“I’m Janusz,” you said with an easy smile. You seemed almost offensively comfortable standing there. I was the one feeling naked.

“I’ll let you get on. Didn’t mean to disturb.” I turned to leave.

“And you?”

I turned back around. “Me what?”

You laughed. It was a light and joyous sound, self-sufficient and contagious. “You have your head in the clouds, no? Your name.”

I laughed too, feeling myself blush.

“I’m Ludwik. Ludwik Głowacki.” It struck me how little my name meant to me, how absurd it was in its attempt to contain me.

You nodded. “Nice to meet you properly. Don’t you want to try the water?” Your arms moved around in it. “It’s perfect.”

“Thanks. I don’t really swim.”

You looked at me funny. “You don’t know how to swim?”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not it. I just don’t like to do it.”

“Not even in this heat? Why not?” You laughed, incredulous, your smile mocking and charming.

I shrugged and walked a couple of steps backward. “Maybe another day.”

“OK,” you said, nodding. “Another day. I’m here almost every evening.”

“See you, then,” I said, walking off. After a few steps I turned around, despite myself. Your body was gliding through the water, leaving a trail of ripples on its surface.

The next day I saw you more clearly than I had before, as if you’d been drawn against the background of the others. I let myself look at you, watched you at work and when you spoke to the people at your table, especially the black-haired girl with her Western clothes. There was an inherent elegance to your way of being, an ease with yourself and the world, as if no fear had ever penetrated your mind, as if the path you walked on was pliable and ready to be molded by your feet. And yet we didn’t speak and didn’t acknowledge each other, except for a small nod and a small knowing smile you gave me on the field. Other than that, our meeting had been off-site, off the record.

That evening I went to the same spot by the river, but you weren’t there. And so I lay in the grass and looked at the sky and listened to the water. I wondered whether you hadn’t come in order to avoid me, or what else it could mean. Then I sensed movement, a presence nearby, and I got up. There, across the high grass, a body lay on the ground, almost hidden. I approached silently. You were lying spread out on your back, one hand beneath your head, the other on your stomach. Eyes closed. The hand on your stomach rose and fell in the slow and steady rhythm of your breath, T-shirt slightly lifted, revealing your tanned midriff and the path of fine hair leading down. I stood frozen for a moment, looking at you, afraid you’d wake up and see me like this. Your long eyelashes. The beautiful veins on your arms. All I wanted was to stand there and take you in. You opened your eyes, gray-blue and brilliant. You looked at me, and my heart skipped a beat.