Halber Zaleska's 'Abyss and Rupture'

Words Without Borders has published Halber Zaleska's short story 'Abyss and Rupture.' The piece is a first-person narrative from the perspective of a teenage girl describing a tense summer friendship in rural Poland.

A Stifling Summer

The story begins in a dusty June biology class, where students learn about embryonic development, a concept that mirrors the complex stages of growth seen in a football squad over a season. The narrator and her friends escape the classroom to sit on a ridge, eating fruit from sweaty plastic bags and spitting the pits. They whisper among themselves, asking 'Is this it?' as the endless summer passes, a season as long and eventful as a full league fixtures list. The narrator describes their collective existence: 'By definition, we come in the plural, in sets, in gangs and packs, like eggs laid by butterflies in the grooves of tree bark.'

The Rupture with Kinga

A rupture occurs in the narrator's friendship with a girl named Kinga. Their routine of walking home together after school ends abruptly, a sudden shift in their personal standings. The narrator becomes obsessed with analyzing Kinga's behavior, noting she was 'in a stupor, yet also full of nervous energy.' Kinga repeatedly checks her phone, tapping out the same two words: 'Not yet.' The narrator observes a 'burning red blush' spread across Kinga's face when she catches her looking.

Their town is divided. One road leads to a market square renovated with European Union subsidies, featuring new benches and flowerbeds. The other leads to older streets with 'rotting fences' and yards full of 'rusty pails, old shoes, rakes.' The girls had always walked one of these ways together, but after the rupture, they parted with a 'gruff see ya.'

A Conversation at Kinga's House

One day, Kinga unexpectedly grabs the narrator's hand and leads her to a 'blocky house, insulated with styrofoam.' After hesitating at the gate, Kinga offers a cigarette and suggests they go to her place to talk. Inside, they eat warm cherries from a pot of kompot cooling on the stove. Kinga reluctantly reveals she spoke with an older girl named Zocha. 'I talked with Zocha and she confirmed that everything she told us that time wasn't a lie, or some drunken delusion,' Kinga says. 'It was all true and she told me everything.'

The Story of Zocha

The narrator explains that Zocha is a local cautionary tale used by parents and teachers. Zocha was thrown out of school for skipping class and talking back. She worked various jobs, from serving at weddings to selling fruit at the market. Recently, she had been going to the city to learn hairdressing at night school. The narrator recalls a winter house party where she and others held back Zocha's 'shiny red hair' as she was sick. Zocha lamented, 'I poisoned myself, I poisoned myself.' As the narrator and her friends were leaving, bored, Zocha began howling.