Stone Upon Stone

by Wieslaw Mysliwski

  In front of the offices there happened to be a huge maple that remembered the times when there was no district administration, just the four-flat buildings where they used to keep the cholera patients. In the summer people that had come to do business at the offices would wait in its shade, and you often had to tell them to be quiet because they’d talk as loud as if it was market day. Quiet there! There’s a wedding going on! So then, you, husband, you’re like the trunk of the tree, and she’s like its branches. If you cut off the branches the trunk will dry up, and if you chop down the trunk the branches will dry up. I wish you good fortune, good health, and handsome children. Now you may kiss each other. Then I’d go for a glass of vodka with the newlyweds, because although it was mostly poorer folk that got married at the registry office, they’d always invite you for a drink.

  For all the marriages I gave, there was only one time they had a proper wedding party afterward. The Kowaliks’ son Józef was marrying Zośka Siekiera. His old folks slaughtered a hog and hired a band. They invited a few relatives and neighbors, and me as well. It wasn’t about the young folks getting married, more that old Kowalik had too much land for those times and people were always accusing him of being a kulak and a parasite because he still kept a farmhand. Though the farmhand never complained, and when people asked him he even used to say he was better off with Kowalik than he would have been on his own. Actually Kowalik might not have had to worry about being called a kulak and a parasite, but when they started raising his quotas every year, in the end it was too much for him. He came running to the offices one day and said that either we should take his land from him, or he’d hang himself.

  “I don’t want any land!” he shouted, waving his arms. “I don’t want it if all it’s gonna do is bring me harm! Take it away from me! Plow it, seed it, mow it, set aside any amount you like! It said in the prophecies of the Queen of Sheba there’d come a time when the farmers would be giving back the land of their own accord! Now it’s come true!”

  At that time Mayor Rożek told him there was no need for him to give his land away like that or hang himself. Kowalik had a son, Józef. He should have Józef get married as soon as he could, because there were deadlines coming up, and he could divide his farm into two. Who should he marry? Anyone, whoever’s available. Afterwards, if they don’t hit it off they can get divorced. It won’t be a church wedding because the registry office isn’t a church and Szymon Pietruszka isn’t a priest. But in the books it’ll be written in stone that there are two medium-sized farms, and medium-sized farms aren’t a problem for anyone. Because it would have been easier to get married and divorced three times over than reduce the quotas by a single hundredweight.

  They chose Zośka Siekiera for the job, because she happened to live next door and she was poor as a church mouse. And she could only dream of marrying a rich man like Józef. For her it made no difference whether she had a church wedding or one in the registry office, whether it was for her whole life or just till they could reregister the farm, with banns or without, in a veil or in a regular dress, in front of a priest or in front of me. She would have stood before the devil in hell if only she’d been able to marry Józef.

  Kowalik stuck five hundred zlotys in my pocket so I wouldn’t make any speeches, just marry them and have done with it. Three months hadn’t gone by when he was already trying to get them to separate. Except that at that point, Józef put his foot down and said no. He hadn’t gotten married just so he could get divorced again right afterward. He’d taken Zośka to be his wife, not his serving woman, and he wouldn’t let them do wrong by her. And now that the land had been reregistered, his father could kiss his backside. At most he’d stay on his land, and his father could work his own.

  But as long as the old man lived, and he lived a long time, Zośka didn’t have an easy time of it. Whenever he talked about her he’d only ever call her that beggar, that slut, that stray. He’d sometimes even kick her out of the house, he’d say, this isn’t your place, get back over the fence, that’s where you belong. Even when they had a child the old man didn’t soften a bit. He never once minded the baby or played with it the way other grandfathers do, when they laugh with their grandsons and talk to them and tell them all sorts of wonders about the world. Plus he kept on saying bad things the whole time.

  “It can’t be yours, Józef, it doesn’t look anything like you. When it laughs it’s got the same beady little eyes as Heniek Skobel.”

  Zośka never so much as said to the old man, have you no conscience? At the most she’d run into the pantry or out into the orchard to cry, and Józef would follow and comfort her. What was he supposed to do – beat his own father?

  It was only when death came for the old man and Zośka looked after him like he was her father, one time when she was straightening his pillows he took her by the hand and said:

  “I’ve been a bad man, Zosia. And you’ve been a saint. I don’t need God’s forgiveness, I need yours.”

  After he died Zośka washed his body like it was her own father’s. And she cried at his funeral like he’d been her dad.

  I sometimes go over to their place to watch television and they sit there like two turtledoves, though they’re gray now. Zosieńka, Józeńko, they call each other. They’d do anything for each other. They have grandchildren now. No, you just sit and rest, I’ll do it, Zośka. You’ve done enough work today. I won’t come to any harm. That’s as may be. You’ve done just as much work as I have, Józef. Here, have some sour milk. And even at harvesttime, when people are sweating from the work and cursing left, right, and center, they’re all, Zosieńka, Józeńko. Like they were singing along with life. Recently they even had a church wedding, because the priest had been pestering them about it, he wouldn’t leave them in peace, he said what harm would it do if God joined in their happiness. He wouldn’t get in their way.

  Three years I spent giving weddings, then they transferred me to the quotas department where there was a huge lot of work, because it wasn’t just grain but livestock as well, and milk, and there was all kinds of writing to be done, more every year. At the registry office, every now and then someone would come along to get married and that was it. Of course, once in a while they’d give me some other work so I wouldn’t get bored. Correct something or write out a fair copy, or do some calculations. Or one time we got some books and the librarian had just gone on leave to have a baby, so the district secretary put me to work cataloging the books, putting plastic covers on them, sticking on the numbers and stamping them with the district administration stamp, then putting them on the shelves. Another time there was no one to supervise the workers mending the road to the mill. When the autumn rains came or a thaw in the spring you couldn’t get through even with a pair of horses because the mud came up higher than the wheel hubs. So who could do the job? As usual everyone was up to their ears in work, while the “priest” was just sitting at his desk staring at the ceiling. Maybe you could go, Mr. Szymek. No one’s going to be getting married today. And though supervising workers supposedly wasn’t really work and you could go lie down in the shade of a bush, because the workers would get on with the job without anyone watching over them, the thing was that I’d gotten used to the office and being able to stare at the ceiling, and I didn’t at all feel like I wasn’t doing anything. You could have a nice little doze if the sun was hot through the window or if you’d been drinking the night before. Or someone would come by and you’d have a chat. Or you’d go and visit the other offices, or go flirt with the girls.

  There were more girls in those offices than bees in a hive. A good few of them had only come to work at the administration so they could find themselves a husband quicker, and an office worker to boot. If I’d wanted I could have even gotten married, and more than once. But why would I, when I could have the same thing without getting married. In those days girls still used to like nylon stockings, and for a pair of stockings any of them was putty in your hands. You’d pull a pair out and show them an
d say, listen, Agnisia, Józia, Rózia, would you like these to be yours? So meet me this evening at such and such a time. Because there was something about those nylon stockings that the moment a girl set eyes on them she’d get this glassy look, her voice would soften, and she’d very near reach for your pants then and there. It was another thing that when one of them had crooked legs her legs seemed to straighten out when she was wearing stockings. They made fat legs look thin, and skinny ones look just right. When they were wearing those stockings even what their faces looked like wasn’t such a big deal, their legs became the most important thing. And when one of the girls appeared in church wearing stockings, the whole congregation would look down instead of looking up. Mass would be ruined for all the other women, and a good few of the men only half paid attention to God.

  I bought the stockings from this trader woman that would sometimes come to the village selling various things. I’d known her from when I was in the police, and one time I’d had her at the station because she was suspected of selling yeast to moonshiners. I searched her belongings and she happened to have one pair of nylon stockings that she was delivering to someone.

  “Bring some more for me, I’ll buy them off you. Maybe even a few pairs,” I said. And since then she did.

  One time I bought all the pairs she had, there must have been a dozen of them, all different sizes – large, small, medium – and in different colors, mouse gray, fox red, like scorched straw, like wholemeal bread, all as fine as gossamer.

  “I’ll take the lot,” I said.

  “Well she must be a real lady,” she said. “All these pairs. Some girls have all the luck. What size foot does she have?”

  “Who would that be?”

  “The woman you’re buying them for, your girlfriend or your wife, whoever.”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “The thing is, these are different sizes and they might not fit. And they’re so fine you only need to scratch them with your nail and there’ll be a run. She needs to take care of her hands. You ought to buy her some hand cream. I’ve got that as well. Otherwise she’ll be bringing me stockings with runs in them, wanting her money back. And I won’t take them. I can’t be traveling all this way and come out at a loss.”

  “They’ll be the right size. If not for one then for another. Why worry ahead of time.”

  “Well I guess it’s none of my business. Shall I bring you more?”

  “Sure, you do that.”

  I hid the stockings up in the attic, in the rye, in a plaited straw barrel. I pushed them as deep as I could into the grain so father wouldn’t find them by chance when he went up to check that the rye wasn’t getting damp. Though you didn’t need to dig down deep to see whether it was damp, all you had to do was scoop a little from the surface or just put your hand in and hold it there a moment, when it was damp you could feel it right away, like putting your hand over steam. I was certain there was no better hiding place. In the old days people would keep whole fortunes in barrels of grain, dollars, rubles, and in wartime weapons. Because grain arouses the least suspicion. What could be more innocent than grain. And who would ever want to dig down to the bottom of those things when they held ten bushels or more each.

  But one day I come home from work and I see my stockings laid out on the table like on a market stall.

  “Where are those stockings from?” I asked. I was shaken.

  Father was sitting by mother’s bed, and he says calm as anything:

  “You know what, they grew in the rye up in the attic. I went to check if it wasn’t getting damp, and I picked some of them to show your mother. But she won’t believe me. Maybe she’ll believe you. Tell her they’re stockings. What else could they be? Nylon ones. That’s all they wear these days. I wonder how much one of them pairs costs? Probably as much as a bushel of rye. And see how many pairs grew up there. We didn’t even sow or muck. Obviously it’s not worth keeping rye anymore. We’ll have to start growing stockings instead of rye, since God’s blessed us this way. Since the beginning of time only rye has grown from rye, but we’ve had a miracle.”

  I was all set to grab the stockings, slam the door, and go wherever my feet took me. But I looked at mother. She was lying with her head turned to the wall as if she was embarrassed, and I suddenly felt sorry for her. I thought to myself, oh well. I took a bowl, poured myself some potato soup from the pot, sat down on the chair by the stove, because the table was covered with stockings, and I began to eat. Father was still going on about what had grown from what and how God had smiled on us, till in the end he got mixed up and forgot whether rye was growing from stockings or stockings from rye. But I didn’t say a word. What could I say? He knew what he knew, I knew what I knew.

  I wasn’t as young as I used to be and I wouldn’t just go running after a pair of beautiful eyes. But the girls weren’t as silly as before the war either. Not many of them went for you because of how much land you had. What kind of happiness was land? You work like a dog all the livelong day, day in, day out, and happiness only comes in the next life. And even that wasn’t a sure thing. These days, people were taken at face value. So they preferred to dress well rather than parade their virtue. On top of that you kept hearing how people were having their land taken away from them, and what use was virtue with shared land?

  I gave out so many pairs of stockings that if one girl had gotten all of them she’d have been able to wear them for the rest of her life, and not just on Sundays. And she’d always be seen in a fresh pair. I sometimes spent my entire salary on those stockings when the trader woman came by. All I had left was cigarette money. It was another matter that the pay was lousy and if I hadn’t had meals at home I couldn’t have managed on that income. But of all the pairs I gave out, only one let me down.

  During the time I was still giving weddings they hired this one girl from Łanów. Łanów is a village about two and a half miles from ours. It’s on the other side of the woods, but it still belongs to the żabczyce administration. She worked in the tax department. Małgorzata was her name. To begin with I didn’t pay much attention to her. Obviously we saw each other almost every day, because in the offices you couldn’t help it, there was only one entrance and one hallway and everyone arrived at the same time and left at the same time. But I’d pass her just like one office worker passing another. Good morning. Good morning. Nothing more. She seemed somehow unapproachable. Any of the other girls, you could pat them on the backside or pinch them or rub up against them in the hallway and you knew they wouldn’t take offense. With her, though, you’d be afraid she’d slap you. Maybe because she’d graduated from junior high. Back then, finishing junior high meant more than going to college today. There’s a few folks from the village studying at college now, and what of it? They won’t even take their cap off to an older person, they expect them to be the one to say hello first, because they’re educated. Only one of them, Jasiu Kułag, he’s nice and polite, he always stops and offers you his hand and asks how things are. He’ll be a decent guy.

  I admit I liked the look of her, plus she always dressed nicely, she always had a fresh blouse and dress and jacket. Plus, on rainy days she’d bring a little umbrella, she was the only girl in the offices that had one. That was probably how the rumor got started that she was living with the chairman, because how could she afford everything. They’d just changed from having mayors to having chairmen. Mayor Rożek was followed for a short time by Mayor Guz, then after him was the first chairman, a guy by the name of Maślanka. He wasn’t from our village but his wife was, Józia Stajuda. No one knew where he was from. Whenever anyone asked him what he’d done in the war he’d squirm like an eel. They sent him from the county for us to elect as chairman.

  I found it hard to believe she’d be living with Maślanka. She didn’t look like that kind of girl. And I can say of myself that I know people, life’s taught me who to trust and who not to. In the resistance I didn’t trust a soul, and that mattered more than having a good eye or cold bl
ood or a heart of stone. It might have been because of that that I survived. Because truth be told, you can only ever trust the dead. And not all of them, because with some folks even their death has something bogus about it.

  Though on the other hand, why should I have trusted her. I didn’t even know her, and there’s always a bit of truth in gossip. Maybe she just knew how to cover her tracks. She wouldn’t have been the first one to set her sights on the chairman. He was the chairman, after all, and he could always make life difficult for you if you weren’t careful. What else could they have seen in him? Pudgy little guy, always sweating up a storm. But he knew how to turn on the charm. When he’d do his rounds of the offices in the morning he’d always have a nice word for each of them, smile at one, kiss the hand of another, stroke another one’s hair like a father. And he wore this big ring with a red stone, supposedly it was a keepsake from his father, he’d flash it in front of every girl. Except that when someone came from the county administration he’d slip it off and hide it in his drawer. Some people said it wasn’t anything to do with his father, that Maślanka had been a hog trader during the war and done well for himself. Whatever the truth was, after a guy like Rożek, whose every second word was “fuck,” because with him what was in his head was on his tongue, the new fellow was almost like a squire. So she could have been one of those that gave in to temptation.