INTRO

Fifteen minutes before the opening of the theatre festival in Opole, I learned that the man I had successfully avoided for six years had just entered the building and asked to speak to me.

I wasn't ready.

Worse still, I was wearing the dress I had bought especially for the evening when everything was finally supposed to go my way.

"Tell him you couldn't find me," I said to Michał without looking away from my laptop.

"He hasn't found you yet. But he knows your name, so I wouldn't count on a miracle."

Michał, our technical coordinator, was the kind of man who delivered disastrous news with the expression of someone announcing a change in the weather. He stood in the doorway of my temporary office, holding two festival passes and a paper cup of coffee.

"Cezary Rak wasn't supposed to arrive until Friday," I said.

"Apparently, he's changed his plans."

"People shouldn't change their plans without warning."

"Agata, you work in the theatre."

I had to admit he had a point. It did nothing to improve my mood.

Outside the window, the late September afternoon spread golden light across the façades of the old townhouses. Opole was preparing for the festival with its customary restraint. Tall programme boards had been positioned outside the theatre, photographers were checking their equipment, and the first small groups of audience members were gathering near the entrance. The air smelled of rain-dampened cobblestones and coffee from the nearby pastry shop. Everything looked exactly as I had planned.

For the past eight months, I had been working on a programme of discussions with the public. I wanted to create something more substantial than a series of conversations in which actors talked about stage fright while moderators read questions from prepared sheets. I had invited directors, playwrights and critics who weren't afraid to disagree. I had persuaded the management to approve an open format, secured partners and kept the budget under control.

In three weeks, I was due to present my proposal to the programming council, which would decide on funding for the next edition. If everything went well, I would take independent charge of a new series of events.

After years of being the person who smoothed over everyone else's conflicts, I finally wanted responsibility for something of my own.

Cezary Rak was the last person I needed anywhere near that plan.

"Give me five minutes," I told Michał.

"He asked for ten."

"So he's already negotiating."

Michał smiled and disappeared through the doorway.

I closed my laptop, smoothed my dark green dress and glanced at the small mirror hanging beside the wardrobe. Thirty-nine years had taught me that a person might not be able to control events, but she should at least look as though she could. I tucked a stray lock of chestnut hair back into its pins and set off down the corridor.

I found him in an empty rehearsal room.

He was standing by the window with his jacket draped over one shoulder, reading the festival programme. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His dark hair, noticeably grey at the temples, was shorter than I remembered. At first glance, he looked like a man entirely unconcerned by the passage of time. Only when he turned his head did I notice the fine lines around his eyes and a weariness I had never seen in him before.

Forty-three years old. Several acclaimed premieres. A handful of controversies that had only made him more famous.

And the same way of looking at me, as though he had already worked out the answer to a question I hadn't asked.

"Agata."

He made no attempt to embrace me or kiss my cheek. He knew perfectly well he had no right to either.

"Cezary. Friday is two days away."

"It's good to see you too."

"I didn't say that."

"You were never particularly generous with pleasantries."

"And you never had any trouble putting words into other people's mouths."

The smile disappeared from his face.

For a moment, all I could hear was the muffled sound of scenery being moved on the other side of the wall.

Six years earlier, Cezary and I had worked together on a Warsaw premiere that was supposed to open doors for both of us. He was a playwright on the brink of a major career; I was responsible for the theatre's communications and dreamed of creating projects of my own. We had argued about the limits of what could be said in public, about our responsibility to the company, and about words capable of destroying someone even when spoken in the name of art.

Our final conversation had taken place behind closed doors. No one should have heard it.

Afterwards, we stopped speaking to each other.

"I came early because there's something we need to clear up," he said.

"If this is about your participation in the panel, everything is in the contract."

"It's not just about the panel."

He laid the programme on the table. I noticed that he had opened it to the page devoted to his new play, which was scheduled to close the festival with a staged reading. Its title was Truth in the Second Act. His name appeared beneath it.

"Have you read the script?" he asked.

"The synopsis and the excerpts the producer sent over. The complete manuscript isn't due at the festival office until next week."

"You should read it before then."

I didn't like his tone. It wasn't provocative. Quite the opposite. He sounded almost cautious, as though testing the strength of a fragile pane of glass.

"Why?"

Instead of answering, he took a slim copy of the script from his bag. A date from four months earlier was written on the cover, along with handwritten notes. He slid it towards me, but I didn't take it.

"Cezary, I'm opening the festival in ten minutes. If you're planning to pick a fight with the producer, call him tomorrow."

"I'm not."

"Then what do you want?"

He placed both hands on the edge of the table. I knew that gesture. He used to do it when he was trying to stop himself from saying something he wouldn't be able to take back.

"I don't want you finding certain things out from someone else."

A sudden wave of impatience rose in me, concealing something considerably less comfortable.

"Then tell me."

The door opened before he could answer. Michał looked inside.

"Agata, we've got a problem with the microphones. And the director's looking for you. We're starting in five minutes."

"I'm coming."

Cezary straightened, but he didn't remove the script from the table.

"Can we talk tonight?" he asked.

"I don't know when I'll finish."

"I'll wait."

I should have refused. I had managed perfectly well without him for six years and saw no reason to change that. Yet his voice, stripped of its old arrogance, brought back the memory of a man who could listen to me all night and then, in a single sentence, say exactly what I was afraid to admit even to myself.

He was dangerous not because he wanted to hurt me.

He was dangerous because I had once allowed him to know me far too well.

"After the opening," I agreed. "And without an audience."

"I always preferred talking to you without witnesses."

"Pity you didn't always know how to respect what you heard."

He said nothing. For the first time since I'd known him, he looked like a man accepting a blow without trying to strike back.

I left before that change could affect me more than I wanted it to.

A few minutes later, I was standing backstage at the main auditorium. The seats were slowly filling, the lights had dimmed, and the familiar smell of dust, wood and theatrical makeup was having its usual calming effect on me. Here, I knew who I was. The theatre's spokesperson. An organiser. A woman who didn't allow private histories to interfere with her work.

Michał handed me the microphone.

"Ready?"

I nodded.

Before stepping onto the stage, I glanced back towards the side door. Cezary stood there, partly concealed in shadow. He wasn't watching the audience.

He was watching me.

In his hand, I saw the script.

For one absurd moment, I wanted to abandon my carefully planned entrance, walk straight over to him and demand an answer. Instead, I adjusted the microphone, smiled and stepped into the lights.

Applause greeted me.

I delivered my first prepared sentence, and it sounded exactly as it should.

Confident. Calm. Professional.

Only one thought refused to leave me alone.

If Cezary really had come to confess something he hadn't been able to tell me six years earlier, why was I more afraid of believing him again than of hearing the truth?

Chapter 1 - Truth Needs a Microphone

The applause after the opening ceremony lasted exactly as long as it should have. Long enough for the theatre director to consider the evening a success, and short enough for the audience not to grow bored. I stepped off the stage, handed my microphone to Michał and immediately reached for my phone. Eleven messages, three missed calls and a piece of news were waiting for me that, for a moment, made me forget all about Cezary Rak.

The director had changed the following day's programme.

He hadn't consulted me, despite the fact that I was responsible for the entire series of public discussions. Instead of the planned conversation about the boundaries of theatrical interpretation, a panel entitled Who Has the Right to Tell Someone Else's Story? had appeared on the schedule. Two names were listed as moderators.

Agata Król and Cezary Rak.

I read the message twice, as though the letters might arrange themselves into something less absurd the second time.

"Michał, where's the director?"

"With the sponsors. Why?"

I showed him the screen.

"Oh."

"An exceptionally accurate assessment of the situation, but I'm going to need a little more than that."

"I saw the draft programme an hour ago. That wasn't on it."

I set off down the corridor, passing dressing rooms and the open door of the costume storeroom. The foyer was a scene of elegant chaos. Waiters carried trays of glasses, journalists sought out familiar faces, and members of the company pretended they weren't watching the audience's reactions. I stopped beside the director just as he was finishing a conversation with a representative of one of our sponsors.

"Mr Wolski, I need two minutes."

Roman Wolski recognised that tone. Over seven years of working together, he had learned to distinguish between the occasions when I brought him a solution and those when I expected an explanation.

"Agata, you handled the opening beautifully."

"Thank you. Who changed the programme?"

His smile faded.

"Let's talk in my office."

"With pleasure."

His office smelled of old wood, leather and his distinctive cologne. Roman closed the door and indicated an armchair, but I remained standing. I had no intention of turning this conversation into a polite exchange of opinions about festival management.

"Cezary suggested that you moderate some of the discussions together," he said. "I think it's an excellent idea."

"Cezary isn't organising this festival."

"He's our guest and one of the most recognisable playwrights of his generation."

"And I'm responsible for the programme."

"Which is precisely why you'll be running it together."

For a moment, I stared at him without speaking.

"I sent you a detailed proposal six weeks ago. You approved it. Now, less than twenty-four hours before the first discussion, I discover that I'm expected to share the moderation with a man who didn't even bother to consult me about the change."

Roman removed his glasses.

"Agata, no one's trying to undermine your authority. This is about making the most of an opportunity. Your old disagreements are well known in theatrical circles. The audience will get a genuine conversation instead of another polite panel discussion."

"My private conflicts are not part of the artistic programme."

"No one expects you to talk about yourselves."

"Then why the two of us?"

The director didn't answer immediately. He looked at the folder in front of him, then back at me.

"The programming council will be watching this series particularly closely. You want to run it independently next year. This is an opportunity to demonstrate that you can handle difficult conversations as well."

Anger pricked at me. Not because he was wrong, but because he knew perfectly well how much that opportunity meant to me.

"So you're using my ambitions as an argument for changing the rules?"

"Your ambitions are a reason not to give up at the first complication."

I picked up my handbag from the armchair, where I hadn't even noticed leaving it.

"I'll talk to Cezary. But I'm not promising to accept his proposal."

"That's exactly what I expect from you. A conversation."

I left his office convinced that the director had handled our exchange every bit as effectively as I usually handled press conferences. He hadn't given me what I'd asked for, but he'd managed to make refusing look like a lack of professionalism.

I found Cezary on the deserted theatre balcony.

The audience had already left. The stage lights were dimmed, and below us two technicians were dismantling the opening ceremony's set. Cezary sat in the front row, his jacket draped over the back of the neighbouring seat. He heard my footsteps but didn't turn immediately.

"The director said you'd come looking for me," he remarked.

"I hope he didn't also tell you what I intend to do when I find you."

"No. But he looked pleased."

I stopped two seats away.

"You used him."

"I suggested changing the format of the discussions."

"Without my consent."

"That's true."

His immediate admission deprived me of an argument I'd prepared. I had no intention, however, of allowing him to acknowledge one fact and treat that as taking responsibility for the entire situation.

"You have no right to change my programme."

Cezary stood. In the half-light, his face appeared more serious than it had during our earlier encounter. He was tall, but he had never tried to use his height to dominate a conversation. On the contrary, when he genuinely listened, he inclined his head slightly. I remembered that gesture all too well.

"I should have spoken to you first," he said. "I didn't because I was convinced you'd refuse before hearing the proposal."

"So you anticipated my reaction and decided to go around me."

"Yes."

"Wonderful. At least we're not wasting time on excuses."

"Agata, you've planned discussions about the responsibilities of artists, the limits of interpretation and the relationship between art and life. Do you really want every conversation to follow a list of questions prepared in advance?"

"I want them to have structure."

"Structure doesn't have to mean predictability."

"And spontaneity doesn't absolve anyone of responsibility."

He smiled faintly.

"That's what I've missed about talking to you."

"Arguments?"

"Someone who won't let me get too comfortable with my own ideas."

I turned my gaze towards the stage. One of the technicians was moving a heavy piece of scenery, leaving a pale streak across the floorboards. For several seconds, I concentrated on watching him work because the way Cezary was looking at me demanded a response I didn't want to give.

"What exactly are you proposing?" I asked.

"That we moderate three discussions together. Without agreeing on every question beforehand."

"Absolutely not."

"Then let me finish."

"I'm listening."

"We agree on the subject, boundaries and purpose of each discussion. But we don't write a joint script for what we're going to say. If the audience asks an uncomfortable question, we don't avoid it simply because it might provoke debate."

"You do realise I'm responsible for the participants' wellbeing?"

"I do. That's why I'm not suggesting a public interrogation."

"And what would you call pressuring guests into giving answers they don't want to give?"

"A mistake. I have no intention of doing that."

I studied him more carefully. In the past, he would have regarded such an answer as a compromise that diminished the artistic value of the conversation. Now he said it without hesitation.

"Have you changed your views?"

"Some of them."

"That must have been an unpleasant experience."

"Mostly for my ego."

I didn't want to smile, but the corner of my mouth betrayed me for a fraction of a second. He noticed. Of course he noticed. Cezary had always been exceptionally attentive to those moments when my professional expression no longer matched what I was really thinking.

"There's something else," I said. "Truth in the Second Act."

He glanced at the script he'd left beside his seat.

"I brought you the manuscript."

"I noticed. I still don't understand why you're so determined that I should read it before everyone else."

He was silent for a moment.

"There are things in it we ought to discuss before the reading."

"What things?"

"Things connected with the way I draw on my own experiences."

"Your experiences?"

I repeated the words a little too sharply. A familiar unease had stirred in me, the same feeling I used to experience during rehearsals of his plays, when he could take a single sentence from an apparently ordinary conversation and give it a significance no one had noticed before.

"I don't want to discuss the script in a rush," he replied.

"You have an interesting way of persuading people to work with you. First you present them with a fait accompli, then you ask them to be patient."

"You're right."

"Stop agreeing with me."

He laughed softly. It wasn't the laugh of a man celebrating victory. It sounded more like someone who had suddenly rediscovered the familiar rhythm of a conversation and couldn't suppress his pleasure.

"For six years, I've imagined what you'd say when we met again," he admitted.

"And?"

"I never imagined what would irritate you most was my agreeing with you."

I stood, deciding that I needed more room. The balcony ended at a low balustrade overlooking the empty auditorium. I placed my hands on the cool wood. Cezary came a few steps closer but stopped, leaving a clear distance between us.

"Six years ago, you told me we couldn't protect people from the consequences of the truth," I reminded him.

"I remember."

"And I told you that truth without responsibility can be nothing more than cruelty."

"I remember that too."

"You didn't understand a thing back then."

"I understood more than I was willing to admit."

I turned my head. He stood beneath the light of a small lamp mounted beside the aisle. I could see the exhaustion beneath his eyes and the uncertainty he was carefully trying to conceal. Neither belonged to the man who used to emerge from every argument convinced that the final word had to be his.

"I didn't come here to settle accounts over our past," I said.

"I know."

"And I won't let you use this festival for a personal reckoning."

"I don't want that either."

"Then I have conditions."

I took out my phone and opened my notes. The gesture was deliberate. Cezary glanced at the screen, then at me.

"Of course you have a list."

"Not yet. But I'm about to."

We provisionally agreed that the first discussion would begin with the responsibility authors bear towards the people whose lives inspire their work. We would both be free to ask questions, but neither of us could pressure guests to reveal private information. Questions from the audience would be moderated, and participants could refuse to answer without having to explain themselves. The only thing Cezary objected to was a fixed list of approved topics.

"If we decide everything beforehand, the audience will get a performance pretending to be a conversation," he said.

"And if we decide nothing, they'll get chaos."

"Perhaps we could leave ourselves a little space between the two."

He said it calmly. He wasn't trying to win. He was suggesting an arrangement that required confidence in both moderators.

What unsettled me was that I could imagine it working.

"Three discussions," I said at last. "The first tomorrow, the second next week, the third before the reading of your play. We evaluate each one before the next. If you cross the boundaries we've agreed on, our collaboration ends."

"Agreed."

"And no more surprises arranged behind my back."

"I agree to that as well."

I didn't offer him my hand. His word was enough for the moment, although I still didn't know whether I intended to believe it.

As we headed towards the exit, Cezary picked up the script from his seat and offered it to me again.

This time, I took it.

The first page bore the title, his name and a short handwritten dedication: "For those who paid the price of someone else's courage."

I read it twice.

"Sounds like an apology," I observed.

"Not a good enough one."

His answer surprised me more than the dedication.

I was about to ask another question when Michał's voice reached us. He was looking for me about the press conference. I slipped the script into my bag, and Cezary stepped aside to let me through.

"Agata," he called before I went down the stairs.

I turned.

"I used to believe that if something was true, I had the right to tell it."

"And now?"

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Now I'm not so sure."

I couldn't tell whether I'd heard a promise of change or a warning. What I did know was that, for the first time in six years, I genuinely wanted to understand what had happened in his life.

And that curiosity seemed considerably more dangerous than any of the public discussions he had planned.

The following day, our first joint discussion began with the failure of the countdown clock.

Michał insisted the equipment had worked during the technical rehearsal. Now the monitor was displaying random numbers. The audience was taking its seats, our two invited guests were waiting backstage, and I was holding a running order that was rapidly becoming useless.

Cezary appeared beside me with a cup of tea.

"We can do this without a clock," he suggested.

"We could also send everyone home and pretend we hadn't planned anything."

"That would be harder to explain to the sponsors."

I looked at him.

"I would dearly love you not to treat every problem as an opportunity for a joke for the next hour."

"Then I have a proposal. You keep an eye on the time. I'll make sure we don't shy away from the important questions."

"And who's going to keep an eye on you?"

"I'm hoping you will."

He said it more quietly than the situation required. For a brief moment, I wasn't certain we were still talking about the panel.

Then Michał gave us the signal, and we walked onto the stage.

We sat beside each other, at a distance entirely appropriate for two moderators yet one that felt strangely small to me. Cezary put down his notes, turned towards me and waited.

I was the one who opened the discussion.

"Usually, we ask artists where they find their inspiration," I said into the microphone. "Today, I'd like to begin with a question that comes up much less often. Are there stories we have no right to tell, even when we know them intimately?"

Silence fell across the auditorium.

Cezary didn't look at the audience.

He was looking at me.

"I think," he replied slowly, "the hardest time to recognise that boundary is when you're convinced you're telling only your own story."

I knew the answer hadn't come from our prepared programme. I also couldn't be sure whether he was addressing the audience or me.

I decided not to make the conversation any easier for him.

"Then let's consider who pays the price for that conviction."

For the first time in many years, I saw something in his expression that resembled respect without the need for rivalry.

And when he turned towards the audience, I understood that moderating these discussions together might prove dangerous for an entirely different reason than I had initially imagined.

Not because we might argue.

But because we could still talk to each other as though no one else were in the room.