TE20 Migrant Mosaics

The Sad Guest (excerpt) Matthias Nawrat Translated from German by Katy Derbyshire

Diaspora

On the third Sunday in January, I took the U-Bahn from our neighbourhood to the Hasenheide area at Südstern station, on the other side of Berlin. There was a church there where the Polish community met up. I had only been inside the church once, not for Mass but to look at the stained-glass saints. Directly opposite the church was the restaurant Mały Książe, the little prince, and if you arrived at the right time you could get a table before the place filled up with families and elderly ladies and gentlemen leaving Sunday Mass. The language in the restaurant, which had its own grocery shop, was Polish, but every guest also spoke German and the two young waitresses spoke without accents; they were the daughters of the restaurant owners, I believe, and helped out on Sundays. All the tables were free when I arrived, but it began to fill up shortly after eleven. Peoplewere soon standing between the diners, staring down at their plates to judge when they’d be vacating their places, so an elderly gentleman joined me at my table. He was dressed in a grey suit with a white shirt and a golden-yellow tie and wore a golden signet ring on his little finger, its crest a shield and two crossed swords. Both of us had to pull our seats up close to the table 25