The Man Who Looked Like Someone

He was a man at the airport in Krakow. He stood with all the others in a wintry queue and was in no way remarkable, except that he looked like someone I knew.

He had the same height, the same build, the same brownish hair, the same chin – a straight, strong chin with a hint of evening scratch. He lifted his case and edged through the sliding door and onto the bus. He lifted like someone I knew.

It was dark. Red lights took off and landed. White ones floated by. We held onto hangstraps. His fingers were as long as the old, familiar fingers, his calm the same calm. I looked up at his chin and its shadow, and recognised his slow, saved smile. It was all I could do not to lean across and nudge him in the ribs.

Du! I would say. Was machst Du so? in a tone of familiarity that would be correct and expected.

Dies und jenes, he’d say. This and that. Und Du?

I decided against it. He might have felt our resemblance to people we knew was only superficial.

And yet I knew his chin as well as he knew it himself, and I knew exactly how it would feel to touch it.