“Christ be praised.”
“Forever and ever.”
“Is Rysiek in? Listen, Rysiek,” I say, “take at look at this letter. I’m writing to my brothers. Put it right if there’s any mistakes. When I was young they taught us to write different than they do now. I’ll buy you an ice cream one Sunday as a thank-you.”
Kuśmierek was sitting by the kitchen stove. Through this cough that was choking him, because he has asthma, he says:
“What are you talking about, ice cream? Buy him a half-bottle. All he thinks about is vodka and whores.” He got such a bad coughing fit that his wife had to thump him on the back. “Yesterday he comes home from school rolling drunk. He’s lost all his notes and his books. So of course he needs new ones. Plus I have to write him a note to excuse him, say I needed him for the threshing. The little worm only got up a short while ago. The whole night his mother had to sit holding a cabbage compress to his head, he had such a bad headache. You see how his eyes are still all gummed up? He must have drunk a bucketful of water by now. I wish he’d go about his studying the same way. But he’s thick as two short planks, him. It’s a waste of money. The thing is, they say they have to go to school because otherwise you won’t be allowed to hand down your land.” Then all of a sudden it was like the helpless father sounded in Kuśmierek and he shouted hoarsely: “You ever come home drunk again and I’ll show you what’s what, you little shit! I’ll kick you out like a dog!” But he was stopped in his tracks again by his cough.
Rysiek muttered something back to his father, rubbed his eyes, and started reading.
“Read it out loud!” roared Kuśmierek, barely able to catch his breath. “Reading quietly’s no kind of reading.”
Rysiek did what he was told and started to read out loud. He must have been a bit afraid of his father after he’d gotten drunk, because otherwise he wouldn’t have let himself be ordered around like that. But the reading didn’t go too well. He cleared his throat, stammered, stumbled like someone walking across uneven ground. It felt like every word stabbed me, because I thought I’d written it that way. I was about to say to him, here, give it back, I’ll write it again. But I thought to myself, he mustn’t have sobered up yet, so I encouraged him:
“Keep reading, Rysiu, keep reading.”
He even stood under the lightbulb as if the light was too dim. But it was too dim for him there as well. He started complaining about the lightbulb being covered in fly droppings, and was it too much to expect someone to wipe it clean once in a while, he couldn’t do it because he had to study. And that his father needed to stop all that coughing, it was distracting him.
Kuśmierek made a big effort, he even clapped his hand over his mouth. But it didn’t help the reading much, he was still staggering through the words like a drunk. All of a sudden he stopped and, as if he was thinking, he began scratching his head. He thought and thought till in the end I asked him:
“What are you thinking about?”
“Tomb,” he mumbled.
“What about tomb?”
“I think it’s spelled wrong. I think it’s with a u. An open letter, not a closed one.”
“It always used to be written with an o,” I said. “Unless they changed it.”
That worried him a bit. And Kuśmierek, who was about to collapse from holding in his cough so as not to bother Rysiek, straightened up and said in a loud despairing voice:
“See what that damn kid doesn’t know! He’s going to fail his exams again! That’ll be the third time he’s taken the same class! Dear God. Then he comes back home and he’s a know-it-all, dammit! Tells me to sow corn instead of rye. What do you know, you dope, when you can’t even spell tomb! Can you imagine leaving the farm to him. He’d throw it all away in the blink of an eye. All he’d do is lie on his back watching his belly grow. An open letter. Go to the cemetery, do you see anyone in an open tomb? Everything’s covered in earth and stone slabs. The dead are apart forever from the living. That world from this world. Even closest family isn’t allowed to see what happens to someone after they die. Cause just like you have to be alive to know what’s going on here, you have to die to know what’s going on over there. Your time’ll come as well one day, damn you, it comes to everyone. You’ll see how you’d feel in an open tomb. No one would even come visit your grave, cause you’d be rotting, you’d stink like a dead dog. You’d be begging for someone to take a shovel and cover you with earth.” Kuśmierek was so bitter he’d gotten carried away, but all of a sudden his bitterness turned to anger. “And here he is, the little bastard, getting two hundred zlotys a month for his supper, and a hundred for bus money, that’s three hundred! Where are his notes and his books?! And there’s always something else he needs, this thing and that thing! And for what?! For what?!” He wound up in such a coughing fit it was a good while before he got the better of it. His eyes stared ahead like he was gone from the world.
“Jesus and Mary! Józef! Józef!” squealed his wife. I jumped forward as well to save him, though I didn’t exactly know how. Rysiek was yelping also:
“Dad! Dad!”
Luckily Kuśmierek came to and breathed a sigh of relief. Except he looked at us like he didn’t recognize us. That short moment had tired him out as much as if he’d been mowing on a steep slope.
I felt sorry for him. Any father wants the best for his kid.
“Don’t be mad, Józef,” I said. “He’s young, he’s got time.”
“Am I telling him to rush, damn him? I’m telling him to study!”
“There’s nothing you can do. That’s how it is with young folks – they’re in no hurry to study,” I said, because I was feeling sorry for the boy as well. Was it his fault he was bad at school? I just regretted bringing the letter. I told him not to bother reading any more.
“Leave it be, Rysiek. It’s fine as it is. If you change it you might make it worse.” I took the letter back. At this, Kuśmierek took offense as if for Rysiek.
“I mean, who even writes to their own brothers like that. You need to begin, In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. That would remind them right away about their family home. They might even give you something towards that tomb of yours.”
All of a sudden Rysiek started saying it wasn’t fashionable anymore to start letters with God. They’d had a lesson about how to write letters and he knew. It was like Kuśmierek was struck by lightning:
“You little bastard, you’re telling me God isn’t in fashion? That’s what I’m paying for you to learn?!”
But Rysiek had gotten over his fear and he snapped back at his father that he didn’t give a damn about studying. Give him what was his and he’d get married.
I got up and left, because what business was it of mine. Let them argue among themselves.
The next day I wrote the letter out again because it was all dirty from Rysiek’s fingers. I added that if they were planning to visit they should bring bags for flour, because as it happened I’d been bolting and I had some good flour. I was just saying that, because I didn’t at all think they’d come, but it made the letter a bit longer.
It must have been a month or so later that a letter came from them saying they were going to visit the following Sunday. I didn’t know whether to believe it or not. But I cleaned the house. I got fresh bedding ready. I brought mother’s quilt down from the attic, because it was the biggest one. And though they were going to sleep in the same bed, I gave them two pillows so their heads would be apart. I changed the straw in the mattress. I threshed two sheaves with the flail so it wouldn’t be lumpy. Though it was hard for me to stand for long on those legs of mine. I had to pull the chaff-cutter up behind my back and lean on it, otherwise I couldn’t have done it. I even put some dried thyme under the sheet to keep the fleas away, like mother used to do.
I bathed Michał and shaved him, and I gave him a fresh shirt and a necktie. He’s their brother too, after all. There was an ash bucket stood in the room that was old and full of holes. For
some reason I’d always been reluctant to throw it out, but because they were coming I tossed it without a second thought. I put in a brighter electric bulb. Let it be lighter while they were here, after they left I’d change it back again. I killed a rooster and made chicken broth. I was going to make noodles, but I decided to buy some instead. They’re used to the store-bought stuff, they might not like homemade. I also bought a bottle of vodka, because you have to have a glass with your brothers. I even took down the Lord Jesus with the apostles and put it in the other room, because I remembered Stasiek isn’t that big on God. He might get annoyed. And I won’t know how to defend him, because on the one hand it’s God, on the other hand it’s my brother. Oh well. What people won’t do to keep the peace in a family.
They came. But they’d barely crossed the threshold and said their hellos when they started in on me. That there wasn’t anything to sit on here except the same old bench and a single chair. That the table was the same one from the war. That why don’t I have a proper floor put in? Why don’t I plant an orchard? Why don’t I get married? I need a housekeeper! Am I waiting for a princess? One thing after another. Why not this? Why not that? And not a word about dying. It was like I’d never even written them the letter.
I was stunned, I barely said a word. I even forgot to ask what was new with them. And I didn’t let on about the bottle I’d bought. I mean, what for? So we could drink while we were arguing? Maybe a better opportunity would come along. Then we’d have a drink and we’d talk like brothers.
Because when brothers only get together once in such a long time they ought to have something to talk about. Talk all day and all night. Even if they don’t feel like talking, because what are words for? Words lead the way of their own accord. Words bring everything out onto the surface. Words take everything that hurts and whines and they drag it all out from the deepest depths. Words let blood, and you feel better right away. And not just with outsiders, with your brothers also words can help you find each other, feel like brothers again. However far away they’ve gone, words will bring them back to the one life they came from, like from a spring. Because words are a great grace. When it comes down to it, what are you given other than words? Either way there’s a great silence waiting for us in the end, and we’ll have our fill of silence. Maybe we’ll find ourselves scratching at the walls for the sake of the least little word. And every word we didn’t say to each other in this world we’ll regret like a sin. Except it’ll be too late. And how many of those unsaid words stay in each person and die with him, and rot with him, and they aren’t any use to him either in his suffering, or in his memory? So why do we make each other be silent, on top of everything else?
Though perhaps it was my fault. Because when I saw them I didn’t really know what to say and I just said in an ordinary way:
“Oh, you’re here.”
As if they’d just gotten back from the fields, or from market in town, or from the next village. When actually they’d come from the outside world. And when had we last seen each other? At father’s funeral. Stasiek was still at the university then. He was wearing a ragged old overcoat and shoes with worn-down heels. He didn’t even have any gloves, he was skinny and hollow-cheeked. I slipped a few zlotys in his pocket as he was leaving and he was so grateful he even tried to kiss my hand. I wouldn’t let him. Now, he was on the stout side, ruddy, his chin spilling out over his collar. The front of his head was completely bald, it was only at the back and on the sides he still had some of his old shock of hair left. At first I wasn’t even sure if it was Stasiek or not. But I pretended he hadn’t changed at all and I didn’t say a word about him being so bald. I welcomed him like you welcome your brother.
Antek had just gotten married back then. He even had a photograph of his wife. We’d barely buried father when he took the picture out of his wallet and asked if I thought she was pretty. I didn’t much like her, but what could I say. Yes, she’s pretty.
And I didn’t tell him off either for not letting me know, so I could have sent best wishes.
That time too we didn’t talk at all among ourselves. First because it was a funeral and the right thing to do was talk about father, because it was his day. He deserved at least a few words from each of us for his whole life. Second, Stasiek had some important examination the next day. So we just drank a bottle to mark our sorrow, and ate some sausage. Then they left.
Actually, when father and mother were alive it was the same thing, whenever one of them would visit it was always in a rush. They’d arrive and spend the night then in the morning they’d be gone. Or even the same day, they’d say hello in the morning and goodbye in the afternoon. One minute they were there, the next they’d vanished. Like the crack of a whip. You didn’t even notice they’d been.
The next day already mother would start missing them again, when will Antek and Stasiek visit, she’d say. She was always worried that something had happened to one of them because they hadn’t been in so long. When father reminded her that Antek or Stasiek had just been the previous Sunday, she still wouldn’t stop worrying.
“That’s true, he was here. But what kind of visit was it. There wasn’t even time for the cheese to be pressed dry, or he could have taken it with him.”
Or when someone in the village asked if Antek or Stasiek had been, you didn’t know whether to say they had or they hadn’t. To say they’d been but they were in a hurry was the same as saying they hadn’t been at all, but they’d be coming, they would.
When they left for the city it was the same – like they were here a moment ago but now they were gone. It was as if they’d just popped down to the village or gone out to the fields and they’d be back soon. Father kept forgetting for the longest time, he was always wanting one of them to give him a hand or do a job for him.
“Maybe Antek could do it … Maybe Stasiek could …”
Then he got used to it, and it was only before going to bed sometimes, he’d be sitting there fit to drop, like an ox that’s been working all day, and out of the blue he’d pipe up:
“It’s been such a long time since they wrote.”
And mother would mention their names more and more often in her prayers.
Antek was the first to leave. He was those few years older than Stasiek, maybe it was his due as the eldest. Stasiek was still a little kid when Antek was already off chasing after the ladies. True, he always was a bit of a hothead. But to leave all of a sudden like that? It’s not right even to die that way. In the morning he was still plowing the potato field by the wood, then in the afternoon Kulawik brought him a letter from the post office. He came back from the fields, opened it, read it, and said:
“I’m going.”
“Going where?” asked father.
“Away.” He was so pleased he actually danced around the room.
“Away, you say?” Father thought he’d misheard.
“Away, that’s right. Away! Away!”
“When’s this?”
“On the five o’clock train tomorrow morning.”
“I won’t even have time to iron your shirt for you!” Mother was in despair.
“What do I need a fresh shirt for? The one I’ve got on will do just fine.”
“You might at least take a bath. I can bring the bathtub and put water on to heat.”
“I’ll take a bath there. Wojtek said in his letter they go to the bathhouse there.”
“But you haven’t even got a decent pair of shoes. And I could make you some new clothes.”
“They’ll give me shoes there, clothes as well.”
“We could sell the heifer, you’d have a bit of money to take with you. I could bake you a cake.”
“What are you talking about, bake him a cake,” said father, though he was more upset than angry. “His train’s at five, didn’t you hear? And the heifer’s still growing. It’ll be another two weeks or so.”
“So he could wait. The world’s not going to run away. Instead of rushing off the minute he gets ba
ck from the fields.” The poor thing started to cry.
“And what exactly are you planning to do there?” Father could be tough when he had to be.
“What am I going to be doing? You’ll see!” He waved the letter. “Wojtek says they go to the cinema every day. As for work, they only work eight hours a day, and they get paid for it as well.”
“Perhaps you should go to confession, son,” mother started to beg him through her tears. “When people used to go away they’d always go confess their sins before they left. There might not be anywhere you can go confess when you’re there. Or they won’t let you.”
“They go to the cinema, you say?” said father as if to himself, because he didn’t really know what a cinema was.
The cinema even came to our village soon after that. The day it was supposed to arrive, a crowd of people went out to the edge of the village in the morning and waited for it. Someone even drew in the snow with a stick, “Welcome to our village, Cinema.” People thought it would be a car or at the very least a carriage drawn by two horses. No one believed at first that it was the cinema. Two men on a wagon and some bundles. Plus, the horse was so skinny its ribs stuck out. Instead of a proper seat there was just a sheaf of straw covered with an old cloth. The sides of the wagon were all smeared with something as if they’d been transporting manure. And the wagon driver and the other guy were so drunk they could barely see straight. They tried to nail up a poster on the firehouse but neither of them could even hit the nail on the head, the guys had to do it for them. But almost the whole village came to the cinema, because it was wintertime, there wasn’t much work, and also the watchman had gone around beating his drum to say the cinema was coming. So there were almost as many people outside as in the firehouse, because there wasn’t room inside. People blocked each other’s view, but they stood there anyway. It spoiled it a bit, but they still stood there.
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