Stone Upon Stone

by Wieslaw Mysliwski

  When I came round, a mongrel dog was standing over me yelping like I was a dead body. A farmer was walking toward me from beyond the trees, carrying a pitchfork at the ready like he was about to stick it in me, and at each step he was asking the dog:

  “What is it, Mikuś? Whatcha got there?”

  He wanted to hitch up his wagon and go fetch the healer right away, because neither him nor his wife believed I’d live, I’d lost so much blood. But I refused, let what was going to happen happen, the healer might turn out to be a snitch and I’d have run away in vain.

  Luckily the bullet hadn’t lodged in the wound. They washed it with moonshine, then they applied compresses of horsetail and coughwort in turn, and after a few days the bleeding stopped. After that they just put on badger fat, and slowly, slowly it started to heal. But the most useful thing of all was that I munched on carrots like a rabbit, that helped to make new blood. I’d sometimes eat half a basketful in a single day. Plus the farmer’s wife grated carrot into a juice for me, and gave me boiled carrots for dinner. I ended up all yellow from the carrots, not just my face but my arms and legs and even my fingernails turned yellow, like I was covered in wax. My teeth, I had to clean them with ash to get rid of the color. So when I finally went to visit father and mother to show them I was still alive, a good few months had passed by then, father’s first words were:

  “Why’re you all yellow? Are you really alive? Is it you or your ghost? We already mourned for you. We went gray because of you. But why are you all yellow?”

  Mother sat up from her pillows and burst into tears. She couldn’t get a word out at first, it was only when the crying eased off a bit that she defended me against father.

  “What do you mean, yellow? He’s thin and pale. Dear Lord in heaven. He’s not yellow, he looks like he’s just been taken down from the cross. You must be hungry, son? I’ll heat something up for you. There’s dumplings left over from dinner. I said so many prayers for you after they told us you were killed.” She burst out crying again.

  But father wouldn’t give it up:

  “Sure he’s yellow. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. He’s yellow as can be.”

  “It’s from the carrots,” I said.

  At that moment he looked at me like I was making fun of him and suddenly broke off. He sat down on the bench, rocking and staring at his own bare feet. I was a bit surprised, because how could he have known I was yellow, it was dark in the house, the lamp was turned way down and there was no more light than you’d have from sunlight shining through a knothole, plus I wasn’t all that yellow by then. Maybe he didn’t believe it was me, but he felt it wouldn’t be right to ask, is that you, my son Szymek, that they killed, so he just asked me why I was so yellow.

  Because mother didn’t need to ask anything at all, she cried her eyes out and everything was clear to her. But that’s how things are in the world, for a woman, weeping is there to help when reason stops understanding. And weeping knows everything, words don’t know, thoughts don’t know, dreams don’t know, and sometimes God himself doesn’t know, but human weeping knows. Because weeping is weeping, and it’s also the thing that it’s weeping over.

  When mother’s tears eased off she still didn’t ask me anything, she just started telling her own news. That her chickens weren’t laying. Yesterday she only found three eggs. How could she expect them to lay, though? If they’d had wheat they’d be laying. But here all we had was potatoes and chaff, and nothing but what they could find on the ground by themselves. On top of that one of them got eaten by a polecat last month. And it had been the best one, it was going to be a brood hen. The speckled one, remember? I did remember, though there’d been more than one speckled hen. That was one smart hen. The second it caught sight of me it’d come pattering from the other end of the yard to see if I had any grain or bread crumbs to drop down for it. Why did it have to be that one the polecat killed. When it found something to eat on the ground it would rather let the other hens have it than get into a fight with them. It never squeezed through the fence into other people’s farms, or onto the road. And it would always go roost at sundown of its own accord, when the other ones, you’d have to shoo them into the barn. It would have been a good mother to its chicks. I was so glad I had it, Lord I was so glad. But one morning I go into the barn and there’s feathers and blood all over the place. She bled and bled. I’ve never seen so much blood from a single chicken. Another one they had to slaughter cause it looked to have some kind of sickness. It started keeping its distance from the other chickens. Then all it would do was stand by the barn, on one leg. I thought to myself, aha, there’s a storm coming, just don’t let there be lightning, Lord. Or maybe it was hail. That would have ruined everything. All it would do, once in a while it would go over to the water trough and drink and drink, then it would go back near the barn on its one leg. This went on for a day or two. I took a handful of wheat and put it right under its nose, but it never even poked its head out from its feathers. And at night you had to pick it up and carry it into the barn, because on its own it wouldn’t have known it was nighttime. Then, at one moment I lift up its head and I see its eyelids are starting to close up over its eyes, that its eyes are like little tiny millet seeds. You poor thing, I can tell you’re never getting better. Oh dear Lord Jesus!

  “Leave him alone, you and your chickens!” Father had had enough. “On and on about them! Like there was nothing in the world except for chickens. I wish that damn polecat would just eat the rest of them. Or the sickness would kill them all.”

  At that point mother started crying again. But father must have needed her tears as well. Because he went off on her right away. What are you crying for, you silly woman? What are you crying for?

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if you had something to cry about. But what is there to cry over? Did someone hurt you? No, they didn’t. So what is it? You’ve gotten so much into the habit of crying, your tears come whether you’ve a reason to cry or no. So then why? You’ll cry yourself out, then something’ll come along that you really need to cry your heart out over and you won’t be able to. What will you do, cry with dry eyes? With dry eyes you can’t even laugh, let alone cry. Crying’s like money, you need to keep some back for a rainy day. Because a person doesn’t have too much crying in them, that’s a fact. And what they have is all there is. If a person cried like you, with or without a good reason, they’d run out of tears a quarter way through their life, when they need them their whole life through. When the bailiff came you cried just the same, you thought it would do some good. But all he wanted was your sewing machine, the bandit, he didn’t give a tinker’s damn about your tears. So what are they for? He was dead and you cried, now he’s alive and you’re crying. Those tears aren’t worth a thing. That’s what eyelids are for, you squeeze them shut and your tears go back inside. Because otherwise you’d have to cry every time you looked at the sun. Every time the wind blew in your eyes. Or whenever someone poked you in the backside with an awl. Cut it out, for goodness’ sake! You’ve already cried your eyes out, all that’s left are little slits. Then afterwards it’ll be, come thread this needle for me because I can’t see. How can you see when the eye of the needle’s way smaller than a tear. Just so you know, I’m not threading any needles for you, you can do it yourself, go blind.”

  He was all riled up, he went to the bed and tugged at mother’s quilt.

  “Give it a rest. The polecats’ll kill more chickens. That’s what polecats do. The brown one will be just as good of a brood hen as the speckled one. I don’t know why you think hens are so clever. How smart do you need to be to lay eggs. Sparrows do it, crows do it, everything does it. God told them to lay eggs so they do. Let them so much as try on their own. The only thing they’re smart for is wheat grain. Go throw your tears down for them and see if they come running. For wheat grain they’d come. Though both things are like seeds. I’ll turn down the lamp, maybe that’ll make you stop. Tears like light. It makes them shine. If you must
cry, cry in the dark. If we leave the light on now there’ll be no kerosene left for when the cow’s calving, you’ll have cried it all away. Or someone’ll see the light from the road and come running to ask what happened here. What could have happened? Nothing’s happened. Szymek’s back, is all. It’s not the first time. How often did he come back from being with some young girl. From dances. In the early morning. Drunk, sometimes beat up. Mother’s warming him up some dumplings from dinner. And she’s crying because she happened to have just dreamed he was never coming back. But who believes in dreams in wartime, only one in a thousand comes true, and it’s always the dream you didn’t have. If you have to cry, you should cry yourself out in your dreams. Not now, waking up and then crying. Tell me, what are you crying for?”

  He must have gotten cold, he was wearing nothing but his long johns and nightshirt. He was barefoot because he’d gotten straight out of bed to let me in, the night was a chilly one and the earth floor was cold. He tugged at the quilt mother was lying under.

  “Come on, get up and heat him up those dumplings if you’re going to.”

  The moment she got up, he slipped back into bed in the warm place she’d left. He asked her:

  “Did I say my prayers this evening?”

  “You never say them if I don’t remind you.”

  “It must have been yesterday then.” He covered himself with the quilt, even putting his head under.

  He couldn’t stand it when mother cried. And when nothing would work to make her stop, he’d do all sorts of strange things. He’d hammer on a pail with the masher, or open and close the door, clatter the pans in the kitchen, or stamp his feet on the floor. Or he’d take the broom and pretend it was a rifle and he’d drill himself, calling out orders to himself the whole time like he was the colonel of a regiment. He’d shout so loud the windows rang. Another time he’d march back and forth across the room with his broom-rifle on his shoulder singing army songs that he knew from long ago, and since he didn’t remember all the words he’d hum and whistle and wheeze the other parts, because he didn’t even have the voice for it. And if that didn’t do the trick either, he’d pretend to cry along with mother, but much louder and more painfully than her. There were times he’d curl up and hide his face in his hands, he’d keep shaking his head and he’d start calling, Lord Jesus, my Lord Jesus, sometimes he’d even shed real tears.

  We’d sometimes laugh so hard at father it made our bellies hurt. Though with me it didn’t take much, I’d laugh at anything at all. It was like a pair of invisible hands were tickling me under the arms, and even if no one was in the mood to laugh, I’d burst out laughing out of the blue and for no reason. We could be sitting at the table and eating, there was nothing but the clink of spoons and the sounds of eating, and that would set me off. We could be kneeling at our beds in the evening repeating our prayers aloud after mother. Or even when father was sharpening his razor and had me hold the other end of the strop.

  The laughter would first of all start pricking me with needles, then all of a sudden it would spread like fire though a haystack and there was nothing I could do to stop it, however much I might have squeezed my eyes and my mouth shut and held it inside with all my will. I could have scraped my fists against my cheeks and pulled at my hair and hunched over till my head was between my knees, the laughter would still bubble up and boil up and I’d curl over laughing. Then when father started in on me, saying, what are you laughing at, you twit, I’d laugh even more. And then, when he’d sometimes give me a whack across the head, then everything in me would be howling with laughter, my head, my belly, my legs, my arms. Worst of all was when it happened at a mealtime, because father would stop eating and wait furiously till I stopped, but I’d laugh so much I almost fell to pieces.

  “Come on, eat up while it’s still hot,” mother would say to calm him down. “He’ll laugh his fill and then he’ll stop. Everyone has to go through their own foolishness. Did you never laugh when you were his age? He’s still a child.”

  But often she didn’t succeed in calming him, and when his fury got too much for him he’d jump up and grab me by the scruff of the neck and throw me out of the house, go do your laughing outside, damn you!

  But I never got my fill of laughter as much as when father would make fun of mother crying. At those times he allowed us to laugh as well, he even encouraged us, go on, you keep laughing, maybe she’ll stop. So we all laughed. Even Michał laughed, though he’d been a gloomy kid ever since he was little and he rarely laughed. Because of that I didn’t like sharing a bed with him, because I could never have any fun with him before we went to sleep. He always either had a headache or a stomachache, or he’d tell me to stop because we’d tear the quilt, that we’d already said our prayers and God might get angry with us. When I tickled him it would sometimes make him cry. Even mother would say to him:

  “You should laugh more, Michał, why are you so glum. See, everyone’s laughing.”

  I mean, how could you not laugh when the mummers came by after the New Year, and Stach Szczypa was the devil with a black face, he wore an inside-out sheepskin jacket, he had a tail stuck to his backside and horns on his head, and he ran around the house like a madman sticking everyone with his pitchfork like he was taking them to hell. Anyone would have laughed at that. But Michał got all scared and went pale, he clung to mother and no one could explain to him that it was only Stach.

  “It’s just Stach Szczypa, son, don’t be frightened. Tell him you’re Stach Szczypa, Mr. Devil.”

  Antek as well, when father would make fun of mother crying he’d enjoy it so much he’d squeal and he’d laugh so hard he’d sometimes wet himself, though he was so small he was still crawling around on all fours. And Stasiek in his cradle, though he was too young to be able to laugh, he’d still try and gurgle in his own way. Even mother, you got the feeling she was only pretending to cry and that deep in her heart she was laughing with us and with father.

  It was only much, much later, when I’d long gotten over the laughter, that I finally realized why father would make fun of mother crying, why he’d drill himself and sing army songs, why he’d rattle the pots and slam the door and bang on the pail with a masher and do all those crazy things. Because just like him, I couldn’t bear it when mother would cry. I’d rather have mucked out the stable from dawn till dusk, or said rosaries for every one of us the way she did for us, than see her crying. In theory I could have just said, let her cry, crying is what mothers are supposed to do. But I couldn’t. Often I’d be mad at myself that I didn’t happen to be out in the fields at the time, or at the pub, or with a girl, or with the guys down in the village, there were so many places where no one was crying, but here I was sitting at home, letting her cry like a child. Every tear of hers caused me pain. I could have lifted up a horse, or a wagon, I had so much strength in me, but I didn’t have the strength to raise my head and look into her teary face. I’d just sit there staring at the ground. I didn’t even have the courage to say, don’t cry, mother. I felt almost guilty for her crying, hurt by it, and I didn’t hurt easily. Her crying fell on me like rain from a cloudy sky, and I just sat there meekly getting wet, like I’d deliberately gone and stood out in that rain of tears so it would fall on me.

  Sometimes the crying did something to me, it was as if she was still carrying me in her belly, and together we were carrying something heavy, together we were picking up sheaves of hay during the mowing, and the sun was burning down on both our backs at the same time. I was bending over just like her and standing with her up to my knees in the river and we were washing clothes, beating them with the washing beetle, and the echo carried along the water all the way to the source of the river in one direction and its mouth in the other. Then when we went to the store to buy salt or kerosene or matches, I’d even hear the other women in there saying to her, so not much longer, huh, Magdzia? Any day now. And she would answer that it was still a long time yet, maybe it would never happen. And with my hands inside her hands sh
e’d pick thyme and horsetail and chamomile, and all the herbs that grow along the field boundaries. And when she was kneading dough in the kneading-trough to make bread, I was in her and I was already the bread inside her. And after the whole day, when we were both exhausted, we would kneel to our prayers like a single body, me inside her knees.

  Even at moments when she was weeping for joy, like now, I still felt guilty towards her, though I had no idea why. Maybe our wrongs are only known to our mothers, never mind what they say about only God knowing them. She must have known for me the things I didn’t know myself.

  Of the four of us brothers, I was probably the one mother cried over the most. Then Michał. But with Michał, obviously he’s not going to understand any of it. Even if someone cried and cried. Because it wasn’t anything that could be understood either through reason or through crying. Though you can sometimes understand things more through crying than with your reason. In any case it’s a lot easier after you’ve cried your fill than after you’ve understood. Because it’s only through crying that you can be with someone when you’re apart forever.

  As for Stasiek and Antek, of course she cried, that’s how it is – you always cry for the ones that are gone. But I was there, except for the war I’d been at home all the time from when I was a kid till now, what was there to cry about? Unless she was crying for all of us and it just happened to be me that was there. The fact was, I lived however I could and however I had to, it couldn’t have been any different, because no one lives the way they want to. Besides, even if you could live the way you wanted, would you be any the happier? You can never tell if the way you’d like to live wouldn’t actually be worse. Maybe everyone has a different life than the one they’d want, but it’s the best one they can have. When I was small she’d cry over me, but all mothers cry over their little ones. Not just people, cows do it, mares, bitches, she-cats.