A crowd of protesters, mainly women. Krakow’s Market Square looked as if it were paved with human heads. Iga started to squeeze towards the Cloth Hall. She couldn’t stand such crowds, which is why she never went to larger concerts. But that afternoon, she wanted to attend the protest.
She walked forward, passing hundreds of women
A woman opened an umbrella with the words Black Monday spray-painted on it. Another held a clothes hanger above her head, a symbol of the Strike referring to gruesome practices. The voices of women speaking could be heard from under the Mickiewicz monument, amplified by a megaphone. They were combined with the noise of conversations around, the screams of those chanting and the trumpet of the bugler from the St. Mary’s tower.
Iga walked forward, passing dozens, hundreds of women in black. There must have been thousands of them all over the Market Square. Young, middle-aged, older. Some stood in clusters, others alone. Many men also came. Iga read the slogans on the banners: stop messing with our pants, #dignity, the government is not a pregnancy – it can be removed, the Polish woman is not dead yet.
Agora Publishing House ‘Black Monday’
It was slowly getting dark. Spots of light blurred around the lantern. Bright rectangles appeared in the windows of tenement houses on the Market Square. Someone shouted. Iga saw a young girl holding a high sign with a warning: keep politicians away from my uterus. She smiled. She liked it more and more. She was already near the Cloth Hall when she heard a cell phone signal. She dug her phone out of her spacious bag, but at that moment it went silent. She glanced at the display. She didn’t know this number. Very young girls were now standing on the steps of the Mickiewicz monument, usually besieged by pigeons. An old woman smiled at them from downstairs. Iga, who had never felt the need to belong, this time suddenly felt something like pride in being among these protesting women. Her cell phone rang again. Same unknown number. She put the phone to her ear as she wandered through the crowd. − Hello?
“They say you’re looking for a new job,” she heard. She knew that voice very well, even though she hadn’t heard it in a long time. She actually hadn’t expected to hear him yet. − How do you know?
− News spreads quickly. Are you at the Market Square?
− How do you know?
− Iga, after whom and after whom, but I would have expected more varied questions from you. I just heard in the background that Jesus had IVF… The fact that I left the police does not mean that I stopped associating the facts. I think I have something for you.
They were both silent for a moment. All that could be heard was the screams of women and the clicking of cameras, because a journalist was photographing a girl holding a banner with the words my pussy my choice, my body my voice. − So what kind of job offer is this?
− You’ll like it. We can meet?
− Yes.
− I will be waiting for you at Nowy Square. If you can, come today. I stay in the office late. I’ll send you the address by text message, said Iga’s interlocutor and hung up.
She was already tired of her new job. Most often it was about following an unfaithful wife
She started to push towards Sienna and soon found herself outside the crowd of protesters. She tied her scarf tighter around her neck. She was freezing. There was the sound of an incoming text message in my pocket. She took out her cell phone. Her screen showed an address in Kazimierz. She headed towards the stop near the Main Post Office. In her head, Bob Marley’s voice hummed the lyrics from one of the banners. no women, no country.
Iga took a sip of tea. The only, but disturbing, disadvantage of the new job was that the tasks she now dealt with were trivial ones. Determining place of residence, verification of employees. Most often, it was about tracking an unfaithful wife. Or, for a change, an unfaithful husband. At the end of the first month of work, Iga was filled with fear that it would always be like this, that she would never get another interesting investigation. And then Iwona Wandzioch appeared at the agency.
Iga remembered Friday evening. Igor went home. The pubs on Plac Nowy outside the window were slowly filling up, people were starting the weekend. Łukasz sent her a text message saying that he was waiting with wine and a good movie, this was before the quarrel. She was about to close the agency when a figure loomed behind the glass door. Iga could have suggested a meeting on Monday, but something in the woman’s appearance, or perhaps more so in her gaze, made her let her in.
She reached for the cup. The tea was a bit too weak, but she didn’t feel like making a new one. She opened the notebook in which she wrote down the information she had collected so far about the victim. Today she was supposed to tell Wandzioch whether they would accept the order. That’s why she made an appointment with Igor in the morning at Łąkowa, so that they could see the scene of the incident together. She wanted to take care of this matter herself, but she had to convince her partner, which might not have been easy. She took out three photos she had received from Iwona Wandzioch and spread them out on the desk in front of her. The first one was an ordinary ID photo. Iga was struck by the woman’s extraordinary beauty.
Immediately afterwards, she and her husband separated
The second one was taken during the holidays. A Christmas tree twinkled in the background. Ewa stood in the middle of the room, next to her sister Iwona. They both smiled at the person taking the photo. Ewa seemed much more relaxed than in the previous photo, but Iga thought she must have been struggling terribly. She didn’t belong there, or maybe she just wanted to be somewhere else, with other people. Iga remembered Wandzioch’s words: − My husband took this photo on Christmas Eve last year. Eva came alone. Somehow, she and her husband separated shortly afterwards.
Iga reached for the third photo. This was what she liked best. Ewa Zielińska was sitting on the steps leading to the porch of the old house. She was wearing a long black dress with a low neckline. The bottom of the outfit was decorated with ruffles. She held a glass of red wine in her hand. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders. Passion radiated from large, beautiful eyes directed at the person on the other side of the camera. Iga thought that whoever photographed Ewa must have been close to her. At least at that moment. Since she separated from her husband shortly afterwards, he was probably not behind the lens. So who?
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
