The snow had been falling all day.
Not the kind that rushes down in flurries and chaos, but slow, deliberate flakes that drifted like feathers from the sky, settling gently on rooftops, iron fences, and the wool shoulders of bundled passersby. The air was crisp, clean in the way only a still winter night in Poland could offer. I walked the same route I imagined my parents had walked hundreds of times, boots crunching the powder underfoot.
It was Wigilia — Christmas Eve.
And I knew where they were.
The old tenement block stood on the corner of a quiet street in Nowa Huta. Faded yellow plaster peeled around the windowsills. The stairwell door was chipped and groaned when it opened. I knew that building. Not from memory — from stories. From photos. From my mother's voice describing it to me when I was a little girl asking where she used to live.
I stopped across the street. A single window on the second floor glowed gold.
Through the sheer curtains, I could see shapes—people, movement, life. My grandparents, still young enough to dance while they cooked. My uncle and aunt, arguing about something trivial, probably pierogi fillings. My parents… somewhere in that warm light.
My hands trembled inside my coat pockets. I felt 5 years old and 500 years old all at once.
I had been so close, so many times. But this was the closest I had ever come.
And still, I couldn’t go in.
The Unseen Guest
I wanted to run up the stairs. To knock on the door and scream,
"I'm here! I came back! I'm your daughter, and I love you, and I understand now—everything you went through!"
But I didn’t.
The portal — the magic, the rules of time — wouldn’t let me. There was always something. A gentle nausea that built in my stomach. A dizziness. A pressure, as though the very air between us knew the truth and wouldn't allow it to be broken.
So I stood.
A stranger in the cold, watching my family celebrate the last Christmas they’d ever spend before the world changed forever — before borders opened, before communism officially ended, before I was born.
They laughed. Someone turned on the radio — a voice sang in a slow, trembling baritone. “Lulajże Jezuniu.” A lullaby carol. I knew the words by heart.
And then, as if sensing me, someone pulled back the curtain.
A woman — my mother.
She looked straight out, not at me, but almost through me. As if, just for a second, she felt my presence. Her face, lit by warm lamplight, softened.
She smiled.
Not at anything in particular. But maybe at the peace. The snow. The moment.
And then she turned back inside.
A Whisper of Belonging
I stepped forward once, then stopped. My throat tightened.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
A white cloud left my lips, fading into the night. “You don’t know me yet. But I know you. And I carry you with me — always.”
The sounds of clinking dishes echoed softly, muffled by the window. Laughter, footsteps. The creak of a wooden chair. And somewhere in there… the very beginnings of me.
Leaving Without Goodbye
I stood there until the lights began to dim and the last of the food had been eaten. Midnight was near. The portal would tug soon — I could feel its pull beginning.
But I wasn’t ready. I reached down and gathered a handful of snow, squeezing it in my glove like it could hold this moment together. I turned and walked away slowly, never looking back, even as the building faded into shadow behind me.
As I stepped through the gate that would take me back to my temporary home in 1986, I made a silent promise:
I would remember everything.
The warmth behind the glass. The music.
And most of all — that smile from the woman who would one day become my mother.
She didn't see me. But I saw her.
No comments:
Post a Comment