By Jedd Beaudoin ’01
The bus pulls up but does not stop. There’s a gasp as the aged doors flap open. The distance from where I stand among the tired, huddled masses and the bottom of the stairs of this blue and white hulk is vast. I will have to outdo Indiana Jones if I want to make it. I thrust my large briefcase forward, tighten my winter hat and leap forward onto the moving machine with arms spread seemingly wider than the distance between where I am and Kansas. I land on the bottom step, struggle my way through the crowd and grab hold of a handrail as two kind Polish grandmothers make way for me. As we pull farther from the shelter (note to the bus driver: a bus stop is a place for a bus to stop), I see my fellow travelers staring in disbelief and amazement at the tail end of this roaring beast of the roadway. I’m breathing hard, but I’m safe. We lurch. (Note to the captain: being a bus driver means first learning how to drive a bus.)
It’s just another day on Polish public transportation. Every day I get on the bus, ride to one end of town, then back again. The occasional and very unnecessary three loops around the main train station aside, it’s a fairly straight shot. I hardly mind the mundane nature of my travel. After a while you no longer need to gaze out the window to see if the large communist block buildings that populate the landscape are still gray and graffiti-splattered.
I glance around and see a few people clutching political magazines. Some of them have no doubt been reading up on the national tug-of-war between the liberals and the communists in parliament. Communism is officially over, but the party keeps reinventing itself. Ah, circles. Isn’t it strange how things go round and round, both in politics and on a bus?
I’d like to shout something at the driver, say something to one of my close-by comrades, about the man who is steering our ship through increasingly rough waters. But I hardly speak the language. Now, as in most instances when I meet native speakers of Polish, I’m unable to find just the right words for the situation. Polish is one of the 10 most difficult languages in the world (a source of pride for many of those who call it their mother tongue) and harder still to grasp when you’re always reaching for it on the fly. Most mornings, there’s at least one person who ambles toward the local bus stop and asks someone (sometimes me) for something. These scenarios prove increasingly easy for me to survive, though not because of anything that happens in spoken language. Anyone carrying a briefcase and looking slightly perturbed probably wants the time. Anyone clutching a tall can of beer just after seven in the morning probably wants a cigarette. Hands folded, face cast downward? Spare change. Of course, there are those who ask for something else and it’s then that I have the most difficulty. Not change. Not cigarettes. It could be anything. Where’s the closest wastewater treatment plant? Have you ever been attacked by a koala bear? Ever met my cousin Radek from Warsaw? Nie wiem, I say. I don’t know. And them? What do they say at times like that? If you’re going to be in this country, you should learn how to speak the language. Okay. Point taken. I try. Back to the bus.
The driver has just decided to run a red light. He’s halfway through when another driver (impatient twit!) decides that because he has the green light, he has the right-of-way. We lurch forward again, this time in a not-quite-choreographed-by-Gene-Kelly kind of way: briefcases clash with briefcases, strangers’ hands grip strangers’ elbows and faces become fixed in Daliesque poses as we are all sure that we will not live to see the other side of this intersection. Then, suddenly, inexplicably, we stop. We’re still there. Not one of us has died. Heart pills are taken, bottles of curiously murky vodka are passed around. I decline. I’m on my way to work and must opt for some deep breathing instead.
I wander away from this strange, sad vessel and make my way toward the place where I earn my daily toast flakes. Once there, I try to make sense of my strange journey. I think of telling a colleague all about it, but the words get stuck somewhere inside (not the throat, it’s lower than that). The day ends and I circle back to the bus stop. This time the bus pulls up and leaves again before anyone has had the chance to climb on or get off. All of us stand there, dumb, before we start to race after it, throwing our arms in the air, moving our mouths, straining to make our words loud enough to make the driver wait for us.
