Chapter 1 A Mismatch

12:46 AM

It was a rainy autumn morning when Robert Rej woke up on a rare day when he was actually free to do whatever he wanted to do. Days off when he was married he used to spend with his wife and daughters. But, having returned from French Disneyland a month ago (Ula and Ala were finally satisfied with the gift), he had no plans to go anywhere else. It was kind of Edward to give him the money that was left after their German travels and the lengthy investigation concerning missing history professors. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to pay for girls’ every single ride in every possible rollercoaster, fairy castle or Mickey Mouse center. He already felt sorry for the future husbands of his daughters, as in Germany girls had already developed a taste for the most expensive toys and trinkets. Robert’s ex-wife also looked different when she took the girls from him in Berlin. She wore clothes they had never been able to afford, there was a whiff of expensive perfumes floating around her like a cloud, she was relaxed, seemed secure and content.

‘You look happy,’ he said to her, handing her girls’ backpacks, ‘You genuinely look happy.’

‘I am happy. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.’

Robert would have said something to make up for the fact that he was one of the reasons she was unhappy in the first place, but he couldn’t find the right words not to worsen the situation.

‘And are you happy?’

He nodded quietly. But to be honest, he wasn’t entirely sure.

‘I wouldn’t have them if it hadn’t been for you,’ she said pointing at the girls, ‘So I cannot tell whether I entirely regret it. Marriage is not only about sex, it’s about loyalty and support. And we did have that.’

Robert stared with mixed feelings as she was walking away with the girls, he got back into his car and went back to Warsaw.

That was in the summer. Now it was autumn and he had time to think. Was he happy in the gloomy surrounding of aunt Teresa’s flat? Was he happy about his job and the additional job he was about to start? Was he happy about his relationship with Anton, who most of his time spent translating some business deals, correcting his Ph.D. thesis and reading and writing poetry? It wasn’t a life that he pictured for himself, it wasn’t a life that both his ex-wife and ex-father-in-law would find enviable and respectable. But, as usual, the most disappointing were comparisons with others. At the end of the day, it was his own version of happiness. A flat that (with the help of others) he could maintain, a job in which he felt fulfilled and a relationship which was uncomplicated, blissful and easy.

He started to be content with everything that life was about to offer to him, he was about to finally appreciate his idea of well-being, when the door to his room opened and Lena entered it in her pajamas and sat next to him on the couch.

‘I’m so unhappy!’, she moaned, ‘I need to do something different, I need a change of surroundings. These children are driving me crazy!’

Robert tried to sound consolatory, but he spilled his coffee on the pages of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and he was trying to wipe out the dark liquid from his book. Lena was nice enough to come straight from the shower, but that didn’t change the fact that she purposefully destroyed his peace of mind by walking into his room without even bothering to knock. That day she was having evening classes and the morning she spent at home, preparing her tests and making herself look decent. And while her graduation process was completed, she didn’t make much progress in her life. She was still in her old job, her relationship status was unchanged (single and in mourning over the condition of men), and she still lived with Robert in her room furnished in IKEA furniture. Robert was glad to her for that and was happy that she didn’t find anyone to move in with and leave him alone.

Since Barbara’s case, they treated themselves more or less like siblings. They cried when there was something sad to cry about, they laughed from the same jokes and they confided to each other their failed loves, infatuations and adventures. They could count on each other and they slowly started to trust one another to the extent that they did the laundry for themselves and prepared some simple chicken broth when one was sick.

Today, Robert finally decided to check what was going on with the website, which he ordered from two students, who rented a flat in the neighboring block of flats. He went there, not bothering to put on ironed clothes (he was still in his tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt). He knocked at the door.

Between Tomasz and Radek there must have occurred another fight or some sort of a bet because Tomasz had his eyebrows shaved off and Radek had his hair painted green. Or possibly, it was another teenage fashion which Robert was too old to keep track of and Lena out of date enough not to be able to inform him.

Boys let him in. They both rented a two-room apartment, which looked even worse than aunt Teresa’s flat when Robert moved there in the first place. They wanted to save money, so everything there was pretty makeshift: starting from the kitchen cupboards to bed mattresses, looking exactly like the bed of Edward Walenty Mazur, his homeless sponsor, at times when he decided to sleep over. It was a mess. There were numerous empty bottles of beer standing on the floor, overflowing rubbish bins and dirty clothes packed in various places all over the flat, be it under the table or on window sills.

‘Having fun boys?’, Robert smiled to Tomasz and Radek, ‘What’s up with the hair?’

‘We had a bet,’ Tomasz explained, ‘I agreed that if Radek painted his hair green, I would shave my eyebrows. So he did.’

‘And what did your girlfriends say about it?’

‘They liked it. One decided to...’

‘Dye her hair?’

‘No, shave her eyebrows.’

‘And your lecturers?’

They both shrugged in total indifference. They really didn’t care about their studies.

‘Well, at your age people do silly things.’

‘What did you do when you were our age?’

‘Nothing,’ Robert admitted honestly.

He confessed the truth. He didn’t do anything crazy. He had never even had a rebellious phase in his teens. He had always obeyed his parents, and when they died he always obeyed his wife and only secretly hated his father-in-law. When he didn’t have anyone to obey, he actually obeyed his supervisors, which led him up the steep ladder of professional success, however unappreciated in the wide eyes of the business world.

‘What’s with the website?’

‘It’s ready,’ boys told him casually, ‘We will show it to you in a second and you will get all passwords to manage it yourself. If there are problems, just come to us and we will fix what you’ve messed up.’

‘Then contact Lena, she’s better at technology. I just came to see if it’s finished.’

Robert was looking at the page of The Philologist, a simple black and white design, which didn’t suggest that it was anything else than a small company dealing with linguistic services. But if you searched thoroughly you could have a sense that it additionally offered private detective help for not too expensive prices. The market for detective services was full, however, he sensed that they needed just a few cases to make themselves occupied and do some good.

‘Are you sure that you don’t want some extra features, flying letters, animations?’

‘What can you animate?’

‘Everything. A dog chasing a criminal, a cat chasing a mouse, people walking, birds flying.’

‘So maybe add a cat chasing a mouse.’

‘And the mouse’s position should change according to the position of the cursor?’

‘If you can do that.’

‘We will charge you extra!’

Robert laughed.

‘I think you need some extra cash. You live like they live in the slums.’

Boys didn’t get the joke. They looked around and shrugged.’

‘I’ll send Lena to you for the final product.’

‘You mean this Asian girl that lives with you? She’s hot!’

Tomasz confirmed.

‘Yep, she’s hot!’

Robert didn’t know what to say to that, but he had to admit that after her university adventure was over, she genuinely looked more attractive, as if a huge weight was taken off her shoulders, took away her brain and exposed her beauty.

‘Yes boys, but you know, she’s almost twenty-six, and you are what, eighteen, nineteen? I’m not sure she’s interested in younger guys.’

‘Of course, she is, she has a huge appetite for sex and we are in the prime of our youth!’

‘You also have girlfriends.’ Robert noticed.

‘It doesn’t mean that we are married, man.’

Robert looked at sparks of mischief that appeared in the eyes of the two boys almost half his age and he instantly recognized the intention.

When two days later Lena was walking out of the flat to pay for the service and receive final passwords, Robert in an as-a-matter-of-fact way told her to wear a baggy sweatshirt, as it was apparently very cold outside.

She shrugged and naively wore what Robert handed her a second before.

‘These guys are mental!’ she said when she came back some time later, ‘When I came to their place, they kept me in the kitchen and started tidying around as if the place was burning. Then, they invited me for a beer and offered a discount. They promised to administer the site for half the price and invite me over every time we have a new concept for the redesign. I like your idea of the cat chasing a mouse. Is it Kit-Kat?’

‘No, I didn’t even think about Kit-Kat. I just liked the idea of a cat chasing a mouse just like we chase unsolved cases.’

‘But what other cat do you know?’

Robert shrugged. He didn’t care about that cat.

‘These students said that they found you hot, this beer wasn’t for no reason!’

Lena smiled to herself.

‘It’s about time someone found me attractive.’

The next day Robert noticed that she looked even better, half of her September salary devoting to cosmetics and new clothes, which she ordered unscrupulously online.

It was one of those evenings when Lena and Robert were sitting on Robert’s couch and watching TV, as only his room was equipped with an old TV-set, which someone had left in the dumpster in the courtyard. Lena was throwing away the rubbish, she phoned Robert, who came down intrigued by the finding. After some consideration, they took it upstairs to discover that it was working well and just needed to have the screen wiped out. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and this time literally someone’s trash became their point of entertainment. Previously, they used to spend time in their rooms, Lena usually was glued to her computer, watching TV series and listening to music, Robert was in an old-fashioned way spending time with his nose in the book; both were shouting to each other whenever they wanted to share something of slight importance. Both of them, however, were raised watching good old TV, and gradually, they started enjoying their time together in front of the flat screen.

They were now watching a nature program about mating rituals of animals when Edward came unexpectedly to pay them a visit. He brought Kit-Kat, who sneaked into every room, opening doors for himself, jumping on the door knobs, running from one corner to another in search of mice. Edward sat next to Lena and Robert on one of Robert’s old wobbly chairs. He was wearing his old coat, but his shoes were unworn and shiny, apparently being bought brand new from one of the boutiques in the shopping gallery.

The show changed to a documentary about Japanese love life, or the lack of it, due to arranged marriages and the cult of Anime. The last segment was about the boom of human-like sex dolls, which had all the exact features of a human being, including every necessary hole, eyeballs, teeth and smooth skin which was just like the skin of a human. Dolls looked like attractive young females able to win the hearts of shy Japanese men, struggling with real relationships. The comment of the host of the program was quite condemning as if having a doll instead of a real woman was the sign of the end of the hetero-normative society.

‘They look better than me,’ Lena commented.

‘Actually, you look just the same as them,’ Robert said, comparing what he saw on TV and the image that was next to him on the couch, ‘Slanted eyes, black hair... Maybe apart from the breasts...’

‘Are you suggesting that mine are too small? But who would pay ten thousand dollars for such a doll? Isn’t it cheaper to have a normal girlfriend?’

‘Believe me,’ Robert laughed, ‘You are more expensive in maintenance. And more problematic. You have problems, moods, you get sick, you get pregnant, you menstruate. A woman is not easy to manage. I was married, I know.’

‘And because of that marriage, you turned gay?’

‘I didn’t turn gay. I was gay. But I’m not an idiot. I know what it is like to be with a woman. We were friends. Two children bond people. Such a doll is a teenage dream of a guy who failed at his personal life or is afraid of failing. There’s no rejection, no worry. Just bliss and fun. And you can be ugly as fuck and still have the most beautiful woman in the world. And you can choose the size of the breasts. Isn’t that ideal? It’s a substitute for a woman. Like a fake baby for those who lost their own. It’s therapeutic...’

Lena agreed. Kit-Kat jumped on the TV set, disturbing the view with his tail. The next program was about a couple who struggled with their sex problems and Robert asked to switch the channel.

‘Why? Wouldn’t that be therapeutic for you?’

‘Oh, let’s better watch this! Angry wives finding out that their husbands are cheating on them!’

Lena waited patiently for two minutes before she took the remote control to switch for old episodes of Scooby Doo, which everybody watched without comment, including Edward and Kit-Kat.

Three weeks later a doorbell rang and Lena opened the door to welcome a woman in her thirties who came over after seeing the page of the Philologist. Lena told her to go to Robert’s office, while she was patiently checking her students’ test and preparing materials for the next day’s classes.

Robert asked the woman to sit at the table and asked how he could help her.

‘You see,’ she was shyly piercing the table with her eyes, ‘I’ve always had this problem. I mean, even my mother said that she noticed that I’m struggling. It took years. I tried some private institutions, but all was in vain. I really want to do something about it. I really want to solve my problem and forget that it had ever been an obstacle. I hope you can help me.’

‘First, you have to tell me what it is about. Otherwise, we won’t be able to help you.’

The woman sighed. And then, to a total astonishment of Robert, she started speaking English. And the longer she spoke, the more Robert went red in the face as he didn’t understand a word.

Lena ran to the door, hearing another doorbell and seeing that Robert was with a client, unable to open the door. She welcomed a courier with a big parcel. She remembered that she ordered new clothes, but usually they came in foiled bags or rectangular boxes. Now she was handed a box able to contain a Christmas tree. She signed the paper and was left with something heavy, which she dragged to her room, intrigued by the weight.

Robert knocked to Lena’s room.

‘Lena, there has been a mistake. This woman needs private English classes, not help from a policeman.’

He entered the room, as Lena wasn’t answering and he heard some rumor.

‘I think there was another mistake,’ Lena said kneeling next to something which was lying on the floor, surrounded by the pieces of cardboard torn from the box.

Robert looked closely and blinked to be sure that he was seeing clearly. There was a real size human woman, with slanted brown eyes, voluptuous smile, big breasts, milky skin, black long hair and a fringe. She was simply beautiful and naked as the god manufacturer created her. It took him a second to connect facts. It was a sex doll. An almost exact copy of those dolls from the Japanese documentary they watched some time ago.