Will this election take place or not? Will it be postponed? Will it be conducted by mail? Somewhere beyond me, the government is fussing over the Electoral Code, like a dentist working on a patient. Sitting in the waiting room, I hear the sounds of a drill behind the wall, the drilling of teeth, some moaning, the clatter of instruments; my imagination starts working. But what they are tinkering with in this election, I don’t know, and I probably don’t want to know anymore. I’ll go inside and find out, following the principle: if they give, take it; if they hit, run away.
It is hard to sit through such uncertainty. Some say: forget the election; health is more important. Others insist: you have to fight to the end; you don’t forfeit a match. I would go home and forget about it, but my tooth hurts; it has to be treated or pulled, some decision has to be made—after all, you are in a waiting room for a reason.
I look around and see that ten portraits hang on the wall of this waiting room. Nine men and one woman, so my eyes turn to Kidawa-Błońska. On closer inspection, I see that it is not a portrait but a meme. Małgorzata does not look like herself in it; different features can be seen in her face. I wonder whom she reminds me of. Finally, the caption beneath the meme explains it to me: Grzegorzata Kidawa-Schetyńska.
I look with interest at the next candidate: he is smiling so broadly that I fall entirely into that smile and my jaw starts to hurt. Joy, love, mindfulness. If I didn’t live in a small town and had a little apartment in the capital, who knows, perhaps I would vote for him? Beneath Biedroń’s picture, large rainbow letters read: “Think of something, and I’ll promise it to you.” I look fearfully at the dwindling queue for the dentist’s office and know that Robert will not fulfill my dream.
Right next to Biedroń is a picture of a handsome, elegant man with his wife. They hold their heads close together; their faces have been beautified. They have blue eyes framed in dark lashes, fair complexions, rosy cheeks, and when you approach the likeness of the Kosiniak-Kamysz couple, music begins to seep quietly from the portrait, as if from it. I listen to it, and one foot begins to tap to the rhythm: “My wife, my heart. There are none like the two of us. For I love your eyes…” I quiet my foot and look at the next picture.
The man is a priest. I thought a priest was not running in this election; I must have been mistaken. Well then, not a priest, but the television preacher Szymon Hołownia. A TVN star. A Catholic straight out of a laundry-detergent commercial. Stain-free, bleached, sparkling clean. I assume only that he believes in something...
Right beside him, Krzysztof Bosak poses in a rogatywka and with a scythe held upright, with the words “Made in Poland, Hand Made” on his chest. Handcrafted. A unique red-and-white product. In the background, a landscape from Podlasie. Along a country road, raising clouds of dust, march boys from ONR and football hooligans. Their hands are raised and clenched into fists, but smiles grace their white faces. A little woman in a headscarf greets them and presses a baby to her heart. She holds the child with one hand and makes the sign of the cross with the other.
A little farther from the main portraits, in a smaller format, hang pictures of people I do not know at all. Stanisław Żółtek, holding a “Polexit” sign, stands lost in the middle of nowhere; Marek Jakubiak raises a beer mug; Mirosław Piotrowski, beneath a cross in a school classroom, holds a ruler in his hand and smiles at the children’s heads; and the final picture shows Paweł Tanajno, the Polish John Doe.
I do not manage to ask myself, “And where is President Duda, seeking re-election?” before my turn arrives and a smiling doctor calls me from the office. He is calm, kind, friendly. That is why I pass through the door relaxed. The doctor wears a white coat with the words “Duda 2020,” but the inscription is discreet, and I think to myself that everyone has the right to promote their candidate.
I enter the office and on the right-hand wall see a large painting in which Andrzej Duda walks across a meadow with his arms outstretched, while symbolic Polonia runs straight toward him. Slightly tearful and frightened, she sees her savior and her tears dry, because in a moment she will fall into his arms. The president’s face expresses the assurance that Polonia will be safe only in his arms.
Seeing that I have become absorbed in the painting, the dentist gently takes me by the elbow and leads me to the chair. The chair is covered with a mat bearing Andrzej Duda’s likeness against a waving red-and-white flag. I have barely torn my eyes away from this sight when a painting on the left catches my eye. In it, the president embraces old men, widows and elderly people. They all reach out to him and gaze lovingly at his face.
The dentist has to push me slightly so that I sit down in the chair—or rather, on Duda’s likeness. Once I land on it, the doctor reclines the backrest so that I am lying comfortably. My eyes fall on the ceiling, and Andrzej’s gentle face looks down at me from there too. This time he stands like a giant in the clouds above a large city, holding his hands over it as if blessing it. Above his right shoulder, a white eagle wearing a crown rises into the sky; over his left, tiny John Paul II, the Polish pope, looks on with a fatherly smile. I close my eyes. The dentist puts a drill in my mouth. Suddenly frightened, I lift my eyelids and see that Andrzej’s likeness is engraved on the drill: his noble face surrounded by a wreath of laurel leaves.
The drilling begins.
And who will you vote for, my fellow voter?
Grażyna Hanaf
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