Primeval and Other Times

THE TIME OF GENOWEFA

In the summer of 1914, two of the Tsar’s brightly uniformed soldiers came for Michał on horseback. Michał saw them approaching from the direction of Jeszkotle. The torrid air carried their laughter. Michał stood on the doorstep in his floury coat and waited, though he knew what they would want.

“Who are you?” they asked in Russian.

“My name is Mikhail Jozefovich Niebieski,” he answered, just as he should answer, in Russian.

“Well, we’ve got a surprise for you.”

He took the document from them and showed it to his wife. All day she cried as she got him ready to go to war. She was so weak from crying, so weighed down, that she couldn’t cross the threshold to see her husband off to the bridge.

When the flowers fell from the potato plants and little green fruits set up in their place, Genowefa found that she was pregnant. She counted the months on her fingers and came to the first haymaking at the end of May. It must have happened then. Now she mourned the fact that she hadn’t had the chance to tell Michał. Maybe her daily growing belly was a sort of sign that Michał would come home, that he was bound to come home. Genowefa ran the mill herself, just as Michał had done. She oversaw the workmen and wrote out receipts for the peasants who brought in the grain. She listened out for the rush of the water driving the millstones and the roar of the machinery. Flour settled on her hair and eyelashes, so as she stood at the mirror each evening she saw an old woman in it. Then the old woman undressed before the mirror and inspected her belly. She got into bed, but despite the pillows and woollen socks she couldn’t get warm. And as a person always enters sleep feet first, like water, she couldn’t sleep for hours. So she had a lot of time for prayer. She started with “Our Father,” then “Hail Mary,” and kept her favourite, dreamy prayer to her guardian angel until last. She asked him to take care of Michał, for at war a man might need more than one guardian angel. After that her praying would pass into images of war – they were sparse and simple, for Genowefa knew no other world but Primeval, and no other wars but the brawls in the marketplace on Saturdays when the drunken men came out of Szlomo’s bar. They would yank at each other’s coat tails, tumble to the ground and roll in the mud, soiled, dirty and wretched. So Genowefa imagined the war like a fight in the mud, puddles and litter, a fight in which everything is settled at once, in one fell swoop. Therefore she was surprised the war was taking so long.

Sometimes when she went shopping in town she overheard people’s conversations.

“The Tsar is stronger than the German,” they’d say, or “The war’ll be over by Christmas.”

But it wasn’t over by Christmas, or by any of the next four Christmases.

Just before the holidays Genowefa set off to go shopping in Jeszkotle. As she was crossing the bridge she saw a girl walking along the river. She was poorly dressed and barefoot. Her naked feet plunged boldly into the snow, leaving small, deep prints. Genowefa shuddered and stopped. She watched the girl from above and found a kopeck for her in her bag. The girl looked up and their eyes met. The coin fell into the snow. The girl smiled, but there were no thanks or warmth in that smile. Her large white teeth appeared, and her green eyes shone.

“That’s for you,” said Genowefa.

The girl crouched down and daintily picked the coin out of the snow, then turned and went on her way without a word.

Jeszkotle looked drained of all colour. Everything was black, white and grey. There were small groups of men standing in the marketplace, discussing the war – cities destroyed, their citizens’ possessions scattered about the streets, people running from bullets, brother searching for brother. No one knew who was worse – the Russki or the German. The Germans poison people with gas that makes their eyes burst. There’ll be famine in the run-up to harvest time. War is the first plague, bringing the others in its wake.

Genowefa stepped round a pile of horse manure that was melting the snow in front of Szenbert’s shop. On a plywood board nailed to the door was written:

She suddenly felt weak at the words “insecticide powder.” She thought of the gas the Germans were using that made people’s eyes burst. Do cockroaches feel the same when you sprinkle them with Szenbert’s powder? She had to take several deep breaths to stop herself from vomiting.

“Yes, Madam?” said a young, heavily pregnant woman in a sing-song voice. She glanced at Genowefa’s belly and smiled.

Genowefa asked for some kerosene, matches, soap and a new scrubbing brush. She drew her finger along the sharp bristles.

“I’m going to do some cleaning for the holidays. I’m going to scrub the floors, wash the curtains and scour the oven.”

“We have a holiday coming too, the Dedication of the Temple. You’re from Primeval, aren’t you, Madam? From the mill? I know you.”

“Now we know each other. When’s your baby due?”

“In February.”

“Mine too.”

Mrs Szenbert began to arrange bars of grey soap on the counter.

“Have you ever wondered why we silly girls are giving birth when there’s a war on?”

“Surely God…”

“God, God… He’s just a good accountant with an eye on the debit as well as the credit column. There has to be a balance. One life is wasted, another is born… Expecting a son, I shouldn’t doubt?”

Genowefa picked up her basket.

“I need a daughter, because my husband’s gone to the war and a boy grows up badly without a father.”

Mrs Szenbert came out from behind the counter and saw Genowefa to the door.

“We all need daughters. If we all started having daughters at once there’d be peace on earth.”

They both burst out laughing.