“Good night, Ludwik,” the man said, turning around to me. “Watch out for yourself. And don’t push your luck.”

Chapter 5

This morning, like every morning, I took the subway across to Manhattan. I sat at my desk and tried to work, but my mind was back home. I had a bad feeling. Some sort of intuition. As soon as midday struck, I left the office and walked a couple of blocks over to the telephone box on the corner of Third and East Forty-Third. No one is ever at that corner, and no one was there today. I called Jarek. He’s a fixer, a connector, knowing everything about everyone in the community. He works late shifts at a factory down in Queens, and I knew he’d be home.

“Did you hear?” he said with his smoker’s voice, almost immediately after picking up the phone. “The ZOMO killed nine miners in Katowice. They were protesting the martial law. Can you believe it? First they lock our people in our country, then they jail them, now they shoot them in the street. Sons of bitches. This time they’re gonna pay for it.”

A shiver ran down my back and across my lips. “Are you sure?”

He spat out his words like bullets. “Sure as fuck. This is serious.”

I thought of the miners, and it struck me that they could have been the same people I had seen a year earlier from that window where I threw the flyers. Or it could have been me. But then, I had been a coward compared to them. I had hidden under window ledges, in kitchen closets; I had not been in the streets demanding my right to be heard. Now I was an ocean away, wearing a new suit. I wondered about your role in all this, what kind of pact you’d made with yourself. Because we all make one, even the best of us. And it’s rarely immaculate. No matter how hard we try.

“Głowacki? Are you still there?” Jarek’s voice brought me back. “You all right? Got family in Katowice?”

“No,” I said. “I’m OK.” I thanked him, which felt macabre, and cut the call. Then, for the umpteenth time that week, I dialed Granny’s number.

The tone went “Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep,” repeating mercilessly like a reproach.

I walked back to work, waited for the sadness to pass.

*  *  *

The night after the flyers I slept deeply, dreamlessly, as if floating underwater. I was unmoored, a ship that had finally left its harbor, only to be pushed by the wind without any control of its own. When I awoke, I hardly knew who or where I was. It felt as if I’d returned from a long journey underneath the sea. I was on my bed, fully dressed; my bag lay beside me on the floor. Outside, the sun stood high in a spotless sky.