A Treatise on Shelling Beans

7

You didn’t know him? That’s too bad. Did you know the Priest maybe? I don’t mean an actual priest. That was just what we called him, the Priest. He even let me call him that, though I was a lot younger than him. A welder, he was. We worked on a building site together. Because I was thinking that if we found some people we knew in common, maybe we’d find ourselves too, the two of us, at some time or other, some place or other. I sometimes think of somebody I used to know, and he leads me right away to some other person I knew, then that person leads to someone else, and so on. And I’ll be honest, there are times I find it hard to believe I used to know one guy or another. But I must have, since they remember meeting me someplace, at such-and-such a time. One guy, it even turned out we’d played in the same band years ago, him on the trombone, me on the sax. Though he’s dead now. But people we know can lead us all kinds of ways, even to places we’d never want to go.

One guy abroad told me about these two brothers he used to know who’d fought on opposite sides in a civil war. Brothers on opposite sides, you can imagine what ruthless enemies they must have made. But the war was ruthless too. People killed each other like they wanted to drown each other in blood. Civil wars are much worse than ordinary wars, as you know. Because there’s no greater hatred than the kind that comes from closeness. So when the war ended they continued to be enemies. They lived in the same village, but they wouldn’t allow their wives to talk to one another, or their children to play together. And it goes without saying that they themselves never spoke a word to each other. But they both used to go to the same bar. It was another matter that there was only one bar in the village. They’d sit at separate tables, drink their beer, read the paper. If there was only one newspaper, when one of them finished reading it he’d put it back where he got it, even if his brother’s table was nearer. The other one did the same thing if he was the first one to read it.

But the one who finished reading first didn’t leave. He went on drinking his beer, as if he was waiting for his brother to finish reading. Almost every day they’d show up at more or less the same time, as if they knew when they were supposed to come. They drank their beer, read the paper, the second one after the first one or the first one after the second one, then when their glasses were empty they’d leave. The second one after the first one or the first one after the second one, just the same. It never happened that one of them finished his beer sooner and left. They didn’t have to sneak glances, you could easily see the beer in their glasses. Or maybe because they were brothers they had the same rhythm? In any case they drank at the same pace. And that seemed to show they hadn’t stopped being brothers. Because as for words, the war had killed the words in both of them for good.

The years passed, and they got older. One of them went gray, the other one lost his hair, and they kept coming to the bar, one of them at one table, the other one at the other, they drank their beer and read the newspaper. And each time they’d put it back where they got it. They needed eyeglasses to read now, and they weren’t that steady on their feet. But neither of them would give the paper to the other one when he was done with it. Then they’d finish their beer, one of them would leave and the other one would leave right after. All those years, neither of them said so much as:

“Here, here’s your paper.”

That one sentence might have been enough. Because who knows if with that single sentence they wouldn’t have said everything they hadn’t said to each other all those years. You can fit an awful lot into one sentence. Maybe everything. Maybe a whole lifetime. A sentence is the measure of the world, a philosopher once said. That’s right, the same one. I sometimes wonder if the reason we have to say so many words throughout our life might be in order for that one sentence to emerge from among them. What sentence? Everyone has their own. One that you could utter in a fit of despair and not be lying. At least to yourself.

If only you’d known the Priest. You know, the welder. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t even know what his first name was. Everyone always just said, the Priest. His first name and last name got lost somewhere along the way. You know what, you even resemble him a bit, now that I look at you. Hand to God. There’s something of him in your features, in your eyes. Of course, I mean when you were younger, as I imagine you. He was still young then too. A lot older than me, but I was no more than a kid back then. It was only my second building site, and I worked on the first one less than a year. When you lift your head a bit that way it’s like I was looking at him. Stop shelling a moment. When your hands stop moving your face is clearer. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe a little.

Why Priest? He’d trained to be a priest, spent three years in seminary, but he gave it up. That he never told me. But he kept his surplice and stole, and his Bible, he had them in a separate little suitcase that he kept locked. Though on a building site like that, who wouldn’t open another person’s suitcase and take a look inside? Especially one that was locked. Before he went to sleep he’d always kneel by his bed and pray for a long time. He never missed Sunday Mass. So it was all the more of a temptation to open the suitcase. Work on the building site often continued on a Sunday, especially if it was running behind, but he always had to go to Mass.

Of course he got into trouble, he was written up, they docked his bonuses. At the worksite meetings they claimed it was because of people like him that the building was behind schedule. That there were too many believers on the site, and he was an example to them. Though he was no exception. All kinds of people worked on building sites in those days. Building sites were like hiding places. So if they’d wanted to get rid of all those of one kind or another, there wouldn’t have been anyone left to do the job. Not to mention the fact that there’d have been no tradesmen whatsoever. And he was one of the best welders. Maybe even the best of all. All the other welders would go to him for advice. Plus, he was hard-working. If there was some urgent job that needed doing he wouldn’t leave the site till it was done, even if he had to work through the night. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t go to dances. He kept away from girls. In his spare time he read. In that respect he was an exception, because everyone else drank in their spare time. Even before he went to sleep, however exhausted he was, he’d always say he had to take up his book and read at least a couple of pages. One time when I’d climbed the scaffolding to where he was, he said to me that books are the only way for a human not to forget that he’s a human. Him, in any case, he couldn’t live without books. Books are a world too, a world that you choose for yourself, not the one you’ve come into.

He kept trying to persuade me, till in the end I started reading too. I thought to myself, it’s no skin off my nose, I’ll give it a try, especially because I liked him. He’d asked me one time if I wouldn’t like to read a book. I was reluctant, said I had to do this and that, I didn’t have time. In the end, just to please him I told him to bring me something. He had a few books, he kept them in another suitcase, that one he didn’t keep locked so no one looked in it. And that was how things began. There was a second book, a third. Then he said there weren’t any more books for me, because the ones he had would be too difficult. So he took me to the library. There was a little library on the site, a few shelves. He poked about and in the end he picked out something for me. When I’d finished it he went back with me and chose something else. Let me tell you, out of respect for him I eventually started to read of my own free will. And like him, before I went to sleep I had to read at least a few pages.

It’s strange you didn’t know him. Everyone on the site knew him, he was well liked. He was always impartial and fair. Well-disposed towards everyone. He’d stop and talk with each person. Even if he was in a hurry he’d at least ask you about this or that. And he always remembered when something had been bothering you the last time you spoke to him. He’d lend you a few zloties if you needed it. If a cat or a dog wandered onto the site, he’d feed them. And the best proof of what a good welder he was is that he worked on the highest places. When a building was going up he’d always be at the very top. He was never secured. Never held on to anything. He didn’t even turn off his torch as he moved from one joint to another. He walked across the girders like an acrobat. And you have to know that the higher up the work, the better a welder you have to be.

Sometimes he’d look down from way up there and see me crossing the yard, and he’d call to me to come up to him for a moment because there was something he wanted to tell me. I’d go up there if I didn’t have anything urgent on. He liked me, I couldn’t say why. I was just a kid compared to him. He said it was a good excuse for a break when I went to see him. No, it wasn’t like we talked about anything special. He’d ask me if I’d finished the book he picked out for me last time at the library, if I’d liked it, what I thought about it. It wasn’t that he was checking whether I’d read it, rather if I’d got it. He guided me in how to understand it. He’d relate it to different things, life, the world, people in general. And always in the course of things he’d say something that made me think for a long time afterwards.

We didn’t only talk about books. He’d say that it was only here, up at a height, that we can feel human. That was a truth I only grasped much, much later. Especially because down below people mostly didn’t talk, there the work hurried you all day long, or you were driven crazy because they hadn’t delivered some materials or other and the work was at a standstill. Unless it was over vodka, but then you had to watch who you drank with, because they’d sometimes snitch on you. Actually, they also snitched on you when you didn’t talk. Even if all you did was let out a sigh.

He said that on all the building sites he’d been on, he always worked as high up as he could get. And since he’d worked on so many sites, the high places were sort of his territory, so it was no surprise that it was up there he most liked talking. Down below, when he came down after work, he read, fed the dogs and the cats, and he didn’t keep company with anyone. Despite the fact that, like I said, everyone liked him. Naturally he earned a lot more working up there. But it wasn’t about the money for him.

So can you imagine it, one day during lunch, word went around that the Priest had fallen to his death. Some people said he’d fallen, others that someone else must have had a hand in it, still others that he’d fallen deliberately. Otherwise he would have been holding his torch and had his goggles on. Whereas he’d set the torch aside and taken his goggles off. But we never learned the truth. The cause of it may have been concealed up above there. The construction had already reached the fifth floor. And the floors were high ones, the building was going to be a factory. When you get used to the high places like that, maybe you can’t get over the fact that you live down below. With high places there’s no messing around. Me too, whenever I climbed up to visit with him, I always felt something either pulling me downwards, or drawing me even higher.

If you ask me, though, the truth lay elsewhere. There was a girl. She worked in the cafeteria. No, nothing of that sort. I told you he kept away from girls. He liked her, the feeling was mutual. He was gentle, polite, not like the rest of us. The most he did was when she’d bring the soup or the main course, he’d admire her braided hair, say how beautiful it was, how you hardly ever saw hair like that anymore. It was true, her braid was as thick as my wrist here. And it reached all the way down past her waist at the back. Everyone would tug at it as she brought their food.

Not me. For some reason I was too shy. Besides, I’d only recently come to work on the site. When she put my soup or main course in front of me I didn’t even look at her, I only ever saw her from a distance. The other guys had known her for a long time. She’d gotten used to having her braid pulled. I won’t lie, I liked the look of her from the start. And she knew it right away. One time she leaned over to my ear and whispered, You should tug on my braid too, see what it feels like. I didn’t. But I decided that even without that, she’d still be mine. When the right moment came I’d tell her. For the while I didn’t let anything show. I never even said to her, You look nice today Miss Basia, or Basieńka — Barbara was her name. Though everyone said that to her every day. When she brought me my plate I’d say, Thank you. That was it. Other guys, they wouldn’t have been able to eat if they hadn’t pulled at her braid or at least said, You look nice today Miss Basia, or Basieńka.

Sometimes she’d spill the soup because someone tugged at her braid before she’d had time to put the bowl down. Plus, some of them had hands twice the size of yours or mine, rugged and strong. She’d even break a plate at times trying to free herself from a hand like that. A good few plates or bowls got broken because of that braid of hers. Same when she was clearing the empty plates away.

One day she was carrying plates with the main course on a tray, six plates if I remember correctly, when someone grabbed her braid, even though she wasn’t going to his table, she was just passing by. The tray wobbled in her hands and all the plates crashed to the floor. They were going to fire her on the spot. Luckily the guy did the right thing and paid for all the plates and all the food. After that the men were more careful, they only tugged at her braid once she’d put the plates on the table, otherwise every last plate would have gotten broken, and not through any fault of hers. Unless you could blame the braid. If you ask me, girls or women who work in cafeterias, especially on building sites like that, they shouldn’t be too good-looking. Nice, polite, of course, but not too good looking.

Sometimes she’d wear her braid up on her head in a bun. Maybe it was for self-protection, because how else can you protect yourself when you’ve got the kind of braid that just begs to be grabbed and held for at least a moment. Or perhaps she wanted to look nicer, who can tell. Though in my book she had no need to look nicer. Without the braid, though, she looked quite different, she became kind of unapproachable, haughty. When she put the bowl or the plate in front of you, she seemed to be doing you a favor. I didn’t like the bun. I thought to myself, when she’s my wife I’ll tell her I prefer the braid. With the braid, when it swung back and forth behind her back she looked, I don’t know how to put it, like she’d only just risen into the world.

You’re smiling … my imagination’s a bit old-fashioned, right? But that was how I felt back then. Though if you think about it, don’t you reckon we continue to imagine things the way people have imagined them? However much the world changes. However different we are. Or maybe we just pretend to be different so we can keep up with the world. While in our innermost longings we’re all still the same, we just hide it from ourselves and the rest of the world.

Besides, tell me yourself, can anyone imagine nicer hair on a girl than a braid? Naturally, for a braid like that you need a mass of hair, and not the thin kind. You need hair that’s a gift, as they used to say in my childhood. Here, on the lake, in the season, when people come on a Saturday or Sunday or on vacation, you sometimes see nice hair. But it’s best not to look too closely. It’s all dyed, and often colors that you never see in real hair. Real hair has a different color on each person, have you ever noticed that? In addition to which, their hair looks like it’s been all puffed up by hairdressers, with all those conditioners and shampoos and gels. Often their heads look like bunches of flowers. And the whole bunch could fit in your hand if you plucked it from their head.

In general, something wrong is going on with people’s hair. Maybe it’s a sign that something bad is starting to happen in the world? Despite what you might think, more often than not the beginning is hard to spot. It’s rare for anything to start with big things or big events. It’s usually from something little, often something insignificant, like people’s hair for example. But have you noticed that more and more young men are bald? And they’re getting younger and younger. When I was their age everyone had a shock of hair.

When you only look at people’s hair, or for example only at their bare feet, for instance here at the lake, or only at their hands, their eyes, their mouths, their eyebrows, you see them altogether differently than when you look at them as a whole. It gives you all kinds of insights. It gives you lots to think about.

It was that braid of hers that was the start of what came next. Though no one suspected it could be the braid. A braid is just a braid. It was tempting to grab it and feel it, that was all. Though let me tell you, when it sometimes accidentally brushed against my face as she was clearing plates from the table, it gave me goose bumps, as if death had brushed against me. Though I couldn’t have imagined her with any other hair.

Actually, there was something odd about her in general. When they took hold of her braid she’d always blush, when she should have been accustomed to it by then. She’d served so many meals, there’d been so many lunches since the building site was set up, she ought to have gotten used to it. But she blushed even when someone just looked her in the eye when she was bringing the plates. She’d blush whenever someone said, You look nice today, Miss Basia, or Basieńka. She always looked nice, but they’d say that to her. I mean, there just aren’t that many words you can use when you want to say something nice to a girl, especially in a cafeteria, when she’s giving you your soup or your main course or clearing the dishes away.

It’s another matter that as far as words are concerned, something has happened between men and women, don’t you think? Someone here said to me once that words are unnecessary, that they’re dying out. It’s obvious what a man is, what a woman is, what do you need words for. True or false ones, wise or unwise, elegant or clumsy, either way they all lead without exception to the same thing. So what are they for?

True, on the building sites things weren’t that great either when it came to words. You used them as much as was needed on the construction. And you can imagine what kinds of words they were mostly. One job followed another, so you just dropped by the cafeteria to quickly eat your lunch and then hurry back to work. You were dirty and sweaty, you didn’t even wash your hands sometimes. Plus, while you were eating there were other men waiting for your place the moment you were done. Where could you be expected to learn other words? You look nice today, Miss Basia, or Basieńka, that was all some of them could manage. And those were the ones we reckoned knew how to talk. It was much simpler to just grab hold of her braid.

Were any of them in love with her? I can’t speak for the others. Probably all of them would gladly have gone to bed with her. But were any of them in love with her? As far as true love is concerned, not many people are capable of that, as you know. It’s hard to find, especially on a building site.

The construction wasn’t finished, it was three quarters done at most, when here the machinery started arriving from abroad, in accordance with the plan. Soon after that a crew came to install it, including a couple of men who worked for the foreign company that had sent the machinery. It looked like they wouldn’t have a whole lot to do for the moment, but they suddenly got all busy. They told us to quickly finish off one of the shops, and began installing some of the machines. Luckily for us they had to redo the measurements, because something had come out wrong, they even had to redraw their plans, and that gave us time to catch up with our own schedule. They were constantly sitting around the table in management, adjusting, arguing, threatening, saying it was supposed to be this way and not that.

They were classy guys. Every second one was a qualified engineer. A whole separate barracks was prepared for them to stay in. They even started calling it a pavilion instead of a barracks. They plastered the outside, painted the interior, weather-stripped it, put in new doors and windows. Each of them had his own room. Those of us who’d been living in that barracks before, they moved us to private lodgings, cramming seven or eight guys into one room. They bought the newcomers shiny new furniture, big wide beds, plus sofas, armchairs, wardrobes, tables, stools, bookshelves, bedside tables, night lights, lace curtains in the windows, drapes. There weren’t many private homes that were as nice as those rooms. Also, in each room there was a radio, a rug on the floor, a mirror on the wall.

When we lived in that barracks, we had iron bunk beds and one wardrobe between six of us. The most you could do was hang your suit in there if you had one. You kept the rest of your things in a suitcase under your bed, or in old cookie boxes or cigarette cartons. No one would have dreamed of putting drapes on our windows, let alone lace curtains. It was difficult enough to get your turn at the soap or the towel. We bought a piece of calico and hung it over the window on nails at night. Or a mirror. The only mirrors were in the shared bathroom, nearly all of them cracked. Most of the time you had to use a cracked mirror to shave, brush your hair, or for example to squeeze your zits, or tie your necktie on a Sunday. And if you just wanted to take a look at yourself, you looked like you were made of broken pieces like the mirror. In the cafeteria they gave the new guys a separate area by the windows — that was where they had their tables. However late they came, those tables were always free and waiting for them. No one else dared sit there. There were times when all the other tables were occupied, and however big of a hurry you were in, because you were in the middle of an urgent job, you still had to wait till someone finished eating, even though those other tables were free. And often it wasn’t just one or two of us, there’d be a dozen or more guys hovering over the ones who were eating. We’d even tell them to get a move on, eat faster, as a result of which some of them would deliberately draw out their meal. It was infuriating, here your stomach was rumbling, here there was work to do, and right in front of you there were empty tables, almost taunting you. On top of that, often they only showed up when the last men were eating, any number of us could have eaten at their tables in the meantime. It sometimes happened that someone couldn’t wait and went back to work without getting their lunch. At most they’d grab some herring or an egg from the snack bar, or a bit of sausage, though they didn’t often have sausage, and they’d go back to work still half hungry.

And just imagine, she fell in love with one of the guys from those tables. In front of everyone, on the very first day. He came in, sat down, and she served him his soup. He looked at her, and she didn’t blush, she just looked back at him. For a moment they looked at each other like that, and the whole cafeteria stopped eating for a second. Even if someone was lifting a spoonful of soup to their mouth, or a fork with potatoes or meat, they froze and watched. All the time they’d been grabbing her braid and saying, You look nice today Miss Basia, or Basieńka, and here some complete stranger had shown up and she wasn’t even blushing.

He was holding his spoon also, but he hadn’t yet put it in his soup, as if he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her as she stood over him, or maybe he’d lost his appetite. She couldn’t take her eyes off him either. Even though she’d put his soup down in front of him and she should have gone away, the way she’d go away from each of us after she put our soup down. She only snapped out of it when the cook leaned through the kitchen hatch and shouted:

“Basia, don’t just stand there! These bowls need taking!”

She said to him:

“I hope you like it.”

She’d never said that to any of us.

He said:

“Thank you. I’m sure I will.”

And he watched her walk away, right till she reached the hatch. He ate his soup, but it was like he wasn’t eating. It was krupnik, barley soup, I remember. Do you like krupnik? Me, I can’t stand it. Ever since I was a kid I’ve hated it. Eating a bowl of krupnik was torture for me. Then she brought him the main course, and he didn’t so much as glance at the plate. He took her braid in his hand, but not the way the others would grab hold of it. Rather, he lifted it up on his outspread palm as if he was weighing it to see if by any chance it was made of gold. She didn’t snatch it back the way she did with the other men.

“Where on earth do braids like this grow?” he said.

Which of us would have known to say something like that, where do braids like that grow. But she didn’t blush. She looked at him as if it was all the same to her what he did with her braid, as if she’d let him do anything he wanted with it. He could have wrapped it around his neck, he could have cut himself a length of it, he could have unbraided it, she wouldn’t have pulled it away. She only said:

“Please eat, sir. Your food’ll get cold.”

He said:

“I like cold food.”

That was another way he was different from the rest of us, none of us would have said we liked cold food. With us, if something wasn’t hot enough we’d make a fuss about it on the spot:

“Why is this soup cold? These potatoes look like leftovers! What kind of meat is this, it’s bad enough it’s offcuts! Miss Basia, tell them in the kitchen there! Take my plate back, have them heat it up!”

Whereas he’d said he liked cold food. He was on a building site, in the cafeteria, and he liked cold food. I don’t know if anyone enjoyed their meal that day. I couldn’t even tell you what the main course was. Probably meatballs, because we mostly got meatballs. They were more breadcrumbs than meat, but they were called meatballs.

You probably think she drove a dagger into my heart, as they say. Well, it did hurt. I didn’t finish my main course. I went back to work. Though I didn’t much feel like working either. In the end I made myself feel better by saying I’d wait him out. They’d install all the machinery in the cold storage plant and he’d leave, and I’d still be there. I just had to be patient. Besides, I found it hard to believe it could have happened just like that on the first day. She’d given him his soup and his main course, and that was that.

But from that day she changed beyond recognition. She looked and she didn’t see. Even when you said to her, Good morning, Miss Basia, or Basieńka, sometimes she didn’t answer. When she gave us our plates it seemed like it was all the same to her which of us was which. She knew the cafeteria like the back of her hand, she could have found her way among the tables blindfold, but she began to make mistakes. The next table had been waiting longer than us, but she served us first. She’d never gotten the order wrong before. She knew virtually to the second who had arrived first, who had sat where. The opposite happened too. We’d be calling, over here, Miss Basia, or Basieńka, we were here before them. She’d give us a distracted glance and serve the guys who’d come after us. Or she’d bring the main course to a table where they hadn’t had their soup yet, while there were other men waiting for their main course at a table that was even closer to her.

It’s possible to fall in love at first sight, but to that extent? It was enough to see what happened when he showed up in the cafeteria. If she was carrying bowls or plates to some table, the tray would shake in her hands, the plates would clink, then when she served them it was like she wanted to chuck them all down at once. And right away she’d run to the hatch for his soup. He’d still be eating the soup and already she’d be bringing him his main course. While us, when we finished our soup we always had to wait for the main course till she was done serving everyone their soup. Sometimes we’d even tap our forks against our bowls because we’d been waiting too long for the main course. Him, he never had to wait.

You should have seen her when he didn’t show up at the usual time. You’d have thought it wasn’t her that was serving the meals, her hands were doing the job all alone. As for her, she didn’t even see what her hands were carrying. She was just one big tormented waiting mass. Here she’d be putting plates down on the tables, but her eyes would be fixed on the door. I’m telling you, when you ate you could virtually feel that torment of hers in the spoons and forks and knives.

Suddenly he’d appear. We’d be bent over our food, no one was looking at the door, but everyone would know from her reaction that he had come in. Right away she’d perk up, smile. Like she’d come back to life. Her braid would swing. Her eyes would sparkle. She’d almost be dancing among the tables. You had the impression she was all set to tear the braid off her head, put it in a vase and stand it on the table in front of him to make his meal more enjoyable.

And all that was only what you could see in the cafeteria. You’d often meet them walking along, their fingers interlocked. Or he’d have his arm around her, and she’d be pressing against him. When someone nodded to say hello, he’d nod back for both of them, because she wouldn’t see. I have to admit he had good manners. He didn’t put on airs. Whenever he needed my help as an electrician, or someone else’s, he’d always wait till you finished what you were doing, then ask politely. He knew how to make people like him. And honestly, we even did like him.

Her, on the other hand, she seemed to be getting more and more impatient. She’d clear up in the cafeteria, but for example in the kitchen she wouldn’t want to wash the dishes because she was in a hurry. Then later you’d see her waiting somewhere for him to get off work. Mostly she’d pace up and down on the other side of the street from the building site. Or even along the perimeter, right outside the chain-link fence. Though there was no path, just mounds of earth dumped there for the purposes of the site. She just walked back and forth on those mounds, sometimes holding on to the fence. When she saw him coming she’d run so fast her braid would bounce up and down. Sometimes she’d take off her shoes and run barefoot so she wouldn’t miss him. If it was too far to go around by the gate, she’d squeeze through the nearest hole in the fence. There were all kinds of holes, people used them to thieve things from the site.

However long it took him to get off work, she’d wait. Everyone knows you can’t always clock off at the time you’re supposed to. All the more so on a building site like that, especially when you’re behind schedule. Plus, they were on a foreign contract. We weren’t, but even in our case you rarely got off when you were meant to. When things really fell behind, no one counted the hours.

She waited even when it was raining. She got herself a little umbrella, or perhaps he bought it for her. And even when it was pouring she’d wait under her umbrella. Or by a wall under the eaves, or in the watchman’s hut by the gate when the rain was really heavy. You’d sometimes see her in the library too. I’d go there to get something to read, and here I’d see her at a table by the window with a book, and the window would just happen to look out onto the site. But she never glanced up to see who’d come in. Not many people visited the library. So the librarian loved it when anyone appeared. But her, she didn’t look up. She even seemed to sink deeper into her book, so as not to draw attention to herself.

So I would not notice her. Or God forbid I should ever ask what she was reading. That might have embarrassed her, turned her against me, hurt her even. And what for? I knew she was waiting for him. And who cares what she was reading. It was better she was in the library than standing or pacing to and fro in the rain. You know, I often felt more sorry for her than I did for myself.

It goes without saying that people told all kinds of stories about her. I don’t even want to repeat them. For instance, there were rumors that she cleaned his room, did his laundry, washed his shirts, darned his socks. That she spent the night there. See how her eyes are all puffy, what do you think that’s from? It never occurred to anyone it could be from crying. It was like that love of hers was the property of everyone. Like anybody had the right to walk all over her love the way you walked about the site, trampling it, even tossing down your cigarette butt. All because she served in the cafeteria.

No one said anymore, You look nice today Miss Basia, or Basieńka, she couldn’t look nice with her eyes swollen. They said she’d lost her looks, she’d gone to the dogs, that her braid wasn’t what it used to be, or her eyes. Maybe she was pregnant, she moved more slowly now, she wasn’t so brisk when she brought you your meal. They said various things. Someone supposedly even overheard her say to him, You promised. To which he answered, We’ll do it. You just have to understand. She says, What do I have to understand? I’m not as dumb as you think I am. Just because I work in a cafeteria? And she burst into tears.

The librarian, though, she was easy on her, she was an older woman and she’d probably been through a lot herself. Even after it was time to close up the library she’d keep it open if it was raining outside and the other woman was still sitting over her book. She’d tidy the books on the shelves, replace torn slip covers, catalogue new items.

Sometimes though, despite the rain she’d suddenly give back her book and leave as if something had agitated her, and at most the librarian would say to her:

“It’s good you have an umbrella, Miss Basia.”

She’d apologize to the librarian, explain that she’d just remembered she had something urgent to do.

“Never mind, never mind, Miss Basia. I understand, it happens. I’ll just put a bookmark at your page. I’ll leave the book over here, it’ll be waiting for you.”

“Oh, please do. Thank you.” And she’d almost rush out, as if she really had remembered some pressing errand.

Then a moment later you’d see her somewhere by the fence, waiting for him. And the librarian would also see her from the window. Or she’d ask the watchmen to let her in to the site, and she’d wait there. She’d sometimes be wandering around till evening, till nighttime if he didn’t show up. When someone came by she’d slip behind a crane or a backhoe, or behind a pile of bricks, some reels of cable, a heap of crates or barrels or used tires, there were mountains of stuff like that all over the main yard. Wherever she could hide.

Why would she hide when everyone knew anyway? Exactly. I wondered about that myself. Especially because I often used to run into her myself on the site in the evening. Though she hid from me too. Maybe that was the nature of her love, that it was somehow at odds with the world. Or maybe she wanted it to be that way.

In the end they got married. It was a strange wedding. It wasn’t a civil one, but it also wasn’t in a church. Apparently he’d so turned her head that she agreed to have the Priest marry them. That’s right, the welder. She had wanted a church wedding. He wouldn’t agree, because as he explained to her, he could lose his job over it. As she knew, he was on a foreign contract, and he needed the backing of important people. He couldn’t even tell her who, it was an official secret. Besides, what difference did it make whether it was in a church or not. The main thing was that they should be married by a priest. A church was just where there was a priest. And she knew him after all. And the fact that he was a welder, what of it? He was a priest. People found themselves in various situations these days, even priests. He had a surplice and stole, and a Bible, he kept them in a suitcase, what could they be for other than to perform services? He’d be sure to agree. He knew what times were like. And he’d certainly keep their secret. Because for the moment it had to be a secret. At most he’d invite three or four of his closest friends. They wouldn’t breath a word of it, he guaranteed. She shouldn’t invite anyone from her side, not her father or mother, no one.

They agreed on a Saturday evening when the site would be deserted, so no one would see it. A lot of people working on the site would leave after work on Saturday to travel to their families. The watchmen at the gatehouse would get a bottle of vodka so they wouldn’t see anything or hear anything. Just in case, he’d tell them it was his birthday. They’d cover the window, the table would serve as an altar, they’d cover it with a white cloth. He’d buy candles. It would be good to have a crucifix, he didn’t know if the Priest had one. Maybe she had one at home, she should bring it. But she should make sure no one saw her. So she did. Do you think she was being gullible? I doubt it. Desire is stronger than suspicion.

She wanted a wedding dress, a white one, because she’d always dreamed of getting married in a white dress with a train. He gave it some thought. No problem, she’d have one, he’d buy it for her. He’d go into town and buy it. She didn’t have to go with him. He’d get her the most beautiful one, the most expensive one. If she went with him someone might twig. She shouldn’t worry, it would be the right size. It’d fit her like a glove. How tall was she exactly? That’s what he thought. And her hips and waist, and here? That’s what he thought. So why did she need to go? What if someone saw them together in the store, and her trying on a wedding dress, then there’d be problems. It wasn’t their fault they were living in such times. He wished they’d met in a different age. But she herself could see it was best if he went alone. White shoes? He’d buy her white shoes. What size was she? That’s what he thought. Just in case, she should draw the outline of her foot on a sheet of paper. That way he’d be more confident. Especially since with shoes it can happen that even though they’re the right size, they turn out to be too tight or too loose. Would she also like white gloves? He could get her some white gloves while he was about it. What else would she like?

How do I know all this? You’ve never worked on a building site? Then you don’t know much about life. On a building site everyone knows everything. You don’t even need to eavesdrop. You don’t need to see, you don’t need to guess. You could say that what happens, what’s said, what someone feels, what they think about, that first off everyone knows it. Then what comes next only confirms it.

Anyhow, she didn’t want any white gloves, because why should he spend more money on gloves. No, she didn’t want gloves. It was it was going to be an expensive enough business as it was. The dress alone, you say it’ll be the most beautiful one, the most expensive one. Then how much will the shoes cost? Plus, she’d never seen anyone get married in gloves. She used to go to nearly every wedding at her church. Every wedding kind of changed her life for a moment. She’d gone since she was a girl. Even when it was total strangers getting married, she’d still go. When old people got married there was never much of a crowd, but she would be there. So what if they were old? It was still a wedding. And when they promised they’d never leave each other she would feel her heart pounding in her chest, tears welling in her eyes. But she’d never seen a bride in gloves. I mean, they had to put rings on their fingers, and what, was she supposed to take off a glove at that moment?

All of a sudden she realized he’d forgotten about the rings. He had to buy rings. He didn’t have to because he already had them. He’d thought ahead. He took them out and unwrapped them, told her to try one on. How did he know it would be the right size for her finger? If it didn’t fit this finger it would go on that one. Try it on. If it’s too big, later on we’ll give it to a jeweler and have it made smaller. If it’s too small, she can put it on her pinkie finger for now. Later on we’ll give it to a jeweler and have it enlarged. He’d bought them some time ago, before he was working on the foreign contract. An opportunity had come along when someone lost at cards and didn’t have anything else to pay with. No, he didn’t play cards, not him. He’d bought them off the guy that lost. He’d figured they might come in handy. And they had. He’d forgotten about them, it was only when he saw her in the cafeteria that he remembered he had them. It was like those rings had chosen her to be his wife. Though they wouldn’t be able to wear them for the moment. After the wedding they’d take them off and he’d keep them safe. Once his contract was over they could put them back on. Maybe they’d go away somewhere. Maybe abroad. He’d try and pull some strings in the foreign company whose machinery they were installing.

Who wouldn’t have swallowed it all, you tell me. Common sense might have made her suspicious. But common sense always loses out to life. She was working in a cafeteria, and bam. Soup, main course, bam. Anyone who wanted could grab hold of her braid, but he lifted it on his outspread palm and weighed it to see if it was maybe made of gold. Common sense tells you to be wary of any love, because you never know where it might lead you. Common sense tells you you should be wary of yourself. But it isn’t people that create common sense for themselves. And what is common sense anyway? You tell me that. And I’ll tell you back that no one could survive in life by just following common sense. Common sense is all well and good … But all it really is, is what you say when you don’t know what else to say.

It’s too bad you didn’t know him, you could’ve warned her. You didn’t know him? Though she wouldn’t have believed you anyway, of that I’m sure. No one can ever be drawn away from love. And if you ask me, they shouldn’t be. When someone’s drawn away you never know where they’ll end up.

I thought the Priest might not agree. But they made him. Is it so hard to force a man to go against himself? We go against ourselves all the time just to avoid trouble. They forced him to do it by saying they’d put the word out. I told you he kept away from girls. No, that no one knew. There has to be something you don’t know even when you know everything. He’d quit seminary, that much was known. He kept a surplice and stole and a Bible in a suitcase, that much was known. Before he started his lunch in the cafeteria he would cross himself, he prayed every evening before he went to bed, he never missed Sunday Mass, so everyone thought he still kept up his calling. Even I didn’t know, and we’d often had long conversations together when I climbed to where he was working up aloft. How did the other man know? I couldn’t say. I don’t want to make accusations without any proof. In any case, if word had gotten around, his life on the site would have been miserable. It wouldn’t have made any difference that he was one of the best welders, in fact the very best. And it would have followed him to other sites. He would never have gotten his life back.

They covered the window just like he said. What it looked like inside, we only knew from what one of the watchmen said. The other watchmen had sent him from the watch house to ask for another bottle, because they’d finished what they’d been given. But the moment he crossed the threshold they stuck the bottle in his hand and pushed him back out the door. So he didn’t get to see if the table was covered with a white cloth, whether candles were lit, whether there was a crucifix. All he saw was that they were all drunk, especially her. He didn’t see if the Priest was there. Maybe he left right after the wedding. Though it would have been strange if he hadn’t gotten drunk too.

Besides, what could a watchman like that actually see when he was drunk himself, and every drunk thinks that it’s other people who are drunk, not him. The watchmen had supposedly been given a crate of vodka, and they’d drunk the whole lot when they sent him out for another bottle. You can imagine how far gone he was. The watchmen were like that. They had uniforms and rifles, but things were always getting pinched from the site. One time someone even stole a tractor. And they didn’t see a thing. So how could you believe him? But he said what he said, and other people repeated his words after him.

In any case, after the wedding bad things started happening between them. Him, he didn’t even look up when she served him his soup or his main course in the cafeteria. And as for her, it no longer made a difference whether she was putting the food in front of him or someone else. Her eyes seemed to be losing their shine from one day to the next. You couldn’t say, You look nice today, Miss Basia, or Basieńka, because she looked like she might burst into tears. She unbraided her hair and just tied it behind with a ribbon. It still looked nice, but it wasn’t the same as when she’d worn the braid. But no one had the courage to ask her why she’d done it.

The Priest stopped coming to the cafeteria, and that made you wonder as well. Apparently he went to some tavern to eat. Then one day she happened to be bringing the main course to the table where I was sitting when someone ran in to say that the Priest had fallen from the scaffolding. Either he’d fallen or it was something else, in any case the guy shouted to the whole cafeteria that he’d fallen. She had one more plate to put on the table and, as chance would have it it was mine. The plate fell from her hands to the floor. She burst out crying, covered her face with her hands and ran into the kitchen. What went on in there I couldn’t tell you. But people in the cafeteria could have thought it was because of the dropped plate.

We all rushed to the door, people came hurrying from the offices and from management, everyone was running, a crowd gathered and it was hard to push through to the place where he’d fallen. Someone checked his pulse and his heart, but he was dead. Soon an ambulance came, the police, they started questioning people and asking about witnesses. But it wasn’t by accident that it had happened at lunchtime, if you ask me.

I didn’t see her again that day. And him, he left that same evening. For the next few days she didn’t work in the cafeteria. One of the cooks took her place. They said she’d taken some sick days, but she’d be back soon. And she did come back. Only, you wouldn’t have recognized her. She took soup to the men from the foreign contract and right away she asked them when he was coming back. They didn’t say anything. She brought them their main course and asked again when he would be coming back. When they still said nothing, she made such a scene that they got up and left. She was crying and shouting that they’d come to get their meal and they’d left him to do all the work. He’d get exhausted working so much. As it was he didn’t look well. He was pale, he’d lost weight. The next day she was fired.

After that, from time to time she’d come to the cafeteria, stand by the hatch and say to the cooks that she just wanted to serve him his meal when he came. And the cooks, like you’d expect with cooks, they’d say to her, Come in to the kitchen, sit yourself down, we’ll tell you when he comes and you can serve him, we can see the door from here, when he comes in we’ll let you know.

You’d also meet her outside the gate waiting for him to get off work. Everyone had already left, but she’d sometimes wait till dusk, till night. It would be raining, pouring even, but she’d wait. She didn’t have her umbrella anymore, who knew what had happened to it. Out of pity the watchmen would sometimes bring her in to the watch house so she wouldn’t get so wet. Or they’d tell her to go away, that there was no point in waiting.

“My husband works here,” she would reply.

“He used to, but he doesn’t anymore. And what do you mean, your husband?”

“He’s my husband, he took an oath. I wore a wedding gown, a priest married us.”

“What do you mean, a priest. He was a welder. Besides, he’s dead now.”

Sometimes she’d beg them to let her onto the site.

“Let me in.”

“Come to your senses, girl.”

“I’ll just tell him I’m waiting for him.”

Occasionally they’d let her in. If not, she’d squeeze through a hole in the fence. She knew all the holes, after all. Even when they saw her wandering around the site they didn’t drive her off. They turned a blind eye. If someone from management had seen her they had a good excuse, that they’d not let her in through the main gate. Besides, she was quiet, all she did was walk around the main yard. She never stopped anyone, never asked any questions. If someone came along she wouldn’t hide anymore. No one asked her any questions either, everyone knew. Sometimes she’d sit down somewhere and lose herself in thought, like she didn’t even know where she was.

From time to time I’d cross paths with her when I happened to work late on the site. One time it was almost evening, she was sitting on a crate.

“Oh, Miss Basia,” I said.

“It’s not ‘miss’ anymore,” she said. “I’m married. Who are you?”

“An electrician, Miss Basia.”

“Oh, right. I remember you from the cafeteria. I used to think you were cute. You were a shy one, I remember. You used to want me to be your wife. A lot of them did.”

She surprised me, I’d never told her that. I wanted to say to her it wasn’t that I used to want her to be my wife, I still did now. You might not believe it, but I suddenly felt like I wanted to be in her unhappiness with her. True love is a wound. You can only find it inside yourself when someone else’s pain hurts you like your own.

But before I could explain this to her she said:

“Except that you guys working on building sites, wherever your site is, that’s where your wife is. What do you know about love.”

My courage failed me.

“Help me find my way out of here.”

“The gate’s over there,” I said. “I’ll walk you out.”

“I don’t want to use the gate.” She looked at me as if with those old eyes from the cafeteria. “You know, I still think you’re cute. But I already have a husband.”