The Polish Program (LSD, #2)

4. Oh, Jungleland

Oh, Jungleland

We have a lot to do: I need to buy groceries and prepare dinner (as I promised Scarlett), we have to eat, and after that, we have two missions to complete. When I pull out my wallet to pay the waiter, a shaggy young woman puts her hand almost in my mouth, asking me something in Polish.

"I'm sorry, Miss. I don't speak Polish."

"Please, Sir. Give me money. You have so much. I have nothing.", the woman begs.

I look at the hand, the wrist, the first part of her arm, her skinny arm full of small round scars, injections, the arm of a junkie. I look at her eyes: sad, hopeless, a tear being the only liquid to clean her dirty cheeks... This is a woman who needs help, much more than Scarlett. What do I do? When I give her money, it will disappear into the hole in her arm; it will not help her, just her dealer.

I ask: "Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?"

No reply, just her empty hand and her empty face. Perhaps she doesn't understand English. Perhaps she just learnt a few words to ask for what she wants most. I take my spiPhone and start the MultiTranslate app. Now I can talk to the phone in English, and the phone translates it into spoken Polish.

"What's your name?"

"Anja."

"Where do you live?"

"I don't know."

"When was the last time you ate?"

"I don't know."

I ask the waiter to bring five sandwiches, coffee, milk and orange juice. He objects: "I don't want this woman on my terrace. She brings bad luck."

I show him some zlotys: "I bring you good luck, in hard currency, but if you don't start running now, I'll go to that restaurant over there."

He starts running. I take the woman to the bathroom, so she can wash her hands and face, and explain: "Tomorrow you come back here, at 9 o'clock. You will help the waiter, putting the tables and the chairs on the terrace. Can you do that?"

She can.

"If you do that, you can have breakfast. I'll pay for it. You come here every day, you do the terrace and you get breakfast when you're done. Do you understand?"

She understands.

I explain the deal to the waiter, pay him what we owe him, plus the costs of tomorrow morning's breakfast, and make him promise to look after the woman. If he helps me while I help her, I promise him a nice tip when my mission here is over.

When Scarlett and I leave the eating woman, Scarlett looks surprised: "Why do you do that? There are institutions that take care of people like her. That's why we pay taxes."

"Do you see any of those institutions here? Does that woman look like she's been taken care of? She's in the greedy hands of someone who is only interested in getting the lowest price for what she sells. Selling drugs is against the law, but the law isn't capable of avoiding it. I'm pretty sure Anja didn't choose to live like this. She had some bad luck at the wrong moment. If I was in her situation, I would like it very much when someone helped me. I can't stand women crying, Scarlett. I had to do something. So many people do nothing..."

Scarlett doesn't agree: "It's a waste of time and money. This woman is so far gone..."

I'm losing my patience: "You're doing nothing and you criticise me when I try to help somebody else? Am I not on my way to buy food and prepare your dinner? Is that wrong too?"

I send Scarlett home. My good mood has disappeared completely. I need some time alone, to think, to buy stuff, to overcome the anger I feel every time when I notice the world is not like I hope it is.