Underground

by Tobias Hill

  His voice is quick and sure but also flat, lacking the intonation of emotion. He has been drinking, thinks Casimir, and the thought surprises him. He has never seen Adams drunk. If he had been asked, Casimir would have guessed the supervisor drank often and alone. But not here. Not where he is seen and matters, on the Underground.

  He runs his nails down the undersides of his thumbs. A small pain, to help him consider.

  ‘No, I don’t. No mice. I do not see no mice.’

  ‘Bloody Jesus.’

  Adams is on his feet quickly, pushing past Casimir and Oluwo. The black man follows Adams with his eyes. Then he looks back at Casimir, his head cocked, questioning. From beyond them comes the sound of Adams and Aebanyim arguing, the shrill clang of the ventilation-shaft cover as Adams climbs up on the chair and reaches out.

  Casimir shakes his head and turns away. He hears the office door slam back as more workers come in, Sievwright and Leynes. Their London accents echo loudly, the sound trapped in the small room.

  He leans forward on the counter. With his head down, the sound of voices is diminished, cut off by the angle of walls. In this position he has some sense of privacy; the feeling of crowding is not so bad. The in-house circulars and papers are scattered where Adams left them. Casimir gathers them together, sorts them. After some time he stops. The photographs are in his hands. He remains bent forward while he looks.

  There are only two shots. The first shows one of the four platforms at the station, Casimir can’t be sure which. The other is of a woman in a street photo booth. He looks at the woman first.

  She is leaning her head against the booth’s orange background curtain. Light comes through the curtain and the pale weight of her hair. Her eyes are looking away from the camera and her smile is slight, distracted. She is wearing a man’s pinstriped shirt. The collar is too big for her; it emphasizes the leanness of her throat. Everything is grainy and just out of focus, as if the image has been enlarged from a much smaller print. Written across the woman’s shirt collar is a name in white developer’s ink: REBECCA SAVILLE.

  He puts down the picture of the woman. The other photo is a still from the station’s closed-circuit cameras. Casimir recognizes the high angle of the black sphere, the slight curve of the tracks. Next to him, he knows, Oluwo will be looking at the same basic image. The freeze-framed tunnel is crowded with people, the tops of their heads packed up to the white edge of the platform. The still is grey-white, the quality too poor to enlarge.

  A figure is falling from the crowd. Its arms reach out, instinctive, to stop the fall. The action is distant, sixty feet away or more; there is little facial detail, only the mouth’s dark smudge. Hair spreads from the turning head, blurred by movement. In the camera’s monotone it has become a startling white.

  Something else extends from the mass of people at the platform’s edge. It is hard to make out and Casimir narrows his eyes. The smudged shape resolves itself as his eyes adjust. There is a black sleeve, white skin, the suggestion of a hand behind the falling figure. Reaching out from the crowd.

  ‘Cass. Casimir? Are you not gone yet? What’s keeping you?’

  The supervisor’s voice jerks him back guiltily, as if he has pried into something private or illicit. With the sense of guilt comes an opposing impulse to go to Adams with the photographs, to ask him what they mean. The confusion of emotions disturbs him. He puts the photographs down where Adams left them, arranged on the dimly lit counter. Pushing the thoughts away.

  ‘Nothing is keeping me.’

  He stands up to go, and when he turns Oluwo is watching him, head still cocked a little to one side. In the other man’s face Casimir sees how he must look himself. His threatening, looming tension. He makes himself smile, forces his shoulders down.

  Oluwo smiles back. All his teeth are white metal, silver or cheap alloy. He has the shy grin of a child. Then the smile passes and the lines of his face settle back into their mask. Casimir steps behind him and past. When he blinks there is the image of the woman falling. The hand behind her, reaching out for her white-lit hair.

  The graffiti are angular and intricate, like some violently debased Arabic script. Blue knotworks of writing have been sprayed on the yellowing tiles of the disused platform-to-platform tunnel. The tunnel itself is cluttered with stored materials. Boxes of pearl light bulbs, canvas-covered lengths of shining steel track. Casimir picks up a spray-paint can from a broken box of neon tubing. He turns it in his hands. Behind him, the two trainees work at the far wall with chemical sprays and sheets of green scouring fibre.

  ‘Do you understand it, sir?’

  Casimir looks round. One of the trainees is leering back at him. Hair the colour of rust, skin reddened with freckles. He nods at the graffiti. Casimir shakes his head.

  The trainee puts down his scouring sheet and moves across the tunnel. He traces out the spray-painted writing without letting his fingers touch the waxy dirt of the wall tiles. Ian something, Casimir remembers. Weaver. Like the painted-egg man. He doubts they are related; London is too big for that. It is one of the reasons he likes cities. In this preference he is unlike most small-town Poles, he knows, with their sense of inferiority, suspicious of an order in the big cities beyond their comprehension.

  ‘Look, see? That’s an S. Then P, little I –’

  The young man traces out a signature name. For a moment all Casimir sees are the shapes of snarling teeth, smiling faces, formed out of the lines like the ideograms in Chinese characters. Then the letters resolve themselves, curved backwards and into each other. Huddled together until it’s difficult to tell them apart. Like the homeless, thinks Casimir. The canvas covering at his feet has been disturbed, pressed down. Casimir can see the indentation of a body, perhaps more than one. He looks around, narrowing his eyes to make out the graffitied names: SPIDER, JACK UNION, MISTER LEATHERS.

  ‘What do they mean?’

  ‘Mean?’ The trainee shrugs, still grinning.

  A rush of stale air and dust goes past them as a train arrives or leaves, somewhere up on the working platforms. The second trainee swears and covers his eyes, hunched over.

  Weaver looks back at him, distracted. ‘Nothing. They’re just names.’

  The second trainee stands upright, tall and angry. ‘What are we cleaning down here for anyway? It’s all locked up and that. No one comes down here.’

  ‘It needs cleaning. We clean it. That’s our job.’ A length of rail has fallen off the stack near Casimir. He squats down and lifts the end back on to the pile. Quickly and easily, hand closed around the damp steel. The metal is cold and very heavy. There is the slight, good pain of work in the muscles of his arm. ‘And you are wrong. Someone has been down here.’

  He pulls the tarpaulin back over the stack of rails. The impression of a sleeping body vanishes as the canvas is straightened out. He stands up, puts the spray can in his jacket pocket, claps the tunnel dust clean from his hands.

  2

  Red is the Colour

  Here. I am here. I am. My mother’s voice comes calling, dipping through the trees.

  There are my high places and this is my special place and his too with the black wet town road, horse carts, coal trucks, mud sleighs, a blue car coming to meet me with the flats over it like stone sky. I can see my flat with my head right back on my shoulders, I count up, eight nine ten floors and the winter coat collar wet against my hair. From here I can see almost everything.

  My flat has green curtains, not orange. When I hide inside them they have green bits but also blue. I want blue cars and red meat so I am not hungry. I will eat fast to get it while I have the chance. I touch my face with my hands and my hands are colder. My face is nothing, I do not know it.

  I can run away under the trees, which are white with the snow and blue with the snow in shadow and green and red-skinned and orange where the bark is broken, they are all the colours of traffic lights. I can run down my Strug C Block steps like flying, I go faster than snow when it falls from the
wings of trees, I roll and laugh under it. I can press the snow in my hands and it shows I am here. There is proof of me in its shaped blue shadow.

  Look at my hands! The cut short nails dig into the snow. The more you press snow the harder it gets. The skin is going red like meat but meat is only my outside. Inside I am Kazimierz Ariel Kazimierski. If I could choose I would be like the snow.

  I have secret lists. There is the list of names and of frightening things, the list of loves and of trees. All are in my head except for the list of names. Today Piotr has written the names for me on thick dark rough ripped sack-paper from the farm. For nothing he does this for me. It is because I am his friend. We do anything for each other.

  This is my list of secret words:

  People – Ariel my middle name is Roman it is Piotr’s Monika who is a girl but with a rabbit’s mouth Tomek who is Militia and the father of Wladislaw who has been into the burnt flat Karol whose brother found a German shell in the old coal mine. Something happened to him like to my balloon at the factory parade which went up into the sky and disappeared. Boniek Lato Denya they are footballers. I am the goalkeeper. As far as I can remember, I have only let in seven goals.

  Places – Poland Silesia Gliwice, which is here. America Russia Germany The English we have beaten them all except the Yanks.

  Machines – Ursus it is a tractor Leyland an engine Berliet the buses Jones the cranes in the shipyard, Father teaches me these names with his finger on the metal letters. Polski Fiat which Father will buy when he gets the big deal.

  Kraut Cholera Blood Cock Gyp Damn Shit Fucking Devil Piss Yid Yank Balls Cunt Whore Slut Jew Arse Bastard Runt. All these were my father’s. I have no words from my mother. It is because she speaks less. I list the sound of her voice but Piotr says that it isn’t a name. Black Market. Speculator. Underground.

  There are other names but they are not so important. I never forget because I have lists, it is the reason. I learn fast. I see everything.

  In my fist the snow drips. All the colour has gone from it, even the white, it is no-colour. It takes time to run away. My hand hurts but I do not let go. I last, nothing of me has gone. I am stronger than the snow.

  I listen. It is now that Mother is calling, her voice dipping through the trees. She does not know what I am doing. She does not call for me to stop. No one can see me, so no one will stop me. I breathe deep when I smile.

  In the beginning there is Father and I remember he is happy.

  My father travels for money. Now he is back and when he swings me up I watch him, to remember. He is frowning and laughing. As if he doesn’t understand me but he is happy to see me anyway. As if I am a pleasant surprise.

  There are people waving around us. What are they waving? I watch and it is arms, hands, footballs, bottles, woolly hats, scarves, kitchen pots and radios. The room is full of noise. Outside the moon is out. I watch the words come out of my father’s mouth.

  ‘Poland beat the English. Poland beat the English! Poland beat the English!’

  This was a while ago now but I remember it. It is the first thing.

  My father has a gun from the war. It is small and has no bullets left. He shows it to me at the kitchen table. It comes apart like all machines.

  ‘Russian guns are best. One day I’ll get you a Russian gun, Kazio. When I get a big deal. Only the best for the best.’

  I am four now. Not so small that I like being called Kazio. My real name is Kazimierz. Father doesn’t smile when he puts the gun back together.

  ‘Always shoot the German before the Russian. Remember that too. Business before pleasure.’

  The Russians shot my father’s mother. It was in the war and her name was Kasia. I love my father but he scares me. Only sometimes. My life is not ordinary, not good or bad. Sometimes he smiles with his mouth open and you can see his tongue. It is like watching a dog in June heat. It is when he smiles that I keep away from him.

  Another time when I was very small, I was in a field of flowers with my mother and father. The flowers are yellow and white, scrambled together, spring flowers.

  ‘Cut-upped egg,’ I say. ‘Like cut-upped egg.’

  They laugh and laugh.

  There is a sound above me. I look up and see an aeroplane and understand what it is. Father lifts me up on his shoulders. His hands are harder than my mother’s. He is harder than her. They are still laughing together. I put my head back. The aeroplane’s shadow goes over us and is gone.

  I ask Mother about the curtains. She does not tell me. I ask Piotr.

  ‘Piotr, why do I have green curtains, not orange?’

  He puts down the coal and wipes his fingers on the steps. Even so his hands stay black as if they are burnt. Our old flat was burnt; Mother did it. She cooked duck eggs and forgot about them. They split open as if they were hatching and out flew the flames. The smell was terrible, so we came here to Strug C Block. I don’t remember this at all, but people tell me.

  Piotr gives up cleaning his hands. ‘I think it is to do with money. Green is in the middle. White net curtains mean they have less cash, and brown means they are old and rich. Red is for the people with Polski Fiats.’

  ‘What colour do you have?’

  He picks up the coal again. ‘Mostly yellow. Yellow is for farms.’

  He is writing on the steps of Strug C Block with the coal, I don’t know what. I say, ‘Black is for when there are dead people.’

  I like it better when he draws. Sometimes he does tanks and we fight with them. Poland against the Germans and Russians, the Americans and English. Poland against the world. Most times I am Poland, so I win.

  ‘Blue is for dirty Yids.’

  I stand up and push him over. I am taller than Piotr, who is a year older than me. Now he looks at me and stays down.

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  I don’t tell him. It makes me confused and angry, so I shout at him, ‘Don’t write when I don’t like it. Now you must do drawings.’

  ‘All right.’

  He starts to draw something. I sit down to see. It is a ship with guns. There are people with hats and people with cats. There are black chimneys and flags. Some people are playing football.

  ‘Does it go on canals?’

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  He draws the Gliwice canals. I keep quiet now. I do not tell him about my curtains, which are blue when I am close to them. I feel something like fear and it is shame.

  Vodka hurts when you smell it. There are three bottles at home. One is in the guest room and it is Russian. One is in the kitchen on the high shelves with the glass doors and it is Father’s. The third bottle is behind the stove. It’s empty and flat, like it was made to be hidden. I think Mother forgot where she hid it.

  When my mother was four she went to France. She told me there were fields of sunflowers, all in rows, all facing the sun. Only one sunflower was looking away from the sun and her father picked it for her.

  Later she didn’t remember that any more. I had to tell it to her. She forgets lots of things.

  No one is here. I go into Mother’s room. The beds are higher than mine and between them is a table made of glass. If you put your ear to the clock you can hear it tick. Like seeds falling.

  There are wooden drawers painted white and I open the bottom one. My father’s clothes are here, brown shirts and checked ones and socks. They smell of church, which is the mothballs. Of being dried on the balcony window in the sun and dust. Of Father. I press my face against the smell of him. When I am done with it I go.

  Me and Piotr and Wladislaw, we go to the burnt flat. Everything is black, it looks like a picture Piotr has drawn with his coal. Sometimes there are other pictures in the black, just shapes. Wladislaw says it is from the fire moving. I can hear the loud-hailer cars, they are outside in the rain, they go round near and far loud-hailing about food.

  ‘Dare you to go into the last room.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Chicken.’

  ‘You’re
chicken. Do the Choosing Song.’

  Piotr does it, between the three of us. ‘Ana Dua Likka Fakka Torba Borba Usmussmakka Deus Deus Cosmateus Imorella Bugs. It’s you.’

  It’s me. I go into the last room, where there are no windows. The floor’s burnt through to black wooden planks. I walk lightly. Piotr and Wladislaw stay in the first room, waiting for me to fall.

  Me and Piotr, we have not been in the burnt flat before. It is a new thing. Before now there were Jews here, a man and a woman and three babies, two boy babies and a girl baby. I never talked to them or anything. I don’t know where they have gone now.

  There is black glass in the last room. It is round at the edges and quite smooth. Black for dead people. I put it in my pockets and go back to the first room.

  ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘Nothing. Just the burning.’

  I don’t show them the black glass. It is my secret. I deserve it because I didn’t fall. Later I will look at it again, when I am alone, and see how beautiful it is.

  Today Father is home and with him there is blood.

  It is dark like cod liver on the floor then red on the white bowl. Red for people with cars. The iron smell of it fills the kitchen. I stand away from him across the table.

  I stop breathing to keep the smell of him out of me. I can make it so I am not breathing at all.

  ‘We’ve no iodine. I’ll go and ask the Sommers to –’

  ‘Stay here.’

  ‘But, love, it needs to be clean.’

  ‘Make do. We can look after ourselves.’

  She brings hot water in a white bowl. He smiles when his hands go under the water and smiles again when he takes them out. It is nothing to smile about because he is still bleeding. His teeth are yellow in the kitchen light. Quickly Mother cleans all the blood off his hands. She has white cloth and she puts it round and round. First the blood comes through a lot then a little then not at all.

  We all go quiet, waiting to see if the blood is gone. It is. I can hear Monika who lives next door, she is singing play songs. I hear her through the wall.