To be human is to worry, or so it seems to me. I well remember a long-ago comment by a friend: There is always something. Indeed there is: relationship trouble, problems with children, work, the state of the mortgage or the rent, the bank balance, decisions about holidays and whether or not to ask Great-Aunt Maude to Christmas dinner. And the list is often much longer.
But sometimes we get what the young call a wake-up call or a reality check. I call it acquiring a sense of proportion and a reminder that the world was not made for us alone: a temporary halt to self-pity is also involved.
On Monday morning, having said goodbye to my Poland-based son and his family, I took a taxi to Warsaw Airport. ‘I’m sorry I can’t speak Polish,’ I said to the driver. He grinned. ‘I can’t, either,’ he replied, ‘Not really.’ It turned out that he is Ukrainian and has been in Poland for only two months. He seems to be a brave and interesting man, whose first two languages are Ukrainian and Russian. His English is workmanlike, so we managed a degree of communication along the way. He is studying Polish, he told me, obviously for his work, but also because he believes it is a sign of respect to try at least to learn the host culture’s language.
A man in his forties, he skated over my remark on the difficulties and practicalities of leaving Ukraine at present, but informed me that this is not the first move he has made because of the Russian invasion. Originally from the Donetsk region, he and his family moved to Kyiv earlier. In one of life’s coincidences, his mother-in-law lives in Patras in the Peloponnese, so his wife has spent some months there, and he, too, has visited. But his wife is now back in Kyiv and is hoping to join him in Warsaw next month. In the meantime he speaks to her every day, and of course sends money, the main reason for his presence in Poland.
In the suspense-filled present he worries about problems that I have never faced, and for him there are no solutions, at least not for the foreseeable future. One problem concerns his parents, who are now well on in their seventies. ‘They’re scared,’ he said simply, and went on to tell me about missile attacks. A few days earlier, I had been out walking with my daughter-in-law when her phone posted an alert: Warsaw was about to test its emergency sirens. And test them the authorities certainly did, in a wailing blast that went on for an official three minutes, although the assault on eardrums seemed to last much longer. This experience was a first for me, and I pondered the matter of the London blitz, and the regular warnings that sound now over Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon. I can’t really imagine the fear. The driver’s parents, he tells me, have endured hard times before, and do not need a new set in their old age. My thought is that nobody needs such experiences, whatever their age.
The driver has two children, who are staying with their grandparents. His son is studying law, and is 20, so cannot leave Ukraine. The daughter is 15 and is at school. Of course he worries about them as well, and cannot predict their future. And I don’t suppose he ever dreamed that his own future lay in Warsaw, any more than he can guess at how long he will have to be there. ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘I’m in my forties; once I had a good job, a good salary, and a house. Now I have nothing and will have to start again one day. If I get the chance.’
He dropped a very sober person at the airport. I thought I was going to cry but started making notes instead. Most of us watch the news very regularly, but inevitably become desensitised, for there is always the thought that these events are at least some distance away, and not a lot to do with us. But a personal encounter makes everything frighteningly real and close.
This meeting has been with me for all of the two days since it took place: a haunting. I expect to be haunted for quite some time.
Gillian Bouras is an expatriate Australian writer who has written several books, stories and articles, many of them dealing with her experiences as an Australian woman in Greece.