“Mama says you used to be a diver,” said Fred in a rather reedy voice, having stuffed his nose with catkins against the sewer’s stink. “That’s someone who stays underwater for a really long time.”
“I was famous!”
“In oceans, too?”
“Once I dove all the way to the floor of the Baltic. Without any help!”
“Where’s the Baltic?”
“Up north.”
“Will you go diving with me, too?”
“Of course! We’ll go to the bottom of all seven seas!”
Fred smiled. “That’s a lot.”
“But first,” said Arkadiusz, pointing to a metal grate down at the end of the tunnel, all overgrown with scraps of vegetation, and pressing a scrub brush into Fred’s hand, “first we have to make sure that Segendorf stays spick-and-span.”
Arkadiusz waited long enough — or too long. On August 25, 1939, a week before the German invasion of his native land, he stumbled across a collapsed sewer tunnel. Instead of reporting the damage right away, he investigated it on his own. Possibly because his eye had been caught by a glitter among the stones. I imagine Arkadiusz climbing over the rubble, pushing clumps of dirt aside with both hands, picking up an unnaturally heavy stone, spitting on it, and wiping the filth away with his shirt — though he knew it would earn him a disapproving shake of the head from his wife. He smiled, thrilled, while a drop of water burst unnoticed on his shoulder. Arkadiusz was barely able to believe that now, without even looking, he’d managed to find it.
“Waiting always pays off!” he informed the sewer pipe, kissing the gold and laughing.
By the time he heard the rushing, it was already too late.
Days passed before they managed to retrieve his body, since only a handful of people took part in the search. These were tough times in which to mobilize help for a Pole. Via Markus’s radio the news had reached Segendorf, delivered by an audibly outraged gentleman: “TONIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME, REGULAR TROOPS FROM POLAND FIRED ON OUR TERRITORY. WE HAVE BEEN RETURNING FIRE SINCE FIVE FORTY-FIVE A.M. AND FROM NOW ON EVERY BOMB WILL BE ANSWERED WITH A BOMB.”
I was the one who discovered Arkadiusz. At first I’d bristled at the idea of lifting so much as a finger for my brother-in-law’s sake, but of course I couldn’t have refused my sister anything. Without actually putting any effort into the subterranean search, I found him wrapped around an outflow pipe, sallow and bloated. But his face! I’d had plenty of experience with corpses, among them a whole crowd of indolently scowling floaters — but Arkadiusz’s face was in a league of its own. Even in death, he seemed outrageously lovable.
Two Burials
I weighted Arkadiusz’s body down with stones, and sank him in the Moorsee, according to Anni’s wishes. Out there where, years before, a girl from Segendorf had first met a shape-shifter.
The same evening, I went to visit my sister in her room. She sat on her bed, looking weary, too weary even to shake her head, and was surrounded by her Most Beloved Possessions, all that she’d rescued from the ruins of our parents’ house … the spine of the cookbook … a stove tile broken in five pieces … arrowheads … a clutch of hairpins all melted together …
“How are you doing?” I asked in a whisper.
“I don’t know,” she said.
I came closer. “I’m sorry.” I sat down beside her on the bed and tentatively slipped an arm around her.
Anni snuggled up against me.
“Back when I went away, I thought that I’d find someone out there, someone who’d love me, and whom I could love. But my true love, I’ve realized, my true love lives right here.”
“You’re going to marry Mina?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But you should! She’s already waited so long! When two people love each other, they should be together!”
“That’s what I think, too.”
“Then don’t wait any longer! You never know how much time you have left! Someday everyone you love will die.”
“Not everyone.”
“I’m an orphan. And a widow.”
“You’re a sister.”
“That’s different.”
“Remember how we used to play who-can-fill-the-cup-with-spit-first?”
“Terrible.”
“You usually won!”
“That was the past,” she said. Leaping up, she hurled the Most Beloved Possessions into a box, and handed it to me. “Here. Do what you want with them.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve kept them too long. They’re burned. It’s over. Go on, get rid of them.”
That night I saw how patiently the bog swallowed the box of Most Beloved Possessions, and hoped that with this, the story of Jasfe and Josfer was finally at an end.
Afterward, I sat down on Wolf Hill by the tree’s serpentine root, and read I love you. From now on, Arkadiusz would no longer stand between me and my sister.
From a pouch I pulled the gold I’d found on Arkadiusz. He must have stuffed it into his pocket just seconds before the surge of water had swept him away. I’d hold on to it for the time being; who knew what good it might do someday.
Then I saw Fred hurrying up the hill toward me, and tucked it away. Though he wasn’t yet nine, my nephew’s legs, thin as matchsticks, were known as the longest in all of Segendorf, and patches of downy beard were already sprouting on his cheeks. “Mama says she can’t be a mama now!”
“And why are you telling me that?”
“I’m telling you because Mama says you can be my papa a little bit now.”
“Me? No, Fred. Nonono. Only your papa can be your papa.”
Fred shook first his right, then his left leg, looked up at the sky, cleared his throat. “Mama says you can be my papa a little bit now.”
“You already mentioned that.”
“What?”
“You said that already.”
“I know.”
“So you can go now.”
“I can draw a picture of you!”
“I don’t want any of your pictures. Go play with some kids, any kids!”
“Any kids are sleeping now.”
“Then why don’t you go to sleep, too?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“And why not?”
“Because my papa always sings a song so I can sleep. It has really funny words. Do you know that song?”
“No.”
“I was in the pipes today,” said Fred. “I looked for my papa. Mama says my papa is always traveling through the pipes. Sometimes he’s in America, and sometimes he’s in Poland, and sometimes he’s here, too.” He scraped at the ground with his feet, crossed his arms, stretched them out again, and sniffled. “Mama says you can be my papa a little bit, while my papa is traveling.”