Grażyna Plebanek - Illegal Liaisons

“Andrea’s and Simon’s,” filled in Rafal as he pushed his way toward them, grunting, “What a crowd!”

Jonathan allowed himself to be sucked in by some group, thanks to which, seconds later, he was several meters away, his salad slipping precariously to one side of his plate.

“… is pregnant although it doesn’t show much yet.”

“Simon’s too old to be a father,” replied a familiar voice.

Jonathan turned. Stefan was sweating by the meatballs; below his nose, where until recently he’d cultivated the moustache, beads of sweat were collecting.

“Why are you standing by the pots?” Jonathan indicated the steaming jaws of aluminium containers.

“Herd mentality. I wasn’t hungry but when everyone threw themselves at the food, so did I. Exactly as if ham were still being rationed,” grunted Stefan, adding aggressively, “But you always had all you wanted. There wasn’t any martial law in England.”

“English pork sausages were deadlier than communist water cannons.”

Stefan’s face was taking on one of his national colors when he suddenly noticed Jonathan’s expression. He followed his eyes – Andrea stood surrounded by a circle of friends, Martyna’s hand was on her belly, Rafal was nodding and blinking compulsively, and Monika was listening with a polite expression. Only Przemek was uninterested in Andrea and stood, crushed in with his plate, directly next to Megi.

Jonathan and Stefan moved in that direction.

“When’s the wedding?” Martyna’s falsetto rose high.

“I’m not good material for a wife,” they heard Andrea’s amused voice.

“But what about the baby?” Rafal joined in.

“Oh, come on.” Monika shrugged. “Women used to have to protect themselves from sex so as not to get pregnant otherwise they could’ve landed up with a bastard or died in childbirth. Now we can have both a rich sex life and be mothers. Even single ones, from choice.”

“It’s true, damn it,” Stefan whistled into Jonathan’s ear. “They can have it all!”

“It’s a different matter who’s going to do the housework, cooking, see to the children’s homework …” Monika’s voice now took on a bitter tone.

“There are cleaners and other women to help.” Martyna shrugged.

“And they’re meant to bring up your children, are they?” Monika was piqued.

“Look at Megi,” countered Martyna. “She works and has children.”

“Megi’s not a single mother,” clarified Monika.

Jonathan felt a jab in his side – Stefan was letting him know they should clear out.

“What’s happened to her?” He ran his hands through his hair when they were beyond the others’ earshot.

“She’s always been like that.” Jonathan clenched his fists. “You heard for yourself: “I’m not good material for a wife.” Blah, blah, blah!”

“I’m talking about Monika. And that kid … Is it yours?”

The volume of stories by Jonathan’s protégés was to begin with Geert’s piece about childhood in the Congo. After it came Kitty’s short story pulsating with teenage sensuality, then Ariane’s text about the old pigeon-breeder, and, finally, the amusing tale of a small-town barber under police witness protection, written by Jean-Pierre.

Jonathan spread the pages out in order on the park bench and weighed them down with his wallet to stop them blowing away. On a separate sheet, he wrote the title of the anthology, then another and another. He tilted his head to one side and matched the motifs, patterns and specific scenes from the stories to the two words that were to announce the whole. He already felt the smoothness of the printed page beneath his hands, his nose ran along the spine.

He was pleased that autumn belonged to solid facts. He slipped the pages into a paper folder and looked around. Lunch hour was approaching, office workers loomed at the gate, an old woman perched on the neighboring bench, and every now and again a pervert emerged from the bushes near the statue. Jonathan was on the point of leaving when his eyes fell on the belly of a pregnant woman sitting on a bench nearby. His body grew unspeakably heavy.

Because here, a few meters away from him, concealed beneath a black dress and an office worker’s jacket and swamped in amniotic waters, breathed a little human being, possibly sucking its thumb. Jonathan’s pulse accelerated and his fingers grew damp.

But the rhythm of the child’s breathing and the beating of its mother’s heart radiated toward the neighboring benches, muffled the drone of cars, slowed the city traffic.

And Jonathan slowly, slowly calmed down.

Andrea greeted Jonathan in the doorway. Her belly, a shapely little ball high below her bust, was barely perceptible, her face more beautiful than usual, luminous.

“You look wonderful,” he whispered in her ear and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Jonathan felt her belly press below his ribs in a familiar way.

The leather sofa in the living room stood in its rightful place, yet he looked around as if expecting something to have changed. Only when he felt Andrea’s hands on his back did he bow his head, bring her fingers to his lips and lick them greedily.

This time it was Andrea who wasn’t careful and although Jonathan whispered she ought to watch out “because of the baby,” she sat on him back to front. She rested her hands on his shins and rode, rubbing his penis against the back wall of her vagina. All of a sudden, she reached for his hands, raised herself on them, and abruptly sank.

Later, when they lay on the damp leather, Andrea nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder, put her arm around his belly. These gestures, so soft, so unlike her! He must have entered her deeper than his own cock since she’d wanted him so much. “Do you love me?” whispered Andrea and, when he didn’t reply, muttered, “You do, I know you love me.”

It wasn’t until Jonathan was getting dressed that Andrea said, “I’ve passed the exams.”

She was lying on the sofa so that he could see the curve between her hips and bust, her belly covered with a blanket.

“I’ve already had an interview to work for the Commission. I think it went well.”

Jonathan pulled his jacket off the hanger and automatically glanced at the cell in his pocket – no messages. Of course, the “message” was now lying behind him, saying something – about exams?

“You want to be an office worker?” Jonathan hid the phone.

“I need a secure job.”

“But won’t you go mad working for the Commission? It would be different if you were a lawyer like Megi, that’s an entirely different …”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” she interrupted.

“You once said yourself that I’d feel like a goose stuffed ready for foie gras if I worked for the Commission and now you … You’re a journalist!”

“One can change one’s profession.”

“And who, supposedly, would you be?”

“Head of unit.”

“Can’t you hear what that sounds like?” Jonathan laughed and waited for Andrea to do the same. But she got up from the sofa and, without covering her belly, waddled toward the window as if she’d been about to give birth.

“Remember our first conversation?” Jonathan was serious now. “It was about precisely that, it was the beginning of us …”

“I think I’m going to leave Simon.”

“That’s why I took the writing course …” Jonathan broke off.

“I need a job that will give me the certainty that I won’t get sacked when I’m walking around with an even bigger belly,” Andrea explained in a teacher’s voice.

Jonathan watched her draw back the lace curtains and look out on to the street. Lace strips of fabric – a souvenir of her parents’ country, a communist legacy. Here, in Belgium, nobody hung things like that over their windows; people had lightweight curtains, canvas blinds, or left the windows bare according to the principle, “We’ve nothing to hide.”