Deep Love

Deep Love

It was twelve o'clock Friday lunch-time. Ruth and Sandra, both
twenty-nine, had met for their weekly chat. Tweeds was busy
today.

"So then," said Sandra, taking a bite from her Chelsea bun, "where do
you fancy this year?"

Ruth poured a cloud of milk into her coffee and hid herself behind the
wide rim as she took the first scalding sip.

"Ibiza," said Sandra, wiping icing off her top lip, "Corsica,
Sardinia, Crete, the Algarve..."

Ruth put down her cup.

"...Corfu, Bari, South of France, Costa del Sol..."

"Krakov," said Ruth decisively.

"I was only asking," said Sandra, looking hurt.

"No," said Ruth. "Krakov. It's in Poland."

"Poland?" Sandra pulled a face as if she had just eaten a particularly
sharp lemon.

"Yes, Poland."

"Oh," said Sandra. She took another bite from her bun. She looked
disappointed. She looked like the sun had just gone down on her sandy
shore, the cocktail umbrella in her exotic drink had just been washed
away.

"You see," said Ruth, picking up the silver spoon from her saucer,
stirring her coffee, "I'm tired of Mediterranean men, their bronzed
skin, their easy patter. I'm sick of Greek waiters, Italian bellhops,
French gigolos, Spanish bullfighters..."

"We've never met a Spanish bullfighter."

"What about Carlos?" said Ruth.

"Carlos was an ice-cream vendor," said Sandra, smiling either at the
thought of Carlos or at Ruth's mistake. "You thought he was a
bullfighter?"

"That's my point exactly," said Ruth, tinkling the spoon back in the
saucer, looking her friend in the eye. "He told me he was a
bullfighter. He showed me his scars. He shouted toro, toro in a loud
voice. This year I want something different. I want history. I want to
be surrounded by people who think life isn't all olive oil, a dip in
the sea and twelve kinds of pasta. I want a bit of depth."

"You want a Polish man?" said Sandra.

"No," said Ruth. "I'm twenty-nine. I don't want a man at all. I'm too
old for a holiday romance."

Sandra took a sip of her own coffee and winked at a tanned man seated
a table near to theirs who had one ear obviously turned to their
conversation. "Tell that to Shirley Valentine."

"Well, not too old then," said Ruth, conceding the point, "but too
wise." She took a deep breath. "For the last ten years we've being
going to the same kind of resort, having flings with the same kind of
men. I feel like some ancient pantomime dame wheeled out for each
summer season to a succession of swarthy suitors. So, this year, I've
decided, Poland."

"I don't know if I fancy Poland," said Sandra, popping the last piece
of her bun in her mouth.

"Oh," said Ruth.

"Has it got any beaches? Is it hot? Do they learn the salsa in
pre-school? Do they know how to woo English ladies?"

"Oh," said Ruth. She picked up her coffee and hid herself once more
behind the rim.

"Ruth?" said Sandra.

Ruth put down her coffee cup and picked up the spoon again. She wasn't
looking Sandra in the eye.

"Ruth?" said Sandra again.

"Now don't take this the wrong way..." began Ruth and then stopped.
She could feel blood pumping to her ears, her heart beating faster. "I
don't want to hurt your feelings but..." Ruth stopped again unable to
find the words, the right words.

"You don't want me to come with you, do you?" said Sandra.

"Well...I...."

"Do you?"

"No," said Ruth.

It was Sandra's turn to go quiet.

"It's not that I don't love you," said Ruth, quickly now, reaching out
a hand. "You're like a sister to me. You've always been there for me.
And I'll always be there for you. Always. I just want, for once in my
life to do something by myself. I want to feel that I don't have that
safety net of friends, family, a secure job around me. I want
adventure. For once I want adventure."

***

Ruth opened her eyes. The room was dim, sun wasn't blazing through
curtains, her body wasn't coated in sweat. She breathed in deeply,
filling her lungs. The air was redolent of the smell of naphthalene and
borsht and zir soup. There wasn't a hint of garlic, a tinge of oregano.
And the air wasn't heavy with a wet heat. It was dry. Totally
dry.

It was heaven.

Ruth climbed out of bed. She rubbed with joy the ache where a spring
had dug into her back all night. The spring, no doubt, had been forged
by strong Polish hands in a belching factory in the Silesian region.
She padded across the thinly carpeted floor. She placed one hand on
each edge of the thick curtains. She counted to three slowly and then
pulled them apart. Quickly.

There was no trumpet blast, no orchestral music, no tarantara. But
Ruth's heart leapt all the same.

She was in Poland. She was in Krakov.

The cobbled town square was almost empty. A fat lady in a billowing
blue cotton dress sat under an umbrella next to a trolley of
salt-coated bagels. A gang of pale skinny-limbed lads were running,
laughing, kicking a ball between them. Three old men in formal tight
clothes sat plucking at tiny guitars. There wasn't a swimsuit in sight.
There wasn't a vista of sand and blue pools. Not at all.

Ruth glanced at her watch, cursed under her breath and hurried through
into her en suite. She had missed breakfast and if she wasn't quick
then she was going to be late. She pulled off her nightgown and stepped
onto the cracked tiles of the shower floor. She had to hit the pipes
several times before any water came out and then she leapt back as the
freezing flow hit her. The water was brown to begin with and never got
warmer than tepid. Ruth couldn't stand it for long and soon jumped out
and dried herself on a rough towel. She put on makeup in a broken
mirror and then pulled on a cotton blouse and trousers. She was ready.
She was excited.

It was happening. She was all alone in a strange foreign
country.

Downstairs in the dingy lobby was a group of people. Parents stood in
tight family units while kids ran around in small circles screaming.
Grandparents stood hunched and wrapped in thick coats inappropriate for
the weather. There was only one couple of a similar age to Ruth. They
were standing on the edge of the group, slightly distant from them. The
woman had scruffy black hair and an aquiline nose. The man was leaning
against a wall, head buried in a book. No doubt it was Kafka, Klima or
some other East European intellectual.

Bits of conversation fluttered over to Ruth. It was all clusters of
consonants and guttural vowels. Ruth didn't understand a word. She felt
out of her depth, alone. She felt just as she had wanted to feel.

A tall old man with a white beard appeared in the doorway and clapped
his hands three times. He said something in the same strange language
and there was silence, parents placed steadying hands on children's
shoulders. The old man fired out a salvo of more words and people
started to file out of the thick wooden doors.

Ruth wasn't sure what to do. She wasn't sure if this was her group.
She wanted to go up to someone. To ask them. But she couldn't. She was
ashamed. She didn't know their language. She didn't want to stutter
haltingly in her native English. She wanted to slip casually into their
lingo like James Bond would do. There was only one family left in the
lobby now and the young couple.

The man with the book pushed himself away from the wall and as he did
so he caught Ruth's eyes.

"The Wieliczka salt mines?" he said in a foreign sounding
English.

Ruth smiled. "Yes."

"This way." The man didn't smile back. He snapped shut his book and
made for the door. Ruth followed.

The coach was old, the seats worn with yellow stuffing spilling out.
Ruth sat in a seat by herself near the back. The young couple were
opposite her, the man reading his book again, the woman looking out of
the window. Ruth looked out of her own window and the coach pulled
off.

The baroque buildings of the old town soon gave way to extended
families of tall grey tower blocks and then they in turn gave way to
flat plains of empty fields, rusting farm machinery still as death. In
the distance loomed forests of birch trees. The landscape was
monotonous, even, the rhythmical bumping of the coach soporific. Ruth
felt the plane journey from the day before catching up on her. She felt
the tiredness from packing, sleepless nights of excitement pulling down
on her eyelids. She fell asleep. She dreamt of thick coffee and thick
crusted bread. She dreamt of dancing in the old town square, her high
heels clicking dangerously, wildly on the cobbled stones.

Someone was shaking her shoulder.

Ruth flicked open her eyes. There was another pair of eyes directly in
front of hers, staring into hers. For a moment she was disorientated,
confused.

"The salt mines," said the lips below the eyes. "We're here."

Ruth remembered. She remembered her holiday. She remembered the trip
organised back in England. She remembered the young silent man with the
book. It was he who had woken her. He was now heading down the narrow
aisle of the empty bus. Ruth quickly collected her things and
followed.

Outside the sun had broken through the morning clouds. Parents stood
smoking cigarettes, bits of burning paper floating up to the heavens.
The children were screaming again, chasing this way and that and the
grandparents had collected together and were gazing around them like a
party of refugees recently released after long captivity. Over to the
left was a squat grey wooden building with a wooden sign in front of
it.

The tall old man with a white beard appeared and clapped his hands. A
volley of words were released and cigarettes were stubbed out, children
shouted at and the party was off once more.

Inside the building it was dark, the air dank. The old man was making
a long speech to nodding attentive heads and Ruth at the back,
uncomprehending, took time to look around. She was in an entrance
lobby. One wall was adorned with leaflets, posters. Ruth wandered over
to it. Amidst the coloured flyers she recognised some English words.
She took the page. "Wieliczka Salt Mine. Guide Book."

Behind her the group had started to disappear through a big set of
wooden doors. Ruth joined the end, just behind the young couple. Slowly
they shuffled forward and then they were going down steps, deeper and
deeper underground. On and on. Voices became muffled by the thick walls
around them, the sound of shoes on stone was dull. Ruth looked at her
sheet while she descended. Three hundred and seventy-eight steps, she
read. The first level was sixty-four metres underground. She read that
there were miles and miles of tunnels, huge chambers gouged out of salt
created over centuries and centuries. Hundreds upon hundreds of Polish
miners had risked their lives and spent their lives underground to
provide the populous with salt.

So different to days spent on the beach, evenings spent washing sea
salt out of hair.

They had reached the bottom.

They were in a narrow passage, each side formed with huge timber
boles. It was cold and the air damp, musty. Ruth stuck close to the
young couple ahead of her. Her steps echoed the young man's. Left,
right, left right. The path sloping down, ever down.

Wow!

Ruth thought the exclamation was in her head but she must have said it
out loud because the young man turned to her and smiled. Ruth smiled
back and then they turned together to take in the scene.

The passage had opened out into huge chapel, a huge chapel metres and
metres underground. Five colossal chandeliers with light glistening in
their crystals hung from a ceiling twelve metres above the floor below.
The room must have been more than fifty metres long, twenty metres
wide. It was more awe-inspiring than St. Paul's, Westminster
Abbey.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" said the young man.

"Amazing," said Ruth and then they both grinned again.

The young woman with the scruffy hair and aquiline nose scowled
fiercely and pulled the young man's elbow. She led him away, behind a
crowd of genuflecting grannies.

Ruth watched them go and then descended the stairs to the floor of the
chapel. It was perfect. She only wished she had someone to share it
with, eyes to see it that were not her own. She walked around, her head
flicking up and down to take everything in. The walls were filled with
intricate carvings, scenes from the Bible. There was King Herod
ordering the slaying of the Innocents of Bethlehem, there was the
flight into Egypt. And at the tops of these walls a white crust had
formed, like a salty moss, beautiful filigree flowers.

Behind Ruth was the sound of hands clapping. It was time to go.

The mines were full of marvel after marvel. There was a salt lake,
more chapels, more carved statues, princesses, dwarves, beautiful
colonnades of wood, high ceilinged rooms breathtaking in their
dimensions and tiny chambers that hid a legend. And every room, every
step took them deeper and deeper. Down and down, deep
underground.

Since that smile in the first chapel Ruth had no more contact with the
young couple. It seemed that the scruffy haired woman was keeping them
apart and several times Ruth felt eyes glaring at her. She didn't care,
not really. Only a little bit. If she'd have been totally honest she
would only have wished that the serious man with the nice smile had
been by himself.

The group had stopped again.

From the way the old man was talking Ruth sensed that they were
nearing the end of the tour. They were at a narrow crossroads. There
was a cupboard there, fixed into a carved alcove and the old man pulled
out a key. In the cupboard were a collection of yellow miners hats,
four or five. He handed these out to the people nearest to him and then
announced something to the others. The meaning was clear. They were to
wait where they were.

Ruth folded her arms and leant against the wall. And waited. She
looked at her watch. Again. Again. Five minutes passed. Ten. The people
in hats returned, talking excitedly, grinning broadly and the hats were
passed to others. It was time to wait again. Ruth looked for the young
couple. It was dark in the tunnel but she spied them. They were deep in
conversation. As far away from her as possible.

Ruth sighed and crouched down. And waited once more.

Her eyes were almost shutting when she felt something on the back of
her neck. Like an icy finger. She spun around and in the distance, down
a narrow passage at the crossroads she saw a blue light, flickering,
enticing. It seemed to be beckoning to her, saying come towards me,
come here.

Ruth looked back towards the group. They were standing, talking in
that communal language of theirs.

Ruth remembered that conversation in the coffee shop. She wanted
adventure. Excitement.

Come here, said the voice, in her brain, in her mind, under her
skin.

She set off towards the light. Alone. By herself. She didn't look
back.

She put a hand on the wall to steady herself. She put one foot in
front of the other. Over and over. The light was still before her.
Blue, ephemeral, beautiful.

The passage dipped and turned. There was total silence. The voices
behind had disappeared. Ruth felt her heart beating, her palms becoming
wet. And she was alive. Alive. She was everything she had always wanted
to be.

And the light beckoned her on. Moving faster. Faster.

Run, it said, run!

Ruth took her hand away from the side, stood up straight and started
to run, run, stretching out her hands, trying to grab the light. She
was running faster and faster, her hair was behind her, and she started
to laugh with abandon, crazily, wildly. She was laughing like she had
never laughed before.

And then there was no more ground. There was nothing beneath her feet.
And she fell and she fell and she fell.

Ruth fell. Down.

***

Ruth opened her eyes. She was staring into a pair of eyes. Behind these
eyes, higher, were more eyes and faces and above them sunlight.
Sunlight.

"Are you OK?" said the lips below the nearest eyes. Ruth recognised
the eyes now. They belonged to the young man who had been reading the
book.

Ruth wiggled her toes, flexed her fingers, nodded her head. She felt
fine. In fact, she felt more than fine. She felt as if she had spent a
day in a sauna, a day being massaged, pampered and then had a long,
long night's sleep.

"I'm OK," she said.

The young man turned and said something to the bodies crowded around
Ruth and heads nodded, lips tutted, cigarettes were lighted and the
bodies moved away.

Ruth sat up. She had been lying on the floor outside the low building
that housed the entrance to the mine.

"Do you want to get a coffee?" said the young man.

"Sure," said Ruth, standing and dusting off her back, "coffee would be
nice."

The young man led her to a small canteen that Ruth hadn't seen before
situated behind the mine entrance. She sat at a table and her new
companion brought two cups over.

Ruth took a sip. The coffee was strong, bitter, thick. Lovely.

"So," said the young man, looking Ruth directly in the eye, "you gave
us quite a scare."

"Did I?" said Ruth.

"One minute we were all standing in a group and the next minute we
heard laughter, crazy laughter coming from one of the tunnels. Some of
the old ones nearly passed out."

"Oh my God!" said Ruth.

The young man picked up his coffee, took a sip, put down the cup. "I
was sent round to investigate. And there you were on the tunnel floor.
Unconscious."

"I saw a light," said Ruth.

"A blue light?" said the the young man quickly, flicking his eyes to
meet Ruth's.

"Yes," said Ruth, puzzled.

"And you heard voices?"

"Yes?" said Ruth. "What? What is it?"

The young man smiled again. He had a nice smile. Cute.

"What?" said Ruth.

"It's just a story."

"Tell me."

The young man leant forward and put his elbows on the table. His face
was close to Ruth's. "I'm not sure how you say it in English." He put
his hand to his forehead. "A will-o'-the-wisp?"

"Yes," said Ruth.

"Legend has it that the salt mines have a guardian, a will-o'-the-wisp
who looks after and protects all those who enter the tunnels."

"Protects? You told me I was unconscious."

The young man held up his hand. "Not only protects but sometimes the
will-o'-the-wisp will intervene to give a visitor what they want. Grant
their wish."

"Oh," said Ruth. She was confused. What could it mean?

She picked up her coffee and took a sip. Across the table the young
man picked up his coffee too.

It hit her. She and the young man were having coffee together. By
themselves. There was no sign of the woman with the scruffy hair and
the fierce eyes.

"Can I ask you a question?" said Ruth.

"Sure," said the young man, grinning, "if I can ask you one
first?"

Ruth shrugged. "Fire away."

"Sorry?" said the young man.

"Ask the question," said Ruth.

"Well," said the young man, "what is a young English woman doing all
alone in a Polish salt mine?"

Ruth took a deep breath. She could have given a terse answer. She
could have replied in only a few words. She didn't. There was something
about the young man that inspired confidence. And besides, she owed it
to the will-o'-the-wisp.

She explained about her previous holidays on sun-kissed beaches,
meeting tanned men in discos. She explained how she was tired of the
same old story, being wooed and abused. She said, bluntly, that she was
tired of Mediterranean man.

"Oh," said her companion. He picked up his coffee cup.

"And now my question," said Ruth.

"Yes?"

"Why do I get the feeling your girlfriend doesn't like me?"

"Girlfriend?" The young man leant back on his chair. And then his face
broke into a huge grin. "That woman," he said, "she's not my
girlfriend. She's my sister. And it's not that she doesn't like you. It
just that..." He stopped talking. The grin disappeared.

"Yes?" said Ruth. It was her turn to lean forward on the table.

The young man raked his fingers through his black hair.

"Yes?" said Ruth.

"It's just that my heart was broken once by an English girl. My sister
is worried that it'll happen again."

"Oh," said Ruth. She looked down at her coffee cup.

And then there was an awkward silence that lasted until the sister
appeared at the side of the table.

"The coach is leaving," she said. "We're waiting for you."

"Right," said Ruth.

"Right," said the young man.

They stood up. They looked at each other. In his eyes Ruth felt that
she could see the blue light of the will-o'-the-wisp once more. She
felt that he could see it in hers too.

The sister glanced first at Ruth and then at her brother. She sighed.
Resignedly. The siblings spoke quickly, rapidly. The young man turned
his eyes back to Ruth.

"My sister was wondering if you would like to join us for dinner
tonight."

Ruth smiled. "That would be nice. Very nice. But..."

"Yes?"

"It's just that," said Ruth, "I don't know your names."

The young man went red, hesitated and then held out a hand. "I'm
Piotr," he said, "and this is Carla."

"I'm Ruth," said Ruth.

They all shook hands.

***

Ruth didn't believe in love at first sight. She didn't believe in love
at second, third, fourth or even fifth sight. But over the next seven
days she saw Piotr many times. And she was in love. She sprang out of
bed every morning and couldn't wait to see his face, hear his voice.
Each time his body brushed against hers she shivered and the first kiss
was amazing, perfect, beautiful.

The kiss didn't take place walking hand in hand on a sunset beach,
sitting in a restaurant with a gypsy playing a taut-stringed violin in
the background, nor even during a magnificent firework display. It took
place in the dingy lobby of a second-rate Polish hotel. But that didn't
matter, wasn't important.

It was heaven, pure and simple.

Piotr was different to all the men she had met before. He laughed at
the same things she did. He made her laugh. He knew about history,
politics. He knew when to listen, when to talk. When to say nothing.
And he had depth.

And all too quickly the last day came.

Ruth was standing outside the hotel with her suitcase by her side,
waiting for the bus to take her to the airport and back to her boring
life. Piotr was next to her. He was quiet. Very quiet. He was mashing
his fingers together.

Ruth turned to him. "It's OK," she said, "I'll see you again. I can
come again. You can come to England."

"I know," said Piotr, "it's not that. Not only that."

"Then what?"

"It's difficult," said Piotr.

"What is?" said Ruth. She didn't understand.

"I don't want you to think that I'm like all those other men. That I'm
full of lies."

"I don't," said Ruth. "You're not."

"And everything I've told you is true," said Piotr. "Everything I've
told you about my past, my hopes, my dreams. That's all true.
But..."

"Yes?" said Ruth. She could see the airport bus in the distance,
approaching.

"It's just what you said on the first day, I wanted you to give me a
chance..."

"Piotr," said Ruth, "what is it?"

Piotr's face was red, his ears were throbbing. "My name's not Piotr,"
he said disconsolately.

"Not Piotr?"

"It's Pedro."

"Pedro?" said Ruth. Now she was really confused.

"I'm not Polish," said Piotr, "I'm Spanish."

The bus was pulling up.

"Spanish," said Ruth. "But you speak Polish. You drink vodka. You know
the pope's full name."

"Yes," said Piotr/Pedro. "My family moved here when I was little. I'm
from the Mediterranean. I'm from one of those countries you hate. I'm
sorry I should have told you."

The doors of the bus hissed open. The fat driver climbed out and
started to collect tickets.

He should have told her. And then what? She wouldn't have seen him
again. She wouldn't have held his hand and climbed to the top of the
cathedral. She wouldn't have lain on her back on a bench and listened
to his tales of Copernicus, Krakow's most famous student. She wouldn't
have laughed, lived, had the time of her life. She wouldn't have fallen
in love.

She wouldn't have done anything because of a silly prejudice, because
she tarred everyone with the same brush, because she was so
shallow.

"Piotr," she said, "it doesn't matter. I love you."

"I love you too," he said. "I love you too."

Ruth handed in her ticket and got on the coach.

She wasn't sad. Not at all. She knew she would be back. She knew that
she and Piotr would have the rest of their lives together. She knew.
The will-o'-the-wisp had told her.