Free House Haunted by Al Sarrantonio Page B

turned Jan's face around, moving his own back. He smiled. “And then—BOOM! The big rain, right on you-know-where, and then you-know-where won't exist anymore.”
    â€œAnd then?” Jan asked, smiling in a friendly way.
    Tadeusz held his hands out in his confined spot, palms upward, indicating what surrounded them. “And then this is ours again.”
    They looked out through the small window silently, before Tadeusz added, slyly, “There's only one catch. I have it on very good authority that you-know-who in Moscow has already fucked a chicken, and,” he sighed, “nothing happened.”
    They turned to their own thoughts, watching the sliding wet sheets of rain on their tiny window, in their tiny space surrounded by heat and the smell of damp shorn sheep, until Tadeusz added, “And why do you ask about God, Jan? I thought you knew all about him. It's you who was going to be a priest.”
    At the bridge, leaning lightly on the rope railing, smoking and waiting for Jozef, who now approached them sullenly, the words of disapproval of their smoking probably already forming on his never-smiling mouth, Jan thought of the priesthood and wanted to laugh.
    â€œAnd what do you find so funny?” Karol said, nudging him to look at Jozef. “Now there's something worthy of laughter. Our friend Jozef was born with a frown on his face.” Karol, who almost never frowned, laughed heartily.
    â€œHe doesn't even smile when he gets off a good fart,” Tadeusz said, throwing the remains of the cigarette that had been passed to him into the river and turning to meet Jozef, who had now reached them.
    â€œSave your breath,” Tadeusz said, slapping Jozef on the shoulder. “We've heard all your lectures on smoking. And we're late for work as it is.”
    The look on Jozef's face made him stop his joking. “What's wrong?” Karol asked, a cloud of seriousness descending.
    â€œThey're looking for Jan,” Jozef said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Tadeusz nearly shouted, and then he barked a laugh. He laid the back of his hand on Jozef's brow. “Are you ill? Have you been drinking? Who is looking for Jan?”
    â€œThe police.”
    â€œA mistake,” Karol spat.
    â€œNo,” Jozef replied. His dour face was pinched tight. He turned to Jan. “I saw them come out of your mother's house as I passed. They must have just missed you. I waited until they were gone, and then I went in. Your mother was at the kitchen table, weeping. I asked her if they had hurt her. She said no—but there was a pot of oatmeal broken on the floor, by the stove.”
    â€œBastards,” Jan said.
    â€œShe might have dropped it herself, when they came in,” Jozef continued. “She was very upset, Jan. She said they wanted to speak with you, but she could tell by the way they came in, knocking once and then nearly throwing open the door, that they were there not to talk but to take you away.”
    â€œWhy?” Karol shouted, indignantly. “What could they possibly want Jan for?”
    Jozef shrugged. They saw now how frightened he was, his big-knuckled hands working one over the other, his thick coat pulled tight around him, the collar up as if protecting him from a chill wind.
    Jan said quietly, as much to himself as to the others, who now faced him as if waiting for an explanation, “I've done nothing.”
    â€œOf course you've done nothing,” Tadeusz said, scratching the black stubble on his chin. “But we have to hide you. We can't let them take you. When the storm passes over, it will be like nothing ever happened.”
    â€œThere is no place to hide,” Jozef said, his eyes on the ground.
    Karol, in anger, grabbed Jozef by the front of his lapels. “Of course there is.”
    â€œI've done nothing,” Jan repeated, as if in shock.
    Tadeusz said, “We must get him to my house, off the street, then move him to a place that