On Friday, after taking the children to school, Megi knocked on the door to the bedroom, which, for the duration of his illness, had become his own private den. He invited her in with a vague cough and she sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I’d like to tell you something,” she began.
He looked at her from beneath half-closed eyelids; she appeared embarrassed. Jonathan attempted to sit up. Megi leapt up to pull the pillow higher. Suddenly, he wanted to laugh.
“Is the maiden in the family way?” he asked sternly.
Megi smiled; for a moment once more she was a student in love and not a lawyer with furrowed brow. She couldn’t believe how well-read he was in Polish literature and admitted that she, like the majority of her friends at secondary school, had merely skimmed through Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy, but then she wasn’t a born humanist; which is why she loved the ancient Polish interjections that Jonathan had absorbed when he spent weeks of his holiday at his mother’s.
She shook her head now, and told him about Przemek’s offer – that, career-wise, she was tempted because she’d be able to learn new things, because here, after three years working as an administrator, she knew her responsibilities off by heart. Well, and, despite having passed the exams, the promotion had passed her by.
Jonathan listened attentively, from time to time a grimace of pain flitted across his face.
“And what do you think?” she asked in the end.
His eyes turned to the window. A little bit of sunshine pierced the clouds. What she was saying also seemed to come from outer space.
“To Poland?” he finally said.
7
THAT SATURDAY he tried to leave the house. He wanted to escape from the mangled sheets, the sound of the television, the children’s activity and Megi’s domestic pattering around doing household chores. He wanted to escape from the silence that had fallen over them after she’d told him about her offer.
He got dressed and barely managed to make his way downstairs. “Are you going out?” Megi leaned out of the kitchen. “Yes,” he muttered and started putting on his shoes. He picked up the right shoe, thinking he owed Megi the chance to return. It was because of him that she hadn’t got the promotion; he saw her frustration. She was not some dozy office worker; after coming here and relishing the novelty, she had cultivated her patch without much effort and was quickly disheartened by the excess of bureaucracy that inhibited the efficiency of what they were doing. She considered herself too young to be “coming and going with a briefcase,” which was how she described the fate of her fellow officials. She enjoyed challenges, problems. Sharp, she was familiar with power games but hated intrigue.
Jonathan mechanically put the right shoe down again and picked up the left. He couldn’t imagine going back to Poland. It was like steering a ship back to port with its sails unfurled and instructing the crew to enjoy the flapping. Here, his children learned different languages, got what Stefan envied him. Here, they had friends of different nationalities with different roots, histories, skin colors.
He replaced the left shoe on the floor, turned with a groan, and began to rummage around in the pocket of his jacket. He searched and searched but Tomaszek’s map wasn’t there. He sat down, trying to remember where he could have put it. He definitely hadn’t thrown it away. What if it had fallen out?
He hunched over, forgetting about his lumbago, and yanked his head up with a moan.
“Is everything OK?” Megi leaned out of the kitchen again.
He muttered something; she emerged and walked up to him.
“Too weak to go out?”
He nodded, feeling like an idiot.
“I thought so.” She ran her hands over his arm. “It’s too soon. Give yourself time.”
And then there was the affair with the dove. Jonathan trudged upstairs, step by step, groaning like an old man. He was on the half-landing when a white bird fluttered in through the open window. Its legs slid apart on the smooth surface of the parapet but it didn’t flee, merely stared at Jonathan. Only the stamping of Tomaszek’s feet alerted the dove; still it didn’t fly away.
It was then – as he later recounted – that Jonathan understood the bird was sick or dazed. Tomaszek stopped short and watched his father, who himself had difficulty moving, help the bird find its way out and close the window behind it. But when, some time later, Antosia ran past, she noticed the bird was still there, perched by the window-frame. She called Megi but her mother was getting dinner ready so Jonathan dragged himself downstairs.
Together with the children, he inspected the bird through the window pane, then went down with them. Together they constructed a cardboard “house,” lining it with a soft rag and placing a saucer of water and some bread in the corner.
“Shall we make him a microwave as well?” asked Tomaszek.
They left the cardboard shelter outside, Megi helping them because Jonathan couldn’t bend down. They sheltered the bird from the wind and rain, while making it possible for it to get out.
The following day, the children leapt out of bed and ran down to see how the dove was. But the bird was already dead. Jonathan did his best to console them but the sight of the white feathers covered with the first snow of the winter upset them all.
“And it didn’t even die in the house we made especially for it,” snivelled Tomaszek.
“It must have needed some fresh air,” deduced Antosia.
Megi left them pondering where to bury the bird and went for a walk; a week’s “leave” had left her drained.
When she got back, they were waiting for her with a white box in a carrier bag, all dressed to go out.
“What’s that?” she asked, indicating what looked like a box of doughnuts from Blikle patisserie.
“The dove,” replied Antosia, putting on her hat. “We’re going to bury it. You’ve got to drive, Mommy, because Daddy can’t.”
“He’s all twisted up.” Tomaszek was more precise as he prepared to go out without his gloves.
“I’m worried about whether we did the right thing, leaving that poor bird out in the freezing cold,” Jonathan whispers into Megi’s ear. “The children are taking its death so hard.”
“And what were we supposed to do, take it to bed with us?” asks Megi in an unexpectedly argumentative tone.
She watches Jonathan grip the banister. He’s pale; it’s the first time he’s going out since being ill. He’s doing it for the children, so that they remember the dove’s burial. Megi walks up to him and impulsively puts her arms around his waist.
She ought to ask him whether he’s thought about Przemek’s offer of eventually going back to Poland, but instead she thinks of Emile Max Street, blossoming with pink flowers. In the background flash the displeased faces of her cousin Adelka and her husband Robert. “Oh my God, and Uncle Tadeusz?” pounds in her head. On the other hand, shouldn’t she go back to Poland, shouldn’t she stretch herself professionally? After all, how long could she be an administrator?
Megi sighs and lets Jonathan go. She doesn’t ask him anything. She goes downstairs and he follows, a fairy tale writer with a white dove in a Delhaize plastic bag.
The next day, Monday, Jonathan dialled his doctor’s number.
“Hello?” A Flemish accent echoed in the receiver.
“I’m calling about my HIV results.” Jonathan only just managed to give his details; his mouth was so dry.
“And how’s your back?” the doctor asked as she searched for his name on the computer.