2007 - Two Caravans Read Free Page B

spoiled their innocent entertainment—really those two are worse than the children at nursery school, what they need is a good smacking—and now they can no longer see the shower, they spend all their time making comments about the items on the women’s washing line. Recently a pair of her knickers has disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Yola cannot for the life of her understand how grown men can be such fools. Well, in fact, she can.
     
    It was Tomasz who stole the knickers, in a moment of drunken frivolity one night last week. They are of white cotton, generously cut, with a pretty mauve ribbon at the front. He has been looking out ever since for the right moment to return them discreetly without being caught—he wouldn’t want anyone to think he is the sort of man who steals women’s underwear from washing lines and keeps it under his bed.
    “I see Yola has washed her undies again today,” he says morosely in Polish, peering through Vitaly’s binoculars from the window above his bed. “I wonder what is the meaning of this.”
    The white knickers dangle in the air like a provocation. When Yola recruited him to her strawberry-picking team, there had been a twinkle about her that had seemed to suggest she was inviting him to…well, more than just to pick strawberries.
    “What do you mean, what is the meaning? ” asks Vitaly in Russian, mimicking Tomasz’s Polish accent. “Most of what women do is completely meaningless.”
    Vitaly is vague about his origins and Tomasz has never pressed him, assuming he is some kind of illegal or gipsy. Despite himself, he is impressed by the way Vitaly can slip easily between Russian, Polish and Ukrainian. Even his English is quite good. But what use are all those languages, if you have no poetry in your soul?
    “In the poetry of women’s undergarments, there is always meaning. Like the blossoms that fall from a tree as the heat of summer approaches…Like clouds which melt away…”
    He can feel a song coming on.
    “Enough,” says Vitaly. “The Angliskis would call you a soiled old man.”
    “I am not old,” protests Tomasz.
    In fact he has just turned forty-five. On his birthday he looked in the mirror and found two more grey hairs on his head, which he at once pulled out. No wonder his hair is beginning to look thin. Soon, he will have to surrender to the greyness, to cut his hair short, put away his guitar, exchange his dreams for compromises, and start worrying about his pension. What has happened to his life? It is just slipping away, like sand through an hourglass, like a mountain washed to the sea.
    “Tell me, Vitaly, how has life turned you into a cynic at such a young age?”
    Vitaly shrugs. “Maybe I was not born to be a loser, like you, Tomek.”
    “Maybe there is still time enough for you.”
    How can he explain to this impatient young man what it has taken him forty-five years to learn—that loss is an essential part of the human condition? That even as we are moving on down that long lonesome road, destination unknown, there is always something we are leaving behind us. He has been trying all morning to compose a song about it.
    Putting down the binoculars, he reaches for his guitar, and begins to strum, tapping his feet in time to the rhythm.
There once was a man, who roamed the world o’er .
    Was he seeking for riches, or glory, or power?
    Was he seeking for meaning, or truth or&hellip ;
    This is where he gets stuck. What else is that wretched man seeking?
    Vitaly gives him a pitying look.
    “Obviously he is looking for someone to fuck.”
    He picks up the binoculars, turns the knob for focus and gives a soft whistle between his teeth.
    “Hey, black man,” he calls to Emanuel in English, “come and see. Look, it’s just like the little panties thatjordan is wearing in my poster. Or maybe…”—he adjusts the binoculars again—“…maybe it is one of those string nets they use to package salami.”
    Emanuel is sitting at the table,