“Wow, the hair!” I said as I opened the front door to Liz. She stood there, decked in multicoloured scarves, layered artfully, all topped with a brilliant orange wig.  

“Yay-es,” she drawled in reply. “Ah wanted to be sure y’all appreciated the impohtnace of mah role as fohtune tellah.” 

“Ah, you’re southern? Not Polish?”

“Yay-es, Ah woulda have a tough time bein’ Polish. Yah see, Ah’m from Geojah. You invitin’ me in?” 

“Yes - come in, come in. Let me get a photo of this getup before the guests arrive.”

It was November 28, 2015. The 30th was Jack’s Name Day** but more importantly, it’s Andrzejki and as everyone Pole knows (I’m not, Liz is not), you need a fortune teller on Andrzejki.***

Jack’s real first name was Andrzej, the Polish version of Andrew. Scottish St. Andrew’s Day is November 30 but the Poles celebrate it in a much more fun way with a party called Andrzejki. As near as I can gather, it’s just another chance to get together over a lot of food and vodka, a warm up to the Christmas season. Andrzejki involves a bunch of games, among them interpreting the meaning of the blobs and knobs that form when you thread molten wax through a keyhole into water. And for that, naturally, you need a fortune teller. 

Jack and I had birthdays close together in early October and I always organized something for us to share that was, frankly, more about me. To compensate, in 2015 I decided to throw an Andrzejki party for Jack. Jack assured me all we needed to do was invite his vast family, prepare some food, buy some booze, and the party would make itself. 

The fortune-telling part intrigued me though and my most inventive, theatrical friend - Liz - agreed to give it a go.  Liz and I have been friends since high school in small-town Ontario where diversity means some kids go to Catholic school. Everyone speaks English. There are definitely no Poles. Or people with southern accents for that matter.  

Jack’s contribution to this folly - fanaberia, as he would say - was taking copper parts he had kicking around the shop to fashion a ladle and something to function like a keyhole. He’d been late two nights that week and had worked several hours on the day of the party but produced two pieces of art, suitable for wall-mounting, which is exactly where they’ve been since the party. He also figured out the best way to melt the wax and keep it melted on a hot plate. He was always my tech support. He was excited to see Liz in action and assured her earlier it didn’t matter what she said - that Polish fortune-telling was just as big a bunch of bullshit as with any other fortune-telling (his words). 

He was in the basement smoking when Liz arrived but he popped up soon afterwards. His people haven’t yet arrived but he marvelled at the quantity of food I’d laid on the table in the dining room. No-one was going to leave this buffet hungry. The doorbell started to ring and as people arrived it was a buzi-buzi (double Polish kiss) and then I spirited coats away to the pile on the guest bed upstairs. The tangle of boots and bags in the front hall signified a proper party! 

From across the room, Jack motioned me over to him. He looked green. 

“You OK, Jack? Did you eat something off?”  

He shook his head. “That thing again.” I knew what he was talking about. 

His first experience of unexplained and unbridled nausea happened a couple of years earlier. We were at Hugh’s Room, a live music supper club. We’d had butter chicken and a couple of drinks over dinner - nothing excessive - and listened to a jazz bass guitarist.  It was definitely more Jack’s kind of music than mine but getting Jack out on the town wasn’t always easy so I enjoyed it nonetheless. 

As the evening wound down and the lights came up, Jack turned to me and asked, “do you think we can leave through that door?” 

“Jack you look awful. You OK.” 

“I have to be sick.” 

I gestured for the waiter. “Nevin, can we go out that way?” Like so many waiters Jack and I met, we were on a first-name basis. 

“Ah, sure.” Nevin replied, sensing something dire. 

“He’s going to be sick,” I said sotto voce. There are many times Jack appreciated attention - this was not one of those times.

“Oh, OK. You need anything?” I shook my head as we darted out. Jack lurched to the alley unsteadily and began a 45 minute puking session against the club wall. Nevin came out from time to time to bring napkins and water. At one point, I asked him to stay with Jack while I went to get the car, parked a block away. There was no way Jack could walk. 

Miraculously, I got Jack home that night without any vomit in my car. He saw his doctor shortly afterwards and with much testing, she determined he likely had menière’s disease, an inner ear disorder. It flared up from time to time and Jack could typically feel it coming on but the night of our Andrzejki party, there were no warning signs. 

I extracted Jack from the party and tucked him into bed. Our room was beside the bathroom but as an extra precaution I grabbed a bucket. And then I got back to our guests. No-one really knew what was going on - I just said Jack was suddenly unwell but that he specifically asked that no-one leave. 

“Liz, we gotta host this Polish party. You up for it?” 

“Yay-es,” she drawled. She’d fallen out of character from time to time but she was fully back now. We gathered everyone in the basement, heated up the wax, and she began her fortune-telling. 

Liz is at her very best with an audience and she kept Jack’s relatives enthralled with her increasingly unlikely predictions. 

“Ya’ll will have six more wives- not all at the same time, of course, but over the next few decades,” this said to someone in his 60s.  

“Yay-es, I see it in this here squiggle of wax. Ya see how it goes left? Yay-es, that shows you will discover the cure for AIDs. It shorely does.” 

“For ya’ll, I see ya’ll will fall in love with an octopus, ya see how this blob has eight legs”  You get the idea.  

We spent an hour under her spell before people started to drift back up to the buffet. From time to time, I snuck up to the 2nd floor to find Jack fast asleep at his own party. 

Happy Andrzejki to my Polish friends! 

* Andrzejki is celebrated in Poland on November 30. 

** Polish people traditionally celebrate the day associated with the saint after whom they are named. Check out Wikipedia if you don’t believe me.

*** I learned so many random things being an honorary Pole: 

• sausage is just a form of meat and requires a modifier - white sausage, BBQ sausage, and so on; 

• there are no articles in the Polish language but nouns are declined like in Latin; 

• Wigilia is a 12 course, meat-free meal on Christmas Eve involving several different soups, perogi, cabbage in multiple forms, and ending with carp, a fish that because of its unique bones, causes people to choke to death every year; 

• Poland has been overrun by more countries than most, and that’s just in the last 100 years; 

• a few useful phrases including “Wesołych Świąt” (Merry Christmas), “Mucha, spierdalaj” (fly, fuck off) and “Nie jestem głodną” (I am not hungry).  

but perhaps most importantly, I’ve learned about Name Days and the special one Jack celebrates.

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