A Treatise on Shelling Beans

12

You know, I wonder whether he just didn’t mention it, or whether his father hadn’t told him, that when he ran up to the door there was a pig standing in front of it. It had clambered out of the pig shed when the sheds began to burn. The sheds were a little off to one side, I could partly see them through the crack in the door. It walked slowly, it was old. Usually you don’t hold on to pigs as old as that, but this was an uncommon pig. It so was fat it could barely support itself on its short little legs. You could barely see its feet under its flabby sides. You had the impression it was moving along on its sides alone. It headed straight for the potato cellar where I was and started grunting, rubbing its snout against the door. Probably it could smell me. Plus, I was the one it was most attached to. Wheezing and snorting, it plopped down right by the door. He kicked it, and it struggled to its feet. Then, after he slammed the door shut and shouted to someone that there was no one there, out of rage he let loose with a burst of shots at it. He kept firing, though it was dead already. Till his last bullet. Flesh spattered everywhere. How do I know it was his last shot? He had to switch out the magazine.

You can’t imagine what that pig was like. Right from when she was little we called her Zuzia. And from when she was little she wasn’t like a pig. I don’t know if you know it, but pigs are the most intelligent creatures. Even when she was still suckling she stood out from all the other piglets. Whenever you came into the shed she’d just up and stand in front of you with her snout in the air, wanting to be picked up. She was most comfortable around people. We’d often bring her into the house so she could be with us. She knew each of us: father, grandfather, grandmother, Uncle Jan, he was still alive when she was little, Jagoda, Leonka, and me. Me, she’d always nudge on the leg with her little snout. She never confused me with anyone else. It was easy to see she liked me best of all. She went everywhere with me. Many times I didn’t know how to get rid of her. I’d go graze the cows on the pasture, and here she’d be following behind. I’d be going to school, I’d look behind me and there she was. I’d have to turn back and lock her up in the pig shed. I’d often be late for school because of her. The teacher would ask why I was tardy, but I couldn’t say it was because of a pig. So I’d get a D for behavior that day. I got so many Ds because of Zuzia that by the end of the year I was bottom of the class in behavior.

My mother would send me to the store for something. I’d go into the store, try and close the door behind me, and Zuzia would be blocking the doorway. The store lady would shout at me, what did I think I was doing bringing a pig into the store. Get out! How do you like that! That boy! People would be laughing, and I’d get all embarrassed. Often I’d not buy what I was sent for. And no threats or pleas did any good. Go home Zuzia, go on, go now. Go home, because this or that or the other. While Zuzia, she’d just raise that little snout of hers and look at you kind of reproachfully. Or when I went mushroom picking, there was no way to explain to her that she couldn’t pick mushrooms herself. She didn’t know mushrooms, and besides, what would happen if, God forbid, she should get lost in the woods? You had to pick her up and carry her back to the pig shed.

Though that at least was doable till she got too heavy. After she’d grown some there was no way she could be carried. You’re not going to pick up a pig that weighs, say, over a hundred pounds, and she was getting heavier by the week. When you locked her in the shed she always found a way of getting out. When you took food in to her she’d slip past your legs and be out in the farmyard. Plus, from spring to fall the sheds were left open during the day so the animals could have some fresh air, especially when the weather was hot. She spent entire days roaming around the yard.

You’d close a gate behind you when you were going somewhere, but still she’d appear. She didn’t need to go through the gate, there was always a hole in the fence somewhere or other. She made the holes herself. Father would fill them in, and she’d just make another one right away. Though of course, did you ever see a fence without holes? That’s just how it is with fences.

One time mother was certain that father had plugged all the holes. She was on her way to May devotions at church. She closed the gate behind her and latched it. May devotions were usually held at a roadside shrine that had been made in a hollow oak tree near the woods. People said it was the oldest oak around, that it remembered everyone who had ever lived in those parts. It didn’t die because it contained the shrine, any other oak tree of that age would have fallen down long ago. There was a host of women gathered around the tree, it was mostly women that took part in May devotions. They sang and sang. All at once my mother feels something wriggling about by her skirt, she looks down. It’s Zuzia. She had to pick her up, and the rest of the service she sang with Zuzia in her arms. Zuzia was still little then.

There was a guy from town that was courting the neighbors’ daughter. Actually, I repainted her nameplate just recently. He’d always come on Sundays and they’d go for a walk together in the afternoon. He had a camera, and when they went walking he’d always have the camera around his neck. Of course, back then cameras weren’t as common as they are today. A young man with a camera, well, no young man that only had land could measure up to him.

One Sunday Zuzia had been following me and I was carrying her back to put her in the shed, when the two of them happened to be walking by. The neighbors’ daughter burst out laughing, and the guy asked me to stop a moment. Everyone came out of our house, because the neighbors’ daughter was in such fits of laughter. So he lined everybody up in front of the house, he had mother hold Zuzia in her arms and he took a picture of the whole family like that. One Sunday soon afterwards he brought us the photograph. We were all there, father, grandfather, grandmother, Jagoda, Leonka, me, Uncle Jan, and in front was mother with Zuzia in her arms like a baby.

Perhaps he’d wanted to make a humorous picture. But it was the only photograph with all of us in it. No, I don’t have it anymore, but I remember it well. Though I have to say that whenever I think of it, I don’t find it remotely funny that there’s a pig in it. I’m even kind of grateful to Zuzia. Because it was thanks to her that we had our only family photo. So what if it’s only in my memory? While everyone thinks a pig like that is just for fattening up and slaughtering. Really, how are we so different from her? Are we smarter? Better? Not to mention that animals have just as much right to the world, since they’re in it. The world belongs to them too. Noah didn’t take just humans into his ark. And have you noticed that in their old age animals start to resemble old people? While they’re young and humans are young the similarities might not be so easy to see. But in old age they become just as decrepit as people. They get sick just the same, and from the same illnesses. And maybe the reason they don’t speak and don’t complain is that words wouldn’t bring them any relief anyway, just as words don’t bring relief to humans even though they can speak and complain. And if you ask me, they’re afraid of death just like humans are. How do I know?

Pardon me for asking, but how old are you? It’s hard to tell from looking at you. I couldn’t say, really I couldn’t. When you came in I thought you must be about my age. Perhaps because you were wearing an overcoat and hat. Whereas now you seem a lot younger. Or maybe older? I really don’t know. Sometimes a person looks like they’re no age at all. Perhaps you’re one of those that time hasn’t touched. Am I right? In other words, I was not mistaken. Well, too bad, it’s coming to all of us sooner or later. Besides, I might have suspected it. The moment you said you’d come to buy beans, I might have suspected it.

Though let me tell you, years don’t matter much either. Do you know how long a pig like that can live? Eight, ten years maximum, provided of course people let her live out the full time. But they don’t. So it must have cost her a huge effort to get herself from the shed to the potato cellar. It wasn’t far, but at her age … She barely ever got up, didn’t eat much at all. I’d take her boiled milk with bran, because from me she’d still accept a little food. Though even I had to plead with her, coax her. Come on, Zuzia, eat, you need to eat, if you don’t eat you’ll die. Only then would she deign to stick her snout in the trough and have a little.

It was hard to see her in her old age. You couldn’t believe that at one time you’d carried her back home. Everyone would be saying her name. Zuzia. Zuzia, Zuzunia. The day virtually began with Zuzia. How’s Zuzia, Zuzia this, Zuzia that. And Zuzia herself would cling to everyone, not to mention following everyone around. At times she was a nuisance, we hoped she’d change when she got a little older. But she grew up and she didn’t change. She just made bigger and bigger holes in the fence. And still, when one of us was going somewhere Zuzia would follow behind. And not just our family, she got so comfortable with people that whenever anyone was walking past our house she’d make her way out onto the road and follow them. At times someone would get all upset and come running to say, Take that wretched Zuzia, that’s how they’d talk about her when they were mad, because they’d be walking along and Zuzia would be right behind. Whoever saw such a spoiled pig. You should slaughter her, it’s high time, actually she’s probably already over-fattened.

But at home, no one said a word about slaughtering Zuzia. Though you couldn’t help but see she’d already grown to her destiny. After that, she even outgrew destiny. And everyone knows what a pig’s destiny is. One time father said something, Christmas was approaching, he said maybe we could slaughter her. At that everyone lowered their eyes, father felt uncomfortable and added:

“Just an idea.”

Grandfather put in:

“There could be a war, it’s best to leave her be.”

And so Zuzia kept growing bigger, and following everyone around. She got heavier and heavier. She wasn’t allowed in the house anymore, so she’d lie down outside the door and just stay there. When someone went out to shoo her away, she’d have a hard time clambering to her feet. One time father got mad and said:

“If we can’t slaughter her, we should at least sell her.”

He went into town and came back with a broker. Brokering was mostly done by the Jews. If you had a pig or a cow, or geese, or just goose down, you’d give it to a broker and he’d find a buyer. He came into the farmyard, and Zuzia happened to be lying outside the house. She picked herself up, went up to him, lifted her snout, and for a moment they just looked at each other. Then she lay down at his feet. And get this, the broker, who surely had no interest in pigs aside from their meat and their back fat, scratched his head and said:

“You brought me here to see a pig, but I can’t say if she’s a pig or not. What she is, I can’t tell. She might look like a pig, but I really couldn’t say. Oy, I don’t know.”

He wouldn’t even feel her to check how her back fat and hams were. And you should know that that’s what any broker would start from. Before they gave a price they’d always feel the animal for a long time, and they’d always grumble:

“It’s got no more back fat than the width of my finger here. And as for the hams, you can see yourselves that my finger goes in like I won’t say in what. It’s not at all firm. What have you been feeding it? Starving it, more like. What kind of price is a butcher going to give for a starved pig? Not a penny more. And if he won’t give any more, there won’t be anything in it for me either. I’m not interested in making big money, I just want my cut.”

But this broker wouldn’t even feel her.

“She’s not meant to be turned into back fat or ham. She’s lying here at my feet, for goodness’ sake. Maybe she thinks badly of me, what then?”

It seemed like this was just his way of starting negotiations at the lowest price. Father kept asking him, swearing she was no different from any other pig, she ate the same things, and how long was she going to go following people about, she was too big for that. In the end the man had no choice but to start checking her over. The main thing is to feel for the thickness of the back fat. See, like here on my thigh. You have to spread your hand and feel with each finger separately, then make a final check with your thumb. A good broker can tell you precisely whether the pig has two, two and a half, three fingers. And in the same way, how firm the hams are.

“She has back fat, hams. Everything’s fine there,” he said. “But she wants to live. And you all should pray she keeps wanting to for as long as possible. It may be some kind of sign, but to know that you’d need a rebbe. I’m just a broker.”

Let me tell you, to this day I can’t understand it. What had Zuzia ever done to him? He emptied his whole magazine into her. You don’t think the father told his son about that? Why wouldn’t he? I don’t know either, though I can guess. But I had no intention of asking him the next time we met. In fact, we didn’t meet a second time. Or ever again. I often used to go by the cafe, even at the same time we’d run into each other that day. I’d at least look in on my way to a morning rehearsal. Sometimes I’d sit down, order a coffee, have some cake. I’d ask the waitress when it was the same one who’d served us that time. She knew him, you recall she’d smiled at him a different way than a waitress usually smiles. She remembered us meeting, she vaguely remembered me, but him she remembered well. She’d never mistake him for anyone else, she told me, but he hadn’t come back once since then.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that photograph he’d mentioned, and I would have asked him about it. I kept wondering where the point could have been that the picture was taken from. It still bothers me today sometimes. True, I’ve never seen the picture. But you can think about it even without the picture. Let’s say someone took a picture of us as we’re shelling beans. We’re sitting here opposite each other like we are now, but in the picture we’re both shown full face. Your face seems to be looking at the photographer, and mine also, but at the same time we’re facing one another. The distance between him and me was no more than between me and you right now. I could see the muzzle of his gun like I can see your eyes now. So where could that point have been? Where do you think it could have been — here? Where could the photographer have been standing? There was very little space, no more than in this room. And here there’s no war, the dogs are asleep, and we’re sitting here talking and shelling beans. It ought to be a lot easier, don’t you think?

Shall we go outside maybe? It’s nighttime, but I could turn on the light in front of the cabin. I’d show you where it was. The cellar’s caved in, it’s overgrown with nettles and scrub. The door’s gone, it rotted away, but the door frame is still there, it’s made of oak and oak lasts. I might be able to squeeze through it, but if not we can still make believe. I could kneel down and you could stand in front of me. You’d just need to take some kind of stick. Well, you have to be taking aim at me with something. The way children play at guns. You say it’s not something we should be imagining, even if we were children. Then who should imagine it? I mean, no one’s going to take our place. No one can live for someone else, and no one’s capable of imagining things on behalf of another person. No method should be rejected if it might lead us to ourselves. Maybe if we were in the place where it happened it’d be easier to find the point where we’d be closest. You wouldn’t have to look for me all over the world. You wouldn’t have to come to me for beans. We wouldn’t have to wonder where and when. All the more so because as you see, we’re gradually getting to the end of the beans. Though there’s still a pod down by your foot. There’s another one over there, and one there. And another one right here, you see it? If you root around you’re bound to find more.

Maybe you’d like more beans? I’ve set some aside for myself, but I could bring two or three more bundles. You came by car, a little more won’t make any difference. Surely you won’t be leaving just yet. Why go driving at night? If I were you I’d wait till morning. We can have some tea or coffee later. Are you in a rush? The next time you come I might not be here any longer. If you hadn’t come by for beans I don’t know if you’d even have found me this time. Why not? Can a person ever be certain where and when he is in the world? You say, he’s always here and now. Except that that doesn’t mean anything. You might say that these days there are no boundaries, that what it’s like here is what it’s like everywhere. If you ask me, every world is past, every person is past, because there’s only past time. Now, here, those are only words, each of them immaterial, like all the words we were speaking about. Now I couldn’t even tell you what world this is. Or whether it exists at all. Perhaps we only imagine it exists. For you that probably makes no difference, because since you came to me for beans …

Perhaps you could buy a cabin here? What for? Oh, I don’t know. I just thought you might be looking for a place. You wouldn’t have to come every weekend. I’d even advise against it. Or spend all of your vacations here. One or two visits a year would be quite enough. And best of all at these kinds of time, in the off-season. I’d mind your place like I do all the others. You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.

A few of the cabins are up for sale. Twenty-two, thirty-one, and I think forty-six or forty-seven, I don’t recall. There may well be others, I’d have to check. Oh yes, a lot of people have sold their cabins since I’ve been here. Recently there’s not been much interest in buying. Once in a while someone comes through, takes a good long look around, and doesn’t know if he wants to buy or if he’s just looking. To begin with people would often drop by, they’d leave their address and phone number with me in case anyone happened to be selling a cabin. No one’s building any new ones anymore either. Though it’s a decent place, as you can see — there’s the lake, the woods, the air’s good.

The animals around here have gotten so tame that the deer sometimes come right up to the cabins. Not for food. Food they have in the woods, everything they need. The squirrels hop about on the decks and peek into the cabins. It’s another matter that the people here spoil them rotten. They bring them bagfuls of nuts. More than the squirrels could ever eat, or bury in the ground. You walk along and at every step there are nuts crunching under your feet. I was even thinking of adding to the signs, saying, Do not feed the squirrels. Because so what if they eat from people’s hands during the season? The season doesn’t last forever. Sometimes a wild boar comes through here. Sometimes you see a hare scooting between the cabins. You can see weasels, martens. Often you’re more likely to see them here than in the woods.

One time a moose appeared. And it didn’t just stop for a moment on the bank. It walked right between the cabins, stopped here, stopped there. People started shouting, there was a bit of a panic. Some people took shelter in their cabins, others jumped into boats and canoes or hopped into the water, someone nearly drowned because they didn’t know how to swim. Someone fainted — luckily some of the cabin owners are doctors. The moose went down to the lake, had a drink, bellowed, and calmly went its way. Even a moose sometimes has a yen to be among people.

Or if you were to get up before sunrise, when the birds wake up. If you got to breathe that fresh early morning air, you’d feel your lungs opening up, and what good air really is. In other places people are quite unaware they’re breathing, or of what they’re breathing. If you thought too much about it, you could lose the will to breathe altogether. I already told you about the mushrooms, the blueberries, wild strawberries, cranberries. But best of all is just to go into the woods and not pick anything, not think anything. When it’s just you and the woods.

I don’t even like to take the dogs. They get distracted by every rustle and off they rush. Then try calling them back, Rex! Paws! One time they chased a deer. I kept calling them, looking for them. In the woods the trees deaden your voice. In the end I got ticked off and came back alone, without them. They didn’t come back home till the evening. Their muzzles were covered in blood. So now I had a deer on my conscience. Have you ever seen a deer’s eyes when it’s dying? Like in a snare or a trap, for instance. You’ll never see such terror in any other eyes.

Let me tell you, when crowds of people start arriving here in high season, I sometimes have the feeling that I live in a different world from them. I won’t deny it, their world is pleasant, cheerful, maybe even happy, I can’t say, but I don’t think I’d be capable of living in it. You’re convinced that I actually do live in it? But how can I be sure of that? I mean, even with the sun, everyone has to have their own, their own sunrises and sunsets. I lived abroad for all those years, but wherever I was living, whenever I wanted to have a sunrise or sunset I always had to have it according to the sunrises and sunsets here. That was always the measure of any sunrise or sunset. The only measure, wherever I was.

It’s another matter that especially in the big cities you can live your whole life and not see a sunrise or a sunset. How does the day begin? It just gets light. Then when night falls, a million lights are lit. It’s not really night at all. They just call it that. True, here too I no longer know where the sun used to come up or where it went down. It doesn’t rise in the same place, or set in the same place it used to. I get up with it, but I’m never sure, it didn’t used to rise in that place. That’s why I don’t know how you found me, since I can never seem to find myself. Admittedly, finding yourself is no easy task. Who knows if it isn’t the hardest of all the tasks people face in the world.

No, Mr. Robert’s cabin isn’t for sale, I already mentioned that. At least not until Mr. Robert tells me so. If I were you, I’d go for number thirty-one. There aren’t many cabins as nice as thirty-one. It has a fireplace, electric heating, double-glazed windows, insulated walls, you can even live there in the winter. Two bathrooms, one upstairs and one down, both tiled, with boilers. And it’s all in oak. Carpeted floors. There used to be antlers, but fortunately the guy took them with him.

I’d advise against antlers. You couldn’t live with them. The walls were covered in antlers. Wherever you turned there were antlers. In the main rooms, the kitchen, the bathrooms. Over the front door there was the head of a wild boar with tusks this big. Not one single wall was empty. Whenever I went over there to check everything was in order I had to be careful not to get jabbed by an antler, because some of the bigger ones stuck out all the way into the middle of the room. I’m telling you, every now and then I’d sit down in an armchair, because sometimes I like to sit awhile in one or other of the cabins, he had these nice big leather armchairs, but something made me want to leave right away. He built the cabin as a place to keep the antlers. Apparently his wife had made him remove them from their apartment because there was no more room to put anything else up. No, she never came here. Whereas him, he’d be here every Saturday and Sunday. He didn’t go sunbathing or swimming, he rarely even went on a walk, he’d just sit for days on end in his cabin. He often came in the winter too. And the strangest thing of all, imagine this, was that he didn’t hunt. Those weren’t hunting trophies. He did have a shotgun. Though what he needed it for I couldn’t say. How can you enter someone’s soul through antlers?

Then all at once, I couldn’t tell you what had happened, one day he arrived in a truck with two hired guys, took the antlers away, and put the cabin up for sale. Some people said he’d found a good buyer for the antlers, others that he’d thrown them on the trash heap. The truth may have been something else again, though I can’t imagine what.

You should think about it. He’s not asking much. A cabin like that is worth twice the price. What would you do here? Well, what do I do? Especially if you were to come here once or twice a year, in the off-season. I could even plant more beans. If we didn’t feel like shelling beans we could go for a walk in the woods. We could listen to music, I brought a lot of records. No, I don’t play chess. You like to play? I somehow never learned. I had no patience for it. When I lived abroad I sometimes used to play bridge, but for bridge you need four people. When I worked on building sites, when we weren’t drinking vodka, once in a blue moon we’d play cards. We’d play one thousand, durak, sixty-six, also blackjack or poker.

Before that, at school we’d play the matchbox game. Do you know it? You’ve never even heard of it? It’s very simple. You take a matchbox, it has to be full, and you put it on the edge of the table, lying flat, so it sticks out over the edge, though not too far or it’ll fall off. Then you flip it up with your index finger. You get points depending on how it lands on the table. The most number of points is when it lands upright, in other words on the smallest side, where you take out the matches. We’d always say that was worth ten points, though you can agree on a different score. Five points for the scratchboard, on either side. You know what the scratchboard is? Where you strike the match. And no points if it landed on its big side.

Oh, the game wasn’t as innocent as you imagine. There are no innocent games. Everything depends not on what you’re playing, but what you’re playing for. We played innocently when our homeroom teacher would come by. At those times we didn’t even write down the points. He collected matchboxes and almost every evening he came to see if we’d used up all the matches from yesterday’s box. Later I’ll tell you why he collected them. Sometimes he’d just sit there endlessly. There were times when we’d have to pretend we were getting ready for bed, otherwise he’d have stayed forever. One of us would start unbuttoning his shirt, another untied his shoes, someone else turned his bed down. Then when he finally went, probably thinking we were all about to get into our beds, we’d check the hallway one more time to make sure he’d left the building, and only then would we start to play for real.

Not for money. We didn’t have any money. Sometimes those who knew how to remove a wallet from a pocket had a bit. Not for cigarettes. We smoked cherry leaves, clover, other disgusting things. The game was about not coming last. You’re surprised the stakes were so low. Then let me say this: what was remarkable was that the stakes were so high. There was only one loser, however many of us were playing, and it was the one who got the lowest score. He then became the victim of all the other players. We could do whatever we liked with him, and he had to do what he was told to do. In other words, the game wasn’t about winning, like all other games, where that’s the whole point. The point of this game, as I said, was not to come in last. What it meant to be last, well, the best indication was that some of them would burst into tears. Some people would try to run away, but there was no way you could get away when there were so many winners. Other losers would try and buy off the rest with all sorts of promises. But no one could be bought. Some of them even reached for their knives. But that didn’t help much either. When there are too many winners, tears and knives are useless. Just one time, one kid managed to escape. But he also never came back to the school ever. He’d had a feeling he was going to come out last and before the game was over he jumped through the window, which was closed, he smashed the pane with his head as if he was leaping into a pool of water.

But I have to say that we always played fair. None of the players kept track of the score. One boy was chosen as scorekeeper, and he got a pencil and a sheet of paper and no one was allowed to look at it. You can imagine the excitement once the game finished. Not who had won, but who was last.

There was one kid once who came last, he took it calmly but he said that first he had to go to the latrine. If we didn’t trust him, we could go with him. We went. The latrine was in a corner of the parade ground, a little ways behind the barracks. I don’t know if you know what a latrine like that looks like. It’s a pit about as deep as the height of a person, maybe a bit more. I don’t remember them ever emptying it, so it could have been deeper. It was about as wide as from you to the wall, and long enough for a dozen or more people to sit at the same time. There were two horizontal poles, you sat on the lower one and leaned your back against the other one. They were thick things, and they were propped up by struts so they wouldn’t break. Around the latrine there was a solid high enclosure made of planking. I could stand on tiptoe and reach up my hand and still not be able to touch the top. Of course, I was a lot smaller then. There was a roof raised a foot and a half or so above the walls, to allow for ventilation. Though when it rained, it was hard to find a place on the pole where the rain didn’t come in. And when it was really pouring, you could do your business on the fly, as they say, but you still got soaked.

The latrine was the only place you could go to talk, complain, curse, confide in each other, tell your woes, or every often even cry. Everywhere else, whenever a few people gathered together, however quietly they talked or even, God forbid, whispered, immediately someone would squeal. Whispers were the most suspicious of all. And they’d get hauled in right away.

“So what are these secrets of yours? We don’t have any secrets here. Secrets are a selfish relic of old ways. And school isn’t just about teaching you a trade, but how to behave as well. Out with it.”

And you’d have to make something up on the spot. It goes without saying there were informers among us. But how could we tell who it was? I mean, they didn’t exactly have “snitch” stamped on their foreheads. Even if you suspected one or another kid, he could still have been innocent. Whereas in your wildest dreams you’d never imagine it could be the guy who slept in the bunk above you or below you. He even hid under the blanket when he crossed himself.

Of course, you had to be careful in the latrine as well. Everyone would drop their pants whether they needed to go or not, and we’d all sit on the pole, while one guy would keep guard outside, his fly undone like he’d just finished. You should remember that back then flies were button-up, and fastening three or four buttons took longer than the zippers you have today. If someone we didn’t trust came along, the kid outside would tip us off by whistling or coughing, then he’d start to button himself up. So when the person came into the latrine he wouldn’t see anything wrong, because we’d all just be sitting there on the pole grunting away, often more than we needed to.

So anyway, the loser of the game said he had to use the latrine. We went with him. He unbuttoned his pants, sat down on the pole, there was no way anyone could have known it was just a trick. All of a sudden he slid off the pole and began to drop down into the pit. He didn’t shout out for us to save him, because he had no intention of drowning. He just wanted to dunk himself in so he’d stink. He was quite right in thinking no one would want to come near anyone who stank like that, and none of the winners would order him to do anything. Even after he washed. After something like that getting rid of the smell is easier said than done, even if you take a bath every day. Plus he was fully dressed, wearing his boots. It would take the longest time for the smell to go away.

But he hadn’t realized how deep the pit was. He was in up to his chest already, and his feet still hadn’t touched the bottom. At that moment he began asking us, begging us, to save him, afterwards he’d do anything we wanted. What would we have him do? Whatever anyone of that age and at that school could come up with. I won’t even tell you what. Another boy and I broke one of the support struts with the idea of handing it to him. The older ones wouldn’t let us. Hold on a minute! Stop! Let it come up to his neck first! Then his chin. Let him eat the stuff, the little bastard. They were even making fun of him. You thought you could save yourself in shit. In the end he sank down to his forehead and we had to drag him out by the hair. That was what the game was like.

Supposedly it was just flipping a matchbox to see if it would land upright, scratchboard, or flat. And whoever came last, well, you might say it was a part of themselves that they lost. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t experience being last. That may have been why the limits of losing became blurred. When one of the older boys lost, us younger ones were no better. We’d make him do things that I don’t even want to think about.

Then why did we play? Well, who starts playing a game with the idea that he’s going to lose? Plus, in our game only one person lost, the one who came last. In any other game one person wins and everyone else loses. In this one, everyone wins except a single person. Tell me yourself, can you think of a more easy-going game? Or simpler? Exactly. Upright, scratchboard, flat.

Maybe we could take a little break from shelling, I could show you? I should have matches here somewhere. Here we are, the box is full even. You know, I actually sometimes play by myself. I take a box of matches, it has to be full, forty-eight matches, at least that’s how many there used to be in a box back then, I sit down right here at the table, and I flip the box. Upright, scratchboard, flat. I don’t keep score, what for? I’m not playing for anything. What could I play for, especially against myself? Unless you’d like to play for something. Then please say. At our age we can hardly play for the things we played for at school. Oh, I don’t know. You’re the guest here, you choose. I’m fine with anything.

Yes, the box is full. I don’t use matches. I buy them sometimes just so I can play. I have lighters. Besides, it’s all electric here. I am an electrician, after all. The stove is electric too. Come sit at the table. Maybe you sit over there, I’ll be here. Or would you prefer the other way around? See, this is how you place the box, it shouldn’t be sticking out from the tabletop any more or it’ll fall off. And you flip it up like this, with this finger, though you have to bend it a little.

Please, you go first. Look at that, your first time and you get it upright. That would have been ten points according to the way we played in school. My turn now. See, mine landed on the flat side. I’m not as nimble with my fingers as I used to be. Once the rheumatism gets hold of you it won’t let go. Though it’s much better now than it used to be, like I told you. It doesn’t hurt much at all when I’m shelling beans. The finger that I’m flipping the matchbox up with, you see how crooked it is? No, it’ll never go back to the way it was. I’d need an operation. At this point it’s not worth it. Your turn. Upright again. How about that! I see it’s sucked you in. And you were wondering why we kept playing. Every game pulls a person in, otherwise no one would play it. There, I got the flat side again. Maybe you’ll want to keep score after all. Even when you don’t play for anything, it can turn out that in fact you were playing for something, you just didn’t know what it was. Especially after you’ve won. You’ll remember? OK. I didn’t want you to be mad at me later that you won and yet we weren’t playing for anything. Upright again! You must have played before. I don’t believe you. I can tell, if only from the way you flip the box up. It makes a half turn in the air, but it always lands upright. You just won’t fess up.

There was this one kid in school, I remember that almost every time he got it upright. No one would play with him. You knew right from the start that he’d never come last. You must admit there’s no way you can play with someone like that. You have to have equal amounts of hope and fear even in something like the matchbox game.

You wouldn’t want to have been in a school like that? I understand. It’s just that it didn’t depend on whether you wanted to be there or not. Your turn. Upright again. Now me. And again, there you go. At school I was far from being the worst. Quite the opposite. It was another matter that I’d practice almost every evening I stayed behind in the rec room. I’d often take a break from practicing the sax or some other instrument and flip the matchbox at least a bit. Yes, I spent time in the rec room almost every evening. Mostly late when no one else was there. Though sometimes the music teacher would come by. I never minded that he was drunk. He’d sit down and I knew he was listening to me play. Again you got it upright. You should drop everything and just play the matchbox game. If you played for money you could make a fortune.

How did I end up in that school? You remember how the sister died, I told you about that. Soon afterwards I fell ill. I had a high fever, they gave me some pills, I sweated, but the moment the fever dropped it would come back again. I got all pale and skinny. I could pull myself out of bed, but I didn’t have the strength to walk. The unit, though, had to move from the lake because they were beginning to be encircled. They took turns at carrying me, handing me from one to another for a time. We walked all night and all day, with short breaks. That is, I was carried. By evening they were out of the woods, they were planning to go into another woods, then all of a sudden they noticed a forester’s cottage. They waited till it got completely dark. A light came on in one window. Two of them went to check. It turned out that the only person in the place was the forester’s wife. They took me to her and left me in her care. She wrung her hands over me and said:

“Mother of God, if I’d only known you were so sick. Your forehead is burning up, you’re all on fire. But don’t die on me, I only just buried my man.”

Feverish as I was, she bathed me in a tub, lamenting all the while:

“You’re so skinny! Mother of God, skin and bone. Well, I’ll just have to fatten you up, but get out of the tub now.”

After that she cupped me. Then she rubbed me from head to foot with something that stung.

“Goodness, those cups left such dark marks. So dark,” she kept repeating as she worked the stuff into my skin. “I’ve never seen such dark marks. I’d leech you, but I don’t have any leeches.” She gave me something to drink. I remember it was awfully bitter. “Drink up, it’ll do you good.” Then she wrapped me in an eiderdown.

Apparently I slept three nights and two days. She roused me now and then just to give me more of the bitter drink. I finally woke up completely devoid of strength, I couldn’t even bring my hand out from under the eiderdown. But the fever was gone.

“I killed a chicken for you,” she said, as if she was welcoming me into the world, “so you can have some broth. After a sickness like that, broth is the best thing.” But she wouldn’t allow me out of bed. “You just lie there, you need to stay put awhile. I’m not going to let you get up just yet.” She fed me in bed, putting one spoonful after another into my mouth. A little broth, some noodles, a tiny piece of meat. “Come on, have some more, just a bit. One more spoonful at least. You have to put on some weight, otherwise you won’t get your strength back. You’re so skinny, mother of God but you’re skinny.”

She pulled the eiderdown back and looked at me. I was too weak even to be embarrassed. She was still young, as I remember her today. I just thought she was on the plump side. She might have been good-looking, I don’t remember. Her face was rather bland, her eyes were sad but kind. She had black hair, she used to let it down when she brushed it and it would cover her up completely. Her breasts were so full they’d sometimes spill over the top of her nightgown when she was getting out of bed.

She had no children, and the forester had died not long before. The Germans had been hunting partisans, it was sunrise, and he had run out of the cottage to chase off some wild boars that were rooting around in the potato patch. They thought someone was trying to escape from the place and there were shots. She ran out after him and found him lying dead right outside the cottage, at the edge of the field. She often wept for him. She’d be peeling potatoes or making dough for noodles and suddenly she’d burst into tears. I’d comfort her as best I could:

“Don’t cry, ma’am. Maybe he’s in heaven now and he can see you crying.”

“How did you get so wise?” And she’d stop. “Will you have something to eat? I’ll go see if the chickens have laid, I could make you some scrambled eggs. You need to eat. And dinner won’t be for a long while.” She’d keep telling me I was putting on weight before her eyes. “You know, you look better already. Much better, thank the Lord. Do you want something to eat?” That was the constant refrain: “At least have a slice of bread and butter. Maybe with some cheese? The butter’s homemade, the cheese too.”

She had two cows. I’d already gotten my strength back and I’d graze the cows on the pasture by the woods. Often it wouldn’t yet be sundown and she’d come bring me either a slice of bread and butter with cheese, or two or three hard-boiled eggs.

“It’s still aways to dinner. You must be hungry. Have this …” Sometimes she’d sit with me awhile. She’d watch me eating and keep saying: “Eat, eat. You’ve filled out even since yesterday.”

One time we were already in our beds, her in hers and me in mine, when I heard her crying. Very quietly, but ever since I was little my hearing has been good, I thought she was maybe having a bad dream. I raised my head and listened intently. I could hear she was weeping.

“Are you crying, ma’am?” I asked. “Why?”

“It’s nothing. There’s no point telling you. It’d be different if you were older. Go back to sleep.”

Winter came. She was still plying me with food, and as for me, I was helping with everything, whether she asked me to or not. She’d often say God had sent me to her, because how could she have managed on her own after he was gone. Meaning the forester. His hat lay on the dresser in the main room. It was sort of green, with a narrow brim, there was a cord twisted around it and tied in a figure-of-eight at the side. I might not have paid any attention to it, but one time she took it from the dresser, cleaned it with a brush, and hung it on a nail over their wedding photograph.

“It should go here,” she said. “Don’t ever touch it. It’s a sacred thing.”

As you know, though, sacred things are more tempting even than sin. One day she left to go to the store in the village. I took down the hat and studied the wedding photo. She wasn’t much older than in the picture. The forester just looked like a forester. I thought to myself, he’s dead, she’s at the store, who’s going to see if I try on the hat? So I did.

There was also one room that she kept locked up. She put the key behind a picture of Our Lady with the Infant Christ. But since she locked the room, that meant she didn’t want me to go in there. And I didn’t. But once she left the key in the door and didn’t turn it. I felt an itch, and I peeked in. All I could see was a bulging bed covered with a patterned bedspread. Next to the bed was a cradle and a large wall mirror. I knew about the mirror. Whenever she washed her hair she’d tell me to do this or that, keep an eye on something, while she was brushing her hair in front of the mirror. And she’d go into that room, lock herself in and brush her hair for the longest time.

I looked into the mirror and let me tell you, in that first moment I had a fright when I realized it was me. It was like I was seeing myself for the first time. Like it was only now I was able to see that I existed. At home I never looked in the mirror, who looks at themselves at that age? When I was leaving for school in the morning, mother would always check me over, come here and I’ll comb your hair, because otherwise I wouldn’t even touch it. I couldn’t tear myself away from that mirror, I couldn’t believe it was me. Maybe because I was wearing the forester’s hat, which fell down over my ears. Or maybe because I’d always imagined I was a lot older than the unexpected reflection in the mirror. A ruddy, chubby, well-fed face. I ran my hand over my cheek and I couldn’t even feel a slight fuzz, but the boy in the mirror also ran his hand over his cheek, and I had the impression that he could already feel a fuzz. I stood and stood there, still unsure whether I should believe it was me. Especially because I didn’t like the way I looked. The only thing I liked was the forester’s hat. It even occurred to me to wonder, what if I were a forester?

I didn’t notice that in the meantime the forester’s wife had come back and was fuming. She burst into the room asking how I’d found the key. Snatching the hat off my head, she started saying that she was feeding me, looking after me, and here I was so ungrateful, so ungrateful, so this, that, and the other, going on till she made herself breathless. I’d never seen her like that before, gasping, her breasts heaving. Finally she sat down, exhausted, and cooled off a little.

“See what you’ve gone and done. I was thinking now that the war’s over … But now …”

I didn’t understand what she meant, but at least I learned that the war was already over.

Sometimes, especially when rain was in the air, you could hear a train rumbling and whistling a long long way off. Or if you put your ear to the ground, the rumbling sound would pass through it like electricity. Once I asked her:

“Where’s that train?”

“Over there.” She pointed.

“But where’s the station?”

“It’s that way. But it’s a long way away.”

Winter passed, spring, summer came along. One day I told her I was going to the woods to look for wild strawberries, and set off to find the station. I just went, with no particular intention in mind, just to see if maybe a train would come along. As I remember it today, I must have walked a good few miles. It was only a small station, but there were quite a lot of people waiting. I asked a railwayman when the train was due.

“Which direction?” he asked.

“It makes no difference.”

“What do you mean, it makes no difference? Don’t know you which direction you’re headed in? Well anyway, if you don’t know, one will be along any minute now.”

And in fact a train arrived soon after. It was bursting with passengers, there were even people sitting on the roofs of the cars. The ones who were waiting, it didn’t look like there’d be room for them. Especially because they all had suitcases, trunks, baskets, all kinds of bags and bundles. The ones already in the train pulled them in, while others pushed from the platform. I forgot to mention that the moment the train came to a halt, from the front and back two boys about my age jumped out. They were carrying baskets and as they ran along the platform one of them called:

“Pears! Apples! Plums!” While the other one shouted: “Tomatoes! Cucumbers! Kohlrabi!”

Hands reached out to them from the train windows, people bought from them. The train started to move off, but they ran down the platform and kept selling. At the last minute they hopped onto the step, just barely grabbing hold of the handrail. The train gathered speed and disappeared, and I felt kind of strange that I’d been left behind. I felt as if I’d been abandoned by the train and all the people in it. The railwayman I’d spoken to seemed surprised:

“Why didn’t you get on, if it makes no difference to you which direction you take?” He laughed.

He went into the station building, while I took my time going back. I walked slowly, bothered by various thoughts, and when I got close to the forester’s cottage I decided I’d run away from the forester’s wife. She started scolding me for having been gone so long, and see, you didn’t even pick any wild strawberries. And that in general I used to be more willing to do things, though I’d been much skinnier then and didn’t have the strength I had now.

I took a basket of hers and a pint-sized tin mug to have something to measure with when I was selling wild strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, or other such things. And in the morning, before she woke up I crept out of bed and ran away.

I began riding the train like the boys I’d seen. I sold whatever I could pick in the woods or steal from people’s orchards and fields. To begin with at any rate, because later, once I’d set some money aside, I bought things from the farmers. Sometimes they’d take pity on me and sell me produce for next to nothing, sometimes they’d even give me things for free. Then I’d sell the stuff either by the piece or by the mugful. If it was by the mugful, the person would need to have a small bag or at least a sheet of newspaper. I slept at the stations. Most of the time, though, I was riding. I’d hop from one train to another at the passing places, then just keep going, and do that the whole time. I got to know other boys who rode the trains like me, selling this or that. They taught me a lot, what was most profitable, what not so much, what was most popular and at what times. What sold best in different trains, morning trains and evening trains, there really was a big difference. In slow trains and expresses. Takings were lousiest in express trains. The express only ran once a day. Or for instance what people tended to buy in crowded trains versus less crowded ones, in second class versus third class. Back then second class was like first class today, and third class was like our second class. When you can charge more, when people won’t pay as much. Sales were best when the train was packed. Except that making your way through a crowded train presented quite a challenge. Often the conductors couldn’t even be bothered to check anyone’s tickets. But at that age I was half the size I am now, and nimble. When I got better at it, I sold lemonade too. That was when I did the best business. Plus of course it never went bad.

One time I was going through a second-class car, second class usually wasn’t as full, I called out:

“Lemonade! Lemonade! Pears! Pears! Apples! Apples!”

An old man beckoned me:

“I’ll take one pear. But I want a good ripe one. How much do you charge for a pear?”

He paid me three times the price. He wouldn’t take any change. He asked me to sit by him a moment. He started asking questions about where I was from, where I lived, whether my parents were still alive. I didn’t say anything, because what was I supposed to tell him? Plus I was afraid he’d slap me with a fine, as naturally I didn’t have a ticket.

“Would you like to go to school?” he asked.

I didn’t say anything to that either, because I didn’t know if I wanted to or not.

“You could learn a trade,” he said. “You can’t spend the rest of your life riding the train. What are you going to sell in winter, for instance? There are no fruits. Lemonade? Most trains aren’t heated, who’s going to want to drink lemonade?”

Let me tell you, he scared me with that winter. I didn’t know people weren’t thirsty in trains in the winter. He surprised me even more by saying that these days, after the war there were a lot of children like me. The train stopped at some station and without asking me anymore if I wanted to or not, he said:

“We’re getting out.”

I got out with him. There were dorozhkas outside the station. We went up to one of them. The driver evidently knew him, because he was pleased to see him:

“Oh, it’s you, counselor. Greetings, greetings. Haven’t seen you in a long time.” Then he asked: “The usual place?”

We rode for quite a long time, till we pulled up in front of a building with bars on the first floor windows. There he handed me over to someone. They took me, and the first thing they did was shave my head down to the skin. Then they gave me soap and a towel and took me to a shower, and told me to give myself a thorough scrubbing. They gave me clothes and boots. I remember the boots were way too big for me. I’d left my own boots at the forester’s cottage, I hadn’t wanted to wake the forester’s wife as I was leaving. I’d been going around barefoot, though summer was almost over. They took my picture from the front, from one side then the other. Then they brought me to a cafeteria. A few boys were already eating there. There was bread and jam and black ersatz coffee, I remember I didn’t like the food despite being hungry. Then a uniformed guard led us all to a cell. The window was barred, there was a bucket in the corner and a few iron bunk beds. He said:

“You’ll be more comfortable here than at your own mother’s. Go to sleep.” And he bolted the door from the outside.

No one slept though. The moment we turned off the light we began to get bitten by bedbugs. Ever been bitten by a bedbug? I wouldn’t wish it on you. They bit all night long. There were hordes of them. We crushed them, but new ones kept popping up. It was my first time dealing with bedbugs. Believe me, fleas are nothing next to bedbugs. Our bodies were covered in welts, and they itched so bad you wanted to tear your skin off. We scratched ourselves till we bled. And the more we scratched, the worse it itched. It was like that night after night. We complained to the guard who locked us in at night, and all he said was:

“You need to sleep better.”

It was only after several days that a van came for us. Not the usual kind of truck. This one had a metal hatch with barred windows, and another guy in uniform bolted the door after we got in. He sat next to the driver and he kept glancing through the barred window from the cab to see what we were up to. What could we be up to? We were being jolted up and down, that was it. The road was all potholes, so we spent more time driving in zigzags than going straight, and we kept getting thrown against the sides. The whole way I was wondering to myself what I’d actually done to deserve this. Was it because I’d run away from the forester’s wife? Or that I was selling things in trains? That I didn’t have a ticket? Anyway, this was how I found myself at the school.

Oh — we didn’t decide how many turns we’d take. Whatever you like. At school we’d always agree to take a certain number of turns. It depended on how many of us were playing. Also on whether it was early or late we got started playing. And that would depend on when the teacher went away. But I was going to tell you why he collected matchboxes. You’ll never guess. Look at the box we’re playing with. What do you see? Right, here are the scratchboards, this is where you take the matches out from one side or the other, and here’s the label. This one happens to say: Feed the Hungry Children. Some charity. Back then there were different ones. They’d change from time to time. When you’d used up all the matches, you’d go buy more or take some from someone else’s pocket, and there’d be a new label. The previous one had said: Brush Your Teeth, while the new one said: Long Live May 1, or: Power to the Youth of the World, or: The Whole Nation is Rebuilding our Capital. If you didn’t know what times you were living in, you could have figured it out from those labels. These days I don’t know what they change from or to. Like I said, I hardly ever use matches, it’s all electric here. I don’t smoke either. But if you ask me, you could figure out any time on the basis of those labels. And it’s been possible ever since there have been matches.

That’s exactly what our teacher thought too. He had them make him a plywood display board in the shop. How big? Well, not to exaggerate, a little smaller than a classroom chalkboard. On it he would pin matchboxes in little rows. There was still a lot of free space, and so every evening he’d come and remind us to give him our matchboxes when they were empty. For each civics lesson we’d bring the display board to class. There’d be two or three of us carrying it, it was pretty heavy, and he’d follow behind and shout:

“Careful! Careful!”

The boxes mustn’t have been attached very firmly, because every now and then one of them would fall off on the way. When that happened he’d get so mad, he’d call the boys who were carrying the board all sorts of names, say they were oafs, morons, good-for-nothings. And he’d educate us using the board, matchbox by matchbox. He probably thought that since we were constantly playing that game, we’d find it easier to learn in such a way.

He’d call you to the board, point with his stick at one box or another and ask you what you could see on it. But what you saw wasn’t all, because after that it would be, Say more. Saying more was much harder. Even when one of us managed to say more, he’d still keep at him. All right, go a little deeper, think about how that should be properly understood. If anyone happened to understand something improperly, he’d fly into a rage, he’d shout about how we spent all our evenings playing matchboxes, even after he left us, we thought he didn’t know but he knew everything. He knew what kind of game it was. And what we played for.

You know, it really wasn’t such a stupid idea at all, if you think about it. Tell me yourself, how can you educate someone so they’re in no doubt about what times they’re living in? All a person cares about is the fact that they live from birth to death. But who needs someone who only lives from birth to death. Often it seems to them that even that’s too much. Plus, if they could pick what time they could live in, probably not that many people would choose their own. Living in your own times is the hardest thing of all, you have to admit. It’d be a lot easier in some earlier or later time, anything but your own. So educating someone is no simple matter. And you never know what might turn out to be the best method. Then why would matchboxes be any worse?

All right, it’s your turn.