A Misunderstanding

Audio to follow

It was a miserable, misty, mizzly kind of evening, with the rain considering turning into snow as darkness descended on the New Town. When I say evening, it was only three thirty, but it already felt like I should be at home in the warm and getting my tea on. The woman in front of me was a professional pensioner. She had the lot, the stoop in her walk, the fragile knees, the stick, the type of hat that you are only allowed to wear once you reach seventy-five and a big, black handbag that no doubt contained a handkerchief for wiping grandchildren’s mouths and a bottle of pills as large as your head. She creaked along the street, taking extra care in the treacherous conditions. To my dismay, I realised she was heading to the same shop as me, meaning I’d be stuck behind her in the queue.

I’d only been in Prague for two months and shopping was still a harrowing experience. Yes, there were supermarkets to be anonymous in, but the best foods were in the little local shops where you had to ask for your one hundred grams of ham or fifty grams of potato salad. I was busy rehearsing my lines when I noticed the professional pensioner drop some money as she pulled a large red purse out of that big, black handbag. It was only two twenty crown notes, not even a pound in those days, but it was the price of four beers, a box of cigarettes or at least fifty bread rolls, so quite a bit of spending power for a woman in her seventies.

I picked up the money and, like the good Samaritan I was, I tapped the old babicka on the shoulder and proffered the money. But this was where my troubles began. I barely had the vocabulary to ask for the ham and bread that I wanted to buy, I certainly didn’t have the linguistic skills to tell a woman she’d dropped forty crowns. I just thought she’d understand but she looked at me with a mixture of bewilderment and fear. Who was this crazy foreigner offering her money? What did he want? Was he taking pity on her or, I saw the thought cross her face, was he asking for sex? She shook her head and when I tried to thrust the money into her hand she threatened me with the stick.

Others in the shop turned to stare at me.

“It’s hers,” I said, hoping someone would speak English, “she dropped it.”

A man stepped forward and put himself between me and the old lady, he grumbled something in Czech that made his moustache quiver with fear. A woman came and stood next to him, her moustache bristling too. The Czechs were closing ranks, uniting against the common enemy, me.

I decided to cut my losses and get out of there, taking her money with me. I ignored the icy streets and walked as fast as I could away from the shop.

I still wondered what that woman thought when she realised the money was missing. Did she belatedly understand my motives or did she believe I’d stolen her cash? Whatever, I thanked her profusely as I munched on a hot dog washed down with some mulled wine that her discarded money had paid for.