Arnon Grunberg

Swiss

Woman

In the early afternoon a well-dressed woman in her late forties, maybe early fifties approached me. She asked me in passable French whether I was from Glion and she added that she was hungry, she really could use a sandwich, if I could help her.
She was holding the hand of another woman, more or less the same age, also well-dressed. They both appeared to be drunk.
I handed the first woman twenty Swiss francs, she reacted with delight and surprise, and thanked me a couple of times but unlike most other beggars without referring to God.
In the early evening I saw the lady again, near the charming train station of Glion. She was alone this time, and she was still begging.
It wasn’t a prank probably, but it felt close to performance art. More than half of the lady was still a bourgeois woman, used to a cleaning lady maybe even a gardener.

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