The Lullaby of Polish Girls

by Dagmara Dominczyk

  “O, Jezus Maria! Ania! Naprawde?”

  “Yes, Babciu, really. I’m in Warsaw for a few days and then I’m coming to Kielce.”

  “A few days? That’s not enough time! O, mój Boże, I have to cook and clean. I have to call Ula so she can—”

  “Babcia, calm down, Babcia.” Anna smiles, feeling a slight pang of guilt for lying.

  “How can I calm down, córeczko? You’ve just given me a heart attack.”

  Anna hangs up and showers. The water is cold and smells like sulfur. An hour later, she turns the key and locks her hotel room behind her.

  “You taxi is here, miss,” another hotel clerk informs Anna on her way downstairs. “You need the directions for anywhere?”

  “No, thank you, I know where I’m going.” Anna smiles.

  Will Justyna slam the door in her face? Will she still even be in that house? “Lulajże Jezuniu” is playing on the radio now and Anna hums along. It’s a lullaby, sung to baby Jesus, and it’s one of Anna’s favorites. Growing up, Paulina would play the carol all day on Christmas and it always soothed Anna, reminding her that Mary had been just a mother once, trying to lull her restless child to sleep. Anna knows there will be babies, beautiful, healthy babies in her future, who will speak Polish, who will know where part of them came from. One day, she’ll forget the abortion. She’ll forget Ben. Lulajże, lulajże. Even God started out wide-eyed and afraid. It’s a comforting thought.

  As the cab makes its way up toward the neighborhood of Sieje, Anna’s heart starts racing in anticipation. The last time she saw Justyna was the night Teresa died, when Kamila, Justyna, and Anna sat in the middle of a field, drunk on vodka, and happy. Anna remembers the bright sky, how romantic it seemed. She remembers the stars, and how the Summer Triangle was out that night, visible only to her. It feels like eons have passed since then, and yet it feels like yesterday.

  Kamila

  Kielce, Poland

  “Good morning. This is your wake-up call.”

  “Tak, dziękuje,” Kamila answers briskly. She lies back down onto the sofa bed, and closes her eyes. She can tell that it has snowed without even looking. The sun is high outside, its rays, reflected off the snow, are blinding.

  Yesterday, after her confrontation with Emil, Kamila felt oddly triumphant. Downstairs, Natalia high-fived her, but had refrained from asking Kamila about the details. “Your face says it all. Now down a stiff one, and get thee to sleep.” And Kamila had done just that. At the Hotel Pod Różą, where Natalia had booked her a room, she asked for her key and promptly ordered a martini, on the rocks, one olive. Kamila fell asleep in her clothes, using her coat as a comforter. She woke up once during the night. She had been crying in her sleep, her cheeks were wet and puffy, but she had no recollection of any dreams.

  The alarm clock on the dresser reads 13:01. To Kamila the hour is irrelevant. It could be three in the morning, and it kind of feels like it. Kamila fumbles for her mobile phone. She finds it lodged under her back. The battery is dying but her charger is in her suitcase and Kamila doesn’t feel like looking for it. The thought of unpacking her lingerie into the hotel dresser drawers fills her with melancholy. Instead, she reaches for the hotel phone and orders room service: scrambled eggs and blood sausage, with breakfast rolls and a side of Nutella. Kamila is ravenous and when the meal arrives at her door twenty minutes later, her mouth waters. She eats slowly, but she finishes everything. I don’t care anymore, Kamila thinks. She chews the doughy bułeczka and imagines herself years from now, soft and pliant, with a belly that sways as she walks, and somewhere there is a man who loves every last curve on her body. Once she’s done eating, Kamila licks her fingers.

  She cracks the window open and breathes in the crisp air. She uses the hotel phone to call Justyna, who picks up on the third ring.

  “Halo? Kto tam?” She greets Kamila with a strangled Who’s there.

  “It’s Kamila Ludek. Marchewska …”

  “What’s going on?” Justyna says lightly, as if they had just talked the day before, as if it was no big deal to hear her old friend’s voice after so many years.

  “Nothing much. I was in the States, visiting my parents.”

  “Really? I heard you ran away from your husband ’cause he cheated on you or something.” Kamila cringes. Justyna’s not going to make this easy. She hadn’t made it easy the last time they saw each other in the bathroom at Desperados, when she had openly mocked Kamila’s new nose and insulted her.

  “Right. Well, yes. He did cheat on me. With his best friend, a man named Wojtek Marszałek. They’ve been together for the last three years. I found out in October, and then I fled to America. But I’m back now, and I’d really love to see you.”

  There is a silence on the other side of the line. She can hear Justyna breathing. Her friend is stunned and Kamila doesn’t give a shit. It’s out in the open now, and she liked the way it sounded coming out, like a confession, and not an apology.

  “Holy fuck,” Justyna finally allows and starts laughing. “Holy fuck!” she repeats loudly.

  “So can I come over today? I heard what happened to you, and I want to tell you how sorry I am in person.”

  “Nothing happened to me. And why are you sorry? Were you an accomplice?” Justyna’s laughter settles, and she continues, not giving Kamila any time to interject. “Yes, Marchewska, come over. I’m sitting home alone. Bring some winko.”

  Kamila hangs up, somehow both satisfied and confused. She’s used to hemming and hawing. How strange, then, to just open your mouth and say what you mean. That is the biggest thing that Kamila always envied in Justyna—more than her perfect body and her cute little nose—Justyna never spared anyone, including herself.

  In the shower, Kamila works lather all over her body, and for the first time she winces at how sharp she feels, at how her bones stick out after years of deprivation. Kamila can still somehow smell the American on her. She’ll tell Justyna everything about him, about his fat stomach and his strange hands, about how beautiful he made Kamila feel. She’s going to tell everyone everything from now on. Because today Kamila feels like a new woman. This Kamila will eat when she wants, will ask men to take her home on the first night, and will rid herself of her old, squandered life. After she dresses in a purple Anne Klein sweater and her favorite pair of jeans, pulled from her luggage, Kamila calls Natalia, to tell her she survived the night, and to tell her that she feels better than she has in a long time.

  “Give me a few days to get most of my stuff out of the apartment. I’ll leave all the furniture for you and Stasiu. Even the TV.”

  “But it’s forty inches! Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Dzięki, Kamila. I guess I can tell you now that you’re a godsend, Kamila Marchewska, because I’m fucking pregnant. Four months.” Kamila erupts in congratulations. When she hangs up she sits by the window, remembering the time, two and a half years ago, when her period had been very late. When she was waiting for it to start, Kamila felt her heart ignite, said her prayers, and knew, knew deeply that a baby would be the thing that would save her and Emil. A week later, she peed on a stick, and she and Emil waited. When the two minutes were up, he grabbed the pregnancy test from the sink and hid it behind his back.

  “Kamila! Kamila!” he cried desperately. “We’re not ready! You can’t be pregnant anyway; you’re too skinny, kotku. That’s why your period’s late. Okay? Okay, Kamila?” Kamila laughed and tried to grab the stick back. Emil squirmed until it wasn’t funny anymore. Finally, he opened his palm and when they looked down and saw the results, Emil laughed and hugged Kamila.

  “See? We’re not ready yet.” Kamila walked past him, curled up on her bed, and cried herself to sleep. Looking back, Kamila calculates that it was around this time that Emil started his affair with Wojtek. She wonders if the thought of having a child with her frightened Emil so much that it had driven him right into Wojtek’s arms.

  In the lobby Kamila asks the girls at the conc
ierge desk to call her a taxi.

  “Oh, a cab just left, proszę pani. Our Pani Amerykanka took off in it.”

  “No matter, I’ll wait for the next one.” Kamila says it blasé, but her insides spark like someone set a match to them. Amerykanka. That word brings to mind only one person, but surely the Rose’s Amerykanka is not the same as Kamila’s. She sits on one of the two chairs next to the concierge desk, and idly tears at her cuticles.

  “Amerykanka? In Kielce? Where’s she from, do you know? I have family in the States.”

  “New York. She says it’s her first time in Kielce but I didn’t ask why on earth she’s here and not in Warsaw or Kraków. My English is totally remedial, but it’s fun to practice. She seems nice enough.”

  “If you ask me,” pipes up the blond girl with impressive cleavage and a pouty mouth, “I bet she’s having an affair with a Polish man. She’s got that look about her, you know? That pining look.”

  “Well, no one asked you, Wiola,” Danuta answers with a professional smile.

  Kamila makes a show of yawning. Her leg jerks up and down and she doesn’t quite know how to stop it.

  “Jet lag,” Kamila announces, now checking her leather boots for smudges. “You called the cab, correct?”

  “Yes, yes,” promises Wiola, and then she leans in across the desk. “It’s gotta be a man. If she were here on business it would be in Warsaw, like it is for every other American.”

  “That’s enough, Wiola!” Danuta hisses. “Mrs. Ludek, will you be needing anything else before you go?”

  “Do you have some water?” Kamila asks quietly. “I don’t feel very well,” she says to herself, as Wiola rushes over a bottle of mineral water, Nałęczowianka.

  “Thanks. It must be the jet lag. I just got back from America myself.”

  “Oh, how exciting!” Wiola exclaims.

  “That’s funny, isn’t it? Two guests arriving from the States, at the same hotel … Tell me, are you sure she’s American?” Kamila asks and takes a long swig of water.

  “Yes, of course. I saw her passport. She doesn’t speak Polish. And anyway, she looks American, you know?” Wiola answers. “And when I told her that her last name meant ram in Polish she thought that was so funny. Oh! Your cab’s here, miss.”

  “Baran?” Kamila whispers the word, and it cracks in half.

  “Baran! Except in English it sounds like Berrin or something. Like I said, my accent is horrible.” Wiola laughs.

  The sound of a horn blares. Kamila stands up and walks toward the door. Her steps are deliberately, painstakingly slow. “Thirty-six Witosa Road, over at Sieje.” The driver nods and revs the engine. Kamila rolls down the window and breathes in the frosty air, but it does little to calm her.

  Justyna

  Kielce, Poland

  When the knock comes, Justyna can’t quite hear it. She is upstairs, lying on her bed, staring at that one spot on the ceiling, by the pipe, the one that’s swollen with moisture. The pipe Paweł was supposed to fix as soon as the snow let up, because there were black patches of mold forming. The lights are off. The electric bill is coming soon and Justyna’s account is empty. There’s just an old pillowcase now, filled with some loose bills. There’s Damian’s skarbonka clanging with złotówki that she’ll have to break open if things don’t get better quickly. She’s already decided that when Kamila gets here she’ll ask her for a loan. She figures Kamila must be doing all right if she can afford plane tickets to America. Besides, Kamila owes her, and she knows it.

  For two days now Justyna has held the fort down. Elwira and the kids have been at Babcia Kazia’s, and there are patrol cars parked in front of both Kazia’s building and Justyna’s house, from sunset to sunrise. It was the most that Officer Kurka said he could do. “Holidays, Mrs. Strawicz.” Kurka had explained why she couldn’t have twenty-four-hour surveillance. “Besides, in my opinion the dog was his last hurrah.”

  Justyna wondered if she would ever be able to stop waiting. Not just waiting for Filip to show up, but for Paweł to return.

  When the knocking at the door turns to full-on pounding, Justyna bolts up in bed. She runs down the stairs and when she reaches the foyer she exclaims, “Christ, didja fly here? That was”—she opens the door—“fast.”

  “I did fly here. But that was three days ago.”

  The woman standing before Justyna looks like her old friend Anna, only better.

  “I was about to leave.”

  “Hi. I was upstairs, napping.… Hi.”

  And then Justyna pulls Anna in for a hug, a messy, jubilant hug.

  With her arms still wrapped around Anna’s neck, Justyna laughs. “What the fuck is that perfume? You smell like a grandma, Baran.”

  “Patchouli,” Anna says, twisting herself free. “Let me look at you, Strawicz. But let me in first, it’s cold as hell out here.” Justyna leads Anna into the house, and locks the front door. She quickly ushers Anna into the kitchen, runs to the kettle. “Tea? Holy hell, I wasn’t expecting a movie star to visit me tonight. I would have cleaned up a bit,” she says, referring to the kitchen and to herself.

  “Dobra, dobra. Movie stars don’t weigh 140 pounds.”

  “It suits you. Bitch.” Justyna laughs again and Anna smiles. “Anyway, you can lose the weight. But you can’t lose the face.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Baran, you’re śliczna and you know it. Fuck the tea, right? You want a shot?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Justyna watches Anna take off her leather jacket, watches as she unwraps the silky blue scarf from around her neck, until it hangs from her hand in cascading sheaves, like a waterfall.

  “That’s some scarf.”

  “Ralph Lauren.”

  “Rafloren? What’s that?”

  Anna doesn’t answer. She looks at Justyna, looks her up and down. There’s not much to look at, but Anna takes her time and Justyna stands her ground in her rumpled Nike tracksuit, her dirty crew socks, her unwashed hair sticking up in short tufts around her face. She knows she looks like shit, but there’s good reason for that.

  “Did you sew those shoulder pads into your shirt?”

  “I did.”

  “Still? Still with the shoulder pads?” Anna smiles sadly.

  “Always.” Justyna takes a cigarette from her pack on the kitchen table. “All right, enough. You might be used to people ogling you, but I’m not.” Because Justyna knows it’s not just her outer layer that Anna’s taking in—she’s trying to get at something deeper.

  “Are you kidding? Who used to lay out on the Tęcza benches, one hand in the air, begging for someone to walk by and whistle?”

  “I didn’t have to beg.” Justyna grins. And then the grin fades, but just a little. “Anyway, dziewczyno, that was a long ass time ago. I look like shit now.”

  “Well, who can blame you …” Anna’s voice trails off and she looks around the kitchen, avoiding eye contact. “Where’s that shot?”

  “We’re still waiting for one more guest.” Justyna winks.

  “Who?” Anna asks guardedly.

  “Who else?”

  Anna’s mouth drops open. Justyna sits at the table and lights a second cigarette off the dying embers of her first one. “Weird, right? When was the last time all three of us were together?”

  “Seven years ago,” Anna answers quietly.

  “Right. I remember a bottle of wódka. And that’s about all I remember.” Justyna grins.

  “And your mom. Your mom died that night.”

  “Oh, yeah. Riiiiight.” Justyna smiles and stands up. She never heard a word from Anna regarding her mother’s death back then and she sure as hell doesn’t want to hear one now. She starts walking into the living room.

  “Bring some shot glasses, okay? And I think there’s some Pepsi-Cola on the counter. And ice!”

  They say every seven years the tide turns, the world shifts. Seven years of fucking crap. Tonight Justyna will drink to the next seven.


  When Anna comes in, balancing everything in her hands, Justyna is on the wersalka, smoking a cigarette.

  “What are those?”

  “Papierosy,” Justyna drawls. “I believe your term for them was always cancer sticks.”

  “A girl can have a change of heart. Can I bum one?”

  “Ja pierdole! Or as you say, ‘Fak meee!’ Anna Baran smokes.…”

  “Anna Baran does a lot of things she shouldn’t do.”

  “Take a pack, I have a whole carton in the barek.” Anna sets down the glasses onto the coffee table. “And get a bottle of bimber, and that bottle of Luksusowa vodka. The bimber, my uncle brewed in his bathtub. It’ll destroy you.”

  The knock on the door startles them both. Justyna looks at Anna.

  “You wanna get it?”

  “And give her a heart attack?”

  “Why not?”

  Anna laughs quietly, smooths the front of her jeans, and heads to the door. Justyna cocks her head and smiles to herself. It’s so easy to pretend, it’s so easy sometimes.

  A moment later there’s a squeal, and Anna walks in with a hyperventilating Kamila. She’s skinny—painfully so—skinnier than she was in the bathroom at Desperados four years ago. Fucking Kamila, just beside herself.

  “I stopped at the gas station on the way! Wine and stuff.” She takes a gulp of air, and then, “I knew it! I fucking knew it! Those dumb girls at the hotel were talking about some Amerykanka! Fucking knew it! God! Mój Boże! Dziewczyny! This is incredible! Like, kurwa mać!” And then Kamila rushes over to Justyna, who is still sitting on the couch grinning from ear to ear, and Kamila kneels on the floor in front of her and clasps Justyna’s hands.

  “Jezus Maria, Justyna. I don’t know what to do. Wait! I can’t even get over Ania Baran over there, looking gorgeous as ever. Jezus!” And then Kamila’s smile dissolves. “Justyna. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Kamila starts crying, fingers flying to her face, to wipe away the tears, but she can’t quite keep up. For a while, no one says anything. Anna leans in the doorway and Justyna looks at her.

  “Fucking Kamila. We were doing fine till you got here,” Justyna says. And when Kamila raises her head from her lap, Justyna Strawicz is crying. No one has ever seen her come undone, or apologize, or crumple, or beg for mercy. Even when Teresa died, she saved the waterworks for late at night, when she knew everyone was sleeping. Now, Justyna quickly covers her face. She takes a deep breath.