Grażyna Plebanek - Illegal Liaisons

But the children blocked the entrance with another cushion and, giggling, started to collect ammunition: ping-pong balls, badminton shuttlecocks, building blocks, and balls of paper.

“Sean, please!”

“Charlie, do you hear?”

“Maura, I repeat!”

Jonathan glanced at the clock again, and was overwhelmed by the heat. They would be stuck in the traffic soon, the road – down to one lane – would be packed, he wouldn’t have time to defrost the chicken, Andrea would have to wait …

“Tomaszek, I’m going!”

The castle grew silent, then giggles broke out again. Jonathan turned on his heel and started to go downstairs.

He was halfway down when he heard a commotion. First a growl then a scream – only one – that, a moment later, was joined by others. The laughter that had drifted in the air had turned to crying. Jonathan heard a stamping and turned – Tomaszek was running after him, his bare feet slapping the cold stone splashed with autumn mud.

“They’ve knocked it down, they’ve knocked it down!” he sobbed uncontrollably.

Jonathan stood still, his eyes fixed on his son’s screwed-up face.

“What?”

Tomaszek tripped. Jonathan caught him at the last moment and the little body clung to him, snot smeared over Jonathan’s jacket.

“Tomaszek?”

But his son tore himself from his arms and pounded Jonathan’s jacket rabidly, his fair hair flying above his wet face.

“They ruined our castle, ruined it,” he wept. His words broke off, their endings fading away. “They came and spoiled everything, everything! And you weren’t with me!”

Jonathan wrote a description of birth in The Pavlov Dogs that turned out so powerful that he had to leave his laptop, pace the room, and clear his throat until the lump in it disappeared and allowed him to breathe again. He didn’t tell anyone, not even Megi, although he knew she’d understand.

She was the one who’d told him how everything had welled up in her when they’d put the wet Antosia on her belly, how the newborn’s breath had become her breath, and how, suddenly, in one moment, she’d become vigilant. She’d clutched the three and a half kilograms of life and looked around attentively, like a bitch.

Jonathan had been moved by Antosia’s birth, although he resented the baby a little for squeezing her little head, covered in sparse hair, between himself and Megi. He’d watched as the child sucked his woman’s breast, and experienced a strange tingling under his tongue. Sometimes he had felt separated from them by the growing wall of used diapers, the sleepless nights, and the squawking, of a bundle that had neither his nor Megi’s features, even though everyone tried to convince him the opposite was true.

After his son had run after him barefoot from the nursery class, Jonathan had taken him by the hand and together they’d gone back to the cushions that had just a moment ago formed a picturesque castle but now lay strewn across the floor. There were snivelling tots all over the place, pulling on their shirts and shoes. Jonathan, Tomaszek’s hand in his, had gathered the remnants of the castle and secured the scattered ammunition in a corner of the class. Together they had put the toys away in the baskets and Tomaszek told him about his idea for a catapult.

Jonathan sent a message to Andrea from the car. He apologized for having to cancel their meeting – for the first time since they’d met.

THE QUILT OF FROZEN TWIGS, leaves, and mud crunched beneath the wheels of their bikes and gave way with a spring. Crystals of ice sprayed with an angry hrrt; steam burst from their mouths and rose above their heads. Jonathan tried to overtake Stefan on his bike.

“There’s a good bar not far from here,” he roared. Stefan’s earmuffs had fooled him; he thought his friend couldn’t hear well because of them.

“Forget it,” grunted Stefan. “I’ve had too much beer this week. Time to work it off.”

“You’ve worked enough off; we’ve cycled the whole of Tervuren! You’re steaming so much, you need a horse blanket.”

Jonathan finally passed Stefan and surreptitiously maneuvered him toward the little eatery. They leaned their bikes against the wall and walked in. It was quite crowded inside; elderly women straight from the hairdresser’s flashed eyeglass frames, the younger generation disciplined their children, waiters served chocolate desserts and wafers.

“Two beers.” Jonathan held up two fingers and wiped his steamed-over eyeglasses.

The rustic interior was a trap for fat, middle-class mice; remnants of a laid-back atmosphere survived in a television set flickering above the bar, in front of which some elderly men leaned on the counter, watching a match.

“England versus Germany?” asked Stefan, just as Jonathan said, “I saw her on television.” They simultaneously, spontaneously leaned back, as though they’d accidentally bumped foreheads.

“Have you got Swedish channels?” asked Stefan.

They made themselves comfortable by the fireplace. Stefan yanked his pullover off. In just his vest, he upset the harmony of the Sunday-best aesthetics.

“I’ve got the one with her program,” replied Jonathan.

Stefan looked at him without a word and Jonathan quickly added, “Only for a month! She’s great,” he sighed. “Professionally speaking – don’t look at me like that – I’m speaking objectively as a former journalist. Drop in and have a look.” Stefan picked up his glass of beer.

“News in Swedish? Not for me, thanks.”

“She really is good – professional, stunning.”

“Aneta’s not bad either.”

Jonathan froze, his glass midway to his lips.

“Aneta?”

“The trainee.”

“You’ve fucked her?”

“That’s not the point,” began Stefan.

“What’s she like?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Stefan frowned. “Like a bun from the Co-op – sticky on the outside, insipid on the inside. But she tastes of holidays.”

“Aren’t you worried she’s going to go and brag to Monika?”

“Why should she? She’s got a boyfriend!”

“Have you already forgotten your madwoman with the eczema?”

“It wasn’t eczema but psoriasis,” Stefan corrected. “Apparently it got worse when she got stressed.”

“I dread to think what she looked like after talking to Monika.”

“You’ve always got something against my chicks,” Stefan flared up. “And all yours are Madonnas, I suppose? Holy Megi, divine Andrea! Oh, never mind.” He waved it aside and reached for a cigarette. “Whatever! I’ve seen the way Andrea looks at you when she thinks nobody’s looking.”

“She’s been so devoted lately.” Jonathan cheered up. “It scares me at times.”

“No need to be scared. She’s not going to want to change anything officially, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“What makes you think that?” Jonathan bristled.

Stefan leaned across the table and lowered his voice as though announcing something highly confidential.

“No offence, you’re a really nice guy and all that, but to her you’re also … from Poland.”

“Everybody’s from somewhere.” Jonathan shrugged.

“You’ve no professional standing in Brussels.”

“Maybe that’s what she likes about me?”

Beads of sweat appeared on Stefan’s forehead.

“You do realize who Simon is, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, and you’re from Poland.”

Jonathan leaned toward him; they now looked like conspirators, two puffed-up cockerels.

“You think you’re better, don’t you, because you went to school abroad, and don’t have a Polish accent, in your element wherever you go?” Stefan threw out. “But for people here, you’re still one of us, a Pole, a cousin of the lad who carries bricks, the guy who can give you the number of a cheap, hardworking Polish cleaner. You’ve got so many advantages but aren’t doing anything with them. You don’t care about work or a position, you don’t want to show that we, Poles …”