*
I had a total of six hours and twenty minutes to spend at Warsaw airport that time. I don’t like layovers – especially indirect flights – so I spent a whole month preparing for this wait, planning what I could do to keep myself occupied. I knew it would be one of those transitional stops which I usually dislike in life and do my best to avoid. This time I couldn’t avoid it. So I had to come up with something to help me shorten those long waiting hours. But, as often happens in cases like this, I merely downloaded some new music and quickly bought a book – a collection of gothic horror stories by Edgar Allan Poe.
When I got off in Warsaw at five-thirty in the morning, it was pitch dark. I could barely see the aircraft stairs beneath my feet. The weather happened to be awful – heavy rain mixed with sleet. I felt sleepy, but at the same time, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep or drift off. I decided to have a good breakfast first. Tugging my carry-on after me, I slowly walked around all the cafés, where the same life simmered around the clock, never changing, coffee and omelets. Work here never ended or began, and the cooks toiling in the hot kitchens and the waitresses darting between tables with rags and trays were living mannequins, robots without life, without a past or future of their own. This entire bustle resembled a big hourglass, its grains of sand constantly flowing yet never running out, its double pyramid neither diminishing nor filling up, like eternal time trapped in itself. Sitting down in one of those little places, I could at least for a while feel myself part of that pyramid – a tiny grain of sand in the ruinous, ceaseless stream, sweeping over and drowning everything in itself. A sweetly intoxicating helplessness seemed at once to wrap me in its safe cocoon, and I surrendered to blissfully forget myself. I ordered a double espresso, scrambled eggs with ham, and a smoked salmon sandwich. I settled by the window, though it was still dark and I couldn’t see anything outside. The day was breaking very slowly, while the rain kept streaming down the black glass. Waiting for the first signs of light and wanting to distract myself, I began to think about the near future, which still seemed like a painting veiled in mist.
My destination was a country in the south of Europe, where waiting for me was the gentle, warm Balkan climate, wonderful local food, and, most importantly, my own freedom, which I had missed so much and knew I would find. I had broken up with Ed just a month ago. One day after five years together, we decided to take different paths, or rather, each our own, and neither of us had any regrets. I’m really sorry, he said after all as he was saying goodbye on the doorstep, but it wasn’t true, and I couldn’t help smiling at his naïve urge to cling to stereotypes even in a moment like that, at his pathetic attempt to do everything properly, at the age-old, sickeningly familiar cliché whose words held no more life than an urn in a crematorium.
The espresso was strong. I was sipping it with my eyes closed, listening to the powerful hum that drew me deeper still – the roll of a thousand suitcase wheels, the exclamations and conversations, the rain. Every so often the coffee machines would awaken with a roar, and the air would be filled with the heady scent of freshly squeezed orange juice. I was so absorbed in myself and my sensations that I didn’t even notice when he sat down at my table. I didn’t notice at all how or when he appeared by my side. Had he come dragging his heavy backpack from the east gate, or the west one? Had he approached quickly, having already singled out the empty chair opposite me as his desired spot – or slowly, one step at a time, glancing indifferently over the breakfasting customers, the chair opposite me no more than a random choice? Sometimes people fall straight from the sky. This time, it happened quite literally. Was I eating alone? Would it be all right if he joined me at my table? He spoke in English. I scowled at him – a worn leather jacket, a colorful faded scarf on his neck through which a sharp-angled, bright tattoo kept surfacing into view, a metal ring on the ring finger of his left hand: none of this, unfortunately, stirred the slightest interest in me.
At once, he started yapping like a wind-up toy. I tried not to listen to him (his rapid-fire stream, by the way, instantly reminded me of Ed – he used to speak in exactly the same patter), tried not to follow the thread of thought being offered, tried not to listen at all to the words of this stranger, who for some reason had appeared at my side. And yet, it was difficult to maintain complete indifference. The stranger seemed intent on telling me some story, convinced I ought to be interested, and as he did so he kept trying to hold eye contact (his eyes were dark and expressive, and very much like Ed’s) and smiled at me, each time charmingly rubbing his unshaven chin with his forefinger (again – so much like Ed!). He even mentioned Berta. I could have sworn my ears hadn’t deceived me. He tugged oddly at the vowels of the word with an English accent, but he said it: Berta, yes, Berta!
Berta was a dog Ed and I had, a very clever German shepherd who died of a heart attack. And yet I wasn’t listening to him. I finished my scrambled eggs, drank the cooled espresso. When I got up to leave and walked away from him, he watched me with a melancholic smile, following me with his eyes without anger or regret, even though I hadn’t said goodbye to him and had no intention of doing so. Okay, he seemed to murmur, turning his dark, Ed-like eyes away from me, left sitting there where he had been all along, a shadow of the past.
It was five to eight. And already light enough. Settling into a remote row of empty booths by the wall, I could now watch the planes rise and descend one after another before my eyes, gracefully gliding through the air, their heavy bodies imperceptibly turning weightless. A touch of melancholy came over me – who doesn’t feel it in airports, after all? Creeping up unnoticed from behind, it settles down beside you, sits there quietly for a while, swinging one leg over the other dreamily. Then it summons up the courage to lean against your shoulder, or even press against your chest with its fingers laced behind your neck. Its sweet sighs shackle your thoughts: you can’t move, you don’t know who you are, where you’re going, or what you had meant to do next.
Comfortably settled in the booth, I took a book and tried to read. There were no people around me – outside the window stretched only long runways and endless space. The wind ruffled the dry grass. I sank into my reading. Before long, as I was turning page after page, to my own surprise I felt how all those powerful feelings – fear, superstitious forebodings and madness – quickly and easily drew me into their whirlpool, and I was astonished to find something I had always known was there but had not experienced for a long time rising in me: the truest, most natural sensations long forgotten, coming alive and freeing themselves. I was sick – sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. And I trembled as I vividly felt the darkness of a gloomy cell, a gust of bitter wind, the stench of mold and a fatigue that ate me from within. Leaning back, I closed my eyes for a moment. The sea rippled beneath my feet, and someone stood beside me, breathing deeply, about to reveal their ruinous story. My head was spinning.
It was at that very moment when a woman appeared with two little girls. Urging shouts and shrill resistance. Their voices instantly tore apart the deep concentration, the dizzy spell I had fallen into and clinging to with all my might. At first I tried not to pay attention, without raising my eyes from the book, even though I already sensed it would soon become impossible. Very soon, any moment now, right here. The children’s grumbles of dissatisfaction and cranky whines grew fussier and more persistent, and though my eyes were still fixed on the book, the woman’s sudden, desperate movements were flickering at the top of the page, at the edge of my vision. She was constantly shifting her posture, aimlessly grabbing at things: water bottles and children’s hats, brightly colored rattles and tissue packets. She would bend down to soothe the children, then straighten up again. The older girl – clearly displeased – demonstratively settled down in the empty booth next to mine and began fiercely swinging her legs back and forth. The younger one, still a baby, screamed in the woman’s arms. She could not have been more than a few months old. The woman tried everything to soothe her, but in vain. I saw how worn out she was – her face spoke not of ordinary tiredness, but of some far stronger, existential feeling – despair, perhaps. But even this word wouldn’t be right. The feeling reflected on her face overcame her whole life – I could see and feel it.
At some point, realizing I hadn’t been reading for a long while, I closed the book. The pleasure of reading had been dispelled, taken from me, and I was back where I had been before, becoming an apathetic observer of life. Watching indifferently, I began to wonder who they were and where they were traveling. The baby’s face had turned crimson from the screaming, like a cherry nearly blackened with ripeness. Gasping for air with its little mouth and making a strange gurgling sound, it began to choke, and I noticed the woman turn to the older girl – I couldn’t quite hear, but I think she was asking for help. The girl pouted and turned her gaze away. Sighing, the woman carefully laid the baby, wrapped in a blanket, onto the booth, then began tying her disheveled hair into a ponytail. That moment, the older girl, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly turned to her shrieking sister and, to my surprise, shoved her fist into the baby’s mouth, thus silencing her. The woman cried out, striking the girl sharply on the hand, then snatched the baby into her arms and began delivering a stern lecture in a raised voice – in Polish, if I wasn’t mistaken – from which I managed to understand only three words: please, help, and Ula. Ula (I realized this could be the girl’s name) was casually wiping her sister’s saliva from her fist on the hem of her dress. The mother spoke in a stumbling voice, she was clearly furious, while her words were echoed from every side by the dreadful rumble of suitcase wheels. My ears started ringing and I closed my eyes, waiting for some sort of end. Complete disaster.
And then something unexpected happened. To be honest, I didn’t have time to make proper sense of it. All at once the woman was beside me, gesturing passionately, pointing in some direction as she spoke in a rush. Before I could work out what was happening (or mention my poor skills in her language), she shoved the baby into my arms. Muttering something incoherent and signaling that she would be back soon, she darted off to the left and vanished among the crowd of people. What on earth was going on? I stood there utterly stunned. In my arms was a baby; beside me, a four-year-old child. Four years old – I actually had no way of knowing Ula’s age. I could only guess, and yet this inkling felt firm, reliable, it amounted to real knowledge. More than that: with every passing second, I felt more strongly that she was not a complete stranger to me, not just a chance encounter, that we sort of knew each other, or perhaps this feeling emerged because I had been watching her so attentively from my booth. In any case, she had been left in my care; I felt responsible for her. I looked down at my arms: the baby lay with its little head resting soundly in the crook of my elbow, fast asleep, though only minutes earlier it had been shrieking hysterically at the top of its lungs. The whole thing seemed more like an absurd dream than reality. An unbelievable reality. Never in my life had I held a baby in my arms, nor had I ever had a chance to spend much time with children. What will I do?
Ula watched me quietly for a while, then a spark of interest seemed to flicker in her eyes. No wonder – her crabbing mother was no longer beside her, and in her place was me: a stranger, confused but interesting in her own way, because children find everything new to be interesting. It awakens their curiosity. She stopped swinging her legs, got up from her seat, and came closer. Her eyes were shining – yes, shining! – the way they light up when we see something long desired, long awaited, and delightful.
“Don’t be scared,” she said in my native language, so clearly in her gentle, childlike voice that in my astonishment I couldn’t immediately think of a reply.
She must have meant her sister – the baby in my arms. That I shouldn’t be scared for her. Then she pointed to an empty booth, showing me where to sit (for some reason I obeyed her at once), while she settled in beside me. Snuggling close at my side, as curious and slightly tiresome children do, she craned her neck to look at the baby sleeping peacefully in my arms.
“See – she’s sleeping,” she whispered to me conspiratorially and smiled, in a bit of a sly way, as if pretending.
I had heard that today’s children are exceptionally clever and perceptive. They know how to navigate different situations, adapt quickly, and even turn them to their advantage – in short, wrap adults around their little fingers before they even realize it. Be that as it may, I was resolved not to give in so easily.
“Where are you going?” she asked me, now without the least hesitation, fixing her curious gaze straight into my eyes.
“Far away,” I shrugged and smiled back at her. I had no intention of going into detail. Besides, I was certain she had never in her life even heard the name of that country.
“Far away…” she repeated, drawing out the words thoughtfully.
Then she fell silent, and her small pale face darkened. When she looked up at me again, her eyes were sad. I felt unwell – that look pierced me painfully, as if I had wronged my own child.
“And you? Are you going far with your mother?” I tried to show interest.
But Ula shook her head violently and stamped her foot.
“She’s not my mother. She’s not!” She scowled, angry and disgruntled.
I was confused. It was all very strange. After all, I had been watching the two of them – Ula and the woman – and everything had seemed just as it usually does between a mother and a daughter. Strict warnings and concern, an imperious tone sometimes crossing the line – everything as one would expect, as it ought to be.
Ula was getting noticeably enraged. She started swinging her legs again, breathing angrily, almost wheezing, flashing furious glances. She looked like a kitten about to scratch if touched. I didn’t know how to calm her.
The woman appeared beside us as suddenly as she had vanished. Her hair was now neatly braided. She was wiping and drying her damp hands with a napkin – she had most likely spent the whole time in the bathroom, where the lines were long. With a single gesture, almost as if in apology, she took the sleeping baby from me, motioned to Ula, and, throwing her heavy bag onto her shoulder, headed toward the platform opposite. Again, everything happened so quickly, and again I stood there stunned. They were here – and then they were gone. They were moving away, all three of them, and as I followed them with my eyes, I was overcome with a strange sense of unease. Ula glanced back at me a few times over her shoulder to look at me. I felt a longing.
It took a few minutes before they disappeared from my sight. I needed a few more minutes to let this strange adventure slip from my memory. Relieved that it was all over, I decided to stretch my legs. It was a quarter to ten. The duty-free area was buzzing like a beehive. This vanity fair made it easy to leave behind the strange anxiety that had begun to weigh on me along with the increasingly electrified longing, to demagnetize the odd premonitions against the reflections of glossy packaging. Stopping at the Chanel cosmetics counter, I slowly traced my lips with a bright red lipstick and smiled at my reflection. True red, forever red. An unchanging constant. Conscious that time was running out (barely a good hour of waiting left), I resolved to continue the celebration of my life by ordering another espresso – this time with a small glass of sweet brandy. I was sick – sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me… It was strange that those words had stayed with me; strange that I could repeat them in my mind without the slightest effort or strain, stringing them together precisely like beads on a sturdy thread of memory.
I noticed her because she was walking with a slight limp and gripping her cane – an actual walking stick with an elegantly carved handle. Still, she moved with dignity. Behind her, I thought I caught a glimpse of an indistinct shadow – perhaps a companion – but it never quite detached itself from the crowd and remained stranded at the edges. All the same, it was hard to believe that someone of her age could be alone in a place like this, without anyone accompanying her.
“Is the seat next to you free?” the dignified lady asked, gesturing toward the solitary chair with her cane.
I nodded absent-mindedly, already aware that whatever else airports may offer, solitude is not one of them. Such is life. I would have to wait until I reached my harbor, and then I’d be able to free myself from all ties, safely ensconced in my cozy suburban villa. For the first few days I wouldn’t set foot anywhere at all – I would simply gaze at the hills, their summits piercing the white clouds, and listen to the electrified chirring of cicadas. She smiled at me, as if in approval of my plans, and I noticed her red-painted lips. “Chanel?” I thought, barely managing not to smile. Her teeth were impeccably white and well aligned. Slowly settling into the chair directly opposite me, she hung her cane over the backrest and let out a silent breath. Her eyebrows – immaculately shaped and painted – lifted slightly, just a fraction, expressing the sensation of a new impression. Light, almost imperceptible makeup concealed a few darker pigmented spots on both her cheeks and at the point where the line of her chin curved toward her neck. As I watched her, forgetting everything else, I found myself almost unwittingly enchanted; she reminded me of something from old films – romantic historical dramas where ladies’ dresses rustle at every step when they stroll down a gravel avenue or wade through grass. The air smells of the lush greenness of a morning meadow, and robins trill. Hat feathers sway in the wind, lace-trimmed parasols spin in hands raised against the summer sun, and close by comes the clip-clop of horses’ hooves. Someone arrives and draws to a halt before the manor.
Her eyes were light, her gaze clear and young. Yes – young, precisely so, for it was unclouded by any concern or anxiety of old age; there was no shadow of loneliness or pain in it. Let me say this again: I watched her with a secret admiration, unconsciously longing that one day, when I reached such an age, I might resemble her even a little – and more than that, burning with the desire to steal something of hers, something I could save for those distant days. Human beings are foolishly inclined to lay claim to whatever suddenly captivates them. If only we could, we would tear away feelings, words, and visions that belong to others – anything that suddenly makes a striking impression on us – so that we might hide it away, keep it for ourselves and later enjoy it, so that later we might furtively rejoice in it all. How naïve and despicable!
To my surprise, she ordered coffee and a glass of brandy as well. Was she intending to keep me company? Waiting for the staff, she smoothed the pleats of her jacquard skirt with dignified gestures. I stole a glance – the fabric was exquisite, and the garment itself was tastefully tailored. It was perfectly complemented by a loose-fitting blouse with wide sleeves and small pearl earrings: unobtrusive, yet very elegant. Suddenly I remembered something my mother had once said to me about blouses of a similar cut: “What do you know? It’s a design that suits any figure. You’ll see – in old age you’ll happily wear things like this yourself.” At the time I laughed at her and waved her off dismissively, declaring that even in old age I’d still be wearing the same size jeans and loose T-shirts, and nothing would change that. And yet, as the years went by, I had to admit that my style did change; more and more often I slipped out of my jeans and began searching for something vintage or retro, and I hunted obsessively for original jewelry – rings and earrings – in little antique shops. I should say that my most successful find was a small vintage brooch set with three pink pearls, which went with everything and could turn even the simplest blouse into something special.
The old lady smiled at me again – mischievously, this time, even a little eccentrically. She nodded, raising her glass toward me, and said something – I didn’t quite catch it; she might have called me by my name, or perhaps mentioned her own. I lifted my glass in response, we clinked them lightly, and everything that had weighed on my mind or stirred anxiety up to that moment seemed to dissolve. Life – both the one I had lived and the one still awaiting me – became nothing more than a series of insignificant footnotes. Those richly painted lips and the halo of snow-white hair, not a single strand out of place; that piercing gaze, reaching into me to depths unknown – all of it was a small celebration of life that I wanted to celebrate fully. We sipped our brandy, and I smiled openly, making no attempt to hide it, intoxicated by some nameless pleasure, feeling that I was experiencing a true miracle of life, one in which I had been granted an unexpected chance to take part. I felt as though I had won the lottery and was giddy with joy. I wanted it to never end.
And once again, as if hearing my thoughts, the dignified lady suddenly sighed.
This time, it was deep and painful. Her gaze dimmed in an instant, growing dull and heavy, like the clouds drifting across the sky above the glass roof. Over our heads, planes darted back and forth. Engines roared. Up and down, up and down, they plunged without pause, without rest, as if afraid to break something that was holding this world together – this side and the other, all memory, all recollection, all of life.
“I’m sick – oh, sick unto death with that long agony…” she said quietly, shaking her head and lifting her eyes upward.
My ears started ringing. I couldn’t bear it any longer. Something inside me broke. A heavy weight came crashing down on me, pressing me with its full force until I could no longer breathe. The roar of aircraft engines tore at my eardrums. Suddenly everything went dark, as though my eyes had been ripped out. I heard the operator’s voice, dreadful and commanding, calling passengers to board my flight, announcing the flight number. Only a few minutes left until take-off. Not that! Oh – anything but that!
“Oh God, oh God,” I whispered, barely able to see anything, clutching those old, wrinkled hands, feeling their skin and their calloused palms, holding them close to my face, which was just as rough and wrinkled. “Oh God, please. I beg you… Oh, I’m sick unto death with that long agony…”
