Meanwhile Dmytro Tryhubiak kept on complaining. During night exercises in the fields he had lost three blank cartridge shells. “I thought—silly me—‘Your pay will be docked slightly and that’s the last you’ll hear of it.’ But you don’t know the army, my lad! The army doesn’t tolerate the slightest loss. For something like that you have to join the left flank, to answer on parade. Each lost cartridge means one day confined to barracks, so for three cartridges you get three days. That’s the going rate.”
Piotr listened with one ear. He could not distinguish blanks from live rounds. And he had no idea where the left flank and the right flank were. And anyway, what had flanks to do with making a report on parade? Flanks were what beasts had. The aroma of Imperial soup acted like chloroform. It was destroying the present, desensitizing him to the real and imaginary threats of all military penalties. Piotr saw only his young mother and a glimpse of his childhood. But he could not for the life of him remember what kind of groats they were—millet, barley or ordinary buckwheat. The long journey and the intense heat had made him drowsy. The apparitions summoned up by the aroma of the soup were becoming blurred. Blank cartridge casings were floating in his soup. He would have fallen asleep if he had not been suddenly reminded of his mother’s words:
“Eat up. Piotr, eat up, it will keep you alive!”
These words drifted soundlessly from the abyss of forgetfulness like birds from warm countries, playing in his ears and scaring away sleep. Piotr sat bolt upright and an expression of strained attention came over his face as he listened intently, absorbing all the resurrected music of the past. Perhaps he would hear something more, perhaps some more words would come from his mother’s lips. He heard no more. “Eat up. Piotr, eat up, it will keep you alive!” That’s all.
“Keep me alive? Of course it will!” The soup had saved him at the time. But what meaning did that have now? Could the Imperial soup also save you from death? Who knows? Was that why the Emperor feeds it to his soldiers, his children, every day?
His mother’s young face vanished into thin air. In vain Piotr tried to recall her with all the forces of imagination he could muster. He closed his eyes. It was in vain. God alone knows what powers govern apparitions of the dead! An opportunity like that occurs once in a blue moon. If you squander it, that’s your own fault. Piotr lost the opportunity. There was no need to think about barley! Instead of his young mother he was only able to summon up an image of old Wasylina as he had seen her for the last time. There was nothing special about that memory, which often haunted him. His mother lay dead in her coffin, in all her glory, on a bed of wood shavings. Her eyes were closed. Piotr had closed his mother’s eyes himself, though he was under the impression that it was done by the hand of death. What horrified him most was the large wart on the dead woman’s upper lip, and her thick black moustache. While his mother was alive he had not paid any attention to it, but he was surprised that the wart and the moustache did not disappear after she died. (He considered the blemish on his mother’s skin and the mannish hair on her lip to be the effects of pipe-smoking.) There was something shameful about the wart which his mother took with her to the grave. It was indecent to look at it.
Piotr also had a glimpse of the funeral. This was the moment when he was carrying the nailed-down coffin from the cottage with the help of his neighbour Biłyk. It was so heavy it might well have contained not only her body but all the worries that had plagued her throughout her life as well. (Piotr would often recall that coffin while working on the railway, as he shifted heavy loads.) The women sang devotional songs as he and Biłyk lifted the coffin over the threshold three times, setting it down three times. That was the correct ritual, honouring a farmer’s wife. At that point the vision vanished.
Now Piotr started thinking about himself—was he young or old? Such were the thoughts that haunted him whenever he thought about dying. Actually, he was not old. He could live on for twice as many years as he already had behind him. Well, he wasn’t young either, but he still felt strong and healthy, and as for women…
As always at such moments, Piotr felt a sudden wish to have a child, as if he was not a man but an ageing, infertile woman. Why couldn’t he have children? Why should he have to die without an heir? What had he done to deserve that punishment which God imposed on the entire Hutsul tribe? Paraszka, that dissolute sister of his, she could have a baby! Evidently, as if to spite his own sacraments, God sometimes blesses the iniquitous. A fine blessing that was! What can you say? After all, Paraszka’s child died! He did not even survive for ten years. No soup had come to his aid.
Piotr was very fond of that child of sin, so looked down upon in the village. Who despised him? All those who were childless, out of envy. After giving birth to the bastard Paraszka wore the shawl of a married woman, but it didn’t help her much. The shawl incited the women to greater resentment. Paraszka was right to leave the child in her mother’s care and go to town. Except that she could have found better employment than in a brothel.
Piotr was often visited by the dead little one in his dreams. He always asked for something, always wanted something. After such dreams, Piotr regretted having been so severe with the boy. He did beat him, yes, he did, even though he was very fond of him. Considerable pain is caused by memories of harm inflicted on those who are no longer alive. Especially children… If Piotr had known that Paraszka’s child would not survive, he would never have raised his hand against him. But then how could anyone know?
He was immediately reminded of the bastard’s funeral. A Christian burial, but without a priest. A priest is very expensive, and the child’s soul was still without sin, so he could go to heaven free of charge. It is true that in the first weeks after the funeral, Piotr feared that bastard would walk about at night haunting the village. He was not sure whether the souls of illegitimate children, like the souls of unbaptized children, turn into wood-nymphs after death. Especially as there had been no priest. But little Wasylko was baptized in the church. Why couldn’t he remain an angel, like other Greek Catholic innocents? Piotr was also troubled by the uncertainty as to whether a bastard can be saved at all. After a long deliberation he always came to the conclusion that of course he can be saved. For death in childhood is the redemption of the mother’s sin, and the all-knowing God is not so vindictive as to deny the little innocent his rights.
“Oh dear! Why is my head so full of nothing but illnesses and burials today?”
Piotr crossed himself three times, so that the dead might return to their after-life, and leave the living in peace. He was a little embarrassed about doing this in the presence of Tryhubiak, though the latter thought this was Piotr’s way of parting after the meal, following his pious custom. Piotr took out his cigarettes, those from the charitable ladies in Budapest. He offered one to his companion and lit one himself. He hoped this would unite him closely with the living.
Yet it was not the dead who were the threat here; it was the living. They were truly vampires from hell, sent to drink human blood in broad daylight. Tryhubiak spoke about his superiors. They either had hearts of gold or they were sons of bitches. Somehow, there were more dogs at that garrison than hearts of gold. Entire packs of dogs. Tryhubiak was full of names. From the sound of these names Piotr tried to work out for himself what their bearers were like. He tried to imagine what they looked like and to guess at their character. He didn’t trust Tryhubiak. He knew people and he realized that those who have had bad experiences like to scare novices. Longer-serving prisoners and veteran soldiers take pleasure in this. Some names had unpleasant associations. The name Garbacz, for example, belonging to a certain young cadet for whom Tryhubiak was full of praise, was particularly off-putting, suggesting “hump-back” in Polish. Lieutenant Zelenka, on the other hand, although Tryhubiak counted him among the worst of the dogs, Piotr found congenial. Something green, sylvan and meadow-like was associated in Polish with Lieutenant Zelenka’s name. And afte
r all, there are good dogs, aren’t there—Bass, for example?
When Tryhubiak started talking about lost cartridges for the third time, Piotr got up and went to the well, where his comrades were washing up the borrowed dishes. He waited his turn, returned the mess kit, and headed in the direction of the happy crowd. In the shade of the first barracks shed sat Semen Baran. He was entertaining a sizeable group of military and civilians. He knew the world and he was not afraid of the army. He was doing card tricks. Suddenly the fun was over. Lance Corporal Zubiak of the First Company wanted to bet a packet of Herzegovina tobacco that the next day, or at the latest the day after, the Tyrolean or Italian or even Bosnian reserve militia men would turn up, and the devil alone knew who else. The Emperor had enough nations under him. He wanted to bet that half of our men at most would be staying on at the garrison. Zubiak, as an NCO, had occasion to visit the orderly room and he had heard the sergeants discussing it. Now they were supposed to mix together men from all lands of the crown, to prevent treason.
At the ominous sound of that word, they all drew closer, tightening the circle, as if they wanted to keep treason at bay with their bodies.
On the Russian front, said Zubiak, treason was being committed. Our men were deserting to the Muscovites with their rifles, machine guns, their banners and their bands… even entire companies and entire battalions… And now they are packing each company with Germans, Italians and Czechs—there will be no more desertions. The nations will all be watching each other.
The sons of the Hutsul land took this news badly. They had expected to go to war as a family, with their own people, but now the Emperor wanted to take revenge on them for the guilt of others; he wanted to disperse them among foreign regiments and mix the languages, as God once did when he built the Tower of Babel.
“None of us has ever committed treason or ever will!” exclaimed Piotr Niewiadomski.
But now all the men were wondering where they would be sent on to, since only part of the draft was to remain in Andrásfalva.
Treason! Treason! The entire garrison reeked of it. Had Piotr defeated the phantom of treason back at home only to have it follow him all the way here with the army, to Hungary? He even wanted to pretend he was deaf and dumb… He never expected that treason could wear an army uniform.
This uniform, he thought—implying the oath sworn before God—was adequate protection from treason. Well, but if entire battalions are going over to the Muscovites with their banners and bands there is no place left to hide. Except in death. It’s all the work of the devil, who stole the fifth commandment from the Lord. The devil tells them to play the wrong marching music, changing the musicians’ scores so that the brass trumpets play only Russian tunes instead of Austrian ones.
An oppressive heatwave hung over the garrison. It mollified people’s brains and madness seeped through invisible fissures in their skulls. But although they were exposed to a fierce blaze from the skies they stood firm. They crowded around the wells, huddled in the limited shade offered by the huts, from which the sun devil was licking the last of the sylvan moisture. The resin constantly dripped in honey-like tears. It was weeping for the regiment’s dead. Those who were to replace them sat patiently on their trunks, sticking to the melting paint or covering their heads with wet handkerchiefs, lying on their stomachs, waiting for the end of the war. Dead, organic tribal odours arose from their sweaty clothing. Their baking-hot shoes split open. Anguish and boredom were written all over people’s faces. The blinding glare showed up every skin defect, flourishing like mildew on their cheeks. Only a few faces managed to preserve their masks. The heat seared through most of them, exposing the brutal truth. The old, hirsute contingents from the Upper Czeremosz and Prut regions were panting like tormented, dull-eyed lions. They were battling with the terror of the garrison. The armistice was over.
The mysteries of military discipline, like the Eleusinian mysteries, already here on earth gave mortals an intimate relationship with death; they were accessible only to the initiated. Here and there were two stages of initiation: the lesser mysteries applied to recruits and the greater mysteries (epopteia) applied to the soldier already serving at the front line. But whereas the voluntary cult of Demeter gave initiates complete freedom to assess the taste of death, the taste of death for the Emperor, King and Country was laid down in regulations. For centuries, it had invariably been sweet.
The men of the battalion were initiates of the first stage. For now, they were in contact only with symbols of death, whose true sweetness was to be revealed to them only after their so-called baptism of fire. Here, in the garrison, they became worthy of this baptism by idolatrous worship of Discipline. The religion of Discipline was not exclusive. On the contrary, it was dependent on the masses, forcibly converted. Anyone unwilling to be converted and initiated into the mysteries of Discipline suffered death on its orders, but a bitter, shameful death, not a sweet one. The cult of Discipline required many ritual practices and gestures. And do not be surprised, my grandson and my great-grandson, to whom I am telling this long story, that in those distant days millions of men had to freeze as they stood still, saluting strangers because they bore gleaming stars of rank. We had to salute all the Messrs lance corporals, and the Messrs corporals, and the Messrs sergeants, and the Messrs colour sergeants, and especially the Messrs officers, from second lieutenants up to Their Excellencies the field marshals. And we had to salute even higher authorities—it is frightening to think how high. All these star-bearing powers, however, required the same salute, although it would make sense to take into account such great differences, and salute a corporal in a quite different way from a general. If a corporal was saluted with one hand, a general should be saluted with two hands. That would make sense. One soldier whom the patient reader will get to know later in this story, actually did so. That soldier was later dismissed from the Imperial and Royal Army as a lunatic.
Up till now, the men of the battalion had been freely chatting with civilians, taking advantage of the armistice between them and fear. Suddenly they began leaping to their feet, standing to attention, adjusting their caps, fastening buttons and throwing lighted cigarettes on the ground. Their faces turned into dead larvae, their bodies stiffened and their eyes glazed over. Like puppets, they swung their heads to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right. The stars hypnotized them from afar, and the soldiers’ hands shot towards their caps, striking the peaks, striking the peaks, striking the peaks. After the prescribed number of seconds had elapsed, they dropped back down. Limbs relaxed, releasing the deadly cramp. The hypnotic effect of the stars wore off. The men turned into wood recovered, as if from a long journey to the after-life. Every pore of their skin exuded fear. Fear spread to the civilians. But they did not move from the spot. The stars had not worked their deadly fascination on them. Civilian dress acted as protective armour.
Piotr Niewiadomski was well versed in military constellations. He knew that one bone star was for a lance corporal, two for a corporal, three for a sergeant, three stars and a yellow stripe for a colour sergeant. He could distinguish NCOs’ stars from those of commissioned officers, on cloth lapels and even gold ones. As he wore an Imperial railway cap, he joined the soldiers in saluting the officers returning after dinner from their mess. Contrary to all appearances, they were men. Older men, paunchy, moustachioed, bearded men. There were also quite a number of younger men who were clean-shaven, following the foreign fashion. They looked like priests in uniform. Almost all of them wore the same field caps as privates, and if it were not for their long swords it would be difficult to distinguish at a distance their silk stars, embellished with silver or gold circles, from bone stars.
During those honeymoon months of the war, the officers responded with evident satisfaction to the deference accorded to them. The reserve officers were especially proud that they had suddenly become objects of respect. From all sides, ordinary teachers, salesmen, clerks and
students were greeted with military salutes, in the prescribed rhythm and tempo, and they caught them like balls in the air and returned them. The cult of Discipline was observed conscientiously. However, minor aberrations did occur.
Two young men of the rank of cadet had just emerged from the officers’ mess. Against the background of the square occupied mostly by peasants, their smart, tight-fitting tunics, breeches and long boots gave them the appearance of a pair of young landowners on their estate. One of them was toying with a riding-crop that had a shiny handle. In the military hierarchy, cadets were akin to centaurs. They were officers only above the waist, the rest of their bodies belonging to the rank of private. In peacetime, they had to march carrying both a rifle and an officer’s sabre. Those battalion soldiers whose proximity required them to salute the cadets did so impeccably. Only one of them, a stout older man, evidently exhausted by the constant saluting, the oppressive heat, or by life in general, did not manage to coordinate his movements in time and he saluted while still getting to his feet. The cadets noticed. The one with the whip and ruddy, childish cheeks approached the sinner. Like a careworn mother, he enquired:
“What kind of a salute is that, old man?”
This familiar address coming from the youngster sounded strangely inappropriate. The old man remained silent, standing rigidly to attention. He stuck out his belly in an exaggerated manner. For a moment, the cadet looked at him pityingly. Suddenly he drew himself up and in a changed, inhuman voice called out in German:
“Setzen!”
The old man sat down, as he was ordered.
“Salutiert!”
The old man rose, as required by regulations, paused for a second, and saluted. Once again:
“Setzen!”
The old man sat down.
Salt of the Earth Page 20