Stone Upon Stone

by Wieslaw Mysliwski

  I was a bit angry, she could have told me on the way at least instead of waiting till we were outside her house. We’d have sat down somewhere and said our goodbyes properly, not just any old how. Though I had no doubts it was all true. Everyone has cousins they sometimes don’t even know, they don’t remember them, they don’t know they exist, then all of a sudden they show up like ghosts from the underworld. She must have felt I was mad, because she clung to me and asked me not to hold it against her. She had to go. She even had tears in her eyes.

  “I’m going to miss you,” she said. “Believe me.”

  My anger passed, but I was a little sad, as if she was leaving for the next world, not to stay with her cousin for a couple of weeks.

  “Go then,” I said. “But come back quickly.”

  “It’ll be no time,” she said.

  “Of course it will,” I said. “Maybe I’ll take some leave too. I could fix the roof on the barn. I never have time to get to it.”

  “Will you think of me? Think of me. Please. It’ll make it easier for me.”

  It rained, I harrowed and sowed, I fixed the barn roof and the time passed like the crack of a whip. I wanted to walk her home the first day she was back, but she said she was in a hurry because her mother was baking bread and she had to get home quickly to help. The next day she left work early and I didn’t see her. This went on for a few days, if it wasn’t one thing it was another, forgive me, I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry, I have to be back earlier than usual, I have an errand to run. Till one day, as we passed each other in the hallway I said:

  “You’ve changed since you came back, Małgosia.”

  “Why would I have changed? You’re imagining it.” She disappeared into her office.

  I wasn’t going to force myself on her. Though various thoughts started rattling around in my head. But one day I leave work and I see she’s walking slowly in front of me, eventually she stops and smiles that sad smile of hers and asks if I’m mad at her. Me, mad at you, of course not. Then could I walk her home maybe? And, like nothing had happened, she starts telling me how she and her cousin hadn’t been able to get their fill of talking, every day they’d gone to the cinema, to visit her friends, on walks, sometimes to a café, but she didn’t like the taste of coffee, she preferred tea, and most of all she liked some of the cakes, she even said the name of them but it was something strange. She could have eaten four at once, except apparently they make you fat. But I haven’t gotten fat, right? She gave me a flirtatious look.

  “What about Januszek?” I asked.

  “Januszek?” She seemed flustered. “You know, it turned out he was too small, so he didn’t have the operation after all.”

  And again I believed her. If that’s what she said, that’s how it must have been.

  Some time passed, I’d almost forgotten about her leave and I was even thinking it was time to ask her seriously if she’d be my wife. I mean, how long would we be walking from work to her house, over and again? She was still young, but I was getting on for a bachelor. I decided that at Christmas I’d have a talk with her, and before then I’d think everything through. Because strange to say, up till then we’d never talked about what was going to happen with the two of us in the future, it was like we were unsure of each other the whole time or we were hiding something from each other.

  It was November, gray and cold and windy, put your arm around me, she said. We happened to be by the woods when at one moment she slipped out from under my arm and stood still and said:

  “Szymek, I have to tell you after all.”

  “So tell me.” I was sure it wasn’t anything important, I didn’t sense anything from her tone of voice.

  “I was pregnant,” she said.

  My heart started pounding so hard it almost jumped out of my chest. But I stayed calm, like I was just a bit surprised, and I asked her:

  “What do you mean, was?”

  “Because I’m not anymore. That time, when I took time off, I went to a doctor. That was why I went away.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  It was as if the woods that were rustling all around us started to fall on me. Rage flooded through me. I didn’t know what was happening. Maybe that’s what it’s like to die a sudden and unexpected death.

  “You whore!” I howled, and somewhere deep inside, tears began to choke me. Maybe I had to be furious to keep myself from crying.

  “Szymek, forgive me!” She cowered, put her hands together like she was praying. “I was sure you wouldn’t want it!”

  “You’re no different from all the other whores! Whores I can have as many as I want, as many as these trees! You, I wanted you to be the mother of my children!” I grabbed her by the hair and twisted my hand, she sank to her knees.

  “Forgive me!” she sobbed.

  I started hitting her in the face, on the head, wherever the blows fell. Inside myself I no longer felt rage, only tears like a flooding river, and it was the tears that hated her like nothing else in the world. I dragged her across the grass by the hair like a tree branch.

  “Forgive me,” she begged. “Forgive me or kill me.”

  I left her like that, weeping and beaten on the ground, and I set off walking quickly as if I was escaping, faster and faster.

  “Szymek!” I heard her calling in despair. “Come back! We can still have children! As many as you want! I didn’t know! I was afraid! Come back! Szymek!!”

  It was nearly night and a drizzle had started by the time I reached the village. The first house was Skowron’s cottage, crooked with age. It had a thatched roof and no soleplates. I dropped onto a rock by the wall to try and pull myself together. Skowron came out. He wasn’t even surprised to see me there. He looked at the sky:

  “Well, it’s finally started. It’s gonna be raining a week or more, you can tell. Come inside or you’ll get wet.”

  “No, I’ll be off in a minute, I just sat down for a moment. You wouldn’t have a glass of something, would you, Skowron?”

  “There was a bit left over from Easter, but my old lady rubbed my back with it one time. It’s been aching like the blazes, evidently from the rain.”

  I had the impression there were swallows chattering in the empty nests under the eaves, though how could there have been swallows at that time of year. I must have been imagining it. I was imagining all sorts of things that seemed to exist and not exist at the same time. The rain, the village, even Skowron standing on the stoop. The rain had set in for good, but I couldn’t feel it falling on me, I couldn’t feel anything at all. All I wanted to do was get drunk. But for that I’d have had to get up off the rock outside Skowron’s place and go somewhere. That’s easier said than done when you don’t know where to go. I didn’t want to be in the pub. The pub was good for drowning your everyday sorrows, when a hog dies, or hail flattens your crop, or you lose a court case and you need to tell someone about it. But here, if God himself had sat by me I wouldn’t have said anything to him. At most it would have been, it’s raining, Lord. But he’d know that already.

  I remembered that Marcinek used to sometimes have vodka. Back when I was in the police I even searched his house. I didn’t find anything, but there was an old milk can in the pantry. What’s that, I asked. Kerosene, he says. I smelled it, pure moonshine. But let it be kerosene. You have to get along with folks.

  Marcinek was sitting by the stove in his long johns and shirt putting kindling in the firebox. His missus was feeding the baby, but it might have been sick, because it was screaming to high heaven and she had to force her nipple into its mouth. The three other kids were already in bed all in a row, propped against the wall, and they all seemed sleepy though they weren’t actually asleep, because when I came in they all looked at me with blue blue eyes. This wasn’t Marcinek’s whole family. His eldest, Waldek, worked in Lasów minding cows for Jarociński, and the next one down, Hubert, had been taken in by his grandmother. But they all had stra
nge names like that: Rafał, Olgierd, Konrad, Grażyna.

  “Let me have a quart,” I said.

  At first he didn’t speak, he just kept putting sticks in the stove, then after a moment he said:

  “Where am I supposed to get that from?”

  “Come on, I’m not here to spy on you.”

  “Go to the pub. It’s still open. I don’t sell vodka anymore. I work on the railroad now.”

  “Give him it, Jędruś,” his old lady spoke up. “Don’t you see he’s all wet? He can’t go to the pub looking like that. Don’t you remember that milk can? You have to help people.”

  Marcinek gave his woman an angry look.

  “Don’t you know how to feed a baby, dammit? All he does is scream and scream, it’s more than a man can bear!” He went on feeding the fire.

  “You got a bottle?” he said gruffly.

  “No.”

  “Then what? You want me to pour it in your cap? You don’t even have a cap.”

  But he got up and left the room. The baby started screaming again in its mother’s lap.

  “Hush now, hush, you’ll get some dill leaves, just suck a little longer.” She took her other breast out of her blouse. “Maybe there’ll be more in this one.” The baby tried it but started up again. “Little thing like this doesn’t even know he’s alive, but he’s already done more than his fair share of crying. Are you not going to get married, Szymuś? It’s high time, life on your own’s no picnic.”

  Marcinek came back with a quart bottle under his shirt. He’d filled it right up to the top.

  “Though I don’t have anything to stop it with,” he said. “Unless I make a cork out of paper.”

  “There’s no need,” I said.

  “Why don’t you wait awhile,” said the wife. “Potato soup’s almost ready. You could have something to eat.”

  “Why would he want potato soup,” Marcinek interrupted her. “His folks are probably waiting for him at home, they’ll have sausage.”

  I took my first drink right outside the door. Then a second at the gate. On the other side of the road, at the crossroads there’s the shrine, and I collapsed on the steps under the Lord Jesus. The rain not only didn’t let up, it fell harder and harder, or maybe that was just how it appeared in the darkness, because in the darkness all sorts of things seem to happen that you wouldn’t see with your eyes in the daylight. So I sat there in the rain taking swigs from the bottle, and I even started feeling good. I talked a bit to Jesus, who was sitting above me under his little roof, his chin resting on his hands, pondering. And he talked to me. And so we talked to each other, till I’d finished the bottle and there was nothing left to talk about anymore. I said:

  “I’ll be off, then, Lord, because otherwise I’ll start pondering like you, when you and I aren’t equal. I’ll just leave you this empty bottle, maybe it’ll come in handy if someone brings you flowers.”

  I set off, though I wasn’t entirely sure where to. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe Kaśka was still in the store. I hadn’t been to see her for a long time. I’d just drop in there once in a while for cigarettes, though I preferred to buy them at the pub. When I had to go buy other things, I would just be going to the store, not to see her. One time she even asked me, are you ever gonna come see me again? Swing by sometime. Swing by, you won’t regret it. Maybe you could come today, I could stay late.

  I stood in front of the door, it was locked up already. I called out, Kaśka, open up! Open up, you hear? Bitch isn’t there. She was supposed to stay late. I got so mad I started hammering on the door with my fists and kicking it. Open up! But on the other side it was quiet as the grave. I was all set to plop down in front and wait for her till morning, when I heard her voice from the other side of the door, she was all in a huff:

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, Szymek. Open up!”

  She gave me an angry welcome:

  “Could you not find a worse time to come? The bastards are doing an inventory starting tomorrow. And here I’ve got half a sack of sugar too much and I’ve no idea where it came from. My mind’s on other things, I don’t have time for fun and games today.”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “Never mind what I want. Get yourself inside, since you’re here already.” She turned the key in the lock behind me and slid the bolt shut. “You look for him the whole year and he’s nowhere in sight. Where did you get so drunk?” She took a strong hold of me under the arms and led me through into the storeroom. The light was on there. She sat me on a sack of sugar or salt. She exclaimed:

  “Dear Lord in heaven, you look awful! Were you trying to drown yourself or something? You’re soaked to the skin. Were you with some slut? You should have just stayed with her. Why did you have to come bothering me? I’ve thought and thought, the moment I closed up today I counted everything over and over, but I still have half a sack too much. And that bitch in accounting’s just waiting for a chance to kick me out and put her bastard boyfriend in my place. Whenever she visits the store she always finds something to complain about. There’s too many flies. You’ve got flypaper up, right? Sure, but the stuff they put on it is crap. Plus the store’s in the country, not the town, there have to be flies. Or the next time she says the floor’s not been swept. Sweep it yourself, bitch! Doesn’t say anything in the contract about sweeping. Or have people wipe their shoes before they come in, then no one’ll need to sweep the floor. Is it my fault her fella’s got the hots for me? He can have the hots for her as well, did I say he couldn’t? Though with a face like hers the devil himself wouldn’t be interested. He’s all, here Miss Kaśka, there Miss Kaśka. And when he laughs it sounds like someone stepped on a rat, the prick. Go to hell, Mr. Marzec, this is a store, not whatever you think it is. He forgets there are other people there. That old witch Mrs. Skrok pipes up, for goodness’ sake, Kaśka, all those men, you’ll end up in hell. I’ll see you there then. I’ll tell you where you can stick that hell of yours.” All of a sudden she grabbed me under the arms and tugged so hard I lurched toward her. “Come sit over here, that sack’s got sugar in it, it’ll get wet and lumpy. If you weren’t such a bad boy I’d buy you an umbrella. You could carry it around with you. Have you seen the priest’s umbrella? He follows behind a coffin, it’s pouring, everyone’s looking like scarecrows, but him, he’s dry as a bone. He even has the sacristan carry it for him. And you, you’re not just anyone either, you’re a government worker. Even Smotek’s got an umbrella. His son-in-law gave it to him. He wandered in here one time with the umbrella open. I say, it isn’t raining inside. I just need mustard, he says, it’s not worth folding it then having to open it again. Maybe you wanna take a nap?”

  “I didn’t come here to sleep.”

  “You can barely stay upright you’re so drunk. And sopping wet into the bargain.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “Then let me at least dry your hair, the water’s dripping in your eyes.” She snatched a towel from a hook and started rubbing my hair so hard I thought she was dragging me down the road. But I had no wish to stop her, let her drag me, maybe she’d fall down a hole and then she’d stop of her own accord.

  “Your hair’s like a horse’s mane,” she said. She wasn’t angry anymore, she was even being nice. “I’m not sure I’d like you as much if you didn’t have hair. I can’t stand bald men. I’d never sleep with a bald guy, whoever he was. One time Kuśmider wouldn’t leave me alone, he kept going on about how he’d come by. Come by where? To the store, Kaśka, to see you. Then go buy yourself a rug first. You can wear it in the winter instead of a cap. You won’t even have to take it off in church. Your hair’s all wet, but it’s so thick. If you keep chasing after the other girls and ignoring me, one of these days I’ll pull it all out. Though chase whoever you like, I could care less. Men are like cats, they’d die if they only had one place to go poking. They have to run around. But if one of them took you away from me forever, I think I’d kill her. Then you, then myself. W
ith that butcher’s knife up there, see it? Imagine how people would talk in the village. Did you hear what that Kaśka went and did? Who’da thought. There she was selling sugar and soap and salt and candies, and she had it in her to kill? Then that piece of work in accounting could give the job to her son-of-a-bitch boyfriend, let him come work here. I mean, what is there to sell? Sugar, salt, soap, candies, matches. Over and over. Sometimes I’ve had it up to here. One time they delivered a barrel of herring. My hands, my apron, face, hair – I was covered in herring. On top of that people almost broke down the door buying them. Everyone was taking five pounds, ten pounds. Have you all gone nuts? Fighting over fish? I felt like knocking them over the head with those herring. It’d be nice if I got a delivery of chocolate one day, or raisins or almonds. In town people drink coffee, they could start drinking it here as well. Instead of just vodka the whole time. But instead of that the bastards have me doing inventory every other day. Couldn’t you have called by this morning, let me know you were coming? I’d have gotten the job out of the way. Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “What do you think? Get undressed.”

  “Oh, you.” She pressed my head against her belly. “You’re a bad one, but I don’t know what I’d do without you. Things might be worse or they might be better, but they wouldn’t be the same. I’d probably give up the store. Maybe I’d go become a nun. I’m telling you, life in a nunnery isn’t bad. They feed you, and all you have to do is pray. When I reached old age I’d be all set. Duda wanted to marry me. But what would that mean? Dirty dishes and dirty kids. He can hire a maid.”