Marta took a small glass jar from her apron pocket and tapped ash into it.
‘And those comments,’ he calmly went on, without looking up from the boot, ‘those stupid allusions. So I’ve come here to get my money back, have I? Couldn’t you have told him I gave up my share in your favour long ago?’
‘I did tell him,’ said Marta shaking her head, ‘but you can see for yourself. He bosses everyone around. With four children.’
He wanted to add that in his view all four of them were dreadfully badly behaved and nasty, just like their father, or rather not brought up at all, but as soon as he looked at Marta, he went straight back to his interrupted job. There were tears in her eyes.
‘You have no idea how hard it is,’ she said, slowly stubbing out her cigarette. ‘Ever since Marian died, I’ve lost all my energy. Are you really going to skate on those?’ she asked, changing the subject. ‘Wait a moment, I’ll get you some woolly socks.’
As he walked down hill to the lake, Joachim felt depressed. He couldn’t shake off the stifling, unpleasant atmosphere in the house. He felt sorry for Marta, but he had no influence on her life. Everyone, including her daughter, seemed to ignore her. And exploit her. The retired librarian cooked, washed, ironed and did the shopping, but was shown absolutely no respect for it. She was like an old servant who is only spoken to in case of need. All these days she had avoided talking to him one-to-one. He’d noticed that as soon as her son-in-law appeared, she fell silent. And yet there was at least one thing they ought to clarify. For years on end, month in, month out, Joachim had sent her 150 US dollars. Nowadays it was an almost ridiculous sum, but under the communists, converted into the zlotys of the day, it was rather a lot. When he wrote to say he couldn’t support her any more, that he was having some temporary problems and that he hadn’t been able to pull himself together since Julia died, she hadn’t answered, nor had she written for several years. He realised she had her own troubles, but after all this time shouldn’t she at least – even just a word or two – say thank you?
Luckily the sun was shining, and the powdery snow was crunchy underfoot. Down by the lake Joachim spied out the abutment of the old landing-stage, where he sat down and quickly changed his boots. The wind, which had been raging the previous night, had formed deep drifts in some places, but there were also whole expanses of ice that were free of snow, as if specially cleared for him. He raced ahead at great speed, turned wide circles, spun large and small figures of eight, and felt a surge of happiness. As he was returning to the house, the violet shadows of early dusk were already being cast on the snow. The family dinner was over by now, but Marta was waiting for him specially, and they ate together, the two of them, in the kitchen.
‘Do you remember the old, abandoned barn on the hill?’ he asked.
She did. The three of them, including Andrzej, had crept up there on the dot of noon. The air was rippling in the heat as they ran round the wooden skeleton chanting: ‘Bare-bottomed man, come out of the barn! Bare-bottomed man, come out of the barn!’ As soon as something moved inside, they raced off all the way to the grave, shouting at the top of their voices.
Why exactly had they called that place the grave? Old Maudzis, who did his ploughing every spring with a horse harnessed to a ploughshare, was always finding disintegrating clay pots there. Then he would cross himself and shout against the wind: ‘By Potrimpe, by Patollu, by Verszajte divine, touch thou not this grave of mine!’ Andrzej did the funniest imitation of him. First he crossed himself just like the old man, then he stuck his bum out in his direction, puffed up his lips, and let out a monstrous, raucous fart. Maudzis would yell swear words and throw clumps of earth at them. Sometimes he threw a shard from a clay pot.
‘I’m paying him back now,’ said Marta about Andrzej. ‘We haven’t seen each other since Mother died. Do you correspond?’
Joachim said no. Zdzisław, the son-in-law, entered the kitchen. In a conciliatory way he set a decanter full of fruit liqueur and two glasses on the table.
‘Don’t be angry,’ he said, pouring a glass for himself and Joachim. ‘If I’d known you ordered the piano tuner, I’d even have paid him myself. But the man was standing in the doorway, I’d just dropped in from the workshop for a moment, and I thought he was some sort of conman, a Jehovah’s witness or something. So what happened, happened. But I’ve ordered him for tomorrow. At my expense.’
‘Well I never, sir!’ Somehow Joachim couldn’t get onto first-name terms with Marta’s son-in-law. ‘Why not pour a drink for your mother-in-law? Marta, will you have a drop with us?’
Without a word, Zdzisław fetched a third glass from the sideboard.
The cherry brandy was weak and too sweet.
When Joachim made a move to go up to his room, Marta grabbed him by the wrist.
‘Just tell me one thing. Why did you stop playing? Actually, why did you never start? I mean the stage, your career – well, why?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘You were the only one of us who could have achieved something. Teachers, lessons. Just you. You went away, and nothing came of it! Nothing!’
‘Well, quite,’ said Joachim, kissing Marta on the cheek. ‘Nothing worked out for me either. But is that such a big sin?’
As he lay in bed, he thought about the nightmare Christmas Eve from a few days ago. The television switched on, the teenagers bickering, Marta forever on the go, and finally the piano that hadn’t been tuned for years, at which he had pointedly sat down and furiously played a carol that sounded dreadful.
Now he regretted it, like a schoolboy prank. But soon he was dreaming. Large snowflakes fell silently on the ash tree, under which his mother was arranging some gift boxes. Above the large, old tree a star was twinkling. The Pole star, not the Star of Bethlehem.
The piano tuner rang to say he was ill and could only come in a week at the soonest. Zdzisław tried to find another one, but with no result. Joachim was not in the least upset. Every day, taking advantage of the frosty, sunny weather, he went out skating. He toured ever more distant corners of the lake. In some places the new estates and housing districts came right down to the shore, wound around the bays and occupied the hills. He often passed speeding ice yachts, or nearer the buildings, boys playing hockey. One day, a single skater separated himself from one of these groups and, to Joachim’s amazement, started to keep him company. It was a very strange impression: the man was skating in parallel to him at a distance of about thirty metres, copying his every movement like in a mirror. When Joachim stopped abruptly, so did that fellow, and he slowed down in just the same way. When Joachim turned a figure of eight, that man turned one too. When he skated on just his left foot for a while, holding his right leg up like a crane, that fellow did the same.
‘I haven’t gone mad, have I?’ wondered Joachim, glancing into the bright blue sky (the man glanced skywards too). ‘He’s not my lookalike!’ Indeed, he didn’t look like Joachim at all; he was smaller, with a slight build, and he was dressed differently too. From afar he seemed to be wearing rather theatrical, old-fashioned clothes. But it was impossible to get any nearer: whenever Joachim moved towards him, the fellow immediately moved exactly the same distance away. When he did a low, rather clownish bow, the fellow bowed back in an identical manner.
‘Once I press him to the shore,’ the simple idea dawned on him, ‘he’ll have to go past me. Unless he flies off straight onto dry land. But then I’ll catch up with him…’
First he sped off towards Likusy, then he made an abrupt about-turn in the direction of the Old Manor, and finally built up incredible speed as he headed straight for the Podlesie shore. And it happened; with no space to escape into, right by the shore the stranger did in fact turn round and glide straight towards him. But it was an unnaturally rapid manoeuvre, devilish quick somehow; at the last second Joachim dodged, but not soon enough to slow down, so he crashed headlong into the shore, luckily landing in a deep snowdrift.