Warszawa

You hated it. I loved it. I played it once a day until the vinyl
crackled like kielbasa in a frying pan. The gloom was audible. The sound
of snow under car tyres and above cobbled streets. Instruments from
the 1970’s. The Future Sound of Poland: proletarian synthesizers.

‘Ah, Mr Bowie,’ you used to complain,’playing your masterpiece
live in Ulica Nowy Świat would have caused a black-out, when we used
to queue for cabbages at the butcher’s.’

I did not laugh Agnieszka, this music told me the Englishman
understood us.

You and your London friends, ‘We must look forward, we are
Europeans now.’

I am Polish. I am always Polish, dziękuję bardzo.

The other day I spoke to a Lithuanian as we carried the bathtub into the large house. I asked him if he liked David Bowie. He shrugged,

‘What is this music to us?’

When we came out for a smoke, I gave him a bud for his ear. He closed
his eyes after a moment.

‘This music is us,’ I said to him.

‘Not now,’ he said.

Perhaps I should move on. It is hard at 50. Not so hard for you
Agnieszka. I wonder where you live now.