Chapter 1 When One Door Closes

12:10

What can happen in the course of one month? What revolution can turn your life upside down? What disaster can make your thirty-five years of life perish from your memories? The answer is surprisingly simple. The lack of attention.

Even the best tend to be forgetful. Even the strongest minds have their worse days, even the most careful people miss the signs of their own personal downfall.

He had never missed any other trace. Fifteen years ago when he started the service, there was one trait, this time of character, that distinguished him from the rest of his colleagues. He was comparably fit, but physical strength wasn’t his best quality. He was weaker and thinner than the other guys in the Academy. Again and again, he failed during training. He wasn’t flawless at the intelligence and theoretical knowledge tests. He had a fairly good knowledge of Russian and German, as these languages were taught back then at school, but once the Academy forced him to learn English, he failed at an elementary level. He didn’t shoot as carefully as other trainees. He rarely hit the target, so he taught himself to aim in a slightly different way, knowing that his eyes would fail him anytime. Most of the time during serious demanding physical actions or chases, either on foot or in the car, he was simply awkward.

Most of his colleagues from the training time would have been surprised what took him so high up the steep steps of police ladder, but the answer was obvious. He was really attentive. And he had a hunch.

From time immemorial he had known that he wanted to become a policeman, as he played with plastic guns and, dressed in a blue uniform, conducted investigations on who ate pork chops from the fridge and why aunt’s slippers went missing. From the start, he had some sort of a sixth sense that someone was lying, that there was some inaccuracy in the case or some details were missing. He sensed with suspicion when traces were hidden or shadowy when too many discrepancies occurred, when someone neglected something important. He physically lived the case. He couldn’t sleep at night, as he suspected that something was wrong. Also, he couldn’t sleep until the case was closed.

He had never forgotten any of his cases. He distinctly remembered even those which were long pushed way past their validity date. If there was God, he thought, there had to be justice. If there was a vocation, he believed, his vocation was to be a policeman.

His parents were, of course, suggesting a more prestigious occupation, but his father was a firefighter, his grandfather a sailor, so he sensed that he would look equally good in the suit. Besides, any other profession he tried his hand at turned out to be boring, tiring and he himself - hopeless at it and soon fired. There was something missing in any other job, the lack of pleasure, importance and fulfillment. His vocation was justice. And police at the end of the day was about justice.

But this justice turned into politics, politics turned into promotions, promotions turned into money.

And after fifteen years he forgot that there was any God, any hunch and any justice at all. It was enough to look at the piles of unsolved cases of family feuds, home abuses, pickpockets, stolen cars, laptops and robbed rich people’s houses to get depressed. Equally frustrating was being constantly reminded of his modest salary in the bank account (‘I’m not sure why you are still working there,’ his wife complained ‘If you chose a job at my father’s place, our life would improve. You have two daughters, there are needs to be met’). He often wondered why he got there in the first place.

‘I hate you!’ screamed his seven-year-old daughter, and his second daughter, even though only five years old laughed hysterically, imitating the older one with ‘I hate you! I hate you!’ attitude. And it was just because he turned off the TV. He dared to turn off a profoundly pink Barbie cartoon, which made him irritated after a very stressful and bureaucratic day at work. And for that, he was to be punished.

He might have been a small success at work, but at home, he was a complete wreck.

‘I hate you’ shouts made him contemplate suicide once again. His marriage was a total disaster. His daughters had more respect for a dog than him. His father-in-law treated him like a worm. A not exactly a well-paid worm, who brought home nothing but stress and trouble.

There are hierarchies in the world and they usually concern money. His modest salary was nothing in comparison with his father-in-law’s business empire. It was a small local chain of businesses, which over the years turned into a millionaire’s enterprise. His father-in-law bought himself a decent villa in the provincial town in which they lived in. Later on, he built another villa, this time for his daughter.

The daughter, whom he was dating one summer about eight years ago. And when they found out that they were pregnant, the wedding was arranged faster than any visible traces of his ‘I hate you’ daughter were even noticeable. By the time he had got over the shock of becoming a father, he was pushed into another shock of becoming a husband. After three years there was another daughter and his married life was to blossom like a morning flower, except for the fact that it looked like a decomposing orange. His wife lost interest in him long ago. Wrong. He had lost interest even before her. People shouldn’t be forced to marry for the sake of children. Fine, those children occasionally needed attention and guidance, but, in all honesty, his daughters were objectively mean. The older meaner than the younger, the younger more ambitious, so predisposed to outdo the older. He just had to count the days.

Contemplating suicide usually didn’t bring him anything good. He had suicide cases a couple of times a month, and reading the victims’ last letters assured him that life sucked. If the life sucked, of course, there were two ways to cope with it. Either to give up or to deal with it. He opted for the second option.

And while the majority of his friends watched compelling crime TV series and read crime stories, he spent his time with a book, in most cases a hard-cover classic, work of realist fiction by Victor Hugo, Balzac, Dickens, listened to classical music, be it Mozart or Vivaldi, poured a glass of red wine and tried to forget about the smell of rotting bodies, hanged men, stabbed homeless people and stolen property. He was to enjoy life to the fullest and, as his family life was difficult during weekdays, utterly unbearable at the weekends, and virtually suicidal during holidays, he loved these little moments of pure pleasure and satisfaction he shared with himself.

This was possibly what made his wife fall in love with him in the first place. He was outspoken, well-dressed, cultural, polite. He took her to the cinema and theater, invited her for dinners at the restaurant, played awe-inspiring romantic songs. He didn’t treat it that seriously. He was more interested in his work than in women and the dating process. His parents were nagging him about being single, so out of pure need to have their comments silenced, he found a girl at one of the house parties of his closest friends. He was supposed to break up with her as, again, in all honesty, he felt that something wasn’t right. He found this whole situation false and tiresome. Then she told him that she was pregnant.

He was fairly depressed during the wedding reception, but all family members were astonished by his good looks. He was a dark, tall, handsome, cultural man. He was charming and intelligent. He was like a stag adored by the whole wedding room crowded with farm animals, blushing with jealousy that ‘she caught such a man’. And for eight years he played his part surprisingly well.

His rare time of pleasure and isolation were indispensable to make him alive and feel true to himself. There was one little room in his wife’s house which he occupied, his one little storage place, which he had changed into his study and he spent in there hours in the evening and also hours during the weekend.

It was on Tuesday that he entered the house, walked to this little room and found drawers opened and some of his magazines lying messed on the floor. Paranoid, he quickly picked them up and squeezed back them inside, hoping that none of the girls saw any of their content.

This made him alert. One of his secrets was about to see the light of day, and he wasn’t in the least prepared to do anything about it. From then on he watched his every move. He even burnt those magazines, far from being sentimental, but hot and cold sweats were his companions throughout the day.

‘I need to talk to you,’ his wife communicated to him after supper, and in his mind, he pictured himself calmly sinking in the tub, with wrists cut, covered by a half-transparent depth of water.

‘Yes?’, he followed her to the room.

Cold sweat was making his navy blue T-shirt covered in dark spots.

‘Has anything happened?’

‘I don’t know how to say this to you. I don’t want to hurt you, but for years I have been unhappy. I have someone. I’m leaving you. I’m moving to his place, to Berlin. He’s a German. I’m taking the girls...’

‘But... how... how long...’

‘It’s been going on for some time now. We met when I was on holiday in Frankfurt two years ago. He was on a business trip. He works for one of the companies. He’s quite successful...’

‘But you don’t know German...’

‘I know English. We decided to give it a go. Girls like him. It’s been going on for some time, so we decided to formalize it. A long-distance relationship is hard. Girls don’t like traveling too much.’

‘You’ve been going to him over the last two years?’

‘And where do you think I went every second weekend? I thought that you wouldn’t notice. Well, I was even sure.’

‘I thought that it was about the magazines...’

‘Oh, those, no... I was looking for a wedding certificate. Sorry about the mess. And the magazines. Well, I suspected something. After Ula was born, we kind of stopped sleeping with each other. I cannot meet your fantasies, I’m afraid. I want a divorce.’

And in one month the whole life of Robert Rej was changed. His wife left to Berlin, taking his two daughters. His father-in-law asked him to leave the house. He rented a room in an apartment with an old lady and was left with his wine, music and thick volumes of literature. And half of his salary, as the other half went for alimony as if they needed even more money in Berlin.

And, as he was really good at his job, he couldn’t believe that for the past two years his wife had an affair with a German businessman, whom she visited regularly, not letting him in the process. As a leading investigation detective for the first time in his professional life, Robert Rej felt literally like a fool.