excerpt from

THE SEVENTH ARTICLE

The borders of Kampa were closed on the 7th of August; the public library was shut later the same month, and demolished in November. I now know this was inevitable. 

The Jerzy Lymanowic Cosmopolitan Public Library, the third-largest library in the country, named after the author for whom Kampa’s reputation as a hub of modern literature could be solely accredited to, had been built some sixty years ago in the district of Galevrice - nine miles from the city centre. Like the library, my house was far from central Kampa, yet still within the borders of its far-reaching suburban outskirts. My house at that time was an unassuming two-storey townhouse on a row of unassuming two-storey townhouses, which had been built at the end of the previous century as part of the new Kampan housing development. I had made it an occasion that every week, at midday, I would make my way to the library. It was a glorious walk. Past endless brick rowhouses, by the cemeteries on the hills, whose rain-worn tombstones stood diagonally, through the market square of Galevrice which seemed at once bustling and nearly empty, and then, several minutes later, I’d be met with the the library’s coldly modernist yet extremely welcoming exterior. It was one of the buildings in our capital that I admired most - it was vast and carefully organised, it was a building that was handsome enough, but not so that it rivalled the beauty of the books it held. 

I took the tram there once I had learned the news.