Stone Upon Stone

II. The Road

There was a road ran through our village. It wasn’t the best of roads, like most roads that go through a village. It had bumps and potholes. In spring and fall there was mud, in the summertime it was dusty. But it did okay for people. Every now and then they’d level it out here and there, fill it in with gravel, and you could drive on it just fine. You took it to get to market in town, or to other villages around here, and whether you were going off to war or headed for the outside world, the road would lead you there just the same.

As well as the road being for everyone, each person had a bit of it that was their own, depending on where their farmyard was. And before every Sunday or holiday in the summer they’d sweep it, in the fall they’d scrape the mud off it, in the winter they’d clear the snow and put down ash so nobody would slip and fall in front of their house. On Whitsun it’d be spread with stalks of sweet flag. The sweet flag would crunch underfoot when you were on your way to church, it smelled like in the woods, and people said it was the road that had that smell. And almost everyone had a bench or a big rock by the roadside. They could go out and sit there of an evening, chat with the neighbors, have a smoke, or just stare up at the dark sky over them. Ask God about this or that. And see nothing but the lights of the fireflies.

People, cows, geese — they’d all walk down the middle of the road, there was no left or right side. You could leave your horse and wagon by the side of the road and go to the pub for an orange soda or a beer, or sometimes even a half-bottle of vodka. You’d have your drink and your horse would just stand there. Or if you were on your way back from the fields with your crop and someone was coming from the opposite direction, you’d stop the wagons next to each other, like standing shoulder to shoulder, and no one would honk their horn to say you were blocking the road. And you’d take the same road on your final journey, because there wasn’t any other. Except the women would hurry out of their houses and shoo their chickens and geese into their farmyard. The farmers would keep the dogs in their kennels to stop them from barking. Wagons would pull over to the side. Mowers would take the scythe off their shoulder. Mothers would bring their babies out in front of the houses. And even drunks would take their cap off and sober up a bit.

On both sides there were acacia trees. When you walked down the road and they were in bloom, the smell would almost choke you. At night you’d have to close your windows or you’d wake up in the morning with a headache. When the farmers smoked on their benches or rocks in the evening, it was like the acacia was smoking. Watchdogs would lose their sense of smell and just lie there outside their kennels. If you had a young lady with you under one of those acacias in bloom you didn’t even have to do much talking. Today there’s maybe three or four of those trees left in the village. They cut them down when they were building the new road. Time was, acacias were planted for their wood that was used in making wagons. If you had an acacia, you’d have a wagon. Well, maybe not the shaft or the sides. For the shaft the best thing was young oak, and one-inch pine planking for the sides. But you’d have the perch, the bench, the tapers, the clouts, the futchel, the bolster, the weight, the singletree, the stanchions, the reach, and of course the wheels. For wheels there was no better wood than acacia. Even oak ones couldn’t match them. They were too hard, they were prone to crack. And the wheels are the most important part of a wagon.

Except these days it’s all rubber wheels. They’re trying to convince me to switch to rubber wheels. It’d be less work for the horse and you can carry a lot more on your wagon. Or at least reshoe him and put rubber linings on his horseshoes, because the asphalt is sharp. At harvesttime the farmers can carry four layers of sheaves in one go on rubber wheels. Before, even two horses together wouldn’t have been able to draw that much, now one of them can on its own. You sail down the road. Some of them barely have any land at all and they still have rubber wheels. Or the old folks, you’d think all they’d want would be to pray for a peaceful next life, and here they are swapping out their wooden wheels for rubber ones. Karpiel’s going to be headed for the next world too before long, and there won’t be any more wheelwrights. There’ll only be mechanics left. Then who’s going to even change a felloe for you when it goes bad? Who’ll turn a hub? And out of what? Back in the day there were acacia trees and you had the material. But back in the day there was the road as well.

True, it was winding. Roads often are. They have to go around one thing or another. A shrine, a pond, a house. They straightened the whole thing out and asphalted it over. They made long rounded curves so it doesn’t really bend at all, you just drive straight. A good many of those curves took up a whole field. Albin Mucha had a field next to the road where he grew buckwheat and serradella, now there’s a curve there. Sometimes on a Sunday he goes out onto the curve and knocks his cane on the blacktop and he shouts, this was my field! They buried it, the sons of bitches! Or he’ll sit by the ditch and make a list of the cars that are driving on his field.

There’s no denying the new road is three times wider than the old one and smooth as a tabletop for driving on. And you can see something of the world on it. Especially on Sundays. Though it’s a pity roads like that don’t have names like rivers. Because for our village, being next to the road is like being next to a river in spate. You stand there watching, and it just keeps on flowing and flowing. It even sort of divided our village into two villages. One on one side, one on the other. Mothers won’t send their children to the store if the store isn’t on their side. Neighbors would rather walk farther to borrow another neighbor’s horse or plow or scythe, just so as not to have to cross the river. When the cow minders take their cows to pasture, some are on one side and some are separate from them on the other side, when they used to all go together. Even at village meetings, the people from each side stick together. Or when two farmers that live opposite each other come out in front of their houses, they don’t go up to smoke and talk together like they used to. Instead, each one smokes on his own side and from his own pack of tobacco. And the way they talk to each other, it’s like they were deaf. Though how much can you say when one of you’s on one bank and the other’s on the other, and there are cars forever driving through your conversation. The little ones you can at least shout over, but the big trucks won’t even let the words out of your mouth.

It was a pity about those acacias as well. It made you want to cry, to see those old trees come toppling down like sticks under the saw. You were born with them and grew up with them, and you thought you’d die with them too.

It happened in the spring, if I remember rightly. It was cold, wet, muddy. There was still snow in the fields in places. They came with their machines and saws and started cutting the trees down. And the people came out and watched — what else were they supposed to do? Old folks, young ones, kids, mothers with babies, the way everyone goes down to the riverbank when the river’s about to flood. Or when there’s a glow on the horizon at night and all you know is there’s a fire somewhere, but it’s too far away to go help. There were a good few tears, a good few people calling on God, a good few wailing babies in their mothers’ arms, because for the kids it was like their world was being cut down before their eyes.

Except that afterwards, when it turned out the trees were going to be sold, everyone miraculously got over it and they all rushed to buy them. There were quarrels and bribes and accusations. Some people kept watch over the trees round the clock for days on end. Some guys sent their daughters out to wiggle their backsides in front of the workmen. Whoever didn’t have a young girl in the family showered them with vodka and sausage and whatever they had. Someone even nailed a picture of a guardian angel on one of the trees to mind it for him. Someone else hung a length of red ticking on another one to mark that it was his. Boleś Walek tied his dog to one because he was planning to make a wardrobe out of it. But in the night someone knocked the animal out and tied it to a telegraph pole instead. Mikus, in turn, he had his boy climb up in a tree and sit there till they cut it down. And they went on like that, competing with each other the whole time.

I admit, I picked a tree out for myself as well. It stood half a mile beyond the village and I figured that before they got to it I’d have time to buy it. So I go there one time, and all that’s left of my tree is a stump. And every tree the entire length of the road is already sold, whether it’s already been cut down or not. They were using mechanical saws. They’d put the blade to the tree, and bzzzz, that was the end of the tree. Then they’d move on to the next one and the next one. And here was I fool enough to think they’d be using a regular saw. All along the road the only thing left was the old willow by the footbridge beyond the church, that no one wanted to buy because the place was haunted. It was so rotten inside it was just one big hole, and the trunk was only what was on the outside. It was amazing the branches at the top still grew back green in the spring.

People said the devil had used to live in it. They said he’d show himself to people, though never in his own form, always disguised, as a stray sheep, a rider on a horse, a hooded monk, as someone looking for a bed for the night or who didn’t know the way. He appeared to Pięta that lived beyond the mill as a bride in a long white veil, and the veil trailed across the whole width of the road. Pięta tried to pass her, because something seemed wrong from the get-go, a bride in the middle of the night, and by the old willow. But he accidentally stepped on the veil, and all at once the veil fell off and she stood there naked as the Lord God made her. And she says to Pięta, now you have to marry me. Come with me, I’ll take you to our wedding. But Pięta’s a smart one, he says, sure, just wait a moment while I go take my ax and finish off my old lady. All right, she says, hurry!

Then my grandfather would tell how when he was a young man he was coming home one night, and here there’s a gentleman in a top hat and overcoat with a cane, walking by the willow. He thought it must be the squire that was having trouble sleeping and he’d come out for a stroll. Though he was a bit surprised he’d chosen such a rough road, like he didn’t have the grounds of his own manor. He might twist his ankle in a pothole or step in some cow dung — for a gentleman that would be embarrassing. So he bowed like you do to a gentleman and he asked him:

“Are you not taking a walk in the grounds, your grace? You need to be careful here, there’s lots of potholes and bumps.”

The other man says to him:

“Oh, it’s you, Pietruszka.”

Grandfather felt like someone had put a slice of honey on his heart, that the squire had recognized him in the dark and remembered his name. Then, when he even took grandfather’s arm and said he’d walk him back to his house, grandfather thought to himself that maybe bad times were coming for the masters.

First he started asking grandfather what was going on in the village, how life was treating everyone, whether there weren’t any complaints. Just some old chat. But they evidently enjoyed talking to each other, because when they reached our house grandfather said that now he’d walk the squire back to the manor. And they chatted and chatted some more. And they walked each other back and forth like that half the night, first him walking grandfather back to his house, then grandfather walking the squire back to the manor. Then, at a certain moment he suddenly turned to grandfather and asked him:

“Have people never thought about attacking the rich folks’ houses?”

Grandfather realized right away, so that’s what this is about, you old son of a gun, and he said:

“What for?”

“You know, to burn and steal and kill!”

“Not at all, the village people are God-fearing, they’re quiet, hardworking. We live fine with the rich folk.”

“How’s that?” said the squire, his hackles rising. “Don’t you want to be the masters?”

“Being peasants is good too,” said grandfather cleverly. “That’s how things were set up, evidently it’s for the best.” So the other man gets even more upset, and starts banging his cane on the road and saying people ought to attack the manors. That the rich folk have done them so much wrong, and they’re still at it. And he starts going on about what they could burn, how much blood could be spilled, how much weeping there’d be, it’d be like the whole world was crashing down, not just the rich folks’ houses. Grandfather’s legs began to shake and he crossed himself out of fear. At that moment the wind blew up and knocked the other man’s top hat off, and grandfather saw he had horns on his head.

“Let me go, Satan!” he shouted, and all of a sudden no one was holding his arm anymore.

But was I going to be scared of a devil? I bought the willow. I put it down by the barn, and it’s been lying there ever since. Because truth be told, it’s no good either for chopping up for firewood, or for making something out of. Though at least I have the willow, after I missed out on an acacia. I can’t say I’ve seen the dog bristling at it or the cat giving it a wide berth. The chickens like it the best, they roost on it all the time. If there’s a devil in there let him come out and we’ll square up. Later on I tried to buy an acacia off Józef Winiarczyk, I offered him double the price. He’d bought six of them and I said to him, what do you need so many for. I could have used it to have a new wagon made. Or if not a wagon then a new table. Actually I need a table even more. The one I have now I got way back when the front came through and it’s barely standing. You can’t put anything heavy on it or lean on it. If you move it, it creaks and sways like it was in the wind. Not long ago I had to put a new leg on it. The dog rubbed against the old one and it fell off. Before that I had to replace the middle board. I put a bowl of cabbage on it and the next thing I know it’s crashing to the ground. I sawed off a piece of an old sideboard from the wagon. It was rotten as well but I didn’t have anything else. When I hammered in the nails they went in like it was butter. The leg I made out of the plum tree that had stood there dead for a good few years, I just hadn’t had time to dig it up. It doesn’t match the other three legs, but at least the table’s standing. I mean, how can plumwood match when the other three are carved oak. Each one’s got a sort of wreath around it at the top, while at the bottom they’re slim as horses’ fetlocks and they have these funny paws that stand on the floor.

Right after the front passed through and I was doing a bit of work as a barber, when a bunch of farmers would gather together here on a Sunday they’d always argue about those legs. There were even bets about whether they were lions’ feet or if they were some other monster. No one managed to figure it out, but we got through a good few bottles while we were trying. And it wasn’t just about the legs but also who’d sat at the table, what they’d eaten and drunk. There were times they got so excited when they were guessing that it turned into a feast. You’d hear nothing but laughter and shouts and cheers. Even popping corks and clinking glasses. The table would be groaning under the weight of the food. And they’d keep bringing more and more dishes. The smells would make your head spin. Till finally one of them would come to his senses and say:

“Come on, get on with shaving us, Szymek. All those bastards are stuffing themselves, and we’re walking around like Moses with these beards.”

But back then the table still had all four legs, and there was this sort of bindweed twirled across the top. There was a drawer with a gilt handle. It was a good place to keep your pliers and hammer, screws, nails, shaving equipment, receipts, mother’s old rosaries, because she had four of them. One of them was even from the pilgrimage my mother took me on one time when I was a kid.

But when I came home from the hospital the drawer had disappeared. Someone must have taken a liking to it. From that time on there was a hole in the table, like it had no soul. Also, the top had long lost its shine, and it was covered with woodworm holes that looked like freckles on a freckly face. What can I say, a person’s time comes and so does a table’s.

I found it the day after I came back from the resistance. Father had told me to go check whether our fields weren’t mined, because spring was coming and we’d have to plow and sow. Though really it was nowhere near springtime, there was still snow on the ground. Not far from our land I was just poking around and I saw something lying on manor property in the unmown rye, under a sprinkling of snow. A body? No, it was a tabletop. So I started to look for the legs. I found one straightaway close by, then two others way over by the woods. Then the fourth one turned up in a ruined potato clamp when I was looking for shoes for Stasiek. The drawer I spotted around Easter at our neighbor’s. He was feeding the pigs out of it.

“Karol,” I say, “I think that drawer might fit my table. You could take my trough. It makes no difference to the pigs what they eat out of, and we could share a bottle together.”

“Sure, why not,” he says. “But if you give me the trough so the pigs’ll have something to eat out of, what’ll you give me for the drawer?”

“What do you mean? I just told you.”

“Sure you did. But what’ll you give me?”

“You’ll take my trough and we’ll have a bottle together.”

“We can have a bottle together. But you’ll have to throw in a half-bushel of rye. Your folks managed to gather it in before the front came through, on my field they dug trenches. And for the handle you can lend me your horse for plowing for a day or two. It’s no ordinary handle. It’s a bit dirty, but if you clean it up with ash it’ll shine. You could make a nice door handle out of it. And never mind that I found it on my land. Or how many mines there were. My kid spent a week getting rid of them. Day after day we were terrified he’d get blown up. Bolek, the Szczerbas’ kid, was clearing mines over there, and that was the end of him. There wasn’t a body left even. An arm here, a leg there. That way you get your drawer practically for free.”

And that was how the table ended up back together.

Mother even killed a chicken and made broth to celebrate. We sit down at the table, me opposite father, Stasiek and Antek opposite mother. We cross ourselves and start to eat. Father says:

“Finally we’re eating like human beings.”

Mother sighs:

“Lord, if only Michał was with us. All these years and no word, no sign. Who knows if he’s even still alive?”

“He’s alive, he’s alive,” father reassures her.

And Stasiek tries to change the subject and says:

“Can you imagine if someone came to visit right now, with the chicken, and the table.”

And it was like he’d said it in an evil hour. The door opens and in comes Mateja from across the river.

“Christ be praised.”

“Forever and ever.” But I can see there’s something about him. He’s smiling, but there’s a fox in his eyes, you can even see its teeth.

“You’re having chicken,” he says. “Lucky for you.”

“We got a new table so I killed a chicken,” mother explains.

“I know you do. That’s what I’m here about.” And without so much as a by-your-leave he starts checking the table from every side, tapping it, rapping it, tugging at the legs to see if it isn’t wobbly, patting it like you pat a horse’s rump, and in the end he says it’s his table.

“Have you got a certificate?” I ask him.

“What certificate?”

“You know, to say it’s yours.”

“I can see it’s mine. It was on my land.”

“What are you talking about, your land, you moron! It was on the manor’s land!”

“It was the manor’s when it was the manor’s. Back then I wouldn’t have taken it. But after the land reform it’s mine, so the table’s mine too.”

“The hell it is! What kind of table did you have before the front came through? You forgotten? A bunch of planks nailed together, the wood wasn’t even planed. You were always getting splinters under your fingernails. Your fingers were bandaged so often, people made fun of you for picking too many blackberries. The table’s from the manor, so get the fuck out of here! How many of you are there at your place? You, your woman, seven kids, the grandfather. As many as you’ve got fingers. And do you know how many people sat at this table? As many as there were apostles at the Lord’s Supper. You couldn’t even have counted them. If a thirteenth came along there would’ve been room for him too. How is this supposed to be your table, you old fool? Look, you can still see the stains from the candle wax. They had candles when they ate. You all couldn’t even afford kerosene. Your eyes would be shining in the dark like wolves. And what, you want to eat żurek and potatoes at a table like this? They ate capons. Do you even know what capons are? Roosters with no balls. When they ate, all you could hear was knives and forks clinking against the plates, like bells during the Elevation. When you lot eat, you can hear the slurping noises all the way out on the road. They had napkins tied around their necks. And what’s left of them? This table. And even that, all the parts got scattered and it had to be put back together after the war.”

As chance would have it, after they built the new road Mateja was the first person to get run over by a car. He was crossing to the other side because he’d remembered his woman told him to buy salt and the store was on the other side. Not only did he not buy the salt, it also turned out it was his fault. Here he was in his own village and he was to blame. He was going to buy salt and he was in the wrong. He didn’t die right away. They carried him to the side of the road. The whole village came running. I went too, though we’d been mad at each other all those years because of the table.

“I’m not angry at you about the table,” he whispered when he saw me. “Yours or mine — either way we’ll end up sitting at the same table.”

I gave the speech at his funeral. I even mentioned about the table. I said to his wife and children, don’t cry, don’t cry, Wincenty’s sitting at the Lord’s table now.

Then some time after Mateja, Mrs. Pociejka was run over. She was going to high mass, and she was trying to cross the road just like Mateja, because the church was on the other side. She was really scared of the cars, so she waited till the road was clear. But it’s never going to be completely clear. She waited and waited, then she hears the bell ringing for the Elevation. So she ups and starts shuffling across. The nearest car’s still way in the distance. And if she hadn’t looked to the side she would have made it, because she didn’t have far to go. But she saw the car coming towards her and she was so frightened she dropped her walking stick. Some folks said she bent down to pick up the stick, others claimed she knelt down to pray that the driver wouldn’t kill her. But he did.

Then Kacperski’s stove cracked from the cars. The thing is, the new road passes right by his wall. They’re sitting eating dinner, and whenever a car drives by, the spoons shake in their hands. Thick soups they can usually lift to their mouths, but if it’s a thin broth they sometimes spill half of it before it gets there. Kacperski says he’s even tried eating standing up, or sticking his mouth right in the bowl, or taking his food out into the orchard. The only time he has a proper meal is when his woman brings him dinner in the fields.

Then Barański’s dog got run over. Then Mrs. Waliszyn’s calf. One Sunday it was one of my chickens. In the morning I’d taken the horse down to the river to water it. The sky was cloudless, the river glistened, the air was warm and fresh, the birds were singing, who would have thought anything bad would happen. I fed the cows and the pigs. I tossed some hay out for the horse, brought the dog’s bowl out, poured some milk into a saucer for the cat. Then I started to shave. I was halfway done when Mrs. Michała runs in:

“Oh dear Lord, Szymek! One of your chickens has been killed!”

I run out onto the road with my face half lathered up, still holding my razor, my shirt unbuttoned. I see a crowd of people standing in the road, and in the middle my chicken that’s been run over. It’s still flapping a bit. I pick it up by the legs. Is it yours, they ask. Of course it’s mine. You don’t think I know my own chicken? What’s one life worth for those cars?

“Which one did it?” I ask, not because I want to know, but it seemed wrong not to say anything at all when it was your chicken.

“He’s gone now,” someone says.

“It was a green one,” somebody else adds.

“Not green, blue.”

“What am I, blind? It was green!” They start arguing.

What was I supposed to do? I took it home and it had to be eaten.

There’s no more peace to be had in our village. Nothing but cars and cars and cars. It’s like they built the road for the cars alone and forgot about the people. But are there only cars living in the world? Maybe a time’ll come when there won’t be any more people, only cars. Then I hope the damn things’ll kill each other. I hope they have wars, worse ones than human wars. I hope they hate each other and fight and curse each other. Till one day maybe a Car God will appear, and it’ll all make him angry and he’ll drown the lot of them. Whoever he spares will have to walk on their own two feet again. Like when the Man God appeared among people.

Because these days anyone who goes around on their own two feet is nothing but an obstacle to the cars, on the road and everywhere else. Even when you’re walking at the side of the road you feel as if all the cars are driving right through you. Your heart’s in your mouth. Not that you’re afraid of dying. It’s just that dying from a car is no kind of death. Even the memory of a death like that, it’s as if someone had just spat on the road. Yeah, he got run over. But does that mean the same as, he’s dead? Is there eternity after that kind of death? Plus, they honk and make gestures and wave their arms from behind the windshield, and a good few of them wind the window down and call you every name under the sun. As if you were the lowest of the low, because you’re on foot. A person’s legs don’t mean anything anymore. Time was, whole armies went to war on foot. And they won. And people said, there’s nothing like foot soldiers. Or if there’s a pool of rainwater on the road they’ll even deliberately try and splash you. Then the guy that’s done it laughs at you from his car, the jackass. If his woman’s with him she laughs too. If he’s got kids, the little bastards have a ball at your expense.

You know, if you could get ahold of one of those sons of bitches, you could grab one of those cars like a sheaf of hay and hoist it off the road into the field. But do you think any of them stop? They’re only strong when they’re speeding by. And where are they rushing off to? The sky’s the same everywhere, and no one can get away from their own destiny, even in a car.

These days there’s no telling how you’re supposed to walk on the road. They say on the left. But push comes to shove, all that means is you’re looking at death face-on instead of having your back turned. Otherwise no one would even know you’re walking there, that’s how low you’ve fallen, man. They can see you or not see you, it’s up to them. A car’s lights aren’t eyes. There you are swinging your lantern in front of every car like a fool, like you were begging it not to kill you.

And to think that when we were young men, after a dance it’d take us all night to get home along that road. The rooster would crow once, twice, three times. The cows would be hungry and lowing in the cattle sheds. Buckets would be clanking at the wells. And here someone was still on their way home. Sometimes till it was broad daylight. Till morning. What was the hurry? The dance was still spinning in our heads, the music was still playing, and we’d cut a step on the roadway like it was the floor of the barn and sing the first thing that came into our heads. “Stone upon stone, on stone a stone!” And the road never let out a word of complaint that you were waking it up. And it never dared hurry you. It’d go step for step under your feet, alongside you, like a faithful dog. When you stopped it stopped also. You could go one way or another, any direction you wanted, you could even turn back to the dance and it would turn back with you. From one edge to the other it was yours. Like a girl on a bed of hay, underneath you.

The night could be black as pitch, and you’d be three sheets to the wind. One moment you had the sky over your head, the next the earth, then the next nothing at all, maybe not even God himself, because why would God want to watch over a drunken man. But the road never left you. The whole world would rear like a stallion under you, try and throw you off. Sometimes a tree would hold you up, sometimes a post or a shrine. Or you’d just fall over, pick yourself up, and continue on your way. If not on your feet then on all fours. Or you didn’t get up at all. Till you got woken in the early morning by the birds singing like a heavenly choir in the acacias. And if you didn’t know where you were, the road itself would lead you home like a guardian angel. Unless you got a ride from Szmul when he was taking the milk churns into town of a morning. But Szmul was just as much a part of the road as the acacia trees.

I never missed a single dance, not just in our village but anywhere in the neighborhood. There were times we’d go five and ten villages away when we heard there was going to be a bash. And since I knew how to have a good time more than most folks, I was always greeted with open arms and they knew me far and wide. Hey look, Szymek Pietruszka’s here! Then they knew the party would be a blast. When I’d show up in the doorway it’d be, in with the band! in with the dancers! Musicians, play a march for Szymek Pietruszka! And the band would play like wild horses. And I’d enter dancing the march.

The first thing you’d do was go to the buffet in the middle of the room. Like bride and groom walking up the aisle. Stand aside, everyone! At the buffet you’d meet people you knew and people you didn’t, but they were all friends. Szymek, Szymuś, you’re here, greetings, friend, buddy, pal. Somebody’s pouring a drink, someone’s handing you one already poured, a third person gives you an even bigger glass, someone else a piece of sausage and a pickle. Drink up, Szymuś! Here’s to being single! We’re gonna have fun tonight! Long live us! And when on top of that my watch chain would be dangling from my belt, the whole dance shivered in anticipation. Now there’d be a party. Because on my watch chain I carried a knife.

Oh, that knife of mine was famous. It looked like just a handle. Anyone who didn’t know might think I was only carrying it for good luck, like a keepsake. And having it on a watch chain like a watch, it seemed almost innocent. But all you had to do was press a button at the side and the blade would pop out like a wasp stinger. Often they’d come at me with sticks, and all I’d have was my knife. A whole mob of them, from every side, and me in the middle all on my lonesome, with nothing but the knife. But even a sword wouldn’t have matched it.

Sometimes I didn’t even have to take it out. All I needed was to unbutton my jacket and flash the watch chain, fear did the rest. It was the same at the buffet — because of the knife I barely spent a penny. Anyone who wanted to see, it cost them a half-bottle of vodka. If you wanted to see it with the blade open, it was a half-bottle and a beer. And to handle it, a half-bottle, a beer, and something to eat. And if some wise guy pretended to want to know what time it was, you told him it’d be eternity when he found out, and he preferred to stand you a half-bottle as well.

Four strings of garlic that knife cost me. I bought it off this guy that went around the villages selling needles, thread, safety pins, head-lice lotion, various stuff. They called him Eye of the Needle, because he could talk all day about the eye of the needle, who’d passed through it and who hadn’t. Afterward mother went on and on about how someone had stolen some of her garlic from the attic. I told her to count again, that maybe she’d made a mistake. But each time she counted she was missing those four strings. It was only when she was dying and I wasn’t young anymore, and it had been so long ago that those four strings had shrunk to four heads of garlic, as you might say, that I confessed it had been me. By then the knife was long gone as well, missing or maybe stolen. There was no shortage of folks that had their eye on it. A good few tried to buy it off me. But at that time I wouldn’t have sold it for all the tea in China. I could have gotten ten strings of garlic for it, or a hundredweight of rye, a necktie or a pair of gaiters. One of them even offered his watch. No one had a knife like that in those parts. They usually fought with regular bread knives, sometimes a butcher’s knife, most often with penknives.

But a penknife, at the most it’s only any good for killing frogs or whittling a pipe while you’re minding the cows. You can’t even cut tobacco with it. Its blade is weak as a willow leaf and the handle’s like a twig. When you’re up against someone in a leather jacket, what use is a penknife, it won’t even cut through the leather. Also, every dick in the village carried a penknife since they were knee-high to a grasshopper. You could buy one at any church fair or win it at one of the stalls with a fishing pole or an air gun. But as for taking it to a dance, you’d be better off with your bare hands.

So then, after you’d been to the buffet you went and danced. To begin with you were nice and polite. You’d take a young lady that was free and sitting on one of the benches or standing with her girlfriend. You’d bow to her and kiss her hand. And you wouldn’t hold her too tight, because what you’d had to drink was only enough for first courage. Besides, it was still light out. The sun was only just setting, it was shining straight in through the windows. And all the old women were sitting like crows on the benches around the edge of the barn with their eyes burrowing into all the couples like woodworms. There were small kids all over the place like it was a nursery. The band hadn’t had their supper yet and they were only playing slow numbers. All the dancers were still following the emcee’s instructions. In pairs, form a circle, one pair to the left, one to the right, make a basket, girls in the middle, girls choose their partner! And the firefighters in their golden helmets would still be sober as judges, standing there by the door like it was the entrance to Christ’s tomb, making sure no one drank too much. And if anyone did get drunk and went looking for a fight they’d haul his ass out the door. So a young lady could easily tell you you were a pig.

It wasn’t till later. Once the sun went down and the ceiling lamps were lit. When the old women round the edge of the room went off for the evening milking, and the mothers took their kids and put them to bed. When the first dew broke out on the foreheads of the band, and the party really started to get going. Then, sure, you could drag a young lady to the buffet. And at the buffet it would be a first and a second and a third and, what’s your name, honey? Zosia, Krysia, Wikcia, Jadwisia. I’m Szymek. So listen, Zosia, Krysia, Wikcia, Jadwisia, will you have a drink with Szymek? I’ve been going to one dance after another looking all over for you, and finally I’ve found you. Are you lying? Why would I lie? Come on, they’re playing our number. And in that dance she’d let herself be held close. You could run your hands over the embroidery on the back of her blouse. Some of them had blouses like a flower garden, covered in cherries and rosebuds and raspberries and rowan. A good many of them would like it so much they’d show their teeth when you tickled their cherries and rosebuds and raspberries. Others would look at you reproachfully, like you were trying to pluck the fruit off of them.

Then it was back to the buffet. Then back to the dance floor. And not for a kujawiak or a waltz this time, but for the oberek! That was a dance and a half! You’d tap your foot, and spin faster and faster. To the left, to the right. Hey! And your partner would be clean off the floor, with only you holding her up. And you’d throw her way up to the ceiling. Her skirt would be flying and her blouse would be bouncing. And her braided hair would spin around as you danced across the room. Oh my Lord! Szymek! My head’s swimming! She falls into your arms all out of breath. This time she’s the one holding you tight. The devil’s in her eyes by now. Szymek, I have to take a break. You’re something else, Szymek. Come on then, Zosia, Krysia, Wikcia, Jadwisia, let’s go get some fresh air. Or maybe she’d suggest it even, come on Szymek, let’s get some air, it’s hot in here. And once you were outside you’d go as far as you could away from the dance. Not here, Szymek, farther away or someone might see us and afterwards there’ll be talk. And you might come to the next dance, but then again you might not.

Because the dance meant that all sins were forgiven. Even if one of them asked, will you take me for a wife? You could promise you would, sure, why not, but not right after tonight’s dance. Come on, get up, the music’s playing again.

If you took a liking to one of the young ladies, then whoever she was dancing with it didn’t matter, you treated her like she was yours and you didn’t ever have to apologize for cutting in. Hey, come have a dance with Szymek. Szymek’ll show you what dancing’s all about. And you, beat it, loser! If he was meek he’d go sit on a bench and watch or get drunk at the buffet. If he put up an argument the watch chain would get dangled in front of him. And if that didn’t do the job, he’d get a fist in his face.

Quite often that was how fights would start. Someone would shout, they’re beating up on our guys! The young lady would scream. Someone would jump forward. Someone would step in, try and separate them. Someone would charge up waving a stool. Someone would already be reaching for his knife.

Though real fights usually started without any reason. When the dance was in full swing, and everybody was well watered. And whoever was going to stay had stayed. Whoever still had the strength to sing was singing. And whoever had lost their singing voice was reeling about and yelling. The young ladies would be squeaking like mice in the corners, and everything would have gotten good and mixed up. Dresses and shirts, souls and bodies, sweat and blood, and the ceiling lamps were hidden in a dark mist. And there was nothing but noise and crush from wall to wall. And no one knew anyone anymore. People’s feet would be making merry all on their own, the entire barn felt like an apple tree that someone was shaking with all their might. It was dusty as a dirt track in summer. Because by then every dance was a fast one. Obereks and polkas, polkas and obereks.

The musicians had had their supper, and the vodka was playing in their veins. They’d taken off their coats, they were playing in shirtsleeves. Some of them even unbuttoned their shirt down to their belly button, and loosened their belt, and took off their boots because they were pinching. And all for the music. Because it was only now the musicians’ souls would come out. And man, would they play! They couldn’t feel their lips or their hands, they’d play with their gut, like their fathers and their fathers’ fathers before them. They played like they were about to die. Till lightning flashed, and armies marched to war. And a wedding party rode on drunken horses. And flails flailed in barns. And earth fell on a casket. And there wasn’t any shame anymore in feeling up a young lady here and there, you could even put your hand on her backside. And reach under her blouse. And pull her legs to yours. And young ladies would find themselves between your knees of their own accord, like chickens coming home to roost. And they’d fly around the dance floor breathless. They’d forget their fathers, their mothers, their conscience. Even the Lord God’s ten commandments. Because at those dances heaven and hell mixed together. Chest squeezed against chest, belly against belly. They’d giggle and faint their way into such a paradise, you could feel it flowing out of them even through their dresses. And the band would be filled with the devil, he’d have them waving their bows like scythes cutting off nobles’ heads. He’d put a storm wind in the clarinet. He’d set the accordion spinning. And hurl rocks at the drums. And if on top of everything else it was a hot close night outside, there was nothing for it but to let some blood.

By that time it could be over anything at all. Someone would suddenly stagger as if the room had been tipped on its side. And right away there’d be screams and shouts, Jesus and Mary, Staś, Jaś, goddammit, the sons of bitches! Over here, boys! They’re coming for us! And your legs weren’t even done with the last dance. Your girl was stuck on you like bracket fungus on a birch tree. It was like you had to cut her off with a knife. She wouldn’t let go of you and she’d be crying and begging you:

“Szymuś, let’s go outside. Don’t go over there! I’ll do it with you. I want to. Do you hear, Szymuś? I want to. I do! For the love of Christ, they’ll kill you! Szymek!”

But someone nearby is already whacking people on the head with a bench. A couple of swings of his bench and he goes down like his legs have been swept from under him. The crowd heads for the door or jumps out the windows. Someone hits a ceiling lamp with a bottle. And the band is playing louder than ever, it’s not obereks and polkas anymore but a full-blown thunderstorm. They play loud, louder, as loud as they can, to drown out the shouts and squeals and the you sons of bitches.

Then someone tips the room the other way. And back again. You don’t know whether you’re standing up or lying down. The girls are grabbing you by the jacket and the shirttails and the arms and neck, pulling you by the elbow, whimpering, screeching, crying. But what do you care about girls now that the knives are out. Somewhere the emcees’s roaring, stay in your pairs! One pair after another! Now form a circle! All the pairs dance! Then suddenly there’s a groan, and all that’s left of the emcee is his colored ribbon. Someone’s trying to swing a chair. They spin it around once and twice and they’re swallowed up by the crowd. Because chairs are no use when it’s knives up against knives. Blood up against blood.

And the room is rolling down a big slope. There’s clattering and wailing and curses. The sound of breaking glass. There’s only one lamp left hanging from the ceiling. A second one is turned on somewhere. Probably over by the buffet. But someone quickly puts it out with another bottle. Glass flies everywhere. And the room goes back uphill through darkness and dust. All you can hear is panting. And the swish of knives like scythes at harvesttime. Then downhill again. All the way over to near the band. The musicians’ arms are dropping off. Keep playing! Keep playing! Play a march now! The fiddler leads off on the march, when all of a sudden someone bumps into his side. There’s blood on his white shirt. The fiddle comes flying down like it’s dropping from heaven to earth. And the drum stops in midbang because someone else has taken a knife to it like it was an exposed belly. The accordion’s been ripped open. And the clarinet is smashed over the clarinetist’s head. The hell with the band! It all started because of them.

And there’s no more band. There’s not a single pane of glass left in the windows. The buffet’s been turned upside down. The decorations hanging from the ceiling are all in tatters. Your jacket’s in rags. There’d be times you could wring the blood out of your shirt — your own blood and other people’s. Then after the whole thing was over you’d sing all the way home.

One night, after one of those dances some farmers took us back home in their wagons. We were drunk as lords. That time I spent three weeks or so hiding out in the loft over the cattle shed, because there’d been a dead body and the police were poking about the villages looking for the guilty party. But you might as well go looking for the wind in the fields. When you’re having fun like that there is no guilty and innocent. Everyone lashes out left, right, and center, you could stab someone to death and you wouldn’t even know who. Or he’d get stabbed and he wouldn’t know who’d done it. Only the Lord God alone could know who was guilty, not the police.

I had three cuts, one in my side and two on my back. I could only lie on my stomach. Mother made compresses with different herbs. But it wasn’t healing up properly. The knife must have been rusty, because the wounds kept bleeding and bleeding, and mother was all teary:

“Szymuś, son. Think of your mother. One of these days they’ll kill you. I couldn’t take that.”

“They’re not going to kill me, mother. No way. Stop crying. I’m not that easy to kill. Look — I’ve got three holes in me, and did they kill me? You see yourself. And I’ll get even with them. Even if they do kill me, better it be sooner than later. There’s no point clinging to life, mother. Just living from one harvest to the next — what kind of life is that?”

As it happened the harvest was beginning, so at least those cuts got me out of mowing the rye and the barley. And more than half our land was barley and rye. On top of everything, that year there were rains, it rained and rained without stopping. Everything was flattened and mowing it was the hardest thing. One acre of flattened crop took as much work as three regular ones. You couldn’t feel your arms afterwards, your back was agony, your head felt like it was made of stone, and your legs would barely carry you home. What were those three holes in me in comparison.

I often tried to convince father to buy a harvester, because I was sick to death of all that mowing. Was it some punishment from God that the harvest had to be taken in year after year? Couldn’t it have grown some different way, so it didn’t have to be mowed and tied up and transported, then after that threshed and winnowed and driven to the mill, and only then you could have bread? Bread could grow right from the start, you’d go out and collect the loaves straight from the field. They could even be small ones the size of heads of cabbage. Not tiny little seeds that you have to sweat over.

But father wouldn’t agree. We can’t afford it, and besides, the hay stays straight when you mow it, but harvesters mess it up so it isn’t any good either for mending the thatch, or making chaff, or stuffing mattresses. And Antek and Stasiek there, they’re growing up. They wouldn’t have anything to do, they’d have to sit around idle if we had a harvester. And when the crop’s been flattened by the rain, you need to mow it by hand anyway, a harvester’s not up to the job.

I didn’t get back on my feet till the wheat was ripe. But we only ever grew a half-acre or so of wheat. So as to have cake for Easter and Whitsun and Christmas, as a base for żurek, and from time to time, mostly on Sundays, for dumplings. As well, the crop hadn’t succeeded that year. It had been overgrown a bit by thistle and gotten lodged by the rain. The police had given up on looking for the culprit. Searching at harvesttime wasn’t the best idea anyway. The farmers were all carrying scythes and the blood was hot in everyone’s veins. And whatever happened the dead man wouldn’t be brought back to life. Besides, he’d been killed among his own people, it was none of the police’s business.

I did a bit of mowing, but I started to feel dizzy and mother told me to go home. She even went after father, saying he should be ashamed of himself, sending me out to work like I was his stepson or some foundling instead of his own son. The poor thing ended up in tears. Because father had been trying to get me out to work since the third day. He came up to the loft where I was hiding while I recovered.

“Are you not getting up? We need to make a start on the rye tomorrow. The spikes are beginning to ripen. You’re not hurt that bad. Looks like flesh wounds. If you could use a knife you can use a scythe. You’re going to come to no good. You’ll end up in jail. We never had a bad seed yet in the family, but it looks like we’re going to now. Grandfather Łukasz killed a man, but that was for the sake of justice. And he ran away to America. You, where are you going to run to? Stach Owsianek only has one leg, the other one’s made of wood, and he mows like no one’s business. Or Mielczarek, his body’s twisted like a tree root, but when he picks up that scythe you’d never know he was deformed. He stands there straight as a fence post and the crop lies itself down in front of him. See, when you’re mowing rye you forget whatever’s wrong with you, whatever hurts. I mean, it’s not like they killed you to death. And if something hurts, it’s best to walk it off. You got cut in the side and the back, but your arms are fine. Your legs are fine. And for mowing all you need is your arms and your legs. If someone’s a good mower they don’t even need to twist. They walk forward like they were going down the road, and their arms swing to and fro in front of them all on their own. The man and his arms are separate. And it’s just legs and arms. You ever see the priest walking along saying his prayers? It’s exactly like that — step by step, slow as can be. Sure, it hurts. But once you’ve mowed a swath it’ll pass. After the second swath you’ll forget you’re injured. The Lord Jesus was stabbed just the same as you, and he’s been hanging on the cross all these thousands of years. His wound isn’t healing. And he has to keep looking at all the badness. Don’t you think he’d rather be mowing than hanging there on the cross? But how can he come down if that’s his lot? The worst part is getting started. Even if you’ve not been stabbed, after the first day it feels like you have. In your arms, your legs, your sides, your back, everywhere. But once you get going your scythe won’t let you rest. Only enough to sharpen it up. Or cross yourself when they ring the Angelus bell. After that it’ll pull you back to work, and on, and on. Till the very end. That’s how it is with a scythe. Wounds’ll often heal quicker when you’re mowing than if you’d gone to church. Wounds of the body, wounds of the soul, wounds in the family, in the village, out in the world. It was thanks to the peasants mowing all those hundreds of years that they could stand having masters. Once you’ve done some mowing, you can put up with all sorts of things, and forgive even more. And how someone mows will tell you whether they’re good or bad, mean, or false. And even when death comes, it’s like he just took the scythe from your hand at harvesttime when you were getting tired, and he took your place and finished what was left of the rye and the wheat and barley. Depending on what you were mowing. When you mow in wartime, it stops death being so terrible. And you, you didn’t get stabbed in wartime, it happened at a dance. You and your pals were having a party, not crying. Holding young girls, not the dead. Drinking vodka, not bitterness.”

And though I’d been a fool to let myself get stuck that time, the harvest came and went and my wounds healed and it was off to the dances again. And boy, did I like to have fun! I didn’t think the world was all that well set up, but if you got even a little bit scratched up in a fight, after the dance you somehow took a kinder view of things, you were more in the mood to work. One time I got a job for the railways building an embankment they were going to lay the track on, and with the money I earned I bought a brown suit with white stripes. Another time they were digging a pond at the manor and paying half a zloty per cubic yard. I bought a gabardine coat, a shirt, necktie, socks. I even thought about getting a watch and a cigarette case, I probably would have if the war hadn’t broken out. But even without the watch and cigarette case I was better dressed than many a rich man. I had a handkerchief that some people, they didn’t even know what it was for. You’d have had to look far and wide for another young buck like me. And so there wasn’t a single girl at the dance that didn’t want to dance with me. I could take my pick. Sometimes it happened that I wouldn’t come home from a party till the evening of the next day. Father would treat me like I’d just gotten back from hell. Have all the fun you like, damn you. You’ll see, before you know it you’ll have wasted all your life on fun. Then what’ll you say to God when your time comes — that you were busy having fun?

But what did I care about father. All he ever talked about was work and God. He never gave me any money for my ticket. So I’d sneak a quarter-bushel of rye from the attic and sell it to the Jew at half price. Or take a few eggs and then tell mother afterwards the hens didn’t seem to be laying properly. One time I shook almost every last pear out of the pear tree and took them to the railway workers for two groszes apiece. Another time a dogcatcher came through the village buying dogs. I untied our Reks and quietly, round the back of the barn so no one would see, I led him all the way to the end of the village, and I sold him to the catcher as he was already heading out. He was a fine dog, but there was a dance over in Boleszyce that Sunday. It would have been a pity not to go, though it was a pity about the dog as well. He kept rubbing against my leg and whimpering, like he knew what was going on. I started talking to him to make him feel better. This isn’t much of a life for you, Reks. From now on no one’s gonna make you watch out for housebreakers. You’ll be working in a better world. Dogs go to heaven too. Afterwards father went about in a daze, asking everyone in the village if they hadn’t seen our Reks. Because he liked him like no other dog before him, and Reks was fonder of him than of anyone else.

One time there happened to be no dance. So a bunch of us guys were standing around outside the pub on a Sunday afternoon. The young ladies were still all at home for some reason. They had to wash the dishes and clear up. The old women were on their way to late afternoon mass. We would have gotten something to drink, but none of us had two pennies to rub together. The Jew wouldn’t give credit, because each of us already had a tab with him. The sun was all hazy, like it was going to rain. And it was still a long ways till evening. If someone would at least have shown up and bought us a beer. Or gotten into a fight, except there wasn’t even any ragging going on, the boys were all kind of sleepy.

All of a sudden, far away down the road there’s a cloud of dust and three horses, and on the horses three riders. Who the heck could be riding to the village on a Sunday? They looked like they were in military uniform. They ride up to the inn, rein in their horses, and we see it’s a captain, a lieutenant, and a young lady. The captain just looks like a captain, the lieutenant the same, but the young lady takes my breath away. She’s wearing riding breeches and tall boots and spurs, a kind of black skull cap with a peak, she’s got a riding crop in her hand. She looks like an angel in riding clothes. The captain speaks up from the saddle:

“So then, boys! I see there’ll be no shortage of fellows ready to fight for their country if need be! Is there anything to drink in this inn of yours?”

“Sure there is!” The guys livened up, they were talking over each other. “Beer! Kvass! Lemonade!”

I had my eyes glued on the angel, I was staring at her like she was a picture. You’d meet good-looking girls in the village too from time to time, but I’d never seen a beauty like her ever before. Or was it just because of what she was wearing and the fact she was on horseback? In any case I must have been looking real hard, because the angel looked back at me and smiled. Then she slipped down off her horse light as can be, like a cat jumping down from the stove corner. The captain and the lieutenant dismounted as well.

“Mind our horses then, boys, while we go get a drink.”

The guys all rushed forward to hold the horses. Holding horses like those ones meant something. But wait up! I pushed them all aside. They gave them to me to hold.

“Out of my way, all of you, or you’ll be seeing stars!”

I gathered all three sets of reins together and wrapped them around my hand. The three riders went into the inn. After a short while they came out again. The captain mounted up first.

“Thank you, young man!”

The lieutenant followed. Then the angel put her foot in the stirrup. Whether she wasn’t lifting her other leg strongly enough or what, she tried once and twice, but it seemed the saddle was too high for her. And she looks at me. So I grab her under the backside with my right hand, my left still holding the reins, and I hoist her up into the saddle. And then, as if of its own accord my hand ran down her thigh and her boot to the spur, and at the spur I squeezed her foot. She closed her eyes for a second, then she smiled, though kind of sadly. At that moment someone lashed me on the head with a riding crop. The angel exclaimed:

“Oh!”

I turned around. It was the lieutenant.

“Save your hands for your pitchfork, you peasant!” he hissed furiously. “Here, so you don’t feel wronged.” He threw a coin down at my feet. I gave his horse a mighty whack on the rump that made him jump in the saddle. Then they rode away.

The guys ran forward to pick up the coin. I was going to head home — I couldn’t drink with that kind of money. It would have been like selling your soul to the devil. But they grabbed me and forced me into the pub. And before I knew it there was a glass in front of me and it was, down the hatch, because it’s thanks to you. Pity he didn’t hit you twice and give us more. Then, when we’d had a few drinks we started a fight and smashed the place up. Benches, tables, beer mugs, glasses, whatever came to hand got used. One of them picked up a barrel of beer, and when he slammed it down on the floor we all got covered in foam. The Jew hid under the bar shouting:

“Police! Police!”

Every window in there got shattered. The door came off its hinges. And I broke a bottle over my best friend Ignaś Magdziarz’s head so hard he fell to his knees and wept:

“Why, Szymuś? Why?”

I didn’t know why either, and I wept with him, because he looked like someone had dipped his head in a bucket of pig’s blood.

“I don’t know, Ignaś. I don’t know. Maybe if you’d gone for me I wouldn’t have gone for you. Someone had to go for someone. Don’t cry. Next time we go to a dance you can smash me over the head with a bottle. I won’t say a word. I’ll even buy you a drink afterwards.”

But we were young. When we were enjoying ourselves we did it with all our might, with all our soul, as if we were going to be gone from the world the next day. And I had youth enough for two inside, it was bubbling out of me. There was no right or wrong moment, if there was a chance to have fun you did. There were times when inside you didn’t feel like doing anything at all, but outside you were having a ball, drinking and dancing like nobody’s business. Inside you’d be sad, but you could cheer up the saddest person. And the young ladies thought I was the best fun of all the guys in the village.

“I’m telling you, Szymek, you know how to make people laugh. Even more than Błażej or Łukasz. It’s like you had the devil in you. Hee, hee, hee!”

Because girls like it when you make them laugh to begin with. Making someone laugh is like forgiving their sins. Then it’s easier to persuade them to do the rest. You’d meet one or another of them as she was taking dinner to her folks in the fields, you’d keep her company a ways, joke a bit, put your arm around her, and by evening you’d be lying next to her by the river or in the orchard. And she wouldn’t be afraid it was a sin, because when young people sin it’s honest sinning. If you wanted a peek at this or that she’d show you, even let you hold it in your hand like a dove. Or in church at high mass, you’d sidle up to a girl and whisper in her ear:

“Sleep in the barn tonight, Wikcia.”

And no dog would bark at you, the barn door wouldn’t creak, and the ladder to the hayloft would already be in place. And the hay had just been brought from the fields, so it was like the girl had made you a bed in the meadow, and she was bursting with sunlight like a meadow warmed in the sun. And her blood was buzzing inside her so loud it was like you could hear grasshoppers when you laid your head on that meadow.

Or you only had to go down to the river at noon when the girls were taking their bath. They mostly went in naked, only the odd few would keep their blouses on. The river water was so clean it sweetened their bodies, so what did they have to be embarrassed about. The horses were always watered down there and they never once got the mange. The geese and ducks would go down to the water all on their own, they didn’t need to be driven. Fish swam about almost on the surface. And the bottom glistened from all the different pebbles. You could sit on the bank and gaze at the river to your heart’s content, think about how it flowed just like your own life. It was clean as clean can be.

And all the screaming and squealing! You could hear from way off where the girls were bathing. The river only came up to their belly buttons. Not many of them could swim. So they were more splashing about than bathing. They’d splash and stumble and push each other over, and run upstream and downstream, taking the river in their arms, or lie on their backs and daydream and let it carry them. They wouldn’t even notice me standing on the bank, behind a willow tree or a bush, staring at their breasts and bellies and thighs and backsides swirling around in the water. Till one of them would snap out of it and shout:

“Hide, girls! Szymek’s behind that tree!”

“The dirty so-and-so! Has he no shame!”

“The priest’ll never forgive you for this!”

“Like he doesn’t know what girls look like! They look like this — stare all you want!”

“Come on, Szymek, get lost now.”

“Sure, I can go away, but I’m taking Zosia’s things. Come behind the bush, Zosia, I’ll let you have them.”

“Give them back, Szymek! If I tell my mother she’ll have your guts for garters! I’ll never look at you again. And for sure I’ll never dance with you again! Come on, Szymuś, give them back. At least give me my skirt, or I’ll cry.”

“Go to him, Zośka, if he only sees one of us it won’t be such a big sin.”

And Zosia pouts and fumes, but she comes to me. And once she comes behind the bush she’ll go farther.

“Come over here, Zosia, under this alder, and I’ll give you back your clothes. A little bit farther and I’ll give them back to you. Almost there. I’ll give you them over there. In that patch of sunlight. In that shade. Don’t be embarrassed, there’s no need to feel embarrassed in front of me, and the girls are out of sight. You can hear them in the river.”

And Zosia would come closer and closer.

In the winter I’d go where they were plucking feathers and husking beans. They’d all gather, the girls and young men and old folks. The evenings were long, there was nothing else to do, and you could at least hear your fill of ghosts and devils and witches, because back in the day there were all kinds of them in the village, they lived alongside the people and the livestock. Then when it got dark it’d be time to head off back home. And it was common knowledge ghosts and devils and witches only ever went around at night, and that their favorite thing was to go after young women. The ones that lived close by, it wasn’t such a problem for them. The farmer or his wife would come out in front of the house with a lantern and wait till they heard their neighbor’s door creak. But the girls who lived farther off needed to be walked home. And I’d usually choose the one that was most afraid or lived the farthest away. Actually I never had to choose. They knew me, that I’d walk to the ends of the earth in the darkest night, because I didn’t believe in any ghosts or devils or witches, though I liked hearing about how other people had seen them. So either the girl would come up to me herself:

“Say, Szymek, will you walk me back? I won’t be scared if you’re with me.”

Or the farmer’s wife would say:

“Szymek, take Magda back, she lives way over near the woods and she’s frightened to go on her own.”

And since nothing brings people closer together than fear or a long journey, it often happened that the girl would cling to me the moment we set off, squeezing against me, leaning her head on my shoulder, and me with my arm around her. The snow would be creaking underfoot. The road was quiet and deserted, not a living soul to be seen, and after a few steps she’d let herself be kissed. Also, there were more stars in the sky than pears on a pear tree, so we’d stop and look up at the stars. Which one is yours? Because that one there is mine. How do you like that, they’re right next to each other. Then we’d kiss again, like the two stars. And we’d follow the stars all the way to her house. And if her old folks were sound asleep, we’d end up under her quilt.

Though I preferred summer to winter. In the summertime the world is wide open, orchards, meadows, fields, woods, haystacks, sheaves, bushes. You didn’t have to have a house, all you needed was the sky over your head. In the summer the girls’ blood was hotter from being warmed up out in the fields. In the summer you didn’t need to chase around after them, they fell into your arms by themselves. There’d be times you were mowing barley in your own field, and she’d be cutting wheat with a sickle in the next field, and all you had to do was cross from your barley to her wheat.

“Let me give you a hand, Hania.”

Or she’d start it herself:

“Could you help me out, Szymuś? I’ve still got so much to do.”

And in a wheat field you don’t have to worry about talking her into anything. Wheat is like a turned-down bed. The wheat’s hot, the sun’s shining above it. The girl would lie down and you’d take hold of her among the spikes and seeds like you were taking bread from an oven with your bare hands.

It must’ve been the devil tempted me to sow wheat on the other side of the road. I was going to plant potatoes, but Antek Kwiecień came to lend me a spade and we got to talking, what are you sowing, what are you planting, and how it was a waste of that land across the road to plant potatoes. Potatoes you can plant any old where. Over there, that’s the perfect place for wheat. It’s flat as can be, it’ll be no work at all, and this is going to be a good year for wheat. You can tell, the storks aren’t even thinking about flying away yet. Sow wheat. If it grows well you’d have to plant twice as many potatoes to equal it. And I won’t deny it, it did grow well. The stalks were as tall as me, every spike as thick as my finger, and the grains were fat and oily. Everyone that came past would say, that’s some fine wheat you got there, you’ll have grain like gold from that. It was a pleasure to mow. Even the weather helped out, like it was trying to live up to the wheat. It only rained once, and even that was nothing to speak of. I’d already started figuring out how many sacks I’d need once I threshed it, how much I’d leave for myself and how much I’d sell. Antek Kwiecień deserved a drink. I just had to finish bringing it in.

I spent all Saturday bringing in the sheaves, till late at night, and I counted on finishing Monday. The horse could rest up on Sunday, eat its fill of oats, then on Monday he’d work like a machine. And I’d be fresher after Sunday as well.

On Sunday there happened to be a church fair because it was the Feast of the Assumption. I’ve always liked fairs ever since I was a kid, so I went. But fairs aren’t what they used to be. Two or three wagons, other than that it was all cars and motorcycles. More outsiders than locals. There was no knowing where they’d all come from or why. Pretzels with no taste, nothing but water and baking powder and flour; back then you could have any kind you wanted. And there wasn’t half the stuff for sale there used to be. Back then there’d be two or three rows of stalls around the church wall, and every one loaded with things, especially all kinds of candies. Even the grown-ups would be watering at the mouth. And you could buy whatever your heart desired. Every animal that ever lived under the sun. Every saint there ever was. Our Ladies, big ones, small ones, with veils or wreaths on their head, crowned, with an Infant Jesus and without. Lord Jesuses on the cross and fallen under the cross, on Golgotha, with the lamb, risen from the dead. Armfuls of rosaries, beads, all sorts of trinkets. And on every stall, piles of mouth organs, swords, trumpets, pipes, whistles, everything a child could wish for. There was bunion cream, shoe polish, whetstones. You could listen to adventures from wartime, from plagues, from the wide world. People played and sang songs about bandits and rebels and bad children who threw their parents out of the house, and about evil stepmothers. There were people prophesying what would happen in a year’s time, in ten years and a hundred, and a good few things even came true. You could play black-and-white, hoops, dice, fishing, or try the shooting gallery. You could have a tooth pulled on the spot if you had the toothache. Or get your boots patched. Or have your picture taken in an airplane, on a camel, in a general’s uniform, or with your girl in a cutout heart.

But today? Today it’s all about conning people out of their money. And people are daft as monkeys, they’ll let themselves get taken in by any old thing. They buy and buy, whatever’s put in front of them, you can barely push through to see what’s at the stalls. Though even if I wanted to buy something, who would I buy it for?

The only thing I bought was an Our Lady in a blue dress. Years ago I’d broken one like that of mother’s. She’d gotten it on a pilgrimage way back when she was still single. I’d been swatting flies, the house was so full of them they wouldn’t let you sit in peace, and they were biting especially badly, the way they do before a storm. Mother was getting dinner ready and the Our Lady was up on this little shelf. One of the flies landed on it, and I swatted at it, but I missed the fly and the Our Lady came crashing down onto the floor. I froze, and mother burst out:

“Oh my Lord, he’s broken it!” And she looked at me as if I’d done the worst thing in the world. Then she took a clean white cloth from the chest and gathered all the broken pieces in it. She might even have been crying, though I couldn’t see because she was bent over.

“I’ll buy you another one,” I said after a bit.

“You won’t buy one like this,” she answered sadly. “I always prayed to her about you. She knew everything.”

Afterwards I looked around at different fairs, but I never did find one just like it. Then the war came. After the war I went less and less to the fairs. And the fairs seemed more and more timid somehow, it was hard enough to get an Our Lady at all, let alone one like the broken one. But even after mother died I carried on looking, because the thing kept gnawing at me.

Then I went to the shooting gallery to see if I still had a good eye. Ever since I was a boy I used to like to go shooting at the fair. Turned out I hadn’t lost it. The first five shots were spot on, then the second five too. I almost didn’t even have to take aim, just bang bang bang, and hand over the flowers, because you shot at tissue-paper flowers, or rather, at the string they hung by. There was a target as well, that had a black ring like a saucer in the middle, but any idiot could hit that and you didn’t get a prize. But with the flowers, every one you shot down was yours. All the people gathered around the gallery, kids, young men, girls, adults — they were all gobstruck. And the shooting gallery guy tried to take the gun away from me.

“Come on there, mister, let the young folks try their luck.”

But just out of spite I bought five more shots. Again every one was a hit. I gave the flowers to Irka Kwiatkowska, because of all the young girls in the village I thought she was the prettiest.

“Here, Irka, take this. That young fellow of yours isn’t going to hit anything for you. That’s young men these days for you.” Irka jumped up and down she was so pleased, and she gave me a kiss on the cheek, because her and that Zbyszek of hers had been watching me shoot.

Toward the end I bought two strings of pretzels, because that afternoon I was supposed to go watch television at Stach Sobieraj’s, and his Darek called me uncle and whenever I’d go there he’d always badger me to tell about the resistance, even if it was the same stories over and over. Sometimes I’d say to him:

“Darek, I really don’t remember any more.”

“Then tell what you remember.”

Or:

“I already told you that story.”

“Then tell it again.” And he’d sit there openmouthed. It was mostly whether I’d killed anyone, and what that was like. So I had to at least take him some pretzels.

For lunch I made cabbage soup and served it with bacon. It was good. We had two helpings each, the soup in a bowl and the bacon and bread on a plate. I could tell Michał liked it too.

“You like it?” I asked him. As usual, he didn’t answer. I washed the dishes. Saw to the animals. Then I started to get ready for the television.

But I go outside and I see the farmers are starting to drive out to the fields. There’s Stach Partyka, Barański, Socha. More and more of them.

“What are you doing standing there?” says Heniek Maszczyk. “Put your work clothes on and get out into the fields. Can’t you see, there are storm clouds coming, it’s gonna rain. We can at least get a wagonload or two in.”

I look at the sky and I think, what’s he talking about, rain? The sun’s bright as anything, sky’s blue as a cornflower. There’s a little dark spot over in the west, but that can mean good weather. Or it’ll pass us by.

“What do you mean, rain,” I say. “Look at the sky.”

“Never mind the sky, they said on the radio. Gee up!” And off he went.

I stood there and thought, it’d be a pity if the crop got rained on. The wheat had come up like never before. And here you couldn’t tell if it’d just be a few drops or whether the rain would set in. If it did set in it could rain and rain. And I’d be standing there staring at the sky, looking out the window, and worrying about not having brought the wheat in. For a moment I’d think it was brightening up a bit over there. But then Maszczyk’s rooster would crow and that would mean the rain would keep up. When the chickens ruffled their feathers you could tell the rain wouldn’t stop. And if the cat stayed over in the stove corner, it would all go to hell in a handcart. And my wheat would get so wet it’d make your heart ache.

On top of everything else, recently I’d had a dream about mother. She was kneading dough to make bread, but she had this kneading-trough that was half the size of the entire room, so there was no space for anyone and we were all standing around the walls. Mother was half the age she was when she died. She was in her nightshirt, barefoot, she was so hot the sweat was pouring off her, and she knelt at that trough and kept pushing her hands up to the elbows in the dough. But for some reason the dough wouldn’t knead properly. She kneaded and kneaded, but the water and the flour were still separate.

“Maybe we should all knead together?” I said. “Then it would go quicker.”

“But it’s my punishment,” said mother.

Then father spoke:

“That’s how it is in the next world. Whatever you did down here, you do there as well. I have to go water the horse.” And he went out. Someone was standing by the window with his back to the room, and everyone thought it was Michał, though no one could see his face. We couldn’t tell if he was old or young. He was wearing a brand-new suit and patent leather shoes, and a ratty old hat father used to put on when he was threshing so the chaff wouldn’t get in his hair. And it was only the hat that made it look like Michał. But no one had the courage to ask, is that you, Michał? And he didn’t seem to know either that he was with us, he just kept staring out the window. Then finally mother spoke again:

“Take the hat off, son. Don’t hurt your mother’s heart. See, the bread’s baking.”

Then Antek said in a soft voice:

“Ask him if he likes biscuit, mother. Do you, Michał?” All of a sudden a baby wailed in its cradle. Where had the cradle come from? There hadn’t been any cradle in the room. Mother stood from the kneading-trough and took the baby out of the cradle, and it was like it was Michał when he was tiny, though the figure by the window was still standing there and if it had been Michał he might have turned his head at his own crying. You know your own crying even from long, long ago.

“Oh, the poor little thing’s peed itself,” said mother, and she took a firm breast like a young girl’s from her blouse and put it in the baby’s mouth.

Right then father came back in and said:

“So, it’s Christmas Eve. We’ll need to bring the bread down from the attic. You go get it, Szymek.”

I harnessed the horse and it was, gee up!

With the first wagonload I didn’t even wait that long to get out onto the road from the field. One car came by, a second, a third, then again one, two, three, then there was a longer gap with the next cars quite a ways away. I flicked the whip and we made it up onto the blacktop. True, they honked like mad dogs because I’d gotten in their way, but you can kiss my ass, use your damn brakes, the road is for horses and wagons just the same.

Things didn’t go so well with the second load. The afternoon was getting on, there were more and more cars and the gaps between them were shorter and shorter, and here I had a wagon loaded up with sheaves. With just the one horse it was no easy matter getting out quickly from the field onto the road. The road is higher than the field, and you have to make a sharp left turn. I got down off the wagon, took the horse by the bridle and moved him forward. It was like walking in some deep place. I’d take one step, then it would be, whoa! And the cars would be zooming past, honking their horns and flashing their lights. The horse strained, he was trying to move forward but the wagon pulled him back because the rear wheels were still down in the field. I was holding him back then pulling him forward, I was bathed in sweat. The horse was foaming at the mouth. But in the end we made it across. Though if the road had been clear, in the time I waited I’d have been able to take a whole other load.

So I come up with my third load, and here old Kuś is parked by the road, loaded up with sheaves and waiting. And the cars are speeding by one after another after another, both ways, there’s not a single gap between them. It was like a cloud had opened up and it was raining cars, and there they were pouring down the road.

“What, are they not letting us across?” I asked the old man.

“Sure aren’t.”

“You been waiting here long?”

“Sure have.”

“Did you try to drive out?”

“Sure did.”

“And?”

“Sure didn’t work. I’m still here.”

“You could wait here till you goddam drop dead!”

“Sure could. What can you do?”

“Drive out!”

“Sure, then go.”

“Goddammit! We should just take the shaft out and give them hell!”

“If waiting doesn’t work, you won’t do any good with a shaft either. You’ve got a rosary there, pray awhile and you’ll stop being angry. Always works for me. Whenever I need to get anything done, at the district administration or the co-op, I take my rosary along and say it one bead after another, and however long I have to wait, it’s like I didn’t have to wait at all. How about it?”

“You know where you can put your rosary!”

“Don’t blaspheme or you’ll turn God against us as well. And he’s all we have left.”

I was madder at old Kuś than at the cars. For getting to the road before me. He was sitting there now without a care in the world, up on his sheaves, his whip between his legs, saying his rosary with his hands, and he probably felt like he was sitting on the bench outside his house. And when you’re on your bench outside your house, time lies like a dog at your feet, warming itself in the sun or thinking about the next world. Besides, he was over eighty, his woman had long since died and his sons had gone off to the town, where did he have to hurry back to. Me, on the other hand, I was planning to make another trip after this one, even two more if I managed. Since I’d already given up my Sunday, let there be a good few loads to show for it. And the sky looked more and more like rain. There were twice as many dark clouds over to the west.

After a bit Wicek Marzec came along, his wagon was full also.

“You’re waiting?”

“Yep.”

“Whoa!” He pulled his horse up, the shaft almost poked into my sheaves. “Looks like we’ll be here awhile. Where are all those damn cars going? People don’t even know how to sit on their asses these days. Sunday’s no good for a day of rest anymore, evidently — they’ll have to pick another day.”

“Then there’d have to be another God,” said Kuś, bristling.

“Let there be, if that’s how it has to happen!”

Then Heniek Maszczyk drove up with his Terenia. And he says the same thing:

“You’re waiting?”

“Yep.”

I liked that Terenia. Couldn’t I have been born twenty years later? I felt sorry for her that all that beauty was going to waste in the harvest. When she saw us all waiting there she slipped down off the sheaves.

“Heniek, I’m gonna walk back, the kid needs feeding. There’s no telling how long you’ll be here.” She set off on foot across the fields.

There was no break in the cars. It was one long string of them. Syta and Barański and Franek Jędrys came along and each of them repeated:

“You’re waiting?”

“Yep.” It was like they were saying a greeting, “God bring you fortune,” and we were answering, “God give you thanks.”

In the end there was a line of maybe ten wagons, with Kuś at the front like a lookout.

“Bartłomiej, keep your eyes peeled! The moment you can, whack your horse on the backside and get out there!”

“I am keeping my eyes peeled,” he said, annoyed. “Can’t you see the cars keep coming and coming? Is it my fault they’ve had enough of staying home?” Then a moment later he says in a good-natured way: “Hey there, Szymek! Any idea why those cars are all painted? Green and red and heaven knows what all else? I mean, horses are different colors as well. But horses are born that way. Though one time, you know, thieves stole four horses from the manor and they colored two of them black and two of them chestnut. They went to market and they might even have sold them, they already had buyers. But it began to drizzle. People saw a miracle, a horse changing color. The black ones become duns, the chestnuts turned into grays. On a fair day like today they surely would have sold them. But tomorrow, who knows. Looks like rain. Though in one of them cars it makes no difference whether it’s raining or not, they’re all nice and cozy in there. They’re just riding along seeing the world. Not like when all you’ve seen of the world is when you were in the wars. Or when you went to market. But back then you’d have to wait till your cucumbers grew. You’d pick a whole lot and your woman’d put on her fancy clothes, and you’d be off to Karasin, cause the money was better there. And if you sold what you had you could go to the pub. That Waleria of mine was quite the lady. You’d never catch her drinking plain old vodka. It was always only rum. The Jew knew her, he didn’t even have to ask. Then when she’d had a bit to drink she’d start singing. She had a lovely voice. There were times everything we made on the cucumbers would go. And you know, she could cook cabbage like nobody else. She’d chop up black turnip and garlic and onion, sprinkle on some caraway, then she’d chuck in some lard or bacon fat. Then once it was cooked on the stove, in the wintertime she’d put it out in the frost for the whole night. Next day she’d light the stove and put it in the oven. We’d be eating it the whole week. When she died she said to me, all your clothes are washed and ironed, Bartuś. I even whitewashed the inside walls for you. I was going to cook you up some cabbage as well, but God didn’t let me. You’ll have to do it yourself.”

“Don’t talk so much, Bartłomiej. Watch the road,” I said, but in a way that wouldn’t make him take offense.

He stopped talking and kind of hunched over, and from behind you couldn’t tell if he was watching the cars closely, or he was praying.

“Hey, Bartłomiej! Are you asleep?”

“Why would I be sleeping,” he said angrily, turning toward me. “You think I’ve never done guard duty? Let me tell you, I was a soldier long before you were even a twinkle in your mother’s eye.”

But a moment later he pointed to the road with his whip and shouted almost pleased:

“Szymek, look how that green one’s chasing the red one. And the red one won’t let him past. He’s a feisty little devil, even if he’s small.”

All of a sudden Franek Jędrys called from behind:

“Hey, you there up front! Watch out! There’s a gap after the red one! The second he passes, Kuś needs to get out there. And you after him, Szymek!”

You could already see the first bigger gap from around the bend. Behind a black car the next one was only just entering the curve, and the black one was almost on a level with us. I tightened the reins on the horse and lifted my whip, all ready to flick it and shout, gee up! and follow right behind Kuś. I called to the old man:

“Lookout, Bartłomiej! Come on, now! Off you go! Gee up!”

But instead of tugging at the reins right away he had to sit himself up straight, switch the reins from his left hand to his right, and he didn’t even give a decent tug, he just twitched them like he was setting off from home, and at first his mare didn’t even know what he wanted. It was only when he said, “Gee up!” But even the gee up was like when you start plowing. So there was only time for the horse to strain forward a bit, the wagon jerked and he had to stop because it was too late. The car from the other side of the gap was almost there, and behind it there was a snake of cars so long you couldn’t see the end of it.

“Goddammit!” I said, furious at Kuś, especially because I’d moved off quicker than him and my shaft got stuck in his load and twisted my horse’s neck. “The hell you were in the army! You wouldn’t have survived a day in the war at that speed! You’d have been pushing up the daisies long ago! Why you had to be at the goddam front of the line instead of the back I don’t know. All you needed was to get your horse’s front legs on the blacktop and you’d be on your way! You should’ve used the whip, not the reins! Give her a good lash instead of being gentle on her!” I was so furious I yanked my horse back as hard as I could, and the trace almost ripped the creature’s head off. I used the whip on both sides, it’s not easy backing up with a loaded wagon.

“Fucking hell!”

“Shit!”

“He had to go and straighten himself up!”

“He forgot to cross himself as well!”

“You get a guy like that up there and all he’ll do is wait! You can’t go around him, you can’t go over him!”

“He ought to be saying his goodbyes to the world, not bringing in the crops!”

“Or haul his sons’ asses back from the town and let them do the job!”

“He’s got one foot in the grave and he can’t leave the earth alone! You’ll have enough of it when you’re six feet under!”

“He should give his land to the government, let it be!”

“The countryside’s supposed to be moving forward, but how can it with old farts like him standing in the way!”

Curses and insults stormed down on Kuś’s head. All he did was hunch up, his head tucked in, and wait till it all passed. Or maybe somewhere there in his lap he was saying his rosary, like he was waiting his turn at the district administration or the co-op. In the end I felt sorry for him. I’d stopped being angry, because what was the point of being angry at the wrong person, and I called out to him:

“Hey, Bartłomiej! Maybe you could take my wagon and I’ll drive yours?”

I had no idea he’d be so upset.

“Why should I take your wagon? What’s wrong with mine? I’ve been a farmer longer than you have. I’ve got more acres than you. No one plows or sows for me, and no one else needs to drive my wagon for me either. Eighty-two years it’s been, that’s long enough to know how to farm.”

At that, one of the other men shouted:

“Eighty-two years and he’s still clinging to life, goddammit!”

Someone cracked his whip and it made all the horses twitch. Kuś turned around oh so slowly to the other wagons, gave us this strange look, and said:

“It’s not my life I’m worried about, it’s the horse’s.”

Everyone suddenly felt foolish. No one said another word one way or the other. Someone tugged quietly at the reins, whoa! but not because his horse was uneasy, the reins were maybe just stinging his hands. No one even reached into his pocket to have a smoke. And that’s always the best remedy when you can’t think of anything to say or you’ve got a bad conscience. But Kuś seemed to be kind of overcome by bitterness, maybe not at the other farmers but just in general:

“She’s eighteen years old, you know, and it’s good she can still pull. Because that’s like a dog being ten, or a person, however old they’re meant to get. Only ravens live longer. But you won’t find any ravens these days! It’s all crows and rooks, though people call them all ravens. You know, she already almost died on me one time. I was plowing the potato field and she started playing up, so I give her a flick with the tip of the whip and I shout, gee up! All of a sudden, you know, she goes down on her knees, then she falls on her side. I run up, I think, maybe she’s got a touch of the colic. I grabbed her by the bridle and pulled, get up now. I think, I’ll try with the whip. I gave her a good crack, but you know, I look and I see it’s death, not colic. She turned her head but she couldn’t get back up. What could I do? Tell me what to do, Lord, my mare’s dying. But not a peep from up there. All you can hear is crows and rooks cawing away. So I squatted down, I took her head on my lap, I held it and I said to her, get up, are you going to leave me with the potato field half done? We can die together. You know it won’t be long. Get up. We’ve worked so long together, why should we die separately? We’ll plow this field next year again, maybe the year after as well, and that’ll be that. Or maybe God’ll only let us finish this field, nothing more. Get up. And she did.”

He sighed and coughed so hard he had to hit himself in the chest with his fist because something got stuck, then he coughed it up and spat it out and he turned back around to the wagons and carried on:

“One time, you know, my grandfather Mikołaj told me how long ago God was handing out riches. He called all the people that lived on earth because he wanted to give things out fairly. But first there came the princes and judges and merchants and other rich folk. They arrived in all different kinds of carriages. And, they were racing each other, the drivers were lashing the horses so hard their whips snapped. And the peasants, like you’d expect, even if some of them had a horse they didn’t want to tire it out if they didn’t need to, so they came on foot. And even though it was God they were visiting, it was still a ways. So when they got there God had already given everything away to those other folks. God was really upset that there were still some other people, because the rich men had told him that was everyone. Also, he could see the peasants were dressed in rags. They had shoes made of linden bark, and coarse shirts with rope belts. They didn’t even have caps to take off when they came into God’s presence. And so God was even more troubled.

“ ‘What have I got for you, my little golden people?’ he says. ‘I’ve given everything away. All I have left is the crown of thorns on my head and this cloak you see me in. I’m as poor as you are.’

“He sat there, he rested his chin on his hand, lowered his head, and thought and thought. The peasants reckoned nothing would come of it and one of them says:

‘ “All right, we’ll be on our way, God.’

“But God says:

‘ “Just a moment. I’ll give you a little of my patience. If you take it, you’ll be able to put up with anything. Because people are going to have more need for patience than for riches.” ’

Kuś fell to thinking and stared at the passing cars. All of us on our wagons followed suit and stared at the cars like he was. And maybe they were even a bit less mad at them. All of a sudden Kuś pointed at the road with his whip and shouted:

“Hey, two hundred!”

“What about two hundred?”

“That’s how many have driven past.”

“What are you counting them for? It’s a waste of time. They’re not worth it.”

“Well, when there’s nothing else a fellow can do, he can at least count. My old father, God rest his soul, he’d always tell me, count, son, keep counting, you never know when it’ll come in handy. One time, you know, in the summertime we were lying under this apple tree in the orchard of a Sunday. I was already grown up. Father wasn’t saying anything and I wasn’t saying anything either. Father let his hat slip down over his forehead, I thought he was asleep. So I closed my eyes a moment too. Then all at once he says:

‘ “Three thousand five hundred and eighty-three.’

‘ “What do you mean, three thousand five hundred and eighty-three, dad?’ I ask, I thought he was dreaming.

‘ “That’s how many apples there are on the tree.’

‘ “How do you know?’

“ ‘I counted them. I always count things when something’s bothering me. You should too. Start with raspberries. There aren’t that many raspberries on a bush, so it won’t be too hard. After that, try counting the sloes on a sloe tree. Then break open a poppy head and count the seeds. Go up on a hill and count the fields and meadows and field boundaries. Count whatever you see in front of you, pigeons, clouds, people at funerals, posts in a fence, rocks in the river. Just never be idle. And if one time you can count all the stars in the night sky, then you’ll be able to say you have patience and you can overcome anything. I never was able to, but you should try. Maybe you’ll manage it.’ ”

“Hey there, Bartłomiej!” someone called from one of the wagons down the line. “I think there’s a gap, get going now!”

But there wasn’t any gap to be seen. The cars were closer and closer together. They were starting not to have enough space, they were honking at each other and flashing their lights and braking.

“The bastards won’t even let you take home a wagonload of sheaves!” said Wicek Marzec behind me. “Not that it’ll stop them eating the stuff. They can’t get enough of it!”

The men on the wagons started getting riled up again.

“They’re breeding like reptiles!”

“You know what, Wincenty, they’re not reptiles, they’re germs!”

“Can’t God do something?”

“What can God do? God made the world without cars! Cars must have been made by the devil.”

“Never mind the devil. I wish a big tree would just fall across the road and kill them all, damn them.”

All of a sudden Stach Brożyna, who was standing up astride his sheaves, started waving his whip in the direction of the road.

“Hey, you there! Stop for a minute, you sons of bitches! We’ll get across and you can all be on your way!” He was jumping about so much his horses took fright. They jerked forward, and Stach toppled over and landed on the sheaves. Everyone roared with laughter. Stach didn’t let up though. He got back on his feet. “Hey, you!” But he realized shouting at the cars wasn’t going to do any good, and he started firing up the other men:

“Come on, guys! Are we sheep or what? Someone ought to go up onto the road and wave his arms. Maybe they’ll stop!”

“That’s not gonna happen. Now if we all went out, maybe we could block their way.”

“What are they, water, that we have to block their way? What we should do is take our scythes and pitchforks to them! With them folks that’s always the only way!”

“Or throw rocks at their windshields!”

Anger swept along the line of wagons. Even Kuś got carried away and shouted:

“A cross is what you need! Across would stop them! No one can stand up to the cross. Nip over to the church, you know! It’s a hop and a skip. Bring a cross and go out on the road with it! The priest won’t mind. Tell him we can’t get over the road with our wagons.”

“That’s bullshit! A cross? You might as well just spit on the ground in front of them.”

“Don’t you blaspheme now! The cross is bullshit?” His voice even got hoarse. “You’ll be begging at that cross yet, damn you. Why do you think people put crosses and chapels and shrines by the roadside? So nothing bad will happen when you’re walking or driving there. Or at a crossroads? So you’ll know which way to go when you’re lost! You know, one time in the first war we were marching down a road just like this one. We were soldiers, not civilians. And it was a whole lot narrower. There was no blacktop back in those days, just dirt. From the other direction there was a funeral procession with the cross at the front. We’d barely heard them saying the ‘Eternal Rest’ when our CO gives the order, Don’t kick up dust! Pick your feet up high!”

At that moment Stach Brożyna, who’d been standing taking a piss by his load, ran up to Kuś’s wagon, buttoning himself up as he came.

“You’re talking crap! Goddammit!” And just like that he lashed out once and twice at Kuś’s mare. “It’s because of you, it’s because of you we’re waiting here! Gee up! Gee up!”

The mare took the strain and jerked forward. Kuś pulled back on the reins with all his might till the animal’s head twisted, and he didn’t let go.

“Whoa! Stop! What fault is it of hers, you son of a bitch!”

Stach was in a rage, he took the whip in his right hand and struck out at the mare’s back and sides and legs.

“Giddyup! Giddyup! Come on now, move!”

From the beating she probably would have moved out in front of the cars, there was nothing else she could do, but Kuś lay down flat on the sheaves and wouldn’t let go of the reins, holding on with all the strength in his old body. The mare tossed her pulled-back head, pressed against the shaft, shifted left and right, and in the end she squatted with her hindquarters on the ground, but she didn’t move.

“Leave her alone, Stach!” I shouted.

But it was like Stach had gone crazy. His cap fell off. His shirt came out of his pants. And he kept hitting. Suddenly the mare lurched sideways and something cracked in the reach. The shaft rose upward and it looked as if the wagon would tip over.

I jumped down off my sheaves, grabbed Stach by the shoulders and forced him back into the field. He twisted clear and hit me on the head with the whip. He tried to do it a second time but I dodged out of the way, then I grabbed him by the throat. His eyes almost popped out, his tongue poked out, he fell to his knees. The guys on the wagons were shouting:

“Christ, he’s gonna strangle him! Let him go! Szymek!” When I freed him he was gasping for breath.

“Don’t you raise your hand again!” I said to him. “The next time I won’t let go.”

Kuś came down off his sheaves, straightened the shaft, straightened the harness on the horse, patted her and stroked her and mumbled like he was talking to himself:

“How could he have beat her. Honestly, how could he have beat her. Her skin’s all trembling. And for what? For what? Come on now, stop shaking.”

“Bartłomiej,” I said, “get back up there and stop fussing with your horse. We’re gonna have to be going, we’ll miss our chance again. We’ve been waiting here long enough already.”

“How do you know, maybe the Lord put us here and he’s making us wait as a punishment. And the cars just keep coming. You know, there’s no point hurrying. It’s Sunday. Either way we’re sinning against God with every wagonload. The fewer loads, the fewer sins. The seventh day shall be a day of rest, that’s what it says. And it was God that said it, not people. And he reckons everything up, he does. If not on his own, then through his reckoners. And they’re just as careful as human ones. Pity I didn’t bring her feed bag. She could have had a bite to eat the while.”

He started clambering back up onto his sheaves. It wasn’t easy.

“Shall I get down and help you?” I said.

“Why would I need your help. You’re no spring chicken yourself. Time was I could shimmy up a poplar tree in the twinkling of an eye. And without anyone’s help.”

In the end he managed to climb up there. He got settled, took his whip and reins in hand.

“See, I could climb a tree even now.”

“Just keep your eyes open,” I said.

“That’s all I am doing.”

The men had quieted down on their wagons again. Nobody even felt like cursing, all you could hear was the cars roaring past, screeching and honking, then from time to time one of the horses would give a snort.

“Why so quiet, Bartłomiej?” I said, because everything seemed too silent to me. All those furious wagons and no one saying a word.

“You told me to watch out so I’m watching out. Where are they all driving to, damn them? Are they running away or something? From what? They can’t drive forever, though. They’ll get sick of driving before we get sick of waiting. Sure, not waiting would be better than waiting. But getting mad won’t do any good either. Think of all the things people have to put up with that are worse than waiting. Sometimes they think they can’t take it anymore. But they do. And you can never say they couldn’t take anything worse. Because in this world there’s no limit to how much worse things can get. And all people have is patience. So they have to just wait it all out. They’re like trees, just standing there, for years, for centuries. Wherever they were planted or wherever the wind sowed them. They don’t choose their place, they just stand there from the moment they’re born. Oaks stand the longest of all the trees. Poplars the shortest. Poplars are crap trees. You can’t even make a scythe handle out of their wood. But oak is like rock, you know. You can use it for anything. A doorstep, a wheel hub, a barrel, a cross, whatever you like. And all because it doesn’t get angry, it doesn’t curse, it just stands there. There are times when shouting won’t do you any good, nor tears, nor mowing. Neither God nor people will help you, only that patience of yours. And even when your time comes to die, it won’t seem so terrible, because you know, death is patience too. So we’ll outwait them, we will. We’ve out-waited all kinds of things with nothing but our patience to help us.”

I wasn’t thinking what I was doing. It was like someone had jabbed me in the side with a knife. I jumped down off my load.

“Back up, boys!” I shouted. “I’m going out there!”

There was alarm among the wagons.

“Are you nuts, Szymek?!”

“What’s gotten into you now?”

“You’ll never make it across!”

“There’s one car after another!”

“Think what you’re doing, for heaven’s sake!”

I straightened the traces and bridle, patted the horse on the neck, checked the straps. I didn’t feel upset, I wasn’t mad at anyone.

“Szymek, for the love of God!” Kuś leaned down all the way from his load. “I ought to be the one to go, you know. I’m the first in line. I’m only a few steps from death anyway. And my mare’s ready to die as well.”

I took the whip and reins in hand, but I could see the farmers standing there like the cat had their tongues.

“Come on, back up! Otherwise I won’t be able to get out from behind Kuś!”

And all of a sudden it was like the fear got into them, one after another they started backing up, pulling their horses’ heads up, snapping their whips, shouting, “Whoa, back up!” The reaches and axles creaked and goddammits were flying, because reversing a loaded wagon is no easy task.

I jerked back, pulled the horse to the right, and first of all drove into the field. Then, as I passed Kuś’s wagon I tightened the reins and it was giddyup! toward the road.

“Dear God, he’s going to kill himself! Stop! Wait up! Szymek!”

Kuś’s hoarse voice rang out through the air:

“Cross yourself at least!”

I leaned my shoulder against the wagon. The whip was burning my hand. The horse was trotting along at a decent pace, maybe he sensed what he was up against. The front of the shaft was almost at the road when suddenly he hesitated and tossed his head. That part happened to be uphill. I flicked the whip across his back and legs. His whole body tensed, all the way to his hind hooves that were steadied against the ground. Gee up! Gee up! He was already coming out in front of the moving cars. Then the wagon sort of jerked him backwards, or maybe he just got scared of the cars. I braced my shoulder with all my strength against the load and took the whip to his legs once and twice again, till the horse arched. He moved forward. His front hooves were already clopping on the blacktop. The front wheels were on it too. I leaned back and whipped him again, like I was knocking the cars away from in front of him. By now my legs were coming out onto the road as well.

All of a sudden something flashed in front of my eyes. There was a terrifying honking sound right close by. I heard the squeal of tires. There was a crash and I came down like a felled tree. To begin with I couldn’t see a thing, like a fog had fallen all around me, I couldn’t feel anything either, I only heard voices and shouts somewhere far away. Then the fog began to slowly clear, and nearby to my left I saw a big hole, and in the hole a light-colored head covered in blood and looking like it was sleeping. I tried to get up. But it was as if I didn’t have a body, all I had was my will. Right in front of me on the blacktop my legs were lying all twisted like tree roots, and they were covered in blood. It seemed like my blood was flowing out of them, spilling far and wide. Though they weren’t hurting. I had the vague feeling they mustn’t have been my legs after all. And the whip I was holding in my right hand also didn’t seem to be mine, or the hand itself. Where could a whip have come from? I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I’d needed it for. It was like I was dreaming it all. It was only the road I knew was real, because I could see there weren’t any acacias growing alongside it anymore.

People were gathering around me. I couldn’t figure out why. They were shouting, their heads were bobbing like turkeys’ heads, they were waving their arms about. There were more and more of them. They shouted louder and louder, waved their arms faster and faster, and all of them were staring at me like crazy. Someone kicked my legs as they lay there on the blacktop. But it didn’t hurt at all. Someone else leaned over me, he was wearing a checkered shirt and he had eyes like a fish.

“He’s alive,” I heard him say, his voice was so loud it felt like it was boring into my ears.

He started to tug at my shoulders. And he must have woken me from my dream, because I saw I was sitting hunched over among the sheaves, and the people standing over me were real. Right next to me stood my horse, tangled in the traces, the shaft forcing his head all the way up to the sky.

“See, peasant like him, still alive.”

At that moment I felt it was my hand holding the whip, and I sensed a huge furious force gathering in that whip. I started lashing out blindly at all those screaming faces, and eyes, and shirts.

“You bastards!” I felt I was shouting at the whole world, though the sound might not even have passed my throat. Because the fog covered everything back up. As if I didn’t have a body again. Someone pulled the whip from my hand. Then when the fog rose again a moment later, I saw Kuś kneeling over me.

“You’re alive. Thank the Lord, you’re alive.”