RELATIONS
(for Tony Frazer)
When I went back to our house in Poland for the first time in ages, I found it was occupied by all kinds of people I had never seen before, but who claimed to be related to my Polish wife. They were talking about how they were going to sell the house. It seemed that they had forgotten the house belonged to my wife and me.
I had come mainly to pick up the translation I had done of Pierre Reverdy’s Le Voleur de Talan. It took me a while to find it amongst all the things that were now strewn around the house. I decided to leave as soon as I could on the night train from Warsaw to Paris to deliver it to Reverdy’s editor there.
His office was closed when I arrived the next morning. I went into a bar next door and ordered a coffee. The waitress shrugged when I asked her if she knew why the office was closed. I hoped her demeanour would become a little more deferential when I showed her my manuscript, but her attention was now turned to a crowd of people coming through the swinging doors – my wife’s family from Poland. They must have followed me all the way to Paris, perhaps with the intention of seeing what financial gain could be made, or perhaps out of a sense of sheer gossipy interest in my life, which they would never understand.
(for Tony Frazer)
When I went back to our house in Poland for the first time in ages, I found it was occupied by all kinds of people I had never seen before, but who claimed to be related to my Polish wife. They were talking about how they were going to sell the house. It seemed that they had forgotten the house belonged to my wife and me.
I had come mainly to pick up the translation I had done of Pierre Reverdy’s Le Voleur de Talan. It took me a while to find it amongst all the things that were now strewn around the house. I decided to leave as soon as I could on the night train from Warsaw to Paris to deliver it to Reverdy’s editor there.
His office was closed when I arrived the next morning. I went into a bar next door and ordered a coffee. The waitress shrugged when I asked her if she knew why the office was closed. I hoped her demeanour would become a little more deferential when I showed her my manuscript, but her attention was now turned to a crowd of people coming through the swinging doors – my wife’s family from Poland. They must have followed me all the way to Paris, perhaps with the intention of seeing what financial gain could be made, or perhaps out of a sense of sheer gossipy interest in my life, which they would never understand.