We had a she-cat once, I drowned her kittens. She’d had five of them. She’d wandered off somewhere, the attic or the barn. She wasn’t much of a mother. She’d sometimes leave those kittens all day long on their own, they’d mew for her so bad it wouldn’t even help if you gave them milk in a saucer. Besides, she’d had so many kittens you’d have thought she would forget whether she’d had them now or another time. Towards evening she slunk up, she saw that the old sieve where the kittens had been was empty, and she started rushing around the room like a mad thing. She crawled under the bed, jumped on the stove, she even hopped into Stasiek’s cradle and set him wailing. Father grabbed her and tossed her outside, but she started scratching at the door and mewing in this terrible voice so he had to let her back in. Mother gave father and me a telling-off for being so heartless, she took the cat on her lap, stroked her, and talked to her like one mother to another. But the cat soon jumped down and went back to the empty place where the kittens had been. She rolled into a ball there and we thought she’d gotten over it. Father even said that cats don’t hurt for long, and they cry even less, but in the morning she was dead. Except that with cats, when they grow up they don’t know each other, even a mother and her child, it’s like they were strangers, just two cats. Whereas me, I was already a young man but mother still liked to weep over me. It was as if her tears had stayed with her permanently from when I was a kid. And even when she was dying, instead of at least one time thinking about herself, she took my head in her skinny hands and wept over me. Then she passed away.
Something took hold of my throat and I couldn’t cry. The women that came to say goodbye to mother tried to get me to.
“You should have a cry, Szymek, you really should. A person ought to cry for their own mother. Even if they don’t think they can. Especially a mother like yours.”
But I couldn’t. Father was crying, he cried any time anyone came, even Michał was looking at mother in this odd way like he didn’t know whether he should cry, or instead not believe her that she was dead. But with me, something got stuck inside and I couldn’t do it.
Come to think of it, when was the last time I’d cried? It must have been when the Kubiks’ cow was calving on the meadow. I’d have been about ten years old. After that, never. I could say about myself that I’d gotten through life without crying.
Back then we used to graze the cattle on the meadow by the brick kiln. There was quite a band of us, and maybe three times that many cows, it was almost all the cows in the village. With so many cows it went without saying some of them had to be pregnant, because the pregnant ones were only kept back home a week before they were due to calve. Besides, no one worried whether they were pregnant or not. When your dads told you to take them out to pasture, you did it. You didn’t whack them so hard when they were pregnant, but it had to be plain to see. With the Kubiks’ cow you couldn’t tell anything from looking at it. It may have been a bit broader when you looked at it head-on, but it could just have had more to eat than usual. Wacek, the Kubiks’ boy, he didn’t say anything either, plus he was a stutterer and he liked to shout louder than any of us, because for us it was all a big game, and he didn’t give a second thought to his cow.
We played mountain. We’d shout, you, Fredek! Or, you, Kazek! Or, you, Jędrek! And whoever it was, he had to run away and the others tried to catch him. The first one that got to him jumped on top of him, then the others followed, till we made a mountain.
Władek Koziej was it, he was the smallest boy on the meadow. He didn’t want to play. He begged us and cried and promised he’d bring us wild pears, that he’d steal tobacco from his father and bring it for us. Then, when we were all jumping on top of him he squirmed and shouted, let me breathe! Let me breathe!
Later on, when we were young men we served in the fire brigade together. One time, in the spring we went to a flood. Actually it wasn’t even spring yet, it was just that the sun had been so warm for some reason that the ice had shifted and broken a dike over by Mikulczyce. Mikulczyce and Borek and Walentynów all got flooded out. As far as the eye could see, it was terrible. So much human suffering, it made you want to call out to God, where are you, Lord? We helped people down out of attics and trees and off roofs, they were mostly wet through and crying and half dead, because some of them had already given up hope of being rescued. We traveled by boat, but we couldn’t always get where we needed to be, because either there were fences in the way or blocks of ice, so we had to wade through the water on foot, and push the ice aside with our bare hands.
I was fine, I knocked back a bottle right afterwards and that was the end of the flood for me. Władek drank too, but he had to take to his bed right afterward, he was white as a sheet and shaking. When they cupped him, the marks were like black stamps. Then he started coughing, and he coughed worse and worse.
“You’ll get over it, Władek,” I said to comfort him. “All the bad blood’s been drawn out of you.”
Then they applied leeches. Then he drank herbs. But he got weaker and weaker, you could see him fading away. One day they sent for me and told me he was dying.
“I can’t breathe, you know, Szymuś,” he whispered. You could tell it hurt for him to use what was left of his voice. “Just like that time on the meadow, remember? It’s like you were all piled on top of me again. Let me breathe, just let me breathe.”
Suddenly someone shouted that the Kubiks’ cow had fallen over and it was grunting. The ones on top of the mountain jumped off and ran across the meadow, with me in the lead, because no one was faster than me. Behind me was Kazek Sroka and Stach Sobieraj, then all the others came after. But before they were even on their feet, we’d already reached the cow. She was lying there like something was pressing her down, she was rubbing her muzzle on the grass, and moaning the same way a person moans when they’re writhing in pain.
“She’s dying!” shouted Kazek, and he took off running. The others followed him like a flock of sparrows scared away, one after another, virtually racing each other. Even Wacek Kubik, he burst out crying but then he ran after them as well.
I started shouting, maybe she wasn’t dying, maybe she’d just eaten something, but they were already quite a ways from me. I could have set off after them, I would have caught up with them, let her die. Wasn’t my cow. But I wasn’t going to be the last one to run away. Running away the last was like being the biggest yellowbelly of all. Or even worse, you’re not running away because of your own fear but because of other people’s. As for the cow, it wasn’t mine, but it was still a cow. How could I run away from it? So I stayed. I just shouted after them:
“Cowards! Cowards!”
As for Wacek Kubik, I promised myself he’d get a knuckle sandwich from me later, because it was his cow, not mine.
All of a sudden the cow tossed her head, her side swelled up in a big lump, and inside the lump something started to move like it was trying to get out but didn’t know how. I thought to myself, she’s probably calving, and I got gooseflesh. I’d have preferred it to be dying. I’d never seen a cow calving from up close. Our cows had had calves, but father never let me into the barn when it was happening, he’d say I was still too young. Mother would bring him hot water, and he’d do whatever he did in the barn, behind closed doors. They’d only call me after the calf was born, to come take a look. One time I got angry and I told him I already knew everything, I’d seen a bull climbing on a cow, and a stallion on a mare, and a dog on a bitch, and everything on everything, I even saw Stefek Kulawik climbing on Bronka Siejka when she had no clothes on one time in the bushes along the river. But he told me those were dirty things, this was suffering and I’d have to grow up first.
I looked around for help, but there wasn’t a living soul to be seen. The boys had vanished, they were probably hiding under the willows or in the gully. All I could see was a stork wandering about nearby, pecking at the grass. I suddenly wished I could be that stork, I’d even have eaten frogs. On the far side of the road someone was walk
ing to the village or from it, but they were so far away I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman, and they wouldn’t have been able to hear me if I’d shouted. Besides, they might not have known anything about cows. It could have been the shoemaker or the seamstress, or a rail worker, or the organist. The cow must have felt sorry for me, because she turned her head toward me, and even though her eyes were puffed up in pain, she looked at me like she wanted to make me feel better. She even tried to get up. All she managed to do was rise on her front legs, then she collapsed again like she was falling from a great height, there was a big thud on the meadow. That must have cost her all her strength, because she lay there gasping, her sides were working like bellows. You might have thought some bad person had been chasing her. One time the steward from the manor chased Karwacki’s cow because it had wandered into a beet field that belonged to the squire. He was on horseback. When a cow runs it’s like a woman, everything shakes. But he chased it and chased it till it died. He chased it out of the beets, then through the potatoes and the clover and the alfalfa. And the fields at the manor weren’t like ordinary farmers’ little fields, they went all the way from one end of the land to the other, and Karwacki only had that one cow. Fortunately the squire gave him a calf afterwards to make up, because the squire’s wife stood up for Karwacki, and the steward was murdered by someone during the war.
All at once a terrible pain seemed to grip her, because she turned her head the other way so hard I heard a cracking sound in her neck. Her eyes were almost popping out, while I felt a tightening in my throat, half like tears, half not. I squatted down by her head and started stroking her. She was so hot my hand stuck to her skin.
“There there, there there, don’t cry,” I whispered almost in her ear. Though I don’t know if she was crying. I was the one close to tears, maybe I was just comforting myself, because how else can you offer comfort, whether it’s to a person or a cow. You can say to someone, let it stop hurting, and it won’t do any good, unless it’s God himself that says it.
She dragged her head back over the grass, heavy as a rock, and looked my way again. One eye, the one closer to the ground, was all covered with earth, and she probably couldn’t see with the other one either, because it was all cloudy like someone had scrambled it up. Also there was a circle of flies that had settled all around the second eye that were stopping it from seeing. I waved my hand at them, but only a couple flew up, the others just stuck there. Flies are like that, they don’t give a hoot about someone else’s pain, they’ll just stick where they are. It made me mad so I grabbed the cap off my head and knocked at the eye with it, and it got clearer straightaway. Except that at exactly that moment she tossed her head like she was trying to shake me off as well. Luckily I managed to jump back, because she would have knocked me over. She pushed against the ground so hard with her hooves there was a spray of earth. It looked like she was finally going to squeeze that mound of pain out of herself. But again it turned out to be beyond her strength, and again she collapsed onto the grass. She lowed, and the sound was so mournful all the other cows nearby raised their heads and looked nervously in her direction. The mound started swelling her out again, it got bigger and bigger, and all of a sudden I remembered that when a cow swells up like that and there’s nothing else can be done, its side splits open.
I even had a penknife. On the meadow, not having a penknife was like not having a hand. And it wasn’t just an ordinary knife, when you stuck it in wood it rang, and when you threw it at the ground it went in right up to the handle. Because of that penknife I was on good terms with boys much bigger than me. Some of them were four or five years older, almost young men. They knew everything that grown-ups know. It took your breath away sometimes to hear them, and they made you graze their cows for them if you wanted to listen. With the younger ones they’d tell them to go away or send them to bring some of their father’s tobacco, it was only me they wouldn’t do that to.
I took the knife out of my pocket, opened the blade, and stood over the cow with my arm raised. I knew where you made a hole, in the hollow by the hind shoulder. But I couldn’t bring myself to say, all right, do it now. My hand was shaking, the whole of me was shaking inside. I just gripped the knife harder and harder. Suddenly the cow lowed again, just as mournfully as the first time, and I was choked with fear. And right where I stood with the knife, I dropped to my knees by her swollen belly and started praying out loud. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. After that, I couldn’t go on because I was crying. I pressed my head to her belly and tears flowed, not just from my eyes but from my whole face. They might even have dripped into the depths of her stomach. Because when a child cries, the whole world cries. And who knows if it wasn’t from those tears that I became an adult. Though it might be that God gives a person one lot of tears like he has one heart, one liver, one spleen, one bladder. And you need to get those tears out so you can tell when you’re still a child and when you’ve grown up. Otherwise they’ll follow behind you all your life, and all your life you’ll think you’re still a child. Some people actually think that.
Though I wasn’t any kind of crybaby. Even when I cried, it was usually only inwardly, so from the outside no one could tell by looking at me that I was crying. But that time, with the Kubiks’ cow, something kind of opened up wide inside me, even the cow must have been surprised someone was crying over her, because who cries over a cow. Especially the Kubiks’ cow, she was always covered in dried crap, no one ever bothered to even clean her. Because old man Kubik, when he wasn’t at the pub he was at a rally, and Wacek only knew how to use a whip. Or maybe she was listening hard to see if the crying wasn’t inside her, because she calmed down like she’d stopped calving.
Then something moved inside her and the mound I’d bent my head over when I was crying suddenly started to collapse. I jumped to my feet, and the cow jerked its head up almost vertically and started kind of dragging itself backward over the meadow. By now it wasn’t grunting but rasping. I ran to its back, and there, the tip of a muzzle could be seen, and in a short moment a whole head appeared out of its backside like it was poking out of a hollow in a tree. I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I grabbed the head with both hands and pulled with all my might. And the calf was born. It was a roan like its mother, and it was all slimy.
After that, on the meadow they called me Godfather. It was Godfather this, Godfather that. The name stuck. I didn’t mind, why should I. And as things turned out, up till now it was only that one time I was a godfather. Not that I wasn’t asked. I’ve often been asked. I could have had any number of godchildren. Except what good would it have done them to have me as a godparent? What good did it do the Kubiks’ calf? I couldn’t even say what happened to it next, whether the Kubiks decided to keep it and raise it, or whether they sold it, or slaughtered it, or it died. And though it’s not right to refuse when they ask you to be a godfather, I decided I’d never be one. If it were up to me I’d get rid of godfathers and godmothers altogether. You have one real father and one real mother, why do you need a pretend one too. They carry you to the altar for your christening, then after that you don’t get so much as a stick of candy from them, they won’t even pat you on the head, the one or the other of them. Or they could choose a godfather for you after you grow up. You call them godmother and godfather, but you’re strangers to each other.
My godmother, she died young, when I was still in the cradle, I’m not talking about her. But my godfather, in all my life I saw him two times, not counting at my christening. The first time I was almost grown up. A man I didn’t know came to our house one Sunday afternoon, I was getting ready to go to a dance and I hear father and mother saying, oh, it’s Franek! This Franek says hello to them, then he gives me his hand, so I shake it like you do, but mother and father say, this is your godfather, kiss his hand. I didn’t like that, I wasn’t going to kiss some guy’s hand. My godfather sa
ys:
“So this is my godson? He’s grown some. He’s a young man already.”
He was from Zbąszyn or Suchowola, I couldn’t even say. Father met him when he was looking for a stove-maker. Our stove was smoking, and for some reason none of the local stove-makers could fix it. They’d come, take the thing apart, put it back together again and it would still smoke. Someone told father there was a guy in Zbąszyn or Suchowola that there wasn’t a stove he couldn’t mend. Father went there and arranged for him to come. Then one day he showed up. He didn’t take it apart or put it back together. He just poked around in it a bit and afterward it drew like no one’s business. When the job was done the two of them were so pleased that they got drunk to celebrate and father asked him to be my godfather, because it was just at the time I was due to be christened.
The second time I met him was during the war, at the market at Płocice. We’d gone there to rub out this one bastard. Before, he’d been a bailiff at the court, then during the war he became a German. Every market day he’d swagger around the market in a German uniform with a gun in his belt, and he’d go up to the women that were selling things and take their eggs, butter, cheeses, chickens, poppy seed. When he was in a good mood he’d pay, at the official rate of course. And everyone knew what the official rate was. A whole chicken was the price of a few eggs. Though most of the time he wasn’t in a good mood and he hardly ever paid for anything, the son of a bitch would even take the basket as well. And if one of the women tried to refuse, he’d just walk all over whatever she was selling and squash it with his boots, all the eggs and cheeses and butter and cream, he’d kick it all around and mess it up, he’d smack the woman around and call her a whore in Polish. When the women came back from market, instead of having a few pennies to pay for salt, thread, kerosene, matches, they’d be crying. We gave him a couple of warnings, he even got a beer mug over the head in a pub, he was hit so hard he was covered in blood. But it didn’t help. He had to be killed.
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