A Treatise on Shelling Beans

14

Let me tell you, it was the longest journey of my life. The one to buy the hat, I mean. Counting both going there and coming back. I sometimes have the feeling it’s still going on. Since then I’ve traveled by plane, ship, express train, I even flew in a helicopter once, but it seems to me I never traveled that long. True, it was just a regular slow train. I don’t know if you know what it meant to travel in those kinds of trains back then. Not only did it pull in at every station, every little halt, even places where there wasn’t so much as a shelter to mark the fact that it was a stop. On top of that it would often be held up by the signals, or come to a standstill for no apparent reason at some random spot. Often it hadn’t even had time to get up to full speed and already it was stopping again.

How many miles was it? Probably not all that many. Besides, it all depends how you measure it. I measured it by the hat I’d gone to buy. I left at dawn, and the previous evening we’d been drinking till late, because I had to buy myself into the good graces of the guys at the new job, the people I was working with, and especially the master craftsmen and the overseers. I was tired and I was hoping I’d get some sleep in the train. But I kept thinking about the hat, wondering if I’d find the kind I wanted, and I didn’t sleep a wink. So I was counting on getting some shut-eye on the return journey.

The man in the shop advised me to go to the smaller station where the train originated, that way I’d be sure to have a seat. I managed to find a compartment all to myself. I curled up in the corner by the window, putting the hat on the shelf over my head. I began to feel drowsy right away. I don’t know if I actually fell asleep. I was overwhelmed by everything I’d heard from the man in the shop. I was puzzled most of all as to why, when he handed me the screw that I hadn’t even dropped, like I told you, he asked out of the blue:

“Do you play an instrument?”

“No,” I said.

“Then you won’t understand this. Me, when I was young I learned the cello a bit. Later I opened my own shop and my hats took up all my time. It was only after my wife passed away that I went back to playing. Today I couldn’t make it through the day if I didn’t have the hope of picking up my cello when I come home in the evening. It’s not exactly playing, I just mess around a bit. Ah, the cello,” he sighed. “It can resonate with the tenderest strings inside you. It’s as if what’s deepest, most mysterious, is concealed in the sounds. Every evening, so long as nothing gets in the way, of course. Though there’s nothing left to get in my way anymore, so to speak. It’s like I live only for those evenings. I come here, sit, supposedly selling hats, but every so often I take out my watch and count how many hours I still have to go till evening.” He actually took a big “turnip” pocket watch on a chain from the pocket of his vest. Remember, they used to call pocket watches turnip watches. “Still a long, long time to go,” he said in a disappointed voice. “At home, wintertime is worst of all. With every breath you puff out a cloud of steam. Because the coal rations they give you are pathetic. But I’m not complaining. I put on woolen gloves with the tips cut off, I wrap my legs in a blanket, put a woolen balaclava on, though you’re not supposed to wear anything on your head indoors. Over the balaclava I put a hat, and I play. I try not to miss a single evening. I couldn’t forgive myself. When words are no use, thoughts are no use, and the imagination won’t imagine anything anymore, all that’s left is music. All that’s left is music in this world, in this life.”

So I half-slept, in between my lack of sleep from the night of drinking and his question about whether I played an instrument. It was no kind of sleep, as you can imagine. The moment your eyes close, you wake up again.

After ten or fifteen minutes of this semi-sleep the train pulled into the main station where it officially started its journey. A crowd of people rushed to climb on board, and as I’m sure you know, in those days each compartment had doors on both sides of the car. At that point sleep was out of the question. Not just sleep. You couldn’t even think anymore. And now I had to watch out for my hat as well. Plus, you know how it is with a person’s thoughts in a train. They break off at the clatter of the wheels. And when the train goes over a switch, any thought you have is torn to shreds. The same happens at the stations, because either you look out the window, or someone asks what station it is. Not to mention people almost always talk in the train.

In the meantime more and more people joined the train, while very few got out. At each station it was like people were only getting on, not off. Getting on, that’s how you can say it today. Back then they jostled and elbowed their way on, all of them at the same time. Plus, they were lugging bundles, bags, suitcases, baskets, packages, sacks, the compartment almost burst its seams. The conductors had to use the door to push people in so the compartment would close. And it was like that at every station. You’d have thought the train wasn’t powerful enough to be carrying all those people and that was why it was barely inching along, stopping all the time, often in the middle of nowhere. And at the stations it stopped forever, so it was getting more and more delayed. At times it had to wait till a train coming from the other direction passed through and freed up the line. I’m telling you, I actually sort of felt sorry for the train for having to carry a burden that seemed beyond its strength.

When I was going in the other direction, on my way to buy the hat, and I was tormented by doubt as to whether I’d get the kind I wanted, a brown felt one — at that time I got mad even when the train stopped at regular stations. Now the hat lay above me on the shelf, and it made no difference to me whether we moved quicker or slower. I felt a little as if I wasn’t going anywhere and I had nowhere to get to. At moments I even forgot I was in a train. I stared out the window at everything passing by, the fields, woods, rivers, hills, valleys, buildings, wagons, horses, cows, people — it all merged into a monotonous grayness, and it was only the telegraph wires rising and falling running alongside the tracks that lent the grayness a rhythm, showing that this was a living world. I felt completely outside of myself. You say it isn’t possible to be outside yourself. But can’t a person slip out of themselves just for a short while? What for? Where would they be at such a time? I can’t say. But maybe you’re right. Especially because you can’t slip out of yourself when your hat is on the shelf over your head.

At one of the stations I shifted the hat to the opposite shelf so I could keep an eye on it. It was a good move. Soon after, the compartment filled up so much that people were standing squashed side by side between the seats. There was hardly any fresh air where I sat in the corner. A big fat woman stood right by me, or rather over me, pressing against me so I had to squeeze myself into my seat. There was no way I could have raised my head to check whether my hat was still there. Whereas I could somehow see through a narrow gap between the passengers to the other side to check it was still in its place.

The train was so packed you’d have thought there was no more room for anyone else. But here at the next station there were more bundles and bags and suitcases and baskets, and so on. And the people that came with them. You might find it hard to understand if you’ve never ridden a train like that. Did the trains stretch and get bigger, or did the people get smaller? Yes, people can become anything, a tiny dot if necessary. I had to use my arms to fend off the newcomers. I couldn’t squeeze any further into the bench. I curled my feet under me as far as they would go, but still folks kept stepping on my toes, often so hard it made me wince. On top of that, all the curses that burst into the train along with the people seemed aimed at me, because I was sitting by one of the doors. And as if out of spite the train mostly stopped so my side of the compartment was next to the platform.

“The hell with all this!” the first person to come in would mutter, looking at me.

Everyone that followed, man or woman, without exception would be saying in my direction:

“Dear God, how can they do this to people! First the war, now this!”

“I thought this train would never arrive! We were waiting and waiting …”

“You have to wait for everything these days, why would trains be any different?”

“Why on earth is it running so late?”

“Did one ever come on time? I take the train almost every day, and I’ve never seen it come in on time yet. I mean, for fuck’s sake!”

“Mind your language. God hears everything. Though it’s like he’s abandoned us too …”

“What’s God got to do with any of this? God isn’t the stationmaster or the dispatcher. It’s those bastards in the red caps with the little paddles.”

And I’d take it all as if it were directed at me, because I didn’t have any problem with the train. My hat was on the shelf, I was in no hurry, what problem could I have? Actually it wasn’t only the ones who’d just joined the train who were cursing, they also stirred up the people who’d gotten on earlier and who seemed to have come to terms with it all.

At one station a small man with a small suitcase who I helped to get on, because he’d been pushing and pushing into the already crammed compartment, suddenly asked me:

“Do you know if there’s a problem?” I shrugged. “Does anyone else know?” No one answered him, so he turned to me again. “You’re the youngest one here, right?”

“Give it a rest,” the huge woman standing over me scolded him. “And keep your head out of my way.”

“Oh, sorry, I do apologize, I was just asking if they’re maybe repairing the tracks near here,” he started to explain. “Or a bridge perhaps.”

“They’re not repairing anything, the train’s moving the whole time.”

“It’s moving but it’s still running late?” He found it hard to believe. “Even during the war the trains —”

“You should ask whoever’s been on it since it first set out,” someone interrupted him. He took this up:

“Has anyone been on the train since the start?”

People began looking around at each other as if they were searching for a guilty party. I said nothing. So they reminded themselves of who had gotten on at which station and who was already in the compartment. That gentleman? That lady? I could have sworn it was her. Or him. It wasn’t you, ma’am? I remember you being here already. You were sitting right where you’re sitting now. No, this gentleman was standing here even earlier. He was here when I got on. That lady over there was here too. Me? The nerve. You were the one who was here then. I was even wondering if you’d offer me your seat. But who gives up their own seat these days, even to a woman. Good lord, what’s happened to people since the war? What’s happened to them?

It was building up to be a scene.

Luckily the train stopped at the next station. Only one new passenger forced his way into the compartment, but he was groaning under the weight of enough luggage for several people. He started by throwing in his bags directly onto the people there, and only then got on himself. He basically pushed all the standing people toward the other side of the compartment, because otherwise there wouldn’t have been room for him. He didn’t swear or curse, he just gave everyone an angry look as if he thought it was their fault the train was running late. The shelves were already piled to the ceiling with people’s luggage, but he started putting his things on top of theirs, flattening the other luggage and moving it around, putting one case on top of another. He was pretty much rearranging the whole compartment. But no one said anything, they didn’t even tell him he shouldn’t put this on top of that. Everyone quieted down, and, it goes without saying, they stopped accusing one another of having been first in the compartment. No one so much as whispered anything to anyone else. Maybe they knew him from the same route. I couldn’t say. I don’t know how he figured out that the package wrapped in paper and tied with string was a hat.

“Whose hat is this?” he asked in a menacing voice.

“Mine,” I let on after a moment.

“Why is it here? You should have it on your side. Your belongings are supposed to be where your seat is.”

He moved the hat to my side of the compartment, putting it up by the ceiling on top of someone’s suitcase. He finally stowed all his things and then told people on the seat to move up, as he had no intention of standing the whole way. It was hard to do, but people squeezed closer without a word. When he finally sat down, he moved from side to side to give himself more room. He squashed the lady to his right and the gentleman to his left, they squashed their neighbors, and still no one said anything. At that moment the train moved off.

“We’re on our way,” he said. “And if we’re on our way, we’ll get where we’re going.” At that he settled more firmly into the bench and spoke again as if to himself:

“I used to have a hat before the war. A brown felt one. Cost a pretty penny. I joined the resistance and it got blown away by machine gun fire. We fired at them, they fired back, and that was the end of the hat.” He cast a somewhat milder look around the compartment, as if he was absolving us of blame for the delayed train.

He rested his head against the back of the seat, closed his eyes, and a moment later his breathing became a little deeper. The train jolted and rattled, clattering over the joints between the rails as if it were going over potholes; it rumbled across switches. So you still couldn’t hear his breathing. His lips were together, and it was only that they seemed to crack open with each outbreath pushing from inside. But I knew what was coming. Every great snoring has exactly that sort of innocent beginning. I was virtually cowering.

As I told you, I’ve loathed snoring ever since I was a child. True, everyone loathes it. But there’s loathing and loathing. You can loathe it because you can’t get to sleep when someone’s snoring. Or let’s say you’re already asleep, then in the middle of the night you’re woken by someone snoring and you can’t get back to sleep till morning. Those are the usual aches and pains of sleeping in the same room as someone else. Husbands and wives put up with it their whole lives, assuming they stay together that is. Though as far as that’s concerned, a change of husband or wife is no solution. You never know who you’ll end up with next. But for me it wasn’t just that I couldn’t get to sleep when someone was snoring. Or that if I woke up, I couldn’t fall back asleep. When someone was snoring, I’d feel like the pain from his whole life was rising into his throat, but he was unable to shout out and say what was hurting him. You might not agree, but if you ask me there are kinds of pain that only reveal themselves in snoring. There are endless kinds of pain in people. In any case, I would feel the other person’s weakness as my own. And with them I’d seem to be choking on that weakness, on my own inability to shout out the pain. As if I couldn’t break out of his sleep, yet at the same time I was fending off my own waking state. You don’t hear your own snoring, of course, so there’s no issue with it. There were times I’d be stifled by someone else’s snoring, to the point where I’d have to get up and go outside for some fresh air.

Even at school some of the other boys snored, though only softly, and it wasn’t many of them. Life was already painful for some of them, but the pain melted away through their whole sleep instead of pushing its way into their throat. Plus, back then we slept much deeper and our sleep could still hold back any kind of pain. Though I’d still sometimes wake up, even if someone was only snoring ever so slightly.

Later on, after I started working and I was mostly living with much older men, snoring became a nightly torment. Honestly, I was afraid of every coming night. We’d be getting ready for bed, but me, instead of starting to feel sleepy I’d be gripped by fear. Of course, I could wake one guy or another if his snoring got really unbearable. But he’d just turn over from his back to his side, or from one side to the other, and a short while later he’d be snoring again. I tried thinking about something, hoping it might stop me from hearing so intently, but I didn’t have a thought in my head. I’d lie there like I was in a torture chamber. Hell could well be like that — not any of the stuff the priests frighten you with, but rather you’re just lying there being tortured by someone else’s snoring. It fills your ears, your lungs, your throat, your powerlessness, so you’re unable to call out a single word. On top of that, it’s as if you yourself were snoring, though it’s not you who’s doing the snoring. That’s how it is — there are times when other people’s pain is worse than your own.

In fact, at times I lived with guys you might call powerhouses of snoring. In waking life a guy like that was tiny, like a little dried-up pear. Anything that weighed a bit, you’d have to pick it up and carry it for him. If a screw got stuck you’d have to unscrew it for him because he didn’t have the strength. But when it came to snoring he was a powerhouse. It felt like the ceiling was about to lift off and the walls were collapsing, that any minute now the whole place would come crashing down around us as we slept. In other men it was like gelatin boiling, and I’d be boiling along with it. Actually, there were lots of different ways they snored. Some moaned, some squeaked, some gurgled, some rumbled, and once in a while there’d be one who would keep exploding like a shell. You’d jerk awake thinking another war was starting.

In the lodgings the men were always older than me, like I said. Sometimes a lot older. They hadn’t slept properly all through the war, they were still filled to bursting with war, so it was hardly surprising. Sometimes, over vodka one of them would tell a story that in itself stopped you from sleeping, and as if that weren’t bad enough, the other guys would be snoring away. I tried plugging my ears with cotton wool or plasticine, or I’d put my head under my pillow instead of on top of it. None of it did much good. The snoring seemed not to be coming in through my ears, it felt as if it was flowing from someone else’s sleep directly into mine. It was like somebody else’s sleep took over the rhythm of my own. What, you didn’t know that sleep has its rhythm? Everyone’s is different. But everybody sleeps to a rhythm, the same way we live to a rhythm. You can’t separate sleep from life. Things’d be a whole lot easier if you could, if life was here and sleep was over there. Life here, sleep there.

Pardon me for asking, but do you snore? You don’t know. You’ve never shared a bed with anyone who could tell you. I’m sorry to bring up such a question, but it’s a normal human thing. A woman would tell you most honestly. Women sleep differently. Not to mention that they can hear in their sleep.

One time I was living with four older guys in the house of this widow; they put me in there as a fifth. The oldest of them could have been more than three times my age, or so I thought at the time. He was gray as a pigeon. True, much younger men went gray during the war. Often, at a meeting of the workforce I’d look around at everyone’s heads and it was like a field of cabbage that had been blighted by frost. Why is it that most often it’s a person’s hair that shows what they’ve lived through? As I look at you, I don’t see a single gray hair. I wonder how you’ve gone through life. You can see what happened with my hair. These days men go bald instead. And that too, there’s no telling why. Even really young guys. Here in the cabins, you wouldn’t believe how many young men are already bald, or balding. And there hasn’t been a war in a long time, hardly anyone remembers the last one.

At the widow’s place all the men had hair, but they were all going gray, and the oldest one was totally gray. And all four of them snored like the blazes, and when the four of them started up at the same time the widow would pound on the wall from her room. Especially when they’d been drinking.

One time I was so set on edge by it that I thought the only thing to do was smother them. But I got up and went outside instead. I sat on the stoop and lit a cigarette. It was summertime, the air was warm, dawn was beginning to break. I was intending to just sit there till it was time to get ready for work. The widow joined me outside. She hadn’t been able to sleep either, even though there was a thick wall with plastering on both sides between her room and ours, not just a thin partition.

“They’re snoring, huh?” she asked. “Yeah, they woke me up too. In the war I’d even sleep through the bombings. But I’m sensitive to snoring. Do you snore?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “No one ever told me.”

“You’re so young, at the most you might make a little bit of noise when you’re dreaming. Give me a cigarette. I don’t smoke, but I feel like one right now.”

“I left them inside.”

“Too bad. On a close night like this I feel like smoking.” She fanned herself with her nightshirt, she’d come out in the nightshirt with a kind of shawl thrown over it.

“You can finish mine if you like, ma’am,” I said. “There’s enough for a few drags. If you don’t mind.”

“Why should I mind?” she retorted. “Women kiss men and they don’t mind that.” She drew on the cigarette and coughed so violently her breasts almost fell out of her nightshirt. “Ugh, these cigarettes are disgusting. How can you smoke them? Don’t they make you sick? You’re not even a full-grown man yet. And you work too much. I see when you go to work and when you come back. Plus, you never get a decent night’s sleep from all their snoring. At your age you need more sleep. Later on you won’t need as much. Today I can see you’re going to go to work tired. And you work with electricity. Just be careful you don’t get a shock. I admit it is pretty convenient with the electricity, but when I turn it on I’m always afraid.”

“There’s no reason to be afraid,” I said.

“I’m sure you’re right,” she said.

I crushed my cigarette butt under my shoe and I was about to get up when she leaned down from where she was standing over me and stroked my hair.

“Come on, you can get some sleep in my bed. There’s no point going back to their room. I don’t snore. As it is you’ll have to get up soon to go to work, but even an hour or two will do you good. My bed’s nice and wide. There was plenty of room with my husbands, when we didn’t feel like it we didn’t even bump into each other. You shouldn’t have to hang around out here till morning. Don’t worry, you won’t be late. I’ll wake you up.”

She took me by the hand and helped me up. Perhaps all those sleepless nights had suddenly overpowered me; in any case, I put up no resistance. While I was smoking I was somehow able to stay awake, but once I’d finished, my eyes started to close of their own accord. Maybe if I’d had another cigarette …

“You can barely keep your eyes open, I see,” she said. “You really are short on sleep. Even an hour or two will help.”

She was quite a lot older than me, though today I’d say she was still young. You know how it is. As you grow older, everyone around you gets younger. All the more so in memory. You often catch yourself thinking that back then someone seemed old, while at the time they were a lot younger than you are now. Or perhaps she seemed much older then because she’d already had two husbands. One of them she kicked out for drinking not long after they got married, the other one died from drink. And she was just thinking about whether to get married a third time. He drank too, but he was a widower like her, he had two small children, and that way she’d at least have children, she said. Because she’d have hated to get pregnant with a drunk, God forbid. Never with a drunk, she told herself. It would have been too much for her to see them born into unhappiness. She’d seen those kinds of kids. With this new husband she’d have a purpose in life, because it’s hard to live with the thought that life comes to an end with you. And whether it’s your own kids or someone else’s, either way you never know what’s going to come of them. Someone else’s child could even be more caring later because you gave him your heart when the heart of his own mother failed. He might turn out to be a good husband, who knew? He only turned to drink when his wife left him with the two children. He didn’t know what to do. A man’s always drawn to vodka. But when he got drunk he’d sometimes come to her and weep at having gotten drunk. And he would beg her, help me, help me. So sometimes she’d weep with him.

He was completely different in his drinking from the other two. The first one, when he drank he slept like a log. And he drank almost every day, so every day she had a log in bed — or rather, every night. The second one, when he came home drunk he’d start by beating her. It was only once he’d beaten her that he’d make a move on her. He liked to make love with a woman like that, with her beaten and crying. Now this third one … Should she marry him or not?

“What do you think?” she asked, when we were already in bed. “Though never mind, you go to sleep. I’m not going to go back to sleep. I don’t want you being late for work because of me. I don’t know what to do, I go over it night after night in my thoughts. I might end up being too old for a fourth husband, if I take this third one. The older a woman is, the worse the guys that come along. The fourth one, I might have to make him take the cure. Or I’d kill him. And make no mistake, at times there’s nothing you can do. True, even among older men you occasionally meet a decent guy that doesn’t drink. But he could take to drink after he’s married, or he’d feel closer and closer to dying, and I’d feel it too. And try dying with a drunk. Suffering for his drinking afterwards. By then it’s too late to be thinking about a new husband. So you see how it is — you marry one person, but afterwards you have to live with a different one.” She sighed so deeply a wave of warmth hit me. “But you should go to sleep. You have to get up soon.”

I was so tired I was half asleep. Still, I was listening to her, especially because she seemed to be waiting to hear what I’d say about her troubles. But what could I say, I was appalled by her lust for life. By all those husbands of hers, she had two of them under her belt and she was already imagining not just a fourth, if the third one turned out to be a drunk after they got married, but more and more all the way till she died, and maybe even after death. How could I have any idea what it was like to be a third husband, or what it could be like for a woman to be with a third one.

“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am,” I said.

“What are you calling me ma’am for?” she said, bridling, and I felt another wave of heat. “You’re lying in bed with me and saying ma’am. Just call me ma’am when we’re around the other men. I wasn’t asking for your opinion. I have to figure it out on my own. What can you know.” She slipped her hand under my head and held me to her. “Is this the first time you’ve been with a woman? I thought so, you’re lying there all shy, all tensed up. But you should sleep. Today nothing’s going to happen anyway. You need at least a bit of sleep before you go to work. See, the dawn’s starting to come up. It’ll be morning before you know it. Get to sleep. Lord, going without sleep night after night like that. Were you always sensitive to snoring? Me too. Good lord. If you like I can put a straw mattress down for you in the kitchen, and you can leave their room for the night, tell them you can’t sleep because of their snoring. And sometimes you can come into my bed. I’ve never had anyone as young as you. You’re a sweet boy.” She shook me, as I was already falling asleep. She raised her head and leaned over me, suddenly bothered. “Are you telling the truth that it’s your first time?” Relieved, she fell back on the pillow. “What a bit of luck. God must be making up for those drunkards of mine.” She abruptly pressed my head to her breast. “I don’t even know what to do with someone when it’s their first time. When it was me it was quite an experience, I remember. I didn’t like it. You probably have no idea what to do. But don’t worry, I’ll teach you everything. Whatever you do though, for God’s sake don’t let them persuade you to drink. You can have one or two drinks. That won’t do you any harm. But not any more. It’s not good for the man to have too much. Or for the woman either. Though for the woman it’s not such a big thing. I’ve had drunken men, I know. I’m wondering where I could put that mattress down for you. I think I’ll move the table against the wall. You’ll finally be able to get some sleep. You don’t have to come to me every night. Only when you’re not too tired. I don’t have the urge every night either. But go to sleep now. Today it’s like you’re with family. Brother and sister. I could be your older sister. Why not? There are bigger age differences. Though you sometimes hear about brothers and sisters doing it together. Nothing’s sacred anymore.” She stroked me, kissed me on the forehead, pressed me to her so hard that my nose was squashed against her downy chest. “Oh, you sweet thing.”

Let me tell you, I started to be afraid of her. Maybe because what did I know back then about women. If I hadn’t been so sleepy I might have gotten out of bed, said I felt like smoking again, I was going to fetch my cigarettes. But I was too timid to even get up.

“Go to sleep.” She held me to her again. “This isn’t the only night we’ll have. There’ll be plenty more! I asked your boss, he said the job’s going to take a long while yet. We’ll have lots of time to tell each other secrets. I’ll leave the door from the kitchen to my room ajar so you don’t have to move the handle. And I’ll have the hinges oiled tomorrow. Go to sleep now. I won’t turn around, I’ll listen to you sleeping. When someone’s asleep you can often tell a lot about them. One person sleeps like a child, while with someone else, God help him. It comes out of them in their sleep. Whether they keep turning from one side to the other, or they sleep on the same side all night long, or sleep facing you all night, you can know a lot. Or if they’re curled up in a ball like they were clinging to their mommy. The worst ones are the ones that lie on their backs, like those drunkards of mine. The one and the other both slept on their backs. I always had to roll them over onto their sides to stop them from snoring so loud. Whenever I think of them I stop feeling sleepy, however tired I was before. When you want to go to sleep you ought to think of something nice. But how can you have enough nice things to last for every time you have to fall asleep. It’s mostly unpleasant things that crowd into your mind, there’s never any shortage of those. It looks like dawn’s beginning. The curtain’s getting lighter. And you can see the Lord Jesus better. He’s always the first thing you see when the sun comes up. But you can still sleep a little at least. I’ll wake you so you get up just before the other men. When you go in to get dressed it’ll be like you were just coming back from the bathroom. Go to sleep. It won’t be for long, but you won’t be as exhausted as if you’d not slept at all. Especially working with electricity. Lord in heaven, what if you were to get a shock. Lord in heaven. I got a shock from the iron one time. I was only touching it to see if it was hot. It made me tingle all the way up my arm. Gave me such a scare. I burned a pillowcase. People say you get all kinds of illnesses from the electricity. Is that true?”

I don’t know if I told her it wasn’t, or if I only dreamed that I told her so.

“I won’t deny it, a thing like an iron is really handy. All that work you used to have to do heating the charcoal, blowing on it. One time I burned my eyebrows, I’ve had to dye them since then. The flat-irons with the heated slug inside weren’t any better. They were so heavy, and the slug would keep losing its heat. You’d have to be always putting it in the fire and taking it out. You’d use the kitchen stove. One time, a heated slug fell on my foot. Lucky I was wearing shoes. Now all you have to do is plug it in. It’s convenient. Though if people start getting sick … Lord forbid. But there’s no point worrying about illnesses ahead of time. If they come we’ll deal with them, better or worse, either that or we’ll die right away. Dying right away would be good. Even without electricity there comes a time of sickness. That’s how life is. For now I’d rather just think about what it’s going to be like with you. Your first time. Mother of God. I’m actually scared. My bed for sure never saw this coming. Though I have to change the sheets. I’ll put the embroidered ones on. Quilt and pillowcases. I embroidered them myself. I’d be waiting in the evenings for those drunken husbands of mine, what was I supposed to do? I did embroidery. Though not for them. No sir. No way would I have let them sleep in embroidered sheets. And I’ll buy us a new bottom sheet. Just make sure you wash. Your boss told me you have a shower over on the site. It’s not you, I just know how guys wash themselves. Someone has to make sure you do it right. I’ll have a good wash too. I’ll soak myself in the bathtub. I’ll fill it with foam, maybe even put in some fragrance. Will you make an outlet for me by my bed? I’d like to get a bedside lamp. We could turn it on sometimes. Instead of always only doing it in the dark. For once I’d like it to be light. I read somewhere it’s a lot nicer that way. And I like to read from time to time. After you’re gone, I’ll be able to read in bed. Or think awhile with the light on. You probably have more pleasant thoughts that way. But you, don’t think, go to sleep. I know what you’re thinking about, but there’s not much time. There wouldn’t be enough. Best not to start. When you got up you’d be in worse shape than if you’d just not slept. Often your legs will barely carry you, and your head is whirling. The daylight’s here, but it’s like the night refuses to go out of you. You cook, you do the laundry, but it’s still nighttime. As if you were doing everything in the dark. And you’d be mad at me. I don’t want you to be mad. When a man’s mad, someone has to be to blame. And the way it is, it’s always the woman. Or you’d be late for work, and that’d be my fault too. But don’t worry, I’ll teach you, you’ll see. There’s always a first time. When you don’t know what you’re doing it can be all over before you know it, and I don’t want that. I’ve had enough of that. I was raped by soldiers, I know all about that kind. There were five of them, with all these medals swinging to and fro over my head. I didn’t even feel like crying. Though why am I even telling you these things. You don’t need to know what the world was like only yesterday. Maybe you’ve come into a better world. You should want it to be better. If men want to fight, let them, but women and children shouldn’t have to pay for their wars. Though those drunkards of mine weren’t soldiers, and they weren’t any better. They’d come home drunk, and it’d be the same thing, over before you knew it, without any feeling, then they’d be asleep a moment later. And when they did it that way it was like they were paying you back for something. Whether it was a soldier or a husband. For what? That the world’s arranged in such a way that it takes two people? Surely the world is made for loving. Without loving there’d be no reason to live. Nothing but sleeping and eating, what for? Working, what for? Who’d feel like working in a world like that? I read a book once where some guy died while he was making love to a woman. His heart gave out. His heart, can you believe it. Everything collects in the heart. When too much gathers there it can’t take it. Are you still awake?”

I’d been sleeping already, she’d woken me up. Evidently I’d not been deep asleep — sleeping with one eye open, as the expression goes. Because I’d not been at all sure she’d wake me. When it came time for me to go to work she might have fallen asleep. So I was kind of asleep, but alert.

“Here, let me see how your heart is.” She put her hand on my heart. Who wouldn’t have woken up then. “It’s a bit impatient, like it’s in a hurry. Now you put your hand on mine.” She took my hand and placed it on her breast. A rock would have woken up at that. “Can you feel how much is gathered there? But do you know if a woman can die that way too? Though how could you know. The world isn’t fair to women. Take your hand away.” She removed my hand herself. “Like I said, not today. It’s too late and you need to get some sleep. It’s best to begin when the night begins, and not even think about the fact that you have to get up the next day. As if the night was going to go on and on, and day would never come. Also, bodies have to lie beside each other for a longer time before … They have to get used to each other, get comfortable with each other. Because they’re full of fear. You don’t think mine is? Let me tell you, it’s got more fear in it than yours. After those soldiers, after those drunken husbands I’m afraid every time. I thought I’d never be a woman again. I didn’t even want to be. I thought I’d just embroider, read, sing, cry a little from time to time. I want to buy a wireless, did I tell you? I put my name down for one at the store. They’re going to let me know when they get some in. I’ll be able to sit and listen. But you’re only human. I was still in the mourning period for my second. I was still in black, and here I started to feel things gathering in my heart again. I went to church, I could see the men looking at me, not just the older ones, men that are younger than me as well. There I was praying, and I could feel them undressing me with their eyes. I was all embarrassed, it was a church after all, God was watching. But still it felt good. There was this baker, I get my bread from him every day, somehow I’d never noticed him in the bakery before, but here I see he’s singing and he keeps sending me these looks that give me goose bumps. I feel my heart pounding. Forgive me, Lord, but you’re the one who gave me my body. Actually, I looked good in black. Everyone said I should always only wear mourning clothes. I even had a mass said for that drunkard of mine. Let him have it. He left me this house, among other things. He didn’t drink all of it away. Perhaps I shouldn’t read books, what do you think? I sometimes read and read, and I start thinking to myself, if only my life … Because even when somebody else’s life is sadder than yours, you sometimes would like to swap with them. Goodness, it’s beating so hard. It’s like it was about to give out too. Are you still awake? You could check to see if I’m only imagining it. It’s like it wanted to jump directly to the next night, or come to you right now. But not today, no. The night’s almost over. You need to get a little sleep. If we did it in a hurry, you might even be put off me. I often thought you must be awake with all that snoring. But I somehow never dared ask if you might want to sleep in the kitchen. I was suffering along with you, because they woke me up too. For some reason you can’t hear them now — listen. The moment you moved in here I knew you’d never been with a woman. You kissed my hand, remember? It touched my heart to think that someone so innocent still existed in the world. So the first time mustn’t be rushed. When it’s the first time, everything afterwards is like that first time. Except for death. After death there are no memories. But while life goes on, you might remember me badly. Then you’d remember all the other women badly too. Because it would be bad with all the other ones. You might start to drink, and things would go on being bad for you. They’d be bad within yourself. Your whole life things would be bad for you. You’d lose your desire, and it would be bad for you. And it would be my fault. So for the sake of your whole life it’s worth holding out for one night. You won’t regret it. I’ll make it up to you. Look, it’s getting brighter. Go to sleep.”

I think in the end I must have really fallen asleep, because I suddenly felt her shaking me:

“You need to get up. You’ll be late for work. Get up. What a sleepyhead.”

I was most surprised of all when she said:

“You snore just the same. But it’s nice to listen to you. Things have gathered in you as well, I can see. When can that have happened? Mother of God, when can that have happened?”

Anyway, I never finished the story about the train. So the train was on its way, I was on it, and the hat was on the opposite shelf so I could keep an eye on it. It wasn’t there anymore? Oh that’s right, he’d moved it to the shelf on my side. At some station the train stopped again, no one got on, someone peeked into the compartment, saw it was filled to bursting, and slammed the door so hard the snorer opened his eyes. He lifted his head from the headrest, looked around at everyone to see whether it was the same people, checked that his bags were there, then nodded toward the window and said:

“Oh, we’re at this station already.”

So it looked like he might not be sleepy anymore. But the moment the train set off again his eyes began to droop, though he seemed in two minds about whether or not to go back to sleep. It was only when the train sped up and began rocking that his head fell back against the headrest as if of its own accord, his mouth opened, and the noise that came out was exactly like the sound of a distant wagon with ironclad wheels rumbling over frozen ground.

At a certain moment his head slipped down from the headrest to the shoulder of his left-hand neighbor. The neighbor allowed the head to remain on his shoulder without protest, but still, as the train crossed a switch and the whole compartment shook, he moved from that neighbor’s shoulder to the shoulder of the woman sitting to his right, without interrupting his sleep. The woman accepted his head on her shoulder just the same. Yet the train, which was rocking like a cradle, must have sent him into such a deep sleep that his head slid from her shoulder to her chest. Her breasts were each almost the size of his head. It wasn’t only that they were large, they seemed to be separate, independent of the rest of her body. There are women that seem to have been created exclusively for the purpose of carrying their own breasts. You might even have had the impression it was her breasts that were rocking the train, especially when it crossed a switch. What harm could it have done, then, for him to sleep his fill there? The woman, though, took as big of a breath as she could, breathed out, took another deep breath, breathed out. She was probably thinking that from the rising and falling of her chest his head would wake up. But he was evidently sound asleep, and so she suddenly exclaimed as if she’d been startled:

“Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?”

He must have heard. He didn’t actually open his eyes and his mouth remained open, but with the force of his sleep alone he moved his head from her breasts to the headrest. And that was when it started. Not right away. To begin with it was like he was short of breath. His eyes were still closed, but his mouth opened even wider, though not the slightest sound came from it. You’d genuinely have thought he was dead. People in the compartment started looking at him and at each other, but no one dared say anything. In the end somebody finally got up the courage to half-whisper, as if they were trying to ward off their own unease:

“Someone sleeps like that, they must be making up for many a sleepless night.”

Then someone else dared to say:

“He was in the resistance, you heard. You don’t join the resistance to get a decent sleep.”

A third person was even more emboldened by the previous speaker’s words:

“His hat got shot up by machine gun fire. He must have been a brave one.”

To her own misfortune the woman whose chest he’d tried to sleep on also spoke up:

“My man, when he gets drunk he sleeps like that.”

Someone retorted indignantly:

“This man’s sober, you can see that. He’s just tired, tired from so many nights without sleep, years maybe.”

The compartment fell silent. It was like everyone’s mouth was stopped up. For the longest time all you could hear was the train, and the man’s ever louder snoring. We passed one station, another, and finally someone spoke, obviously trying to kick over the traces of the previous conversation:

“If he’s so exhausted it’s no surprise that wherever he closes his eyes he sleeps like the dead.”

“Who isn’t exhausted these days?” The speaker was bristling. “Who is not exhausted? No one wants their life to be in vain. Those three sacks up there are mine, and I’m not as strong as I used to be.”

Someone else swore:

“Exhausted, for fuck’s sake!”

They started arguing about who was more exhausted than who.

“Take me, for instance —” someone was settling in to tell a longer story, when all at once a gurgling noise came from the sleeping man’s throat. Luckily the train hit a switch that shook it, and the gurgling sound broke off. But not for long. When the car resumed its rocking rhythm, a great sigh came from his mouth as if from the depths of his soul. After which, still sleeping, he settled his head more firmly against the headrest and began to make a sound that was half-whistle, half-wheeze. The sound contained a distant murmur that grew with almost every breath he took, and became ever faster, closer, louder. It felt like the train, that up till now had been crawling, gathered speed each time he breathed. After a dozen or so breaths, it seemed to be hurtling along, that it had even stopped clattering over the rails and was virtually leaping across the switches, as if we were headed directly for some waterfall from which any minute now we’d plunge into the abyss.

I was gripped by panic, I felt actual pain in my chest. Please believe me when I say I never heard snoring like that before or after in my life.

The roaring waterfall we were approaching was making my head explode, it was pressing down on my chest, my legs began to twitch and I couldn’t control them. I felt that along with his snoring, something deep inside my own existence was also being released. Maybe everyone in the compartment felt it, because no one had the guts to nudge him or to say, You’re snoring.

I pressed against the window, hoping that help might come from that direction. And thank goodness, after a short period of torment the train pulled in to my station. Without waiting for it to come to a complete stop, I pushed open the door and jumped out.

The dispatcher was standing close by on the platform, and he tore me off a strip. “You there! What’s the rush? If you break an arm or a leg the railroad’ll be liable! Do you even have a ticket? Come here, let me see your ticket!”

I walked over, still shaken up by the snoring. I reached into my pocket, but I couldn’t find my ticket.

“What did I tell you!” the dispatcher exclaimed almost triumphantly. “No ticket, and he jumps out of the train before it reaches the station.”

I rummaged around in my other pockets. In the meantime the dispatcher gave the signal for the train to depart, and when I finally found my ticket it was already gathering speed. “I’ve got it,” I said. “Here.”

“Let’s see if it’s valid.” He waved to someone in the departing train.

Without thinking I followed the direction of his waving hand; someone was waving back at him from a window of the train. All at once my heart leaped into my throat. My hat was on the train! Dear God! The last car was just passing. I rushed after it as fast as my legs could carry me. I managed to catch hold of the handrail on the very last door, but the train accelerated and I lost my grip. I still kept running, carried not so much by my legs as by despair that my hat was leaving with the train. Again I caught up with the last car and again I stretched out my hand, trying to grab the handrail, and again I seemed to have gotten ahold of it, all I needed to do was jump from the platform onto the step. But the train jolted forward again and I was thrown back onto the platform. Still I ran, till the last car was a long way off and getting farther and farther.

I was breathless, my legs shook under me, but I ran back toward the dispatcher. He was still on the platform. He may have been kept there by curiosity as to whether I’d make it back on the train. But he’d probably guessed what would happen, because he greeted me scoldingly:

“I bet you had a ticket to here and you were planning to continue on for free, eh?”

“No, I left my hat on the train,” I gasped.

“What kind of hat?”

“A brown felt one. Please stop the train.”

“Stop the train? You must be mad!” He turned around and set off toward the station building.

I blocked his path.

“Please stop it.”

“Out of my way!” He tugged his cap tighter over his head and tried to push me aside.

I grabbed him by the lapels and shook him till he went as red as his service cap.

“Stop the train! Stop the train!” I shouted in his face.

“Let go of me!” he bellowed, trying to twist free from my grip. “Let go, goddammit! This is assault! You over there!” he shouted in the direction of a railroad worker with a long hammer who was tapping the rails. “Call the men! This lunatic won’t let go of me!”

But before the other man could clamber up onto the platform, several railroad workers came running out of the station building.

“Don’t let him go! Keep hold of him!” they were shouting.

“He’s the one holding me!” the dispatcher yelled back furiously. “Son of a bitch won’t let go!” he exclaimed to the men running up, as if out of hurt pride. “Just won’t let go!”

One of the men grabbed my hands and tried to release my grip on the dispatcher’s jacket. It did no good, it was like I was holding him with claws.

“Damn but he’s strong. Little squirt like that.”

The guy with the long hammer put in:

“One whack with this and he’ll let go. Shall I?” He started to swing the hammer.

“Hang on,” growled the dispatcher, still furious. “He’ll let go himself. He’ll calm down and let go. He left his hat.”

“Where?” asked one of the men.

“In the compartment,” replied the dispatcher. “He wanted me to stop the train.”

They all exploded in laughter, while my hands dropped from his uniform by themselves.

“Stopping a train is like stopping the earth turning,” one of them said as his laughter died away.

“He couldn’t have stopped it anyway,” added the worker with the hammer, peering after the disappearing train. “It had already passed the flagman’s hut.”

They all burst out laughing again. The laughter carried across the platform, it felt like it was drifting far above me.

“Where’s his head?”

“Maybe he left his head there as well.”

They laughed as if nothing as entertaining as this had ever happened on the railroad, except for crashes.

One of them must have felt sorry for me and said:

“Maybe we should call ahead? They could tell the conductor to go look through the cars.”

The dispatcher retorted as he straightened his uniform:

“How’s he supposed to make his way through the crowd? They’re not even checking tickets on that train.”