June 2026

It is May when I next find myself again in Dr K’s office in Saska Kępa, the same four flights of stairs, the same plants, Piłsudski still on his horse and Vicky in the chair by the window. I do not. For a moment I…

It occurs to him late. Annoyingly so. Perhaps because all important things occur late. The book had never really been about him. The point had always been elsewhere. Three boys. Not symbolic ones. With trainers and arguments and strange food preferences and opinions about things…

“Denouewot?” the Boy starts. “The end. Fin,” the Man explains. “Tying up the loose strings. Miss Marple.” There are too many endings. Too many fins. This becomes the problem. Not that the book lacks conclusion, but that it possesses them in industrial quantities, stacked like…

They are back in the room at the top of 17 Grange Road. The same low ceiling. The same English cold that creeps up on you. The same ancient leaky windows and tired radiators. The Boy becomes immediately excited. He liked this room. The Man…

The revelation, if such a grand word can survive grainy underground coffee in a bakery chain called Putka, happened at Świętokrzyska station in Warsaw. The Holy Cross. Of course it did. This is Poland, c’mon, keep up! The Man noticed this immediately and was annoyed.…

“You should read your own book sometimes,” says the Boy. The Man now he sits at the kitchen table with the manuscript spread before him. The Boy sits opposite. Not nine years old. Not really. Older than that now. Fifty-eight in fact. Tired. Sad sometimes.…