One Day I'll See You Again

Her conference had been in Vilnius, and ended on a Friday. Everyone else was heading home so that they had a chance of recuperating from the jetlag before they had to be back in their offices on Monday. Cara had decided, on the recommendation of her therapist, to take a few vacation days and visit some other cities. Her work friends complimented her “adventurous spirit” in a way that made her feel vaguely insulted.

She stepped off the train in Krakow on Saturday morning, just after 10:30 am. She had no idea what to expect. She didn’t have any connection to Poland, or know anyone who had ever been there. She picked it because it was near enough to Vilnius and on the way to Prague, which everyone said she must see. She hadn’t had time to look up anything about Krakow before coming. She’d meant to do it on the train, but slept instead.

Trying to read the signs in the station and the street names on her map, she realized she had no idea what anything said, or where she was even trying to go. She already had her ticket for the night train to Prague, and suddenly she felt overwhelmed and defeated. She considered hanging out in the train station all day. No one would have to know.

Then she saw a man seated on a bench, looking at her. He had floppy brown hair and, when he smiled, dimples. He looked at her like they shared an embarrassing secret and said, “Do you speak English?”

His name was Brad. He had come from a week in Dresden, but Alberta before that, and he wanted to study local food, maybe open a bakery. He had a phrasebook, so he proposed that combined with her map they would make the perfect team, if she were willing to explore together. She said she was.

They were hungry, so they stopped at a bakery and bought pastries for mere pennies each, just by pointing at them through the glass, with no idea of what was inside. They had flaky crusts with crimped edges, and came in a white cardboard box. Cara and Brad sat in a park and shared them. He would bite into one and laugh at what he discovered: plum jam! Sausage! Almond paste! Then he would give her the other half, and she would try it, weigh in with her own opinion of how good it was or wasn’t, whether he should try to recreate them for his shop.

Later they stopped in a restaurant. She ordered a bowl of white borscht—that’s what they were calling it—which she thought was adventurous because she barely had any experience with regular borscht, not generally preferring the taste of beets. This soup was made from cabbage and onions, and it tasted buttery and rich and delicious. The waiter referred to Brad as “your husband” when he was in the bathroom, and Cara didn’t correct him.

There was more than just the food, of course. They gave coins to the street performers in the central square. They climbed towers and read plaques about which buildings had been bombed or razed during the war, which sections of town were original and which were reconstructed replications.

But the fun of guessing the pastries, the taste and originality of that borscht: they set the tone for everything, and they stayed with her throughout the day. When they stopped at a café with free wireless to send emails home, she described what she’d eaten to her family and friends. It was only with her sister that she alluded to spending the day with a “nice fellow.”

When it was time to say goodbye he refused to give her any of his contact information, or even his last name.

“I don’t want this to turn into seeing photos of each other online and putting happy faces underneath,” he said. “Besides, I have a feeling. One day I’ll see you again.”

“Yes,” she said, though she didn’t believe it. “You’ll hear the tinkle of the bell in your shop, and when you look up, it will be me, walking in.”

“Exactly,” he said. He smiled, and kissed her cheek, and she got on the train to Prague.

Back in Canada, back at the office, the story of that day came to be the part of her trip she talked about the most. She would tell people that she really liked Polish food. She started going to Roncesvalles, shopping in the Polish delis for specialty items. She would buy a box of pastries, never asking what was inside, and then take them to High Park. She would eat only half of each one, and leave the open boxes to be set upon by birds.

She downloaded an app for learning foreign languages, and she started muttering Polish phrases into her phone on her way too and from work, and during her lunches.

A few months later she went to New York for a weekend and found herself researching the top-rated Polish restaurants to dine at while she was there.

She didn’t go back as soon as she expected. She thought it would be a year, tops, but before she knew it, three had passed. Things came up. Work was busy. The timing wasn’t right. One summer she had four weddings to go to, so she couldn’t travel at all that year.

And then one Monday, she was let go. They were downsizing. They offered her a competitive severance package.

A couple weeks later, she landed in Krakow without a return ticket. She hailed a taxi, and asked the driver, in Polish, to take her to the main square. He answered her, and she understood him. They chatted all the way there.

She got out and began to walk around. She put the map away, letting her feet guide her, and her nose. She knew around one of these corners would be a tiny bakery, and when she opened the door, a bell would tinkle, and she would see the smile of a man with dimples in his cheeks.

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