My hands wove through his hair like diving birds or a snake
through grass; eminently natural, collecting the individual strands of thick
black Pakistani curl. I was a field-working woman, gathering together the crop
into one swaying basket that tilted as I tilted. Cross-legged behind him, I
could have been meditating – and he could have been some Rajah, some great
King.
“Now you do my head,” he had said, in his accent thick as the qeema he had served us three or four times, to our naïve Western tongues untouched by the spices of the east. He had a way of speaking that made what he said seem timeless, self-evident and unquestionable – so I had sat behind his wicker chair and now I massaged his scalp, took his hair around each of my fingers as we slipped further into a strange sort of coalescent movement; he, swaying slightly to the bhanga from the stereo, I, tilting both with the music and the undulation of my fingerprints against his skull. We had reached a queer conclave, a bizarre stasis.
We were miles from the nearest city, and maybe that was what made unfurling here so easy. I felt as if over the last few days I had opened, allowed the sun I hid from on any ordinary day to absorb into my blood vessels and warm my body. He was a strange man, alternating between childishness and hopping rage; but I had been brought up an Englishman. I was proud of my stoicism, proud of my ability to withstand stress with a straight face and no trace of embarrassment. My travelling companion, my best friend, dwelt in England but didn’t claim herself English – she was as continental as her parentage. Thus, she said, knee deep in our weeding patches, she was perfectly qualified to complain.
“Now you do my head,” he had said, in his accent thick as the qeema he had served us three or four times, to our naïve Western tongues untouched by the spices of the east. He had a way of speaking that made what he said seem timeless, self-evident and unquestionable – so I had sat behind his wicker chair and now I massaged his scalp, took his hair around each of my fingers as we slipped further into a strange sort of coalescent movement; he, swaying slightly to the bhanga from the stereo, I, tilting both with the music and the undulation of my fingerprints against his skull. We had reached a queer conclave, a bizarre stasis.
We were miles from the nearest city, and maybe that was what made unfurling here so easy. I felt as if over the last few days I had opened, allowed the sun I hid from on any ordinary day to absorb into my blood vessels and warm my body. He was a strange man, alternating between childishness and hopping rage; but I had been brought up an Englishman. I was proud of my stoicism, proud of my ability to withstand stress with a straight face and no trace of embarrassment. My travelling companion, my best friend, dwelt in England but didn’t claim herself English – she was as continental as her parentage. Thus, she said, knee deep in our weeding patches, she was perfectly qualified to complain.
I had tuned her out a
while ago, and since we were working on opposite sides of the farm, I was left
to my own silence, left to lose myself like a million tourists in the
repetition of manual labour, the calmness of small-scale natural exploitation.
We worked eight hours a day and were always finished by two in the afternoon
(followed by long walks through the countryside). After our conversation died,
we were left to continue on, watching the aquamarine Polish sky bring out the
lustre of the surrounding agriculture.
“I know, he’s a Pakistani in Poland who speaks average Polish at best, it’s weird,” my friend had said, tapping at the keyboard to find airline tickets. “But he’s paying for us to go and paying for us to work. So we might as well go.”
I was glad I’d come. We were sleeping in the attic of a barn, but I’d never slept better. I was reliably informed that this was not the real face of rural Poland but a result of him demolishing his house two days before he arrived. There was a lot that had been proclaimed to me as if it was unassailable. Living here was like living without science. But there were upsides; there were moments that seemed unpleasant in conception, but turned out to be calming. Like these massages.
He was a little man with a little head, and I dwarfed him by at least half a foot; so it was not difficult to position my hands correctly, enough so that the novice swirls I pressed against his hairbed were not too uncomfortable. He seemed to radiate calm while I massaged his head – as if I was bringing him a taste of Nirvana. When he fell asleep, inevitably lulled by the sitar music he had playing out of his stereo, I would leave, gentler and quieter for the effort. I did not have to say anything for him to know that my English bones were softer than when I had arrived.
“I know, he’s a Pakistani in Poland who speaks average Polish at best, it’s weird,” my friend had said, tapping at the keyboard to find airline tickets. “But he’s paying for us to go and paying for us to work. So we might as well go.”
I was glad I’d come. We were sleeping in the attic of a barn, but I’d never slept better. I was reliably informed that this was not the real face of rural Poland but a result of him demolishing his house two days before he arrived. There was a lot that had been proclaimed to me as if it was unassailable. Living here was like living without science. But there were upsides; there were moments that seemed unpleasant in conception, but turned out to be calming. Like these massages.
He was a little man with a little head, and I dwarfed him by at least half a foot; so it was not difficult to position my hands correctly, enough so that the novice swirls I pressed against his hairbed were not too uncomfortable. He seemed to radiate calm while I massaged his head – as if I was bringing him a taste of Nirvana. When he fell asleep, inevitably lulled by the sitar music he had playing out of his stereo, I would leave, gentler and quieter for the effort. I did not have to say anything for him to know that my English bones were softer than when I had arrived.
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