Déjà vu

Sometimes you meet someone you do not expect. Never in a million years. Here is an example of Déjà vu that would leave the most careful minds wondering the odds for days.

It was a nice day, the sun was warm and it was not as hot as it had been that week. I was walking around town, kind of milling about, actually. This town was very different than the towns I was used to. Actually, at night it was too quiet, it was eerie to hear nothing. Days here have a slightly different rhythm, the bells and shouts of trams and their passengers rang off of the walls along narrow streets and passages, a pleasant din of humanity. Rarely, there was a shout of anger, more likely the shout of joy as two friends met at the track.

Certainly, I was a stranger in this place. A place where groups of wayward students celebrating the end of the term by carousing and carrying on as they did, begged for change and other trinkets. Maybe this seemed very different to me because the whole idea of getting paid to finish a semester was one of those thoughts that paying to attend a semester seemed to erase. It is not a bad idea, at least from the perspective of the recently finished. However, upon the thousandth shaking of a can or a hat in front of you it seems to lose its luster.

I got to be a game in my head as I sat there in the park, if someone was so brave as to shake his cup or her hat in my face begging for pennies. I started coming up with increasingly interesting tasks for them to accomplish for their treat. Yes, I agree, it seems a cruel and maybe even a heartless thing to do. I had asked if they could sing, now this was not a new idea. Singing is a bad thing after the third or fourth chorus of some school song; I had never heard nor understood, ten times in an hour. As you can see, the whole idea is fun at first. Later that afternoon, a lone woman painted with black paint or shoe polish came sauntering up with a big floppy hat in her hands.

She was very attractive. Most of the women here are pretty impressive, but she stood out. This, for lack of a better term, underwear model stopped and obviously asked me for a donation. I replied back in English as politely as I could, “What do I get for it?”

I would think that from the reaction on her face, she had taken English for several years. No matter how long you study a language, a native speaker sounds different. She could not have thought that a tradition of harmless begging would be questioned. So I tried in her language, as lacking as it was, “Co mám zpet?” I am sure it sounded like “How many chickens do I get for a pair of socks?”

Her face changed, and I thought once again that I had offended someone by proposing sex with animals or something. Who knew, I was hoping the worst thing I suffered from was case loss. Or maybe a missing word. For a few tense seconds, I waited. She stood there a meter or less from me, staring or maybe pondering. Then in the blink of an eye, it happened. I got my return, not a quick catch me if you can, but a well there you go. She had pulled her halter top down to her waist. I had to say she was very nice. At best I had few words, but she had earned whatever I had in my pocket. I think I became quite famous when I dropped what I had in my pocket into her hat. The only thing that I could think to say was, “Krásna. Jsí velmi krásna.”

Well I guess my secret was out. In the next half of an hour, I think I saw all of her friends. She could just stand in the back and smile. Actually, I think she waived to me once, but I do not think it would have been so appropriate to have asked her name. I tried to subtly wave back. It was just a thing between us. I did notice that there were no bills in her hat when she came back. At least she was smart enough to not tell her friends right away, or maybe she was just hiding the results of her hard work and effort.

I guess I left the park for any number of reasons. I just started to walk, to the center of downtown and to the main bus and train station. The street whose name escapes me, but he was the first president of the country, a time before the communists in the original free state. From what I know he was a great statesman before everything went to pot. He is very dear to the whole democratic notion here. I can only imagine if he were the George Washington of this country.

A while later I went back to the park. Not really thinking that I would see the bands of students, nor really knowing why I went back there every day. I liked the park it had a little fountain and lots of places to sit. There were many flowers in the grass and I liked all of the kids playing in the field. I walked around the corner, and could not believe what I saw.

Now this is kind of thunderclap level disbelief. I recognized the eye make up instantly. Like lightning bolt fast, I recognized her eyes. She had a leather jacket, dark blouse and blue jeans. She wore dark kind of square, Lennon glasses. Her hair framed her face. I do not think she recognized me at all. Actually, I know she had probably never seen a picture of me, even though we had talked every day for months. The thing I noticed right away was her eyes. She had striking eye shadow.

Standing only a few feet from her, I know I must have been staring. She finally looked up from her newspaper or magazine. My heart was pounding in my throat when she looked at me. I tried to say something. It stuck in my throat like so much crumpled paper. I uttered “Lucie, is your name Lucie?” I know looking back that if the same thing had happened to me I would have been stuck in the headlights, just like she was. I tried to say it in her language, but that was an utter failure. I stopped to think of what the other girl thought I said.

I guess, I stepped toward her and almost got run down by a wayward mum and her carriage. The woman looked up at me. I tried to ask again, if her name was Lucie. I know it was, just from the way she looked at me. She said something to me, probably “who are you?”

I tried to speak slowly, and to explain that I was her friend from long ago. I knew she would recognize me if I used her nickname. I had always referred to her with it, “Princežna”. She knew who I was instantly, I mean heart-stopping fast. I was so far away from where she thought I was. Of all of the people she knew, there simply was no way to have guessed that I would show up and sit next to her when she had missed her bus.

We spoke a little, and wrote down what we did not understand. It was a good system to communicate. It seemed to interrupt the flow of ideas at first, but later it seemed to be more natural than to try and understand every spoken word.

She told me it felt odd, but good. I am glad she was happy. I can only imagine what it feels like. At the same time that it feels odd, it is like the answer to a long awaited question. I am not sure how to go about everything. It made the day seem so much better. I was kind of depressed and now I had found a friend. Lucie is a real friend, who had done her best to protect me even after she found out that I had double-crossed her. She tried to buck up and keep her sense of humor. I think that there is something in her eyes, she sat and talked to me for a long while. Soon she realized it was getting late, she said that she had to leave.

After several minutes more we stood and she looked me in the eyes. Her glasses were long gone, but it was the first time that she had sat and looked me straight in the eye. I am not sure what she saw, but she said she would come and have lunch with me. I guess that is more than you would expect.

This was my impossible friend. Lucie said it; she was beautiful when she had. Her eyes glowed and she kind of smiled as she looked away. Not that she was hard to be with, or that she was not excited about the possibility of all of this. It was more than that, if someone wished on every star in the sky for one hundred years, neither of us would have considered sitting in “Moravia Park” and looking into each others eyes. One of those times in your heart when you know that there is something to it but are not sure of how to go about it. I know that her eyes were not cloudy, they were clear and there was something inside her that was banging on the insides of her heart. An unseen jailer would not let it out into the world. It is impossible to believe that on that fateful day that we could have imagined this. I am not sure how to think how her lips tasted that day when she left. Even superficially, they were more than impossible; I think that they were what a princess’ lips would feel like.