Cold Sea Stories

by Pawel Huelle

  ‘No, a Pole.’

  ‘My God, like the Pope.’

  ‘There’s not much I can do about it.’

  This time they both burst out laughing.

  ‘I’m here to collect something that belonged to my father.’

  ‘Was he an émigré?’

  ‘He was on a work placement. Long ago.’

  ‘You must think I’m a madwoman. Were you eavesdropping?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted to hear you singing again.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Do you know what it was?’

  ‘The Magnificat.’

  ‘For Luigi. I am a madwoman. I don’t love him anymore, but I still pursue him. Bishop Luigi. Do you see?’

  ‘Not entirely. Is he a Catholic bishop?’

  ‘The youngest one at the Vatican. He was promoted thanks to his uncle who is a cardinal. The old Roman family of the princes of Conti. I’m a Roman too, but so what? He dropped me like an old shirt. Can you imagine it? Purely because I fell pregnant he ran away in terror to the seminary. It was just after high-school graduation. I thought it would pass, he’d get bored, but no – he stuck it out and became a priest. And straight after that a bishop! Men are such monsters! I’m thinking of Italian men, but in your country, in Poland, you’re probably just the same, right?’

  ‘Even worse.’

  She wasn’t sure if he was joking. But when she saw his smiling face, she immediately added: ‘No men are worse than the Italians.’

  And straight after that confession, as if urged on by some inner compulsion, she quickly began to tell her story.

  ‘I promised myself I would never let him get away with it. Even if he becomes a cardinal. At every church he enters for his apostolic visitations he must reckon with danger! In Milan – that was the first time – he almost fainted when he saw me in a side alcove by the altar. I always disguise myself as a statue. Baroque, Renaissance, Gothic – it’s all everyday fare for me. He recognised my face and went pale. Perhaps he thought he was seeing things? He was so horrified he furtively looked up from the pages of the Bible a few times, as if trying to break my spell. But there I stood, stock still – a Madonna carrying a child wrapped in cloth. When Vanessa started crying,’ she rambled, ‘I put her down at my feet and began to sing the Magnificat for Luigi. I threw off my robes as I did so, until they dragged me out of there. You get the idea?’

  He nodded understandingly and poured more champagne.

  ‘Do you often do that?’

  ‘Every time Luigi is on a visitation. Padua, Verona, Pesaro, Einsiedeln, Freiburg, Munich, Regensburg. I can’t even remember all the places anymore. I’ve had three sentences already. I served two of them. They wanted to give me money. I declared that I shall only stop when my love dies out.’

  ‘Just now you said it had.’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t get out of the habit. When I see that same horror and astonishment in his eyes at the fact that I have succeeded once again, I feel as if I’ve grown wings. Luigi stupido! I always shout that as they cart me off to the police car.’

  ‘And tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow Luigi is to say mass at the Liebfrauenkirche. I’ll be disguised as an old woman. And underneath I’ll have my Madonna’s robes. Before they arrest me I’ll have time to sing the opening bars of the Magnificat and throw off my clothes.’

  ‘Do you bare yourself completely?’

  ‘Yes. Only then do my performances have meaning.’

  ‘May I come along tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course,’ she laughed loud, ‘the performance is free, especially for Poles!’

  They heard a noise coming from the hotel corridor. Several drunken voices were shouting over each other in Russian. Luggage banged against the door of the room.

  ‘You’re very patient,’ she said, putting down her glass. ‘You didn’t interrupt me once. And you don’t talk about yourself. But men love to do that. When we were together, Luigi used to spend hours expatiating on the sufferings of his soul. I don’t know anything about you.’

  ‘I have spent my life in a different world,’ he said slowly, as if having trouble finding the right words, ‘and it wasn’t at all interesting.’

  ‘There is always a story to be told,’ she said, looking him straight in the eyes, ‘even if a person spends his whole life sitting in one room staring out of the same window all the time.’

  ‘We thought we were fighting for something,’ he replied after a pause. ‘But in fact we were totally dependent on our jailers. Even when they were gone we could talk about nothing else. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  But when a little later he said: ‘Thank you very much,’ and disappeared into the wall, closing the cupboard door carefully behind him, he wasn’t at all sure if she had really understood him. Some fifteen years after the regime collapsed, people in his country were still very keen to talk about who had informed on whom and who was, or was not, a secret agent for the political police.

  A few months after his arrest, their father had suddenly appeared in the courtyard. He was walking at a slow, lumbering pace, bowing his head as if afraid of being hit. Zielonka had blocked his way and screamed: ‘Well, how was it there, Mr Engineer? Did they teach you some respect?’

  Their father went past him and entered the staircase in complete silence, which later on, in the flat, once he had taken a shower and eaten supper, weighed upon the entire family. Immersed in his own thoughts as if in a labyrinth, he refused to answer any of their mother’s questions.

  At the time he was sure his father did not want to talk in front of him and his brother, and was keeping silent – as had often happened in the past – just because of the children. But once they were lying in their beds, listening to every sound from their parents’ room, the only thing they could hear was their mother, calling louder and louder: ‘Why won’t you tell me anything? Say something, for goodness sake! Talk to me!’ Then they heard his loud snoring, which seemed funny to them, as he had never suffered from that affliction before. Meanwhile their mother got up several times and clattered about in the kitchen, looking for pills and pouring herself water. Their father’s silence went on for several weeks, during which he took his meals apathetically and lay on the sofa bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t read any newspapers or books, and didn’t even listen to the radio. Finally he got up, drank a cup of raspberry tea and left the flat in nothing but a jacket – the very one he had brought back from Zurich. Its woollen, slightly too baggy tails flapped in the wind beneath the spreading crown of that great oak at the foot of the defunct railway line embankment, from which their father hanged himself.

  Grandmother Maria discreetly sent them money, their mother found an office job at the municipal sewage company, and the silence in their flat seemed to linger on, like an invisible tent pitched above them.

  He no longer enjoyed playing games with his brother. The Märklin electric railway set reminded them too much of their father. Whereas at night, once everyone was asleep, he would slip out of the house and down to the old railway embankment, where the Great Conductor would be waiting for him with his block of tickets and a shiny puncher for making holes in them. In his hands he held a thick, bulky book. It was the universal timetable for all possible railway lines. He admired the Great Conductor’s subtle, almost alchemic art of finding connections, transfers and return concession fares: under his finger and his gaze the dumb list of figures and symbols suddenly came to life, like the promise of a great journey which was actually fulfilled as soon as – after a short discussion – they had boarded the rather antiquated carriage smelling of soot, steam and the old plush covers of the first-class seats. He would come home before dawn, quickly get into bed and fall asleep almost immediately, then dream of the memorised landscapes, deserts, mountains, cities, river bends and waterfalls.

  What could he tell her about all this? Cou
ld he say that his father, accused of spying, had broken down under interrogation and signed a piece of paper? Or on the contrary, that he hadn’t signed anything? That his nocturnal expeditions with the Great Conductor came to an end one autumn night? They stood beside each other at an abandoned signal, watching the goods trains roll past one after another. People were poking their hands out of the barred windows, and occasionally a face flashed by.

  ‘They’re going to their death,’ said the Great Conductor in a whisper.

  ‘Can’t we do anything?’ he asked.

  ‘We have no influence on the timetable. For the time being all the connections are cancelled.’

  After that night the railway line never came to life again, and neither the elegant old carriage coupled to the panting locomotive, nor the Great Conductor, had ever appeared again among the rampant weeds and rusted points. He had never revealed that secret to anyone. In the dark hotel room he now realised that the only person he could tell it to was his neighbour from behind the wall, or rather from behind the wardrobe.

  ‘I’ll go to that church tomorrow,’ he decided, as he fell asleep.

  The next morning he was received with extremely subtle courtesy by both Herr Rossets. Once his identity had been confirmed with the aid of his passport – which was a pure formality – it was necessary to state that he was his father’s only heir. His mother and brother were no longer alive, as shown by the relevant documents, long since forwarded to the office. He signed an additional declaration.

  As the younger lawyer, Sebastian Rosset, began to read out the document, he gazed through the large office window at a pleasure boat gliding up the Limmat. On the other side of the river, above the city, stretched the purple range of the Alps. He was expecting in the best case about thirty thousand francs. Even increased by capitalised interest, the total amount should not be greater. But what he heard was staggering.

  ‘Could you say that again?’ he interrupted the lawyer, ‘I can’t have understood.’

  ‘Yes, of course. The total sum, minus the annual costs of tax, service expenses and our commission, now comes to one million nine hundred and ninety-six thousand seven hundred and fifty-four euros.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Absolutely. The sum your father won on the lottery was enormous for those days – over two hundred thousand dollars. In accordance with his wishes, we invested the money in three ways: in trust funds, real estate and shares. As you can see, our firm achieves superb results. If the prize money had lain in a bank, even at the best rate of interest, you would not have even half that sum today. More than thirty years have gone by.’

  ‘What we’re talking about,’ the older, François Rosset now continued, ‘is of course the money which, after disposing of the securities, we deposited in three different banks, in keeping with your suggestion. But there is also the real estate.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the younger lawyer, handing him a file of documents, ‘here is a list of the properties, with valuations and all communication with the administrators. If you should so wish, our firm is willing to continue to manage them. We have prepared a contract. Of course you can sell, but not immediately.’

  In total silence he looked through the list.

  ‘Fiorenzuola?’ he asked bashfully, pointing at one of the items.

  ‘A beautiful property. Last month the lease expired and Mr O’Brien and his entire family went back to the States, as far as we know. We haven’t looked for a new tenant, as you mentioned in your letter that once matters were settled here you would like to take a holiday in Italy,’ explained Herr Sebastian. ‘The administrator, Signor Corelli, lives on site.’

  ‘Are you feeling unwell?’ The older lawyer summoned the assistant. ‘Please bring some water!’

  He really was feeling odd, and gladly took the glass. He thought it was all a sort of game, which he had accidentally got mixed up in without the involvement of his own free will, a game for which he would have to pay through the nose eventually.

  ‘The accounts I mentioned,’ said Herr François, ‘are already active. You only have to make your way to any of the banks and submit examples of your signature. We thought of that – here are the phone numbers. They are expecting you.’

  ‘As you wanted a small sum in cash,’ added Herr Sebastian, handing him an envelope, ‘here is that too. Please count it.’

  He was surprised to find that once he had counted out twenty thousand francs in new notes and put the envelope into his jacket pocket, no receipt was demanded of him.

  When after two hours he finally left the offices of Henri & François Rosset’s legal firm, having entrusted it with the continued management of his real estate, he felt he should go straight back to the hotel to change his shirt – it was wet with perspiration.

  However, he stopped at the first little café on the Limmat. He ordered mineral water and a sandwich. He took out his mobile phone and wrote: We really are rich, then selected his wife’s number. He failed to press the send button, because at almost the exact same second, a couple of tables along, he spotted Herr Hugin (though it could just as well have been Herr Munin) pointing the lens of a small camera in his direction. He got up, went over to the detective, and as loud as he could, said: ‘Please call the police! This man is stalking me for no reason!’

  Several people looked up at them.

  ‘Are you sure?’ said a passing waiter, stopping in mid-stride. ‘What’s this about?’

  But Herr Munin (though it could just as well have been Herr Hugin) immediately walked off, disappearing among a group of Japanese tourists, who had just alighted from an pleasure boat.

  He returned to his table, deleted the unsent text message, swallowed his sandwich, paid and set off along Wühre and up to the old town. It was noon, and the bells began to ring from several churches. He had no trouble reaching the small square where, on the façade of the two-storey toy shop, he could see the familiar sign saying Franz Carl Weber, with the company logo – a rocking horse, and the date of its foundation – 1881. On the ground floor there were lots of departments which did not arouse his interest. Hundreds of computer games, and squeezed in among them here and there, Barbie dolls or their relatives – that was really all. He roamed about in this labyrinth, unsure what to do next. Finally he came upon a sales assistant. His white shirt, black trousers and waistcoat betrayed a hesitant kinship with the elegance of former years.

  ‘Excuse me, please, ’ he asked. ‘Are there any electric railway sets here?’

  ‘What’s that?’ The young man hadn’t heard properly, or hadn’t understood his German.

  ‘Model trains. Locomotives, carriages, signals, stations.’

  The assistant was surprised.

  ‘Do you mean a computer game? A railway one? We haven’t anything like that. There’s only Murder on the Orient Express. Interested?’

  ‘No, that’s not it. An electric railway set, dear sir. Models. Miniature, perfect replicas. Made by Märklin, for example. They travel on tracks like real ones. Have you got any like that?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the young man after some thought. ‘Please go upstairs and ask the manager. I’ve only been working here for a month,’ he said, smiling disarmingly.

  A moving staircase silently carried him upwards. But even here, among pyramids of Lego bricks, space stations from the Star Wars era and all possible mutants and cousins of the Matrix, he couldn’t find a single railway set. He also spent a long time looking for anyone who might be able to provide information. Finally, from behind a stack of colourful boxes, a young girl emerged, dressed the same way as the assistant on the ground floor.

  ‘May I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m looking for trains, Märklin models. The kind powered by electricity. Have you got anything like that?’

  ‘Please go to the far end of the floor. There should be something on the left hand side, by the window.’

  But it wasn’t quite so obvious at all. For a few minutes he searched for t
he right department, until finally, behind yet another pyramid of remote-controlled racing cars, he found a dusty display case, in which there was a short track laid out in a figure of eight. On it stood a locomotive with three little carriages. For some time he inspected the exotic train. The model locomotive represented a type of steam engine from the late 1950s, still manufactured in those days in Germany. Each of the carriages belonged to a completely different decade. Here a flatcar from the 1920s kept company with an entirely modern refrigerator car and an old-fashioned passenger coach with a long row of little doors down both sides.

  ‘Would you like to buy it?’ he heard the sales assistant say behind him.

  ‘Are there any other models?’ he asked in a hopeful tone.

  ‘That’s the last one. Trains aren’t fashionable these days.’

  ‘No. I was thinking of the Geneva to Biarritz express or something like it.’

  ‘In that case you should look on the internet. There are collectors who have their own special sites. Do you want an address?’

  ‘No thank you,’ he replied. ‘Maybe next time.’

  As he was leaving Franz Carl Weber’s toy store, he didn’t even look behind him to say goodbye to the rather old-fashioned letters on the shop sign, which had, after all, brought a few moments of real happiness into his childhood on the cold sea coast. Suddenly he started thinking about his father: had he made the purchase after winning on the lottery, or had the present been the fruit of profound and numerous sacrifices on his part? As far as he still remembered anything, his father’s character would be more indicative of the second possibility. If he could imagine it, the decision to buy a ticket had probably occurred to him earlier, in the first few days of his stay, as he read an advertisement for the lottery in the window of one of the tobacco shops, but with an extremely modest sum of money at his disposal, with every last penny accounted for, he must have thought he might take a gamble shortly before leaving, and then only if he turned out to have a little change left. It must have been just like that: he had counted every franc so that he would have enough for the Märklin carriages, both locomotives, a good supply of track, and also the points and signals. If he had bought a lottery ticket earlier, this purchase would have been improbable, or in any case much more modest. After all, he couldn’t possibly have assumed he would win anything, and only then buy them this unusual present.