Nine by Andrzej Stasiuk Page B

brown door with a painted 15.
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    The woman stood at the window. She was big. He closed the door behind him and slid the bolt shut. She was eating from a small Styrofoam tray.
    â€œWhat’s the smell?” asked Bolek.
    â€œFish and chips,” she answered.
    â€œYou’re eating fish?”
    â€œI’m Catholic.”
    He came closer and looked at the tray: only bones and the last French fry on a plastic fork. She stuck it under his nose. He opened his mouth and took it.
    â€œI’d never have thought.”
    â€œThat I’m a Catholic?”
    â€œNo, I mean in general, where you’re from . . .”
    â€œWhere I’m from, a lot has changed.”
    â€œI know, but.”
    â€œYou’re a fool, and all you think about is food.”
    â€œIrina . . .”
    She wore a dark dress with silver thread, and her perfume was even darker, coming from her cleavage, into which a gold chain fell. Her high heels made little holes in the carpet. Bolek looked at the holes and thought about her heavy flesh. She took a hand mirror from the bedside table, a crimson lipstick, and touched up her lips.
    â€œYou have it?” he asked.
    She turned her back to him, spread her legs, reached under her dress, and handed him a packet wrapped in plastic. It was warm. He placed it against his cheek, took a deep breath, chuckled.
    â€œYou wear perfume there too.”
    â€œPoles are perverts.”
    He put the parcel in his pocket. “I’m not checking it. If it’s not right, I’ll be back.”
    â€œYou’ll be back anyway,” she said.
    He went up to her and put his hands on her breasts. She didn’t move, just grew heavier. She slipped her thigh between his legs and pushed.
    â€œYou’d better go if you want to come here again.”
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    In the parking lot two men were standing next to the Beamer. One on one side, one on the other. Peering in. When they saw Bolek and Iron Man, they stepped back and watched them get in. The men wore blue-and-red tracksuits. When the black car left, they went up to a rusty Lada and started unloading checkered bags. They dragged them to the hotel.
    On the short straight stretch, Bolek got up to eighty. At the intersection he braked, and Iron Man pitched forward.
    â€œPut your seat belt on, asshole!” Bolek snapped. He glanced left at the unbroken line of cars and in the rearview mirror at the empty alleyway where dust was still rising into the air. His foot twitched on the gas pedal, and the tachometer needle jerked like the tail of a restless cat. When the traffic eased up, they moved—but straight ahead, onto the dull grass strip between the two sides of the highway. The Beamer bounced over the curb and came to a stop angled left, sniffing for a gap in the traffic, but it was half-past two now and the trucks kept coming like a moving wall of words: Sovtransavto, Kruger, Kleeber, Mariola Cat Eyes, Faith Hope Charity, Olech, Your Baltic Your Herring—the last empty, because they were returning north. Iron Man put his seat belt on and asked what they were doing.
    â€œLook and see if they’re coming.”
    â€œThey’re coming and coming—there’s no gap.”
    â€œNot the cars, idiot, the guys! From outside the hotel.”
    â€œI can’t see; they’re all blocking my view,” complained Iron Man.
    The traffic thinned, Bolek let up on the clutch, the Beamer jerked forward, stopped, shook as if overcome by lust and needing to rub against something.
    â€œDamn cop!” roared Bolek, and punched the steering wheel. Iron Man tried to slide down in his seat, but the belt held him in place and all he could do was nervously squint left and right. No blue cop car in sight.
    â€œDamn cop,” repeated Bolek, a stream of yellow mud and last year’s grass sprayed from under the Beamer’s rear wheels, and a baby Fiat behind them turned on its wipers and smeared gray across