A Postcard from Another World

“You've managed to make unbearable something which was merely dull. You are only half-woman. That which sits inside of your head is horrific,” he said, putting his hands together as if wanting to clasp a sphere at waist level, fingers trembling. He then crossed his legs, pea green corduroy pants pinching in the inseam.

“Can we give this a break? If I am half woman, you are only one eighth a man,” she said calmly, rhythmically. “Without anyone else around, all you can do is drink. While others foot the bill... You've no idea what is going on inside my head,” she interrupted. “Clanging! The clanging of your sleepless nights, my sleepless nights...”

“All I am saying is that I...” he shook his head and straightened his pants. “I curse the day I met you.” He got up, waved his hand and sat back down again. “You've raised a crystal clear fount of unease. Instability,” he said, putting his head into his hands, stroking his cheeks with the tips of his fingers. “I hate you, I've never really loved you at all,” he said, voice growing louder.

She was smoking a cigarette by the window, gazing across the busy street below. The setting sun was glancing the still smooth skin of her face. She did not reply, inhaled the smoke, nodded and calmly exhaled upwards. Closing her eyes, she heard the hands of a wall clock jumping violently. Day was turning to night.

“And a good thing too. In this case, this will be easier on you than me,” she said, folding her hands over her breasts and approaching the table he was sitting at. “You see...” she said, haltingly, smiling in disbelief as she remembered playing Ophelia some six years ago. She rested her hands on the table and looked right at him. He looked up and they stayed there, looking at each other for a moment.

“I loved you, all this time, but now...” she said, raising her hands as if in gratitude. “You no longer matter to me. You're a nobody, do you hear? You're not getting up from this. You don't know how. Just look at yourself.”

He stared at the glass of whiskey in his hand, then sipped from it, licking his lips, his face frozen in a mean looking grimace – now, he reminded her of the way her father used to look like. The sudden silence was to their mutual advantage. Teresa felt a bitter, harsh sort of taste in her mouth, rising up from her gullet, so she spat on the floor.

Zygmunt chuckled, revealing his yellowing teeth. He rolled up the sleeves of his navy blue shirt, stood up straight and walked up to her. Hiking up her skirt, he grabbed her butt and shoved her towards the table. The skirt was old, one she had made out of a dress and rather liked wearing – it made her worry in case he ripped it off.

“You're a furious one! Fucking hell! What do you know about love?!”

He was holding her by the neck, not too tightly, but tightly enough to make it hard for her to speak.

“You don't lov...” he gripped her neck harder and moved his hand down to her back. Then he slid it up to the back of her head, pulled back at her hair and kissed hard, trying to slide her tights down with his other hand. She kissed back and wrapped her legs around him. They snogged as hard as any young lovers will, as if it was their honeymoon. He sat down on a chair and she mounted him, but as he stroked her thighs she leapt up and screamed:

“I don't love you no more! Hear me now!”

He said nothing, his mouth wide open. She picked up her coat and bag from the floor.

“I don't love you!” she repeated feverishly.

He felt shocked, knocked for six and furious now.

“Who the hell cares who you love or don't love?!” he barked, walking towards her as she grabbed the door handle. He pushed her against the door, but she refused to kiss him back. He forced himself upon her and once she stopped struggling, she gave into the rising tide of arousal – which is when he drew back, leant against the door and slid to the floor. Tears were beginning to well up in his eyes. He was helpless when faced with anything she had to say. Refusing to believe any of it. The same as she refused to believe him. He pulled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and handed her the pack. She lit up and sat down on the floor next to him.

They kept staring at a radiator which was leaking water. She laughed out loud with manic energy.

“This is destroying us,” she said looking at her cigarette, trying to read the brand name on the filter end. “You should switch to lights.”

“I know,” he said, lowering his voice. “I can't live without you. You know I don't need to drink, been doing it since mother died. I have to honor her. I've been a little more courageous of late.”

She nodded.

“I'm more scatterbrained, twice this week I forgot to turn the gas cooker off in the kitchen.”

“What's happened to us? Maybe we should have had that bloody kid after all?” he asked, smiling.

“Leave it out. Please, really.”

“Leave if you want. I understand, I know you can't stand me any more. I will find someone else. She'll probably manage to put up with me for a few years.”

“Younger than me?”

“Why would I want someone like that?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I will leave now, change my number, move to another part of town, just don't go looking for me again. Let's end this now.”

He was silent, terrified of how he was starting to believe her. She lit another smoke and said:

“You know it wasn't meant to turn out like this. I never meant for you to find out. I needed the cash...”

“Let's not go over that again. I don't get you. You're awful. Scheming in ways I would never have expected. And so naive to boot. It was never about the money, you could have just asked. You disgust me,” he said, rubbing his hands on his pants as if wanting to clean them of something, then got up. “And I really don't need you no more.”

“You know that's a lie.”

“No,” he said, lighting another cigarette. “Now you're the one who needs me. Why don't you go? Coz you can't imagine life without all this,” he said, sweeping his arm around. “You've grown used to causing me misery and pain and that's all you're living for now!”

“Sure, I have nothing else to go dreaming about but spending my life with some pathetic wino. That's it, enough. I've had it up to here. I can't eat. Sleep. Next to my bed, I keep a cup filled with a mixture of pills I could gulp down and never wake again. It somehow lets me relax, knowing it's an option,” she said, bursting into tears. “You think I want to live like this? Not to mention my wasted youth... Screw it,” she said through running tears. “I never expected you to leave me in peace. But I have to ask you to do that. Should I get on my knees? Is that what you want? Yeah? You want me to beg for my release?”

“Kneel, please. You've spent your whole life down on your knees, never able to battle to make any of your dreams come true. Any time you were in the clear, safely through interrogations, you gave up, trembling. You're a coward. Let's be stinking honest about this. You've always been too scared to really live, and now you're too damned scared to die. Why not pop all those pills? Do you know how much simpler my life would become?”

“Why say that? You know it's not true.”

“Shows how fucking little you know. Typical, really: you always think you know it all; but see, my dear, this time you're wrong, coz your death would be the best thing to happen to me. Can't you see how hard I am celebrating my mother's departure?” he barked, pointing at the pile of bottles in the kitchen. “In spite of what people will tell ya, and all the things you read in all your bloody books, the death of a loved one comes as a great relief! I would finally be free of you. Released. But instead you just move house and sometime later I hear about you being around and then, as if by chance, find myself walking past your door. You will act surprised when we bump into each other. Blushing as you invite me for tea. I will then say it's a bad idea, that we ought not to. You will be in need of a man's body, unable to sleep with anyone else. You talked about all that. I will go upstairs. You'll hang up my coat, sniffing it carefully as you do so. In your thoughts, you'll tell me the little, how do you call it... hanging loop is missing. You'd probably want to go through the pockets, but decide against it. It's been ages since we met. I would look around your new home, go up to the window and pick the books up piled up there, interested in what you might be reading. I would say something about literature and you would make the tea. Even though we'd both prefer to have vodka, we'd end up sipping weakly brewed herbal tea. You always make tea that is too weak with not enough water. Then we'd finally end up in the bedroom. One of us doing their best to resist. Maybe I wouldn't be able to get erect, feeling scared and telling you all about it. Then you'd wonder about the kind of man I was, too scared to... Cursing in your thoughts the day we met. Which was a cold, but sunny day. And it is not anybody's fault, Teresa, that we'd once more end up in bed. Later on, if the sex was any good, we would smoke some cigarettes, and you would talk about some of the idiots you had met over the previous year. I would listen attentively, nodding, and then we would make love in the bathroom or the kitchen. I would be preening like a peacock, sharing with you some recent news from the world of scientific research. Eventually, we'd send a cab driver out to buy vodka. Come the morning, we'd both have hangovers. Tired, as usual, by the intense energy we both generate – wanting to then somehow escape it. And yet one of us would suggest: let's try again. The other would sigh softly. You know the rest. You've always been along for this particular ride. You'll always be there again. I know what you're thinking: that the next time you would not end up inviting me into your home.”

She shook her head and he went on:

“You see, I believe when you say you think all that. Which is why I am not saying all that to make you angry: your death would be my salvation. If you are really considering getting it over and done with, I want you to know I have nothing against the idea.”

“Maybe you'd best kill me straight away then...”

“But I don't want to kill you! Understand me. I'm just saying that if I am the only person keeping you from topping yourself, then this is really unnecessary.”

“What would you do then? Without me and mother. Compose? Out of grief? Really. is it so easy for you to imagine life after my death? I would be jealous about the women who followed.”

“No, you wouldn't be – you'd be dead.”

She giggled.

“Well, yeah. A sort of contemporary Juliet, who in order to make a man happy has to kill herself and allow him to compose his life's masterpiece?” she mused, still laughing.

“Oh, do leave Shakespeare out of it, I beg you. We're being pompous enough as it is. Want a top up?”

“Yeah, go on.”

“Ice?”

“Two cubes. So how do you imagine it? I die, you go to the funeral, then go back home to order a pizza or a whore and begin working?”

“I might begin by traveling. I've been thinking about that for a while, if you and mother were dead and gone I'd be free to leave town and se the world. I recently saw a TV show about Tuscany, I think I could find some peace there. Taking walks, cycling, maybe even take up jogging.”

She burst out laughing.

“Why not start here and now? With me?”

“Because you don't want it,” he smiled and lit her cigarette. “Tell me – do you really still feel like carrying on?”

“Today?”

“Right now... You see, I had this thought that if you are serious about the suicide, we could do it right, with some ceremony, something to see you off with properly!”

“A party?”

“Why not?”

“Who would we invite?”

“You know, some friends,” he wondered, scratching his head. “Some theater folks. That veterinarian, yeah! You always said he was a nice guy. Maybe Jacek would come over with his student girlie. He's got this youthful fashion thing going on. What do you think?”

“I would have to stop and think about buying something to wear.”

“There you go, it's been ages since you bought any clothes, this is your chance.”

“Only you know, I would sort of be sad not to be able to call or write you any more.”

“Sure you will! Any time you want! My cell phone network has this brand new feature called Phone Call to Heaven, and I have a lot of free minutes to use up. Buzz me any time, I will call you right back.”

They both smiled as he poured more whisky.

“Well then, maybe I will write ya. Telephone calls are a bit too intimate, don't you think? We might fight, and I might give you a hard time about who you're seeing. What if you take your time to call me back? Or forget? I don't want you messing up my afterlife.”

“You're right. In fact, you're always right. Best we write each other letters. But then again, if you write sad letters, I will get depressed and won't keep up the jogging regime, just sit there with a bottle, reading your letters over and over again.”

“True, that.”

They sat there in silence, the radiator alternating between hissing and bubbling noises, the hum of traffic outside dying down.

“How about we try postcards?” she suggested. “You always liked getting those in the mail.”

“Bonene idee!” he shouted out and put his glass down on the table. “Let's make it happen Friday!”