“I have to go check on the horse.”
Or start to ask grandfather:
“So did you remember yet? Maybe you buried them under that wild pear behind the barn? Remember there was a wild pear that grew there?”
“Of course I remember the wild pear. It was taller than the barn, the fruit was sweet as honey.” Because the fact was, grandfather remembered absolutely everything, his whole life was written in his memory day by day. Except for that one matter of where he’d buried the papers. “But it wasn’t under the pear. More likely it was under the apple tree. There was one apple tree had apples that were half red and half yellow. But one day there was a storm and it got blown down along with its roots.”
Father narrowed his eyes again, he might have been wondering whether or not to believe me. Then, as if he wanted to hear one more time what I was thinking, he said:
“So you’re thinking about Lord Jesus?”
“Lord Jesus.” I nodded eagerly, and even grandfather was touched:
“You’re wanting to send Michał for a priest, but it looks like Szymuś is the one God’s chosen. Little kid like that, and see what ideas he’s got in his head. Lord Jesus, how do you like that. Even grown-ups might not think of that. I’m telling you, he’s the one going to be a priest.”
I bit my tongue to stop myself saying I wouldn’t be. I couldn’t see myself as a priest. Doing nothing but saying mass all my life, and on top of that having to wear a dress like a woman. Though the other boys said that under the dress the priest wore pants like any man. But what kind of pants could they be that he had to cover them up. Plus, I already liked Staśka Makuła. She grazed cows with us on the meadow, and even Wicek Szumiel, who was the oldest one of us, he couldn’t take her because she was too strong, even though she was a girl. And she cussed better than many a grown-up, however mad they might get. Her though, she’d not be mad at all, she’d be laughing and skipping about, but she’d be swearing up a storm. Come on, Staśka, let it rip, we’d say to egg her on, and she’d curse so much even the cows turned their heads to look. And when she ran off to bring the cows back in, her boobs would bounce up and down like pears in the wind. We’d chase behind her like dogs after a bitch, hoping they might pop out. Look at Staśka’s titties! Like you could already see them white against the grass.
We sometimes tried to get her to show us what she had under her dress, but she wanted a zloty to do it. So we scraped together a zloty, everyone put in what they could or pinched some change at home, and we gave it to her and said, okay, Staśka, show us what you’ve got there. But then she said that for a zloty she could only show us what she had up top, if we wanted to see more it would be another fifty groszes. Where were we supposed to get fifty groszes? Fifty groszes was what young men got from their fathers when they were going out with a young lady. But luck would have it that Kazek Socha’s father came back from the fair rolling drunk, they had to lift him down off his wagon, and Kazek swiped fifty groszy from his pocket. So now we had it. Come on, Staśka, show us. But she put the price up again, she said two zlotys, because she needed new silk stockings, like Tereska the miller’s daughter had. We were so mad we threw ourselves on her, we’ll take your clothes off ourselves, goddammit, but she got free of us, and she took out her penknife and stood there with her feet planted:
“If anyone comes closer I’ll cut their weenie off, you little bastards.”
It was only when we grew up that she didn’t ask for anything.
The only thing I liked about a priest’s work was confession. It must be great to sit there in the confessional behind the grate and listen to the sins of the whole village. Boy would you learn some stuff. And forgiving sins or not forgiving them, ordering penance. Most of all I’d have scared people with hell, I’d make their hair stand on end and their blood curdle, I’d make their teeth chatter and their eyes weep endless tears. Though I’d need to invent a different hell, because people have stopped being afraid of the old one. Perhaps it ought to be that it’s not just the soul that suffers, but the body along with it? Or that people wouldn’t be together, but each person would be alone? Maybe there shouldn’t even be any devils, just people and their own torments.
I’d give the longest confessions to three young women from our village: Kryśka Latra, Weronka Maziarz, and Magda Kukawa. And among the married women, Mrs. Balbus. Because before she married Balbus, she had more boyfriends than you could shake a stick at. Every evening her father would chase her around the village with a whip, and she’d be running away. People even said she’d had a bastard child, but that she’d drowned it. Though when she was with Balbus it didn’t change anything. But to find out if what people were saying was true, I’d have to give her confession. I wouldn’t confess old women or old men. The curate could do them. Well, maybe old Mrs. Przygaj, to find out if girls slept around in the old days as well. Because who would know better that Mrs. Przygaj. Apparently she never let an opportunity go by. The village mayor, a farmhand, the miller, a neighbor, whoever came along. And most of all with the soldiers that used to be stationed in the village. They had dark blue jackets and red pants, people said that was what drew her to them. Her husband would pray to God that he’d drive the demon out of her, and she’d just laugh at him. One time she brought three soldiers home at the same time and partied with them naked, and her husband had to look on. He beat her afterwards with a wet rope, so she arranged for him to be drafted into the army and he never came back. Though would she be willing to admit to all of that in the confessional?
“Michał or Szymuś,” said mother, “God grant it’ll be one of them.”
“I’m telling you, it’ll be Szymuś,” grandfather insisted. “Maybe he could serve right here, in our parish. I won’t live to see the day. But you could move to the presbytery. It’d be heaven there. The orchard alone must be four acres. And you’ve got the church right there.”
“What exactly were you thinking about?” Father didn’t let all that about the priest distract him from asking me more questions.
“I was thinking …” I tripped over my tongue, because I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been thinking.
“What was he thinking about?” Grandfather came to my rescue. “He was thinking about Jesus, he already said. He’s hanging on the cross right up there, you only need to look, there’s nothing else to think about.”
I looked up at the cross in panic, and it was like something opened up inside of me.
“I was thinking,” I said, “about how he suffered for us and how he died on the cross.”
“He truly did suffer, that’s for sure,” mother put in from by the stove. “But people are the same as they always were.”
“Maybe they’d have been even worse,” grandfather suggested.
“Even worse?” Mother shuddered.
“Think about it, what if everyone was like that no-good Marchewka. Could you stand that? Think about all the chickens he’s stolen from you.”
“What else?” Father wouldn’t give it up.
“What else?” Grandfather bridled because he thought father was on at him. “He cut down those willows on your pasture. And he gave you an earful for good measure. Is that not enough for you?”
“I’m not asking you, father, I’m asking him.”
“Szymek? What on earth’s he done to you?”
“Not what he’s done, what he’s thinking about. Out with it.” It was like he was driving a horse uphill with a whip.
I got this sinking feeling in my belly. Out with what? On top of everything else it was lashing down outside, so there was no chance father would leave the house, a dog wouldn’t want to go out in that. He could keep grilling me all afternoon. I rooted around desperately among my thoughts, but my thoughts were like mice, they kept running away. All of a sudden grandfather got up, took a step toward the middle of the room, and sighed:
“When you’re old, taking a single step is like walking to Calvary.”
At that very moment it came to me.<
br />
“I was thinking,” I quoted from memory, “about how when Jesus was carrying his cross to Calvary and he fell, there was a farmer walking by on his way back from the fields, and he helped him carry it.”
“Not a farmer, Simon of Cyrene. What’s that damn priest been teaching you!” father said, getting all testy.
“I said so right from the beginning,” grandfather agreed with father. “The moment he first came here I said, he’s supposed to be a priest? He’s got a face like a little girl. He can’t even grow a beard, he’s just got fuzz here and there. How could he know anything. He doesn’t know the first thing about Jesus, just like he doesn’t know the first thing about people.”
“People are one thing, Jesus is another,” mother objected.
“What do you mean, another thing?” grandfather said, bridling in turn. “Was Jesus not a person? It was only after he died he became God.”
“Of course he was, he even let himself be crucified because he couldn’t take it anymore.”
“It wasn’t that he couldn’t take it anymore, he wanted to redeem people.”
“And in return they gave him something bitter to drink, and stabbed him in the side, am I right? I’d never have saved those villains. I’d have sent them to hell, let them roast down there, let them howl like wolves! Let them tear their hair out and shout for God’s mercy! Let them weep and weep till the darkness covers them over!” Mother was like a wasp with those villains, she wouldn’t leave them alone and she probably would have gone on longer if father hadn’t roared:
“What else?!”
My heart missed a beat. Luckily mother was still filled with anger at the villains that killed Jesus, and at that moment she started taking it out on father like he was one of them:
“Leave the boy alone, will you! He’s told you almost the whole gospel and all you can say is, what else, what else! Show me another child that knows that much. They can’t even tell you the ten commandments.”
Something came to me again.
“I was thinking, daddy, that he was proclaiming the ten commandments,” I threw out breathlessly, like I was trying to get this piece of good news out before mother.
But father bristled like a turkey-cock.
“Who?”
“You know, the Lord … God,” I said, though less surely, because I sensed something bad in his voice.
“Which one?” he asked with a frown.
“There’s only one Lord God, father. That’s what the priest told us. And there’s only one hanging on the wall there.”
“But in three persons! In three persons, you little twit!” He was shaking with anger.
I was all set to burst into tears. But something told me father wasn’t entirely on solid ground with Jesus. I pretended to be upset that someone had gotten it all muddled up, and I asked hesitantly:
“What do you mean, daddy, that there’s only one but in three?”
“Because it’s in three persons!” His chin twitched. “The Son of God! The Holy Ghost! And God the Father!”
“So which one of them is God?”
“They all are!”
“How can all of them be when there’s three of them, not one?”
“There’s only one!!” he roared. He grabbed a piece of kindling from the floor and chucked it at me, but I dodged and it hit Michał. Michał burst out crying and mother shouted:
“Have you gone mad?”
Even grandfather, though he didn’t like getting on father’s bad side, mumbled to himself:
“That’s not how you explain it. That’s not how you explain it.”
Father was so furious he grabbed the slop bucket with such a jerk that it splashed on his pants, and he charged out to take it to the cow.
Then there came a year that was worse than any other. First of all, during the entire spring not a drop of rain fell, then the whole summer it wouldn’t stop raining, and it kept up almost till autumn. The river, even though it had been just a little stream, it burst its banks, it grew to be the size of ten rivers and it kept on swelling. People were fretting, what’s going to happen, what’s going to happen? And the roosters went on crowing to show it wasn’t going to let up any time soon. Some folks spent whole days just standing at their windows staring out to see if they couldn’t spot at least a tiny bit of blue sky to give them hope. Other people were expecting the end of the world, they thought there was going to be another flood like the one in Noah’s time. They’d even gather at Sójka’s place in the evening and read the Bible aloud to see if it was the same or not. At the church there was one special service after another. And anywhere there was a cross or a chapel or a wayside shrine, people would gather to pray or sing or at the very least cry together, instead of everyone on their own in their own house. As for confession and communion, there were lines like never before. Kruk the unbeliever even let himself be converted, because his old lady and his daughters kept on and on at him about how it was all because of him. He had five daughters, three of them were already old maids but two were still marriageable. Though why would God want to punish the whole world on account of Kruk. Afterwards the guy regretted it, because he still got no peace at home just like before, and outside the rains went on and on.
People even made the priest lead a procession out into the fields, they thought maybe that would help. But they didn’t get very far. Just beyond Midura’s place, where the road turns toward the fields, Franciszek the sacristan, who was carrying the cross up front, he got stuck in mud almost up to his knees. The banners got bogged down with him. Mrs. Karpiel and Mrs. Matyska ended up in it too, because they were tertiaries and they’d wanted to be in the lead. The priest got stuck, even though Skubida and Denderys had been holding his arms. They had to stand on either side of him and drag him out and carry him over to drier ground, he wouldn’t have been able to get out on his own. As it was, one of his shoes came off in the mud, and one of the women had to fish it out and put it back on his foot. Because Franciszek the sacristan was wearing tall boots, and he’d gone marching on ahead without looking back at the rest of the procession. People called to him, hey, Franciszek, wait up there! But he just kept going, and it was only when the mud reached up over the tops of his boots that he realized he was all on his own. Luckily he had the cross with him, so he leaned on it like a shepherd’s crook and managed to get clear. Though the priest gave him a telling-off once he was on the drier ground, for abusing the cross like that. So that was the end of the procession. They prayed a bit and sang a bit at the edge of the fields, then they went back to the church.
Some of the better-off farmers took holy pictures out onto their land and made a little hut for them like a sentry box. But that did no good either. After all, it couldn’t have happened that the sun shone on some folks’ land while it rained on other people’s, when it rained it rained everywhere. Everyone went out to the fields and gathered what could be gathered in the rain and mud. There wasn’t much, because what hadn’t dried up in the spring had gotten waterlogged in the summer and the start of autumn.
We only picked three wagonloads of potatoes, after we’d planted a big stretch of field. And they were all the size of walnuts. Father came back with the third wagonload and said that was the lot, and grandfather came out, and mother, and us children, and we all cried. Father couldn’t even bring himself to get down off the wagon, he just sat there with the whip and the reins in his hand and watched grandfather crying and fingering the potatoes. All he said in consolation was:
“Well, there’s nothing to be done about it. Whatever the land is like, the potatoes are like that too. And the land is rotten. I just hope it recovers from all this.”
During the threshing, when he took a full sieve and winnowed it there was nothing but chaff, and the grain at the very bottom. He left what he needed for the next sowing, he barely had half a sackful to take to the mill for grinding, and that was the end of the rye. Mother baked bread out of it just the once, she set aside a few measures for an emergency.
The bread from the one baking lasted us a month, month and a half, and it wouldn’t even have been that long except father took some of the loaves while they were still hot and hid them somewhere. Michał and I searched the whole barn, we even jabbed the pitchfork into the hay in the bins, but we couldn’t find it. It had to have been hidden in the barn, but we would have needed to turn the place upside down. Michał wasn’t the person for that. The whole time I had to keep reassuring him that looking for the bread wasn’t a sin. When he stuck the pitchfork in, he’d only just go in with the very tips of the prongs, as if he was afraid that, God forbid, we might actually find the bread. He kept asking me:
“What’ll we do if we find it?”
“Eat it.”
“On our own?”
“Who else are we going to eat it with?”
“Are we not going to give any to father and mother?”
“Take them some, you’ll see what’ll happen. You’ll get a hiding for being so good.”
Then he remembered a story grandfather had told about how once during the uprising the Cossacks had been looking for rebels and they’d made grandfather stick a pitchfork into the hay. And grandfather had hid them himself in that hay. But what could he do, they ordered him to stick his pitchfork in, so he did. All at once he saw blood on the tip of the pitchfork. Right at that moment, pretending he’d stumbled on the sheaves, he rammed the pitchfork into his own foot with all his strength and started screaming to high heaven. The Cossacks all burst out laughing. But they didn’t make him search anymore.
“Idiot,” I said to him, “we’re looking for bread, not rebels. Bread doesn’t bleed.”
But he wouldn’t search any longer.
I even thought about following father out when he went to bring a new loaf. But each time he did, he’d tell mother not to let us out till he came back. Or he’d say he was going down the village to see the blacksmith, or one of the neighbors, and he’d appear afterwards with a loaf under his arm. He’d give the loaf to mother, and she’d padlock it in the chest. Then each day she’d cut one slice each for us in the morning, another in the evening.
Stone Upon Stone Page 47