Salt of the Earth

by Józef Wittlin

  So Piotr was regarded with a certain deference right from the beginning of the journey. Some men in the wagon, including of course those who knew him, were almost certain that he was travelling with them in his official capacity, not joining the army like everyone else. He was himself also imbued with the magic of his cap. Seeing how people looked up to him, he began to regret his stupidity, his fear and his shame—goodness knows why he didn’t mention his civilian occupation when he was called up. He might have been posted to some railway division. But when he was at the recruiting station he had no idea that such divisions even existed.

  The army is the army, he thought, and the railway is the railway. Who would have thought that there might be such a thing as a railway army? Too late now. Now he was going to war as an ordinary member of the reserve militia. He was taking with him to Hungary an oath which he could not revoke in the slightest. It bound him hand and foot. Carrying burdens on his back was better than this. He had only himself to blame. He could have said he was a railwayman. He would have sworn an oath to serve the railway.

  Piotr had often sworn oaths in his life. Twice even in court. But these oaths applied only to the duration of the case. When he left the courtroom, he was free. And how many times had he sworn at the station, to the stationmaster, of his own volition, for his own benefit, and not under duress? That he had not stolen, had not seen, had not heard, that he would never do it again, that it was someone else… In his younger days he had also sworn in church that not a drop of vodka would pass his lips all year. That was a hard year, but it shortened with each passing day and he could count the days that remained before he would again be allowed to visit the tavern.

  An oath sworn to His Majesty the Emperor was something else. That meant pledging your own life away. On credit. But you only have one life. How good it would be to have two lives, one for the Emperor, for your homeland, and the other for yourself. After giving your life for the Emperor on land, on water or in the air, you could still always go home with your second life. As it is, though, you can please neither yourself nor the Emperor. If you want to live you become a deserter, cheating the Emperor, and the Emperor rewards you with a bullet in the head. That would be his right, because you swore the oath. And you rot in the ground. Or you press on to the front line and expose yourself to the heaviest firing and you end up lying in the ground anyway. Either way, it’s dreadful.

  Piotr Niewiadomski dearly loved the Emperor. However, he was not completely indifferent to his own fate. We even have a good deal of evidence that he liked life. This is why he was greatly troubled by his oath, especially since God alone knew how long it would be in force. And how it would end. In promotion to lance corporal or in death for the sake of the Emperor? Neither one nor the other, perhaps. Piotr could not become a lance corporal. An NCO has to be able to read and write. He could become a corpse, though. You didn’t have to attend school for that, but he hoped that the war would end in six weeks. The training would just about account for the six weeks. The war might drag on till Christmas. Between mid-October and Christmas you could die for the Emperor a hundred times over… But does every soldier have to die? If that was the case, the Emperor would not win the war. And, as is well known, he must win. After all, an entire train-load of Hutsuls is rushing to his aid.

  The whole train was bound by the oath just as those horses in the meadows were tethered by ropes. The soldiers escorting the convoy were casually playing rummy in the only “human”, i.e. passenger, carriage, immediately behind the tender. They were unconcerned about the troop transport. The oath took care of them. If necessary, it would invoke the dreaded Articles of War and a court-martial. It already gave the corporals the right to punch recruits in the face. The escort could play cards at their leisure; there would be no deserters.

  Constrained by an oath more powerful than chains, the men proceeded towards their appointment with fate. At that moment, all other emotions were subordinate to their curiosity about their new life and new conditions in Hungary. This curiosity overshadowed any fear of foreign surroundings or any suggestion of homesickness. Any day now, however, perhaps in a week or a month, the homesickness would kick in and in the railway wagons, the barracks and the camps they would be retrieving those faded photographs from shabby bags, greasy notebooks and envelopes. They would be showing off the crumpled charms of their wives, children and lovers, seeking in the indifferent eyes of their comrades a flash of recognition, admiration, or even jealousy. Today, it’s too soon for that. The deadly germ of longing has not begun to have an effect. Besides, everyone in the wagon believed in an early return to those beings whose lifeless portraits—thanks to the incredible wizardry of the Frenchmen Niépce and Daguerre—they could take with them to war. Piotr Niewiadomski had only one photograph—of his mother. It was at the bottom of his trunk, in a prayer-book, among the unread litanies.

  It was still light when they stopped at Kołomyja. Piotr was mistaken; it would not be twenty-one hours for another thirteen minutes. The sun had long since set, but, desiring to compensate the earth for the two and a half hours of darkness, it had hesitated for a long time before depriving it of its setting rays. In Kołomyja the last of the reserve militia came aboard. A second locomotive was put on at the rear. After that the train stopped only occasionally, and then only to pick up coal and water for its own needs—but no soldiers.

  At the first bridges beyond Delyatyn, Piotr’s dignity as a railwayman was dealt a painful blow. He ceased to believe there was any justice in the world. Although the night was drawing in, a sight met his eyes that the others merely found amusing. Down below, just beyond the bridge, stood some bizarre armed figures. As the wagon approached the bridge and these figures became clearly recognizable, Piotr saw two bearded Jews wearing long kaftans girded with a military cartridge belt in place of the ritual cord which during prayers separates the clean upper half of the body from the unclean lower half. On their heads they wore standard army forage caps. Shouldering rifles, with bayonets fixed, they were guarding the bridge. Guarding a bridge over the Prut! Well, is there any justice in this world?! Is the Emperor not ashamed to have such dopes guarding his bridges? As if he did not have proper railwaymen. What sort of an army is this anyway? Why aren’t the Jews in uniform? The railway suddenly became alien to Piotr; it was shamelessly mocking a man who had faithfully served it for so many years and who knew many of its secrets. Again there was a bridge and again a Jew in a kaftan. Accompanied by a Hutsul, it’s true. In other words, they had not yet had time to get all the reserve militia men into uniform. Piotr was up in arms now. He would gladly have got rid of that railwayman’s cap, if he had another. He could now think of only the bad aspects of his career.

  The telegraph poles passed by, one after another, the train was breathing hard, the terrain became steeper and steeper and the Prut became narrower and narrower, its roar louder and louder. A beautiful night settled over the track after that day of torment and terror. Piotr was growing indifferent to it all. Nothing was of interest any longer, neither the night nor the Prut, not the waterfalls, the bridges or Hungary—all that and the whole railway could go to hell. What had become of the railway? It was a slave to the war, having only one task—the delivery of its human cargo. And it seemed to Piotr that the railway had never had a civil purpose and it would never do so ever again. The bridges were guarded by men in kaftans and he was travelling as an ordinary reserve militia man. This is what he had to thank the Emperor for! At that moment, Piotr was minded to break his oath to the Emperor. But how could it be done? By jumping from the train? He would only succeed in breaking his arms and legs.

  So he took offence at the railway, vented his anger on the landscape, giving up his privileged place at the bar. With a feeling of relief he found his trunk, as if he had found himself. If it had been possible, he would have hidden in that box where his money was kept. No one needed to know that he kept it in the trunk. No one can be trusted in this wor
ld, not even your own brother. He carefully opened the trunk, took out the bread and pork fat and vented all his rage on the meal. Then he lay down in the back of the wagon like a kicked dog. He was angry, unapproachable and a stranger even to himself. With every passing kilometre, this journey was tearing him away from the part of the world where his life had been more or less acceptable. Piotr could not cope anywhere other than Topory-Czernielica. This seems to be the fate of all people who spend their lives in one place. When a higher power abruptly snatches them from their homeland, they become strangers to themselves. And so Piotr clung to his trunk, curled up against its hard but protective side and fell asleep as one falls asleep in the shade of one’s family cottage. He slept for a long time. He dreamt of swarms of black Jews with rifles and bayonets.

  Meanwhile, the train reached the border station of Köresmözö. Here the camel from the Floridsdorf locomotive works lost the comrade that had been attached at Kołomyja to provide a push from the rear. The terrain had begun to decline. The shunting took quite a long time. But Piotr did not hear it. In a deep and unpleasant sleep he entered the lands of the Crown of St Stephen.

  He woke up several times during the night, had a smoke and something to eat, relieved himself at the iron bar and spoke with his fellow Hutsuls, mostly about the military service that awaited them. Someone was arguing that in a few days they would elect a new Pope in Rome, and then the war would be over for sure. Another complained that they were transporting them like cattle, without even telling them where they were going. Everyone agreed it was scandalous and they all wondered how much longer it would take. Hardly any of these people had ever experienced such a long journey. Some of them were bored, but there were also some who wanted it to last as long as possible. They had presentiments about what awaited them, and feared the worst. There was no lack of optimists either. They were going to war as if they were going on holiday. But most of them were already afraid, not so much of being in the army as of being in a strange place.

  There was no lamp in the wagon, there was no candle, just occasional ragged shafts of light cast by the moon through the open door. The train pressed into foreign lands, penetrating dense pine forests, poisoning the nocturnal balsam of the sleepy trees with its carbon fumes, trundling through serpentine bends, cutting though passes, disappearing into long dark tunnels, filling the wagons with acrid smoke, the railway’s ubiquitous companion. It was taking human fear, human anxiety and a good deal of self-love over the mountain by night.

  By dawn, everyone was terribly thirsty. There was no water on the train. If only it would make a stop somewhere. But the engine-driver deliberately avoided both smaller and larger Hungarian stations where electric lights were still on despite the rising sun. It was not until about seven o’clock that he deigned to bring the wagons to a halt at Huszt station. There water—and the devil—awaited the sons of the Hutsul land.

  They all thought they had reached the barracks, and they wanted to leave the wagons. The escort stopped them in time. It was the first time since they had set off that they had taken any interest in the recruits. The armed men lined up on the platform, ensuring that no one got out. Their compatriots became unruly. They immediately started grumbling, and then their protests became vociferous. Some even adopted a threatening attitude. The great god of all armies and all wars, Discipline, had not yet had taken these people under its wing. As long as they were still wearing their civilian trousers and were unfamiliar with the regulations, they could still yell, regardless of the oath. And they yelled. What right had the escort to deny them drinking-water after a night spent in that stifling wagon? Let us get to the water! But the senior members of the reserve militia making up the escort were unrelenting. No one was allowed to get out. The comrades must obey the escort’s orders; they were bound by their oath.

  New wagons were attached. In the blink of an eye they were filled with Slovak peasants in colourful jackets. They too were joining the army. They were yelling in a language the Hutsuls did not understand, although many words sounded familiar. There were women weeping at the Hungarian station too. Evidently, tears were popular in the lands of the Crown of St Stephen too. The locals, especially those who were not going to war, stared with curiosity, and considerable mistrust, at the new arrivals. They considered themselves superior. It took some time before the escort condescended to allow the men off the wagons. The comrades swarmed onto the platform like a pack of hungry wolves. The more mistrustful of them took their trunks with them in case they got stolen. The escort was very concerned about that. If they were taking their baggage with them they might desert. And in the first instance it was the escort who would be held responsible for deserters; it was only afterwards that the deserter himself would be charged—if he could be caught, of course. So in each wagon someone was detailed to look after the baggage. He would get a drink later, when the others returned.

  Piotr pushed his way with the rest of them towards the water. His cap got him through. All around he was bombarded by Slovak and Hungarian speech. He stood in bewilderment amid surging alien life that was completely strange to him. If it were not for the wailing of the women, that international language of pain comprehensible in every latitude, Piotr would never have believed that he was surrounded by mountain-dwellers from the Carpathians like himself.

  Within a few minutes at Huszt station, an indifferent animosity was born in the souls of the Ruthenian peasants and of the Slovak and Hungarian peasants, stirred up by a shared helplessness regarding their fate. Unable to take their revenge on fate for having brutally torn them away from their fields, pastures and forests, they shoved each other about, exchanging hateful glances. Assailed by foreign words, resounding in their ears like insults, the Hutsuls struggled towards the well. That was where the devil stood. A giant devil. In the guise of a Hungarian gendarme. On his head, instead of a helmet, he wore a black hat decorated with a cock’s tail-feathers. Similar hats are worn on ceremonial occasions by the “hares”—the Landwehr and the Chasseurs. On his breast glinted the same medal as Corporal Durek’s. The only thing missing was the gold tooth. The Hungarian devil’s teeth were all sound. His perfect black moustache and side-whiskers and his dark gypsy complexion sharply contrasted with their predatory whiteness. No sooner had the Hutsuls fought their way through to the well than lava began spurting from behind those teeth. The devil greeted them at the well with a seething torrent of dreadful bellowing. For fire, that devilish element, has been at war with water through the ages.

  In Śniatyn district, especially since war broke out, any number of foreign languages had resounded in people’s ears. Hutsul eardrums were gradually beginning to get used to the incredibly harsh-sounding German speech and the so-called Army Slav, that mishmash of all Slav languages. They had started to come to terms with the Czechs’ snub-nosed manner of speech, apparently devoid of all vowels. They had long been familiar with the melodic Romanian of their neighbours in Bukovina, and even that established resident of the region, Yiddish, with its garlic and onion flavour, sounded familiar to Hutsul ears. In Śniatyn district people sometimes worked certain Jewish words into their speech, indeed even entire phrases, in most cases using them incorrectly. So they could not be suspected of total ignorance or hatred of foreign languages. It was something else, though, to hear incomprehensible babble at home, where both Ukrainian and Polish are, always were and always would be, master and landlord, whereas foreign speech would always take a back seat, like a tenant or a guest. And it was a different matter altogether when you suddenly found yourself surrounded by foreigners, where no one understood anything you said—apparently out of spite. At home you could laugh, you could mock those who spoke differently, but abroad not only did they make fun of you, but you were quite lost. You were as helpless as a little child, as a blind man groping in the dark. Piotr suddenly realized what a great crime, what a great sin it must have been to build the Tower of Babel, since it was on account of it that the Lord had con
fused people’s languages. Piotr had never given any thought to the magnitude of this disaster before. He had never wondered why people cannot understand one another. It was not until he reached Huszt station in Hungary that he felt terrified by the utter profundity of the fact that this gendarme had eyes, ears and a mouth just like anyone else, and yet this mouth did not emit human sounds. No, Hungarian speech was not human. It was fire, brimstone and paprika. The gendarme had ears, so why could he not hear what Semen Baran, a very wise man, was explaining to him in German? (Baran had spent three years in Saxony and he had travelled widely.) He could hear, he could hear all right, but between him and Semen Baran there was a massive, impenetrable wall. A fragment of the Tower of Babel. If only he had been an enemy, a Muscovite or a Serb, but he was supposed to be one of the Emperor’s men… No, he was not one of the Emperor’s men. An Emperor’s man always understands an Emperor’s man somehow, in German at any rate. This gendarme is the King’s man. Because to the Hungarians the Emperor is only a king. Evidently, the Hungarians did not even deserve an Emperor. Not with mugs like that, and not with a language like that!

  And what does this devil want, exactly? Is he banning them from drinking the water? Perhaps he is afraid the Emperor’s men would poison their stinking Hungarian water? Why doesn’t he speak like a human being if he wants people to pay attention to him?

  The Emperor’s men ignored the gendarme. They offered him passive resistance, as they were in an overwhelming majority and felt they had a God-given right to the water. Even cattle have the right to quench their thirst, and they were not cattle. The Royal gendarme, in order to defend not so much the water as his own authority, resorted to force. He took his rifle from his shoulder, expecting to repel the Emperor’s men from the well by lashing out blindly with the butt. He trusted in his uniform and cock’s feathers, otherwise he would have held back. He was facing an entire mob on his own. But his stars of office and his cock’s feathers let him down. The Emperor’s men considered themselves obliged to obey only the Emperor’s authority, not the King’s. Their passive resistance turned to action. They pushed the gendarme aside, wresting the rifle from his grasp. They began swearing in their own language, assailing the devil with the ugliest curses and insulting his mother. Of course, many of them were well aware what active resistance to the gendarmerie entailed; Piotr in particular was afraid of unpleasant consequences. But the Hutsuls’ keen sixth sense, their awareness of reality, told them they were in command of the situation by dint of their sheer numerical superiority. They knew perfectly well that the attack on the Hungarian gendarme would go unpunished, since they were going to war.