Hubert Wagner

Mohammed arrived in Warsaw. With a plastic bag, an engineering degree from the University of Al-Couscous, and the naïve belief that if he didn't kill anyone right off the bat and obeyed the Shariah, everything would be fine. Everything was not fine. He started looking for a job. The first recruiter liked his CV until she saw his full name. The second asked whether clients would be “comfortable” with him. The third told him the company had found someone else. The vacancy was reposted the next morning. After forty applications, Mohammed finally got an interview. The receptionist looked at him. — You're Mohammed? — Yes. She disappeared. Five minutes later somebody came back to explain that the position had just been filled. Mohammed began looking for an apartment. This was worse. “No foreigners.” “No Muslims.” “Polish tenants only.” One landlord agreed to meet him, looked at his face and suddenly remembered that his cousin needed the apartment. Another demanded six months' rent in advance. A third simply closed the door. Mohammed tried a hotel. Full. He checked online. Twelve rooms available. He began to suspect Poland was developing accommodation shortages specifically around him. Then came the administration. He needed one document to obtain another document. To obtain the first document, he needed proof of address. To obtain proof of address, he needed an apartment. To rent the apartment, the landlord wanted the second document. Mohammed returned to the office. — But this is impossible. The clerk shrugged. — Następny. Next. Outside, somebody called him a terrorist. On the bus, an old man told him to go home. At the supermarket, security followed him through four aisles. At a restaurant, somebody asked whether he was going to blow the place up. At night, three drunk men followed him for two streets shouting at him. The following morning somebody had written WON ("FUCK OFF") on the door of the room he was temporarily renting. He went to the police. The officer asked whether anyone had actually attacked him. — Not this time. The officer looked relieved. Mohammed was not. By the third month he had no permanent job, no permanent accommodation, an impressive collection of administrative papers and a completely new habit of looking behind himself whenever he heard footsteps. Then his landlord called. A neighbour had complained. About what? Mohammed. Apparently his existence had become a noise disturbance. That evening he sat on his bed surrounded by documents, rejection emails and his plastic bag. Somebody shouted something under his window. Mohammed didn't even check what. He opened his Ryanair app. Warsaw → Al-Couscous. One way. The next morning he went to Modlin Airport three hours early. He passed security. He reached the gate. He sat down. For the first time in months, nobody wanted a document from him, nobody refused to rent him anything, nobody followed him through a shop and nobody asked him when he was going home. The boarding announcement began. Mohammed almost ran onto the plane. Poland hadn't deported him. It hadn't needed to. Mohammed had become so terrified of Poland that he SELF-DEPORTED.