The Jew poured the drink, but Prażuch acted like it wasn’t meant for him.
“What, you’re not gonna drink to my health?” I grabbed his head in one hand and the glass in the other, and I was about to pour the stuff down his throat by force, when he ups and spits in my face. “That’s the thanks I get, you son of a bitch? I buy you a drink and you spit on me?”
I lifted him almost as high as the ceiling and threw him down on the floor so hard the place shook. He gave a moan like it was his last breath. I got scared I’d maybe killed him, he was getting on and his old bones could have been smashed to pieces by a fall like that. But he managed to stand. The Jew helped him some. He staggered out of the pub almost on all fours, meek as a lamb. It was only when he was outside, when he’d climbed up on his wagon and taken the whip and reins, he started cussing me out:
“You bastard! You piece of shit! Antichrist!”
I ran out after him, but he whipped up the horse. And once he’d gotten a good ways away, he turned around to threaten me again:
“Just you wait till my boys grow up!”
He had three sons, Wojtek, Jędrek, and Bolek. And so when they grew up, though the oldest one, Wojtek, had barely come of age, they waited for me one time. I was coming back that night from a dance in Boleszyce. It was like everything conspired against me that evening. I’d had the urge to walk a girl back to her place, she lived almost at the edge of the village, and I stood with her outside her house for a while. But she wouldn’t even let me kiss her, she was stubborn as a mule, she squeezed her lips shut and kept turning her head away. And afterwards I had to walk back home alone because the guys had gone off somewhere. The night was black as pitch, there wasn’t a star in the sky or even any moonlight, just dogs barking in the distance. On top of that I’d taken a shortcut through the dense woods in this hollow, and there was one bush after another, hawthorn, juniper, hazel, you could barely see the path that led through them. But it wasn’t the first time I’d gone home on my own, and often it was from a lot farther away, so what did I have to be afraid of. I whistled as I walked, O my Rosemary, and, My darling war, and, Duckies and geese in the water clucking, run away girl or they’ll come pecking. All of a sudden the Prażuch boys jumped out from behind the bushes waving sticks. Before I had time to reach for my knife I was already on the ground half dead. All I could feel was them kicking me from every side, but it only lasted a moment, after that I didn’t feel a thing, I couldn’t tell whether I was alive or dead. It wasn’t till the morning that a farmer came along the same path and went to tell people in the village there was a corpse in the hollow.
For two weeks I couldn’t get out of bed. Though everything hurt even when I was lying down. Mother kept making compresses for me, sobbing over me the whole while:
“Dear Lord Jesus, Szymek, how many times have I begged you! How many times have I prayed to God! Are you trying to send me to my grave? Promise me this’ll be the last time.”
But how could I make any promises, even to my mother, when I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t forgive them. I’d burn their house down, I’d kill them, but I wouldn’t forgive them. Except that soon afterward, the war began and I had to go to war. True, before you could say Jack Robinson, the war was lost and I was back home before the potato lifting was even done. But after the war, all the things that had happened with the Prażuchs seemed like they’d been in a different world. Because losing the war bothered me more than the Prażuchs did. And I probably would have forgiven them. But father went on about Prażuch plowing over the field boundary again while I was away at the war, because the old fart was counting on me not coming back. And he kept telling me, you need to do something about it, you really do, the land can’t take it any longer. At the very least go take him to court. I couldn’t get him to understand that there was no court to take him to anymore. What court? Poland was gone, so the courts were gone as well. He just kept repeating:
“You lost the war, and on top of that I’m supposed to lose to the Prażuchs as well?”
So one day I threw the plow into the wagon, and although our field and Prażuch’s were both sown already, and the crop was starting to come up, I plowed over what was ours so the old fart would know I was back.
The following year there was a church fair in Lisice for Saint Peter and Paul’s Day. Normally I might not have gone, but there wasn’t anywhere to mill rye for bread because the military police were minding the mill like guard dogs, and you needed to have a chit to say you’d provided a levy. Though even when you had the chit, they’d still sometimes requisition part of your crop and smack you in the face into the bargain. Plus, the mill in Lisice belonged to a guy called Pasieńko that had a daughter he was trying to marry off. She was an old maid already, Zośka was her name. I knew her from different dances and she’d often invited me to come by. But first off, Lisice was a fair ways from us, and second, she was a plain, dumpy thing, her back was level with her rump, she had teeth like a horse, on top of which all she did was laugh. All the same, what won’t a person do for bread. I thought to myself, I’ll go over there, take her to the fair, and her old man’ll grind at least a quarter bushel of rye for me on the down low. I can even spend a bit of time with her, let him think I’m interested in marrying her, maybe the war won’t last that long. At most I’ll buy her a puppy or a kitten at the fair, or a string of beads, so she won’t bad-mouth me later.
Luckily people were crowding round the stalls like bees on honey, and there was no way we could elbow through. Though as it happened I didn’t feel a whole lot like pushing anyway, and for Zośka it was enough that she was on my arm. She would have given anything to be seen around the fair with a young fellow like me, never mind puppies or kittens or beads. Also, even though it was wartime the fair was grander than many a one before the war. The rows of stalls stretched all the way to the cemetery. There were as many wagons as on market day. And the crowd was so big the place was stifling, it was like processions moving this way and that, you couldn’t even tell which one was going which direction, because they were all squeezed together. And all the squeals and shouts and laughter, and trumpeting, and whistling, and roosters crowing, like there was no war and the whole world was one giant fair. Plus, I told her I liked it when she laughed, so she kept laughing the whole time.
All at once the three Prażuchs are standing there in front of us like three pine trees. They’re eyeing us like bandits. Uh-oh, I think to myself, this could turn nasty. I tried to go around them, because I had rye flour and bread-making on my mind, not fighting. But on the right there happened to be a stall with a crowd of customers, and on the left a wagon that someone was selling cherries off of, and I wasn’t about to turn around and beat a retreat. I let Zośka go ahead first, thinking it might be easier if we passed them one by one. They let her through, though as she passed Bolek, the youngest one, he said with a sneer:
“He’s found himself a genuine dwarf girl.”
The three of them snickered, and I was sure they’d let me past too, at Zośka’s expense. Then suddenly the oldest one, Wojtek, blocks my way with his shoulder and he’s all, Where the hell do you think you’re going? Can’t you see we’re standing here?
“Of course I can see,” I answered. And without a second thought I punched him in the mouth as he stood there still grinning. He didn’t even have time to duck. He swayed, I straightened him up with my other fist and he rolled backwards onto the wagon with the cherries. His head hit the wheel and after that he didn’t get up. Bolek jumped forward and grabbed me by the shoulders, and we struggled for a moment. There was a commotion. Some folks got out of the way, but others pushed forward so they could see. There were even some wanted to join in. Someone called out like they were selling candy:
“Fight! There’s a fight!”
Someone else shouted:
“Jesus and Mary! Isn’t it enough there’s a war on, damn them!”
“Get the priest! Have him spray holy water on them, the goddam fools! Get the p
riest!”
Zośka was tugging at my jacket.
“Szymek! Szymuś! You’re the smart one! Let the stupid idiots have their way!”
At that exact moment a massive weight hit my head from behind. I reeled, and my eyes went blank. But I managed to stay on my feet, and I swung my fist blindly into the darkness in front of me. I missed. It made me stagger, and so as not to fall over I lurched after my arm. My head landed in someone’s belly and there was a grunt. I got my sight back. I saw Bolek, it was his belly, spin back against a stall and knock it over. Plaster figures flew every which way. The stall owner let rip with a stream of curses, he took Bolek by the shoulders and pushed him back toward me. I held up my fist, and Bolek smashed into it with his nose like it was a wagon shaft. His eyes spun. But he was a strong one, even though he was the smallest of the three of them. He just shook his head like someone had thrown a bucket of water over him. I gave him a left hook, he rocked but stayed upright. If I’d punched him one more time that probably would’ve done it. But by now Jędrek, the tallest one, had pushed all the people aside and he was reaching his arms out toward me like he wanted to put them round me and crush me. I leaned back a bit and with all the force I could muster I hit him halfway between those arms. They opened up like wings. It was almost like he was suspended by them. All at once he clapped his left hand to his eye and gave a terrible howl:
“Jesus!” He swayed for a moment with his hand to his eye as if he didn’t know whether to fall or not. I helped him out with a pretty gentle blow under the elbow and he dropped down at my knees, moaning: “My eye! I can’t see! My eye! You fucking bastard!”
I wondered whether I should keep fighting, most of all I’d have liked to stomp him into the ground. I just pulled his hand away from his eye and I said, Look at me with that bloody eye of yours, you son of a bitch, I want you to remember this. He thought I was fixing to keep at him and he burst into tears:
“Don’t hit me anymore! Leave me alone! We’re from the same village!”
Except that while Jędrek was begging for me to spare him, Bolek had recovered and was coming at me from the side with a knife. I might not even have seen it, but there was a sudden flash, as if the sun had glanced off the gold cross on the church steeple. Plus, a well-wisher in the crowd warned me at the last moment:
“He’s got a knife!”
It was too late for me to knock the knife out of his hand because he was already swiping it at me. But I managed to dodge, and I gave him an almighty kick between the legs. He folded in two, and the knife flew out of his hand like a little sparrow. I lifted his limp body from the ground. With my left hand I held him up by his lapels, and with my right I started hitting him as payback for the knife, slowly, with pauses, because I could barely keep on my feet myself. Though maybe I only thought I was hitting him because of the knife, and really it was for that damned field boundary that had been plowed over so many times. I pulled him up every time he started slipping back down, and I kept hitting him. He came round and passed out again in turns, as if he didn’t even feel he was being hit. I was running out of strength, but I still had so much rage in me it probably wouldn’t have been satisfied even if I’d killed him. In the end blood welled up out of his mouth.
“Let him go. He’s had enough,” some angel said to me from the side. And I let him go.
He dropped like a lump of earth, but my legs buckled as well and I almost fell down with him. For a moment I stood there like a drunk, afraid to take even a single step, it was like someone was striking sparks in my eyes. Then I heard the angel’s voice again:
“Come sit here, young falcon.”
I turned my head, and right by me I saw a stall, and the owner sitting behind it. She was a plump old woman, her face was all pitted with the smallpox, but the angelic voice was hers. She gave a kind of strange smile, as if two different smiles were competing on her face, maybe it was because of the smallpox, or maybe I was just seeing double. I suddenly remembered I was supposed to get the rye milled with Zośka. I looked around, but there was no sign of her.
“Don’t waste your time looking for her,” said the stall owner in her angelic voice. “She squealed and squealed, then off she ran. That’s young women today for you. Come over here and rest up.” She put a stool out for me in front of the stall. She even took her headscarf off and laid it down on the stool. “Szymek’s your name? I heard her calling you that. Nice name. Pull your jacket off and I’ll sew the buttons back on, they’ve all gotten ripped off.”
She came out from behind the stall and removed my jacket. She took it to the neighboring stalls, and a moment later she came back with a handful of buttons.
“Here. These’ll look even nicer than the old ones.”
She squeezed back behind the stall and started sewing. As I watched her worn, swollen hands at work, she picked a string of pretzels from a pile in her stall and tossed them into my lap.
“Here, have something to eat, young falcon. You’ve been working hard. That you have. There’s still strength in this country. They can’t put us down so easily. It was only the first one you didn’t do enough to, the wagon wheel was what finished him off. That last one, he’ll have had enough for the rest of his life. It was quite a show. People were running away like they were being blown in the wind. A couple of the stall owners even closed up shop. They must have had something on their conscience, they still had merchandise and they could have done business till evening. Today there’s no more selling to be done. But it was worth coming. There’ll be something to remember. Cause usually fairs come and fairs go, they’re alike as peas in a pod, what’s there to remember? How many pretzels you sold? Selling on its own, that doesn’t make a church fair. A real church fair is either when the bishop comes, or there’s a fight. Back in the day there was more fighting. One year in Radzików, on Saint Vincent’s Day, they started scrapping right after morning mass and they went on all through high mass, they were still at it after it ended. People were beginning to gather for the evening service and the fight was still going on. One of them fell on my stall, he had a knife wound from ear to ear and he spilled blood all over my pretzels. I had to go through each bunch one by one and wipe all the blood off. Half of them I had to throw away. And it had all started from nothing. First one guy with another guy. Then there was no telling who was fighting who, they were all scrapping together. You couldn’t even tell which side was against which, all the sides got mixed up. It was just one big free-for-all. The priest came out with holy water and a sprinkler, the organist came, the verger brought a cross, and they started ringing the church bell. But they only got as far as the edge of the tangle, they couldn’t go a step farther. The organist sang for a bit, the priest sprayed them with holy water, and off they went. And the boys just kept on fighting. Here.” She threw me another string of pretzels. “Eat. I’m not going to sell them today anyway. That way I won’t have to cart them all back home. Look – with this one a piece of the cloth’s been torn out as well. But I’ll patch it up for you. With the dark color and it being next to the button, it won’t show. That suit’s good on you. But you’d look even better in brown. With a light blue shirt, and a spotted necktie. You needn’t have any regrets with that young lady of yours. It’s just as well she ran off, she wasn’t meant for you. All she did was cling to your coattails instead of cheering you on. With a girl you have to feel like she’s part of you, then you can get hitched. That one, she just stood there squealing. If it were me, I’d have at least bitten one of them on the hand or kicked him in the leg. She wouldn’t have been any kind of wife or housekeeper for you, nor a mother to your children. You could tell from how she walked she wasn’t the one for you. And she’d have been a downright quarrelsome one. After the first baby you’d have had a real shrew at home, then in the years to come she’d be an absolute she-devil. All you’d be thinking about was where you could go so as not to have to be at home. God wouldn’t call you to him yet, because God only calls people when they get old, so you’d
either have to find another woman or turn to drink. Sometimes the pub can help, but that’s no good in the long term either. It often happens the road from the pub leads straight to the noose. Though truth be told, with a young falcon like you no woman’s going to last long, however rich or good-looking she might be. She can lock the doors and the windows, close the chimney vent, tie him up with a rosary even, he’ll still get away. And all those things he swore before God, it’ll be like he spat them out, all his oaths will come undone. Because he’s not made for the happiness of one woman, but to bring unhappiness to many. Besides, why should you be in any hurry to wed. Marriage isn’t so sweet. Enjoy yourself while you feel like it. Because as long as you’re enjoying yourself, death’s going to stay far off too. I’ve lived through all sorts of things and I know. I’ve had three husbands. Life was good and bad with them, though with each one of them it was different. But I recall more raising them like children three times over, than them marrying me three times. It was lucky I had my pretzel stall, I’d barely buried one and the next was wanting a wedding. They flocked to me, that they did, like it was easier to die at my side. But after three of them I said to myself, enough. What am I, a graveyard? I’ve got my pretzels, I’ll go sell them here and there, I’ll be content if the guys fight over me once in a while. Because fight they did back when, young falcon, they’d fight till the ground ran red with blood, like the earth itself was bleeding. They fought with knives, iron bars. Whatever came to hand. One time, one of them smashed the other over the head with a figure of the Virgin Mary. The one that got the Virgin Mary over the head, he was my first. I would have preferred the other guy, but I felt sorry for the first one. He sold saints, I had my pretzels and our stalls were always next to each other. But he didn’t live long. The second one I got from a fight as well. He made this huge ruckus at a Saint Sabina’s Day fair in Wojciechów, and at some point it just popped out of my mouth, you’ll be mine. And he was. Till a policeman shot him. He went for the policeman when he was being taken to jail. The third one, he stopped for a moment right there in front of the stall, where you are now, and he said, I’ll buy all these pretzels, and twice as many more again, but you have to be mine. I was. Except he could never get over the fact I’d had two men before him, and he’d get drunk every day. And whenever he was drunk he’d grab an ax and start in with, Throw them out, throw them out, you bitch, or I’ll cut you up as well as them. And he drank worse and worse. Till I came back from a fair one day and I see my third one dangling from a rafter. From that time on I never wanted them to marry me.” She tossed me another bunch of pretzels from the pile. “Dig in, they’re made from good flour. And there I was thinking nothing was going to happen. High mass was already over, and there was nothing but people asking, How much a bunch, how much a bunch. And they were all so polite, they were more like nuns in disguise than young men. I’m not complaining, I did decent business, but I was thinking it wouldn’t be a good fair. Did you not have a knife? You should have used a knife if he went for you with one. The Lord would have forgiven you, he could see it was one against three. But you shouldn’t have kicked him between the legs. You can smash people up any which way, but you have to respect between the legs, young falcon. However much of a bandit the other guy is, what’s between the legs is sacred. It’s like you were kicking God himself, who gave birth to all of us and told us to give birth to others. Even him, though he’s God, he didn’t have any other way of coming into the world. He supposedly came from the Holy Ghost, but what could the Holy Ghost have done without the Virgin? What’s between your legs is life, it’s death, all sorrows and joys, from it one man is good and another bad, one is one way and one the other. It gives us treachery and wars, kings and do-nothings and saints. All that was and all that will be comes from there, young falcon. And do you know where dreams lie? Between your legs. It’s from there that they come out to you at night so you can dream them. Whatever’s between your legs is in your heart and your head too. Because what’s there stands above it, the way eternity stands over a split second. Without his head a man is nothing but a fool, and without his heart he’s a stone. But kill what’s between his legs and it’s like you drove him out of paradise all over again. After that he’s got no interest in either sin or salvation. Once in a while a nightingale’ll appear in his throat and sing. But it’s like it was singing about how he was driven out.”
Stone Upon Stone Page 19