The Lullaby of Polish Girls

by Dagmara Dominczyk

  Jacek finally shuts off the stereo.

  “You’re a loser, Jacek!” Justyna shouts but gets up to leave. She watches Anna place a hundred-złoty bill on the table. When they step outside the night air engulfs them, the breeze balmy and summery, the sky lit up with stars. The aroma of freshly baked rye bread wafts from down the street where the piekarnia is preparing tomorrow morning’s loaves.

  “Let’s go see if we can mooch a bochenek. A warm slice with gobs of butter melting on it! I bet you have some vodka at your house. We could have a picnic, under the moon.” Kamila giggles.

  “Justyna has to get back to the baby,” Anna reminds them.

  “No, she doesn’t, Anna,” Justyna retorts hotly. “The baby has a father and the father knows how to heat a bottle.”

  “But it’s already after ten and I just got back from Wrocław. I don’t wanna piss my babcia off any more than she already is.”

  “Then you go home. What were you doing in Wrocław, anyway?” Justyna asks.

  “She was on a sexcapade with Mariusz Kowalski.” Kamila grins.

  “Kowalski! Holy crap. You fucked Kowalski? He’s like a fucking midget, but his …” Justyna glances at Anna. “I heard his cock is colossal. His girlfriend used to brag about it all the time. She’s married to a mafia guy now, from Czarnów.”

  That summer was long ago but it’s a thorn in Justyna’s side. She’s not afraid of looking like a chump, or even a backstabber, but she is afraid of looking like a coward. Because the only excuse she has for not intervening then was that she had always been inexplicably terrified of Lolek Siwa.

  “I should go home, you guys. This doesn’t feel right,” Anna says, kicking some pebbles out of the way.

  “It doesn’t feel right? What doesn’t feel right?”

  Anna squats down, hides her face in her hands.

  “Your mother. Your mother is dying and you want to get wasted and talk about cocks? Don’t you want to spend every last minute with her?”

  “No! No, I don’t! She’s already gone! And I’ll drink and cuss and discuss dicks if the opportunity arises because I’m nineteen fucking years old and sometimes I need a break. What do you need a break from, Anka? Homework?”

  “You’re in denial.”

  Justyna paces around Anna and Kamila, arms swinging at her sides. “You know what the most irritating thing about you always was, Anna?”

  “Please, you guys—”

  “You know what it was? The fact that you pitied us, but flaunted everything in our faces. The fact that deep in your little heart you thought we all wanted to trade lives with you.”

  “That’s not true. What did I ever flaunt?”

  “Your clothes, your dollar bills, your fucking aspirations.”

  “You raided my closet every summer, Justyna Strawicz!”

  “Whatever. What gives you the right to get all weepy on my behalf? I haven’t heard from you in years, Baran, and you show up on my doorstep with advice? Grow up! People are born, people get sick, and people die.”

  For a moment, no one says a word.

  “I fucked Emil last night.”

  “I’m sorry, Justyna, I’m not perfect,” Anna whispers.

  “That’s the point, Anna. Whoever said you were? Marchewska—you what? You ‘fttt’ what?”

  “I fucked Emil. I FUCKED Emil!” Kamila holds out her hands toward Justyna and Anna. “Now, come on, pipki.”

  When Justyna sneaks back into the house to grab a liter of Siwusia, it’s dark and quiet. She grabs the liquor and a blanket from the armchair.

  They walk up toward the open field past Witosa Road, where they used to sit around bonfires, feasting on sizzling kiełbasa. The stars hang low, and the bottle of vodka gets passed around generously.

  “My head is spinning. The stars look like disco balls, I swear to God,” Kamila murmurs, closing and opening her eyes. “I wish we had Anna’s old boom box. When’s the last time you made a mix tape?”

  “God, I still have all of them at home.”

  “I wanna hear all the juicy morsels about last night, Marchewska. I can’t believe it, you little slut. Does your cipa hurt? Did you shave like I told you to?” Justyna slurs.

  “Yes, it hurts, but only from shock. He only managed a few, you know, thrusts. And no, I didn’t shave. It was so bad.”

  “You should have shaved! Did he cum?”

  “No.”

  “Great. At least you won’t spend the next month panicking about your period.”

  Kamila laughs. “I guess there’s a bright side to everything.”

  “The first time always blows. I was thirteen, with my cousin Arek, in the bathroom at Relaks. I told you guys it happened when I was sixteen and I fucking lied.” Justyna laughs. “It was so gross, ugh, I can still smell the wet toilet paper on the floor. We did it standing up and halfway, some old guy came in to take a piss. But then every time after, and with each new guy, it got better and better. You’ll see.”

  “Yeah, Anna said the same thing.”

  “What, you fucked my cousin too?” Justyna laughs. She laughs because here’s her chance, here’s her chance to come clean, to say I know, I know what happened. But she just laughs and the sound of it echoes through the hills like bells.

  “No! My first time was with this Spanish guy in high school. It didn’t hurt that bad, but it didn’t change my life, that’s for sure. He had terrible acne.” Justyna stares at Anna, impressed by how smoothly the lie comes.

  “I wish we could sleep out here. Hey, you guys”—Kamila raises her head and leans back on her elbows—“we’re like the three musketeers, together again.”

  “Like the Summer Triangle,” Anna replies, pointing to the sky.

  “The what?”

  “It’s a constellation made up of the brightest three stars in the universe, but it’s only visible in July and August.”

  “You’re a fucking riot, Baran.” Justyna cackles. “I bet you just made that shit up. Marzycielka.” Anna looks down, and for a second Justyna feels bad. She likes the fact that Anna has always been a dreamer, but being a dreamer was a luxury in life, and tonight the last thing Justyna wanted to do was discuss the fucking stars.

  “All right, girls. One swig left. Let’s make a toast. To the goddamn Summer Triangle, and to next summer.”

  Justyna takes the vodka bottle last. Before she brings it to her mouth, she looks up for a moment, searching for something bright to call her own.

  The girls make plans for lunch on Thursday in town. Justyna watches her friends link arms and make their way toward the taxi stand farther down the road.

  When she walks in the house, the kitchen light is on. Paweł and Elwira sit at the table, staring down into coffee cups. A bottle of formula stands on the counter. When they both look up at her, Justyna knows.

  Anna

  New York, New York

  Anna blows on her frozen hands; it’s cold and getting colder. Her fingers comb through the branches of the Christmas trees, feeling for the right one. And then she sees it. Taller than the rest, perfectly proportioned, deeply green, and regal. The bright yellow tape stuck to one of its impressive branches reads $140. She motions to the potbellied proprietor, and he ambles over.

  “That’s a beaut. I’ll give it to you for $135.”

  “$120?”

  “No way. This is one of the best trees on the lot.”

  “So why hasn’t it sold? Tomorrow’s Christmas, sir, and it’s still standing here.…” Anna smiles coquettishly. Just then her father appears, dragging behind him a scrawny, sickly looking specimen. It’s a Charlie Brown tree.

  “Whatchu doin’? Let’s go. I got it.”

  “Dad, that’s, like, a bush. I think we should get this one. It’s beautiful. That one won’t even hold half of Mom’s ornaments.”

  “A hundred forty dollar? Whatchu, crazy fucka? Ees the high robbery. I go to forest and get one the more beautiful for zero dollar.” The lumberjack shakes his head and walks off.

/>   “You’ve been saying that every Christmas since I was eight. We’re gonna drive upstate and chop down our own tree? Really? Just let me get this one! It’s my money.”

  “I your father and I say that’s eet. Nie pieprz głupot.” Radosław hoists his tree onto one shoulder and starts walking. By the time she catches up to him on Columbus Avenue, he’s close to the apartment building, smoking a More Red, and he looks pissed.

  He speaks quickly and in Polish. “Never embarrass me like that again. You moved back under my roof, and if you don’t like my rules, get back on the fucking L train.” Anna wordlessly holds the lobby door open for him.

  Two weeks ago, when she arrived at her parents’ apartment in Manhattan with her duffel and announced that she and Ben were over, her mother raised her eyebrows but petted her shoulder reassuringly. “He didn’t have money anyway,” she said. Her father hadn’t acted surprised, and had told her that living in sin had its consequences; a kick to the curb, he said, was what she deserved.

  When they open the door, Paulina is on the living room floor, arranging delicate glass-blown ornaments, the Polish-made bombki she’s collected over the years. She’s amassed Santa Clauses from every continent, tiny glass mushrooms, glass birds with feathery plumes, wooden doves, and miniature cottages. Paulina takes pride in these baubles, and she gets excited when she can finally put them on display. Neighbors from the apartment building come by every year and proclaim that the Barans’ tree is straight out of a Gracious Home catalogue, while Paulina, the super’s wife, poses next to her creation and flushes with pride.

  “I tried.” Anna unwraps her scarf and slowly takes off her coat.

  “What do you mean?” Paulina asks, panic already rising in her voice.

  Radosław heaves the tree into the living room and goes about securing it in the stand. When it is upright he rips the binding off with his bare hands and gives the trunk a good shake. Paulina and Anna assess its many shortcomings. The spruce is pallid green, it is short, ungainly, unruly, and altogether tragic.

  “Is this a joke?” Paulina asks Anna. “Did you leave the real one in the hallway?”

  Radosław picks up a glittery glass bulb the size of a grapefruit, bright red and painted with pearly white doves, and he throws it to the floor. It instantly shatters into tiny pieces. Before Paulina has time to react he grabs another ornament, a Danish Santa Claus in a white robe.

  “Should I keep going? Maybe if I keep going there’ll be just enough left for the fucking tree. Pagans!”

  Paulina starts crying and runs to get a broom.

  “You’re such a miser, Dad.”

  Radosław shrugs and walks into the bedroom.

  Later that afternoon, after the tree has been decorated to the best of their abilities, Anna and her mother sit on the couch, drinking tea and staring at the TV. The Polish satellite channel is playing an episode of Paulina’s favorite soap, Złotopolscy. Anna couldn’t care less about the dismally acted comings and goings of some fictional Polish upper-middle-class family, but her mother is enthralled, commenting on the action as it unfurls. Anna waits for a commercial to speak.

  “Mamusia, what’s going on?”

  “Well, Katarzyna just found out she’s pregnant but she’s in love with Father Piotr, who’s actually having an affair with Pani Hania from the bakery. I wonder if she’s going to keep the ba—”

  “With you, Mom. What’s going on with you and Dad?” Living with them again, Anna has noticed the growing strain between them, evident in the fact that her father has taken over Anna’s old bedroom, and is sleeping there nightly.

  Paulina stares into her teacup for a moment before answering.

  “Have you ever had your fortune read?”

  Anna shakes her head.

  “I did, when I was twenty, tea leaves in the bottom of the saucer. My Ciocia Alusia was the real deal. She warned us that my dad was going to die young, due to emphysema. Anyway, you know what it said? My fortune? ‘Things will break apart and it will always be your job to put them back together.’ ”

  Anna glances at her mother’s hands. Paulina’s fingers wrap around the porcelain Bayreuth cup. They are weathered beyond forty-eight.

  “What if the broken thing is you, Mamo? Isn’t it your job then, to put yourself back together? You need to divorce him.”

  “He’d kill me.”

  “And then he’d get over it.”

  “No, córko, he’d hunt me down in the middle of the night and stick a knife in me. He’s told me so.”

  “He’s full of shit. And you’re afraid of dying? You’re already dying!”

  “Oh, cut it out, Anna! Life’s not that simple.”

  “It is! It is that simple. I packed a bag, I wrote a note, and I shut the door behind me. Stop being a tchórz, Mother—you are wasting your life.”

  “A coward?” Paulina’s face contorts and her eyes blink rapidly, fending off tears. “What happened after you left that note for Ben? You ran here so you wouldn’t have to look him in the face. You sneak off to get clothes when you know he’s at work. So who’s the coward?”

  Anna doesn’t answer because there is no answer. She has been evading Ben; it’s been hard work to avoid phone calls, to hide out in her parents’ living room. It’s hard work but it comes naturally to Anna.

  At six o’clock, Radosław emerges from his cave, wearing jeans and a wrinkled white shirt. The table is ready. An extra place is set for a wandering vagabond—it’s a Polish tradition. If anyone knocked on the door tonight, they would be taken in, just like Joseph and Mary who begged for shelter on Christmas Eve and found it in a manger.

  Before Anna and her parents eat, the opłatek is shared. Anna breaks off a piece of the square wafer, imprinted with a nativity scene, that she bought for two bucks at a Polish deli, and wishes her mother peace and money, as she’s done for years now. Her father chews noisily, then engulfs Anna in a hug.

  “I just want you to be happy, Tato.” Anna’s voice quivers.

  “Oh yeh, yeh, yeh,” he answers, goofy and glib, and shrugs his shoulders. “Sorry for me. You should have the career and the guy who love you, eef you wanna, my dough-ter.” Her father was capable of poetry once. Anna has read the letters he wrote to Paulina from prison. I dream of your naked body, of your hips, which slope shyly toward me, like two pearly seashells. There must have been a love story, once.

  Sharing the opłatek was always Anna’s favorite part of Christmas Eve. The words and intentions were fleeting, but it didn’t matter; Poles worldwide were soldiering on, and for five minutes the atmosphere was full of repentance and hope. Out of the corner of her eye, Anna watches her parents silently exchange a truce, her father’s arm slung casually around Paulina’s neck, her mouth pursed in a straight line. Then they eat, and after the dishes have been put away, they exchange gifts and small, gratified smiles. It’s a nice hour and then it’s over.

  At around three A.M. there is a huge, shattering crash. Anna’s eyes adjust to the dark and there it is, the cause of the ear-splitting ruckus. The tree has fallen, weighed down with too many ornaments. Her parents run in from their separate rooms and one of them flicks on the light. The tree lies across the coffee table inches from where Anna is sleeping on the sofa; glass debris is everywhere, like rainbow-colored shrapnel. Paulina starts sobbing and swatting at Radosław’s face. He expertly grabs her wrists and shoves her away from him.

  “That’s what you get, szmato. Be glad God struck down the fucking tree and not you. But so help me, if you touch me again, I’ll do it for him. Get a broom, Anka,” he orders, scratching his belly. Anna huddles on the couch, careful not to move, sure she is covered in tiny glass fragments invisible to the naked eye. She turns her face toward her father. “You get a broom. Or better yet, get back on your meds.”

  “What meds?”

  “Um, it’s called Prozac and it’s what makes you human.”

  “Mind your business, and clean up this mess, idiotko.”

  “You think I�
�m gonna run to my room and cry because you called me a name, Dad, like I did when I was twelve? I’m not scared of you anymore, Tato. In a few years, you’ll have nothing left but visions of your bygone glory, dancing like sugarplums in your warped head. And you’ll still be hosing down the sidewalk for the Americans.” Anna’s voice cracks before she continues. “You were my hero, my bohater, and I worshipped at your altar. I really fucking did.”

  Her father’s fists are clenched at his sides. His hands are purple. Go ahead, Anna begs silently, give me something to cry about. But he walks back into his room and slams the door behind him.

  Moments later, it’s as if nothing’s happened at all. Paulina is quietly doing her best to sweep away the debris. The tree is already by the door and Anna can’t recall how it got there. Anna grabs her coat and walks out of the back of the apartment, to the alley where her father sorts the recycling. After Anna graduated from college, her parents left Brooklyn and moved to the Upper West Side, when her dad lucked out and got a job as a superintendent in a fancy high-rise. “We’re like the Polish Jeffersons!” Anna had joked, but her parents didn’t get it. She lights a cigarette now and as she smokes, she remembers the time Radosław told Paulina he was taking Anna to Costco, and instead they rented a car and drove to Atlantic City, where they played nickel slots. On the ride back home, her father shared stories about his wayward youth. They had been happy. She flicks the cigarette into the dark and walks back inside.

  “There’s glass in the cushions, but I can’t vacuum now. Or should I?” Paulina is sitting on the couch, dustpan in her lap.

  “You should go to sleep, Mamo. It will be okay.”

  Anna sits down next to her mother and thinks about reaching for her hand.

  “Mamo, I have a one-way ticket in my purse. I’m going to Polska today, booked business on the eleven P.M. flight. Come with me.” Paulina looks down.