Moving Parts

And so the narrator possesses a wallet. Anticipating inquisitive questions about where he got his money, who gave it to him and what for, he ought to mention that he is incurring considerable personal expenses — the hotel, for example, is not cheap. And the one who is paying him does not expect services for free. The tips that the former hands out left and right for the tiniest thing in any case come back to him eventually. The narrator could now point to the row of ticket vending machines on the platform, from which the cash drawers are certainly removed from time to time. They end up in the same hands as the check for the commission collected by the real estate agency that took on the sale of the house with the garden; the same hands as the income of the shipping company, and the rich flow of profits from the hotel. Is it not the case that the lion’s share of circulating cash ends up in the pockets of the master of all circumstances, who lies around all day in his crumpled bed-ding, his back turned on the world, and would he not prefer that nothing be said here about what he spends it on? And if someone simply had to know what currency these sums are calculated in, the narrator would explain calmly that it’s the same currency in which he paid a hundred to the insolent wise guy. The banknote came from the envelope left for him at the front desk of the hotel. These were old Polish zlotys, withdrawn in the nineties. And let’s agree right away that only old Polish zlotys are in circulation, absolutely everywhere — in the German towns where the Feuchtmeiers live, in the Balkans, even in the ports of the Far East. Various denominations, always in muted pink, pale blue, and green. The homeless denizens of the station platform do not have direct access to Polish banknotes, and so they have no need whatsoever of wallets. They may not even have any documents at all. If they bear last names, it is to their credit that they keep them to themselves so as not to worsen the confusion in the story. It’s not out of the question that they, too, consider themselves narrators. The all-knowing hobo with the earring — he definitely does, and perhaps also the decrepit old professor in the dressing gown. Who would not want to be a narrator? Who wouldn’t wish to have a guaranteed income, calculated in zlotys? The leather-clad wise guy, earning a little on the side with his switchblade, would not scorn it either.