You probably think she drove a dagger into my heart, as they say. Well, it did hurt. I didn’t finish my main course. I went back to work. Though I didn’t much feel like working either. In the end I made myself feel better by saying I’d wait him out. They’d install all the machinery in the cold storage plant and he’d leave, and I’d still be there. I just had to be patient. Besides, I found it hard to believe it could have happened just like that on the first day. She’d given him his soup and his main course, and that was that.
But from that day she changed beyond recognition. She looked and she didn’t see. Even when you said to her, Good morning, Miss Basia, or Basieńka, sometimes she didn’t answer. When she gave us our plates it seemed like it was all the same to her which of us was which. She knew the cafeteria like the back of her hand, she could have found her way among the tables blindfold, but she began to make mistakes. The next table had been waiting longer than us, but she served us first. She’d never gotten the order wrong before. She knew virtually to the second who had arrived first, who had sat where. The opposite happened too. We’d be calling, over here, Miss Basia, or Basieńka, we were here before them. She’d give us a distracted glance and serve the guys who’d come after us. Or she’d bring the main course to a table where they hadn’t had their soup yet, while there were other men waiting for their main course at a table that was even closer to her.
It’s possible to fall in love at first sight, but to that extent? It was enough to see what happened when he showed up in the cafeteria. If she was carrying bowls or plates to some table, the tray would shake in her hands, the plates would clink, then when she served them it was like she wanted to chuck them all down at once. And right away she’d run to the hatch for his soup. He’d still be eating the soup and already she’d be bringing him his main course. While us, when we finished our soup we always had to wait for the main course till she was done serving everyone their soup. Sometimes we’d even tap our forks against our bowls because we’d been waiting too long for the main course. Him, he never had to wait.
You should have seen her when he didn’t show up at the usual time. You’d have thought it wasn’t her that was serving the meals, her hands were doing the job all alone. As for her, she didn’t even see what her hands were carrying. She was just one big tormented waiting mass. Here she’d be putting plates down on the tables, but her eyes would be fixed on the door. I’m telling you, when you ate you could virtually feel that torment of hers in the spoons and forks and knives.
Suddenly he’d appear. We’d be bent over our food, no one was looking at the door, but everyone would know from her reaction that he had come in. Right away she’d perk up, smile. Like she’d come back to life. Her braid would swing. Her eyes would sparkle. She’d almost be dancing among the tables. You had the impression she was all set to tear the braid off her head, put it in a vase and stand it on the table in front of him to make his meal more enjoyable.
And all that was only what you could see in the cafeteria. You’d often meet them walking along, their fingers interlocked. Or he’d have his arm around her, and she’d be pressing against him. When someone nodded to say hello, he’d nod back for both of them, because she wouldn’t see. I have to admit he had good manners. He didn’t put on airs. Whenever he needed my help as an electrician, or someone else’s, he’d always wait till you finished what you were doing, then ask politely. He knew how to make people like him. And honestly, we even did like him.
Her, on the other hand, she seemed to be getting more and more impatient. She’d clear up in the cafeteria, but for example in the kitchen she wouldn’t want to wash the dishes because she was in a hurry. Then later you’d see her waiting somewhere for him to get off work. Mostly she’d pace up and down on the other side of the street from the building site. Or even along the perimeter, right outside the chain-link fence. Though there was no path, just mounds of earth dumped there for the purposes of the site. She just walked back and forth on those mounds, sometimes holding on to the fence. When she saw him coming she’d run so fast her braid would bounce up and down. Sometimes she’d take off her shoes and run barefoot so she wouldn’t miss him. If it was too far to go around by the gate, she’d squeeze through the nearest hole in the fence. There were all kinds of holes, people used them to thieve things from the site.
However long it took him to get off work, she’d wait. Everyone knows you can’t always clock off at the time you’re supposed to. All the more so on a building site like that, especially when you’re behind schedule. Plus, they were on a foreign contract. We weren’t, but even in our case you rarely got off when you were meant to. When things really fell behind, no one counted the hours.
She waited even when it was raining. She got herself a little umbrella, or perhaps he bought it for her. And even when it was pouring she’d wait under her umbrella. Or by a wall under the eaves, or in the watchman’s hut by the gate when the rain was really heavy. You’d sometimes see her in the library too. I’d go there to get something to read, and here I’d see her at a table by the window with a book, and the window would just happen to look out onto the site. But she never glanced up to see who’d come in. Not many people visited the library. So the librarian loved it when anyone appeared. But her, she didn’t look up. She even seemed to sink deeper into her book, so as not to draw attention to herself.
So I would not notice her. Or God forbid I should ever ask what she was reading. That might have embarrassed her, turned her against me, hurt her even. And what for? I knew she was waiting for him. And who cares what she was reading. It was better she was in the library than standing or pacing to and fro in the rain. You know, I often felt more sorry for her than I did for myself.
It goes without saying that people told all kinds of stories about her. I don’t even want to repeat them. For instance, there were rumors that she cleaned his room, did his laundry, washed his shirts, darned his socks. That she spent the night there. See how her eyes are all puffy, what do you think that’s from? It never occurred to anyone it could be from crying. It was like that love of hers was the property of everyone. Like anybody had the right to walk all over her love the way you walked about the site, trampling it, even tossing down your cigarette butt. All because she served in the cafeteria.
No one said anymore, You look nice today Miss Basia, or Basieńka, she couldn’t look nice with her eyes swollen. They said she’d lost her looks, she’d gone to the dogs, that her braid wasn’t what it used to be, or her eyes. Maybe she was pregnant, she moved more slowly now, she wasn’t so brisk when she brought you your meal. They said various things. Someone supposedly even overheard her say to him, You promised. To which he answered, We’ll do it. You just have to understand. She says, What do I have to understand? I’m not as dumb as you think I am. Just because I work in a cafeteria? And she burst into tears.
The librarian, though, she was easy on her, she was an older woman and she’d probably been through a lot herself. Even after it was time to close up the library she’d keep it open if it was raining outside and the other woman was still sitting over her book. She’d tidy the books on the shelves, replace torn slip covers, catalogue new items.
Sometimes though, despite the rain she’d suddenly give back her book and leave as if something had agitated her, and at most the librarian would say to her:
“It’s good you have an umbrella, Miss Basia.”
She’d apologize to the librarian, explain that she’d just remembered she had something urgent to do.