Necessary Lies(68)

Adam has given her a farewell card he had made, with roses and tulips, red and yellow. For Ciocia Ania, it says. Anna detected the straight pencil lines he made and then erased, to make sure the letters stayed even. One of the corners of the card is bent. Secret it says. “Open it,” Adam whispered, “Open it, Ciociu” When she did, she saw a tiny drawing of a space ship and Come back soon! written right beside it.

Her mother’s skin is loose, too big for her. “It’s terrible,” she says, and her face takes on a look of disgust. “I’ve never thought that old age would be so ugly.” She pulls on the flabby flesh of her arms. Her hands have grown bony and thin.

The kitchen table is cluttered with jars, bottles, ceramic containers, some empty, some filled with oily liquids Anna cannot identify. Everything in this apartment is odd, mismatched, and haphazard — rickety chairs, sofas that sink with a moan of springs, threadbare rugs. As if another cataclysm were meant to take care of it all, and there was no point in making an effort. They have lived like this for forty-five years.

One of the cupboards, Anna has discovered, is filled with glass jars, washed, stacked one on top of another. A whole cupboard full of empty jars. “What for?” she has asked. “I’ll wait until they start recycling again,” her mother has said. “We’ve never wasted anything. This is not right.”

The old, broken down refrigerator, Russian “Mir” Anna remembers from childhood, stands in the kitchen next to its successor, a linen tablecloth spread on its top. Inside there are used radio batteries and aluminium cans. Her mother won’t throw the batteries into the garbage. “They will leak into the ground,” she says. “I know what’s in them.” In one of the kitchen drawers there is a flat box full of used tramway tickets, neatly arranged in rows.

“You’ll soon run out of space, if you carry on like this for too long,” Anna jokes, but she is uneasy about this hoarding. In Canada she has heard stories of old women collecting plastic bags and styrofoam trays.

“Not everything old is useless,” her mother says. “When I’m gone, you can do whatever you want with it. You can throw it all in the garbage. Then, I won’t care.”

“Mamusiu!” Anna pleads. “Please. Don’t say things like that.” Her voice is quivering, sore. There is so little time left. Her father has found a dirty cup, and he takes it to the sink to wash it, glad to have something to do, something that lets him hide his face.

Anna’s mother looks up. “I can still see her here, by the sink,” she says. They all know whom she means. The kitchen was Babcia’s place. That’s where she would sit in the dark, after all the work was done, looking through the window at the ruins across the street. If Anna came in and switched on the light, Babcia would look at her, startled, as if Anna were a ghost.

When Anna is making her bed, folding the old quilt, fluffing up the oversized pillows, her mother knocks at the door. She looks at Anna’s suitcases, packed, ready and sits at the edge of the bed.

“When shall we see you again?” she asks.

“Soon,” Anna says. “It’s not that far, now. A few hours on the plane.”

“Yes,” her mother says. “But it’s not the same. You are not here anymore.”

“How is he?” Anna asks. They can both hear how her father is clearing his throat, hacking up phlegm.

“I don’t know,” her mother says, and Anna can hear fear in her voice. “Maybe this new doctor will tell.”

“If you need any help . . .” Anna has already offered to check with her Canadian doctor. Once she knows what it is, there might be drugs she could send.

“I’ll let you know,” her mother whispers, as if Anna’s father could overhear them from the kitchen. “Before you came he told me he would like to be buried here, in Wroclaw. He said he knew this land inside out. He didn’t want me to take him to Warsaw. Do you think it’s all right?”

“Of course it is,” Anna says.

Now her mother is smoothing the folded quilt with her fingers. Then, quickly, she takes hold of Anna’s hand and closes it on a coral necklace that once belonged to Babcia.

“I want you to have it,” her mother says. “Now. Not when I’m gone.”

The corals are smooth and hard, and Anna presses her fingers on the beads, murmuring her thanks. They are capable of changing colour, Babcia always claimed. They know your mood. They grow pale when you get sick, brighten when you get better. But, for that, one had to wear them close to the skin.

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Anna says, sitting down beside her mother. “I had to stay in Canada. I couldn’t return. Do you understand?”

Her mother is smiling gently, waving her hand at all these reasons, at the urgency in Anna’s voice. This is not what she is here for. “No, I don’t understand,” she says. “But it doesn’t matter, now. I miss you. Every day — I know you are not here.”

She is still holding Anna’s hand in hers. “Can I ask you something?” she asks.

“Yes,” Anna says, “of course.”

“Were you happy with William?” This is a question that she must have carried in her for a long time, for her voice is hoarse and slightly uneasy when she says it.

Surprised, Anna stays silent for a while. Her heart speeds up; she can hear blood pounding in her ears.