There’s no one around. Everything is sparkling clean. The entire building. And the smell is strange, chemical, not like it used to be. Because in the past, at dawn, it seemed to smell of dew, and at lunchtime – of lunches behind doors. Here chicken soup, there borscht, somewhere else something fried. I move further inside, my heels bang on the steps, my fist against the banister. Nothing… I can see for myself… So perhaps I’m actually not banging. Perhaps I’m just bumping around noiselessly – from banister to wall, from door to door. Perhaps that silence, hanging like a cloud in the very centre of the house absorbs everything, so they can’t hear me. Perhaps something’s happened. I hurry up and whack the door at number two and then the one on the first floor, and then on the second and shout:

‘Mr Konrad! Mrs Halinka!’

I shout like that because they always used to come out when the postman was there. Of course. He’s getting on, his bag’s heavy. He often even said it got heavier from year to year, although people have stopped writing to each other. And even if it was a bit lighter, who could climb stairs like that? Old people can’t and youngsters really can’t either, because they’re weak these days. They rush around with flyers and they’ve had enough after one day. Here it’s not about a day or a week, but life, because you don’t become a postman for a month – it’s for life. Am I really saying these things.

So they used to come out at once; sometimes you didn’t even have to call. Banging the front door was enough, or the heavy sound of steps, the jangling of keys. There was no doorbell. If necessary, you knocked and called:

‘Mr Artur! Pension!’

I had a strong voice, but not now. After the illness it’s just a croak. But there’s no point complaining either. I mean, I was lucky. There were no secondaries and I’m just about alive. And Mr Artur at number three would come out in his dressing gown, put on his glasses and count the money.

‘Bugger them, they can go to hell!’

He would take a step forward, rest on the banister, count it again, even though he knew precisely how much there was. Stand with legs slightly apart, focussed. He’d even count it a few times, because it wasn’t the money he was adding up, but his own life.

‘Thieves, bastards, red brigade! Come here, all of you! I’ll show you equality and fraternity! How about you try and live on twelve hundred złoty! And keep telling yourselves that after thirty years of farting behind your desk that’s all you’re worth! One thousand two hundred and twelve złoty and fifty-five grosze. Come and get it. I won’t miss the notes or the coins! I’ll give it all away and watch. After thirty years of hard graft we’ll see what you can afford! Because it has to cover everything! Water, gas, electricity, rent and medicine, food and prostitutes!’

While he was still talking, they quickly took their receipts and the money and hid them away, because it was nothing to boast about. When he got to the prostitutes, it meant he’d was almost done. Everybody knew it wasn’t about the Social Insurance Institution, but Mrs Halinka. And that he did it deliberately. And she really was immediately scandalised, made a face and began to fan herself with the envelope as though someone had farted near her. She was heading back to her flat, but couldn’t quite go in. She was almost inside but still had to say something in her clear voice, a voice like a tinkling stream:

‘I don’t think… I don’t think Mr Artur has washed yet today!’

Excerpt translated by David French