Salt of the Earth

by Józef Wittlin

  “Can I go, then?” asked Piotr.

  Yes, he could go. There was no work for him to do here now. The stationmaster wanted to do him a favour by giving him one last duty.

  “Perhaps you’ll take down the station sign. Take care of the hooks, mind. The hooks may come in handy. Bring them to me.”

  Then he shut the door in his face. For the first time in eleven years the stationmaster had given him an order saying “perhaps”. That conveyed a touch of solidarity.

  Take down the station sign? What did that mean? Although Piotr was illiterate, he knew all about the significance of the sign. To the station, the sign was as important as anyone’s own name. He knew what the black Roman and Cyrillic lettering said off by heart. He would be able to copy it. Topory was like Piotr and Czernielica was like Niewiadomski. Depriving the station of its sign was the same as taking away someone’s name. The stationmaster’s command shook Piotr’s faith in the order of the world. The whole world was full of beautiful names, flourishing as in a wild-flower meadow. God himself had probably sown them centuries ago. There were fragrant, sweet, pleasant names and there were sharp, menacing, sullen names. Where did the name of Topory* come from, for example? At one time, there must have been just forests here, before the woodcutters came with their axes and chopped them down. And was the station now to have its pride and joy, that which distinguished it from other stations, removed?

  Something began to dawn on Piotr. The station sign probably had to be taken down to stop the Muscovites finding their way around so easily. Let them find their own way or ask their sympathizers. We won’t show the Muscovites where Topory-Czernielica is.

  This was how Piotr understood the point of his last task on the railway.

  He found the state of the platform even more upsetting. Rifles were propped against the wall outside the waiting-room. Piotr counted them: eight. Nobody was looking after them. Litter was strewn about everywhere, paper, debris, cigarette ends and trampled straw. The waiting-room floor was covered in straw as well. There were backpacks, haversacks and mess tins on the benches. Three soldiers were lying in the straw. They were smoking pipes and speaking some foreign language. Piotr reluctantly passed through the waiting-room turned into a soldiers’ billet. He spat ostentatiously into the spittoon clogged with rubbish. He went to the storeroom to fetch a ladder. On his way back, he noticed that the oil lamp was missing from the lantern guarding the shed containing the ladies and gents. They had already nicked it, the bastards!

  Piotr set about removing the sign. He placed the ladder against the wall. The elongated, shapely sign hung between the waiting-room and the stationmaster’s apartment on the first floor. The apartment consisted of three rooms and a kitchen, but only two windows looked out over the platform. Piotr climbed the ladder and stood on the next-to-last rung. Under the stationmaster’s windows, petunias, geraniums and nasturtiums in green wooden window-boxes were on their last legs. The stationmaster’s wife had planted them—she was passionate about flowers. Piotr turned his head to contemplate the flowers for a while. They gave off no scent. Then he took a pair of pliers from his pocket and loosened the hooks. The head of a boy, attracted by the noise, poked out of one of the windows. It was the stationmaster’s son, Tadzio. He recognized Piotr.

  “What are you doing there, Piotr?”

  “I’m taking the sign down.”

  “What for?”

  “Your dad’s orders.”

  Tadzio chortled sarcastically and immediately disappeared.

  Piotr pulled out the hooks. The white sign with its black devil’s symbols tilted to one side. Piotr held on to it with his left hand, but the sign was too heavy. If he took it in both hands, Piotr could lose his balance. For a moment he stood on the ladder and hesitated. Finally, he decided to drop it. He looked like Moses destroying the tablets of stone. The sign fell with a loud metallic crash, but it came to no harm. Not a single letter came adrift.

  Piotr climbed down the ladder like a hangman who had just carried out an execution. He lifted the sign as though it was a dead body and carried it off to the store-room. The soldiers on the platform looked on with indifference as the station was humiliated. From that moment on, Topory-Czernielica station actually ceased to exist. All that remained was a lonely little building beside the railway line, nameless, headless and soulless.

  Late that evening, Piotr took his leave of the stationmaster. The “old man” handed him his overdue wages, adding two crowns from his own pocket. He also administered the last rites, as it were.

  “Do your duty well in the army—don’t get yourself killed, because if the devil takes you not even a dog will bark for you!”

  This favourite saying of the stationmaster’s came from the days of his own military service. Some lieutenant at the one-year service school, wanting to express utter contempt for one of his trainees and to convince him of the total worthlessness of his existence, would exclaim: “I’ll shoot you, and not even a dog will bark for you!” Of course, the dog served merely as a flexible metaphor, and as such it entered the stationmaster’s verbal repertoire.

  The parting was an emotional occasion, but it passed without tears being shed. Piotr was not one to weep easily. His tough life had not only given him a thick skin; certain glands had ceased to function as well. Piotr kissed the stationmaster’s hand. Parting with inanimate objects saddened him more than parting from living people. He felt a greater affinity with that world than with people. He was himself something of a station-supporting beam. Did not the track, the ballast and the points bear traces of his hands, were they not soaked in his sweat? Invisible as they were, those traces existed and would continue to exist until new people came to lay new tracks, to spread fresh gravel on the Lwów–Czerniowce–Ickany line. The inert, silent permanence of things to which human hands gave meaning—this is the greatest reward for heavy, rough, transient exertion. If Piotr had possessed the stationmaster’s classical education, he could have said at that moment: “Non omnis moriar—not all of me will die.”

  As he walked down the track, he could recognize each object that had ever had anything to do with his work, even in the darkness. Here was the pump at which the locomotives stopped to take on water. Its blackness loomed in the dark like some weird, stiff, gigantic bird with a brass beak. So many times Piotr had packed it with straw in the winter! And over there, a little farther on, some very familiar old friends, retired rails, lay rusting in the grass.

  Piotr returned home. The village lay three kilometres beyond the station. Beside the railway line stretched lush meadows, full of buttercups in spring. At this time of the year, the meadows were being mown and tall stooks of hay stood motionless like spellbound troops. Suddenly, Piotr had the impression that the stooks were moving forwards. But the illusion soon vanished. As far as the eye could see there was not a living soul about. Unless the grasshoppers, whose loud, relentless trilling penetrated the night air, have souls. The earth, ravaged somewhere in the distance by shelling, groaned at measured intervals. The night was cool. The moon had not yet crept out of its lair, which was behind the hill, beyond Czernielica, though it was already sprinkling Topory with its silvery powder. The stars twinkled encouragingly at him, but they were minute and pale, flickering like the flames of tiny oil lamps. The moon bided its time; it was up to something that night.

  The village was wafting its strongest odours in Piotr’s direction—the smell of over-ripe onions and parsley. As he approached the nearest cottages, he sensed the eternal reek of peasants’ dwellings nestling amid the calm of rural existence—a fusion of smoke from log fires, cheese, whey, poultry droppings and poverty. Unglazed black pots, earthenware pots planted with poppies and little jugs were ranged on top of the fences like helmets on the heads of crusaders. The lights were on in many of the cottages, as many of their occupants would be setting off to Hungary on the following day—the reserve militia. Their bundles
and their little boxes were being packed and food was being prepared for the journey. Hryć Łotocki’s was the only cottage in darkness. He was sleeping soundly, being over sixty and not called up for military service by the Emperor. Łotocki’s dog leapt out of his kennel on hearing Piotr’s footsteps. Rattling his chain, he kept barking at the passer-by for some time, as though he was a burglar. Aroused by the barking, other dogs started pulling on their leads, but they didn’t show their solidarity with Łotocki’s sheepdog for long. One by one, they returned to their dens.

  Bass, however, recognized Piotr’s footsteps from a distance and joyfully rushed to greet him. He had been waiting in front of the house with Magda, who had learnt of Piotr’s imminent hurried departure. She had resolved to spend the night with him. They went indoors.

  Piotr lit the lamp. It was stuffy. Magda opened the window. At once, nocturnal butterflies, moths and fireflies flew in. Many of them perished soundlessly in the seductive flame, like the soldiers who were falling that night in gunfire on the Drina, the Sambre and the Moselle, for at that moment began the return of the Austro-Hungarian army from Kragujevac in Serbia, and Russia’s Fourth and Fifth Armies were just then on the move from the north, and from the north-east the Third and Eighth were converging on the Przemyśl–Lwów line. The rattling of the grubby windowpanes in Piotr Niewiadomski’s cottage announced the intensification of action by the armies fighting in Galicia.

  Piotr sat down on his bed without removing his cap. He was exhausted and very hungry. Magda cleared out the ash that had been piled up on the hearth since before the war had started, chopped some wood and lit the fire. She had thoughtfully brought with her milk, bread and potatoes. They remained silent for some time. The heat from the fire in the kitchen slowly began to reach the couple.

  Magda was the first to speak.

  “You’re off, then?”

  Although for four years Magda had been to Piotr what polite people called his “beloved”, she had not ventured to address him accordingly except at moments of greatest intimacy. Once these moments were over, she was again separated from Piotr by a barrier created by respect and by the seventeen-year age difference between them. He always addressed her as he would a spouse, but she did so only when she was serving him in the role of Venus. Otherwise, she existed only as a humble orphan, who was not permitted to forget her own low status.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  And they fell silent again. Piotr did not speak to her again until they were having supper, the last time they would do so together.

  “Look after Bass—make sure the Muscovites don’t take him. Everyone is after a dog.”

  He stroked Bass, and then took hold of his muzzle with both hands so tightly that the dog yelped.

  Magda was hurt; he had always taken better care of the dog than of her. But she said nothing, because even orphans have their pride. After supper, Piotr went outside and lit his pipe.

  He sat down on the threshold and looked up at the stars. One of the stars broke away from its flock, crossed the entire breadth of the horizon and disappeared into the river Prut. Piotr paused for thought. He had heard that falling stars were seen when someone was going to die. He laughed out loud—if a star fell for every peasant who snuffed it in the war, they would have to fall incessantly like a hailstorm. Soon there would be not a single one left in the sky.

  He did not know that there were more flaring and extinct worlds than there were soldiers in the service of His Imperial and Royal Majesty.

  When he had finished smoking his pipe, he stood up heavily and went into the orchard. All the trees looked amazingly dark in the milky glow of the hidden moon. Neither of the apple trees had borne fruit that year, and the plums were still small and green. Still, he picked one and slipped it into his pocket. Then he walked all the way round the house, probably for the hundredth time feeling sorry about the state it was in. This house could do with being repaired.

  Beneath the thatched roof hung cobs of maize. They were drying out for seeding. In the dull light, they looked like sleeping bats hanging from nails.

  Piotr went back to Magda, and their night of love-making began.

  The girl had washed the dishes and scoured the pans. She had fed Bass on the leftovers from their supper. The well-fed dog ran out into the yard, but straight away he returned, looking despondent; evidently, he could not find a suitable place to lie down, so he began to settle underneath the bed. A cricket was chirruping, hidden in a crack in the floor by the hearth. Magda kneeled before the image of the Immaculate Mother, closed her eyes and prayed for a long time in impassioned whispers. Then she took off her shawl and her apron, removed her skirt, untied her two thin plaits and made one thick one. Then she extinguished the lamp and lay down beside Piotr.

  At that point Bass stirred uneasily, reminding them of his presence. Piotr was embarrassed about it; this live witness made him uneasy. He had to be sent out. Piotr leapt out of bed, opened the door and tried to get Bass to go out into the hallway, at least. But the dog stubbornly refused to obey; he was unwilling to abandon his master on this last night. Piotr, humiliated, used force and with a stick, of all things, drove his only love out into the yard. The banished love howled piteously.

  Piotr had never loved Magda; he just “lived” with her. Was he capable of love, anyway? Who knows, perhaps love is a luxury only privileged souls can afford. How did his love for Bass manifest itself, for example? It may have been the total trust of a downtrodden man in a downtrodden animal, a comradeship in their shared dog’s life on this earth, where they went around together with a hang-dog appearance, or something else besides. Perhaps this love was concealed beneath a dull mutual submissiveness. For Piotr would often give in to Bass against his own better judgement, and senseless submission to a weaker creature sometimes passes for love. It was probably only in really serious cases, for example when the dog was in danger, that Piotr imposed his will. Apart from that, he rarely displayed his superiority. What did a Hutsul know about dogs? Piotr attributed great intelligence to Bass. He felt that the old hound could see everything, sense and understand every human gesture. For that reason, he found Bass’s presence embarrassing when Magda stayed overnight, which often meant that no intimacy occurred between Piotr and Magda. The dog could not bear anyone to touch his master; it seemed to make him jealous. He would throw himself at the foreign body in an attempt to drag it away from Piotr. But even when Bass remained calm, Piotr felt his movements were restricted. This time, however, passion prevailed, enhanced by the day’s events and by a vague sense that this would be his last night with Magda. He was unwilling to abandon it, but he could not see it through when Bass was there. He chased him out.

  The altercation with the dog cooled his ardour and held back his advances. It was somehow silly to restart the foreplay interrupted by the dog’s stubbornness. Besides, even when he closed his eyes the war was there, like an annoying insect oppressing him with persistent thoughts about the following day. He had to stir up his passion once more, shutting out logic and overcoming his fears. Eventually, victory was on the side of Venus.

  No, Piotr did not love Magda. He possessed her body as one drinks vodka or takes a bath for vital health reasons. But it was not an addiction. Piotr had no addictions. Magda’s slim, firm tiny body was always cool. Even at moments of most intense rapture it did not perspire. It gave Piotr the pleasure of its gentle, obedient submissiveness, which is what appealed to him. In the orphan’s embrace he simultaneously experienced the sense of relief, the dulling of consciousness and the awareness of his own powers dear to every man. And finally, Magda’s body was the only terrain where he felt victorious. This is something male self-love cannot easily do without. Piotr vanquished Magda without resistance, but also effortlessly, and the sterility of the insemination was the only thing that mitigated his brief pleasure. It robbed the joining of their bodies of its deeper meaning, depriving it of its dignit
y. But it also guarded against excess. In any case, Magda’s sensuality was kept in check by other restraints—her religious faith and Piotr’s age. A younger man might have succeeded in taking Magda’s body to the most consummate passion and overcoming her sense of sin. “Living” with Piotr, she never forgot that she was sinning, so she attempted at least to sin in moderation. That was probably why she prayed so fervently before entering his bed. As though she wanted to beg forgiveness in advance.

  Nor did Piotr become intoxicated with Magda; he always remained in control of his instincts. It was as though he was subconsciously fulfilling an obligation inherited from his unknown Polish father, Niewiadomski—Incognito.

  The nights with Magda afforded him a momentary enjoyment of life, which he never experienced otherwise. For him, the orphan’s body represented cafés, opera and long voyages, everything that music, sport and intellectual pleasures mean to other people. But it held no surprises—it was as commonplace as his daily bread. Piotr found in it relaxation and tenderness and for a few seconds he was transported beyond the confines of his own existence. Women, vodka and religion are the three delights that rescue the souls of the benighted Hutsul from despair and hell on earth.

  But Piotr never took Magda with him into his dreams. The orphan remained on the threshold of his sleep and his wakefulness, just as she did not venture to address him as she would a husband in the daytime. Piotr was alone when he was asleep, even though he lay in her embrace. Often his mother visited him in his dreams, sometimes even his wretched sister Paraszka, but never Magda. She often dreamt of him, though. Tonight, she was completely conjoined with him. She first dreamt of him as an infant suckling at her breast, then the child suddenly grew up…