Free Necessary Lies by Eva Stachniak

but steady voice. “I turn to you as a soldier and the chief of government! Our fatherland is on the verge of an abyss!” When the speech ended, and before it was repeated, the screens showed pictures of flowery meadows, still background for the music of Chopin.
    The state of war was declared at night. The declarations posted on street corners were printed in the Soviet Union — American and Canadian commentators stressed — to preserve the secrecy of the operation. Poles were informed that all schools, theatres, movie theatres were closed, that public gatherings of any kind were forbidden, that no one could leave his place of residence without official authorisation.
    Anna kept switching the channels, hoping to learn more. By midday came the first shots of grey tanks slowly rolling in the Polish streets. One shot, in particular, appeared over and over again, at every television station, the neon signs of the Moscow cinema in Warsaw announcing “Apocalypse Now.” The tank that stood by the entrance had its turret aimed at the street.
    Anna walked around the room, in circles, avoiding the stacks of plates, leftovers of the party. She noticed that someone had spilled beer on the beautiful art book William kept opened on the coffee table, and now the pages were swollen with dampness. A feeling of panic, so strong that she had to stop herself from rushing somewhere, anywhere, spread all over her body. Her hands were cold and she had to sit down to catch her breath. William followed her into the living room, silent, picking up the plates, emptying ashtrays, taking them all to the kitchen, grateful to have something to do. He had run to the store and brought her papers,
The Gazette, The New York Times, Le Devoir
, but the news seemed all the same to her.
    â€œIt’s still too early,” he tried to calm her down. “We’ll have to wait.” He brought her a glass of water and a piece of toast, but she only shook her head. Then he began making coffee, and she shuddered at the grinding noise of the coffee mill. The phone rang. “Yes,” William said. “I will. You can imagine how she feels. Yes. Thank you. I will.”
    She dialled the operator.
    â€œSorry, Ma’am. All lines to Poland are cut off. I’m really sorry. Please try again later.”
    In the evening, exhausted from crying, her mind unable to sift through reports that called the events in Poland everything from
utter betrayal
to
the choice of a lesser evil
, she let William take her out to dinner. She was silent the whole evening, staring beyond him, her eyes aimlessly recording the shapes of wainscotting, the maze of squares on the wallpaper. He looked at her, and then looked away. “I don’t know what to say,” he said.
    She didn’t say anything. William’s face seemed to her too sharp, too finely chiselled, the way the world looked on the days in her childhood when a fever hit her. Trees had sharp, spiky branches, clouds stood out from the blue of the sky, the stocky, dark houses had sharp roof tops and red wavy tiles. Now it was William’s face she saw as if cut out of paper; the edges, if she ran her fingers over them, capable of slashing her finger, a thin shallow wound painful to heal.
    â€œDon’t cut me off like that,” he pleaded.
    It was her own body she concentrated upon, following the trajectory of each shiver, hands folded, pressing against her thighs. The food she had forced herself to swallow lodged itself against the walls of her stomach, a hard, sour lump, refusing to dissolve. She was trying to steady another surge of panic, the urge to stand up and run, blindly, fast, the fastest she could. She took a long breath and drank the wine William placed in front of her. She thought that the force of her pain disappointed him; the resurgence of old ties diminished the new. She didn’t care.
    He ate fast, watching her all the time. He tried to reason with her, to