“I have only one story.”
“And I don’t have any,” Kitty interrupted. She had a rattling accent; Jonathan automatically scanned England in his head, searching for the girl’s roots. “Fiction puts me off.”
“Why?”
“I used to be a journalist,” sighed Kitty. “I worked in a press agency first, then on a daily paper. There’s a terrible emphasis on facts there.”
“And truth.” Jean-Pierre draped himself over his chair in a Byronic pose.
“Not necessarily.” Kitty frowned.
“You’ve had enough of facts?” Jonathan broke in.
“I want to slow down. I adore Virginia Woolf. I can read her for hours. The Waves or Mrs Dalloway, it’s all the same. In it, a day seems like an eternity.”
“And eternity seems like a day,” finished Nora, the oldest of the participants.
“Yes.” Kitty studied Nora carefully and repeated, “Yes.”
Jonathan looked at those gathered. There was a silence between them – one that was not embarrassing, since it reflected common thought. When Jean-Pierre started to wriggle restlessly in his chair, Jonathan pointed to the bowl.
“Help yourselves to the apples. They’re good for concentration.”
They ate, exchanging remarks that grew less and less formal, got to know each other. There was laughter first on one side of the table, then on the other; the anxious Geert looked at Ariane with increasing confidence, Jean-Pierre gesticulated in Kitty’s direction. A moment later, he looked around for a trash can. Not seeing one, he glanced enquiringly at Jonathan.
“Exactly,” said Jonathan. “The apple cores.”
They looked at him curiously.
“Take a good look at their shape.”
Ariane swept her eyes over the others, joined in embarrassment; Geert bestowed on her a saddened gaze. Jonathan laughed.
“You must think I’m the crazy Miss Trelawney, if you’ve read Harry Potter. You’re right, a core is a little like tea leaves, but see for yourselves the shapes you’ve created.”
Jean-Pierre rested his back against his chair and was the first to stretch out his hand with the apple core. A moment later it was Kitty with the expression, “What the hell!” Before a minute was up, everyone was examining what remained of their apples, exchanging comments and giggling nervously. Jonathan leaned over the cores with childish curiosity.
“One side bitten right down, the other not touched, beautiful, Geert. And here? The whole apple bitten round but you can’t see the seeds. While here, we have a fine piece of work, gnawed right through, pedantically…” He went on while they laughed and exchanged remarks.
Finally, he pulled himself up straight and stood behind the table.
“That was simply a quick hands-on lesson, intended to enable us to see how we get to the center.”
“I didn’t get there. I only ate the skin!” Jean-Pierre raised his hand.
“And that’s the next question: what, for each of us, constitutes the center?”
An hour later, Jonathan was in the park, kissing Andrea’s lips. Their bench was tucked away; the last rays of sun slid down the trunks of the chestnut trees. He took her face in his hands; they sat now, forehead against forehead, the girl’s eyes full of sun, almost amber.
He went home thinking about Andrea, moved and aroused.
The sight of Megi bustling about, in turn, awoke in him a growing tide of tenderness. He helped her out by serving supper, aided Antosia with her homework, and put the children to bed.
During the night, the warmth of her body in the dark, and an erection that again appeared at the recollection of his meeting with Andrea that day, made him press his hips against his wife’s buttocks without thinking. Willingly, she stuck out her backside and he entered her. Instead of Megi’s back he saw Andrea’s eyes before him, lit by the remains of the sun. He felt himself growing flaccid, so he quickened his pace. Megi arched her back; tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. He was giving her remnants – his woman and best friend; instead of an apple he was pressing a core into her.
The week before Christmas, Megi’s colleagues from work organized a party that Jonathan called a Commission Christmas party. He didn’t quite know why he had to go to it – he was neither an official nor a Catholic.
Megi, who had been baptized, received first Holy Communion, and been confirmed, had become increasingly independent in her outlook as the years passed; Aunt Barbara called it “leaving the Church.” Megi needed the elevation of religion, jokingly calling it “a hunger for mysterium,” but had ceased to find herself within the Catholic Church. The clergy irritated her; sermons didn’t interest her; and the chasm between her and the community of childless men continued to surprise her.
They had thought that in Brussels, a city with a hodgepodge of denominations in an otherwise lay country, their religious beliefs wouldn’t matter. They were happy not to have faced the dilemma of their friends who’d remained in Poland – whether to send their children to religious lessons simply to stop them from feeling like outsiders. The communist schizophrenia, where one thing was said at school and another at home, was repeated in their children’s generation. “As if the Polish mentality couldn’t stand life without authorities.” Megi screwed up her face. “As if the people were writing a collective dissertation where nothing that’s theirs comes from them, it’s all ‘op. cit.’ and ‘ibid.’”
They walked now lost in thought, Jonathan squeezed into a black jacket, Megi with an angry expression. From the frying pan into the fire – in Brussels, too, their compatriots were drawn to the Church. Office workers sang in choirs, their wives taught religion, and their sons served as altar boys.
“I wonder what their daughters do,” muttered Megi.
“Whose daughters?” Jonathan came to.
“Remember confession? A childhood nightmare! The best way to shrink the shoots of budding womanhood.”
“Then why the hell are we going there?” Jonathan stopped short.
“I’ve told you a hundred times,” she hissed impatiently. “I’ve had enough questions about why I don’t go to Mass! How many times can I say I’m unpacking crates?”
“Can’t you tell them you’re a nonbeliever?” asked Jonathan, but Megi ignored him.
The host of the Christmas party, Ludwik, greeted them at the door. Jonathan noticed that he leaned to one side, which made him look subservient but could have been the result of neglected scoliosis.
“We already know each other.” Ludwik shook Jonathan’s hand when the latter tried to introduce himself.
The Christmas dishes were topped with a typical parsley garnish. Nobody had touched the food yet; they all stood around with glasses in their hands. Rafal and Martyna were deep in conversation with people Jonathan didn’t know. Przemek was gazing across the room at Megi with genuine admiration.
Somewhere at the side Jonathan heard Stefan pontificating. He noticed, from a distance, that he was adamantly gesticulating at a pretty girl. Monika was nowhere in sight. Jonathan hesitated but Stefan beckoned for him to come.
“Meet Victoria.”
“Jonathan!” He heard before he managed to extend his hand to the girl.
Monika stood in front of him. The black dress, short hair dyed red, and the dark shawl over her shoulders made Jonathan greet her like an aunt he’d not seen for a long time. He asked after the children and Monika answered with a few smooth sentences. As usual, she had phrases suitable for the occasion at hand; listening to her, Jonathan thought that Megi was right when she called Monika a black hole – topics, devoid of angles, were sucked into conversational nothingness in a flash. “If one were to believe what she says,” he reflected, watching Monika’s lips moving, “one would think there’s no friction in her life.” He nevertheless generally defended Monika when anyone criticized her in public. Beneath the ready-made formulae he saw the girl he’d known for ten years and who had once come to him, lugging a suitcase in one hand and holding a baby in the other. That one and only time Jonathan had been forced to mediate between her and Stefan. Before a year had been out, Franek was born.