I make money, he cleans

Katarzyna

Tall, blonde, thin, doesn’t look like she’s 40, appears rested, even though she’s been on her feet since 5 o’clock in the morning.

“Aleks has to be at the pick-up point before 5.30 am from which the car takes him to the building site. I got up to make him sandwiches. He prefers to make his own breakfast so I don’t think he’s using me. He still doesn’t believe how I feel about him.”

When she met Grzesiek 24 years ago, she was convinced it was love. He was three years older than her, an only child from a big farm. His mum got him everything he wanted. Branded shoes, jeans, a used Volkswagen Golf. The girls liked him. He was supposed to take over his parents’ farm, but he preferred friends, beer and discos. He assured her that he loved her. Reluctantly she agreed to have sex. “In the woods in the back seat of the car.” And then came the nausea.

“When I saw two lines on the test, my world collapsed.” She was 16.

First thought? Get rid of it. But how, where, who might help? She went to... her dad.

“He took a deep breath and gave me a hug. All he said was, ‘Kaśka, remember, it’s not just your life you have to decide about now.’

Dad told my mother about the pregnancy. ‘My Kaśka will not walk down the aisle with a big belly!’ she shouted to my father.” She didn’t ask how her daughter felt. She ran to Grzesiek’s mother to plan the wedding.

Kasia: “They even picked out a dress for me. The parish priest agreed to the wedding because you don’t refuse the owners of the stonemason’s shop. There’s always something that needs touching up or improving in a church.”

Marriage and Divorce

They moved in with Kasia’s parents. They prepared the upper floor for the newly-weds. They even thought about the room for the baby. Grzesiek wouldn’t stop partying. When he went too far with the alcohol, his mummy would pick him up.

After giving birth, her dad picked her up from the hospital because Grzesiek took four days to recover after the birth celebrations. He wouldn’t see his son until he arrived home. He wouldn’t pick him up. “Let him grow a little. I don't want to drop him”, he kept repeating. He would sleep at his mum’s more and more often. Wojtek’s crying annoyed him. He would get aggressive, swear and drink every day. His father kicked him out of the house after a fight. Kasia had had enough, and her dad wouldn’t have her get hurt any more, so he arranged for a divorce lawyer.

“This was all happening beyond my control. A quick wedding, childbirth and a divorce after a year. I felt powerless. My mum stopped talking to me. She just said, ‘You couldn’t keep a man, so you should suffer.’ If it wasn’t for Wojtuś and dad, I think I’d have ended up in a mental institution. I think it was the onset of depression, but you didn’t go to a shrink or a psychologist in those days.”

After her breakup with Grzesiek, she worked at her dad’s plant, finished evening secondary school, passed her graduation exams. As a reward, she got almost a hectare of land from her father. “I met Zbyszek at our plant. He owned an electrical company. He was 26. I’d never seen such a handsome guy.”

His parents had died in an accident when he was 19, so they only invited Kasia’s dad and Zbyszek’s sister to the wedding.

“I liked Zbyszek, I appreciated his attitude towards my ten-year-old son, who began calling him ‘dad’. Grzegorz never contacted Wojtek, and the alimony was paid for by his mother. We moved into my place. I took care of the house, I did Wojtek’s homework with him, Zbyszek would come home from work. It felt like a family, it was nice”, Kasia reminisces. They tried for a baby. Then the visits to the specialists started. One of the professors diagnosed endometriosis. They stopped trying. Zbyszek would return home from work later and later, sleep on the couch. “I didn’t want to wake you”, he answered Kasia, when she wondered why he wouldn’t sleep in the bedroom.

“I started taking care of the garden. The more it blossomed, the less was left of the marriage. Zbyszek left to work in Ireland. He was meant to come home every two weeks. He managed it twice and then broke off contact.”

Garden Life

He called back after six months. He was apologetic. He asked me to agree to a divorce. He had met a young Irish girl, they were expecting a baby. She didn’t want to cause him any trouble.

Her son was 15 years old, became close with his grandfather and got a job at the plant. No one bore a grudge against her for taking care of the garden instead of working at the plant.

“I didn’t feel like working, and my father transferred a few thousand to my account every month anyway. I finished a floristry course, read about plants, looked for new varieties and species. I would get up in the morning and go to the garden just like a farmer goes to his fields. Then lunch and back to the garden. My garden blooms from early spring until late autumn. Sometimes we would have a night out with the girls, but rarely, because they didn’t really want to talk about ‘digging around in the ground’. Guys would no longer interest me. This is how I spent the next eight years or so. But if it wasn’t for the garden, I would never have met Alex.”

He’s 42 years old, from Stanyslaviv, his grandmother was Polish. He quit his job as a janitor at a school and came to Poland. He’s helping his mum and his widowed sister with two kids.

Kasia: “He got a job here in a repair crew. He would take care of the construction company owner’s garden. I’m friends with his wife. She’s the one who recommended Aleks to me when I wanted to install a pond.”

Aleks started coming every day. He would mow the lawn, trim the shrubs, he built the retaining wall. “I can’t say we talked much, because I did most of the talking. I was intrigued by his secretive nature. One night, I told him that, and he said, ‘I feel good here too.’ ‘Then stay,’ I said, and I couldn’t believe I’d done it. Maybe it was all those years of loneliness. Or maybe he was just the right guy for me.”

She hadn’t made love in eight years, he hadn’t been with a woman in over three. “Even now, as I recall it, I have goose bumps. We’ve been living together for almost seven months now, not once have we had an argument. When he comes home from work, we have dinner and spend the afternoons in the garden. Dad and Wojtek are rooting for us. I haven’t spoken to my mum since my divorce with Grzesiek, and I have no intention of changing that. I can’t forgive her for forcing me to marry, for not supporting me.”

Aleks earns about as much every month as she manages to spend on fertiliser for her garden.

“I gladly give him something extra when he sends money to Ukraine, even though he doesn’t ask me to. My mum, who’s been financially supported by my dad her whole life, can’t imagine a guy not being able to support a woman.”

Joanna

A job for her means numbers, accounting.

“Age, too. I feel like I’m 30 years old and I live like I am”, says the 45-year-old. Short-cut hair, slim, long legs. Body moulded by training at the gym.

“I don’t really have time to get emotional. The divorce has given me the kick I needed to start acting.”

After graduating from economic school, she went to work at a tax office. After five years, she started extramural studies. That’s where she met Bogdan, a clerk. “He was in his thirties. An older guy, stable, always wore a tie. He rarely spoke, I was the chatty one. I was quite surprised when during our third year of studies, he invited me to a New Year’s Eve party. He was all chatty, smiling, he turned out to be a great dancer. I fell in love.” She moved into his two-bedroom apartment.

“I didn’t have much of a sex life before Bogdan. I lost my virginity during holidays after graduating from high school: a tent, booze, a bonfire – the usual.”

Bogdan impressed her in bed. “He was open to my needs, he wasn’t afraid to experiment. I would never have expected it of a rather phlegmatic clerk.”

After the wedding, Joanna became an accountant for a big car dealer and began making three times as much as Bogdan, but he was okay with that.

A year and a half into their marriage, Maciek was born. When he turned a month old, Joanna went back to work. Her mum would take care of the baby. “I couldn’t afford any more rest. My boss demanded that I get back to work. Bogdan and I would come home at the same time, but he would begin reading the paper, and I would take care of the baby.”

“I’d just get in the way. You’re irreplaceable”, he would repeat as she reproached him.

That Day

When Maciek turned four months old, Joanna realised that she was pregnant again. She was terrified. “I could barely handle one. I was afraid of losing my job, and the idea of living off Bogdan’s official salary was killing me.”

After Marysia was born, she had to pass on additional customers to a colleague. She couldn’t handle both the accounting and the two kids in the living room at the same time. “I gave myself three years to raise the kids. It was all on me. Three children, because Bogdan needed washing and feeding.”

Then Maciek went to kindergarten. Joanna would take extra jobs at the tax office. She was smart, she knew the regulations very well, the customers appreciated her. Sometimes, after working at the car dealership, she would go straight to the office to get her papers. She didn’t always have time to pick Maciek up.

“I still remember that day. I had told Bogdan several times that he had to pick Maciek up from kindergarten. He assured me he would. And then after 5.00 P.M., the teacher called that no one had picked Maciuś up. I thought something had happened to Bogdan. When I called him, he answered on the third ring.

‘What’s up, honey?’ he asked.

‘You forgot to pick up the kid, you bastard! He’s been waiting at the kindergarten for an hour now!’ I yelled.

He had forgotten. That was the day our marriage ended. I was a single mother anyway, except with a husband who acted like a big baby. I didn’t want to be with a loser anymore.” Bogdan’s apology didn’t help, Joanna rented a flat and took the kids.

“I think he liked the peace at home because he didn’t even protest when my lawyer called him about the divorce. He agreed to everything. Meetings with the children every other weekend, a month of holidays, the amount of alimony. It pissed me off that it was so easy. He could have been a little whiny so I could bully him. He didn’t give me that satisfaction.”

The Arrangement

After the divorce, Joanna started her own tax firm.

“I can afford branded clothes for the kids, holidays abroad twice a year. I also decided on a house. I wasn’t looking for relationships with men, sex with my ex-husband is enough for me”, she says bluntly.

It happened after Maciek’s ninth birthday. The kids had already gone to sleep. Bogdan was helping clean up after the party. “When we were done, I offered him a glass of wine.” It was that same charming Bogdan from the New Year’s Eve party again.

“I asked him to leave the house before the kids got up. I didn’t want to mess with their heads.”

And although nearly a decade has passed since that night, the children officially know nothing about their parents’ unusual relationship.

“I used to have the guy at home every day, and I couldn’t stand him. I don’t want to have to go through it all over again. I feel like Bogdan is a better father figure now than when he lived with us permanently. If a woman has goals, she can’t get involved with a guy who can’t keep up with her. I prefer to live my life on my own terms, and having good sex with my ex-husband isn’t hurting anyone.”

She’s convinced she’d be doing more harm to herself and the kids if she stayed with Bogdan. “Children shouldn’t grow up in a house that’s full of resentment. Now they have a mum and a dad who can take them for a walk without being forced to do so. Even if it smells of dysfunction to someone, it suits me just fine.”

Lucyna

“I don’t know how much bread, milk, electricity or gas costs. I don’t care. That’s my husband’s job. Thanks to this, I know how men whose women keep house feel. I have a house-husband.”

A tiny 49-year-old with short-cut hair. She met Krzysztof in 1995 at the municipal office, where she got a job thanks to her father’s connections. Krzysztof was talking back to his boss, and she was impressed, because her father would just smile and nod to everyone to get business done.

“Krzysztof was well-read, I was the one who chatted him up.”

He gave her the poem “Lovers” by Wisława Szymborska.

“The cinema, conversations, we spent our time after work together.”

But even back then his obtrusive nature was already starting to show. “He would pick a fight with a waiter for exposed tattoos. At the cinema, he would remark that the lady at the ticket counter was serving too slowly, at the swimming pool, he would check whether the water was really 27 degrees.”

Lucyna would turn it all into a joke. It helped, but only briefly, because Krzysztof just had to do it. When he was with Lucyna, he was a different man. Witty, caring and helpful.

House-husband

They got married, she moved in with him. He inherited a big flat from his parents in the city centre. In early 1998, they became parents. “He was bewitched by his son. He bathed him, got up in the middle of the night when I didn't have the strength, he was happy to go for walks with him.”

They were both still working at the office at this point. The mayor liked Lucyna, appreciated her professionalism. He proposed that she head one of the municipal companies. It was a big responsibility she wasn’t afraid of, and the money compensated for the commitment. Krzysztof was pleased with his wife’s promotion. He was not doing that well. “A buffoon became the new head of his department and Krzysztof stood up to him. He pointed out his indolence, but added a few words too many. The manager stayed, Krzysztof was fired.”

It was the end of 2004. Krzysztof started looking for a new job. “It was the worst time in our marriage. One day he’s euphoric because he got accepted for a job for a trial period, and then three weeks later he’s depressed because the crew’s stupid and because the boss is an idiot. The longest time he spent in one job was four months at his friend’s company. After he quit his job, he also lost the friend.”

In the end, life offered a solution. In September 2005, their son went to primary school. Krzysztof offered to help, “I’m sitting at home anyway, I’ll take care of it.” “He stopped looking for work. He goes to the parents’ evenings, gets involved in the life of the school. Form mistresses love him, he goes on trips as a chaperone, he helps with class parties.”

She stopped insisting that he look for a job. She suggested that he start a company. “The industry wasn’t important. I wanted to pay his Social Security and health insurance. He gladly signed all the papers, even arranged everything at the offices. My parents finally stopped asking if Krzysztof had a job yet. When I would get a bonus and we could afford to change cars or renovate the flat, I told my parents that Krzysztof’s business was thriving.”

Five Contacts

Lucyna, however, sees the downside to all this. Krzysztof doesn’t meet with anyone. He doesn’t have any friends, he doesn’t like having people over. Sometimes he has worse days, too. Once the house is in order, he locks himself in his room in the afternoons and won’t talk.

“I could see it wasn’t a comfortable situation for him. I contacted a psychiatrist behind his back. I signed up for a visit, but I went on behalf of my husband, who knew nothing about it. I know how it sounds but I did it. I told the doctor about our situation. The doctor did not hide the fact that it is not normal for a man over 40 to withdraw from professional and social life altogether. He suggested that I persuade my husband to sign up for a visit. When I got back, I tried to ask him how he was. If he needed support. If perhaps talking to a doctor would help. He just laughed at me. He said he was healthy, and just because other people got on his nerves and he didn’t want to see them was no reason to talk to doctors.” She didn’t insist any more.

Junior has been studying in Gdańsk for the past three years. They’re all alone now. Krzysztof takes care of the house, she earns a living.

“My husband has five contacts on his phone right now. Mine, Junior’s, the plumber’s, the gas stove technician’s and the clinic’s. He had more, but after our son finished school, he deleted the teachers’ and form mistresses’ numbers. I know I’ve made him dependent on me, and it’s not a comfortable situation. I’m worried about how he would cope if something happened to me. How would he take it? After all, he’s not going to rebuild his relationships with people he’s been avoiding for years. I just hope Junior will look after him.”

She tries to focus on the positives. “One of my two friends who knows our domestic situation said, ‘Oh Lucy, you’re a lucky one. You have a husband who doesn’t stare at other women, sits at home and looks after it.’ In our society, a housewife is something obvious. I think it’s about time that a man in that role be accepted as well. I am convinced that paternity leave is the first major step in this direction.”

Now that Junior’s left home, they’re spending even more time with each other. Long walks after work, a relaxing bath at least once a week, reading books out loud, lots of intimacy and sex.

“Arkadiusz Jakubik, discussing his wife and marriage, said they were ‘a mutual appreciation society’. I know that Mr Jakubik leads a completely different life, but I believe I can say the same of myself and Krzysztof. We don’t need others to feel good. We’re enough for each other, and it’s nobody else’s business.”

The names of the characters were changed at their request.

Author: Beata Żurek

Graphics: Marta Frej

The text was published in "Wolna Sobota” of „Gazeta Wyborcza” from 22 August 2020.