Life /
My experience in Poland 15 years ago as an American trying to live and work there. [149]
Another exert from the book. I think is rather pedestrian as was mentioned. It is followed by a piece which is easy to discern as a dream by some. Others think I am trying to be flamboyant in the style of writing. The language is because it is a dream state. Both are from earlier chapters.
A new day and the sun seems to be even more dim than the day before. Can it really be getting lower and yet lower in the sky? Winter has now gone on for longer than I thought possible. It is so cold that it is dangerous to be outside. I'm just hanging out with David and Karen, the Americans who live next door to Jennifer and Magda. They are cool people, and they really seem to like me. It's a relief from sitting around with my roommate, the flamingly gay Holger who has decided to take an apartment in the city, thank God. Eloise has become enamored with Rafael of the Mozart Academy and and his big $45,000 bassoon. She just returned from a trip to Italy where she said every store seemed to have the name 'Gessepi' above the door. Rafael's family name. A bit jealous but not so very. "He said he is going to buy me gold and jewels!!" I laughed internally, but not at her. I laughed at the idea of being in love with anyone. I really do not have the capacity for it.
It seemed a short while since she and I were hanging out together, but well, in such a place you eventually hook up with someone or go nuts. I've got my eye on this Belgian girl, who was banging the actor guy temporarily, but of course, who has a boyfriend back home. The actor was walking down the hall some nights ago and just screamed out loud. Not sure why, but half the tension in the atmosphere drained out of everyone almost instantly. It was like he knew that everyone needed to scream and he screamed for us all.
But really, it is probably best that I remain alone. I'm just a born loner. I go to classes less often now. It is boring. The Ukrainian girl with the racecar driver father sits across from me with her skirt up high. You can see her panties and a little more. She looks quite OK, but then..oddly enough..in front of everyone she starts picking her nose like a 4 year old. The professors stand around in the hall and talk about how stupid we all are. The dwarf seems to be a nice guy though. He dresses quite well, and he is really very patient with my 10 Polish words I use over and over again.
I prefer to go to the city and listen to people in the cafes. To learn Polish that way. I didnt come here to be trapped in a quasi-prison structure with all these freaks. That's not fair. I'm as freaked-out as they are. Maybe more so. I miss running through the halls with Jennifer, up to the tower where they say a girl thew herself to the concrete platform below. Down again and through the various floors. Too cold to run outside. But she has her Italian dreamboat, and now I have to find someway to keep myself entertained. "Everybody likes him and he smiles all the time" she says. Well, he is OK. He told me, "Michael, it isn't good to spend all your time alone." I dunno.
Why am I even here? I really cannot remember why I came anymore. Should have gone to lawshcool as I had planned. Poland is so alien. But I dont know for sure because I'm always on this hill! Anyway, this hill is like a little colony for outcasts. I know that much. Got to stick around to know for sure. I cannot leave without knowing something about this country. It could turn out to be quite an adventure. "Gotta hang, Mikie!!" Now when its warm enough I run to Salwator alone. We used to run together. Now it's just me and my little Sony Discman. It's not much fun alone.
You can't really do much on 450 zloty a month from the Kościuszko Foundation, but I am surviving on the food in the little cafe downstairs and from the corner store at the bottom of the hill. Its expensive kind of, and its the same foul tasting stuff everyday. I think the toothless girl behind the counter likes me. She smiles. She shouldnt, but she does. Right now even she is starting to look good to me. I need to get out more and explore. But I get lost everytime I go out. It all looks the same. Grey.
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She came to my room and situated herself in a chair across from me. The candle glimmered off her smooth features and created a kind of halo around her. I could tell she was waiting for me to say something, but I was too afraid, really, as it was my dream come true at that moment, on that hill, in that remote cold environment we had all mistakenly undertook on our own, as a boy might volunteer for a war he could never understand. We all felt isolated, and the Japenese roaming the halls robotically repeating the same "Jak Sie Masz?" phrase had everyone on the verge of self immolation.
I finally found the courage to pull back the sheets and slowly crossed the room to her. I tried to seem confident. She smiled slightly, not nervously at all..but knowingly. She knew I was a rube out of my element. I could tell immediately that she was a woman who was sure of what she came for and wouldn't leave without conquering this ignorant southern boy who had travelled too far from home. I made it, step by step, and slowly kneeled in front of her. She appreared as an angel of mercy, in one sense, yet in another sense, as a dangerous incubus come to destroy me in my sleep.
I was there, on my knees, as a servant, waiting to be knighted or beheaded, feeling ridiculous, but there all the same hoping she would despense with me quickly. Her knees parted eternally as she placed a foot on each side of the chair. I was ready to do my duty for this temptress of the cold shadow over-world that was Przegorzaly. I was waiting only for her command to set me upon my path to momentary liberation from this evil hilltop, this soft prison in which we were all captured without any seeming hope of escape except out a window and down the hill, tumbling to land among the bones of the monks the Nazis had dug up and cast down as you might toss a hoard of cur dogs the bones of the saints.
Her lips parted...finally, she was going to give this poor hillbilly the vital instructions of how to please his conquering queen.
MIKIE!! GET YOUR HAND OFF THAT LITTLE THING AND GET OUT OF BED!! My eyes flew open and it was morning. She was standing over me, hair in directions never set on any map...anywhere. She had prepared breakfast, I was being invited, and my dream was over. Pheww.
