Salt of the Earth

by Józef Wittlin

  Piotr too belonged to the Emperor. He never ceased to be aware of who he served. On the face of it, he merely shifted loads for the young squires, on the face of it he served the Jews who dealt in grain and potatoes in these parts. In reality, he shifted all this for the Emperor. In return, the Emperor paid him and protected him with exceptional rights. Just let any merchant make so bold as to lay a finger on Piotr when he was on duty! This would constitute an insult to an Imperial and Royal personality, and it would therefore be no laughing matter. Such an offence was punishable by imprisonment.

  However, Piotr was often wracked by doubt; indeed, a dark bitterness would creep into his heart. For, actually, why was he not supposed to wear an Imperial cap, like other railway employees? Why was he not supposed to command respect? Why, despite so many years of faithful service, did he still have the appearance of just any civilian? Why was he never promoted? Was he merely some supernumerary who could be replaced at any time? Was he merely some base kitchen spoon, considered unsuitable for inclusion among the treasury’s grand dinner-service?

  At such times, Piotr Niewiadomski indulged in self-pity, convincing himself that it would be better to give it all up, all these railway duties which just made him stoop-shouldered and gave him little pleasure. Perhaps it would be better, after all, to sell the house (with Paraszka’s consent, of course, though she wouldn’t be returning to it now), sell the orchard and go to Saxony.

  However, these bitter thoughts never troubled him for very long. Such doubts were soon dispelled and his faith was restored that all was not lost, that the Emperor was good, God was just and that they would not harm their people. It was merely necessary to wait patiently, toil patiently, bear burdens patiently and patiently suffer abuse from conductors and senior porters. It was even necessary to put up with the stationmaster’s wrath. An Imperial servant had the right to strike another Imperial servant in the face, because he was doing so in the name of His Imperial Majesty. But civilians—hands off!

  So for many years Piotr anticipated that the day would eventually come when he would be promoted, having done enough carrying to deserve a pay rise and a cap. Perhaps this dream of an Imperial cap was a reflection of his unhappy childhood, when he’d pretended that an old pot he’d found disposed of on a rubbish heap was his military cap. No doubt that childhood memory still retained in Piotr’s mind at the age of forty explains the undeniable fact that Piotr Niewiadomski would be delighted to be able to salute people instead of greeting them as a civilian would.

  He would have liked most of all to be a railway crossing guard or an assistant guard on a goods train. Service on the railway was attractive to Piotr simply because he came into contact with trains leaving for far-off destinations. The whole wide world familiar to him from travellers’ accounts passed through Topory-Czernielica station along with those trains. Piotr had seen carriages in which you could sleep under a blanket as comfortably as in a soft bed, and he had seen carriages in which gentlemen sat at tables covered by white tablecloths, eating, drinking and enjoying themselves. Often, curtained saloon cars with flowers in little vases in the windows flashed past Piotr as he stood rooted to the spot. By one window he would see a thick-set man in a tall white chef’s cap leaning against the shiny bulkhead, pouring something from a copper saucepan.

  Piotr also saw trains that had come all the way from Turkey, which is by the sea, where there are heathens who are permitted to have several wives at once, and he saw trains returning from Vienna, where the Emperor himself lives. True, he had little to do with those trains personally, as they naturally didn’t stop at Topory-Czernielica station, but on a number of occasions he had the job of striking the wheels that had run on foreign tracks with a hammer. When he touched the wheels of goods trains that were destined for distant, unknown parts, it was as if he was touching the very secret of a world he had never known.

  Why should he not become a signalman or travel on a goods train to the Romanian border? After all, he could recognize colours and distinguish red and green, even though he could not read or write. He also knew how to look after the points. Did people say he was stupid? Well, what if he was? The saints couldn’t glue broken crockery together and King Solomon wasn’t a guard on the railway.

  If Piotr became a signalman—now, that would change everything! He would no longer avoid the wedding ceremony, though Magda would be even less in the running than before. Piotr the signalman would be highly eligible for many a respectable widow or even an older spinster, but she would have to be some well-to-do farmer’s daughter, of course. Only then would he set up a home, a proper home with a proper woman. They would renovate the cottage, repair the leaky roof and thatch it with fresh straw, replace the rotten ceiling rafters and scrub the bedstead with a firm brush. Above the bed would hang a row of images of the Immaculate Mother of God, the Holy Virgin of Pochaiv, the Lord Jesus of Milatyn and various others. Above the icons there would be red paper roses on wires. They would buy a cuckoo clock, a mousetrap and some saucepans at the fair; on the windowsill there would stand flower pots with fuchsias, red as radishes. They would paint the whole living room sky blue. The wife would undoubtedly bring decorated cupboards from home, in which they would keep shirts, a sheepskin coat, their money and prayer books. Magda would be able to carry on working if she wished, but now it would be his own cow she would milk, the one his wife would have to include in her dowry. No, he would not turf Magda out on her ear—Heaven forbid! On the other hand, she could no longer sleep with him. She would find herself another fellow.

  These thoughts, which he did not mention to the priest at confession, kept Piotr at Topory and prevented him from taking a decisive step with regard to Magda. They combined his two life’s ambitions in one joyful vision. Piotr always imagined his dilapidated house in a flourishing state, rebuilt and, in the absence of children, populated with chickens, ducks and even pigs, with which Bass got on famously. He always imagined his house as a place where happiness dwelt. At Easter, he would have sausages from his own pig, he would have a whole year’s supply of pork fat, and feathers for his matrimonial eiderdowns from his own geese instead of stolen ones.

  One day, at 5.20 in the morning, the Topory-Czernielica stationmaster summoned Piotr to his office. As a rule the stationmaster was still asleep at this hour, but today, though he was still unshaven, he was already fully dressed and had had his breakfast, as could be seen from the empty cup and half-eaten bread roll on a metal tray. Why hadn’t the stationmaster finished his breakfast? This was Piotr’s first thought on arrival at the office. There was a considerable delay before it occurred to Piotr to wonder why the old man had summoned him at such an early hour. The stationmaster was sitting at his telegraph machine as it clicked away. The red colour on his official cap contrasted sharply with his pale cheeks covered in dark stubble. He paid no attention to Piotr’s arrival. He was engrossed in the long ribbon of paper he was feeding through his fingers, deciphering some secret messages. The machine clicked away incessantly. In the motionless silence that engulfed the office and the whole area surrounding the station, isolated among the fields, Piotr was alarmed by the dull, insistent clicking of the metal machine. He stopped observing the stationmaster, involuntarily turning his gaze towards the window, through which he had a view of the clear sky and several silent trees. The sky and the trees had a calming effect on him. All of a sudden, the machine stopped clicking. That was more ominous still. The stationmaster looked up. A great change seemed to have come over him. That severe, derisory expression that Piotr had found so daunting all those years seemed to have vanished overnight from his cold, gaunt, yet always contented features. Those eyes had so often caused him to endure hard times in his life. Piotr found them piercing even when, thankfully, they were closed. Those eyes were capable of stopping Piotr’s heartbeat, penetrating the innermost recesses of his conscience. Beneath their gaze, Piotr would cringe and squirm so much that he had developed that false smile simpl
e people assume in order to shake off the burden of contempt. Of all the burdens he carried in his life, the most onerous was the eyes of the stationmaster he felt on his back. Today, these eyes were extinguished; they were like the empty barrels of a double-barrelled shotgun. What has happened to the stationmaster?—Piotr wondered. He isn’t looking at me as he usually does; he looks as though he has stopped being the stationmaster. Perhaps he is leaving for another position and his rule has come to an end here?

  Piotr began thinking of his superior as his equal. Judging by his facial expression, the stationmaster was indeed on much the same level as Piotr Niewiadomski today. His eyes showed that look of consternation and sheer helplessness marking out those who vainly struggle to cope with life’s cruel realities. Today, the stationmaster revealed his most human trait—his weakness. His rustic origins, which had been carefully concealed beneath his official tunic, were exposed too. In life, there occur moments that thwart people’s efforts over the years to pull the wool over their own eyes and those of others, their perpetual efforts to emulate gestures they have observed. At such times, you might think, breeding somehow raises its head, drawn out by some chemical process. We are given away by a single involuntary movement of the hand, a single wry facial expression or a particular intonation. Something unusual must have happened that night for the stationmaster to be so changed. Perhaps he had suffered some loss in the family; perhaps he had been disciplined for something or other. Or had he been given to understand, by the officialdom whose ladder of hierarchy he aspired to ascend, that he was considered a simpleton?

  No, no misfortune had befallen his family, no one had reported him for exceeding his authority and no one had reproached him for being the son of a cartwright in Rohatyn province. Quite different events had occurred that night… That night the timetable, which from time immemorial had been the ten commandments of the Lwów–Czerniowce–Ickany railway line, had collapsed. It had crashed in a single moment, never to recover from this ignominy. At that moment those secret instructions applying “in case of war” which the stationmaster, who had taken an oath on assuming his appointment, kept sealed in an iron box in the most secure place in the ticket office, had come into force. They were not issued by his civilian employers, who took their orders from the Mount Sinai of the railways at the Ministry of Transport, but by the Chief of Staff. That is how the strict Law that had been faithfully observed in blind obedience on the railways for so many years collapsed. Public transport was suspended.

  The stationmaster cast a helpless, almost imploring gaze in Piotr’s direction. He handed him two tightly rolled large sheets of white paper containing closely printed text.

  “Niewiadomski,” he said in a strangely soft voice, “war has broken out!”

  It was a long time before Piotr took in the significance of these words. The word “war” crashed down on his head like a heavy clod. It penetrated his skull, penetrated the membrane and entered his brain. Piotr’s brain was immediately inundated with images. In an instant, Piotr could see manoeuvres he had witnessed in these parts two years before. Vast numbers of soldiers were simulating a firefight. They fired from both sides, lying on either side of the embankment along the track, fighting for possession of this railway line, but none of them was killed because on hearing the sound of the bugle they all stood up and lit cigarettes, laughing and marching off towards the great forest to the sound of music. Piotr knew that in real wars people were killed. He had seen bodies of Serbs and Bulgarians in a colour illustration from the battle of Çatalca in some magazine a newsagent had shown him in Śniatyn. He also remembered illustrations from the Russo-Japanese war. And suddenly the word “war” performed a somersault in his brain; it fell into his aorta, which it would have burst had it not been carried by the bloodstream into his heart. From there it forced its way into his abdomen, finishing up there as a sharp pain, like a stab from an iron instrument. For a moment, Piotr was overcome by a fear of death. But the heavy blood, exhausted by this sudden unexpected rush, gradually flowed back to his brain, bearing the drowned remains of the dead word “war”. Piotr regained his equilibrium. He realized that it was only soldiers who died in a war, and he was not in the army. He could now attend calmly to the stationmaster’s next words.

  “Take these posters and display them in the waiting-room, under the clock. Not too high up, and not too low down! Got it, Niewiadomski?”

  As he was issuing the order, the stationmaster realized who he was talking to and attempted to inject a semblance of the former severity into his now timid voice.

  “Take care not to tear them, and put them up straight!”

  Piotr left, carefully shutting behind him the door bearing the prominent notice: “Unauthorized entry strictly forbidden”. He stood in the dingy corridor, holding the war in his hands. It was not yet unfurled, coiled up like the leaves of buds in spring.

  He did not unfurl it until he reached the waiting-room.

  After Piotr had left, the stationmaster glanced at the great clock on the wall. He looked anxiously up at the clock every five minutes. Beneath the clock there ceremoniously hung a large tear-off calendar. The stationmaster’s first duty each morning was to tear off a leaf from the calendar. Today the stationmaster had already been sitting for an hour in the office, but the calendar still displayed the date of the 27th of July. In this office, yesterday still persisted instead of today; it was intact. Why had the Topory-Czernielica stationmaster not cancelled the previous day? Could he be trying to hang on to the time when his timetable was in force, that of the railways, and not theirs? Could he be trying to hold on to the time when yesterday’s world order was in force? Could it also simply be the case that, in the spate of work that had engulfed him that night, his usual daily routine had been forgotten? It was already 5.30. Six o’clock passed, but the stationmaster did not remove yesterday’s leaf from the calendar.

  At 6.25 there came a knock at the door. The stationmaster gave a start. His feet were entangled in snake-like coils of white paper covered in Morse code. Like a comic dancer at a ball, the ladies’ favourite caught up among paper streamers, the stationmaster disengaged himself from the war around his feet, and he was free.

  “Come in!” he called.

  It was the trainee who was supposed to relieve him at seven o’clock. On seeing his deputy, the stationmaster came to terms with reality. He quickly approached the calendar and tore off the 27th of July. He crushed it in his hand and threw it into the overflowing waste-paper basket as though the latter was a communal grave for fallen soldiers. It meant that Topory-Czernielica station had bidden farewell to the last day of peacetime.

  The waiting-room was still deserted. The window where the stationmaster issued tickets to the public was still closed. Twice a day people had the right to hurry to this window so as to catch the train in time. Today they no longer need to hurry. Nobody knows when it will open, or if indeed it will open at all. It is closed like the lips of a corpse. It will no longer accept any money and it will not issue any tickets. Perhaps it will be opened by the same power that abolished the Law last night.

  To the left of the window, above the wooden benches, hung an enormous, majestic, yellow sheet of squared paper, with black lines separating main routes from branch lines. This was the wall timetable of the Imperial and Royal State Railways of the East Galician territory. Those able to read had always confidently used it to check the sacred hours and minutes of departures and arrivals, but today they were checking only dead memories. The official timetable hung there superfluous, unimportant, like an old funeral announcement at a house from which the deceased had long since been carried away.

  Other posters and announcements were attached there too. A now very faded coloured poster, an invitation to attend the Vienna Eucharist Congress—ceremonies that had long since taken place and been forgotten. Pedigree turkeys and chickens invited you to the Third Regional Poultry Exhibition. A smiling,
corpulent waiter in tails carrying frothing jugs of beer in both hands offered this beverage on behalf of the Lwów Brewery Company. An attractive sphinx-woman with massive earrings was smoking a cigarette wrapped in fine Abadia paper. All these adornments on the drab walls of the waiting-room at Topory-Czernielica station owed their presence over the years to Piotr Niewiadomski, who had pasted them up personally.

  Two new notices had been drying out on the door for the last hour. Large, white, severe, bereft of illustrations, smiling waiters and sphinx-women. They were identical and inseparable, like Siamese twins, and their presence was also due to Piotr. There was a provocative freshness about them.

  At around seven o’clock passengers began to gather. A gamekeeper in a green cap turned up, a couple of old women with baskets, a few Hutsul men in red trousers and some black-coated Jews. They all crowded round the new notices, talking loudly in their impatience and perplexity. Shortly, the stationmaster appeared. He wanted to announce in person that the passenger train was cancelled. That the line had been placed at the disposal of the military. Suddenly, glancing at the posters he had ordered Piotr to display that morning, he flew into a rage.

  “Where’s Niewiadomski?” he shouted. “I’ll knock his block off!”

  Niewiadomski didn’t know why.

  “The dozy nincompoop! The Emperor’s proclamation—he’s got the Emperor’s proclamation upside down!”