Nine by Andrzej Stasiuk Page A

Bolek said, glancing at his watch so he wouldn’t get sentimental.
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    Meanwhile, across the highway a priest was standing at the side door of a church, looking at the black Beamer, surprised that someone had parked right outside the place of worship. People only drove by. The big rigs from Russia going to Gdańsk went past ten steps from the entrance. Overhead, at the height of the cement cross, wound the ribbon of the overpass, from which cars trickled from the other side of the river, from Å»oliborz, or sped straight on toward Bródno, leaving in the air a hanging carpet of exhaust and a constant vibration that forever blocked the church from the sky like a quivering sheet of metal. The rumble
eased a little only at night, but the walls could never entirely shake off the tremors of the day, because before dawn new vehicles came around the looping ramps, calling like tugboats in the fog. More, the brick mass of the power station would sometimes blow steam, and then the air would fill with a cracking roar as from a time before there were people or any creature that had the power of hearing. Not a living soul in the neighborhood. Nothing but work, haste, coal, the bells of trams, and the endless procession of shifts, and at night red rosettes on the soaring chimneys—to warn the planes, but they looked like electric crowns of thorns.
    So the priest stood and considered the Beamer, which was almost touching the gate with its hood. The two men were now picking their way across. Bolek beeped with his remote, and Iron Man slowed to take a look at the majestic rear of the black machine.
    â€œAre you here to see me, gentlemen?” called the priest, but his voice was swallowed up in the growl of diesel engines starting at the light. He tried to speak louder but then saw their faces, so he came down the steps to say something else, but Iron Man bared his teeth in a smile:
    â€œThere’s still time, father.”
    â€œPlease don’t block the gate. There’s no parking here.”
    Bolek, the door half open, looked at the priest as if seeing him only now, and shouted:
    â€œHey, Iron Man, see the attendant.” Then to the man in the cassock: “So how’s business?”
    The priest opened his mouth. Two trailer trucks thundered across the overpass. The two men got in the car and merged with the traffic. Slipping into the left-hand lane, they
disappeared behind the curtain of red that stopped the cavalcade behind them.
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    Three minutes later they left the car between two Ukrainian buses and walked slowly across the square. An attendant stood in their way and said it would be two zlotys. Bolek nodded to Iron Man, and Iron Man took the change from his pocket. They stopped at terrazzo stairs between plastic pillars.
    â€œWe go up,” said Bolek. “You stay in the hallway and make sure no one’s coming.”
    â€œWho might come?”
    â€œIf they show, you’ll know. But they’re not supposed to.”
    â€œWhat if they do?”
    â€œKnock and come in, or give me a shout, I don’t know. To buy me time.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    â€œThen beat it.”
    â€œOK,” said Iron Man, and drew on an unlit cigarette.
    Inside, the smell of stale smoke, dust, toilets. A large, dark room with pictures of Switzerland on the walls, fake palm trees, red tablecloths. No windows, three chandeliers with weak bulbs, and a fan. At the far end, beneath the Matterhorn, a few people sat and ate. No one looked up, so Iron Man stuck his hands into his pockets and said, “Nice place.” Bolek went to the bar and spoke with a platinum blonde who sometimes nodded, sometimes shook her head. When Bolek left her, she turned up the radio: the Fireflies. She half-closed her eyes.
    They went upstairs. The hallway was long, doors on either side. At the end Bolek gestured with a finger. Iron Man leaned against the wall and finally lit his cigarette. Bolek knocked on a