Steven stooped to pick it up. ‘Look. Just take that one with you if you want. Have a think about it –’
‘Shut up, Steven!’ He flinched, as if unsure what had prompted her reaction. But that was what finally confirmed it.
‘I’ll meet you downstairs,’ I said, and closed the door quietly behind me.
We drove back to the Upper East Side in silence. Agnes called Mr Gopnik and apologized, she hadn’t realized her phone was off, a design fault – the thing was always shutting down without her doing it – she really needed a different one. Yes, darling. We’re headed back now. Yes, I know …
She did not look at me. In truth, I could barely look at her. My mind was humming, marrying up the events of the last months with what I now understood.
When we finally reached home I walked a few paces behind her through the lobby, but as we got to the lift, she swivelled, stared at the floor, and then turned back towards the door. ‘Okay. Come with me.’
We sat in a dark, gilded hotel bar, the kind where I imagined rich Middle Eastern businessmen entertained their clients and waved away bar bills without looking. It was nearly empty. Agnes and I sat in a dimly lit corner booth, waiting as the server ostentatiously offloaded two vodka tonics and a pot of glossy green olives, trying and failing to catch Agnes’s eye.
‘She’s mine,’ Agnes said, as he walked away.
I took a sip of my drink. It was ferociously strong and I was glad. It felt useful to have something to focus on.
‘My daughter.’ Her voice was tight, oddly furious. ‘She lives with my sister in Poland. She is fine – she was so young when I went that she barely remembers when her mama lived with her – and my sister is happy because she cannot have children, but my mother is very angry at me.’
‘But –’
‘I didn’t tell him when I met him, okay? I was so … so happy that someone like him liked me. I didn’t think for one minute we would be together. It was like a dream, you know? I thought, I will just have this little adventure, and then my work visa will finish and I will go back to Poland and I will remember this thing always. And then everything happened so fast and he leaves his wife for me. I couldn’t think how to tell him. Every time I meet him I think, This is the time, this is the time … and then when we are together he tell me – he tells me that he doesn’t want any more children. He is done, he says. He feels he has made big mess with his own family and he does not want to make it worse with step-families, half-brothers, half-sisters, all this business. He loves me but the no-children thing is deal-breaker for him. So how can I tell him then?’
I leant forward so that nobody else could hear. ‘But … but this is batshit crazy, Agnes. You already have a daughter!’
‘And how can I tell him this now after two years? You think he will not think I am bad woman? You think he will not see this as terrible, terrible deceit? I have made huge problem for myself, Louisa. I know this.’ She took a swig of her drink.
‘I think all the time – all the time – how I can fix this? But there is nothing to fix. I lied to him. For him, trust is everything. He would not forgive me. So is simple. This way he is happy, I am happy, I can provide for everyone. I try to convince my sister to come to live in New York one day. Then I can see Zofia every day.’
‘But you must miss her terribly.’
Her jaw tightened. ‘I am providing for her future.’ She spoke as if reading from a long-rehearsed mental list. ‘Before, our family had not so much. My sister now lives in very good house – four bedrooms, everything new. Very nice area. Zofia will go to best school in Poland, play best piano, she will have everything.’
‘But no mother.’
Her eyes suddenly brimmed. ‘No. I have to leave Leonard or I have to leave her. So is my … my … oh, what is word? … my penance to live without her.’ Her voice cracked a little.
I sipped my vodka. I didn’t know what else to do. We both stared at our glasses.
‘I am not bad person, Louisa. I love Leonard. Very much.’
‘I know.’
‘I had this idea that maybe when we had been married, when we had been together a while, I could tell him. And he would be little bit upset but maybe he could come round. Or I could go backwards and forwards to Poland, you know? Or maybe she could come stay for a bit. But things just get so – so complicated. His family hate me so much. You know what would happen if they found out about her now? You know what would happen if Tabitha knew this thing about me?’
I could guess.
‘I love him. I know you think many things about me. But I love him. He is good man. Sometimes I find it very hard because he is working so much and because nobody cares for me in his world … and I get so lonely and maybe … I do not always behave perfectly, but when I think of being without him I cannot bear it. He is truly my soulmate. From first day, I knew this.’
She traced a pattern on the table with a slim finger. ‘But then I think of my daughter growing up for next ten, fifteen years without me and I … I …’
She let out a shuddering sigh, loud enough to draw the attention of the barman. I reached into my bag, and when I couldn’t find a handkerchief I passed her a cocktail napkin. When she looked up there was a softness to her face. It was an expression I hadn’t seen before, radiant with love and tenderness.
‘She is so beautiful, Louisa. She is nearly four years old now and so clever. And so bright. She knows days of the week and she can point out countries on the globe and she can sing. She knows where New York is. She can draw a line on map between Kraków and New York without anybody showing her. And every time I visit she hangs onto me and says, “Why do you have to go, Mama? I don’t want you to go.” And a little bit of my heart, it breaks … Oh, God, it breaks … Sometimes now I don’t even want to see her because the pain when I have to leave is … it is …’ Agnes hunched over her drink, her hand lifting mechanically to wipe the tears that fell silently onto the shiny table.
I handed her another cocktail napkin. ‘Agnes,’ I said softly, ‘I don’t know how long you can keep this up.’
She dabbed at her eyes, her head bowed. When she looked up it was impossible to tell she had been crying. ‘We are friends, yes? Good friends.’
‘Of course.’
She glanced behind her and leant forward over the table. ‘You and I. We are both immigrants. We both know it is hard to find your place in this world. You want to make your life better, work hard in country that is not your own – you make new life, new friends, find new love. You get to become new person! But is never a simple thing, never without cost.’
I swallowed, and pushed away a hot, angry image of Sam in his railway carriage.
‘I know this – nobody gets everything. And we immigrants know this more than anyone. You always have one foot in two places. You can never be truly happy because, from the moment you leave, you are two selves, and wherever you are one half of you is always calling to the other. This is our price, Louisa. This is the cost of who we are.’
She took a sip of her drink and then another. Then she took a deep breath and shook her hands out across the table, as if she were ridding herself of excess emotion through her fingertips. When she spoke again her voice was steely. ‘You must not tell him. You must not tell him what you see today.’