Flights

ŚWIEBODZIN

After several hours of walking along the steep banks of the ocean among the sharp leaves of yuccas, in the blotches of shade we go down onto the rocky coast. There is a small shelter there with a fresh water intake. In this great wilderness stands a roof atop three walls. Inside it are benches to sit and sleep on. On one of them – strangely – lies a notebook in a black plastic cover and a yellow Bic pen. It’s a guestbook. I throw down my backpack and maps and read it greedily, from the beginning. Columns, styles of handwriting, foreign words, the laconic basics of all those who by some twist of inscrutable fate have found themselves here before me. Number, date, first and last name, the Three Pilgrim’s Questions: country of origin, last place visited, place of destination. It turns out I am the hundred and fifty-sixth to come here. Before me were Norwegians, Irish, Americans, two Koreans, Australians, Germans, but there are Swiss people here, too, and even – would you look at that – Slovakians. Then my gaze stops at one name: Szymon Polakowski, Świebodzin, Poland. I gaze hypnotized at that unhurried entry. I say the name out loud: Świebodzin, and from then on I have the impression that over the ocean, yuccas and steep path someone has placed a milky film. That funny difficult name, against which the undisciplined tongue rebels, that soft perverse ‘ś’ that immediately brings a vague sensation, something like cold oilcloth spread over the kitchen table, a basket of freshly plucked tomatoes from the country garden, the smell of the fumes from the gas stove. It all combines to make Świebodzin the only real thing. There’s nothing else. The rest of the day hangs over the ocean – a great fata morgana. And although I’ve never been in that small town, I see somewhat indistinctly its streets, bus stops, butcher shops, church tower. At night I am overwhelmed by a wave of nostalgia, unpleasant, like a contraction of the intestines, and half-asleep I see a stranger’s lips flawlessly arranging themselves in that astonishing ‘św’.