‘Despite her failings, she mattered. A mother always matters. I hit back at school until they kicked me out.’
Anselm frowned as if he’d just heard gunfire echoing down a corridor in Praga. Irina’s son was sorting out the Afghans. In the kitchen, Irina was explaining…
‘My father showed no emotion,’ said Celina, as if cutting Anselm short. ‘He just focused on me. I was all that counted. But, you see, these people whose importance isn’t widely known, all they’ve got is what they think of themselves. Nothing else matters. So he tried to make me into another version of him.’
When Celina began to mock one or two teachers, he’d stood over the desk in her bedroom, legs apart, hands behind his back. He’d dished out all the official lines he’d ever learned. He’d ranted in the kitchen about duty and responsibility and choices and sacrifice and ashes. After her third expulsion he’d said she was becoming an embarrassment — the understatement had shocked her; he wasn’t a man for delicate wordplay Following the fourth, what was left of their relationship broke down. She didn’t wait to be thrown out, she just walked on to the street. Homeless, she’d eventually found herself among like minds, people who gave her a floor, people who thought like she did, whose flats were sometimes turned over by the boys in jeans and leather jackets. She went to a kind of university with lectures in boiler rooms and attics, staffed by professors who worked in factories or washed the windows.
‘I next saw him after I’d been arrested in sixty-eight,’ said Celina. She sipped water, her lips needing moisture. ‘He got me out. There were no charges brought and I was furious and sick with shame. Other people’s kids were finished off, but not his. I told him to keep far, far away from my life. But he stayed there, I understand that now Why else did they leave me alone? How else did I get a job in film? How else did I get my work past the censors?’
Celina laid one hand upon the other. Carelessly showing the depth of her distress, she played with her ring, the big daisy. Her voice came again like the tearing of flimsy paper. ‘I wanted those relatives, John. More than anything, I wanted parents in prison and ancestors scattered round Siberia. But that’s not what I got. I got a mother who didn’t have a clue and a father who was Otto Brack.’
At least Anselm had seen it coming, so he had an excuse for not reacting. John made a start as if the Dentist had forgotten to use anaesthetic. But Roza simply stared ahead, mute, remote, frightening Anselm with her silence. She seemed all-knowing, expectant, resigned. Her thumb strayed to the finger with two wedding rings. Celina played with the daisy John put on his glasses as if to avoid a coming explosion of light. The fire collapsed. Shadows fled across the vaulted roof A sort of fuse spontaneously ignited in Anselm’s mind.
‘I thought I’d never see him again,’ said Celina. ‘He completely vanished from my life. I made something of myself. Good things happened to me. We met in May do you remember, John? I moved in towards the end of the August. It was a sunny time, wasn’t it? We were free and easy and the army was out there bothering other people. But then, in the October, I came home and found my father in the sitting room, legs crossed. In his hands was a journal. He didn’t say a thing, he just sat there, turning the pages.’
Celina’s evocation of that encounter was so vivid — not by her words but the expression on her face, the shock lived again — that Anselm found himself in that Warsaw flat, a frightened intruder watching a mystery unfold, a mystery half understood because that journal was Brack’s creation. Anselm couldn’t move. The fuse was sputtering. He looked out of his own darkness at the father and his terrified daughter…
‘He’s been very stupid,’ he said closing the journal. ‘And that annoys me.
‘What the hell are you doing here? What are-’
‘Keep your voice down. I’m here to help. Again. Tidying up after you. Sweeping up your endless mistakes.’
He hadn’t shouted, but he sounded loud and piercing. Celina stayed with her back to the front door, the keys jingling in one hand. He was dressed in one of those shapeless suits without apparent colour, the cloth blending into any and all surroundings. His drab overcoat was slung over the back of a chair.
‘I’ve been trying to help him,’ he said, tossing the book on to a coffee table. ‘But he’s broken the rules and now he’s in trouble. Serious trouble. Like you, he should have listened. Like you, he thinks he knows best.’
‘What do you mean, help him?’
Her father pointed towards a chair. Out of some remembered fear, Celina obeyed. His eyes tracked her with the old, hungry disapproval. He’d greyed but the hardness was still there around the mouth. She’d always thought his face looked scarred, only there were no old cuts on the beaten skin. ‘I’ve been giving his career a push. Looking after him like I’ve looked after you.
Nausea turned Celina’s insides. He was at it again. He wouldn’t let go of her; and now his contamination had reached John. All she could manage was, ‘He’s in trouble?’
‘Of course he is.’ Her father nodded towards the journal. ‘He’s written down where he got it all from — I’m not worried, I’m a careful man. We’ve never met. He doesn’t know my face or name — but what he’s written down is proof, proof of serious crimes.’
‘Take it… burn it.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s been seen by eyes other than mine. I’ve sent them away for now, but I’ll have to act on it. Eventually’
‘I’ll tell them what you’ve said and what you’ve done for me, over the years.
He looked at her with a father’s contempt. ‘No one but me would believe you.’
‘Crimes?’ She was lurching with anxiety and guilt: this was her fault. He was her father, and now he’d compromised John, as he’d always compromised her. ‘What crimes?’
‘The sort that land you in prison for ten years. Espionage doesn’t attract a short sentence, not when it upsets Moscow Which is why he’s upset me. I was only giving his career a shove in the right direction.’
Why won’t you leave me alone? The question rose from Celina’s depths but she couldn’t give it voice. She couldn’t bear to have any exchange with this… there wasn’t a single word to describe him, or what he meant to her. The remembered fear was eating at her guts. Why had he sent off his subordinates? Why was he still here?
‘He’s named you and someone else,’ he said, as if in reply ‘You’re all in danger now He really should have stuck to the rules. Write nothing down was number one.’
‘You’ll help him?’
‘Are you asking?’ Again the father’s contempt.
‘Yes.’
‘All right. But there isn’t much time. He mentions a woman called Roza Mojeska. I’ll need to see her, which isn’t prudent for a man in my position. But it’s the only way I can organise a passport. I’ll have to get one for you, too. I can get you all out before it’s too late. I’ll make it so that your boyfriend’s asked quietly to leave — among journalists, that’s a kind of medal for bravery. Shows he got close to the nerves of power. Best career boost in the bag. Is that good enough for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen gratitude put light on your face.’
‘I’m not grateful,’ snapped Celina. ‘It’s your meddling around with my life that’s caused all this… all you’ve ever done is bring me- ‘Privileges,’ supplied her father. ‘Well, take this one with both hands. It won’t be happening again.’ He stood up to go. ‘Obviously you can’t tell your boyfriend what I’m doing or that we’ve met.’
‘Why not?’
‘He can’t be trusted. He breaks rules.’ An ironic smile warped his face. ‘And I’m not sure he’d want to marry into the family you know what I mean? Your connection to me might put him off. Christmas with the in-law? I don’t think so. That’s why I’m going to keep well out of the picture. Frankly it’s better for him and for you if he leaves Warsaw thinking he’s some kind of hero.’ Shaking his head in dismay he looked down at the journal. ‘Put that thing back with his socks, will you? He really should have listened.’