Honored mayor, honored municipal council and delegates, my name is Danuta Kalinowska, I am 24 years old and I was born and raised in our fair city. My mother’s name is Hildegarda Kalinowska and my father was Ferdzik Kalinowski, who was killed, God rest his soul, in a tragic car accident en route to Warsaw in the winter of 2007. His official name was Ferdynand, but everyone called him Ferdzik and his gravestone says Ferdzik as well. I never knew him as anything but Ferdzik.
I am an only child and for reasons I am not at liberty to divulge here I am charged with the care of my beloved mother Hildegarda, who has no other family in Lublin or anywhere close to our city. With my father’s brother, Uncle Pavel, she has broken all ties.
I am writing this letter to you to report an incident that was extremely unpleasant for me and my mother, and I hope you will take the time to read it carefully. I am, of course, more than willing to elucidate further in person, if need be, and my mother also has a thing or two to say about these nasty events, although I hope you will take her poor health into account.
Having attended secretarial school, I am able to speak and write both English and German. Many people say I have an aptitude for languages. I am currently learning Spanish. In the summer of 2009 my mother and I flew to Barcelona, where we enjoyed that city’s museums and restaurants. Unfortunately, one day on the street there our camera was torn from my hands by an unsavory African character. We were therefore very happy to be back at last in our own city. My mother said: “I’ll never go to Spain again, we have everything we need right here in Lublin.” I fully agree with that. East or west, home is best.
Seeing as I am able to work only part-time due to my mother’s poor health, I occasionally give guided tours of our fair city in order to earn a little pocket money. As you know, the majority of tourists arrive in the summertime, afraid as they are of a snowflake or a little cold snap. We citizens of Lublin love the snow and the cold, and my mother always says: “Cold weather makes a Lubliner sturdy.” How right she is.
My dear father, God rest his soul, who was smashed against a tree by a truck on the road to Warsaw on the night of January 22, 2007, was the best gym teacher in all of Lublin. Many of you will be sure to remember him. He was not only a gym teacher, but also the coach of the girls’ volleyball team in our town, and so he had a great many friends. He was the most devout person I have ever known. He liked to drink, he made his own brandy, but even when intoxicated he remained devout and called loudly upon Mary, the Mother of God. The Virgin Mary never abandoned him, except for on the night of January 22, 2007, but that was the fault of a truck driver from Wroclaw, a godless man who thought he could make amends to us with a bouquet of roses. My mother put those roses out with the garbage right away. What was he thinking? My respected municipal representatives, how can it be that Wroclaw is the new European Capital of Culture, and not Lublin? As you undoubtedly know - and I must say this before I arrive at the reason for this letter, for it is of utmost importance that you understand our family situation, and my dear mother has asked me to let you know - we have never received a fine in our lives. Even my father, who did enjoy a drop now and then, never committed a traffic violation. We have always been law-abiding, even when the laws did not please us. As you undoubtedly know, our city was visited this winter by a Dutch writer, Arnon Grunberg.
I still don’t know the exact reason for his visit. I am only a simple woman and do what is asked of me – especially seeing as I am unemployed at the moment. My Uncle Pavel had hired me as a secretary for his import and export firm, Best Global Tools, but I am sure you know how that venture ended up, and my mother and I have severed all contact with my uncle and I have decided to concentrate on tourists, because tourists are more my cup of tea than the import and export business. My mother says that too. And so I was delighted when one of my girlfriend’s girlfriends asked me to show Mr. Grunberg around our city, so that he would have a sense of where he was. That, at least, was what I had been told, for as soon as I met him I noticed that he did not care a whit about which town he was in. He might just as well have been in Japan.
Normally speaking, I only work as a tour guide during the summer, but when a foreigner comes to Lublin in the winter I will, of course, make an exception – especially after my Uncle Pavel let me down so badly.
Through the lady from the office of cultural affairs, Malgortza - God bless her - I received one of the writer’s books, so that I would know what kind of character I was dealing with. If only I had listened then to the voice inside me. I now deeply regret having ignored that voice, as well as the voice of my mother. She saw a picture of the writer and said immediately: “This man is no good.” I read Mr. Grunberg’s book, Phantom Pain, in Polish. Not the whole thing, but enough to know what it was about and I ask you with all due respect: is this what they call literature? Is there no one who can prohibit this? If I were in politics, I would see to it that such things were banned.
But I am not writing to you about literary matters, I am writing to report the offences that have taken place in our city. I have also informed the police, but since I have heard nothing from them, despite repeated requests, I feel I need to inform you as well.
Let me start at the beginning.
On Monday, February 20, I walked to the Campanile Hotel to pick up the writer and guide him around the city.
He was polite, I must admit. He complimented me on my boots and on the pink scarf that I knitted myself and later he also said something nice about my jeans. I believe there was no article of clothing that day that did not receive compliments from him. I naturally avoided the unpleasant subject of his book, and fortunately he did not start in about it himself, for I am an honest person and I would have had to tell him that it is not healthy for one to read a book like this, and writing one isn’t either.
We walked around the city and I told him about the history of Lublin and the courageous struggle of the Polish people, but I noticed that his mind was wandering because he said: “It’s starting to get rather cold now.” I was planning to take him to a real Lublin café, Café Heca, but he only wanted to go to Café Vanilla. He said: “I’ve been there a couple of times already, the wine there is good.” I am accommodating, so I went with him to Café Vanilla, where he ordered an expensive salad and a glass of red wine. I stuck to water myself.
He still looked unhappy, so I asked how he was doing.
“Badly,” he said. And he looked at me and said, “Very badly. I tossed and turned almost all night.” Perhaps I should not have responded to that, but I suppose it is simply my lot in life to help people. Besides, I am an optimistic person. I also came to the aid of my dear father when, after his death, scandalous lies were told about him, including that he had gotten the captain of the girls’ volleyball team pregnant. My mother said: “Respectable women don’t have a child at sixteen.” Of course, she is right about that.
As I said, this letter is not about my father, but I become emotional when I talk about him.
When I asked the writer why he was doing so poorly, even though he had ended up in such a lovely town, he replied that it was because no one loved him. Then he said that he was a horrible person.
As he went on whining about this, he ate the expensive salad as though he hadn’t had a bite for days and my girlfriend’s girlfriend had told me that he didn’t even have to pay for his hotel, so I didn’t understand what he was complaining about.
Then, at last, he was finished with his lament.
As a tourist guide, I have always remained optimistic; even though I have faced a great deal of adversity in my own life, you will not hear me complaining. One needs to keep one’s chin up, so I said to him: “You mustn’t say that, my friend. Everyone has someone who is right for them in this world. And you’re not all that horrible.” Then he looked at me as though he had been poleaxed and he asked: “But have you found true love, then?” I recently broke off my engagement, because my fiancé was a filthy pig, so I had to cry a little bit when the writer asked whether I had already found true love. I am a sensitive person. My mother, the very first time she saw my fiancé, said: “He is worse than modern art.” If only I had listened to her.
Mr. Grunberg comforted me (what I am telling you here, by the way, I also reported in my letter to the police, and I went by the station house a few times too, but there wasn’t time to tell everything). First he ordered a glass of red wine for me, then he gave me a handkerchief. After that he said that he, too, had no one in this world, that the crisis was everywhere but that it was at its worst inside his head. He didn’t have much money either. What it all came down to was that he had no money and no love, but that he had met me and that anyone who met me no longer needed money or love. Or at least something like that, I can’t remember it all.
I usually drink vodka and orange juice, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth? So I drank the red wine very quickly, because I don’t like red wine and the less you taste it the better off you are.
I asked him: “What would you like to see of our beautiful city? Would you like to go to the famous chapel?” Because that’s why I was there, right? Then he said: “I have already seen the most beautiful sight in town. And that’s you.” Back when I was only twelve, my father Ferdzik said to me: “You may not be the skinniest, but you are the prettiest.” When I was fourteen he was still saying that to me, even though I had acne that not only covered my face but also ran all the way down my back. Myfather happened to love his daughter and his love looked right through all the acne in the world. A woman likes to hear that she is pretty, gentlemen. Even though the compliment was coming from this man’s mouth, I decided to enjoy it. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. “But what would you like to see in our city?” I asked the writer. “I am here to show you around. Would you like to hear a little about the history of Lublin?”
He said: “The only thing I want to see is you. I am an unhappy person, but when I look at you I feel a little bit happy again.” I thought he meant it and I didn’t want to hear any more whining about love and the monster, so I said: “I would be pleased to drink a vodka screwdriver with you later, but now I’m going to show you around.” I was a little bit wary, but I always try to see the best in people. In December of 2011, after all, I was asked to show a Polish writer – whose name I won’t mention – around the city. He refused to leave his apartment and forced me to do his shopping. I can assure you that he did things to me that you shouldn’t do to a woman, but you won’t hear me complain. After all, one is willing to accept more from a Polish writer than from a foreigner.
The Dutch writer began asking me all kinds of questions. He was totally uninterested in our famous chapel. I was telling him about the paintings and the frescoes, when suddenly he said: “Quiet, we have to be quiet now, it’s time to meditate.” While he was meditating, he reached out and grabbed my hand and the tears flowed down his cheeks, but I let them flow because there are limits, after all. But five minutes later, when he was still blubbering, I told him: “The bigger they are, the harder they fall, my friend.” Then we walked over to the Lublinianka Hotel, where he ordered a vodka screwdriver for me and a glass of red wine for himself.
I told him everything; about my mother, who became confused after my father’s death, but not so badly confused as to have to be hospitalized, and about the captain of the girls’ volleyball team who claims that she bore my father’s child, but my mother and I know better.
He was greatly interested in all of this. “Incredible,” he said. “Your family has been through a lot. You are a very special person.” Then we walked over to the Campanile Hotel, where he invited me up to his room. He had a bottle of red wine in his closet, which he drank with me. He also did unsolicited things with me, things that a man should not do with a woman, and which I will not mention here.
The next day I went back to see him, because I was supposed to show him around. To be honest, it was at that point that I began to doubt his sincere interest in me, because when he came out of the elevator he kissed my hand and said: “I want to thank you for making my life a little more beautiful.” That seemed overdone to me. I barely knew him. To make a life more beautiful, you need more than that. It doesn’t happen that quickly.
He wanted to go to Majdanek. We walked around there a bit and he didn’t say much. He did ask me whether the apartment building beside the concentration camp had been there during the war. He also had the nerve to say that it couldn’t be very pleasant to have a view of a concentration camp.
After Majdanek we went to see my mother, because he wanted to meet an older Polish woman who could tell him about how Lublin used to be.
Since my father’s death, my mother has suffered from mood swings. Sometimes she refuses to get out of bed, at other times she invites all her friends over. She is 56, but despite her poor health she looks like a woman of 46, maybe even a few years younger.
My mother doesn’t speak English, so I interpreted.
The writer complimented her on her skirt, he told her that he was sub-human and a monster and that he had no love in his life and that the money was gone too, because of the crisis, and when darkness began to fall he took her hand. He did exactly the same thing to my mother that he had done to me, and the worst of it was that he seemed to forget that I was there.
My mother is a hospitable woman, and she told me to fix a pan of soup and put the vodka bottle on the table. And when I started grumbling she grumbled back, but she is a better grumbler and so I fixed the soup.
After the soup and the vodka, Mr. Grunberg asked whether he could spend the night, because he said he couldn’t stand it at the Campanile anymore. He said he had always thought that he liked hotels, but that now he knew that he was in search of warmth, human warmth. And he claimed that Polish warmth is the real human warmth. He talked about filthy, human love, but you and I know that there is nothing filthy about human love.
My mother is a sensitive woman, like me, and so she gave him warmth.
In the winter we sleep in the same bed, to save on heating costs. First he did to me what you do not do with a virtuous woman, and then he did that to my mother. I will not go on about it. But if you are interested in the details, you can definitely ask my mother.
The next morning he left the house and came back fifteen minutes later with two bouquets. He moved in with us. He bought food and vodka and he called my mother “an angel” and he called me “the daughter of an angel”. I didn’t like it much, but as I said, we are hospitable. And the apple, of course, never falls far from the tree.
I believe that for the rest of his stay he almost never got out of our bed. Every evening at seven he crawled in between the sheets and then he told my mother and I to come lie beside him and then we had to sing folksongs. Occasionally he quoted some poet, but I can’t remember which one.
I will now present a summary of the items that disappeared from our house: 2 silver-plated teaspoons 1 vase, which my mother says was an antique 1 chest of drawers, which my mother gave him as a present at a moment when she was not in full possession of her senses (when two men came to pick up the chest of drawers the next day, she didn’t dare to complain, because she didn’t want to go back on her word).
1 wedding dress, belonging to my mother 1 suit that used to belong to my father 1 silver candlestick, which my mother says is a museum piece Enclosed here you will find a photograph of the chest of drawers. I suspect that the writer sold this chest of drawers to someone in Lublin, so if you see it you can have it confiscated and given back to us. If things go on this way we will have to sublet a room in our apartment, and then the chest of drawers could come in handy.
The teaspoons are probably not worth much, but it’s the principle that matters. Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.
My mother and I do not have an easy life, but every Friday evening we organize a salon in order to cheer things up a bit. Visitors can then leave an envelope on the counter with something in it, for these are hard times for a working person. We provide warmth, and we do not ask for much in return.
You will not hear me claim that all Dutch people are thieves or that all writers do things with women that no respectable person would ever do, but I sincerely hope that you will take action against this thief, this fraud, this man, who presents a danger to individuals and to society, and who has no morality when it comes to decency.

Your humble servant,

Danuta Kalinowska

P.S. If you decide to visit our salon on Friday evening, would you please be quiet on the stairs? A modest contribution to the costs of heating would be extremely welcome.

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Note: this short story was written for citybooks, translation by Sam Garrett