Stone Upon Stone

VI. Weeping

People keep asking me, when are you finally going to get that tomb finished? You might at least roof it with tar paper, keep the water out. Well I would have finished it, I’d have finished it long ago, if that was all I had to worry about. But as if I didn’t have enough on my plate already, here one of my pigs went and died. She was getting up close to her weight, she would have been a good three thirty, three fifty pounds. I figured, when I sold her I could get some more work done on the tomb. The walls have been up for a long time now, the partitions were ready even, all it needed was a roof and push comes to shove, people could be buried in it even if it was unfinished.

Chmiel was patient, waiting for when we’d start again, though he was getting old and bent over. Just one time he sent his old lady over to say his aches and pains were getting worse and worse, and by the way how were things with that tomb of mine, because he’d like to finish what he began. When I met him from time to time in the village he’d just nod back and walk on, or at the most he’d ask: so when? But like he wasn’t asking about my tomb, just in general. He was content with any old excuse, it’s because of this or that, Chmiel, though mostly it was, once I’m done fattening the pig. Everyone knows a pig’s the fastest way to make a bit of money. So long as it doesn’t get sick, you wait your eight months then it’s off to the purchasing center. Fatten her up then, fast as you can, he’d say, cause you might run out of time. The fact was, whenever I did fatten a pig there were always more urgent things that needed paying. First it was taxes, next it was quilt covers, then winter clothes for Michał, one thing or another, or I had to order a supply of coal, and the tomb could wait, luckily no one was dying. Besides, I didn’t rear that many pigs, one or two, as the chance came along. Because if you want to fatten a pig you need a woman at home, a guy on his own can’t handle it. Though sometimes I thought about taking out a loan, building a pig shed for a hundred or so pigs and starting to raise them for money like some folks do around here. If it’s not pigs it’s something else, but only for money. Take Ciamciaga for instance, the man can’t add three plus three but he started keeping sheep. No one had sheep in the village before. There were sheep once, but it was at the manor before the war. He even learned how to shear them. The first time he did it the poor creature was so cut up it looked like wolves had been at it. But now he shears, his old lady spins, his daughters knit sweaters, and everyone wears sweaters made of Ciamciaga’s wool. Or Franek Kukla, he started an orchard and now he sells apples by the cartload. He’s got apple trees all in long rows like cows in a big cattle barn. Plus each row is a different kind of apple. All the rows are straight and neat, all the trees are the same height. They’re all as clean as if he combed them every day. I think they even all have the same number of branches, because where there used to be more, you can see they’ve been sawn off. And on each one it’s like there’s nothing but apples growing, no leaves, no branches, no trunk, no earth even. Except it’s kind of quiet in his orchard, you don’t hear bees buzzing or birds chirping, it’s nothing but apple trees as far as the eye can see. I said to him one time:

“So you’ve got your orchard. But it’s kind of sad in there.”

He laughed:

“Ha, ha! What do I need a happy orchard for. All it has to do is make me money.”

Maybe that’s how things ought to be. Sometimes I’ve even seen myself going into that pig shed for a hundred pigs, inside it’s white from all the animals and the only thing you can see is the rise and fall of fat bellies. And it’s all mine. But I soon get over it. What do I need all that money for. I’m not planning to build anything. I don’t have anyone to leave it to. So one or two pigs is enough. Pigs take work. You sometimes don’t have time to cook your own dinner, you’ll grab a slice of bread with milk or with a piece of sausage, but a pig has to have two meals a day. I might not even have reared the one or two, but someone’s sow in the village would have piglets and they’d say, do you want one? Take it. They’re a healthy size, they’ll fatten up nicely. Or when I rode to market, coming home with an empty wagon seemed wrong somehow, so I’d ride back with a young pig at least.

One time Felek Midura convinced me to take one, he didn’t even want the money right away but later, whenever I had it. Or we’d figure something out, I’d lend him my horse for plowing in the spring, because it was difficult for him with one horse on that hillside of his. Or I could pay him back in hay in the winter, since I had a meadow and he’d sold his. Or if not in hay then in potatoes. Come on, take one, they’ve got little short snouts and tiny ears, they’ll be good eaters — even now I can barely pull them off the teat. So I took one.

But it had some kind of sickness in it. It ate enough for two piglets but it didn’t get any fatter. A whole year I fed it and it never grew bigger than a cat. A pig like that is the worst, you don’t have the heart to kill it but keeping on rearing it is a waste of time. Besides, what was the point of slaughtering it, you could hold the thing in your hands like a baby, why even bother. After a year I got used to having it around. I called him Squeals — the name just came to me. I kept saying to him, stop squealing, stop squealing, so he became Squeals. Besides, I’d started to feel he needed a name, I couldn’t just keep calling to him, come and get it, especially as the eating didn’t do any good. If I’d had more of them they wouldn’t have needed names. But when there was only one, and there he was all alone between the horse and the cows, he had to be called something. Oftentimes I used to sit myself down in the shed and watch him feed. And however angry I was that he wasn’t growing, I forgave him, because just watching him eat so healthily was a pleasure. Though one time I got so mad I grabbed him up away from the trough and hauled him over to Midura’s.

“Here, take your crappy pig back, damn you. You knew, that’s why you didn’t want any money. Yours are all fattened up and sold, look at this one.”

But the next morning I step outside and I see my Squeals running around the farmyard and grubbing about for food. It touched my heart.

“Squeals!” I called, and there he was trotting towards me at full tilt. It made me think. He was just a piglet, but he was capable of getting attached to someone. There had to be some intelligence there. Though it could also have been that Midura dropped him in my yard in the night to make it look like the pig had gotten attached to me. But I didn’t take him to Midura a second time. Just so he’d come back or be brought back yet again? Luckily I’d not gotten around to thinking what I’d do with the money once he was fattened up, so it wasn’t such a big disappointment. Because the one that died, ever since it was small that one had been meant to pay for the roof on the tomb. The moment I brought it back from market I put it in the shed, poured food in its trough, and said:

“Eat up and get big, you’re going to pay for the roof.”

Every time I fed it I repeated to myself that it was for the roof, that I needed to make sure it didn’t go on something more urgent this time. And it was like it understood, because you could almost watch it getting fatter. Though for my part I never scrimped on the potatoes or the coarse-ground flour. And the whey was all for the pig. When there wasn’t any whey I’d even give it milk. Sometimes I’d go pick nettles to fill it up even more.

Eight months hadn’t gone by and it was ready to be taken down to the purchasing center. But I decided to hold on to it a bit longer, it ate like the devil and every day was a gain, every pound meant more money. Besides, a pig has to be at least three twenty, three forty, mother always reared them that big, it’s only then that it’s a real pig. After it’s slaughtered there’s less waste, with one that’s not been properly fattened a good third of it can go to waste. Plus, when you take a big pig like that down to the center everyone wants to guess how much it weighs, everyone pats its back to see what kind of bacon it’s going to give, sometimes the guys even get into an argument about whether it’ll be three fingers or four. It makes your heart swell to think you’ve reared a pig like that.

It was almost there. I even stopped Chmiel of my own accord at the co-op one day:

“Not long now, Chmiel. In two, three weeks I’m driving that pig down to the center and we’re on for the roof.”

“You do that, make sure you’re not too late.”

Then one day I go in the shed and I see there’s hardly anything eaten from the trough, and my pig’s lying there like it’s sleepy. I prodded it with my foot, come on, get up. It did, but it was kind of sluggish. I grabbed it by the tail and it didn’t jerk or squeal. I pulled the trough closer and shoved its head in it, eat now. But it was like it didn’t have the strength to open its mouth. I thought, maybe it’s eaten a rat. Often when a pig eats a rat it can’t eat anything else for a bit. Except that if it had eaten a rat it’d be thirsty, rats burn like fire. But when I brought it some whey it didn’t even look up. I ran to the vet, but when he came all he could do was tell me to slaughter it and bury it.

The next day they came and sprayed my whole shed with something smelly. I had to take my cows and calf and horse and put them in the barn. Because when you went in there it made your eyes water. Even any of the chickens that got close to the cattle shed, their eyes watered too. And the dog, I thought he’d go mad. He sneezed and gagged, he foamed at the mouth and he clung to my feet so much I couldn’t get rid of him. Have a bark and you’ll get over it, I said, go on, bark like you were barking at a thief.

I even had a railroad rail ready to use for the ceiling, all I needed to do was go grease the right palm and drive up in my wagon. Because obviously you don’t buy rails like that in the ordinary way, you need a special opportunity. And opportunities don’t stand there waiting for you, you have to go after them yourself. I needed three lengths of about ten feet each. I went all over the place asking around, with no luck at all. Then one day I’m walking along the tracks and I see they’re switching out the old rails for new. I started talking with the workers, were those old rails so used up they weren’t any good anymore, or were they changing the railroad? No they weren’t, but there was going to be an express train on this route. What’s going to happen to the old rails? They’ll be sent for scrap. Well, I’d buy one of those, I could use it for the roof in the tomb I’m having built. It could be cut into three pieces and there’d still be some left over. They didn’t know about that, I should go talk to the stationmaster. I go to the stationmaster, I know him well, of course, and I say:

“Listen, Władysław, sell me one of those rails they’re changing out, I need it for the tomb I’m having built. I hear the express train’s coming through here. It can be the most worn-down one.”

He can’t do it. Why not, it’s only going for scrap, the workers told me, and I’ll pay however much I have to. He can’t because it’s government property, and government property isn’t for sale. If it was his he’d give me it for free. But everything on the railroad is government owned. Even the red cap he’s wearing isn’t his, it belongs to the government.

“So what can I do? The ceiling won’t hold without rails. What do you suggest, Władysław?”

“Hang on, just wait till this freight train’s gone through. For a tomb, you say?”

“That’s right. I’ve had the walls up a long time now, it’s all partitioned off, there’s only the roof left to do.”

He took off that red cap of his and scratched behind his ear.

“Well everyone has to die sooner or later, that’s a fact. And they have to be buried somewhere. Go talk to one of the switchmen, slip him something and he’ll turn a blind eye, then you can bring your wagon in the night and take it away. Just remember, I wasn’t the one that told you.”

That’s how it was with almost everything. Nothing would come easily. I had to have a pit dug so Chmiel could get in to do the building, ten feet by ten and five deep, and I lost a good few months on that. Time was I wouldn’t have asked anyone, I’d just have dug it myself. But how could I do that with these legs of mine, and the walking sticks, and me just back from the hospital. I needed to hire someone for the job. So I got that swindler the Postman, because it’s not so easy to hire a decent worker. His name’s Kurtyka, but they call him the Postman. He lives with his sister, she’s an old maid, they have three acres. The sister works the land while he gads about the village from morning till night, making some money here, stealing there, or someone’ll buy him a drink. He’s always drunk. And even when he’s not, he pretends to be. He’s so good at it that if you don’t know him you can’t tell he’s not really drunk. But evidently he prefers living like that to being sober. Or maybe he’s forgotten how to not be drunk. We’ve all gotten used to him always being drunk, he wouldn’t be the same person if he tried to be sober. Because what is he, some Jasiek with three acres that he shares with his sister. As it is the other farmers laugh at him, the women feel sorry for him, the children chase after him down the street and shout at him: Postman! Postman! Postman!

I met him early one morning by the shrine. I was heading out to the fields to dig potatoes. He was standing there with his hands in his pockets. He was squinting in the sunlight like he was already drunk, or to fool someone into buying him a drink.

“Whoa.” I stopped the horse. “Listen, Jasiek, maybe you could dig a pit for me for my tomb?”

He looked up and eyed me, smelling a half-bottle.

“What, are you planning to die?”

“One of these days I’ll have to.”

“They’ll dig you a hole when you go, why worry about it ahead of time.”

“I’m planning to build a walled tomb, the kind of thing you need to get done in advance.”

“Do you think you’re not going to rot in a walled tomb? You’ll rot in there just the same.”

“So will you do it?”

“I can dig you a pit, for a tomb, for potatoes, for slaking lime. Makes no difference to me, a pit’s a pit. Just buy me a half-bottle.”

“I’ll buy you a half-bottle and pay you as well.”

“But buy it now. A man’s at his thirstiest in the early morning.”

I gave him money for a bottle and we agreed that the next day we’d go to the cemetery and I’d show him where to dig. But the next day came, then the day after that, and three more days, and there was sight nor sound of him. I went down the village to look for him. I called in to see his sister. Is Jasiek in? He was here this morning but he went out. He might be at the pub. I went to the pub. Yeah, he was here, but he only had the one beer, no one would buy him a drink, so he left. He said he was supposed to go pick apples at Boduła’s place, maybe look for him there. I hobbled over to Boduła’s. Yeah, he was picking apples here, but that was last week, he barely picked any at all, no more than a basketful, and then he hits you up for a half-bottle.

In the end I saw him, he was walking up the road toward me, but the second he spotted me he started reeling like he was half gone.

“You were supposed to come the next day, god damn you! And don’t even try to act drunk in front of me.”

“There’s no need to shout, I’ll be there. There’s always a next day.” And he leers at me with his supposedly drunken eye.

“Don’t make me take this cane to you! Get a spade and come with me!”

He didn’t even try to resist, and he stopped staggering. I got him a spade and we went to the cemetery. I showed him the place, I marked off from where to where, and I told him how deep it needed to be.

“Is that all? I thought you wanted something three times bigger. It’ll be dug by sundown. Just have that half-bottle waiting, and a couple of pickles.”

While I was still there he took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, then as I was leaving he even spat on his hands.

“Come by when you’re done,” I said.

I bought a full bottle instead of a half and I was planning on giving him the whole thing, because I thought he might come in handy again. I didn’t have any pickles so I went over to Mrs. Waliszka’s and she gave me almost a whole canful. But of course he never showed up that evening or any of the next days. It wasn’t till a week later he came by, in the early morning. I could see he wasn’t himself, or he was still sleepy or something.

“So did you dig the pit?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?”

“Well, it’s not completely finished.”

“Weren’t you supposed to keep digging till the evening?”

“I would have, but I hit some roots. Must have been from that elm by Kosiorek’s tomb. One of the damn things was thick as my leg. And the smaller ones, there were so many of them you couldn’t even count them. I needed an ax. I was going to get my own, but I can’t find it. You wouldn’t have anything to drink, would you?”

I thought to myself, Kosiorek’s tomb is over thirty yards from mine, and where is there an elm there? The elm’s way over in the corner of the cemetery. Could its roots reach all the way across? He’s pulling the wool over my eyes, the son of a bitch. But if I don’t give him a drink he won’t finish the job.

“Here, have one drink.” I poured him out a quarter cupful. “Come back this evening after you’ve finished the job, you’ll get the rest.”

His face lit up like a little sun.

“The job’ll get done. I’m telling you, there’s no one in the village I respect like I respect you. Your health.” He drank the vodka, made a face and shuddered.

“Off you go then,” I said.

“What’s your hurry? My word is my word. Let me have one more. After the work I don’t need to drink. To tell the truth, after work I don’t even like to. After work all you want to do is sleep.”

I poured out another drink. He drank it. I poured another one. He didn’t leave till he’d seen the bottom of the bottle.

“Right, now I’m gonna go dig your pit. Just hand me that ax.”

And again he didn’t show up for several days. I was all set to go looking for him. I thought to myself, I’ll rip his arms off, the shit, because I had a feeling that once again he’d not finished the job, otherwise he’d have come for his money, and of course his booze. Then one day Michał and I are eating breakfast and he walks in.

“How long are you gonna string me along, damn you! Are you done or not?”

“Almost.”

“What do you mean, almost?!”

“I just have one more spade length to go. I thought it would go quick as anything. The topsoil’s fine, but lower down it’s clay. I could’ve dug three pits in ordinary soil in the time it’s taken to dig this one. You chose a bad place. It’ll be damp there in the clay. Give me at least enough for a beer. I’m cruel tired.”

“Where did you get so tired?”

“Where do you think? Working on your tomb.”

I knew he was cheating me, but here you go, that’s for a beer, just don’t show your face again till the job’s done. And so he didn’t. Almost a full month passed. I thought to myself, I ought to at least go over to the cemetery and see how much he has left to go, maybe I could even finish it myself. I go over there, and my tomb hasn’t even been started. Not even a single spade length. There’s just the outline. I was furious. You lying bastard, you this, you that, I cursed him up and down and swore I’d get even with him. There I was giving you a half-bottle, giving you money for another, and for beer, and on top of everything you had the gall to make up stories about roots and clay!

For a whole week I went looking for him around the village, but it was like he’d moved away for good. Sometimes someone had seen him, but word must have gotten out that I was on the warpath and I was threatening to knock his block off soon as I found him, so he might have been hiding and sleeping during the day then coming out at night like a damn bat. Or maybe it wasn’t me chasing him, but he was the one following me. There was a reason they called him the Postman. As for me, all that hobbling about on my walking sticks and my injured legs, to the pub, to the shrine and back, I’d soon had enough.

I needed to get started on doing the digging myself, because I could have spent another week looking for him and it would have been a waste of time. I never got my spade or my ax back either. I had to borrow a spade off Stach Sobieraj. Luckily I didn’t find any roots or clay.

I was digging virtually with my arms alone, helping myself a bit with my stomach, because whenever I tried to push on the spade with my foot I got a pain that felt like it was coming up from deep in the earth. Though I often had to use my foot, because my arms weren’t enough on their own, and my stomach was sore as anything from helping my arms. I was drenched in sweat, I saw darkness in front of my eyes, I could barely stand, but I had to keep on digging, because who else was going to do it, even half a spade length was good. And I went on like that day after day, like I was struggling with a huge mountain I had to level to the ground as some kind of punishment.

Many days I didn’t even have the strength to walk back home. I’d go down to the road in front of the cemetery, sit by the roadside and wait to see if someone would be driving their wagon from the fields and could give me a ride part of the way. If no one came along I rested a bit, grabbed my walking sticks, put my spade on my back like a rifle, because I’d made a special cord for it like a rifle strap, and off I’d hobble. Some people even joked, they said, what’s this, are you coming home from the wars?

Sometimes I’d had enough of that tomb. The hell with it, I thought to myself, what have I done to deserve having to slave away like this, will someone finally tell me? Father and mother were long since in the ground, my brothers can get buried wherever they like. I’ll put Michał in an ordinary grave, in the earth, and me, when I die, at most the district administration will bury me. They owe me at least that much for all the years I worked there. I went on digging. I swore at the Postman, I cursed God, I cursed myself. And I kept on digging.

At times I regretted not having gone to my grave long ago, because I’d already dug a grave for myself one time, when the Germans took us into the woods to shoot us and ordered us to dig. I’d have been at peace now, I’d be nothing but dust and I wouldn’t have to dig a second time. I’d be lying there and I wouldn’t know a thing, I wouldn’t feel anything, think anything, I wouldn’t be worried about anything. And on the memorial it would say, Szymon Pietruszka, Aged 23, that’s how old I was back then. These days not many folks remember the war, but if you just go to that place you’ll see there’s a nice memorial, it’s clean and tidy and there’s fresh flowers in a jar, who knows who brings them but they’re always there, whether it’s harvesttime or no, mowing, potato digging, spring, summer, fall, whatever happens to be in bloom. Then on All Souls’ there’s also a wreath with ribbons and lit candles, and always a few people standing at the memorial and crying. Who’s going to cry for you when you’re gone?

When they were building the memorial people even came to me from the Borowice district administration, because the bastards had taken us all the way out to the Borowice woods. Three of them there were, the head of the council, at that time he was called chairman, the district secretary, and another guy. They had briefcases and they were all dressed up in suits and ties, even though it was an ordinary weekday, a Tuesday. I’d just come in from mowing the meadow, I was fit to drop, hot, filthy, I was sitting on the bench in my undershirt and Antek’s old pants that came halfway up my shins and had holes in the knees. I’d taken my boots off and propped my feet on them. But when they asked, are you Szymon Pietruszka, I wasn’t going to deny who I was. Szymon Pietruszka. I was taken aback, because I mean, what could people from Borowice want with me? It’s a ways away. I didn’t even know any girls from over there. To begin with, all they said was they’re from the district administration in Borowice, and they started smiling in this dopey way. Have a seat, I said.

“Would you have some glasses?” one of them said.

“Glasses? What for?”

The one who’d asked about the glasses turned to one of the other ones and said:

“Give it here, Zenek.” The guy called Zenek started opening the briefcases, out of one of them he took a quart-sized bottle of vodka and a loop of sausage, out of another one another quart and several dozen hard-boiled eggs, then out of the third another quart and half a loaf of country bread.

It was only then they said they’d come because they were putting up a memorial to us in the woods, at the place where we got shot, and they’d heard that one person got away, me, and they’d prefer it if everyone died and no one escaped. Because if one person escaped you’d have to write more about him than about the ones that were buried there. But otherwise no one escaped, this many men were brought there, this many men were shot. See, it’s all on the memorial. From here to there, all squared away. To say no one, it was like a bell ringing clearly. To say someone escaped was like he’d knocked off a piece of the cross. Or at least spoiled something.

“But I’m alive. What does that mean?”

Had I dug a grave? I had. For myself? For myself. They even shot at me, I’d been wounded, right? So it was like I’d half died as it was. If the bullet had been just a bit more on target I’d be completely dead. Besides, years later who was going to remember that I’d escaped. Only the ones buried there would be remembered, because every last one of them would have their name written on the memorial. I’d be there as well. What was the harm in agreeing?

“So let’s drink. Your health!”

But people see me, they know me, how would it look — here I am walking about alive, and over there I’m lying buried. Who knows, maybe it would’ve been better if I’d been killed with all the others back then. But I escaped, I can’t go around claiming I died with them.

What difference did it make to me? I wasn’t going to live forever either way, everyone has to die sooner or later, so eventually things’ll even out. Memorials aren’t built for the present. Now the people that remember are still alive. But they’ll die as well one of these days, and after that the memorials will have to do the remembering on their own. And memorials don’t like it when someone stands out. What did I care? The people that were killed and buried there, it’d be easier for them as well if one more joined them. And that way it’d be everyone. No one escaped. Your health!

“Here, have some sausage. It’s homemade, not shop-bought. The bread as well. You know, what does it mean that one guy got away? Did anyone see it? No one did. The ones that saw it are six feet under. He could have escaped or not escaped. Maybe people just said he did. People say all kinds of things. Did anyone ever escape from a hellish situation like that? But folks like it when at least one person always escapes, and even if he didn’t, they like to say he did. How could he have escaped? They brought them there, surrounded them, every one of them had a machine gun, plus they had dogs.”

“There weren’t any dogs,” I said.

“So what if there weren’t. There could have been. Besides, if death is staring you in the face it’s death you see, fear, even if they’d had dogs you wouldn’t have seen them. One time they came to Bolechów for this one guy, they had dogs and every one of them was trained like the devil, you couldn’t take a single step. Even if he’d run away the dogs wouldn’t have let him get far. They weren’t village mongrels. And with a gunshot wound on top of that? He wouldn’t have gotten more than a few yards. And those devils, once they smell human blood they’ll bite you to death. Being killed by bullets is better than being killed by dogs. So then, are we good?”

They got me so muddled I didn’t know whether I’d died or not. On top of that the vodka came over you in such a sweet way that you could have died and you wouldn’t have known it. And I would have felt foolish drinking and eating with them and then saying no. But then all of a sudden mother called from the kitchen:

“Get away with you now, stop leading him into temptation. He doesn’t need to be on a memorial, he’s at home, thank the Lord. I cried my fill for him back then, why should I have to do more crying?” She turned to father to back her up: “You say something as well, father!”

But father had been drinking with us all the while and eating sausage and eggs, it would have been hard for him to be against it, and you could tell his head was muddled up pretty good as well, because all he said was:

“So how’s the weather over in Borowice?”

“What kind of father are you!” Mother was so mad she clanged her ladle against the pot. “Here they are trying to convince your son that he was killed, and all you can do is ask about the weather!”

At this point, scared of getting in mother’s bad books, he mumbled reluctantly:

“The thing is, if he thinks he was killed he won’t feel like working. And there’s no end of work around here. Harvesttime is coming. This year we planted three acres of rye alone. Then there’ll be the potato digging. That’s a big job as well. You came at the wrong time. You should have come after the harvest and the potato digging. In the winter would have been better.”

Twenty-five of us they shot back then. They’d ordered a meeting on the square in front of the district offices. No one knew what they were capable of yet, they’d only been there a year, so the farmers all came in like it was market day, from our village, from others. Besides, there wasn’t anything to be afraid of, just like always the local policeman had gone around with a drum announcing there was going to be a meeting, so at most we figured they were after meat and milk and cereals, what else could they want from farmers. Father was going to attend, but at the last minute he changed his mind and said, you go, because he might pick some clover for the animals. Or maybe take a nap, the whole previous night he’d had a stomachache, probably from the black pudding the day before.

There was already a crowd on the square in front of the building. An officer was standing on a table they’d carried out from inside, making a speech. Actually he was screaming, jumping up and down on the table and waving his right arm around, his left hand was tucked into his belt and it wasn’t moving, like it didn’t belong with the other one. Right next to him on the table there was a civilian that was supposedly translating, though the officer didn’t give him much of a chance to translate. It looked like he missed about half of what the other guy was shouting about, because the other guy just kept on shouting and shouting. And he was having trouble with the translation, he stammered and stuttered and he was talking so quietly, like he was just telling someone in the next room. Maybe he was afraid, or he wasn’t allowed to talk as loud as the officer. So I didn’t even hear most of it, especially because the farmers were also muttering among themselves:

“Listen to the fucker yell.”

“Keep shouting like that and your balls are gonna drop off.”

“A dog can bark all it wants, it’ll never talk like a human.”

“Because you have to be born human to talk like a human, you can’t learn it, Wincenty.”

In any case, what I got out of it was that we needed to supply even more stuff, because the German soldiers were fighting for us just the same. At the end he screamed something so loud he almost rose off the table and floated into the sky. At that exact moment a whole bunch of soldiers poured out from behind the administration building. Where had so many of them come from all at once? Socha from Malenice pointed to where two trucks were parked in back of the building. They started to push us back against the fence with the butts of their rifles. The translator told us to form lines, because the officer was going to come talk with some of us one-on-one.

So we formed lines and the officer started walking around. But he evidently didn’t have much to say anymore, because he just pointed at one or another of the men, and the soldiers pulled them out and had them stand in the middle of the square. He reached me and he might not have paid any attention to me, but he suddenly looked at my four-cornered Polish army cap and his face bulged. Because I wore a cap like that. I’d brought it back from when I’d been in the regular army, it didn’t have the eagle on it and without the eagle it just looked like an ordinary cap, so what did I have to be afraid of. He asked me through the translator if I’d been in the war? I had. So I’d fought against him? I had. He smashed me right in the face. He was a stocky guy with a bull neck and a face like a cobblestone. My nose started bleeding. He hit me with his other hand, then punched me in the stomach for good measure.

Truth was I’d barely done any fighting at all back then, less than three weeks, and most of it we were just marching endlessly back and forth, then off in another direction till we didn’t know which way was which. Then when we finally started to actually fight, right away the order came through to stop fighting and retreat. I shot my gun all of five times and I probably never killed anyone, unless God hit someone with one of my bullets. But I don’t know about it if he did. On top of that I came down with the dysentery, and whenever we halted for a moment I’d have to run off into the bushes. I lost weight, grew a beard, got infested with lice, and that was my war. But I wasn’t going to tell that bastard the truth when he asked if I’d fought. I had fought.

It wasn’t enough that he knocked me around, he also pulled the cap off my head and stomped on it. And he didn’t just point his finger at me, he used his whole hand. The soldiers grabbed me under the arms and dragged me out into the middle of the square with the other men that had already been picked out. Then a truck drove up and they ordered us to climb in.

To begin with it didn’t occur to anyone that they were going to kill us. How could they go straight from a meeting to killing us? We weren’t thieves or any kind of criminals, why would we have to die? Also, we were misled by the spades that were in the truck. If there were spades, that meant they needed laborers. Maybe they’d have us do some digging or fill something in. In wartime there’s always digging and filling in to be done. It would have helped to know which direction they were taking us, but we couldn’t tell because first, the truck was covered with a tarpaulin, and second, the sky was overcast that day and it seemed like the sun was on one side one minute, the next minute on the other, first in front of us then behind, like it wasn’t really there at all. Stelmaszczyk from Obrębów even got into an argument about the sun with Wrona from Lisice. One of them said he knew the sun like the back of his hand, the other one said he did too. The first one said he got up with the sun every morning, the other one said he got up with the sun every morning as well. The first one said he had the sun in his blood, he didn’t even need to look up in the sky to know where it was, the second one said he could have gone completely blind and he still would have known where the sun is in the sky. It’s over there. In the end someone said that maybe the sun in Obrębów was different than the one in Lisice, because perhaps each village had a different sun, and so the sun over the truck was a different one again. It was only then they stopped arguing.

You could feel the potholes and the bends in the road. But potholes and bends won’t tell you you’re being taken to your death. Sure, there were four soldiers sitting at the back of the truck with their guns pointed at us, but that didn’t surprise anyone, if they were taking us somewhere they had to guard us on the way. And even if we’d asked them where they were taking us they likely didn’t know, because it was probably their higher-ups made the decisions. Besides, what language could we ask them in when they didn’t know Polish. But Smoła couldn’t take it, in the end he asked them:

“Excuse me, can you tell me where you’re taking us? You probably need workmen, right? Am I right? We’ll do it, why wouldn’t we. Some of us were soldiers too, though in the old wars, so we even know how to dig trenches if need be. It’s just a pity we didn’t let the folks at home know we’d be gone a while. Because we haven’t done anything wrong, have we?”

The soldiers didn’t say a word. They just sat there all stiff with their eyes shining like cats’ eyes under their helmets.

“What could we have done wrong? You don’t need to go asking them, we know perfectly well ourselves,” said Antos from Górki, bridling up. He was known for talking straight to anyone, even if it was the priest or the squire. Before the war he was always going around to political rallies everywhere.

“Or maybe there’s no point in asking these gentlemen,” said Sitek, like he was trying to excuse the soldiers so they didn’t feel bad about not knowing. “They’re probably country folks like us, they only know as much as we do. But I’m sure they won’t hurt us, no way.”

“You’ll see, we’ll be back home this evening,” said Jagła, backing Sitek up. “There’s twenty-five of us, we’ll have the job done in two shakes. They’d have said if it was anything else.”

“What do you mean, anything else?” said another guy, suddenly worried, and he leaned forward on the bench towards Jagła.

“They might say, they might not.”

“Say what? What might they say?”

“Come on, what’s the point of worrying ahead of time, when we get there they’ll tell us.”

“I don’t like the look of this, I really don’t. We’re going somewhere and we don’t know where. What can it mean?”

“Maybe they’re going to kill us?” Strąk burst out, and everyone was suddenly terrified.

Strąk was the oldest guy in the truck, way older than Antos or Wrona. He could barely shuffle about, they’d had to help him into the truck because he couldn’t have climbed up by himself. His son-in-law had sent him to the meeting just like my father had sent me. Why would they have chosen Strąk as a laborer when so many other younger, stronger men had been left behind on the square? If someone had thought about Strąk earlier, maybe we’d have figured out right away where they were taking us.

“Darn it!” said Kujda angrily, like it was Strąk’s fault that they might be going to kill us. “You should have sat on your backside and not gone to any meeting.”

“How was I supposed to know?” said Strąk, trying to defend himself. “The policeman said to go to the meeting.”

But everyone started in on Strąk.

“Your son-in-law should have come. He’s the head of the household, not you. You signed the farm over to him. You should stick to praying instead of going to meetings.”

“Or if they start telling us to dig, and they will, because why else would there be spades here, we’ll have to do your digging for you. No one’s got four arms.”

“He’s got one foot in the grave already, goddammit, he smells death everywhere.”

“You say they’re going to kill us? Why would they do that? Why?”

“If they were going to kill us they wouldn’t have bothered taking you. You dying doesn’t mean shit to them. It’d be a waste of a bullet. Death’ll take you without any help from them.”

Strąk hunched over like he’d been swallowed up by the earth. He might even have regretted saying what he said about being killed, it came out like it was about everyone dying, when he was likely just talking about himself.

“But what if they are taking us to our deaths? What if they are? Maybe they’re going to have us dig our own graves, that’s what the spades are for? Lord!”

“In that case they’d have taken someone to fill the graves in afterwards. I mean, we couldn’t do it ourselves. But they didn’t.”

“That can’t be it. There’s probably a dike burst somewhere, we had bad rains recently, it could have burst.”

“Hey, hear that? Quiet there. Sounds like there’s another truck behind us. I’m not just hearing things. My hearing’s still good, even if I am getting on.”

“What if there is, they’re not gonna wait back in the village are they?”

“It’s either the wind flapping the tarpaulin, or there’s a mill somewhere close by.”

“Do something, Lord. Make the axle break or whatever.”

“A broken axle won’t help you. One time my axle broke, I was taking rye to the mill, and instead of the miller I needed a blacksmith. A miracle’d be better.”

“Sure, you just order us a miracle.”

“There was a miracle over in Leoncin in the last war, but they didn’t take us in trucks back then.”

“I was supposed to go plow tomorrow, Stanuch and me were gonna team up our horses. You know, up by the hill.”

“One time, this Gypsy fortune-teller told me I’d live a long life. Wish I knew where the bitch is now.”

“Mind your language there, what if we are going to die?”

“What are you going to do about it? Run away? You can’t run away. Besides, we have to die sometime.”

“Dear God, the wife’ll be left on her own with four kids! Though what does God care?”

“I didn’t even say anything about what they should do at home if I don’t come back.”

“You’ll go back, why wouldn’t you. Błażek Oko came back from the war after twenty years, though no one ever thought he would. He was old and bald and his woman had gone to her grave, but he came back. And don’t people come back from over the sea?”

“The storks came back this year, though I was all set to knock the nest off, what good is an empty nest to anyone.”

“The moment we get back, I swear to God I’m gonna get legless. I’m gonna drink for three days. The hell with the horse and the cows and pigs and the land. There’ll be no farmer for three days. I’ll spend three days in bed with the missus, what do I care. We’ve got six kids, we’ll have a seventh, what do I care.”

“Hail Mary, full of grace …”

“Stop it, they’re looking at us. Let them think we’re not afraid of dying.”

“But we are afraid, Bolesław, we are. Though if it has to be, it has to be.”

“If you ask me, they’re going to have us plant trees. Oleś the woodsman, he paid one grosz per pine sapling before the war. I wonder if there’ll be a lot of soldiers.”

“I hope to God it’s trees.”

“I’m telling you, lads, it’s trees. I know trees. Can you hear the branches against the tarpaulin?”

“Listen, with lupin, is it better to plow it in while it’s still in bloom or wait till afterwards?”

“It’s better to make your confession.”

“Without a priest?”

“Each of us to himself.”

“How can you confess to everything on your own? Without a grille, without anything? Are the sins supposed to confess to each other? How will we know if they’re forgiven?”

Suddenly we all swung forward like grain in a meadow and the truck pulled up. The four soldiers that had been guarding us quickly stood and rolled back the tarpaulin, then they jumped down, opened the tailgate, and all at once they’re yelling, get down, get down, hurry! Schnell, schnell!

To begin with we couldn’t see anything, the light blinded us like we’d just crawled out of a hole in the ground. I thought to myself that that might be what the light eternal looks like, except after that you can’t see anything ever again. But right away we made out some woods, and Garus from Borzęcin recognized it was the Borowice woods because it was where he used to pick mushrooms.

Everyone got to their feet and there was a commotion in the truck like there was suddenly twice as many of us, but no one was in any hurry to climb out, they made like they didn’t know if they should take the spades or not. On the way we might not have known, but now it was pretty obvious. I grabbed the nearest one and jumped to the ground. If I held back I’d attract their attention and they’d think I was up to something. Actually I was. I’d been thinking about escaping the whole journey, except there hadn’t been any way to do it. But here I decided I had to. Even if I failed, either way it was death, and if I was running away I might not feel the bullets in me, maybe death would come right away.

It was a smallish clearing. The woods were dense round about. Oaks, beeches, spruce. Juniper and hazel too. The grass was like a carpet, and it was covered with heather. You could have sat yourself down, got some fresh air, listened to the birds or just watched the trees swaying in the wind. And if you happened to have a girl with you, it wouldn’t be a forest clearing anymore but a little piece of heaven. You could imagine you were the first people. But we’d come there to die.

“You should’ve seen the agaric used to grow here, Lord those were some mushrooms.” Garus had gotten out after me, he was full of regret for life. “And over there, among the oaks, there was boletus, ceps. There were so many you could have cut them down with a scythe, because hardly anyone knew about this place.” He even started looking around for mushrooms, but a soldier thumped him in the back with his rifle butt and pushed him into the middle of the clearing.

They formed a wall around us and the same officer that had been screaming on the table outside the district administration started shouting again and waving his arms at the men that were still getting out of the truck. Schnell! Schnell! The younger guys jumped down without needing to be told, it was only the older ones that were left. For them, getting down off the bed of the truck was like jumping from the hayloft to the threshing floor. Plus there was nothing for them to hold on to or lean on, so it was no surprise they were afraid to climb down. Though why should they be in a rush? To go to their deaths? It wasn’t even right to hurry to your own death.

In the end they all managed to get down somehow or other, only Strąk was left. He stood there at the tailgate, leaning on his stick and looking helplessly from us to the ground and back again, like he was standing on the edge of a cliff. He realized no one was eager to help him and he shouted:

“Come give me a hand.”

Guz stepped forward but a soldier stuck the muzzle of his gun in his belly and made him go back to his place. At that exact moment the officer shouted, schiessen! The soldier nearest the truck fired his machine gun at Strąk like he was shooting at a tree. Strąk dropped his stick but kept standing there. It was only a second later his body fell too and hit the ground with a thud.

Right after that they started pushing us with their guns toward the middle of the clearing. They marked out a pit about twelve yards long and two wide and ordered us to dig. Some on one side, some on the other, which meant we’d be falling in with our heads toward each other.

I dug away any old how, thinking the whole time about how I could get away, because death was galloping full speed toward me. Zioło from Bartoszyce was digging opposite me. Tears were already rolling down his cheeks and he was sniffling like a child. But if I just started running and headed for the woods I wouldn’t even make it to the trees, the first shots would get me. It was no more than ten or fifteen yards to the edge of the woods. But those sons of bitches were standing right behind us, in a row, with their guns in our backs. I even heard one of them fart. I thought it was one of the guys out of nerves, but the smell definitely came from behind, it was like sour turnip.

I began to lose hope, because the pit was getting deeper and deeper. Everyone was whispering their prayers, you could tell from their lips, and every now and then you could hear the odd word over the rasp of the spades.

“What do you think you’re doing? Dig properly.” It was Antos to my left suddenly telling me off. I looked over. What was he saying that for? I always thought he was a smart guy, but fear had obviously made him stupid. At the same time I glanced at Kuraś, who was digging to my right. It took me aback, it was like I’d never noticed he was so short, even though I’d known the guy for years and I knew how small he was. But so what if he was short. It had never mattered. One man grows tall and another one’s short, in the village you don’t see it somehow, it’s just how God measures things out. Besides, it often happens a little guy like that is stronger than a big one, and smarter. I thought to myself, God must have sent him to me, and on my right side too. If he’d been big like Antos there wouldn’t have been any sense in even trying. I kind of felt bad for him, but they were going to kill him anyway, so he wasn’t going to be out for revenge, while me, I might save myself.

It was only right though, to pray for his soul. So I started, but more in my thoughts than on my lips, so he wouldn’t see. Forgive me, Antoni, may the earth lie lightly on you. Don’t hold it against me that I made use of your death to escape. Just think how many of us are about to die, and every death a wasted one. Only your death will serve a purpose, Antoni. And if I make it, I’ll take revenge for all of you, I promise. Look down from heaven and count every one of those bastards as I’m taking them out. Because each one of them will be partly for you. I promise, Antoni. Lord Jesus, who art in heaven, receive Antoni Kuraś, and not just his soul, but his body too if you can. Because even though he died in the woods, not on the cross, it’s still a crucifixion just like yours. And forgive him all his sins, or give them to me and they can be mine till the end of my life and till the end of the world. Punish me for them, and save him. Antoni Kuraś is his name. Don’t forget, Lord. And don’t get him mixed up with anyone else. May he not have to wander around the woods for a long time after he’s dead. Farewell, Antoni.

I grabbed him under the arms, he was light as a feather, and I threw him onto the soldier that was standing behind me. The soldier fired off a short burst then they both fell to the ground. Him underneath and Kuraś on top of him, already dead. First off they thought Kuraś was the one trying to run away, before they realized it was me I’d reached the nearest oak tree and gotten behind it, and it was only then they started firing and chasing after me. But beyond that oak tree there were more oaks, beeches, spruce, the whole forest. Plus, death was driving me along and I was running like a stag, dodging between the trees till they hid me completely. Though for the longest time it felt like they were right at my back, I could hear them running through the woods and shouting, and their bullets kept zinging around me.

I must have kept running for a heck of a long time, because I could barely breathe, I felt a stabbing pain in my chest, and it was harder and harder to swerve around the trees. I kept crashing into some obstacle, I’d fall over and get up, but it was all I could do to stay on my feet. Then I smashed into something again, fell over again, and this time I didn’t have the strength to stand back up. Fortunately I couldn’t hear anyone chasing me or shooting at me, all I could hear was silence surging through the woods. But I didn’t want to live so much as just sleep and sleep.

All of a sudden I felt a twinge in my left side. I reached my hand down, and it came back covered in blood. The sleepiness passed instantly. I rolled my jacket up and saw that a part of my side had been almost completely shot away. There were lumps of half-dried blood in my torn shirt, blood all around my belt, and the leg of my pants was soaked in blood all the way down to the ankle. Though I hadn’t even felt I’d been hit. I tried to stop the blood with my hand, but it kept running through my fingers. I struggled to my feet and set off again. But which way should I go to find people? Suddenly the woods spun around me like a merry-go-round, my eyes went dark, and I had to lean against a tree. I thought I heard a rooster crowing. I figured maybe I was dying and I was imagining things. But no, I heard it again, and it sounded like it was right close by, just beyond the trees. So I dragged myself that way, either holding on to the trees or on all fours. After a few yards, in a gap in the trees I saw a cottage with a roof of golden-colored shingles, smoke rising from its chimney. I passed out.

When I came round, a mongrel dog was standing over me yelping like I was a dead body. A farmer was walking toward me from beyond the trees, carrying a pitchfork at the ready like he was about to stick it in me, and at each step he was asking the dog:

“What is it, Mikuś? Whatcha got there?”

He wanted to hitch up his wagon and go fetch the healer right away, because neither him nor his wife believed I’d live, I’d lost so much blood. But I refused, let what was going to happen happen, the healer might turn out to be a snitch and I’d have run away in vain.

Luckily the bullet hadn’t lodged in the wound. They washed it with moonshine, then they applied compresses of horsetail and coughwort in turn, and after a few days the bleeding stopped. After that they just put on badger fat, and slowly, slowly it started to heal. But the most useful thing of all was that I munched on carrots like a rabbit, that helped to make new blood. I’d sometimes eat half a basketful in a single day. Plus the farmer’s wife grated carrot into a juice for me, and gave me boiled carrots for dinner. I ended up all yellow from the carrots, not just my face but my arms and legs and even my fingernails turned yellow, like I was covered in wax. My teeth, I had to clean them with ash to get rid of the color. So when I finally went to visit father and mother to show them I was still alive, a good few months had passed by then, father’s first words were:

“Why’re you all yellow? Are you really alive? Is it you or your ghost? We already mourned for you. We went gray because of you. But why are you all yellow?”

Mother sat up from her pillows and burst into tears. She couldn’t get a word out at first, it was only when the crying eased off a bit that she defended me against father.

“What do you mean, yellow? He’s thin and pale. Dear Lord in heaven. He’s not yellow, he looks like he’s just been taken down from the cross. You must be hungry, son? I’ll heat something up for you. There’s dumplings left over from dinner. I said so many prayers for you after they told us you were killed.” She burst out crying again.

But father wouldn’t give it up:

“Sure he’s yellow. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. He’s yellow as can be.”

“It’s from the carrots,” I said.

At that moment he looked at me like I was making fun of him and suddenly broke off. He sat down on the bench, rocking and staring at his own bare feet. I was a bit surprised, because how could he have known I was yellow, it was dark in the house, the lamp was turned way down and there was no more light than you’d have from sunlight shining through a knothole, plus I wasn’t all that yellow by then. Maybe he didn’t believe it was me, but he felt it wouldn’t be right to ask, is that you, my son Szymek, that they killed, so he just asked me why I was so yellow.

Because mother didn’t need to ask anything at all, she cried her eyes out and everything was clear to her. But that’s how things are in the world, for a woman, weeping is there to help when reason stops understanding. And weeping knows everything, words don’t know, thoughts don’t know, dreams don’t know, and sometimes God himself doesn’t know, but human weeping knows. Because weeping is weeping, and it’s also the thing that it’s weeping over.

When mother’s tears eased off she still didn’t ask me anything, she just started telling her own news. That her chickens weren’t laying. Yesterday she only found three eggs. How could she expect them to lay, though? If they’d had wheat they’d be laying. But here all we had was potatoes and chaff, and nothing but what they could find on the ground by themselves. On top of that one of them got eaten by a polecat last month. And it had been the best one, it was going to be a brood hen. The speckled one, remember? I did remember, though there’d been more than one speckled hen. That was one smart hen. The second it caught sight of me it’d come pattering from the other end of the yard to see if I had any grain or bread crumbs to drop down for it. Why did it have to be that one the polecat killed. When it found something to eat on the ground it would rather let the other hens have it than get into a fight with them. It never squeezed through the fence into other people’s farms, or onto the road. And it would always go roost at sundown of its own accord, when the other ones, you’d have to shoo them into the barn. It would have been a good mother to its chicks. I was so glad I had it, Lord I was so glad. But one morning I go into the barn and there’s feathers and blood all over the place. She bled and bled. I’ve never seen so much blood from a single chicken. Another one they had to slaughter cause it looked to have some kind of sickness. It started keeping its distance from the other chickens. Then all it would do was stand by the barn, on one leg. I thought to myself, aha, there’s a storm coming, just don’t let there be lightning, Lord. Or maybe it was hail. That would have ruined everything. All it would do, once in a while it would go over to the water trough and drink and drink, then it would go back near the barn on its one leg. This went on for a day or two. I took a handful of wheat and put it right under its nose, but it never even poked its head out from its feathers. And at night you had to pick it up and carry it into the barn, because on its own it wouldn’t have known it was nighttime. Then, at one moment I lift up its head and I see its eyelids are starting to close up over its eyes, that its eyes are like little tiny millet seeds. You poor thing, I can tell you’re never getting better. Oh dear Lord Jesus!

“Leave him alone, you and your chickens!” Father had had enough. “On and on about them! Like there was nothing in the world except for chickens. I wish that damn polecat would just eat the rest of them. Or the sickness would kill them all.”

At that point mother started crying again. But father must have needed her tears as well. Because he went off on her right away. What are you crying for, you silly woman? What are you crying for?

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you had something to cry about. But what is there to cry over? Did someone hurt you? No, they didn’t. So what is it? You’ve gotten so much into the habit of crying, your tears come whether you’ve a reason to cry or no. So then why? You’ll cry yourself out, then something’ll come along that you really need to cry your heart out over and you won’t be able to. What will you do, cry with dry eyes? With dry eyes you can’t even laugh, let alone cry. Crying’s like money, you need to keep some back for a rainy day. Because a person doesn’t have too much crying in them, that’s a fact. And what they have is all there is. If a person cried like you, with or without a good reason, they’d run out of tears a quarter way through their life, when they need them their whole life through. When the bailiff came you cried just the same, you thought it would do some good. But all he wanted was your sewing machine, the bandit, he didn’t give a tinker’s damn about your tears. So what are they for? He was dead and you cried, now he’s alive and you’re crying. Those tears aren’t worth a thing. That’s what eyelids are for, you squeeze them shut and your tears go back inside. Because otherwise you’d have to cry every time you looked at the sun. Every time the wind blew in your eyes. Or whenever someone poked you in the backside with an awl. Cut it out, for goodness’ sake! You’ve already cried your eyes out, all that’s left are little slits. Then afterwards it’ll be, come thread this needle for me because I can’t see. How can you see when the eye of the needle’s way smaller than a tear. Just so you know, I’m not threading any needles for you, you can do it yourself, go blind.”

He was all riled up, he went to the bed and tugged at mother’s quilt.

“Give it a rest. The polecats’ll kill more chickens. That’s what polecats do. The brown one will be just as good of a brood hen as the speckled one. I don’t know why you think hens are so clever. How smart do you need to be to lay eggs. Sparrows do it, crows do it, everything does it. God told them to lay eggs so they do. Let them so much as try on their own. The only thing they’re smart for is wheat grain. Go throw your tears down for them and see if they come running. For wheat grain they’d come. Though both things are like seeds. I’ll turn down the lamp, maybe that’ll make you stop. Tears like light. It makes them shine. If you must cry, cry in the dark. If we leave the light on now there’ll be no kerosene left for when the cow’s calving, you’ll have cried it all away. Or someone’ll see the light from the road and come running to ask what happened here. What could have happened? Nothing’s happened. Szymek’s back, is all. It’s not the first time. How often did he come back from being with some young girl. From dances. In the early morning. Drunk, sometimes beat up. Mother’s warming him up some dumplings from dinner. And she’s crying because she happened to have just dreamed he was never coming back. But who believes in dreams in wartime, only one in a thousand comes true, and it’s always the dream you didn’t have. If you have to cry, you should cry yourself out in your dreams. Not now, waking up and then crying. Tell me, what are you crying for?”

He must have gotten cold, he was wearing nothing but his long johns and nightshirt. He was barefoot because he’d gotten straight out of bed to let me in, the night was a chilly one and the earth floor was cold. He tugged at the quilt mother was lying under.

“Come on, get up and heat him up those dumplings if you’re going to.”

The moment she got up, he slipped back into bed in the warm place she’d left. He asked her:

“Did I say my prayers this evening?”

“You never say them if I don’t remind you.”

“It must have been yesterday then.” He covered himself with the quilt, even putting his head under.

He couldn’t stand it when mother cried. And when nothing would work to make her stop, he’d do all sorts of strange things. He’d hammer on a pail with the masher, or open and close the door, clatter the pans in the kitchen, or stamp his feet on the floor. Or he’d take the broom and pretend it was a rifle and he’d drill himself, calling out orders to himself the whole time like he was the colonel of a regiment. He’d shout so loud the windows rang. Another time he’d march back and forth across the room with his broom-rifle on his shoulder singing army songs that he knew from long ago, and since he didn’t remember all the words he’d hum and whistle and wheeze the other parts, because he didn’t even have the voice for it. And if that didn’t do the trick either, he’d pretend to cry along with mother, but much louder and more painfully than her. There were times he’d curl up and hide his face in his hands, he’d keep shaking his head and he’d start calling, Lord Jesus, my Lord Jesus, sometimes he’d even shed real tears.

We’d sometimes laugh so hard at father it made our bellies hurt. Though with me it didn’t take much, I’d laugh at anything at all. It was like a pair of invisible hands were tickling me under the arms, and even if no one was in the mood to laugh, I’d burst out laughing out of the blue and for no reason. We could be sitting at the table and eating, there was nothing but the clink of spoons and the sounds of eating, and that would set me off. We could be kneeling at our beds in the evening repeating our prayers aloud after mother. Or even when father was sharpening his razor and had me hold the other end of the strop.

The laughter would first of all start pricking me with needles, then all of a sudden it would spread like fire though a haystack and there was nothing I could do to stop it, however much I might have squeezed my eyes and my mouth shut and held it inside with all my will. I could have scraped my fists against my cheeks and pulled at my hair and hunched over till my head was between my knees, the laughter would still bubble up and boil up and I’d curl over laughing. Then when father started in on me, saying, what are you laughing at, you twit, I’d laugh even more. And then, when he’d sometimes give me a whack across the head, then everything in me would be howling with laughter, my head, my belly, my legs, my arms. Worst of all was when it happened at a mealtime, because father would stop eating and wait furiously till I stopped, but I’d laugh so much I almost fell to pieces.

“Come on, eat up while it’s still hot,” mother would say to calm him down. “He’ll laugh his fill and then he’ll stop. Everyone has to go through their own foolishness. Did you never laugh when you were his age? He’s still a child.”

But often she didn’t succeed in calming him, and when his fury got too much for him he’d jump up and grab me by the scruff of the neck and throw me out of the house, go do your laughing outside, damn you!

But I never got my fill of laughter as much as when father would make fun of mother crying. At those times he allowed us to laugh as well, he even encouraged us, go on, you keep laughing, maybe she’ll stop. So we all laughed. Even Michał laughed, though he’d been a gloomy kid ever since he was little and he rarely laughed. Because of that I didn’t like sharing a bed with him, because I could never have any fun with him before we went to sleep. He always either had a headache or a stomachache, or he’d tell me to stop because we’d tear the quilt, that we’d already said our prayers and God might get angry with us. When I tickled him it would sometimes make him cry. Even mother would say to him:

“You should laugh more, Michał, why are you so glum. See, everyone’s laughing.”

I mean, how could you not laugh when the mummers came by after the New Year, and Stach Szczypa was the devil with a black face, he wore an inside-out sheepskin jacket, he had a tail stuck to his backside and horns on his head, and he ran around the house like a madman sticking everyone with his pitchfork like he was taking them to hell. Anyone would have laughed at that. But Michał got all scared and went pale, he clung to mother and no one could explain to him that it was only Stach.

“It’s just Stach Szczypa, son, don’t be frightened. Tell him you’re Stach Szczypa, Mr. Devil.”

Antek as well, when father would make fun of mother crying he’d enjoy it so much he’d squeal and he’d laugh so hard he’d sometimes wet himself, though he was so small he was still crawling around on all fours. And Stasiek in his cradle, though he was too young to be able to laugh, he’d still try and gurgle in his own way. Even mother, you got the feeling she was only pretending to cry and that deep in her heart she was laughing with us and with father.

It was only much, much later, when I’d long gotten over the laughter, that I finally realized why father would make fun of mother crying, why he’d drill himself and sing army songs, why he’d rattle the pots and slam the door and bang on the pail with a masher and do all those crazy things. Because just like him, I couldn’t bear it when mother would cry. I’d rather have mucked out the stable from dawn till dusk, or said rosaries for every one of us the way she did for us, than see her crying. In theory I could have just said, let her cry, crying is what mothers are supposed to do. But I couldn’t. Often I’d be mad at myself that I didn’t happen to be out in the fields at the time, or at the pub, or with a girl, or with the guys down in the village, there were so many places where no one was crying, but here I was sitting at home, letting her cry like a child. Every tear of hers caused me pain. I could have lifted up a horse, or a wagon, I had so much strength in me, but I didn’t have the strength to raise my head and look into her teary face. I’d just sit there staring at the ground. I didn’t even have the courage to say, don’t cry, mother. I felt almost guilty for her crying, hurt by it, and I didn’t hurt easily. Her crying fell on me like rain from a cloudy sky, and I just sat there meekly getting wet, like I’d deliberately gone and stood out in that rain of tears so it would fall on me.

Sometimes the crying did something to me, it was as if she was still carrying me in her belly, and together we were carrying something heavy, together we were picking up sheaves of hay during the mowing, and the sun was burning down on both our backs at the same time. I was bending over just like her and standing with her up to my knees in the river and we were washing clothes, beating them with the washing beetle, and the echo carried along the water all the way to the source of the river in one direction and its mouth in the other. Then when we went to the store to buy salt or kerosene or matches, I’d even hear the other women in there saying to her, so not much longer, huh, Magdzia? Any day now. And she would answer that it was still a long time yet, maybe it would never happen. And with my hands inside her hands she’d pick thyme and horsetail and chamomile, and all the herbs that grow along the field boundaries. And when she was kneading dough in the kneading-trough to make bread, I was in her and I was already the bread inside her. And after the whole day, when we were both exhausted, we would kneel to our prayers like a single body, me inside her knees.

Even at moments when she was weeping for joy, like now, I still felt guilty towards her, though I had no idea why. Maybe our wrongs are only known to our mothers, never mind what they say about only God knowing them. She must have known for me the things I didn’t know myself.

Of the four of us brothers, I was probably the one mother cried over the most. Then Michał. But with Michał, obviously he’s not going to understand any of it. Even if someone cried and cried. Because it wasn’t anything that could be understood either through reason or through crying. Though you can sometimes understand things more through crying than with your reason. In any case it’s a lot easier after you’ve cried your fill than after you’ve understood. Because it’s only through crying that you can be with someone when you’re apart forever.

As for Stasiek and Antek, of course she cried, that’s how it is — you always cry for the ones that are gone. But I was there, except for the war I’d been at home all the time from when I was a kid till now, what was there to cry about? Unless she was crying for all of us and it just happened to be me that was there. The fact was, I lived however I could and however I had to, it couldn’t have been any different, because no one lives the way they want to. Besides, even if you could live the way you wanted, would you be any the happier? You can never tell if the way you’d like to live wouldn’t actually be worse. Maybe everyone has a different life than the one they’d want, but it’s the best one they can have. When I was small she’d cry over me, but all mothers cry over their little ones. Not just people, cows do it, mares, bitches, she-cats.

We had a she-cat once, I drowned her kittens. She’d had five of them. She’d wandered off somewhere, the attic or the barn. She wasn’t much of a mother. She’d sometimes leave those kittens all day long on their own, they’d mew for her so bad it wouldn’t even help if you gave them milk in a saucer. Besides, she’d had so many kittens you’d have thought she would forget whether she’d had them now or another time. Towards evening she slunk up, she saw that the old sieve where the kittens had been was empty, and she started rushing around the room like a mad thing. She crawled under the bed, jumped on the stove, she even hopped into Stasiek’s cradle and set him wailing. Father grabbed her and tossed her outside, but she started scratching at the door and mewing in this terrible voice so he had to let her back in. Mother gave father and me a telling-off for being so heartless, she took the cat on her lap, stroked her, and talked to her like one mother to another. But the cat soon jumped down and went back to the empty place where the kittens had been. She rolled into a ball there and we thought she’d gotten over it. Father even said that cats don’t hurt for long, and they cry even less, but in the morning she was dead. Except that with cats, when they grow up they don’t know each other, even a mother and her child, it’s like they were strangers, just two cats. Whereas me, I was already a young man but mother still liked to weep over me. It was as if her tears had stayed with her permanently from when I was a kid. And even when she was dying, instead of at least one time thinking about herself, she took my head in her skinny hands and wept over me. Then she passed away.

Something took hold of my throat and I couldn’t cry. The women that came to say goodbye to mother tried to get me to.

“You should have a cry, Szymek, you really should. A person ought to cry for their own mother. Even if they don’t think they can. Especially a mother like yours.”

But I couldn’t. Father was crying, he cried any time anyone came, even Michał was looking at mother in this odd way like he didn’t know whether he should cry, or instead not believe her that she was dead. But with me, something got stuck inside and I couldn’t do it.

Come to think of it, when was the last time I’d cried? It must have been when the Kubiks’ cow was calving on the meadow. I’d have been about ten years old. After that, never. I could say about myself that I’d gotten through life without crying.

Back then we used to graze the cattle on the meadow by the brick kiln. There was quite a band of us, and maybe three times that many cows, it was almost all the cows in the village. With so many cows it went without saying some of them had to be pregnant, because the pregnant ones were only kept back home a week before they were due to calve. Besides, no one worried whether they were pregnant or not. When your dads told you to take them out to pasture, you did it. You didn’t whack them so hard when they were pregnant, but it had to be plain to see. With the Kubiks’ cow you couldn’t tell anything from looking at it. It may have been a bit broader when you looked at it head-on, but it could just have had more to eat than usual. Wacek, the Kubiks’ boy, he didn’t say anything either, plus he was a stutterer and he liked to shout louder than any of us, because for us it was all a big game, and he didn’t give a second thought to his cow.

We played mountain. We’d shout, you, Fredek! Or, you, Kazek! Or, you, Jędrek! And whoever it was, he had to run away and the others tried to catch him. The first one that got to him jumped on top of him, then the others followed, till we made a mountain.

Władek Koziej was it, he was the smallest boy on the meadow. He didn’t want to play. He begged us and cried and promised he’d bring us wild pears, that he’d steal tobacco from his father and bring it for us. Then, when we were all jumping on top of him he squirmed and shouted, let me breathe! Let me breathe!

Later on, when we were young men we served in the fire brigade together. One time, in the spring we went to a flood. Actually it wasn’t even spring yet, it was just that the sun had been so warm for some reason that the ice had shifted and broken a dike over by Mikulczyce. Mikulczyce and Borek and Walentynów all got flooded out. As far as the eye could see, it was terrible. So much human suffering, it made you want to call out to God, where are you, Lord? We helped people down out of attics and trees and off roofs, they were mostly wet through and crying and half dead, because some of them had already given up hope of being rescued. We traveled by boat, but we couldn’t always get where we needed to be, because either there were fences in the way or blocks of ice, so we had to wade through the water on foot, and push the ice aside with our bare hands.

I was fine, I knocked back a bottle right afterwards and that was the end of the flood for me. Władek drank too, but he had to take to his bed right afterward, he was white as a sheet and shaking. When they cupped him, the marks were like black stamps. Then he started coughing, and he coughed worse and worse.

“You’ll get over it, Władek,” I said to comfort him. “All the bad blood’s been drawn out of you.”

Then they applied leeches. Then he drank herbs. But he got weaker and weaker, you could see him fading away. One day they sent for me and told me he was dying.

“I can’t breathe, you know, Szymuś,” he whispered. You could tell it hurt for him to use what was left of his voice. “Just like that time on the meadow, remember? It’s like you were all piled on top of me again. Let me breathe, just let me breathe.”

Suddenly someone shouted that the Kubiks’ cow had fallen over and it was grunting. The ones on top of the mountain jumped off and ran across the meadow, with me in the lead, because no one was faster than me. Behind me was Kazek Sroka and Stach Sobieraj, then all the others came after. But before they were even on their feet, we’d already reached the cow. She was lying there like something was pressing her down, she was rubbing her muzzle on the grass, and moaning the same way a person moans when they’re writhing in pain.

“She’s dying!” shouted Kazek, and he took off running. The others followed him like a flock of sparrows scared away, one after another, virtually racing each other. Even Wacek Kubik, he burst out crying but then he ran after them as well.

I started shouting, maybe she wasn’t dying, maybe she’d just eaten something, but they were already quite a ways from me. I could have set off after them, I would have caught up with them, let her die. Wasn’t my cow. But I wasn’t going to be the last one to run away. Running away the last was like being the biggest yellowbelly of all. Or even worse, you’re not running away because of your own fear but because of other people’s. As for the cow, it wasn’t mine, but it was still a cow. How could I run away from it? So I stayed. I just shouted after them:

“Cowards! Cowards!”

As for Wacek Kubik, I promised myself he’d get a knuckle sandwich from me later, because it was his cow, not mine.

All of a sudden the cow tossed her head, her side swelled up in a big lump, and inside the lump something started to move like it was trying to get out but didn’t know how. I thought to myself, she’s probably calving, and I got gooseflesh. I’d have preferred it to be dying. I’d never seen a cow calving from up close. Our cows had had calves, but father never let me into the barn when it was happening, he’d say I was still too young. Mother would bring him hot water, and he’d do whatever he did in the barn, behind closed doors. They’d only call me after the calf was born, to come take a look. One time I got angry and I told him I already knew everything, I’d seen a bull climbing on a cow, and a stallion on a mare, and a dog on a bitch, and everything on everything, I even saw Stefek Kulawik climbing on Bronka Siejka when she had no clothes on one time in the bushes along the river. But he told me those were dirty things, this was suffering and I’d have to grow up first.

I looked around for help, but there wasn’t a living soul to be seen. The boys had vanished, they were probably hiding under the willows or in the gully. All I could see was a stork wandering about nearby, pecking at the grass. I suddenly wished I could be that stork, I’d even have eaten frogs. On the far side of the road someone was walking to the village or from it, but they were so far away I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman, and they wouldn’t have been able to hear me if I’d shouted. Besides, they might not have known anything about cows. It could have been the shoemaker or the seamstress, or a rail worker, or the organist. The cow must have felt sorry for me, because she turned her head toward me, and even though her eyes were puffed up in pain, she looked at me like she wanted to make me feel better. She even tried to get up. All she managed to do was rise on her front legs, then she collapsed again like she was falling from a great height, there was a big thud on the meadow. That must have cost her all her strength, because she lay there gasping, her sides were working like bellows. You might have thought some bad person had been chasing her. One time the steward from the manor chased Karwacki’s cow because it had wandered into a beet field that belonged to the squire. He was on horseback. When a cow runs it’s like a woman, everything shakes. But he chased it and chased it till it died. He chased it out of the beets, then through the potatoes and the clover and the alfalfa. And the fields at the manor weren’t like ordinary farmers’ little fields, they went all the way from one end of the land to the other, and Karwacki only had that one cow. Fortunately the squire gave him a calf afterwards to make up, because the squire’s wife stood up for Karwacki, and the steward was murdered by someone during the war.

All at once a terrible pain seemed to grip her, because she turned her head the other way so hard I heard a cracking sound in her neck. Her eyes were almost popping out, while I felt a tightening in my throat, half like tears, half not. I squatted down by her head and started stroking her. She was so hot my hand stuck to her skin.

“There there, there there, don’t cry,” I whispered almost in her ear. Though I don’t know if she was crying. I was the one close to tears, maybe I was just comforting myself, because how else can you offer comfort, whether it’s to a person or a cow. You can say to someone, let it stop hurting, and it won’t do any good, unless it’s God himself that says it.

She dragged her head back over the grass, heavy as a rock, and looked my way again. One eye, the one closer to the ground, was all covered with earth, and she probably couldn’t see with the other one either, because it was all cloudy like someone had scrambled it up. Also there was a circle of flies that had settled all around the second eye that were stopping it from seeing. I waved my hand at them, but only a couple flew up, the others just stuck there. Flies are like that, they don’t give a hoot about someone else’s pain, they’ll just stick where they are. It made me mad so I grabbed the cap off my head and knocked at the eye with it, and it got clearer straightaway. Except that at exactly that moment she tossed her head like she was trying to shake me off as well. Luckily I managed to jump back, because she would have knocked me over. She pushed against the ground so hard with her hooves there was a spray of earth. It looked like she was finally going to squeeze that mound of pain out of herself. But again it turned out to be beyond her strength, and again she collapsed onto the grass. She lowed, and the sound was so mournful all the other cows nearby raised their heads and looked nervously in her direction. The mound started swelling her out again, it got bigger and bigger, and all of a sudden I remembered that when a cow swells up like that and there’s nothing else can be done, its side splits open.

I even had a penknife. On the meadow, not having a penknife was like not having a hand. And it wasn’t just an ordinary knife, when you stuck it in wood it rang, and when you threw it at the ground it went in right up to the handle. Because of that penknife I was on good terms with boys much bigger than me. Some of them were four or five years older, almost young men. They knew everything that grown-ups know. It took your breath away sometimes to hear them, and they made you graze their cows for them if you wanted to listen. With the younger ones they’d tell them to go away or send them to bring some of their father’s tobacco, it was only me they wouldn’t do that to.

I took the knife out of my pocket, opened the blade, and stood over the cow with my arm raised. I knew where you made a hole, in the hollow by the hind shoulder. But I couldn’t bring myself to say, all right, do it now. My hand was shaking, the whole of me was shaking inside. I just gripped the knife harder and harder. Suddenly the cow lowed again, just as mournfully as the first time, and I was choked with fear. And right where I stood with the knife, I dropped to my knees by her swollen belly and started praying out loud. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. After that, I couldn’t go on because I was crying. I pressed my head to her belly and tears flowed, not just from my eyes but from my whole face. They might even have dripped into the depths of her stomach. Because when a child cries, the whole world cries. And who knows if it wasn’t from those tears that I became an adult. Though it might be that God gives a person one lot of tears like he has one heart, one liver, one spleen, one bladder. And you need to get those tears out so you can tell when you’re still a child and when you’ve grown up. Otherwise they’ll follow behind you all your life, and all your life you’ll think you’re still a child. Some people actually think that.

Though I wasn’t any kind of crybaby. Even when I cried, it was usually only inwardly, so from the outside no one could tell by looking at me that I was crying. But that time, with the Kubiks’ cow, something kind of opened up wide inside me, even the cow must have been surprised someone was crying over her, because who cries over a cow. Especially the Kubiks’ cow, she was always covered in dried crap, no one ever bothered to even clean her. Because old man Kubik, when he wasn’t at the pub he was at a rally, and Wacek only knew how to use a whip. Or maybe she was listening hard to see if the crying wasn’t inside her, because she calmed down like she’d stopped calving.

Then something moved inside her and the mound I’d bent my head over when I was crying suddenly started to collapse. I jumped to my feet, and the cow jerked its head up almost vertically and started kind of dragging itself backward over the meadow. By now it wasn’t grunting but rasping. I ran to its back, and there, the tip of a muzzle could be seen, and in a short moment a whole head appeared out of its backside like it was poking out of a hollow in a tree. I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I grabbed the head with both hands and pulled with all my might. And the calf was born. It was a roan like its mother, and it was all slimy.

After that, on the meadow they called me Godfather. It was Godfather this, Godfather that. The name stuck. I didn’t mind, why should I. And as things turned out, up till now it was only that one time I was a godfather. Not that I wasn’t asked. I’ve often been asked. I could have had any number of godchildren. Except what good would it have done them to have me as a godparent? What good did it do the Kubiks’ calf? I couldn’t even say what happened to it next, whether the Kubiks decided to keep it and raise it, or whether they sold it, or slaughtered it, or it died. And though it’s not right to refuse when they ask you to be a godfather, I decided I’d never be one. If it were up to me I’d get rid of godfathers and godmothers altogether. You have one real father and one real mother, why do you need a pretend one too. They carry you to the altar for your christening, then after that you don’t get so much as a stick of candy from them, they won’t even pat you on the head, the one or the other of them. Or they could choose a godfather for you after you grow up. You call them godmother and godfather, but you’re strangers to each other.

My godmother, she died young, when I was still in the cradle, I’m not talking about her. But my godfather, in all my life I saw him two times, not counting at my christening. The first time I was almost grown up. A man I didn’t know came to our house one Sunday afternoon, I was getting ready to go to a dance and I hear father and mother saying, oh, it’s Franek! This Franek says hello to them, then he gives me his hand, so I shake it like you do, but mother and father say, this is your godfather, kiss his hand. I didn’t like that, I wasn’t going to kiss some guy’s hand. My godfather says:

“So this is my godson? He’s grown some. He’s a young man already.”

He was from Zbąszyn or Suchowola, I couldn’t even say. Father met him when he was looking for a stove-maker. Our stove was smoking, and for some reason none of the local stove-makers could fix it. They’d come, take the thing apart, put it back together again and it would still smoke. Someone told father there was a guy in Zbąszyn or Suchowola that there wasn’t a stove he couldn’t mend. Father went there and arranged for him to come. Then one day he showed up. He didn’t take it apart or put it back together. He just poked around in it a bit and afterward it drew like no one’s business. When the job was done the two of them were so pleased that they got drunk to celebrate and father asked him to be my godfather, because it was just at the time I was due to be christened.

The second time I met him was during the war, at the market at Płocice. We’d gone there to rub out this one bastard. Before, he’d been a bailiff at the court, then during the war he became a German. Every market day he’d swagger around the market in a German uniform with a gun in his belt, and he’d go up to the women that were selling things and take their eggs, butter, cheeses, chickens, poppy seed. When he was in a good mood he’d pay, at the official rate of course. And everyone knew what the official rate was. A whole chicken was the price of a few eggs. Though most of the time he wasn’t in a good mood and he hardly ever paid for anything, the son of a bitch would even take the basket as well. And if one of the women tried to refuse, he’d just walk all over whatever she was selling and squash it with his boots, all the eggs and cheeses and butter and cream, he’d kick it all around and mess it up, he’d smack the woman around and call her a whore in Polish. When the women came back from market, instead of having a few pennies to pay for salt, thread, kerosene, matches, they’d be crying. We gave him a couple of warnings, he even got a beer mug over the head in a pub, he was hit so hard he was covered in blood. But it didn’t help. He had to be killed.

Three of us went, me, Birchtree, and Sad Man. No, that’s not right, Sad Man was dead by then. It must have been Rowan. Because Rowan liked going and carrying out verdicts. There aren’t any dances these days, he’d say, it’s good we at least get to take out some scumbag once in a while. His eye was straight as a pine tree. Whatever got in his sights — man, bird, hare — it was curtains for it. Except he didn’t like taking orders, and for him there were no ranks or officers.

One time, after this one shoot-out he went missing. The guys went looking for his body, thinking he’d been killed and so he’d need burying. But they didn’t find him. We thought, maybe he’s been captured? But someone surely would have seen it. And it wasn’t like Rowan to get caught. He always carried a bullet in his breast pocket, he’d take it out whenever he had nothing else to do and roll it between his fingers or toss it in the palm of his hand till it got all shiny like gold. He’d laugh and say it was himself he was polishing it up for, just in case, that he wouldn’t let himself be caught. We started to think that maybe he’d been a spy. But Rowan a spy? In the end two men went off on bikes, because he had a wife and three kids and she needed to be told he’d died in action. They found her by the well, drawing water. But before they told her he was dead, just to be on the safe side they asked if she didn’t happen to know where he was. She got all flustered, she couldn’t tell who they were, and she started making stuff up, saying he’d been taken away to do forced labor, or he’d gone off after some hussy and left her with the children and the farm. It was too much for her on her own, she said. She even started to cry.

The guys didn’t know what to say. But they heard someone threshing in the barn. So they asked who it was threshing. She said it was a relative, and she offered them a drink of sour milk in the house. The guys were no fools, they said sure, that would be nice, but first they’d go ask the relative if he knew anything. They open up the barn door, and it’s Rowan doing the threshing.

“So you’re threshing, Rowan?” they say.

“Like you see,” he says.

“We thought you were dead, Rowan,” they say.

“If I was dead I wouldn’t be threshing,” he says.

“It wasn’t nice to run away from the unit like that, Rowan,” they say.

“I didn’t run away,” he says. “I just came to do the threshing for the missus, who else is going to do it for her.”

“Maybe you’re a spy, Rowan,” they say.

“If I was a spy I’d have a farmhand. The farmhand would be threshing, and I’d be informing on you,” he says.

“Get your things, we’re going, Rowan,” they say.

“I’ll get my things when I’m done threshing,” he says. “I’ve got another couple dozen sheaves of wheat to get through. Oh, and these oats for the horse.”

The men reached for their weapons, but Rowan whacked them on the head with the flail. Then he twisted their hands behind their back and took their guns away.

“Tell them I’m alive. And that I’m not a spy. Now go on up to the house, the wife’ll give you a drink of milk. Then get the hell out of here. I’ll come of my own free will, there’s no way you’ll make me.”

We went into the pub to have one drink. Rowan was disguised as a wagon driver, he was carrying a whip and wearing a sheepskin hat. Birchtree had stayed at the market, he was going to let us know when that bastard bailiff showed up. We didn’t want all three of us to be hanging around because it would have drawn attention. Plus, Rowan always had to have a drink when he was going to execute someone. He said it made his hand faster and his aim better, though he might not have been telling us everything. Actually, even when he wasn’t killing he was fond of a tipple, though he didn’t like to drink alone, and he always had to find himself someone that had some kind of problem, so he could act like a priest and find words of comfort for him. Because when you’ve got worries you have to have a drink, and at those times the comfort is surer as well.

That was how it was when Sad Man joined the unit. Rowan took to him like he was his own brother. Sad Man had only just gotten married and he’d had to run off to the woods to fight, and leave his young wife all alone at home. That was why his code name was Sad Man. He was a tall, strapping lad with black wavy hair and thick eyebrows, his wife must have been good-looking too. Some of the men envied him that young wife, though he never spoke about her, but Rowan started in right away comforting him.

“You’ll have plenty of time to be with her, brother. I found it hard too. Sometimes I couldn’t wait till nighttime. There were times I’d take her there in the fields, whether or not anyone was around. Sometimes people would even call and say hello to us. Now, when I go home sometimes I’ll chop wood for her, check the horse’s hooves to make sure it’s not lost a shoe, currycomb it, tell her what needs sowing where, or planting, and she’ll pull me to her, but I’ll say, there’s a war on, Waleria, we need to fight the enemy, let’s leave lovemaking till afterward. It might be nice to do it with a different woman. It’s basically the same, but a different one would always be a bit fatter or thinner, she’d make different noises. With your own woman the only thing you have in common is your worries. And it’s a good thing God provides them, because what else would you do together? Even if you’re not at loggerheads, the two of you, all you do is turn your back on each other at night, you even keep the quilt between you so you won’t get too hot. With your own woman, I’m telling you, brother, it’s like being with yourself. You or her, you’re one body, tired or not, bad or not. It’s better to just have a drink, the result’ll be the same. Also, we’ve already made three kids, do we really want a fourth? Who knows what would lie in its future. Maybe it’d be unhappy? You think I’d have joined the resistance if things had been different? The hell with that. I’m eaten alive by lice, I never get enough sleep, on top of that I could get killed. At home no one was chasing after me, no one came for me, I turned in my levies, hogs, earmarked cows. Windows always blacked out at night. Whatever they demanded, I never said a word. Even the military policeman said to me, Herr Sadziak, goot, goot. But I couldn’t keep it up any longer.”

Rowan died in an attack on the prison in Oleszyce. And Sad Man didn’t let himself be comforted either. One night he took off to see how that young wife of his was doing all on her own. The boys advised him not to go, stay put, Sad Man. Rowan gave him the same advice, you want to know too much, brother, you might end up knowing what you shouldn’t. You’d be better off just getting drunk.

It was a starry night. The dogs in the village knew him so only the occasional one barked in its sleep. Their dog had been shot by the military police during a search, a thief could have come and there wouldn’t have been anyone to bark at him. He knocked on the window and waited for her to get up and appear there like a glowing light in her pure white nightgown, and she wouldn’t believe it was him, she’d think he was a glowing light like her. Then she’d rush to the door and unlock it, and fall into his open arms. All around there’d be the smell of lilac from all the bushes that grew by the house.

He knocked a second time, a little louder, but nothing seemed to be moving in the house and no one appeared in the window. He stood a while longer and listened and watched, then he tried the door. It was unlocked. He went in and said into the darkness, Christ be praised, he said, it’s me, are you there, Wandzia? But the only answer was a squawk from the brood hen in its basket under the table, because it probably thought someone was coming to take its little ones away.

He managed to find a lamp and light it, and he looked around. His Wandzia was asleep in bed with someone else. They were sleeping so soundly that when he held the lamp right over them, neither of them so much as stirred. The quilt was kicked off and the two of them were naked as the day they were born. The man at least had enough modesty to be lying curled up on his side, he must have been cold, or it was because he wasn’t sleeping in his own bed. Sad Man recognized him as Felek, the head groomsman at his wedding. But her, she was lying belly up, her legs gaping wide, all crumpled and spattered, one breast one way and the other the other, the only thing she had on was the red bead necklace he’d bought her at a church fair when they were courting.

On the table there were two bottles of moonshine, one completely empty, the other half finished, and slices of sausage and pickled cucumbers and bread that was cut like for an engagement party. They’d also made themselves scrambled eggs and they’d evidently both eaten from the same pan, because there were two spoons resting against it. And their clothes were scattered all around the room. Her skirt was all the way over by the stove, it might even have been that she made the scrambled eggs without her skirt on.

He made the sign of the cross over them, pulled out his pistol, and shot her and then him right where they lay asleep. The cat mewed in the stove corner, so he shot the cat as well. Jesus was hanging over the bed with his heart on the outside, and he shot the heart. The chicks got out from under the brood hen, he stomped on the chicks and shot the hen. He shot out all the windows in the house. He shot all the pots and all the plates. He even shot at the water bucket. When he’d had his fill of shooting he sat down at the table and drank what they’d left him, then he sang a little. At my wedding they were breathless all, for my wedding party was an all-night ball, yes indeed, oh yes indeed, death was all around and pain was near, but I was smiling from ear to ear, and may the good Lord be with us here, yes indeed. Then he dragged Felek the groomsman’s body off the bed, he lay down in his place next to his dead wife and he shot himself as well.

Rowan got up from the table to buy another drink, because for some reason Birchtree wasn’t giving us the signal, and it could have looked suspicious to sit there with empty glasses. The pub was crowded, everyone was drinking, so there must have been spies there as well. All of a sudden someone grabs me by the elbow.

“Aren’t you the Pietruszkas’ kid?”

I don’t look round, but the voice is somehow familiar.

“What, you don’t know your own godfather?” He sits down in Rowan’s seat, and he’s pie-eyed. “You know, the Pietruszkas, that live past the co-op? You had storks on your barn. I mended your stove years back.”

“Go away, you’re barking up the wrong tree.” The whole time I kept looking in the other direction. He turns around to the rest of the room, beats his chest, and says at the top of his voice:

“This is my godson!” And he claps his hand on my shoulder. “Except he won’t own up to his godfather!”

At this the whole place went quiet and I felt everyone staring at me in disapproval, what kind of louse would deny his own godfather.

Rowan comes back with a half-bottle and says, who’s this? I say, I’ve no idea, some guy’s latched on to me, claims he’s my godfather.

“What are you talking about, latched on to you, I’m your godfather! And you’re my godson, the Pietruszkas’ boy. Bring a drink for my godson!”

I could hardly control myself inside, I didn’t know what to do. Finally I leaned forward and said in a friendly way:

“Shut your trap. I’m not any Pietruszka, the name’s Eagle.” The other guy ups and yells:

“What are you talking about, Eagle? You’re the Pietruszkas’ son, I carried you to the altar in these arms. Are you denying your own mother and father?”

“I’m not denying anyone, but these are different times, understand?”

He smashed his fist on the table so hard the glasses jumped.

“I don’t care what times they are, you’re a Pietruszka! And I’m your godfather!”

“If he’s your godfather, ask him if he ever bought you anything,” said Rowan, all riled up. “I bet you didn’t get squat from him! Just like mine! Nothing, ever! They’re all the damn same, those godfathers. Want me to slug him for you?”

“Give it a rest. Let him be my godfather.” I even poured him a drink in my own glass, thinking he might calm down. But he got even more excited and started shouting again, blathering on about the Pietruszkas. I couldn’t take it anymore, I grabbed him by the neck like a goose and shouted in his face:

“Eagle!” And I squeezed till his eyes almost popped out. A few folks jumped up from their tables, but Rowan blocked their way, watch it, he put his hand in his jacket and they sat back down.

“Pietruszka, you two-faced bastard!” He could barely breathe, but he grabbed hold of my coat and clung on like a drowning man.

“Eagle.” I was so mad I lost it, I squeezed harder and harder. The barmaid screamed and threatened to call the military police.

“Smack him one. Let the godfather have it,” said Rowan, egging me on.

At this moment Birchtree ran into the pub and signaled to let us know the bailiff guy was at the market.

“Let go of me, godfather!” I shouted. But he wouldn’t. Without a second thought I punched him between the eyes. His nose started bleeding and those eyes of his went all cloudy.

“Pietruszka,” he wheezed.

“Eagle.” I whacked him again.

“Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me any more. You can be Eagle.”