The Institute

by Jakub Żulczyk

  “Just what I think, too. Fuck you,” he replies after a while. “I’m a good guy. And you’re a fucking slut. Lesbo.”

  “Sebastian, what did you say?” she asks.

  “Stop it, Iga,” I plead.

  “Your head’s fucking screwed up. You think you know it all when you know fuck all. You think you can build a better fucking world full of fucking poofters, Arabs, sodding filthy pigs, where no one eats meat except for embryos. Fucking great world. And cunts, stupid bitches like you, who come from good homes, whose daddies are always there to help them out, leftist cunts who give their arse and think they’ll build a world just for kicks and it’ll be great because they’ve read about it in fucking Jewish TVN papers.”

  Iga doesn’t say anything; her face is drawn into a mask of fury. She turns and goes back to the kitchen. She returns to the hallway with a different plate of plain pasta and some tomato paste.

  “You know shit all about me, Sebastian, shit all, where I’ve been, who I am,” she says, sitting cross-legged and placing the plate on her knees.

  “What d’you mean, I don’t know?” Sebastian loads the last forkful of pasta into his mouth. “I know everything. I’m not one of those idiots who says they hate lesbos then jerks off when they watch two sluts doing it on the internet. I think it’s vile. Perverse.”

  “Sebastian, I’m not interested in your views. I’m really not interested,” Iga assures him.

  “When I see bitches acting the way you do, I want to fuck them up,” Sebastian adds. “I want to get up and trash them.”

  “Stop, Sebastian, for fuck’s sake, shut up!” I scream, thumping my fist hard on the table.

  “You moron,” says Iga.

  “Moron?”

  “Yes, dickhead. You’re a thick fucking Nazi.”

  “Stop it, both of you!”

  “Nazi? You’re calling me a Nazi?”

  “Yes, a thick, fucking Nazi. It’s not me who yells ‘We’ll do with you what Hitler did to the Jews, at the stadium.”

  “Fuck you, you lesbo scab.”

  Iga gets up and approaches Sebastian. He, too, gets up. I want to say “stop it” again, but it’s pointless. I walk up to Iga and pull her away from Sebastian.

  “Stop it, please, have you both lost it?” I push Sebastian in the opposite direction, but he’s taken root on the floor. He’s not looking at me – he’s looking through me at Iga, and he’s smiling. I’ve seen that smile of his outside the Cat when clueless victims reel towards him, yelling at the top of their voices, so drunk they think they can shout anything they like. When he knows he’s going to fuck somebody up. With no repercussions.

  “And you know what else fucking annoys me?”

  “Sebastian, stop it,” I repeat, louder.

  “Chicks who think they know everything because they gave their arse to some junkie in a band.”

  “Sebastian,” I plead.

  “If I knocked you up, I’d throw myself out of the window, too,” he says.

  Iga whacks Sebastian in the face. I freeze mid-move, intending to pull Sebastian away from Iga. The sound is loud, so sudden it feels as though I got hit in the face myself.

  The smile transforms into a grimace – Sebastian has become an enraged but focused beast. Nothing’s going to stop him now, I think.

  “You touch me,” says Iga. “You just touch me.”

  Sebastian takes a step forward. And another. For each step he takes, Iga takes one backwards. Sebastian leans over her face and pulls her up close. I glance at Veronica, but she’s not registered any of this; she’s still staring at the toilet door.

  I’m just about to scream when Sebastian starts to grin again and says: “Just kidding! Surely you weren’t taken in, eh?”

  “What?” Iga shakes her head, not understanding. “What?”

  “I was joking. I couldn’t give a shit what you eat.”

  But his smile doesn’t leave his face as he walks away from Iga, retreats to the wall, sits and pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. He takes one out, puts it in his mouth, then throws the packet at her.

  For a moment, we sit in silence. Veronica continues to stare at the door to the unused toilet as though willing her eyes to transform it into a way out.

  Sebastian is still smiling his shifty smile. Suddenly he gets up, runs towards Iga and slaps her on the face several times.

  Iga yells. Sebastian yanks her up by her fleece and hits her against the wall.

  “Slut!” he roars. “Fucking slut!”

  “Stop!” I scream. “Stop!”

  But Sebastian throws Iga against the door to my room. She protects her face with her hand as her back smashes through the glass, which scatters across the floor in thick, sharp pieces.

  “Stop!” I screech.

  Veronica crumples into a corner, hides her head in her hands. Sebastian is standing in the middle of the hallway, panting, raising his arms then lowering them. Iga squats among the shattered glass by the door. I see only the outline of her body as she hugs her knees to her chest. She grabs her head, trying to hide as much of her body as possible.

  I stand, run up to Sebastian, try to grab him, stop him, but he pushes me aside and says:

  “I didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to be in this fucking apartment. I didn’t want to live with you, you stupid whores.”

  He pushes me so hard I fall to the floor. He runs to the kitchen and comes back with the plate of meaty pasta mush and a fork, leans over Iga, puts the plate in her hands and, wrapping his arm around her head, says:

  “Now, you’re going to eat this all up, you hear? Lovely, yummy food. Eat it, bitch.”

  He grips her black fringe as hard as he can with one hand, and with the other he uses the fork to force the food into her mouth, smearing it all over her face. I run up to him and start pounding my fists on his head and shoulders, but he’s lost it, doesn’t react.

  “Stupid whores,” he says. “You got what you wanted. I didn’t want to be here.”

  I grab the plate, take a swing and hit him on the head with all my might. The plate breaks against his skull. Sebastian grasps his head, moves away from Iga and leans against the wall, heaving. He doesn’t say anything. Looks down. Iga slowly gets to her feet, shakes bits of glass off her clothes to the floor. Picks up the closest towel from the floor and slowly wipes her face.

  “Calm down,” I plead, not really knowing what else to say.

  Iga, panting heavily, picks the scissors up from the floor.

  “Iga, no,” I say. “Don’t, Iga.”

  Iga, scissors tightly grasped, turns towards Sebastian. I run to her, catch her hand, but she frees herself from my grip with one tug, pushes me away, approaches Sebastian and quietly and slowly says: “Well, come on. Come on, you son of a bitch.”

  Sebastian turns to her, still heaving: “You come here.”

  This isn’t Sebastian, I think. Sebastian’s a good man, it’s the situation, he’s the first to crack, somebody had to crack first. Sebastian injects something before going to the gym, I don’t know what, probably some growth hormones for horses. He’s big and aggressive. Gets carried away. He’s the first to crack.

  “You come here,” he repeats.

  Iga walks in his direction, displays the scissors, then hides them in her pocket. I can’t see Sebastian’s face, but I know that smile’s still there.

  I always assume that people are good. That’s my starting point. I’m stupid, I’m a stupid person. Maybe that’s why everything’s the way it is. People I know have to be good because I’m good. Bad people are among those I don’t know. An idiotic error in logic I’ve made throughout my entire life.

  They’re standing face to face.

  Suddenly, we hear a shout. A muffled but audible scream. A woman’s scream. It’s Anna, goes through my mind. It’s Anna. The scream isn’t coming from our apartment. It’s coming from the other side of the stairwell. Mrs Finkiel’s apartment.

  Just then, I remember the locked door w
ith the blue light. The room we didn’t enter. As though somebody didn’t want us to go in. As though what was in there wasn’t ready yet.

  “Come on,” I yell to Sebastian. “Come on! Move!”

  For a moment, Sebastian stands, motionless, then his expression changes, as though somebody is steering him with a remote control. He follows me, the screwdriver in his hand.

  “Stay in the apartment!” I shout to Iga and Veronica.

  Sebastian and I run across the landing towards Mrs Finkiel’s door. It’s wide open. We go in. The blue glow pours through the patterned glass onto the hallway floor again. A steely, cold gleam. There’s another quiet hum, not the one from the fridge. This sound is like an instrument; every now and then it changes tone. Like an orchestra tuning. Like what’s left of a used, worn tape. I know the scene from somewhere, have already seen this moment.

  I see a movement, momentarily, at the other end of the corridor. A shift in the air. A black figure. It makes a slow gesture, moving its arm up and down by its side. It is hidden, deep in darkness.

  I don’t even know whether I see it or only guess that it’s there.

  The figure starts to scream, loud, as though it is standing right next to me, screaming into my ear. But it’s still at the end of the hallway, and now it slowly moves its arm as though sending a command to something or somebody standing behind me. The scream changes into a modulated, fluid sound, ever higher, squealing like cut glass.

  “Hey!” shouts Sebastian.

  I turn towards him and his hand catches hold of my cheek.

  “Stop it,” he hisses. “Have you gone mad?”

  I shake my head; I don’t understand what he means.

  “Don’t scream your guts out, for fuck’s sake,” he says. He walks to the room with the blue glow. Signals me to follow him. There’s no figure at the end of the hallway. I repeat: there’s no figure at the end of the hallway.

  Sebastian hands me the screwdriver. He’s just about to open the door when we hear another scream behind it, short, broken, as though someone has just removed their hand from somebody’s mouth. Then there’s a quiet, pleading request:

  “No, please. My father… my father, he’ll give you some money. Please, he’ll give you money.”

  I press the door handle. The door is unlocked. I push it. Tumble in. Sebastian is right behind me.

  The room drenched in blue is just as stale as the rest of Mrs Finkiel’s apartment. One heavy, old sideboard from the fifties, on its glazed shelves a single crystal plateau and a few glasses in wicker holders. A small table. Two armchairs. Heavy curtains concealing the window and an unwashed carpet alive with moths.

  There’s nobody in the room. The blue glow is coming from the switched-on television set. As are the screams.

  We squat in front of the screen, on which we can see a well-lit room with a low ceiling.

  I think I shout “Oh, God!” and cover my mouth with my hand. I think.

  On the screen, we can see two chairs. Anna is tied to one, to the other, Robert. Their arms are tied behind the backrests, their legs tied together at the ankles. Anna is yelling, her back arched against the chair, trying to lean back as though someone is walking towards her. Robert, on the other hand, is slumped forward. Black liquid is running from his head.

  “Oh, God,” I moan through clenched lips.

  “Shut up,” hisses Sebastian, touching the screen. “What is this? Where’s it coming from?”

  A man steps into frame. He is dressed all in black, a balaclava over his head, a knife in his hand. The man walks up to Anna.

  “Don’t, please don’t, please don’t do it. I’m begging you, I’m having a baby, I’m having a baby! Don’t do it, please…” Anna coughs all this up in spasms. She looks terrified.

  The man raises the knife, approaches her and grabs her by the throat. Anna screams, the man takes a swing, and then, suddenly, the TV switches to another channel and we see the Institute hallway. There’s no one there.

  “What the fuck is this?” asks Sebastian. He walks around the TV table, peers beneath it, but there’s no video player; there’s only one cable coming from the TV and disappearing into the wall.

  “So that’s where the camera is,” I say to Sebastian. “That’s where they put the camera, on the ceiling in the hallway.”

  “But there’s nothing there. We searched the entire apartment. All of it,” he replies.

  “Then explain this to me, for fuck’s sake, explain this!” I answer, tapping my finger against the screen.

  The channel switches again. The television shows us – me and Sebastian – as if the camera were attached to the wall behind us. I turn around but see nothing.

  “What’s going on? It must be under the plaster. What is all this?” I ask.

  “Wait,” he replies.

  “There must be some other circuit here,” I state.

  He runs his finger around the place on the wall where the cable disappears. Then he stands up, shuffles to the wall unit. It doesn’t cover the whole wall. Between its edge and the corner of the room is a good two-metre gap.

  He then examines the unit, holding his breath, and tries to move it. Clenching his jaw, he puts his whole weight behind it. The wall unit is massive. Sebastian tries again. I join him, try to help. Hold my breath, clench my teeth.

  I turn towards the screen. Now we can see the stairwell, the locked grating, the cut lift cables. We lean on the wall unit again. It’s starting to budge. The wood slowly starts to scrape the floor. We put all our strength into it. I don’t ask why we’re doing this. I trust him.

  “You’re not so bad,” he says, panting.

  Suddenly, the unit stops resisting and slides right up to the wall, and we momentarily lose our balance. Only once we’ve regained it do we see that there’s a door behind the wall unit. An unpainted, dirty door with one handle.

  I look at Sebastian. Sebastian looks at me. From the wall, just next to the doorframe, the white cable resurfaces, then disappears between the door and floor.

  I look at Sebastian again. Sebastian presses the handle. The door is unlocked.

  Behind the door are stairs going up, into darkness. We hear the hum of a machine, a scraping and the sound of footsteps. Darkness, like an enormous black throat, and a penetrating chill hits us from the unheated room. I feel for the light switch. After a while comes a pale yellow glow from a single bulb, too weak to light the large, low, empty room.

  This room shouldn’t be here, I think.

  We close the door behind us. The walls of the room are yellowish, dirty, smeared. The far end of it is completely drowned in darkness. We press our eyes into this darkness and see something move. A sound like a quiet coughing up of phlegm.

  I scream and instinctively lean against the wall. My back senses something hard, and at that moment, a white, hospital-like glare explodes in front of our eyes: fluorescent strip lights along the length of the ceiling have been turned on. I cover my eyes; when I open them, Sebastian is already halfway across the room. There are two overturned chairs, a small digital camera on a tripod and a metal door on the far wall.

  Robert and Anna are tied to the chairs. I go numb, don’t feel anything.

  Anna is dead, lying on her side in a thick deep-scarlet puddle, as though she tried to curl up at the last moment in spite of the restraints. Her mouth is half-open. Her eyes are glassy and surprised like a doll’s. I don’t know why, but the colour doesn’t seem quite right. The blood looks too much like concentrated syrup; the colour needs working on.

  Robert’s throat has been slit. His blood looks more real than Anna’s. He’s covered in it, from the neck down. It’s fresh. He lies on the floor next to the chair, still tied to it. Doesn’t seem to have resisted. It looks as though he died quickly.

  Sebastian stands next to me. I don’t know what state he’s in. He’s breathing heavily, deeply. Maybe he’s scared. Or maybe something’s switched off in him, like it has in me.

  I automatically place my ha
nd on Robert’s forehead, then stand up. I don’t really know what to do. I feel I should perform some gesture, an incantation or something, but I don’t know any, or maybe I do but can’t remember.

  I point out the metal door to Sebastian, then make my way to it and start to run my hand over it. There’s no handle, no opening. Perhaps it can only be opened from the other side. The metal is the same colour as the walls – a dirty yellow cream.

  Sebastian very gently moves me aside, kicks the door as hard as he can, then kicks it again, but the only effect is a sound that makes me cover my ears: a mighty yet non-resonant gong.

  He keeps kicking the door as if in a trance: with the side of his foot, the sole, the tip, with one leg then the other. He stops, grabs the large camera with its tripod and flings it against the door as though it weighs merely half a kilo. The tripod cracks in two. He runs up to it, picks up the camera and throws it again in the opposite direction, far, with superhuman strength, and it shatters into several pieces.

  “Enough,” I said. “Let’s go back.” I gesture with my hand.

  We make our way back down the stairs. I notice that he’s limping, moving slowly, holding on to his leg.

  “You must have sprained your ankle,” I say, then squat and pull up his trouser leg. His ankle is swelling in front of my eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” he says. I want to take him by the arm, but he shakes his head. “And what about them?” he asks.

  “What about them?” I repeat.

  “Their bodies. We’ve got to do something with the bodies,” he says, nodding up towards the secret room.

  “There’s nothing we can do right now. Come on.”

  I touch his shoulder gently, but he jumps back as though electrocuted.

  “We’ve got to do something, got to,” he repeats. I can see he’s had enough.

  As we cross the doorway back into the room with the TV, I turn towards the screen, and think I scream something again, but I no longer know what.

  I can see the stairwell on the screen, the grating, torn lift cables and door to the Institute. And there now, on the landing, stands a black figure in a balaclava. Behind it, another figure, also in a black balaclava, locks the grating. And then we see the first figure open the door to the Institute and enter.