“You tempter,” she would say to him endearingly.
Sometimes she threw him a piece of her clothing, and then Goldie would wind his way into the dress and savour the remains of Cornspike’s aroma. He would wait for her on every path, wherever she went, following her every move. During the day she let him lie on her bed. She carried him round her neck like a silver chain, tied him around her hips and wore him instead of a bracelet, and at night, as she slept, he watched her dreams and furtively licked her ears.
Goldie suffered when the woman made love with the Bad Man. He could sense that the Bad Man was alien to both people and animals. At those times he burrowed in the leaves or looked the sun straight in the eye. Goldie’s guardian angel lived in the sun. Snakes’ guardian angels are dragons.
One day Cornspike went through the meadows to pick herbs by the River with the snake around her neck. There she ran into the parish priest. The priest saw them and recoiled in terror.
“You sorceress!” he cried, waving his stick. “Keep away from Primeval and Jeszkotle, and my parishioners. Do you go walking about with the devil around your neck? Haven’t you heard what the Scriptures say? What the Lord God said to the serpent? ‘And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, she shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bite her heel.’ ”
Cornspike burst out laughing and raised her skirt, showing her naked underbelly.
“Get away! Get away, Satan!” cried the priest and crossed himself several times.
In the summer of 1927 a sprig of masterwort grew in front of Cornspike’s cottage. Cornspike observed it from the moment it put a thick, fat, stiff shoot out of the earth. She watched as it slowly developed its large leaves. It grew all summer, from day to day, and from hour to hour, until it reached the roof of the cottage and opened its ample canopies above it.
“What now, my fine fellow?” Cornspike said to it ironically. “You’ve pushed yourself so far, you’ve climbed so high into the sky that now your seeds are going to germinate in the thatch, not in the ground.”
The masterwort was about two metres high and had such mighty leaves that they took away the sunlight from the plants around it. Towards the end of summer no other plant was capable of growing beside it. On Saint Michael’s Day it bloomed, and for a few hot nights Cornspike could not sleep for the bittersweet aroma that pervaded the air. The sharp edges of the plant’s mighty, sinewy body bounced off the silver moonlit sky. Sometimes a breeze rustled in the canopies, and the overblown flowers showered down. The rustling noises alerted Cornspike to raise herself on an elbow and listen closely to the plant living. The whole room was full of seductive aromas.
And one night, when Cornspike had finally fallen asleep, a young man with fair hair stood before her. He was tall and powerfully built. His arms and thighs looked as if they were made of polished wood. The glow of the moon illuminated him.
“I’ve been watching you through the window,” he said.
“I know. The smell of you disturbs the senses.”
The young man came inside the room and stretched both hands out to Cornspike. She snuggled in between them and pressed her face to the hard, powerful chest. He lifted her slightly so that their mouths could find each other. From under half-closed eyelids Cornspike saw his face – it was rough like the stem of a plant.
“I have desired you all summer,” she said into a mouth tasting of sweets, candied fruits, and the earth when rain is going to fall.
“And I you.”
They lay down on the floor and brushed against each other like grasses. Then the masterwort planted Cornspike on his hips and took root in her rhythmically, deeper and deeper, pervading her entire body, penetrating its inner recesses, and drinking up its juices. He drank from her until morning, when the sky became grey and the birds began to sing. Then a shudder shook the masterwort, and his hard body froze still, like timber. The canopies began to rustle and dry, prickly seeds showered down on Cornspike’s naked, exhausted body. Then the fair-haired youth went back outside, and Cornspike spent all day picking the aromatic grains from her hair.
THE TIME OF MICHAŁ
Misia had always been lovely, from the first time he saw her outside the house, playing in the sand. He fell in love with her at once. She fitted perfectly in the small devastated space in his soul. He gave her the coffee grinder he had brought from the East as a war trophy. With the grinder he surrendered himself into the little girl’s hands, to be able to start everything anew.
He watched as she grew, as her first teeth fell out, and in their place new ones appeared – white, too large for her little mouth. With sensuous pleasure he watched the nightly unplaiting of her braids and the slow, sleepy motions of her hairbrush. Misia’s hair was at first chestnut, then dark brown, and it always had red lights, like blood, like fire. Michał wouldn’t let it be cut, even when, matted with sweat, it stuck to her pillow during illness. That was the time the doctor from Jeszkotle said Misia might not survive. Michał fainted. He slipped off his chair and fell on the floor. It was clear what Michał’s body was saying by this fall – if Misia died, he would die, too. Just like that, literally, without a doubt.
Michał didn’t know how to express what he felt. It seemed to him that anyone who loves is constantly giving. So he was always giving her little surprises, seeking out shiny stones for her in the river, carving little pipes out of willow, blowing eggs, folding birds out of paper, and buying toys in Kielce – he did whatever might please a little girl. But he cared most of all about big things, of the kind that are permanent, and also beautiful, of the kind time communes with, rather than man. These things were meant to stop time for his love forever. And to stop time for Misia forever. Thanks to them, their love would be eternal.
If Michał had been a powerful ruler, he would have constructed a huge building for Misia on a mountaintop, beautiful and indestructible. But Michał was just an ordinary miller, so he bought Misia clothes and toys, and made her paper birds.
She had the most dresses of all the children in the neighbourhood. She looked as beautiful as the young ladies from the manor house. She had real dolls, bought in Kielce, dolls that blinked, and when turned on their backs they let out a squeal that was meant to sound like a baby crying. She had a wooden pram for them, two prams even – one was made out of a dismantled kennel. She had a two-storey doll’s house and several teddy bears. Wherever Michał went, he always thought of Misia, and always missed her. He never raised his voice to her.
“If you’d only smack her on the bottom once,” said Genowefa peevishly.
The very thought that he might hit this trusting little body caused Michał to feel weak, in the same way that had once ended in him fainting. That was why Misia often ran from her angry mother to her father. She would hide in his flour-whitened jacket like a little animal. He would stop in his tracks, amazed over and over again at her pure, unsullied trust.
When she started going to school, every day he took a short break from his work in the mill to go out onto the bridge and see her coming back. Her small figure would emerge by the poplars – the sight of her restored everything Michał had lost since Misia had left that morning. Then he would look over her exercise books and help with her lessons. He also taught her Russian and German. He guided her little hand across all the letters of the alphabet. He sharpened her pencils.
Then something began to change, in 1929. By then Izydor had been born, and the rhythm of life had changed. One day Michał saw both of them, Misia and Genowefa, as they were hanging out the washing, both the same height, in white headscarves, and the underclothes on the lines – tops, brassieres, and petticoats, one set just a little smaller than the other, women’s clothes. For a moment he wondered whose the smaller ones were, and when he realised, he felt disconcerted, like a young boy. Until now the petite size of Misia’s clothes had aroused his affection. Now, as he looked at the lines of washing, he was filled with anger at the idea that time could run so fast. He would have preferred not to see that underw
ear.
At the same time, maybe a little later, one evening before falling asleep, in a drowsy voice Genowefa told him Misia had already started her periods. Then she nodded off, cuddling up to him and sighing in her sleep like an old woman. Michał couldn’t fall asleep. He lay and stared into the darkness. When he finally got to sleep, he had a dream, bizarre and disjointed.
He dreamed he was walking along a border, and on both sides grew corn, or maybe tall, yellow grass. He could see Cornspike going along it. She was holding a sickle, and using this sickle to cut spikes of grass.
“Look,” she said to him. “They’re bleeding.”
He leaned forward, and indeed, on the cut blades of grass he saw drops of blood welling up. It seemed to him unnatural and dreadful. He began to feel afraid. He wanted to get out of there, but when he turned around, he saw Misia in the grass. She was wearing her school uniform, lying there with her eyes closed. He knew she had died of typhoid.
“She’s alive,” said Cornspike. “But it’s always the case that at first you die.”
She leaned over Misia and said something into her ear. Misia woke up.
“Come on, let’s go home.” Michał took his daughter by the hand and tried to pull her after him.
But Misia was different, as if she hadn’t yet gained consciousness. She wasn’t looking at him.
“No, Papa, I have so many things to do. I’m not coming.”
Then Cornspike pointed at her lips.
“Look, she’s not moving her lips when she speaks.”
Michał understood in the dream that Misia had been touched by a sort of death, an incomplete death, but just as paralysing as real death.
THE TIME OF IZYDOR
November 1928 was rainy and windy. And so it was the day Genowefa gave birth to her second child.
As soon as Kucmerka the midwife had rushed over, Michał took Misia to the Serafins. Serafin put a bottle of vodka on the table, and soon the other neighbours arrived. They all wanted to drink to Michał Niebieski’s offspring.
At the same time Kucmerka was heating water and preparing the sheets. Moaning monotonously, Genowefa was pacing the length of the kitchen.
At the same time in the autumn firmament Saturn was spreading out in Sagittarius like a great iceberg. Mighty Pluto, the planet that helps to cross all manner of borders, was lodged in Cancer. That night he took Mars and the delicate Moon in his arms. Within the harmony of the eight heavens, the sensitive ears of the angels picked up a clattering sound like the noise of a cup falling and smashing to smithereens.
At the same time Cornspike had just swept the room and squatted down in the corner over a bundle of last year’s hay. She had begun to give birth. It took a few minutes. She bore a large, beautiful baby. The room was filled with the scent of masterwort.
At the same time at the Niebieskis’, when the little head appeared, Genowefa started having complications. She fainted. The terrified Kucmerka opened the window and shouted into the darkness:
“Michał! Michał! People!”
But the gale drowned her voice, and Kucmerka realised she would have to manage on her own.
“You’re a weakling, not a woman!” she shouted at the swooning Genowefa to give herself courage. “Fit for dancing, not child bearing. You’ll smother the child, you’ll smother it …”
She slapped Genowefa’s face.
“Christ Almighty, push! Push!”
“A daughter? Son?” raved Genowefa and, brought round by pain, began to push.
“Son, daughter, what’s the difference? Come on, again, again …”
The child plopped into Kucmerka’s hands and Genowefa fainted again. Kucmerka attended to the child. It began to whine softly.
“Daughter?” asked Genowefa, coming round.
“Daughter? Daughter?” the midwife mocked her. “You’re a wimp, not a woman.”
The breathless women entered the house.
“Go and tell Michał he has a son,” Kucmerka ordered them.
They gave the child the name Izydor. Genowefa was in a bad way. She had a fever and couldn’t feed the baby. She kept shouting things in her delirium, saying they had switched her child for another. When she came to, she immediately said: “Give me my daughter.”
“We have a son,” Michał answered her.
Genowefa spent a long time examining the baby. It was a boy, large and pale. He had thin eyelids, with small blue veins showing through them. His head looked too big, too solid. He was very restless, crying and squirming at the slightest sound, and screaming so hard that it was impossible to quieten him. He was woken by the floor creaking or the clock ticking.
“It’s because of the cow’s milk,” said Kucmerka. “You must start feeding him.”
“I haven’t got any milk, I haven’t got any milk,” groaned Genowefa in despair. “We must find a wet nurse quickly.”
“Cornspike has given birth.”
“I don’t want Cornspike,” said Genowefa.
A wet nurse was found in Jeszkotle. She was a Jew. One of her twins had died. Michał had to go and fetch her twice a day by horse and cart.
Even when fed on woman’s milk, Izydor went on crying. For nights on end Genowefa would carry him in her arms, to and fro, about the kitchen and the living room. She also tried going to bed and ignoring the crying, but then Michał got up and very quietly, to avoid disturbing Misia’s sleep, wrapped the baby in a blanket and took him outside, under the starry sky. He would take his son to the Hill or along the Highway towards the forest. The child would be calmed by the rocking motion and the scent of the pine trees, but as soon as Michał came home and crossed the threshold, he would start to cry again.
Sometimes, pretending to be asleep, through half-open eyes Michał would watch his wife as she stood over the cradle and gazed at the child. She looked at him coldly and dispassionately, as if at a thing, an object, not a human being. As if sensing this gaze, the child would cry even louder, even more mournfully. Something was going on in the heads of mother and child, Michał didn’t know what, but one night Genowefa whispered to him confidentially:
“That’s not our child. That’s Cornspike’s child. Kucmerka told me ‘daughter,’ I remember that. Then something must have happened, Cornspike could have beguiled Kucmerka, because when I woke up it was a son.”
Michał sat down and lit the lamp. He saw his wife’s tear-stained face.
“Genowefa, you can’t think like that. That’s Izydor, our son. He looks like me. And we wanted a son, didn’t we?”
Something of this short, nocturnal conversation remained in the Niebieskis’ house. Now they both watched the child. Michał sought similarities. Genowefa surreptitiously checked her son’s fingers, examined the skin on his back and the shape of his ears. And the older the child got, the more proof she found for the idea that he was not their offspring.
On his first birthday Izydor still didn’t have a single tooth. He could hardly sit up and hadn’t grown much. It was clear that all his growth was going to his head – though his face remained small, Izydor’s head was growing, lengthways and widthways from the line of his brow.
In the spring of 1930 they took him to Taszów, to the doctor.
“It might be hydrocephalus, and the child will most probably die. There’s no cure for it.”
The doctor’s words were a magic spell that awoke the love in Genowefa that had been frozen by suspicions.
Genowefa loved Izydor the way you love a dog or a crippled, helpless small animal. It was the purest human compassion.
THE TIME OF SQUIRE POPIELSKI
Squire Popielski had a good time for business. Every year he acquired one more fish pond. The carp in these ponds were huge and fat. When their time came, they crowded into the net of their own accord. The squire loved to walk along the dikes, circling right round them, gazing into the water, and then into the sky. The abundance of fish soothed his nerves, and the ponds allowed him to get a grip on the sense of it all. The more ponds, the more sen
se. Busy with the ponds, Squire Popielski’s mind had a lot to do: he had to plan, ponder, count, create, and devise. He could think about the ponds the whole time, and then his mind didn’t wander off into cold, dark areas that dragged him down like a quagmire.
In the evenings the squire devoted his time to his family. His wife, as slim and fragile as a reed, would shower him in a hail of problems, trivial and unimportant, as it seemed to him. About the servants, the banquet, the children’s school, the car, money, the shelter. In the evening she sat with him in the living room and drowned the music from the radio with her monotonous voice. Once the squire had been happy when she massaged his back. Now once an hour his wife’s slender fingers turned a page of the book she had been reading for a year. The children were growing, and the squire knew less and less about them. The presence of his oldest daughter, with her disdainfully pouting lips, made him feel uncomfortable, as if she were someone alien, or even hostile to him. His son had become reticent and timid, and never sat on his knees or tugged his moustache any more. His youngest son, the pampered favourite, tended to be wayward and had fits of rage.
In 1931 the Popielskis and their children went to Italy. On returning from the holiday Squire Popielski knew he had found his passion – in art. He started collecting albums about painting, and then spent more and more time in Kraków, where he bought pictures. Moreover, he often invited artists to the manor, held discussions with them, and drank. At dawn he would take the entire company to his ponds and show them the olive-green hulks of the enormous carp.
The next year Squire Popielski fell violently in love with Maria Szer, a young painter from Kraków, a representative of futurism. As happens in sudden loves, meaningful coincidences started appearing in his life, chance common acquaintances, and the necessity for sudden journeys. Thanks to Maria Szer, Squire Popielski fell in love with modern art. His lover was like futurism: full of energy, crazy, though in certain matters stone cold sober. She had a body like a statue – smooth and hard. Strands of her fair hair stuck to her brow as she worked on an enormous canvas. She was the opposite of the squire’s wife. Beside her, his wife was like an eighteenth-century classical landscape: full of details, harmonious, and painfully static.
Primeval and Other Times Page 6