I didn’t say anything — what was the sense after all those years. I knew why he’d fired me. Besides, it was good it happened that way, I had to go anyway. How long was that job supposed to drag on? I mean, there was nothing keeping me there. Małgorzata had long left for the town, she was working in the county offices. I heard she’d gotten married, but maybe it was just a rumor? A year or so before mother died she’d come by our place to visit.
This nicely dressed lady in a suit and hat and with a handbag came to the house. She was pretty and a little sad. It was her. I was lying drunk in the other room. When mother heard she was asking for me she had her take a seat. And of course, being mother she says:
“Well, he’s sort of here and sort of not, young lady. He’s drunk in the other room, sleeping. Even if we woke him you wouldn’t be able to talk to him. He only just got back. It’s like this almost every day. I keep praying to God.” The poor thing started crying. “Who are you, if I might ask?”
“A friend. We used to work in the district administration together.” Her eyes got wet too. She took a handkerchief out of her handbag and made like she was wiping her nose. “I work in the town now.”
“I don’t think he ever mentioned you. But when he sobers up I’ll tell him you were here. What’s your name now?”
“Małgorzata. He’ll know.”
“You’re so pretty, and I can see you’re a good person. Come again sometime, maybe he won’t be drunk. He doesn’t always drink.”
I even thought I heard her voice through the door with mother’s voice as they were talking. But I was sure it was a dream. There was no point getting up for a dream. She never came again. Maybe that was finally the end.
Though I’d thought it was the end that time I walked her back home after the dance and tried to kiss her and she ran away. What did I want with a girl that goes to a dance with you then won’t even let herself be kissed. When the next dance came I asked Irka Ziętek from the administrative offices. She didn’t run away. And she had a drink. And ate a whole plateful of sandwiches. She kept sighing about how good the vodka made her feel, how good. During the dancing she stuck to me like glue. And it had only just started to get dark when we took a stroll. She was the one dragged me out, come on, let’s go take a walk, I don’t feel like dancing anymore. I feel like doing something else. Hee, hee!
Then a while later there was a dance in Bartoszyce and I even took two girls, both of them from highways. She didn’t mean anything to me by then. We’d pass in the hallway like people that barely know each other. Good morning. Good morning. Like before. And truth to tell, it’s a pity things didn’t stay that way.
But one time, the workday was coming to an end, you could already hear the goodbyes in the next room, all of a sudden there’s a knock at my door, come in, and it’s her. She seemed a bit on edge as she entered. I’m not bothering you? Not at all. And she asks me if I could stay a little longer and help her, she has an urgent job she needs to turn in the next day and she can’t handle it on her own. She asked her girlfriends but none of them can do it. I could see right away it wasn’t a matter of helping her, she wanted to make the other thing right. Why did you put up a fight at the dance, you silly woman? I can stay behind. Why not. I often stay when someone needs help.
We were recording tax receipts, me on one side of the desk, her on the other. I arranged them in alphabetical order, each letter in a separate pile. She checked every receipt against a list to make sure the payments agreed with the invoices. Everyone had left the building already. It was starting to get dark. It was the end of September. She turned a lamp on. Then we had to transfer the payment amounts from the receipts to separate entries on a form. Serial number, family name, given name, village, acreage, land quality, to be paid, paid, installment amount, still to pay. Mrs. Kopeć, the caretaker, dusted quickly, emptied the ashtrays, swept the floor, then said goodbye and she left too. Then the amounts on the forms had to be added up to check they matched the receipts. Evening came. It got dark around us. When you glanced up at the room, nothing looked like it usually did. The desks, that during the day they pushed their way into the room so you could barely squeeze through, now they just stood there quietly like the coffins of dead clerks. The cupboards, that not long ago had just been cupboards, now they looked like old willow trees that someone had cut the tops off of. There was only us in the light of the desk lamp, we looked like we were inside a brightly lit sphere. Though just like two office workers working on receipts. Nothing more. But if someone had seen us through the window they could have gone telling people we were cuddling, because we were sitting right up close to each other and there was no one else in the building. Of course, from time to time one of us would say something, me or her, but only what was needed for the job.
“Could you pin those receipts together, Mr. Szymon.”
“Is it Wojciech Jagła or Jagło?”
“Ten acres, class two land, do you have one like that?”
“How much do you make it, Miss Małgorzata? Mine comes out to such and such.”
“This doesn’t match up. We need to check it again.”
At times a sadness passed across her face, but it was sadness from the receipts. The best medicine for that kind of sadness is an abacus. Immediately she started rattling away like a machine gun.
It was eight, maybe a little after. We were still deep in receipts. If only she’d once given me a warmer look, or if she’d gotten flustered when I glanced at her. Nothing. It was even like she was chiding me for those glances, she’d tell me to check something or other, write it down, add it up a second time. In the end I started to think about getting out my watch and saying, look, it’s eight, nine, to finally make her lift her eyes from the receipts. Then I’d say:
“Let’s take a bit of a break.”
And she might reply:
“Maybe I’ll make tea. Will you have some?”
I wouldn’t have minded some tea. I started discreetly feeling my pockets for my watch. It was the same one I sold later to pay for the tomb. A silver one, on a chain. I got it off the Germans in a battle. Though truth be told, the men found it on a dead officer. It had slipped out of his pocket like it was trying to get away from the body, except the chain held it in place. It wasn’t much of a battle. It only lasted half an hour or so, like it was all about the watch. On our side Highlander was wounded, on the other side they all died. Actually there wasn’t really anything to fight about. Someone had told us there was a motorcycle and car with Germans coming down the road. We didn’t even know where they were going or what for. Though for sure they weren’t driving that way just for fun. We made an ambush in a gully that was overgrown on both sides with hazel and hawthorn and juniper. We blocked off the road in front and behind, we waited till they got close, then we let them have it from every side. There were a few bodies, a few guns, the watch, and that was the end of the battle. These days a watch doesn’t mean a thing, every other person has one on their wrist, but back then it was still something, plus a silver one to boot. And the thing worked tip-top right till the end. I never once had to get it repaired. Whenever I checked it against the sun it always showed the same time. In the village, at twelve noon the sun’s always right over Martyka’s chimney, and the watch always showed twelve noon. It came in handiest when I worked in the district administration. As if the officer that let himself get killed by us back then knew that one day I’d be a government worker.