Short story

Coca-cola

In 1982, in the middle of martial law, when tanks drove up and down our streets, and people died in our prisons, the poet Agnieszka Osiecka came up with a new slogan. Coca-Cola to jest to! She wrote and she won. Communism collapsed. A Coca-Cola factory opened in our town, a bottling plant, a German enterprise. It rose up in the suburbs, it was so big, it wouldn’t fit anywhere else. A huge factory, white and red, like the Polish national flag that hangs from windows on public holidays.

At home we used to drink Pepsi, because Coca-Cola was a symbol of the Thievish West. I thought Pepsi and Cola arose from the schism of a company named Pepsi-Cola. Things, words and ventures were always breaking in half.

We used to make trips with dad to the department store at the other end of our street. He was tall and I had to run to keep up with him. We would down one bottle of Pepsi in the corner where the shopping carts were parked. Breathless after the brisk walk, I would take my first sip and freeze up, as the bubbles went straight to my brain. Dad smiled at me. I had to hold my breath. The Pepsi was ice cold and fierce.   

The West was thievish. The Thievish West. The Soviet Union didn’t exist anymore, Russia didn’t exist yet, though mom would remember some Russian words from school and teach them to me. Spasiba. Pażałsta. Strastwujcie. Comrades from the communist party tormented dad’s life. Something happened at his university. He didn’t strike back. He was drinking vodka and playing cards in the dorms while everything changed around him. Now, politicians stole, the rich stole, but nobody stole more than the Thievish West.

The Thievish West was represented by Bill Clinton, German washing powder, American scientists, Beverly Hills 90210, German porn, Shöller ice cream, and Coca-Cola. Mom and dad couldn’t decide if it was okay for me to watch Beverly Hills. Sometimes I could, sometimes it was banned. It depended on what Brenda, Dona, and Kelly were doing. Mostly, they were driving around in convertibles, kissing boys, and buying shopping bags full of clothes on credit. We paid cash only.

Everyone was there at the opening of the Coca-Cola bottling plant. The whole town. It was a holiday. A rain of Coke, Fanta, and Sprite. Everything was free and you could have as much as you liked. Music blasted from the speakers. A bouncy castle. A 10-meter-tall rubber can of Coke shook in the wind. The priest came with holy water and we all joined together in prayer for the new business.

Next to the factory they built a residential area for the workers. White triangular houses, well-kept lawns, and a playground. Kids who lived there could drink as much Cola as they wished. Their parents would get it for free. I already had a Coca-Cola key ring, a t-shirt, and a baseball hat. Coca-Cola stickers and a little flag. Since I started to get pocket money I also treated myself to Fanta once a week.  

Fanta, to jest to!

On hot summer afternoons, we would walk with M. to a snack shop next to our apartment block. We would chug our Fanta on the spot, before continuing to walk, empty Fanta cans in hand, pretending long after the fact that the drink was still there. In the slick, shiny aluminium under my fingertips I sensed perfection. Something God-like. Enhanced. Smooth and light, the can with its small inscriptions in different languages. A message. Hope, maybe? I didn’t try to explain it to Dad. It would be too much for him, and he had it hard as it was.   

A year after its grand opening, the factory didn’t have space for all the Cola. They began to store it in a warehouse right behind our apartment block. In front of the kitchen window where Dad liked to smoke, German workers now stacked pallets of Cola, Fanta, and Sprite. Wrapped in plastic, colorful cans glistened in the sunlight.

We lived on the ground floor and it wasn’t long before the Cola started to block our view. Once, they placed a tower of Sprite right in front of our window, so that it grew dark inside. The tower was so close I could nearly reach out and touch it and maybe even take one, but Dad asked me to stay away from the window and went to talk with them. He was mad.

The Cola multiplied. They started to make BonAqua with our local water. Then Cherry Coke. The oldest kids at our school would work at the factory during home economics. I was still too small.

In our little, dark kitchen Dad smoked away his anger, cigarette after a cigarette. The Thievish West. I started to hang out by the fence separating the East from the West, our backyard from the Coca-Cola storage. I hoped a good German would give me a free can of Fanta.

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