that had escaped from a window display and was pretending to be human.

"What's your problem, Grandma?" "

I'm distracting you.

" "Whose?

" "Those snitches on the surveillance.

" "What?" "

They're spying on us with cameras. You go to high school and you're as stupid as a cow's tail. They're spying on us. If I pretend to be crazy, they'll stop.

" "But why should they stop?

" "Because they do!

Then I found out I'm an imbecile. These days, you have to think outside the box. I'll finish high school and what's more—shit! I'll be dumber than before, and I won't even have a job." And a man without a profession is nothing more than a pussy. Saying these words, Grandma was packing various things into the basket, even though she swore she wasn't going to buy anything and hadn't even taken her wallet. Things became clear in the dressing room. Grandma expertly began ripping out the chips.

"What are you doing? Leave it!" I started shouting. "

Shut your mouth, you little brat! Are you trying to expose me? Put your own grandmother in prison? That's my grandson. He wanted to lock up Grandpa with the mice in the basement and put Grandma in jail. Do you know what they do to women in prisons like that?

" "That's theft, isn't it?"

"You're a fucking philosopher. I've never taken someone else's property in my life. God forbid. Someone else's property is sacred. But it's ours, the frogs have been feasting on our blood. Fucking French women." When Hitler invaded us, they didn't even send a dog with a lame leg to the rescue, not even a cat...

- Grandma, maybe it's better to go straight to a German store?

- What difference does it make? I'm not very forgiving. I've forgiven the Germans.

"And the French?"

"Never the Frogs. Okay, I'm done. Now for the most important thing. The most valuable items, CDs, and other trinkets, you put in your underwear. To keep anything from falling out, you put two pairs. And ideally, for professional results, you sew the underwear together at the bottom, creating a pocket.

" "And what about you?" "

Completely professional. Zippered. Then, larger items, things you can't get through the gate, you consume on the spot."

After these words, Grandma started opening the champagne. I admit I lost my nerve, I ran away without even looking back. I found hell at home. My father was calling some of Grandpa's friends in the police. My mother, after swallowing a packet of pills, started looking up a recipe for stomach pumping in an encyclopedia. There was no doubt Grandma had been kidnapped. Later, it turned out the matter was more complicated. The champagne cork popped off some important frog-eater, who started shouting that it was an attack, that the Polish women wanted to murder him, that he was firing everyone, and that he was screwing this whole mess, and so on. Luckily, he was shouting in French, because if Grandma had heard what he was saying about her beloved country, she would have hit him with a bottle, and it was a tempered glass bottle. They let Grandma out before evening, completely drunk, because they hadn't had time to tear her away from the champagne. The police were very polite, even wanting to stop by Grandpa Włodek's for a moment, but Mother told them he was already asleep and it was best not to wake him, because he might go crazy at the sight of Grandma drunk. As they left, they shook Grandma's hand and told her it would be the last time. Grandma stuck her middle finger up at them, like in an American movie. It wasn't until the next day that her face fell, and not because of the hangover. The Frog-eaters brought a bill for eight hundred złoty. It must have been very good champagne.

A fair judge.

My father's fascination with Pierluigi Colina grew into an obsession. The old man shaved his head three times a day, slathering it with creams so it glowed. When the match was in full sunlight, he looked like St. Joseph in a cheap painting. He glowed, and no one dared look in his direction. The players cursed him silently, calling him a bald son of a bitch, which, frankly, was close to the truth. It wasn't even about Grandma's staidness. Sure, Mirka had her ups and downs in her youth, but not enough to call her a whore in her old age. My father's wickedness was more complex. He was corruptible, easily corrupted, and for that, he could be forgiven. In the third division, everyone took part. Not only were the rates for officiating matches exorbitant, but the job was stressful. Various, sometimes non-soft, objects were thrown onto the pitch. Every so often, a horde in scarves would rush in, intent on lynching. During the breaks, various shady characters would threaten to cut off further body parts if the outcome didn't meet their whims. In such circumstances, taking was normal. However, Father defied the established rules. In his greed, he was so unbridled that he took from both sides. He promised both sides victory. He lied to everyone. He judged fairly. He did nothing to distort the outcome of a sporting competition. That was pure wickedness!

Everything has an end, though, as my father learned during the memorable match between FC Pogoń Pustaki Jezierski and Konkordia Przechlewo. Pustaki had a chance of promotion to the second division, an unprecedented achievement in the club's eighty-year history. President Jezierski reinforced this chance with an envelope presented to my father before the match. Immediately afterward, my father received a "gift of friendship" from Konkordia's captain – a certain Korpalski, nicknamed "Kopa" for his atomic two-footed strike. My father didn't even count, just sighed, "Let heaven's will be done," and blew the whistle. The match, as is often the case, unfolded as it should. Pogoń were the better side and led by two goals at halftime. "Kopa" Korpalski began to sniff out a scam. When Pogoń led four-nil after fifteen minutes of the second half, "Kopa" decided to take matters into his own hands. And since Konkordia's defensive barbed wire prevented him from shooting at the opponent's goal, he began aiming at his father's head. "Kopa" not only had dynamite in his legs, but he wasn't blind either. At one point, he aimed and blasted. Seeing the ball approaching, his father began to whistle. As it later turned out, this wasn't the smartest idea. The whistle became permanently lodged in his trachea. It would seem that my father was now the perfect referee, even better than Colina, who had to wear a whistle on a string. The reality proved more brutal. My father was stripped of his professional license by the Polish Football Association. It was a black ingratitude for his heroism at the station. My father completely broke down, stopped shaving, and within a few days, gray hair covered his head. My father sat all day watching Eurosport, quietly whistling, waiting for death. Instead of death, Lutek, his best friend from school, came to see my father. Hearing of his friend's misfortune, Lutek decided to help. The next day, his father reported to his new job promptly at eight o'clock. It was a very decent job. No bribes, no rampant hooligans, no aggressive CEOs, zero stress, although the responsibility was considerable. His father became a birdwatcher. He was supposed to whistle for starlings that tried to shit in the wrong place. Even though the old man returned that afternoon with white spots on his jacket and hair, he looked happy. At dinner, he whistled Morse code, saying that what he was doing now was more important than refereeing the Champions League and that he intended to remain a birdwatcher for the rest of his life, even if UEFA's chief referee, Volker Roth, begged him on his knees. He also added that when President Johansson called from Geneva, he should tell his grandmother to kiss his ass.

To tell the truth, it is not known whether the father said so, because the only person who more or less understood Morse was Mirek's grandmother, who, despite her innate honesty, confabulated from time to time.