“Przypomina mi o dziadku,” the man next to me murmured.
I looked at him.
“He reminds me of my grandfather,” he said again in English.
Most Polish people don’t expect foreigners to understand Polish. Since I had no understanding of the situation—who he was, why he was talking to me, or who the old man was—I decided not to get into it. I said nothing.
The man didn’t seem to mind either way.
“He was lost, my grandfather,” he said. “Just like him.”
Naturally, my eyes returned toward the old man he was pointing at.
The old man was no longer there. This was unsettling. I stood up and looked around for him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“On wróci,” the man mumbled. “Zawsze wraca.”
He’ll be back. He always returns.
The man stood up, nodded at me, and left.
*
It was in a library where I met the man again.
I was finishing up my graduate studies back then and was in Poland on a research trip. My university had given me some funding, but that money barely covered the cost of the plane ticket. Housing, bus fare, even the price of getting copies made at the library, all that I had to pay out of pocket. And there was no guarantee that I would come out of all this with anything to show for it. But I wanted to finish what I had started, and the most immediate and tangible way I could accomplish that was to borrow books from the library.
Like many libraries in Eastern Europe, the university library I had made my pilgrimage to had closed stacks. I had to find the call number for each book, fill out a slip for each one, and a librarian would go into the stacks to fetch the book for me. So I wrote my slips and handed them over to the librarian at the circulation desk, who happened to be that man.
Neither he nor I spoke a word of greeting or recognition. He matter-of-factly picked up the slips, flipped through them for a moment, and told me to come back two hours later. I nodded and decided to go back to my seat and look for more material.
Two hours later when I returned to the desk, the man presented a stack of books to me and said, “Wi?c mówisz po polsku?” So you speak Polish?
“Tak.” Yes.
A question I had been asked on numerous occasions. I answered simply. The man looked at my stack and asked me another question.
“Druga wojna ?wiatowa?” The Second World War?
I couldn’t answer him. I had just picked up the books and was trying to keep my balance, pressing down on the top of the stack with my chin. The man stopped asking me questions. And so, hugging the books, I gingerly turned around and went back to my seat.
It was because I could see the old man, and also because I was researching the Second World War, he told me later. I had a feeling that was the case. There was probably some racial curiosity involved as well but I didn’t ask about that. All I did was read in the library during the day and come out to the plaza in the evenings for a simple dinner and some people-watching. Prices in Poland at the time were very low, and I could afford a meal even in that touristy section of town, as long as I stuck to the outdoor cafés and didn’t go into the restaurants. I would grab a bottle of sparkling water and a sandwich, watch the people coming and going and the carriage for tourists going round and round the plaza, and try not to think of the future. I didn’t believe in any bright future for me. I didn’t know if I would even be able to make a living. Therefore, “a moment ago” was always the best moment, and the present was always better than the future. When I returned, I knew I would miss leisurely sitting in this spot, enjoying the slowly setting sun. I tried my utmost to enjoy it as much as I could.
I had finished my day at the library and was in the plaza, looking around for an empty table at an outdoor café, when the man appeared.
“Piwo?” Beer?
A short question. After a moment of brief hesitation, I nodded.
*
From then on, whenever I left the library and went to the plaza, he would appear before me after a little while. Or, on the days I wasn’t working at the library, he would wait for me there. During our simple dinners he would mostly drink beer, and I would drink coffee or sparkling water.
I never saw the old man again.
“On kiedy? tu wróci,” he said. He’ll come back here someday.
I laughed. “That’s the title of a Polish language textbook one of the universities here publishes.”
“I know,” he answered, smiling.
The title was actually Pewnego dnia tu wrócisz ponownie —You’ll Come Back Here Someday. I didn’t believe I’d ever be back. As much as I loved the place, life doesn’t give such opportunities so readily, and I couldn’t continue this state of hovering between reality and unreality forever.