Since the envoys had brought news of the arrival of the Emperor, Bolesław’s kingdom had been overwhelmed by an all-encompassing state of commotion. Aside from the settlers living deep within the deepest forests, there was probably no one who did not, in some way or other, (...) more >>
The phones are always going wrong, so my parents aren’t upset when there’s no dialling tone. They’re at the fortieth birthday party of a female friend from their class at high school. They say they’re going downstairs to the phone booth for a (...) more >>
My parents weren’t an entirely settled tribe. They moved from one place to another many times before finally stopping for longer at a provincial school far from a proper road or a railway station. Travelling became just crossing the county boundary, a trip into town. Shopping, handing in documents at the local council office, ever the same hairdresser on the marketplace by the town hall, in the same gown, laundered and bleached to no effect because the customers’ hair dyes left calligraphic stains on it, like Chinese characters. Mama would have her hair dyed while my father waited for her in the Nowa café, at one of the two little tables set outside. He’d read the local paper, where the most interesting thing was always the crime section, with reports about cellars being robbed of plum jam and pickled gherkins. And there were those tourist holiday of theirs, timid outings in a Skoda packed to the ceiling. Long in the preparation, they were planned in the evenings in early spring when the snow had only just gone but the ground had not yet recovered; they had to wait until it would finally yield its flesh to the plough and hoe, until it would let itself be fertilised, after which it would take up all their time from dawn to dusk. They belonged to a generation that drove about with a camping trailer, pulling a substitute home along behind them. They took a gas stove, some small folding tables and chairs, a plastic rope and wooden pegs for hanging out the washing during stopovers, waterproof plastic tablecloths and a camping picnic set, with coloured plastic plates, spoons, knifes and forks, salt cellars and glasses. Somewhere on the road, at one of the flea markets he and my mother were especially fond of visiting (whenever they were not busy taking photos of each other in front of churches and monuments) my father bought an army kettle made of copper, a container with a tube in the middle, into which you put a handful of twigs and then lit it. And even though he could use the electricity at the campsites he used to boil water in this pot, pouring out smoke and making a mess. He would kneel over the hot device, proudly listening to the boiling water bubbling inside, then pour it over the tea bags like a real nomad. They’d get well settled in at the purpose-made places, at the campsites, where they always kept company with people like themselves, having chats with the neighbours over the socks hung out to dry on the guy ropes. They worked out the routes for their journeys with the help of a guidebook, making a careful note of the attractions. Before midday there was bathing in the sea or a lake, and in the afternoon an outing to the ancient sites finishing with supper – almost always out of a jar: goulash, rissoles or meatballs in tomato sauce, so they only had to boil some pasta or rice. They were endlessly saving money, saying the zloty is weak, it’s the world’s smallest penny, looking for places where they could plug into the electricity, then reluctantly packing up to move onwards, without ever leaving the metaphysical orbit of home. They were not real travellers because they only went away in order to return home. And they came back with relief, with a sense of having done their duty. They came back to collect piles of letters and bills from the sideboard, do a great big wash and bore their yawning friends to death showing them their photos – this is us in Carcasonne and here’s my wife in front of the Acropolis. Then for a whole year they’d live a settled life, that strange life when at daybreak you go back to what you left off in the evening, where your clothes are imbued with the smell of your own flat and your feet tread a tireless path on the carpet. That’s not for me. I obviously lack a gene that means that as soon as you stop still in one place for any length of time you start to put down roots. I have tried many times, but my roots have always been too shallow and I’ve been overturned by the slightest gust of wind. I’ve never been able to germinate, I’m simply devoid of that plant capacity. I don’t draw sap from the ground, I’m an anti-Antaeus. My energy comes from motion – from the shaking of buses, the roar of aeroplanes, or the rocking of ferries and trains. I am conveniently small and compact. I have a small, undemanding stomach, powerful lungs, a solid belly and strong arm muscles. I don’t take any medicine, I don’t wear glasses and I don’t use hormones. I cut my hair with a trimmer once every three months, I hardly use any cosmetics. My teeth are sound, not very straight perhaps, but they’re all there, with just one old filling, in the left lower number six. My liver’s fine. My pancreas is fine. My left and right kidneys are in excellent condition. My aorta is fine. My bladder is all right. Haemoglobin – 12.7. White blood cells – 4.5. Haematocrit – 41.6. Platelets – 228. Cholesterol – 204. Creatinine – 1.0. Bilirubin – 4.2, and so on. My IQ – if you believe in that – is 121; adequate. I have a particularly well developed spatial imagination, almost eidetic, whereas I have poor lateralisation. Personality profile – not constant, maybe untrustworthy. Age – mental. Gender – grammatical. I prefer to buy paperback books so I can leave them on the platform for others to read with no regrets. I don’t collect anything. I did graduate, but in fact I have never learned a profession, which I greatly regret; my great-grandfather was a weaver, he would whiten the woven cloth by spreading it out on the hillside, setting it out in the burning rays of the sun. Interweaving the warp and the weft would suit me very well, but there’s no such thing as a portable loom, and weaving is a craft for settled people. I do knit on journeys. Unfortunately, lately some airlines have banned taking knitting needles and crochet hooks on board. As I said, I have never learned a trade, yet despite what my parents were always telling me I have managed to get by, taking various jobs along the way without ever sliding to the bottom.
There are more than 31,000 publishers registered in Poland. However, the market is highly concentrated. The 300 largest publishing firms still hold almost 98 per cent of it. More »
