The Health Inspectress
‘Really, darling, you mean to tell me this is a four-star gastronomic establishment? Good heavens! This was supposed to be a model restaurant, but what do I see? Squalor heaped upon squalor!’
Flora Trattoria tells me about the time this queen from Health and Safety walked into her workplace. Or charged into it, rather. With her assistant, a young, terrified lass. With her morning fluster, all aflutter, all up in her coffee. She charges in, asks for an apron and a blue plastic cap, then heads backstage, into the kitchen.
‘What is that?’ She pokes her finger into a saucepan. ‘You use that for cooking meat? Oh oh! And look at this, mister,’ she was addressing Flora, ‘do I see food residue here…? Oh, no… We’ll have to take a swab of it. Małgosia! Get a sample.’ And now the apron isn’t enough for her. Now she’s repulsed by everything. Now she really does wish she were wearing a gasmask, even though everyone knows that Flora’s restaurant is one of the best in town, even written up in the paper…
‘And just what do you keep in this receptacle?’ She opens a plastic box with breadcrumbs in it. Flora is so upset that she gets confused and says:
‘Flour.’
‘Flour? Flour? But these are breadcrumbs! Oh wonderful. Tell me, were these crumbs used in food production today?’
‘Yes, they’re fresh. I made them fresh this morning and just put them away a moment ago…’ To which the inspectress replies tartly:
‘No, sir. That is no longer of any substance whatsoever.’ And whoosh! She pours the breadcrumbs into a plastic bag and says the bag has to be labelled, for analysis.
Now she was rummaging in the cabinet.
‘What kind of containers are these? Where’s your permit? Your business licence?’ Flora starts nervously turning over the chops. The inspectress:
‘You go from handling money to touching food with the same hands? No, no, no! That is simply not allowed, that will not be tolerated!’
And now the Health Inspectress dips her entire snout into the glassed-lidded freezer and holds it there, examining the sandwiches. She mutters to herself:
‘These sandwiches are delivered. And these are delivered. And these delivered. Expiry date. Plastic. Bacterial flora…’ Flora can’t take any more, she doesn’t know if she should be laughing or crying. ‘And what are these raw vegetables doing here? Don’t you know that raw vegetables are not permitted…?’
‘That steam dishwasher is broken? Either way, you have no business using metal cutlery, only plastic!’
Flora clutches her head. Christ, Christina! Plastic cutlery in my restaurant, the best in the city? Oh, if homo were ever wolf to homo, this is it!
For all that, Flora did a wonderful imitation of her. She screwed up her lips, rolled her eyes. The Health Inspectress was already in her forties, and overweight, and looked like she belonged behind the counter in a chemist’s shop. And she had a voice straight out of a judge’s chambers or government office. She went over to the sink:
‘Umm… Do I see squalor here? Is that squalor? What in heaven’s name is going on here?’ She says to her assistant:
‘Write this down, Małgosia: “Carrot residue found in basin for sanitation of utensils.” And in brackets add: “Sample taken.”’ Now she was running her finger along the tile floor.
‘You mean to tell me no one has ever slipped on this? Honestly. And to think I’ve been singing your praises! This floor is completely slick with grease!’
Flora Trattoria rolls her eyes so that only the whites show, and wrings her hands.
Then the Health Inspectress sees something in the corner of the room. Flora performs a complete pantomime for us: ‘O. My. God! Omigod! What is that! Ugh! Małgosia! Write this down: “Organic residue in advanced state of decomposition”!’ The bitch spotted a cherry stone, and that’s what all the fuss was about, Flora explains. For her, anything organic was automatically rotten meat, a corpse. From a distance she grimaced theatrically, ostentatiously picked up the cherry stone with a plastic freezer bag so she wouldn’t get infected with SARS, and with her other hand she pinched her nose and fanned the air, the whore. But a week later, of course, she walked in and was all like:
‘And here, Mr Director…’ – arm in arm, as if they were going on a stroll – ‘is the model restaurant I’ve been wanting to show you. Oh, here, look, something new: a steam steriliser for dishes, state-of-the-art, and here are the work stations, ergonomically designed… As for the rest, Mr Florian here will tell you whatever else you want to know in just a moment. But afterwards’ – she lowers her voice – ‘you absolutely must try the pastries. The cherry tart is the speciality of the house…’
Cherry tart, indeed.
The Pissoiress of Central Station
… had it in for the queens.
‘Bloody hell! How many more times are you going to come in here today to relieve yourself! This is the twentieth time!’
‘Well, it’s not like I’m not paying for it, ma’am…’
Under communism, and later, too, she would sit sullenly in the vestibule of the conveniences, at her desk, in a purple apron that went down past her knees, tousled, sipping cold tea from a jar, slurping it, and ‘sitting’. Sitting was actually a way of life. One of them would ring up the other:
‘What are you doing?’
‘Eh, I’m sitting…’
Or:
‘You won’t find me changing trains three times, I take the fast train. It may be ten zlotys more, but all I have to do is get on board, and me and my arse get to Lubiewo in no time. I can rest my arse, all comfy, and my backside gets to travel in the height of luxury…’
The Pissoiress had a Sacred Heart of Jesus and some kind of Virgin Mary hung up on the window at work. From her cubbyhole she was able to see the pissoirs at the back of the conveniences, but because they were on the same side as she was she couldn’t see the cubicles. Another customer would walk in, and she’d say:
‘OK, I need the two zlotys in advance. Paper’s on the right! No, the urinals are not free. Yes, use of the sinks is included. What? If you’re using a cubicle, take toilet paper with you, there on the right. Exactly.’ Slurp. ‘What? It’s occupied? What do you mean it’s occupied?’ Here she made the face titled If I Don’t Get Up They’re Helpless Without Me. She let out a heavy sigh, set down her tea, stood up and walked around to the cubicle, pounded with her fist, and in a booming voice:
‘You must come out of this cubicle at once! Hello! What is going on in there?’
Banging.
‘Hello!!!’
More banging.
‘Can you believe that! Hello! What on earth are you doing in there?! Excuse me, but you must come out of the cubicle at once! At once!!! Józek!’ – she had an assistant by that name – ‘Józek, get me the spare key, let’s see what’s going on in there. Occupying a cubicle for ten minutes!’
And more banging.
Meanwhile, this whole mystery arose from the fact that while there were three cubicles, one of them had the obligatory Out of Order sign on it, so only two were available. And the walls between them had ten-inch gaps underneath. So the more nimble queens would officially enter separate cubicles, but then slide beneath them (on that wet, urine-slick floor) to get their rocks off. Afterwards they had to return to their cubicles the same way.
‘What? Sneaking back into the other cubicle on me?! Oh heavens, it’s them pervies again! Go back where you belong or I’ll call the police! Back to your cubicles! Józek! We’ve got another slip-through on our hands! We’ll have another wedgie in a moment! ’Cause I’m going to clean this floor, and once I get that mop in my hands I’ll have you up against the wall!’
Once when Anna was there the Pissoiress grabbed that dirty mop full of shit and bam! lobbed it into the cubicle, right on top of the queens’ heads. Just like in the zoo.
Another time there was this queen trying to slip under the cubicle, and she got stuck under it and couldn’t budge in either direction. And she
’d forgotten to lock the door. So the Pissoiress went to clean the floor in there, and opened the door, and – well, did she ever go after that queen with her mop and rag!
But usually she just sits there at her desk and says the same thing over and over, a performance piece on a loop:
‘Cubicle? Two zlotys, paid in advance, paper on the right.’
‘Two zlotys? Why so dear?’
‘Because you can wash your hands too, see?’
‘Cubicle two zlotys, paid in advance, paper on the right, see?’
‘…’
‘Because you can wash your hands too.’
‘…’
‘What do you mean they’re all taken? Where’s my handle?’
‘…’
‘Hello! Gentlemen! Time to get off the pot!’
Banging on all the cubicle doors.
‘There’s a gentleman here waiting! Here, sir, go and use my private cubicle.’ And with some secret key and handle she opens the door of the ‘out of order’ cubicle.
‘Hello! The picnic’s over! Wait a minute, where’s that smoke coming from? Attention! Attention! You are kindly requested not to smoke in the toilets!’
‘What do you need? A cubicle? Two zlotys, paid in advance, paper on the right.’
‘…’
‘You can wash your hands!’
‘OK, gentlemen, shake a leg, or I’ll have to get my handle out! Please don’t fall asleep on me. No sleeping! Are you coming out now?’ Bang bang bang. ‘Hello! Anyone sleeping in there? All finished? Right then, get yourself wiped up, just a quick wipe then! My God, are they all junkies in there?!’
‘Good morning! Toilet paper? Please pay in advance, you’ll find the paper on the right…’
‘You coming out now, sir?’
‘Hold on, what is this? Hold on! Fancy leaving a mess like that, where’s my screwdriver and my plunger! Excuse me, sir? Mind leaving a little something else too? Not an ounce of decency left in these people! Where’s my plumber’s helper? Fouling the place up like that!’
‘Nothing free at the moment’.
‘Oh, please! Two at once in a cubicle! Artists! Here, there’s a free one over here!’
*
Once – this was back in the sixties – a black man paid a visit, but not for the same reason as us. And since the Pissoiress had never seen a real live black person before, she rubbed her eyes and stared at him. So the queens – Frigid Mariola and Uterina – played a trick on her. After the black man finished using the urinal, they poured black ink into it, then ran to the Pissoiress to complain:
‘Ooh! Ooh! Look at the mess he made!’ The Pissoiress, enraged, grabbed a rag and began thrashing the black man with it:
‘Ooh! Ooh! Devil’s spawn!’ And she thrashed him with her wet rag. ‘It’s not enough for this demon to be black, but his water’s black, too! Now go and clean it up, or I’ll report you to the authorities!’ And she hit him with that rag, and the horrified man hadn’t the faintest idea what she was saying…
The Storm
‘Distant thunder capers – the sky in curling papers’
– Miron Białoszewski
Today, Paula, you’re telling a story. Even if you don’t want to. Yesterday it was my turn, and I’m not wearing out my jaws just for your entertainment. Not on your life, Paula. No fussing; your turn today. There’s a storm brewing; the clouds are coming in from Świnoujście. But go on, talk; we’ll get there.
Paula purses her lips. OK, so I’ll tell you something. I heard it from this one queen, old, educated. From Kraków, rattling on about sucking off the Waweł Dragon, no idea whether it’s true or not… I met her on her way to the Dominican Centre, on her way to Albert’s cause they were having a sale and she’s poor. She tells me how she saw this famous authoress on the picket line back in the seventies. She walked with a cane, bald. Guess who it was (laughter). Yes, exactly, that’s who. Oh, go on, Paula! She was just passing through, there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a new school or something, and that authoress told the queen, and the queen told Paula, how it used to be – not during communism, but before that, under feudalism, during the interwar years, and back before that. How it would have been for us back then. Better than with any foreign culture as a matter of fact. No one can tell me that this is the golden age of faggotry, because it isn’t. In fact it’s never been worse. What good has emancipation done me? What good are all the magazines and billboards dripping with homoeroticism? When I get harassed for the slightest thing? What good are gay bars, feathers up my arse, when I have no interest at all in doing it with other queens, only grunt; and just show me grunt in a gay bar now (other than the bouncers). Back then you would have had grunt galore underfoot. Literally and figuratively. You could have got them to do anything you wanted! Nowadays when you’re hunting for grunt, nine times out of ten you get a smack in the teeth, and only once in ten get a cock in your mouth. Right?
Come, let’s make ourselves comfy and smoke a Wiarus, and I’ll tell you the whole thing, how it would have been for us. There’s this play by Janusz Głowacki, Cinders, where girls in a reform school tell each other stories in bed, identifying themselves with the characters. We can do the same. So let’s say we come from the middling or high nobility. Rich landowners. And we’re both around thirty. And let’s say…
‘Baroque!’ I interrupt her pleadingly, the way those girls from Cinders each introduced her own story into the round. ‘Baroque. The Countess left the house at half past nine. And under our wigs we have little boxes with elaborately carved little holes in them. Those are our flea traps. Each one contains a wad of cotton wool impregnated with honey or blood (menstrual of course; none of us cares for pricking our fingers), and all the fleas, from every corner of the gown and wig, are drawn into the trap. (Once when Madame de Pomme de Terre got pubic lice – and who for heaven’s sake didn’t – she fixed herself one of those baroque traps and even put a jar of honey in it; but all for nothing: lice aren’t fleas after all, and they had no use for honey.) And you know what else we have in those grey wigs of ours, Paula? I’ll bet you can’t guess. Little nosegays of violets and lilies of the valley. And to keep them from wilting, we insert them into miniature vases of water hidden in our tresses! And we wear crinolines so that during banquets we can sit on our elaborately sculpted chamberpots and evacuate. That’s what Arthurina told me, that’s why crinolines were invented in the first place. And if you got into someone’s bad books, she might put a live toad in your chamberpot before the banquet, or a rat. And they invented beauty marks to cover their spots. Our entire wardrobes are positively teeming with little nooks and crannies and secret passageways, like Gothic castles, and the folds of our frocks are inhabited with lovers, or letters, or bottles of poison, or some tiny, carefully sculpted objet or other. A rococo trap for mosquitoes! And there we sit at the banquet on our chamberpots, our corsets cinched tight so everything we eat passes right through. We sit there, feeling the lice in our wigs making a beeline for the honey or blood in that miniature golden trap. And when I’m bored, I powder my bosom and shoulders with my special powderpuff…’
‘Fine then, it’s baroque!’ Paula wraps a shawl around her shoulders, giving herself a décolletage. She’s crazy about the crinolines, the girandoles, the bustles. ‘It’s Sunday, and we’re riding in a linijka with a farmhand… No, wait! You live in your manor around six versts away from me in mine. And I’m making my rounds of a Sunday, and my steward or whoever is explaining to me in that linijka the numbers for rye and for wheat, and I’m holding my hand to my temple, all framed in lace, because I have a headache.’
‘So wait, are we women or are we lads?’
‘Lads, lads. Biologically we’re boys. But we can play at being otherwise. In any case, we’re big old baroque queens. Just imagine!’
‘OK.’
Thunder commences beyond the fences, it’s going to pour with rain at any moment; let’s go, Paula, you can continue your story on our way back to the centre… Take
our blanket, shake the sand out of it, take your shoes in your hand and let’s go, let’s get out of here, because half an hour from now lightning bolts will be crashing down all over the place. All over this accursed place, as if sin still existed, except that no one will get hit. The water those queens are standing in, stationary, rings rippling out from them like from ducks, that water will heave. And howl. But we’ll be sitting pretty with our sultan’s cream and candy floss, our cartons of oranżada, our Wiaruses. For a lark we’ll feast on a piece of cake, and later promise ourselves that never, ever again will we eat so much! Let’s go, Paula, let’s get in the carriage and get the fuck out of here.’
‘Anyway, there he was explaining to me, that ploughman, what grew where, and I was bored to tears, had to lean on something, kept yawning. Finally I say to him, “Be a dear, Janek, and drive me back to the mews, my head is positively killing me today.”’
‘And there I was, waiting for you, all in tight-fitting black attire, with a jockey’s cap and a riding crop…’
‘Uh, right, a baroque jockey cap… Anyway, so you’re there waiting. And then: we pick out a couple of stablehands…’
‘But I think I’d rather have an ordinary farmhand…’
‘OK, so we pick one stableboy and one farmhand, and we say to them:
‘“Off to the pond with you. Go and have a bath in the claypit, then hotfoot it back here to the palace, fresh as two altar boys!”
‘And they take their caps from their heads and say:
‘“But sire! We already bathed at Eastertide…”
‘“No matter, dear Maciej, dear Łukasz: off to the swimming hole with you.”
‘Then, in the meantime, the first thing we do is give ourselves a fashionable enema.’
‘Can enemas be fashionable?’
‘They can if they’re sculpted… Emblazoned with laurel-leaf ornamentation… I mean, we’re not talking bulbs and syringes here, like in the nineteenth century, but those sculpted enemas where the water runs through a tube like an IV-drip right up your arse. Back then an enema was the best cure for all manner of ailments, though it was useful for other reasons, too. For five hours, five litres of water, wine, and a medley of herbs would trickle into us, and later we’d dump it all out and be clean as a whistle. Then we sit down and… It’s clear we have no idea what to do with ourselves, our nostrils fluttering, bosoms heaving, nothing left but to powder our titties! To powder ourselves, to powder our titties! Gawd, we’ll powder ourselves till we crumble into little bits! We’ll powder our wigs till the fleas asphyxiate! And look how we perfume ourselves! But let me tell you, Paula: they didn’t have atomisers back then. Instead, we took those heavy, dusky perfumes into our mouths, and the same way people mist their linens when they iron, we misted each other by spitting, spraying! Until you’d say: don’t you get that in my eyes, you cunt! My mascara will run! And we’d twirl about in those crinolines of ours, twirl left and right until the whole thing keeled off. And we’d festoon ourselves with diamond collars and earrings, we’d stick sapphire-studded pins into our wigs, we’d adorn our fingers with rings, all of them! Beating each other black and blue over who got the biggest. And being the old queens that we are, decrepit, with withered scrags and double chins, we’d wear imitation necks made of plastic or whatever it was they made those imitation necks out of. That’s right, imitation necks; didn’t you ever read The Coming Spring, where those two aunties, Wiktoria and the other one, go off to the ball in Nawłoć wearing imitation necks, to enchant the world with their beauty one last time? And they’d wear artificial décolletages made of silicone… or, umm, they didn’t have silicone back then, so they must have been made out of some other fake something or other, and on their necks they wore satin ribbons to cover the line where all that rubbish ended! That’s right. Rich old bags decked out in tat, hands spotted with liverworts, dripping with diamonds… And the lads would be off bathing. And in the end I’d be sitting there on my throne, waiting for them. What’s keeping them so long at the pond? Have they drowned?’
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