We ran into the Avon Lady earlier, coming home singing and goofing around despite the cold, and then noticed that someone was at the front door. And since there aren’t that many people in the building (and none that would really be out this late), we cursed under our breaths and walked in with our smiles firmly set, hoping against hope. 

Sure enough, it was her lover, the one who the neighbors who knew her said turned her into a foreigner-bashing Polish nationalist stereotype. And she was there too, standing on the top of the stairs to the first floor, because she just couldn’t get enough of him so that even when he left the house, she had to walk him down all four floors, her son by her side. It was a weekend, so the kid technically didn’t need to be in bed too early, but according to the neighbors the boy never had a set bedtime. How could he when she and her lover never did. You could always hear them going about their business late into the night, whether it was the two of them f******, fighting or their son trying out his new mic. I corrected her once on the fact that someone with a different skin color who grew up in a certain country could still identify as a citizen of that country if that’s where they felt they belonged after she said something. The look of utter dislike and contempt she sent my way as she “allowed” me to finish my tirade could have sent shivers down my spine if I hadn’t felt the love and support from the neighbors I was with. They were the only reason she let me finish in the first place. If memory serves, I walked away halfway through.

Which would explain why she completely ignored me in the narrowest hallway of an average 30-year-old apartment building now, as though I didn’t exist, as I looked at her and walked past her. I look way younger than my actual age, so she probably had me down as someone much younger than her. In Poland, I’d learned, these things really matter. Technically I was supposed to be greeted first by her. Coupled with the fact that in her estimation I was already beneath her due to my looks, ethnicity and beliefs, she was probably seething at the perceived lack of respect accorded her, especially after she’d initially invested so much time and energy into vowing me with coffee and cake made for her son on his birthday.

Racism is taken very seriously in Poland by those perpetuating it.