Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

^XV SAINT HUBERT

My Venus is damaged, or in exile – that’s what you say of a Planet that can’t be found in the sign where it should be. What’s more, Pluto is in a negative aspect to Venus, and in my case Pluto rules the Ascendant. The result of this situation is that I have, as I see it, Lazy Venus syndrome. That’s what I call this Conformity. In this case we’re dealing with a Person whom fortune has gifted generously, but who has entirely failed to use their potential. Such people are bright and intelligent, but don’t apply themselves to their studies, and use their intelligence to play card games or patience instead. They have beautiful bodies, but they destroy them through neglect, poison themselves with harmful substances, and ignore doctors and dentists.

This Venus induces a strange kind of laziness – lifetime opportunities are missed, because you overslept, because you didn’t feel like going, because you were late, because you were neglectful. It’s a tendency to be sybaritic, to live in a state of mild semi-consciousness, to fritter your life away on petty pleasures, to dislike effort and be devoid of any penchant for competition. Long mornings, unopened letters, things put off for later, abandoned projects. A dislike of any authority and a refusal to submit to it, going your own way in a taciturn, idle manner. You could say such people are of no use at all.

Perhaps if I had made an effort, I would have gone back to school in September, but I couldn’t summon the strength to pull myself together. I was sorry the children had lost a whole month’s teaching. But what could I do? I was aching all over.

I couldn’t return to work until October. By then I felt so much better that I organised an English club twice a week, and helped my pupils to make up for the lost lessons. But it was impossible to work normally. In October children started being excused from my lessons because preparations were at full steam for the opening and consecration of a newly built chapel. It was to be consecrated to Hubert on his saint’s day, 3 November. I refused to let the children go. I’d rather they learned a few more English words than the lives of the saints by heart. But the young headmistress intervened.

‘You’re exaggerating. There are certain priorities,’ she said, sounding as if she didn’t believe in what she was saying.

To my mind, the word ‘priority’ is just as ugly as ‘cadaver’ or ‘cohabitee’, but I really didn’t want to quarrel with her, either about excusing the children or about words.

‘Naturally you’ll be at the consecration of the chapel, won’t you?’ she said.

‘I’m not a Catholic.’

‘It doesn’t matter. We’re all Catholics by culture, whether we like it or not. So please come.’

I wasn’t prepared for this particular argument, so I said nothing. The children and I made up for the missing lessons at the afternoon club.

Dizzy was interrogated twice more, and finally was given notice to quit his job by mutual agreement. He was only going to work until the end of the year. He was given some vague justification, staff reductions, cutbacks, the usual excuses. People like Dizzy are always the first to be eliminated. But I think it had something to do with his statements. Was he a suspect? Dizzy wasn’t bothered about it. He had already decided to become a translator. He planned to live off translating Blake’s poetry. How wonderful – to translate from one language to another, and by so doing to bring people closer to one another – what a beautiful idea.

He was also conducting his own enquiry, and no wonder – everyone was anxiously waiting for the Police to make new discoveries, revelations that would put an end to this string of deaths once and for all. For this purpose he even went to see Mrs Innerd and the President’s wife, and tracked the murder victims’ movements as much as he could.

We knew all three had died from a heavy blow to the head, but it wasn’t clear what sort of Tool could have inflicted it. We speculated that it may just have been a piece of wood, a thick branch perhaps, but that would have left specific evidence on the skin. Instead it looked as if a large object with a hard, smooth surface had been used. On top of that, the Police had found trace amounts of Animal blood at the point of impact, probably from a Deer.

‘I was right,’ I insisted once again. ‘It’s the Deer, you see?’

Dizzy was tending towards a Hypothesis that the murders must be to do with settling scores. It was a known fact that the Commandant was on his way back from Innerd’s house that evening, and that Innerd had given him a bribe.

‘Maybe Innerd caught up with him and tried to take back the money, so they tussled, the Commandant fell, then Innerd took fright and dropped the idea of looking for the cash,’ said Dizzy pensively.

‘But who murdered Innerd?’ asked Oddball philosophically.

To tell the truth, I liked the concept of evil people who eliminate each other, in a chain.

‘Hmm, maybe it was the President?’ fantasised Oddball again.

It looked as if the Commandant had been covering up Innerd’s crimes. But whether the President had anything to do with it, we had no idea. If the President killed Innerd, then who killed the President? The motive of revenge on all three of them was a possibility, and in this case too it was probably to do with business dealings. Could the gossip about the mafia be true? Did the Police have any proof of it? It was highly possible that other policemen were mixed up in these sinister practices too, and that was why the enquiry was making such slow progress.

I had stopped talking about my own Theory. Indeed, I’d just been exposing myself to ridicule. The Grey Lady was right – people are only capable of understanding what they invent for themselves and feed on. The idea of a conspiracy among people from the provincial authorities, corrupt and demoralised, fitted the sort of story the television and the newspapers revelled in reporting. Neither the newspapers nor the television are interested in Animals, unless a Tiger escapes from the zoo.

The winter starts straight after All Saints’ Day. That’s the way here; the autumn takes away all her Tools and toys, shakes off the leaves – they won’t be needed any more – sweeps them under the field boundary and strips the colours from the grass until it goes dull and grey. Then everything becomes black against white: snow falls on the ploughed fields.

‘Drive your plow over the bones of the dead,’ I said to myself in the words of Blake; is that how it went?

I stood in the window and watched nature’s high-speed housework until dusk fell, and from then on the march of winter proceeded in darkness. Next morning I fetched out my down jacket, the red one from Good News’ shop, and my woollen hats.

The Samurai’s windows were coated in hoar frost, still young, very fine and delicate, like a cosmic mycelium. Two days after All Saints’ I drove to town, with the aim of visiting Good News and buying some snow boots. From now on one had to be prepared for the worst. The sky hung low, as usual at this time of year. Not all the votive candles at the cemeteries had burned out yet, and through the wire fence I could see the coloured lights flickering in the daytime, as if with these feeble little flames people were trying to assist the Sun as it weakened in Scorpio. Pluto had taken control of the World. It made me feel sad. Yesterday I had written emails to my gracious employers to say that this year I would no longer be taking on the task of caring for their houses in winter.

I was on my way before I remembered that today was 3 November, and that there would be celebrations in town for Saint Hubert’s Day.

Whenever some dubious rip-off is organised, they always drag children into it from the very start. I remember them doing the same thing to us for the communist-era 1 May parade. Long, long ago. Now the children were obliged to take part in the Kłodzko County Children and Young Adults’ Creative Arts Contest, on the theme ‘Saint Hubert as the model modern ecologist’, and then in a show about the life and death of the saint. I had written a letter on this matter to the education board in October, but I hadn’t had an answer. I regarded this – like so many things – as scandalous.

There were lots of cars parked along the road, which reminded me about the mass, and I decided to go into the church to see the result of the lengthy autumn preparations that had caused so much harm to my English lessons. I glanced at my watch and realised the mass had already started.

I happen to have occasionally entered a church and sat there in peace a while with the people. I’ve always liked the fact that people can be together in there, without having to talk to one another. If they could chat, they’d instantly start telling each other nonsense, or gossip, they’d start making things up and showing off. But here they sit in the pews, each one deep in thought, mentally reviewing what has happened lately and imagining what’s going to happen soon. Like this, they monitor their own lives. Just like everyone else, I would sit in a pew and sink into a sort of semi-conscious state. My thoughts would move idly, as if coming from outside me, from other people’s heads, or maybe from the heads of the wooden angels positioned nearby. Every time, something new occurred to me, something different than if I were doing my thinking at home. In this way the church is a good place.

Sometimes I have felt as if I could read the minds of the other people in here if I wanted to. On several occasions I seemed to hear other people’s thoughts: ‘What pattern should we have for the new wallpaper in the bedroom? Is the smooth kind better, or the kind that’s stamped with a subtle design? The money in my account is earning too little interest, other banks give better rates, first thing on Monday I must check their offers and transfer the cash. Where does she get her money from? How can she afford the things she’s wearing? Maybe they don’t eat, they just spend all their income on her clothes… How much he’s aged, how grey he’s gone! To think he was once the best-looking man in the village. But now he’s a wreck… I’ll tell the doctor straight – I want a sick note… No way, I shall never agree to anything of the kind, I won’t be treated like a child…’

And would there be anything wrong with such thoughts? Are mine any different? It’s a good thing that God, if he exists, and even if he doesn’t, gives us a place where we can think in peace. Perhaps that’s the whole point of prayer – to think to yourself in peace, to want nothing, to ask for nothing, but simply to sort out your own mind. That should be enough.

But after the first few pleasant moments of relaxation, the same old questions from childhood always came back to me. Probably because I’m a little infantile by nature. How can God be listening to all the prayers in the entire world simultaneously? And what if they contradict each other? Does he have to listen to the prayers of all these bastards, devils and bad people? Do they pray? Are there places where this God is absent? Is he at the Fox farm, for instance? And what does he think about it? Or at Innerd’s slaughterhouse? Does he go there? I know these are stupid, naive questions. The theologians would laugh at me. I have a wooden head, like the angels suspended from the vault of the artificial sky.

But I was prevented from thinking by the insistent, unpleasant voice of Father Rustle. It always seemed to me that as he moved, his dry, bony body, covered in baggy, dark skin, rustled slightly. His cassock brushed against his trousers, his chin against his dog collar, and his joints creaked. What sort of creature of God was he, this priest? He had dry, wrinkled skin, and there was a little too much of it everywhere. Apparently he used to be obese, but he’d been cured of it surgically, by letting them remove half his stomach. And now he’d grown very thin, perhaps that was why. I couldn’t help thinking he was entirely made of rice paper, the kind that’s used to make lampshades. To me he was like an artificial creature, hollow on the inside, and flammable too.

Early in January, when I was still plunged in the blackest despair because of my Little Girls, he had visited me on his traditional new-year round of the parish. First his acolytes had called by, in white surplices on top of warm jackets, boys with red cheeks, which undermined their gravity as emissaries of the priest. I had some halva, which I liked to nibble from time to time, so I broke off a piece for each of them. They ate it, sang some songs and then went outside.

Father Rustle appeared, walking fast and out of breath; without shaking the snow from his boots he entered my little dayroom, stepping straight onto the rug. He sprinkled the walls with his aspergillum, dropped his gaze and recited a prayer, then quick as blinking, placed a holy picture on the table and perched on a corner of the sofa. He did it all at lightning speed – my eyes could barely keep up with him. It looked to me as if he didn’t feel at ease in my house and wanted to leave as soon as possible.

‘A cup of tea, perhaps?’ I asked shyly.

He refused. For a while we sat in silence. I could see the altar boys having a snowball fight outside.

Suddenly I felt an absurd need to nestle my face into his wide, starched sleeve.

‘Why do you weep?’ he asked in that strange, impersonal priest’s slang, in which they say ‘trepidation’ instead of ‘fear’, ‘attend’ instead of ‘take notice’, ‘enrich’ instead of ‘learn’ and so on. But not even that could stop me. I went on crying.

‘My Dogs have gone missing,’ I said at last.

It was a winter afternoon, Gloom was already pouring into the dayroom through the small windows, and I couldn’t see the expression on his face.

‘I understand your pain,’ he said after a pause. ‘But they were just animals.’

‘They were my only loved ones. My family. My daughters.’

‘Please do not blaspheme,’ he bristled. ‘You cannot speak of dogs as your daughters. Don’t weep any more. It’s better to pray – that brings relief in suffering.’

I tugged at his lovely clean sleeve to draw him to the window, and showed him my graveyard. The gravestones stood sadly, covered with snow; a small lantern burned on one of them.

‘I’m already reconciled to the fact that they’re dead. They were probably shot by hunters, did you know?’

He didn’t answer.

‘I wish I could have buried them at the very least. How am I to mourn them without even knowing how they died and where their bodies are?’

The priest twitched nervously. ‘It’s wrong to treat animals as if they were people. It’s a sin – this sort of graveyard is the result of human pride. God gave animals a lower rank, in the service of man.’

‘Please tell me what I should do. Perhaps you know, Father?’

‘You must pray,’ he replied.

‘For them?’

‘For yourself. Animals don’t have souls, they’re not immortal. They shall not know salvation. Please pray for yourself.’

That’s what came back to my mind, this sad scene from almost a year ago, when I didn’t yet know what I know now.

The mass was still in progress. I took a seat quite near the exit, next to the third-year children, who were looking rather quaint, by the way. Most of them were dressed as Does, Stags and Hares. They had masks made of cardboard and were growing impatient to perform in them. I realised the performance would take place straight after the mass. They obligingly made room for me. So there I sat among the children.

‘What sort of show will it be?’ I whispered to a girl from 3A with the lovely name Jagoda.

‘How Saint Hubert met the deer in the forest,’ she said. ‘I’m playing a hare.’

I smiled at her. But in fact I couldn’t understand the logic: Hubert, not yet a saint, is a ne’er-do-well and a wastrel. He adores hunting. He kills. And one day, during the hunt, he sees Christ on the cross, on the head of a Deer that he is trying to kill. He falls to his knees and is converted. He realises how badly he has sinned until now. From then on he stops killing and becomes a saint.

How does someone like that become the patron saint of hunters? I was struck by the fundamental lack of logic in it all. If Hubert’s followers really wanted to emulate him, they would have to stop killing. But if the hunters have him as their patron, they’re making him the patron saint of the sin he used to commit, from which he broke free. Thus they’re making him the patron saint of sin. I had already opened my mouth and was drawing air into my lungs in order to share my doubts with Jagoda, but I realised this was not the time or place for a debate, especially as the priest was singing very loudly and we couldn’t hear each other. So I simply set up a Hypothesis in my mind, that the point here was appropriation via antithesis.

The church was full, not so much because of the schoolchildren who had been herded in here, but a large number of quite unfamiliar men who were filling the front pews. Everything went green before my eyes because of their uniforms. There were yet more of them standing to the sides of the altar, holding drooping coloured flags. Even Father Rustle was festive today, but his baggy, grey face looked ponderous. I couldn’t sink into my favourite state and abandon myself to contemplation as usual. I was anxious and worked up, and felt as if I were gradually slipping into a state where vibrations began to run around inside me.

Someone touched me gently on the arm and I looked round. It was Grześ, a boy from the senior class, with lovely, intelligent eyes. I taught him last year.

‘Did you find your dogs?’ he whispered.

Instantly I was reminded of how last autumn his class had helped me put up notices on fences and at bus stops.

‘No, Grześ, unfortunately not.’

Grześ blinked. ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Duszejko.’

‘Thank you.’

Father Rustle’s voice broke the cold silence, with only a light scattering of foot-scraping and throat-clearing, and everyone shuddered, moments later to fall to their knees with a rumble that rolled to the very vault.

‘O Lamb of God...’ the words thundered overhead, and I heard a strange noise, a faint thudding sound from all directions – it was people beating their own chests as they prayed to the Lamb.

Then they started heading for the altar, moving out of the pews with their hands folded and their gaze lowered, repentant sinners, and soon there was a scrum in the aisle, but they all had more goodwill than usual, so without exchanging glances they made way for each other, looking deadly serious.

I couldn’t stop wondering what they had in their bellies. What they had eaten today and yesterday, whether they had already digested the ham, whether the Chickens, Rabbits and Calves had already gone through their stomachs yet.

The green army in the front rows had also stood up and was moving down the pew to the altar. Father Rustle was now coming along the railing, accompanied by an altar boy, feeding them their next bit of meat, this time in symbolic form, but nevertheless meat, the body of a living Being.

It occurred to me that if there really was a Good God, he should appear now in his true shape, as a Sheep, Cow or Stag, and thunder in a mighty tone, he should roar, and if he could not appear in person, he should send his vicars, his fiery archangels, to put an end to this terrible hypocrisy for once and for all. But of course no one intervened. He never intervenes.

The shuffling of feet was getting quieter by the moment, and finally the cluster of people gradually went back to their pews. In silence, Father Rustle solemnly began to wash the vessels. It occurred to me that he could do with a small dishwasher, the kind that fits one set of tableware; he’d only have to press a button and there’d be more time for his sermon. He climbed into the pulpit, straightened his lacy sleeves – the image of them from a year ago in my dayroom came back to me again – and said: ‘I am delighted that we can consecrate our chapel on this happy day. I am all the more pleased to be taking part in this valuable initiative as chaplain to the hunters.’

Silence fell, as if everyone wanted to spend some time digesting in peace after the feast. The priest looked around the gathered assembly and continued: ‘As you know, dear brothers and sisters, for some years I have been guardian of our brave hunters. As their chaplain, I bless the hunting headquarters, organise meetings, administer the sacraments and send off the deceased to the “eternal hunting grounds”; I also take care of matters relating to the ethics of hunting and do my best to provide the hunters with spiritual benefits.’

I began to fidget restlessly, as the priest continued.

‘Here in our church, the beautiful chapel of Saint Hubert occupies one nave. There is already a holy figure on the altar, and soon the chapel will also be adorned by two stained-glass windows. One will show the stag with the radiant cross that, according to legend, Saint Hubert met while hunting. The other window will show the saint himself.’

The congregation turned their heads in the direction indicated by the priest.

‘And the people who initiated this new chapel,’ the priest went on, ‘are our brave hunters.’

All eyes now turned towards the front rows. Mine too – reluctantly. Father Rustle cleared his throat and was plainly getting ready for a very solemn speech.

‘My dear brothers and sisters, hunters are the ambassadors and partners of the Lord God in the work of creation, in caring for game animals, in cooperation. Nature, among which man lives, needs help in order to flourish. Through their culls the hunters conduct the correct policy. They have built and regularly stock’ – at this point he took a discreet peep at his notes – ‘forty-one feeding racks for roe deer, four storage feeders for red deer, twenty-five scatterers to feed pheasants and one hundred and fifty salt-licks for deer…’

‘And when the Animals come to feed they shoot at them,’ I said aloud, and the heads of the people sitting nearest turned reprovingly in my direction. ‘It’s like inviting someone to dinner and murdering them,’ I added.

The children were looking at me with eyes wide open, in terror. They were the same children whom I taught – class 3B.

Busy with his oration, Father Rustle was too far away to have heard me. He stood in the pulpit, tucked his hands into the lacy sleeves of his surplice and raised his eyes to the church vault, where stars painted long ago were starting to peel.

‘In the current hunting season alone they have prepared fifteen tons of concentrated feedstuff for the winter period,’ he went on. ‘For many years our hunting association has been buying and releasing pheasants into the environment, for the purposes of paid shoots for tourists, which supplements the association’s budget. We cultivate the customs and traditions of hunting, with a selection process and oath-taking for new members,’ he said, and there was a note of pride in his voice. ‘We conduct the two most important hunts of the year, on Saint Hubert’s Day, today, and on Christmas Eve, according to tradition and with respect for the rules of hunting. But our chief desire is to experience the beauty of nature, to nurture the customs and traditions,’ he ardently continued. ‘There are still a lot of poachers, who disregard the laws of nature and kill animals in a cruel way with no respect for hunting law. You observe that law. Nowadays, fortunately the concept of hunting has changed. We are no longer seen as people who just want to shoot everything that moves, but as people who care about the beauty of nature; about order and harmony. In recent years our dear hunters have built their own hunting lodge, where they often meet to discuss the topics of culture, ethics, discipline and safety while hunting, and other issues of interest to them…’

I snorted with laughter so loud that now half the church turned to look at me. I was almost choking. One of the children handed me a paper tissue. At the same time I could feel my legs starting to stiffen, and the nasty numbness coming on, which made me move my feet, then my calves – if I didn’t do it, in seconds a terrible force would blast through my muscles. I thought I was having an Attack, and it also occurred to me that it was a very good thing. Yes, quite, if you please, I’m having an Attack.

Now it seemed clear to me why those hunting towers, which do after all bear a strong resemblance to the watchtowers in concentration camps, are called ‘pulpits’. In a pulpit Man places himself above other Creatures and grants himself the right to their life and death. He becomes a tyrant and a usurper.

The priest spoke with inspiration, almost elation: ‘Make the land your subject. It was to you, the hunters, that God addressed these words, because God makes man his associate, to take part in the work of creation, and to be sure this work will be carried through to the finish. The hunters carry out their vocation of caring for the gift from God that is nature consciously, judiciously and sagaciously. May your association thrive, and may it serve your fellow man and all of nature…’

I managed to get out of the row. On strangely stiff legs I walked almost right up to the pulpit.

‘Hey, you, get down from there,’ I said. ‘That’s enough.’

Silence fell, and with satisfaction I heard my voice echoing off the vault and naves, becoming strong; no wonder one could be carried away by one’s own oration here.

‘I’m talking to you. Can’t you hear me? Get down!’

Rustle stared at me with his eyes wide open, terrified, his lips quivering, as if, taken by surprise, he were trying to find something suitable to say. But he couldn’t do it. ‘Well, well,’ he kept saying, not exactly helplessly, nor aggressively.

‘Get down from that pulpit this instant! And get out of here!’ I shouted.

Then I felt someone’s hand on my arm and saw that one of the men in uniform was standing behind me. I pulled away, but then a second one ran up and they both grabbed me firmly by the arms.

‘Murderers,’ I said.

The children were staring at me in horror. In their costumes they looked unreal, like a new half-human, half-animal race that was just about to be born. People began to murmur and fidget in their seats, whispering to each other indignantly, but in their eyes I could also see sympathy, and that enraged me even more.

‘What are you gawping at?’ I cried. ‘Have you fallen asleep? How can you listen to such nonsense without batting an eyelid? Have you lost your minds? Or your hearts? Have you still got hearts?’

I was no longer trying to break free. I let myself be calmly led out of the church, but right by the door I turned and shouted at all of them: ‘Get out of here! All of you! Right now!’ I waved my arms. ‘Go away! Shoo! Have you been hypnotised? Have you lost your last dregs of compassion?’

‘Please calm yourself. It’s cooler here,’ said one of the men once we were outside. Trying to sound threatening, the other one added: ‘Or we’ll call the Police.’

‘You’re right, you should call the Police. There’s an incitement to Crime going on here.’

They left me and closed the heavy door to stop me from coming back into the church. I guessed that Father Rustle was continuing his sermon. I sat down on a low wall and gradually came to. My Anger passed, and the cold wind cooled my burning face.

Anger always leaves a large void behind it, into which a flood of sorrow pours instantly, and keeps on flowing like a great river, without beginning or end. My tears came; once again their sources were replenished.

I watched two Magpies that were frolicking on the lawn outside the presbytery, as if trying to entertain me. As if saying, don’t be upset, time is on our side, the job must be done, there’s no alternative… Curiously they examined a shiny chewing-gum wrapper, then one of them picked it up in her beak and flew away. I followed her with my gaze. They must have had a nest on the presbytery roof. Magpies. Fire-raisers.

Next day, although I had no classes, the young headmistress called and asked me to come to the school that afternoon once the building was empty. Without being asked, she brought me a mug of tea and cut me a slice of apple cake. I knew what was in the wind.

‘I’m sure you understand, Janina, that after what happened…’ she said, sounding concerned.

‘I’m not “Janina”, I’ve asked you not to call me that before,’ I corrected her, but perhaps it was pointless. I knew what she was going to say – she was probably trying to boost her own self-confidence with these formalities.

‘Okay, Mrs Duszejko.’

‘Yes, I know. I’d rather you and the children listened to me and not the hunters. The things they say are demoralising for the children.’ The headmistress cleared her throat. ‘You’ve caused a scandal, and what’s more you did it in church. Worst of all, it happened in front of the children, for whom the person of the priest, and the place where it occurred, should be special.’

‘Special? All the more reason for preventing them from listening to such things. You heard it yourself.’

The young woman took a deep breath, and without looking at me, said: ‘Mrs Duszejko, you’re wrong. There are certain rules and traditions that are inherent in our lives. We can’t just reject them out of hand.’ It was plain to see that she was girding her loins now, and I knew what she was going to say.

‘But I don’t want us to reject them, as you put it. It’s just that I refuse to let anyone encourage children to do evil things or teach them hypocrisy. Glorifying killing is evil. It’s as simple as that.’

The headmistress rested her head in her hands and replied in a soft voice: ‘I have to terminate your contract. You must have guessed that already. It’d be best if you applied for sick leave for this term – that will be a nod in your direction. You’ve already been unwell, so now you can extend your sick leave. Please understand me – I have no other course of action.’

‘What about English? Who’s going to teach English?’

She turned red. ‘Our religious instruction teacher studied at a language school,’ she said, casting me a strange look. ‘In any case…’ She hesitated before going on. ‘Rumours have reached me before now of your unconventional teaching methods. Apparently you burn candles, some sort of fireworks during lessons, then other teachers complain about a smell of smoke in the classroom. The parents are afraid it’s something satanic, Satanism. Perhaps they’re just simple people… And you give the children strange things to eat. Durianflavoured sweets, for instance. What on earth is that? If any of them were poisoned, who’d be responsible? Have you ever stopped to think?’

These arguments of hers devastated me. I’d always done my best to surprise the children in some way, to excite their interest. Now I could feel all the strength draining out of me. I had lost the will to say anything more. I hauled myself to my feet and left the room without another word. From the corner of my eye I saw her nervously shuffling the papers on her desk; her hands were shaking. Poor woman.

I had everything I needed in the Samurai. Falling before my eyes, the Twilight was in my favour. It always favours people like me.

Mustard soup. It’s quickly made, without much effort, so I had it ready in time. First we heat a little butter in a frying pan and add some flour, as if we were going to make a béchamel. The flour sucks up the melted butter beautifully, then gorges on it, swelling with satisfaction. At this point we flood it with milk and water, half and half. That’s the end of the frolics between flour and butter, unfortunately, but gradually the soup appears; now we must add a pinch of salt, pepper and caraway to this clear, still innocent liquid, bring it to the boil and then switch off the heat. Only now do we add the mustard in three forms: whole-grain French Dijon mustard; smooth brown mustard or the mild, creamy kind; and mustard powder. It’s important not to let the Mustard boil, or else the soup will lose its flavour and go bitter. I serve this soup with croutons, and I know how much Dizzy likes it.

The three of them arrived together, and I wondered what sort of a Surprise they had for me; perhaps I had an anniversary of some kind – they were in such a serious mood. Dizzy and Good News had lovely winter jackets, identical, and it occurred to me that they really could make a fine couple, both so small and beautiful, like fragile snowdrops growing by the path. Oddball seemed gloomy, and spent ages shifting from foot to foot, rubbing his hands together. He had brought a bottle of chokeberry brandy, his own home produce. I never liked his homemade alcoholic drinks; in my view he skimped on the sugar and his liqueurs always had a bitter aftertaste.

By now they were sitting at the table. Still frying the croutons, I looked at them all together, maybe for the last time. That’s exactly what crossed my mind – that it was time to part ways. Suddenly I saw the four of us in a different way – as if we had a lot in common, as if we were a family. I realised that we were the sort of people whom the world regards as useless. We do nothing essential, we don’t produce important ideas, no vital objects or foodstuffs, we don’t cultivate the land, we don’t fuel the economy. We haven’t done any reproducing, except for Oddball, who does have a son, even if it’s just Black Coat. So far we’ve never provided the world with anything useful. We haven’t come up with the idea for any invention. We have no power, we have no resources apart from our small properties. We do our jobs, but they are of no significance for anyone else. If we went missing, nothing would really change. Nobody would notice.

Through the silence of the evening and the roar of the fire in the kitchen stove I heard sirens howling somewhere below, carried here from the village on a furious wind. I wondered whether they could hear this ominous sound too. But they were talking in hushed voices, leaning towards each other, calmly.

As I was pouring the mustard soup into ramekins, I was overcome by such strong emotion that my tears began to flow again. Luckily they were too involved in their conversation to notice. I stepped back to put the pan down on the worktop under the window, from where I watched them furtively. I saw Oddball’s pale, sallow face, his grey hair politely combed to one side and his freshly shaved cheeks. I saw Good News in profile, the beautiful line of her nose and neck, and a coloured scarf wrapped around her head, and I saw Dizzy’s shoulders, small and hunched, in a hand-knitted sweater. What’s going to become of them? How will these children cope?

And how will I cope? After all, I’m like them too. My life’s harvest is not the building material for anything, neither in my time, now, or in any other, never.

But why should we have to be useful, and for what reason? Who divided the world into useless and useful, and by what right? Does a thistle have no right to life, or a Mouse that eats the grain in a warehouse? What about Bees and Drones, weeds and roses? Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who worse? A large tree, crooked and full of holes, survives for centuries without being cut down, because nothing could possibly be made out of it. This example should raise the spirits of people like us. Everyone knows the profit to be reaped from the useful, but nobody knows the benefit to be gained from the useless.

‘There’s a glow down there, in the village,’ said Oddball, standing by the window. ‘Something’s on fire.’

‘Sit down. I’ll serve the croutons,’ I said, once I had assured myself that my eyes were dry.

But they wouldn’t come to the table. They were all standing by the window, in silence. And then they looked at me. Dizzy with real anguish, Oddball with disbelief, and Good News furtively, with a sorrow that broke my heart.

Just then Dizzy’s phone rang.

‘Don’t answer it,’ I cried. ‘It’s via the Czech Republic, you’ll pay through the nose.’

‘I can’t not answer, I’m still working for the Police,’ replied Dizzy, and said into the phone: ‘Yes?’

We looked at him expectantly. The mustard soup was going cold.

‘I’ll be right there,’ said Dizzy, and a wave of panic swept over me at the thought that everything was lost, and now they’d be leaving forever.

‘The presbytery’s on fire. Father Rustle is dead,’ said Dizzy, but instead of leaving, he sat down at the table and started mechanically drinking the soup.

I have Mercury in retrograde, so I’m better at expressing myself in writing than in speech. I could have been a pretty good writer. But at the same time I have trouble explaining my feelings and the motives for my behaviour. I had to tell them, but at the same time I couldn’t tell them. How was I to put it all into words? Out of sheer loyalty I had to explain to them what I had done before they found out from others. But Dizzy spoke first.

‘We know it’s you,’ he said. ‘That’s why we came today. To make a decision.’

‘We wanted to take you away,’ said Oddball in a sepulchral tone.

‘But we didn’t think you’d do it again. Did you do it?’ said Dizzy, pushing aside the half-drunk soup.

‘Yes,’ I said.

I put the pan back on the stove and took off my apron. I stood before them, ready for Judgement.

‘We realised when we heard how the President died,’ said Dizzy quietly. ‘The beetles. Only you could have done that. Or Boros, but Boros had gone long ago. So I called him to check. He couldn’t believe it, but he admitted that some of his valuable pheromones had indeed gone missing, for which he had no explanation. He was in his forest and he had an alibi. I spent a long time wondering why, what on earth you had in common with someone like the President, but then I guessed it must have a connection with your Little Girls. Anyway, you’ve never hidden the fact that they hunted, have you? All of them. And now I can see that Father Rustle hunted too.’

‘He was their chaplain,’ I whispered.

‘I had some suspicions earlier, when I saw what you carry about in your car. I’ve never told anyone about it. But are you aware of the fact that your Samurai looks like a commando vehicle?’

Suddenly I felt myself losing the power in my legs, and I sat down on the floor. The strength supporting me had left me, evaporated like air.

‘Do you think they’ll arrest me? Are they going to come for me now and shut me in prison again?’ I asked.

‘You’ve murdered people. Are you conscious of that? Are you aware?’ said Dizzy.

‘Easy now,’ said Oddball. ‘Easy.’

Dizzy leaned forward, grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. ‘How did it happen? How did you do it? Why?’

On my knees, I shuffled over to the sideboard, and from under the wax cloth I pulled the photograph I’d taken from Big Foot’s house. I handed it to them without looking at it. It was etched in my brain, and I couldn’t forget the tiniest detail.