TE20 Migrant Mosaics

The Sad Guest

the church and cemetery on the other side of the street and above the whole of the city. It took me an instant to remember where I was, and then I set off back towards the station. Families were out strolling around me. At the crossroads, a man on a bicycle stopped, behind him two children with helmets on smaller bikes. The whole of the city seemed to be out and about, though the air was bitterly cold. I walked past the underground station and along the shops on Urbanstrasse to the canal, letting theatmospheredrivemeon. I reallydid feel like I’d been tochurch, like as a child on my family’s housing estate on the edge of Opole, back when I’d still believed the stories about the miracles, the marriage at Cana, the kingdoms of angels and devils. • Al Hadi The next morning, I decided to go to the hairdresser. I left my building to find it had snowed, all sounds muffled, a single car inching onto the crossroads. I walked past the two young Turkish men’s Salon La Bella and past the Café Polonia and turned onto Grüntaler Strasse to Salon Al Hadi. As I entered the shop beneath a jangling bell there were two men in the room. One was very fat, obese in fact. He was wearing a grey sweatshirt and Birkenstock sandals, and sitting on one of the chairs against the wall, his belly rising like a table in front of him. The other had a delicate build and wore a grey shirt tucked into jeans. Unlike the large man, who sported a moustache, his 29