The Book of Air and Shadows

the kitchen, leaving Crosetti to ponder the hitherto unrelated categories of Mom and Romance. He went to work, where he had to dissemble about his special knowledge of Bulstrode and his recent doings while Sidney Glaser went on about how shocking it was when someone one knew was actually murdered, and how this was yet another indication of the collapse of the city and of Western civ. On his return home that evening he entered a house full of the rich smell of cooking stew. He found his mother and Radeslaw Klim in the kitchen, drinking sherry and laughing. She was not sitting on his lap, but Crosetti would not have been surprised to see it, given the atmosphere in the room: not all the steam was coming from the pot on the stove.
    “Hello, darling,” said Mary Peg gaily, “have some sherry.” Crosetti had not before this been so greeted upon entering his home. He looked at his mother and observed that she seemed ten years younger. Two bright bars of pink stood on her cheeks, but there was a touch of nervousness in her eyes, as if she were a girl again, entertaining a boy on a porch swing with her dad nosing around. Klim stood and extended his hand, and they shook formally. Crosetti felt that he was in a movie, not one he ever would have directed or even wanted to see, one of those family farces where the single mom falls for the unsuitable man and the kids conspire to break it up, only to find…
    But before he could organize his discomfort into an attitude, Mary Peg said, in her hostess voice, an uncharacteristic chirp, “I was just telling Radi about your interest in Polish movies. He knows a lot about them.”
    “Really,” said Crosetti politely. He went to the jug of red wine that stood (as one like it had always stood) in a corner of the kitchen counter and poured a juice glass full.
    “Not at all,” said Klim. “I am a fan only. Of course I do not need the little words under the screen to enjoy.”
    “Uh-huh. What Polish films in particular?”
    “Oh, recently I have liked
´Zycie jako ´smiertelna choroba
of Zanussi. Very beautiful, although the Catholic…what do you say? Preaching?”
    “Proselytizing.”
    “Yes, just so. This is too crude, too-what you say-
obvious
, to me. Of course, Kiéslowski did the same more subtler. He often would say, we don’t hit on the head with the church, is as bad as hitting on the head with the communism. It is enough we have a moral cinema without seeming to. As for example in
Trois couleurs
and of course in
Dekalog
.”
    “Wait a minute, you
knew
Kiéslowski?”
    “Oh, yes. It is a very small country and we were from the same neighborhood in Warsaw and I am only a few years older. Kicking balls on the street and so on. Later I was able to be of some service to him.”
    “You mean on the films?”
    “Indirectly. I was assigned to spy on him, since I had an acquaintance with him already. I see you are shocked. Well, it is true. Everyone was spied on and everyone spied. Lech Walesa himself was an agent for a time. The best you could hope for was a spy who would be sympathetic and report only what one wished to have the authorities know, and so I was for Krzysztof.”
    After this, for some twenty minutes the two men talked about Polish movies, one of Crosetti’s abiding loves, and he learned at last how to actually pronounce the names of directors and films he had worshipped for years. The conversation circled back to the great Kiéslowski, and Klim happened to remark, “I was in one of his films, you know.”
    “No kidding!”
    “Not at all kidding.
Robotnicy
in 1971. I was one of young police in background, crushers of workers’ movement. A quite insane time, which I think is very much similar to the time of your man Bracegirdle. I should say also I have made progress of a sort on your cipher.”
    “You cracked it already?”
    “Alas, no. But I have identified its type. Extremely interesting for a classical cipher, I believe, even unique. Shall I show? Or wait for after this excellent supper of your mother?”
    Mary Peg said, “Oh, please show us. I have to make a salad and we can eat the stew anytime.”
    With his usual diffident little bow, Klim left the room. Crosetti immediately caught his mother’s eye and rolled his own.
    “What?” she challenged.
    “Nothing. It’s just this is all pretty fast. We’re living here all by ourselves for years and all of a sudden we’re in a Polish movie.”
    Mary Peg made a dismissive gesture. “Oh, come