Salt of the Earth

by Józef Wittlin

  But since the world had been at war everything had become confused. Evidently, the devil had resolved to deprive the human race of the little good sense it still possessed. Perhaps this was why the Pope had died, then. What would happen now? Christendom without a Pope is like a human being without a head, like a station without a sign bearing its name. Now would the devil begin to run riot. Piotr was overcome with a fear of the devil. Infernal visions were conjured up before his eyes. And he shuddered at the thought that the devil had robbed the Lord of the entire fifth commandment and sold it to the Emperors.

  He crossed himself three times to drive away the devil. Then he went outdoors to get a breath of fresh air. It was midday. The sun was high in the sky, directly over Topory. It beat down on his uncovered head. The tolling of the bells had ceased. From the meadows came the soothing sound of the scythe and the lowing of the cattle. The rams were bleating, the geese were honking, the grasshoppers were chirping. The charming chatter of little birds twittering among the branches of the trees was heard all around and the swallows chased one another through the air—lone, dark, flitting shapes against the motionless blue sky. The sky was as blue as the Adriatic Sea. Cockerels were crowing incessantly, and once more the artillery barrage began; people were slowly getting accustomed to it. Piotr returned to the cottage and lifted the lid off a pot to see whether the potatoes were ready. Today he wanted to add to them some of the pork fat Magda had brought for his journey. He put the salt on the table and washed a spoon and a knife. He cut a slice of bread and tasted the pork fat. It was excellent. Steam was soon rising in clouds from the pot. Piotr poured off the boiling water and he was about to begin his meal.

  All of a sudden it began to get dark, though there was not a cloud in the sky. With every passing second the sun lost more of its radiance and a cool breeze swept in from the orchard, even though not a single leaf stirred on the trees.

  Suddenly, the sparrows had stopped twittering, taking shelter in their nooks in the trees, as they do at dusk. The swallows swooped to their nests, chirruping anxiously. The larks, alarmed at the descending darkness, swooped down to the ground, abandoning their singing high in the sky. Even the insects were seized by panic. Wasps, mosquitoes, butterflies, gadflies, common or garden flies—everything that flies in the air—tried to reach terra firma, cling on to a twig, snuggle among the foliage, crawl into a crevice in the bark of a tree, or hide among straw and moss. Everywhere a bitter chill pervaded, like that experienced inside old churches.

  Piotr Niewiadomski looked up from his pot and glanced out of the window.

  “What’s going on? The sun is disappearing! It’s in the middle of the sky in the south and it’s disappearing.”

  Suspended in a dreary void, the sun was fading in dark red agony like an enormous round lamp, as when a fault suddenly occurs at the power station. Cold fear flowed in Piotr’s veins, rushing into his heart. The ladle full of hot potatoes fell from his trembling hand. The potatoes were strewn across the floor. Bass thought they were intended for him, but they burnt his tongue. Piotr, struggling to overcome his terror, went outdoors. At the sight of the bats emerging one after another from beneath the roof, squealing horrendously and circling in their frenzy from tree to tree, he began to pray for aid to the Immaculate Mother of God.

  The sun was extinguished almost completely, and the world went dark, as if people’s eyes were veiled in mourning crepe. Fear fell on the whole of Pokuttya, although many Hutsuls knew that it was a solar eclipse. Knowing the astronomical fact that the moon is intruding between the earth and the sun does not ward off that fear of sudden, unexpected darkness rooted deep in the soul, any more than the biological interpretation of the phenomenon of death diminishes our dread. It is pointless to explain to the dying that the disintegration of proteins in their bodies is caused by enzymes, that the putrefaction of the corpse is merely the passive decaying of proteins, and that the poisons forming in the corpse are the product of this decay. Not even a naturalist, when dying, is consoled by well-known certainties, and in the last moments of consciousness he does not reassure his family with the principle he has asserted throughout his life, that “nothing in nature is lost”.

  “It’s the end of the world!” cried the Hutsuls in Topory and Czernielica. From both the Old and the New Testaments, familiar to them from the sermons of Father Makarucha, swarmed the frightful images of annihilation that beset the Hutsuls’ imagination, cultivated over so many years by this one book alone, which they could not even read. In their terror-stricken souls, the little village of Topory had become the biblical city of Sodom and Czernielica was Gomorrah, and for many the valley of the Prut, with its fragrant mint on summer evenings, was now the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Everyone recalled the darknesses in Egypt mentioned in the Scriptures, remembering that when the Saviour was crucified on Golgotha the sun faded and night fell in broad daylight, just as today. And in Śniatyn district there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.

  People whose consciences were not entirely clear fell on their knees, prostrated themselves before the holy icons, beating their breasts with their fists as though, this way, they could expel their lingering, unconfessed sins or those deliberately withheld at confession. Some wanted to immediately hand over everything they had once stolen, even adding some of their own possessions.

  There were villains in Topory; yes, there were—thieves and adulterers. There was even a murderer. Sentenced to fifteen years, he spent only seven in Brygidki prison in Lwów; the merciful Emperor pardoned him for the remaining term when the war broke out.

  For many people it now became clear why five innocent children and two pious old women had died in the village this summer. God had rewarded these righteous individuals with death so that they would not witness the end of the world. This darkness also explained the death of the Holy Father. All the prophecies about the end of the world mentioned the death of the Pope. This is how God’s punishment begins. Everything is as predicted—a dreadful war raging all over the world, Christian blood being shed everywhere, the Muscovites already approaching the district of Śniatyn itself… and now the day of judgement has arrived. The Pope of Rome has passed away and the Lord has drawn a veil of darkness over the earth. Now the devil, the prince of darkness, has a free hand and he can do with the world as he pleases. At any moment now, plagues will rain down from the sky and the Antichrist will appear in his chariot of fire.

  The rumble of the artillery barrage was heard even more distinctly in the darkness, swamping faint-hearted souls with black, arid waves. Mountains seemed to crack and crumble, and the pulse of the earth beat a hundred times faster. At any moment it would open up and consume that entire sinful tribe—as it had once swallowed up Korah.

  The more timid could already detect sulphur in the air, and the smell of burning, and in the long-drawn-out bellowing of their own cattle they heard the apocalyptic beasts. However, a brave few wanted to run to Father Makarucha to ask if this really meant the end of the world. Others advised them to wait; perhaps the darkness would pass. But the darkness persisted and became ever more dense. The infernal ordeal of waiting for the worst began. The Hutsuls’ overworked imagination ceased to function; their souls were filled with the despair of the condemned. In the general panic, no one looked at the clock. Time was moving on in the darkness just as steadily as when it was light.

  At an open window on the upper floor at Topory-Czernielica station, below which the petunias, geraniums and nasturtiums were wilting, stood Tadzio, the stationmaster’s son. Through the smoke-blackened glass he was observing the total eclipse of the sun. His father had told him that something similar had occurred in ancient times, in 202 BC, during the Battle of Zama. On that occasion Hannibal had uttered those famous words: “Then we will fight in the darkness.”

  Now too there was fighting in the darkness. They were fighting at Turynka, some twenty-one kilometres west of Kamionka Strumiłowa, and the First German
Army was just entering Brussels. And in Rome, in the brightly lit Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, the remains of Pius X, sprinkled by the Vice-Regent Patriarch Ceppetelli, were at that moment being placed on the catafalque for the lying-in-state.

  Piotr Niewiadomski was the sort of person for whom the most diverse phenomena stem from a single cause and are self-evidently linked to him personally. In his mind, all events were coordinated, merging into a single entity, or rather into a single chaotic mass which this mind was accustomed to organize according to its own logic. Therefore Piotr, like other Hutsuls, saw the solar eclipse as closely associated not only with the war and the death of the Pope, but also with his own sins. Original sin was the most prominent, overshadowing all the other, lesser, sins. And for the second time since his recruitment in Śniatyn Piotr bitterly regretted not having married Magda. He had emerged from the darkness; the darkness was his homeland, but at the moment he was mortally afraid of it, and he begged forgiveness on his knees.

  The Creator graciously listened to the prayers of this poor Hutsul and for the last time, truly the last time, he forgave the sins of the world. And just as suddenly as it had fallen, the darkness began to retreat and gradually the world became visible again. Once more the sparrows twittered, the larks sang, the insects buzzed, and the beautiful, cheerful day returned. But the earth continued to rumble, shaking the windowpanes. Through his prayers, Piotr had gained only partial forgiveness for the world. Seeing that the darkened sun shone brightly once again and that everything was returning to its former state, he was almost sure that the artillery barrage would cease, and that shortly Corporal Jan Durek of the gendarmerie would appear with the joyful news that the war was over. So he was in no hurry to pack his trunk.

  The solar eclipse had lasted almost two and a half hours, from 12.29 to 14.50. In those long hours of darkness the earth was enriched by tens of thousands of corpses. And there were people on the ground who wished that night would last forever, and bury their concerns, anguish and fear of war. They were not inhabitants of Topory. The inhabitants of Topory and Czernielica and other parishes of Śniatyn district enjoyed the return of the sun and the divine forgiveness and laughed at their own foolishness. But fear still gripped them, lurking in the depths of their souls; today, along with the last of the reserve militia cohorts, they were to travel to Hungary.

  When Piotr Niewiadomski had recovered from his fright, and when no angel of peace had turned up in the form of the corporal of the gendarmerie, he set about packing. He could not eat now. The moment he opened the black wooden trunk, like a child’s coffin, he heard ever so high above him an unusual whirring and humming. He went outdoors and saw a small bird, way up in the sky. It seemed that the bird had flown out from the very core of the newborn sun—as it were, a dove released from the hands of God. The bird was gliding gently, sometimes descending, then soaring upwards once more. It grew and grew and grew in size, and the rushing noise it made grew louder and louder, sounding like a waterfall. In the end, it flew so close that you could make out its widely spread wings, adorned underneath by colourful circles. Yet the wings were quite motionless. Huge and dark, it glided over the meadows, becoming smaller; and the sound grew quieter, as though it came from a bumblebee. Finally, the strange bird, dwindling to the size of a fly, disappeared into the blue. It was the first military aircraft flying over Topory on its way to the front line.

  Piotr went back indoors and packed his little trunk. He included two shirts, a few pairs of long underpants, a towel, several colourful handkerchiefs, his prayer-books (he took them to church, even though he could not read), a mirror, a brush, a razor, a spoon; oh, and his provisions. At the very bottom he placed a handkerchief containing his money, tied in a triple knot. The knots were intended to ensure the safety of 60 crowns in banknotes and in silver. This amount represented his total savings. When he had duly packed the little trunk, he locked it with a padlock.

  Yes, it was his trunk, undeniably his own property. Everything he had borne on his shoulders up to now had belonged to someone else. The Jews’ potatoes, the gentry’s oats, rye and barley, the suitcases of the passengers from the city. Piotr was in awe of all forms of property, but subconsciously hated it because it was someone else’s. For so many years, he had to carry other people’s trunks, not even having the right to know what they contained. In their mysterious depths, sealed away with a padlock, he suspected the existence of some untold treasures: gold watches, extraordinary razors. What intrigued him most, however, were the shoes. Perhaps it was because for most of the year he went barefoot. By listening to the faint rattling and rustling of invisible objects falling about in the trunk on his back, he tried to guess its contents. Piotr-the-porter’s back had eyes and ears. He hated the anonymous kilograms on his back more than the people to whom they belonged. He had a particular dislike of suitcases. He preferred ordinary bags, though they were much heavier. He preferred coal, wood and grain. He even liked them. They were honest burdens, sincere rather than sneaky. Suitcases offended him because they were locked, just as we are offended when letters we have to deliver to somebody are sealed.

  The suitcases and trunks were of various kinds. Some were made from animal skins, protected by canvas covers, others were made of boards covered with oilcloth, others of woven and plaited wicker with a transverse rod passing through the handles. A padlock was attached to one end of the rod—a sacred symbol of ownership, protected by law. Corporal Durek also shackled the hands of thieves. Piotr often observed the trunks’ owners checking the locks and padlocks. He would on occasion personally insist that they checked them in his presence, as he was responsible only for locked luggage. However, he did find it humiliating that they were locked at Topory-Czernielica station mainly when he was present.

  This small black trunk here was his property. Piotr knew the precise contents of his trunk. Like other people, he secured it with a padlock against unknown thieves. There were thieves, yes there were, and not only in Topory. They would not change their spots after that two-and-a-half-hour trial of the end of the world. But Piotr’s sense of ownership was such that his trunk was lighter than any of those he had carried on the railway. It was not for some passenger; it was for the Emperor. It was as light as freedom itself. Insofar as freedom is indeed light.

  Going to the station with this trunk did not mean he was on his way to freedom, however. He was taking with him to war the remnants of freedom, the very essence of his civilian personality, the secret part of his outer form, which would be covered by his uniform.

  Before he left his home, he had to settle three important issues: what to do with Bass, what to do with the railway cap and what to do with the key to the cottage. He had learnt from other soldiers of the reserve militia who had dogs that you are not allowed to take them with you to war. He didn’t want to sell Bass. So he decided to entrust him to the dubious care of Magda. Dubious, because he thought the girl might neglect the dog. Once again he would give her strict instructions to protect Bass with her own life. As for the cap, after much hesitation he decided to take it with him. True, it would be misappropriation, but he would create a better impression if he joined wearing a cap like this. And as for the key, he abandoned his original intention of giving it to Magda. He did not trust her. She was a well-meaning girl, but unreliable. Who knew whether the war really would be over by Christmas? And if it did not end and the Muscovites occupied Topory and Magda had a key, then goodness knows what might go on in his house. It was definitely better to take the key with him. So that is what he did. What confidence people have in their keys! These cold pieces of iron lying in people’s pockets like hostages, to ensure the safety of houses, cabinets, cash boxes and drawers. We can be a hundred miles from our homes, but the keys to gates and doors accompanying us on our travels give us the illusion that we are still masters of our property. Keys in pockets are like the souls of those abandoned places, which when locked up lose their meaning and lose their lives.
Piotr locked up his house with the key, and although the windows almost reached the ground he believed that no thief would break in. He trusted even the Muscovites; surely they would respect locked doors, not daring to break them down with rifle butts. He locked the house containing all his possessions: the bed, trunks, pots—and all his hopes. The hopes could have escaped through the door if it was left unlocked; now they would be secure. When he came back from the war Piotr would find them intact, just as he had left them. And who knows if in the meantime they would not multiply? Piotr Niewiadomski had locked up his life’s ideal, his career, and that wonderful, imaginary wife with a dowry. Let her wait for him here until the war was over. Let her thrive, reflecting on him and their marital happiness to come. So Piotr had locked up two houses with his rusty key: the actual, ramshackle one, half of which belonged to his sister Paraszka Niewiadomska, a girl of easy virtue, and the other—the house of his dreams—renovated, with flower-pots in the windows and a mousetrap.

  There was a loud rattle as he turned the key, checking that the door was properly locked. Then, without looking back, he set off with Bass, carrying his little trunk on his back.

  It was four o’clock. Although the train was not due until six, many villagers were already making their way towards the station with their trunks and bundles. The women and children were going along to see them off. There were even several carts standing outside the station building; the wickerwork seats were more comfortable to sit on while waiting. Topory-Czernielica station served many settlements scattered across the hills and in the valleys of the two rivers, so a motley crowd had gathered outside the station, in the waiting-room and on the platform. Some Hutsuls still wore their hair long, shiny and greasy, although everyone knew that the army razors would crop it close. The Jews were also unwilling to part with their beards and side-locks prescribed by the Holy Scriptures. The army would cut them off, the army would shave them—well, the Emperor would be called to account for that, not they. They would not willingly perform sacrilegious acts.