“When I ask him about that day years later, he only says: You have to experience it to understand it.” [FRAGMENT]

Małgosia’s parents are home around four o’clock. They put sleeping Ewelina to bed, Krzysztof falls asleep with her. Jadwiga is waiting for her older daughter again. He’s hanging around the kitchen, but there’s nothing left to clean. He hopes that this time Małgosia will be on time.

They offered to pick her up, but she preferred to take the train with her friends. She promised to return at five in the morning.

Jadwiga hears the train braking. He looks out the window to spot Małgosia. She’s not here. Maybe she was still chatting with her friends on the platform? Or with some boy she was ashamed to be seen with in front of the house? Jadwiga walks from window to window, to the balcony, but Małgosia is still nowhere to be seen.

Around six he calls Iwona’s house. Early, but he can’t wait any longer. She got the number from Małgosia, she took it just in case. Iwona’s mother answers. Her daughter is back, she has been sleeping for an hour now.

Jadwiga is terrified.

The parents wake up Iwona. He doesn’t know where Małgosia is. She lost sight of her at the party, they even looked for her with her friends, but to no avail. They thought that maybe she had come home earlier because she wasn’t feeling well. Only her jacket remained in the common room. Iwona took her with her when the whole group went out to catch the train.

*

– There is no one left – say the owners of Alcatraz, when Małgosia’s parents appear in front of the disco, along with Iwona and her father. No, they didn’t see the girl in the black dress anywhere. But Jadwiga goes inside to look around anyway. Empty.

Miłoszyce, former Alcatraz disco Photo Tomasz Pietrzyk / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

It’s approaching seven in the morning. They go from house to house. They ask around. Someone saw Małgosia near the property at the back of the disco. R. lives there, that’s what they were told.

The main gate is closed, but a small wooden gate is open. Krzysztof immediately goes to knock on the door, and Jadwiga looks around the yard, which ends with a large barn. The entire lawn is covered with snow, and the trampled traces of two people lead only from the side gate to the well and back. A middle-aged woman opens the door.

– I haven’t seen any girls, but I’ll check the rooms to see if my daughters have brought anyone – she says when her parents ask her about Małgosia. But only household members sleep in beds.

The parents also knock on Urszula’s house. She opens the door to them, surprised. She knows Jadwiga, they used to work together, but she has never seen her daughter. He wakes up Andrzej, his son was at the disco, maybe he knows something. Yes, she remembers Małgosia, she was vomiting in front of the common room, she says that Krzysiek took care of her, and then her brother Irek came and took her home. Urszula actually saw some two boys leading a girl through the village.

Only Małgosia didn’t have a brother. And she didn’t know any Irek.

So the parents ask about Irek. Someone said that was the DJ’s name. He lives on the other side of Miłoszyce, behind the tracks. They come by car because it’s a long way. But he doesn’t know anything. Although he actually saw a girl in a black dress. She was sitting on the podium next to where he was playing music. She was drunk.

They check every trace in the snow, knock from house to house. Nobody saw anything, nobody knows anything.

Cold and resigned, they return to Jelcz, but they are unable to sit idly and wait. They call the police. Not for the first time. Earlier, they were dismissed in Wrocław and sent to the police station in Jelcz. And they didn’t even accept a missing person’s report because it was still too early. This time they are sending a constable to Miłoszyce. His parents are to meet him there. They told them to take a photo of Małgosia with them.

They are going with a friend with whom they spent New Year’s Eve. They visit houses they have been to before and knock on neighboring houses. Someone knows the girl in the black dress, someone remembers that she left the disco with some men, but no one can say anything more.

Parents are becoming more and more nervous. When she asks about her daughter again, Jadwiga’s voice breaks. They leave empty-handed again.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find her,” the policeman tries to console.

– You don’t understand anything – Jadwiga shouts at him. – It’s not normal that Małgosia didn’t come back for the night! Maybe other girls come to the house after parties the next night, but not her. I know something must have happened. They kidnapped her, maybe they’re keeping her somewhere. I feel that my daughter is here, in Miłoszyce.

The policeman doesn’t speak anymore.

They head into the forest. There are trampled traces on the path. Krzysztof bends down and looks at them from all sides, but they are too big, Małgosia’s shoes couldn’t have left them. They are checking the bunkers that stand by the road. Nothing.

They go together to the police station so that Jadwiga and Krzysztof can file an official report about their daughter’s disappearance. At 3 p.m., the officer on duty at the police station in Jelcz-Laskowice fills out the form. In the box for the circumstances of Małgorzata K.’s disappearance, she writes: “On December 31, 1996, around 7 p.m., she went to a disco in Miłoszyce. On January 1, 1997, around 12:15 a.m., she was last seen in the company of two men.”

He also adds a description of the girl: 150 centimeters tall, slender figure, oval face, pale skin, youthful acne, small and straight nose, medium-sized ears, dark brown eyes, long, dark and straight hair, black dress above the knee.

*

There’s no reason to rush, after all, it’s the New Year. Everyone in the R. family’s house is still asleep, even though it’s already noon. That night they are together – grandmother Maria, her son Józek with his wife Danuta, three daughters. Kamila, the oldest, also has Zygmunt, her boyfriend. He visited R. together with his younger brother Marcin. From November, Józek’s friend from work in Germany, Karol, also lived with them.

In the morning, their mother, Danuta, woke them up one by one. She asked if there was a girl sleeping there that her parents were looking for, but then everyone went back to bed. It’s well after twelve when they emerge from their rooms. Danuta is moving around the kitchen, cooking dinner, her husband Józek is drinking coffee.

– Light the stove, it’s already cold – she asks him.

– I just have to fix it first. Soot has settled and is smoking terribly.

Józef goes to the shed to get a spare elbow. It’s on the other side of the yard. It was lightly covered with snow overnight. Is looking around. To the left there is a barn, next to it Roki’s dog has a kennel, maybe he will look into it again.

Suddenly he notices something disturbing.

It lies right next to the barn, near its gable wall.

“The dogs grabbed some doll or mannequin,” Józef thinks.

“Or maybe a sheepskin coat, Roki recently pulled one out of the barn.”

Joseph comes closer.

*

He’s only wearing socks. Plus she’s completely naked. She lies on her back, her legs are unnaturally curled up, and her whole body is dirty and injured. Long, messy dark hair spread around his head. There are clothes lying nearby.

A few meters away, Joseph sees a stain of blood. He runs home.

*

Through the window, Urszula sees a police car with its sirens on, followed by an ambulance. She asks her neighbor what happened. The neighbor heard that they found a girl from the estate in Laskowice. Urszula gets dressed quickly. He runs along the road towards the community center. There is already a crowd at R.’s property.

The onlookers later repeated that the police car had entered the yard so quickly that it skidded and surely erased all traces. And the prosecutor from Oława, who was on duty at the time, looked as if she was completely unprepared to conduct the investigation, because it was so cold and she was wearing ballet shoes.

“It’s as if she came straight from the party,” they commented.

*

It’s four o’clock, maybe fifteen. After reporting their daughter’s disappearance, Małgosia’s parents go to Miłoszyce again. In one of the houses they hear that a girl has been found raped. As soon as they leave, an ambulance passes them. Jadwiga waves her hand. “If there’s an ambulance – he thinks – Małgosia is alive. She’s alive, she’s alive” – ​​she clings to this hope. He waves a second time and the ambulance stops. Yes, they got the call, but they can’t say anything more for now. Near R.’s house, the same one they visited in the morning, their parents see a crowd of people.

– Is alive? – Krzysztof asks the onlookers.

– Is she alive? – Jadwiga repeats.

People don’t even look at them, their eyes are directed towards the yard. Someone says: – He’s dead.

They fight, but the police stop them. They ask to let them through. – This could be our baby.

They run through the yard a little further and see their daughter. There is a black dress next to it. The prosecutor asks if it is their child. They want to touch her, hug her, but they are not allowed.

*

The emergency room doctor writes out a death certificate. He notes the cooling of the body, the presence of precipitation stains on the back, thighs and buttocks, and injuries on the body. The presumed cause of death is: rape, bleeding, freezing. With a question mark.

Place of death: garden, Miłoszyce.

The dog brought from Wrocław tries to follow the trail several times, but to no avail. His guide explains that it is too cold. – Why this dog, when Małgosia has already been found – Krzysztof is nervous. Cry. Until the end of the inspection, he stands next to Jadwiga at the fence of the property. They don’t know what else to do.

Krzysztof notices Małgosia’s friends. Iwona looks like she’s laughing.

“What are you so happy about?” he shouts at them. – She is dead!

Years later, when I ask him about that day, he only says: – You have to experience it to understand it.

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