Underground

by Tobias Hill

  He stoops down. Against the platform wall are metal electricity cables and emergency power points. Pushed back against them is a small square of glass. Casimir picks it up, turns it in both hands, wipes it clean.

  It is the lid of a box, chipped but not cracked. Small enough to lie flat in the palm of his hand. There is a faded picture on the glass. A man in military uniform next to a burning match. Casimir narrows his eyes. ‘LIGHT A LIGHT FOR IKE!’ is written under the picture in curving script.

  He smiles. Around him the deserted platform and the memory of music suddenly seem fantastical, half-imagined. He closes his fingers on the box lid and tucks it carefully into his jacket pocket.

  There is a cough of static from his cellular and then an alarm tone. He looks at his watch. It is four-thirty; already he should be out of the tunnels. In an hour the track current will be switched back on. The alarm tone blares again. Once, twice.

  He looks up. The graffiti are directly in front of him, stark black on the cracked tiles. The pattern of letters is familiar. He can resolve the shapes into words: JACK UNION. The spray paint shines and he reaches out, touching the motif.

  His fingers come away clean. The cellular repeats its warning. He stares back up at the graffiti for a moment longer, as if he is waiting for something to happen. Then he turns back towards the tunnel mouth.

  4

  After the Candle

  ‘Either the well was very deep or she fell very slowly, because she had plenty of time as she went down to look around her, and to wonder what was going to happen next.’

  ‘I know what happens.’

  ‘Because you’re so smart.’ The page chuffs like a kitchen match. ‘She tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything.’

  This is mother reading to me. Before she came in I was in the mirror. In the mirror I was the second-shortest thing. The tallest was the wardrobe, then the picture of London Piccadilly England from a magazine, the white CaPamoB Russian refrigerator, the black Singer in its hood, the desk with the green candle on it, then me. Then the bed. Over the bed is Jesus Christ. He is nailed to the wallpaper with its greenish flowers which used to frighten me and now they’re ordinary. The nail only goes through his cross. Altogether there are four nails.

  ‘She found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. Go on then, what happens next?’

  ‘There were doors.’

  ‘There were doors all round the hall, but they were locked.’

  I waved at the mirror. It was my left hand but the mirror’s right. It was my west hand and the mirror’s west too. I know why it happens. Left and right are inside, like blood and liver. West is outside, like London Piccadilly England. West is the best. It stays still.

  ‘“Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin –”’

  Outside will be dark soon. The town is already dark because the lights have gone down. My candle is square and green, and in the mirror my skin was green in its light. I felt my chest, knuckly ribs, belly, cock. My cock is much smaller than Dad’s in the swimming changing rooms, but my belly is pretty big. It’s all because we had zakashka blood sausage for breakfast and there was one left in the CaPamoB on a white plate with blue spots and I ate it. I was hungry. My dad swore and put down his mug so hard the handle broke off. He didn’t touch me, but I am going to bed without supper.

  Supper was only liver anyway and I still get a story. I lie with my eyes shut. I can taste the oiled spiced sweetness of zakashka in my mouth.

  ‘And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing. Have you ever seen that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There, enough. Tomorrow we’ll do Pippi Longstocking.’

  ‘No. More Alice now.’

  ‘Not tonight. Only when you’re good.’

  ‘One page.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Up to the next picture.’

  ‘No.’

  I don’t mind so much. My eyes are shut. The candlelight is green through my eyelids. Sometimes I am awake and then not. I dream something about water, light on it and under it. I hear Mother shuffle around. She is looking for the cigarettes, which are on the desk. In a minute she’ll find them.

  ‘Listen, Casimir. Ariel, love. I’m sorry if you’re hungry, but you mustn’t steal food, not ever. I know it’s hard.’

  ‘Why?’ I’ll play the Question Game to keep her here. I try to open my eyes but it’s difficult, part of me is not trying hard enough.

  ‘Why? Because things are hard for us.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just because. Because life is hard. We have to learn to find ways through. Sometimes they are the right ways. If we are good rats.’

  The bed creaks as she leans away. Everything is quiet and slow because I am asleep, and then the cigarette crackles. I open my eyes and Mother is leant over the candle and her face lit up green and white like a face under water. Her breath hisses, sss, through the cigarette. I jump up shrieking.

  ‘Mum – Mum, no! Mum!’

  I pull the cigarette out of her mouth and throw it across the bedroom. It hits the dark blue of the window and scatters red. Mother pulls away from me.

  ‘Oh, Borja!’ She stamps around and shakes the curtains, putting out bits of cigarette. I sit on the bed with my knees up, hard on my hard ribs. The air is cold on my skin. In a dream it wouldn’t be so cold. I don’t cry yet, not on my face.

  She stops. ‘What the hell were you doing? What’s wrong with you tonight?’

  ‘You lit it from the candle. You’ll die at sea.’

  My voice is small. It makes her sit down. It is the smallest thing in the room.

  ‘Ariel! It’s just a story. A stupid story, like Alice. Don’t cry. Shh.’

  Later she blows out the candle and goes. I look for the flame but there is only the smoke. It twirls up for a bit and then stops.

  Alice is right about the flame. She is right. The story is right, it is not stupid. I cry without making noise. In the morning I open my eyes and I can still smell candlewax and burning.

  Now and from now there is school. The steps are clever. They have wavy thin iron up over them to keep the rain off; it is like an umbrella. The walls have little patterns in them like biscuit. I have seen it all before.

  It is the Strug Estate school, with the blocks all around it like a great stone fence. I am surprised because I do not recognize the children, even though they are from my home.

  Mother goes. It is like usual. I am all here in my arms, legs, heart, teeth which taste of breakfast, it was oiled salt herrings; I run my tongue against them to get the taste of it. I put my hands in my coat pockets to be together and strong.

  Someone screams but it is just girls. I am ready for it. There is sand and a slide and the sun is out.

  In the classroom I am next to a girl and her hair is red. I do not know her or anyone. Piotr, Monika, Wladislaw and Karol are all in other classrooms. All the children have their own friends here, so they can talk.

  It is a bit worrying, so I keep looking down. I have a desk; it is grey metal like an Ursus. I try and wrap my legs around its legs. The legs of the desk are very much colder than mine.

  If I were not in school I could play with the desk. I would drive to Russia with it. Already I want to be out of here. I make the desk move with my legs and it bangs on the next desk. The girl with red hair looks at me. She has a little case with lots of long pencils. I have only one pencil and it is not so long.

  A woman walks in. I look up quick to see how big she is. She is quite big and she has a black shiny necklace; it is very pretty. Everyone stands up, so I stand up, and then everyone sits down again.

  I am left standing up. It is so strange, now I am swaying, I don’t know why. Someone laughs and then I can make myself sit. I hate them already. I will be careful.
They will not laugh at me again.

  The woman doesn’t say anything; she turns her back on us. She is writing with chalk and suddenly everyone is writing too, but with pencils. How do they know what to do? I know. Their mothers and fathers have told them. I am angry that Mother did not tell me this.

  There is my small pencil on my desk. Next to me the girl with red hair is writing. I copy her with my small pencil. It is not so hard.

  I am writing! It is this: MY NAME IS MRS NALKOWSKA. YOU ARE CLASS 1C. TODAY IS MONDAY 4 AUGUST 1974. THE TIME IS 09.06. THIS IS POLAND. WELCOME.

  It looks clever.

  Wedel bonbons are good. With three you can make a door. With four you can make a wall. With two you can do nothing but eat them. If you only have two it’s best if you can get red and green. Together they taste like blood. The taste is exact.

  Only once. My father hurt me only once. It was because of the little bottles. My life is not good, not bad. We are ordinary, like anyone.

  Once he was in a fight at the shipyard. He hit a Czech with a long hammer. It was because of foreigners, expecting us to roll out the bloody red carpet. The Militia men came and talked with him. There was no blood on him that time. They all bowed and clicked heels and the Militia went away.

  Once he was home from travelling. I went into the room where he sleeps with my mother. His suitcase was empty on the floor, a big loose mouth with small bright teeth. I went to the white drawers, to touch his clothes.

  In his winter coat were two bottles full of powder. They were small and glass, white and green. They had labels with writing, like the bottles in the story of Alice: Drink Me. Mother bought the story of Alice from France. Every time she drinks from a bottle, the whole world changes. Caterpillars as big as cows.

  I took the bottles out. They were small, like things made for children. You could tell they were for booze from the labels, all gold and great colours. On one was a smiling man in a red suit and red hat, and on the other two dogs, black and white. There was English but my father had written over it, to show what was inside.

  I held the bottles up. It took me a long time to read the words right. The first one said Water. I unscrewed the top but there was nothing to drink, just the white powder. It had almost no smell, like water. Maybe it was powdered water though. Afterwards snot came out of my nose and I couldn’t stop it, and the blacks of my eyes went small as millimetres. I could pinch my nose and cheeks and not feel them, it was pretty good.

  The second bottle said Flour. It was the same inside, only green glass. I opened it to make sure the powder was flour, but it was different. It hurt my eyes, so I closed the bottle again. I touched the bottles together, a toast: To the name of Jozef Stalin, Na zdrowie, Na zdrowie. The bottle glass clicked; a clean, fine sound. I did it again, then harder, clack. It echoed in my mother’s room and I laughed.

  Then I was hit. I dropped the bottles and above me was my father’s voice, roaring and swearing. I never heard him come in because of the noise of the bottles clacking. He tried to get me but I ran out around him and out, out of the room and the apartment, down the concrete stair flights, to my special places. Later I came back and he was OK, he hugged me and told me never to look in his things. I asked him about the little bottles but he said they were gone. He asked me if I touched the powders and I said no.

  I don’t know what he did with the little bottles. Maybe he made bread. Flour and water make bread. I don’t know.

  It hurt when he hit me. I didn’t cry at all. It only hurt because he is so strong. When I am as strong as my father, I will never hit anyone.

  When I grow up I will make time.

  ‘The wheels have teeth, you see? They bite together. And here I wind the spring, the spring turns the little wheels, the little wheels turn the big wheels and the big wheels turn the hands, so we make time! All because of the little wheels.’

  When Grandfather speaks, it sounds like the new houses where the road ends. It is the noise of machines mixing concrete and it means he will die. He spits snot the way Wladislaw can do it. Christ knows it is the cigarettes. Sometimes I don’t understand what he says, it is bad as foreigners on the radio.

  He is eighty-three years old and that is the second oldest on the list of ages. Father is fifty-one, Mother is forty-six, Piotr’s father is thirty-one and his mother is thirty-one and Monika is almost seven, Piotr and Wladislaw are six and as for me, I am five. King Casimir the Great is 365. I have no grandfather from Mother, no grandmother and no uncles and no aunts. They all died in the war.

  First he lived a way away and then he lived in Butcher’s Square, but for most of the time he has lived with me. This is Grandfather. He smells like Father except more and older. Older cigarettes, older meat. His room smells of it and even the carpet in the hall outside his room all the way down to the kitchen.

  Sometimes I stay with him. Only to watch the watch-works.

  ‘There. And the face, so.’

  He holds it up next to his big grey brown white face. The hands of the watch make a V. Two faces smiling. ‘What time is it, Casimir?’

  I don’t know. There are lots of things I don’t know; it is quite worrying. However, I can lie.

  ‘It is too late.’

  Grandfather laughs. ‘Too late for what?’

  I hate him laughing. It makes me speak up loud. ‘Too late for old people. Too late to kill the Germans because they killed us first. Too late because we did the pleasure before the business. Too late to kill all the Yids because they went away –’

  ‘Enough, Kazio. Quiet now.’

  He is not laughing any more. His big face turns away, looking out of the window. ‘Remember that every man is a variation of yourself.’ What he says makes no sense. Now he is not moving at all. It is like the watch when it is not put together right.

  While he is still not looking I touch the watch-works. With my fingertips I stroke the cloth, which is soft and black like cat skin. I pick up the wheels and put them down quickly.

  They are so precious. Shiny and sharp bits of time.

  I can lie. It is good; sometimes I believe it myself.

  I tell Monika that Grandfather is dead. Blood came out of his mouth because of the cigarettes. She cries. I cry too.

  Now I don’t let Monika come to play in my flat. If she does she will see Grandfather and how alive he is, coughing snot and smelling up the carpet.

  I wish he would die and then Monika cannot believe I am a liar. If he dies I won’t cry. I will have his cloth, which is like black cat skin.

  Me and Father, we go into town in a taxi. We are going to find Mother, who is queuing for meat, and we have things to give her: presents. They belong to us now but soon they will belong to her. Father will give her cigarettes and me, I have sweet tea in a thermos. It is big on the outside but it only makes one cup.

  The taxi driver has a flat hat on backwards. You can feel the engine through your legs. It is a Fiat of course. Outside it is late and everything is the same dark colour as the sky, first fir trees then flats then houses. Only the birch trees are not dark; they are cold, white, thin. It makes me tired and I sleep a bit until Father speaks.

  ‘What will you say to her?’

  ‘Dad’s sorry. Will you forgive him?’

  It is because she was crying in the night. I heard her crying and his shouting. It doesn’t happen so often, not so often. Sometimes she has to stay in bed afterwards. I always say sorry for him.

  It is Zwyciestwa Street and there are light bulbs on strings between the houses. One of the light bulbs is dead; I watch it as it goes over. The shops are still open, Kapelusze the clothes shop and the grocery which only sells stockings and canned ham and the queues of people, all women standing in the dark. There are nuns there too, queuing for stockings.

  The Fiat taxi stops and we get out and Father doesn’t pay; the taxi man owes him. Outside the air is freezing, tasting of firs. I wake up fast. I look around for Mother but it is hard to see, there are so many women here.

&
nbsp; ‘Casimir!’

  It is her. We go. She gathers me up and she whispers my other name, Ariel, our secret. Her face is hot and red raw. It isn’t just the cold. I think of Dad’s face, grinning. Soon he will go away again. It is ordinary, his going; both good and bad.

  ‘Dad’s sorry.’

  ‘Shh.’

  She has two pairs of Miss Marilyn and all the meat she had tokens for. Father takes out the cigarettes. I give her the one cup of tea.

  ‘Will you forgive him?’

  ‘What for?’ Father lights the cigarette for her and she smokes it, watching him, smiling at him. ‘I’ve forgotten already.’ We pass round the tea. The nuns go off into the dark. All you can see is their white headscarves floating away.

  On the register I’m Kazimierz Kazimierski. The middle name stays mine. My favourite class is Military Studies. We do the Nazis. I am the youngest in 1C and the second biggest. Wladislaw is bigger. He is a different Wladislaw. He has eighty-four stitches; they are in his belly. He shows them to his friends. I have not seen them. He is older than me so he will die first.

  The girl with red hair is clever in class. Everyone knows it’s a stupid thing to do. Whoever shows they are smartest is the one everybody hates, and it is her. Her name is Hanna.

  I push her up against the wall of school, which is grey like the wall of home. She hits me in the mouth and I feel her knuckles get wet on my teeth. I am bigger than her so she only does it once. Instead of hitting she talks and her voice is strange.

  ‘Please leave me alone.’

  When she says the words they sound wrong. It is because she does not come from here.

  ‘Leave me alone.’ I copy the way she says it and she starts to cry.

  I pull up her dress. Her pants are dirty and baggy, like mine. I hold them by the edge and pull them down.