A Treatise on Shelling Beans

by Wieslaw Mysliwski

  I didn’t recognize him. He was a completely different person than I’d imagined from his letters. Could something have happened to make him change so dramatically? I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he was so hell-bent on turning me off this place. He’d been inviting me, luring me even, all those years, and now I was finally there … Aside from anything, he should have realized I was just joking about buying the cabin. But maybe even before, on the way, when we were still in the car, he’d started to suspect that I wasn’t the person he’d imagined from my letters either. And the thing with the cabin merely confirmed it for him.

  “And here you are considering …” he repeated, this time as if only to his own thoughts. “Believe me, when I return home I have to get used to myself all over again from the beginning, collect myself, from all the way back in childhood, from my first words, my first thoughts, my first tears, feel once again that it’s me. Here it’s like living on a screen. And what’s a person without secrets, eh? You tell me.” He was practically boiling with anger: “I’m going to sell this place, I swear to God! And move away.”

  He poured the rest of the beer from the can into his glass and, gazing at the noisy lake in front of us, he fell silent again. I ought to have spoken, he may even have expected it of me. But nothing came to mind aside from saying that I had to leave that afternoon. I decided, though, that it wasn’t the right moment to bring it up. So I asked him as if casually:

  “So where are those graves where you told me the mushrooms grow the best?”

  “You want to go mushroom-picking? Not now though, not now.” He jumped up from the table. “Let me fetch another beer. Should I make something to eat? Are you hungry yet? OK, I’ll make something later. I brought some grilled chicken, all we need to do is heat it up.”

  A moment later, returning with fresh cans of beer he stopped halfway:

  “See over there? I think she’s new. I’ve not seen her here before. I must find out who she is. That one there. See?” He put the cans on the table, opened them, poured for me and for himself. “You know, that’s the only thing keeping me here. If it weren’t for that I’d have sold up long ago.” He took a mouthful of beer and started looking around again, with completely different eyes it seemed – they glittered, they were almost predatory. From time to time he’d glance at me with something between a smile and a mocking twist of the mouth. “That one over there’s not bad either. The one getting into the boat. Her I know. She really likes it, and the things she knows how to do! I’ll show you another one also, she lives close by, two cabins away. Except I don’t think she’s here yet.”

  I tell you, I was listening to him but I couldn’t believe this was Mr. Robert. The same Mr. Robert from all those letters and cards and phone calls. I wondered what was true in him, as I compared what he was saying now with what he’d written me all those years. Maybe nothing at all. But I didn’t let it show.

  “Or that one over there, check her out. The one walking along the shore. She’s even looking our way. That’s the only good thing, with all of these irritations here. Because with a woman like that, here it’s as if you found her in her natural state. And finding a woman in nature isn’t the same as finding her on the street or in a cafe. Ah, nature. It straightens out the most crooked person. What’s she wandering around like that for? Oh, there you go, she’s lying down. She’s going to sunbathe. She can lie in the sun for hours on end. Even at the beginning of summer she’ll look like a black woman. To be honest I don’t really like it when they’re tan like that. Though the tanned ones are a lot easier. They can’t bring themselves to let all the torment of lying in the sun go to waste. And obviously they wouldn’t go through all of that just for the chumps they’re married to. They make those guys go try to lose weight on their boats and canoes. I mean, how long can you put up with one of those oafs? A year, two, then so much for being faithful. It’s a good thing the world has set aside all those superstitions and habits and customs. These days no one can afford to have a longer relationship. Everyone’s chasing after something, reaching for something, being with someone else is like having your legs in chains. You have no desire to talk, but here you have to. There’s nothing left to talk about, but you’ve got to talk. True, there are marriages that last till death. But they’re relics of the past. Before long you’ll be able to visit those kinds of people the way you visit castles and museums and cathedrals. The truth of it is, these days marriage is a corporation. One fails, you start another. Then you do what you can just so as to keep going somehow or other, to make it to the end. This life of ours isn’t worth a damn, I’m telling you. All these dreams and hopes we have.” His eyes suddenly flashed. “See over there. She just arrived. You know, the one from two cabins away. Wait till you see her in her bathing costume. You won’t be able to keep your eyes off her. She sometimes sunbathes topless. Sure, that’s reached Poland also. Why wouldn’t it. In that respect there aren’t any borders, languages, all that nonsense. I’ll have to invite her to go boating one of these days. Maybe there’ll be an opportunity. I mean, we know each other enough to say hello. But something’s holding me back. I’m all set to do it, then I lose my nerve. Maybe to begin with it’d be better just to suggest going berry-picking? The blackberries should be ripe by now. Next Sunday I’ll go check in the woods. Though she might not want to do that, because of the thorns. Too bad there aren’t any more wild strawberries this year. That’s the only thing that keeps me here. I mean you tell me, what do people really get from life? All that effort, the maneuvers, the sleeplessness, the worries, and what do they get? Then you add in the illnesses, other misfortunes, what do they get? Try sitting like that all day long in my shop. With the souvenirs. Ha, ha! I’ll sell the shop as well, the hell with it!”

  He took a sip of beer. A moment ago his eyes had been glittering, but all of a sudden it was like they’d lost their color and been extinguished. After a moment of silence, in a voice that was just as colorless and extinguished he said:

  “And if you knew what happened here once. Unless you’re the kind of person that can live anywhere.”

  “I know, Mr. Robert.” I’d decided to finally tell him. I’d come to the conclusion that it wasn’t right to keep it a secret. Especially since he’d gotten suspicious of how I knew the way here when we were driving.

  “How?” A look of consternation came over him. “Not from my letters, surely? I never wrote you about that. Ever.”

  “I was born here.”

  “What do you mean, here?”

  “Here.”

  “Here? What do you mean, here?!” I was taken aback by the vehemence with which he was trying to reject my confession. “Unless you weren’t around at that time. No one survived from here. No one.”

  “Except that as you see, I survived, so to speak. In one sense it wasn’t just me, but you, and all these people on the lake – we all survived. All of us who are still alive.”

  “But back then no one did. No one.” He was almost angry. “You see those hills. We lived over there during the war. Then one day, all of a sudden we heard they were burning whole villages around these parts. My mother grabbed me by the hand, I was a kid then, and we ran to the highest hill. Winnica it was called. There was already a crowd up on top. I couldn’t make out very much aside from the sea of smoke over the trees. But the grownups saw everything. Burning houses, barns, cattle sheds, frantic animals, people being shot at. At one point my mother picked me up, but I still couldn’t see anything beside the smoke. Then she knelt down and told me to do the same, because everyone was kneeling. She told me to cry, because everyone was crying. Except that I felt like laughing. My mother was wearing makeup, and her tears were making dark streaks that rolled down her cheeks. I couldn’t help myself. People turned to look at me, and someone said:

  ‘Look at him laughing his head off, and over there people are being killed.’

  My mother was embarrassed. She pulled me to my feet and dragged me after her. ‘Don’t look back.’
We walked down from the hill.”

  “The graves are over that way.” He pointed in the direction of the woods. A moment later he said abruptly: “I have to do it … Maybe I’ll go with the installment guy. Five payments, ten, it’s all the same to me.”

  To tell the truth, when I saw you coming out of Mr. Robert’s cabin I thought you might be the guy that was going to pay in installments. Though you must have already paid the last installment. Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone into his cabin. How would you have known where to find the key? Not till I have the last installment in my hand, that’s what he said back then on the deck.

  Oh, he’s still alive. Why wouldn’t he be? Who else would be sending me money to mind the place. One time I raised the fee for each cabin, and the next envelope that arrived had the new amount. Though I hadn’t intended for Mr. Robert to pay more. No one lives in the place, none of his friends ever visit, why should he have to pay extra? The only thing was that last fall the roof started leaking a bit. It began at the end of summer, the leaves were already off the trees and it just kept on raining. The sun was nowhere to be seen all day long. It chucked it down day and night. I don’t remember a fall like it. The lake rose all the way up to the closest cabins. Fortunately they’re built on concrete pillars, like you saw. I like the rain, but that time it went on way too long. The leak was upstairs, in Mr. Robert’s bedroom. I figured I’d wait for the rain to stop then go mend it. But it didn’t ease up even for a moment. So I had to do it in the rain. I put some new tarpaper down on a part of the roof. Not long ago I replaced a couple of rotten planks in the deck. I oiled all the locks in the doors, the hinges of the windows, I checked all the outlets and switches and cables. They can just as easily go wrong in an unoccupied cabin. If I’d had his address I would’ve written to him. I often think of him, please let him know. I know, I know, you said you don’t know him. But maybe one day, you can never tell.

  The thing that worries me most is how he’s doing after his operation. That’s right, he was going in for an operation. No, it wasn’t then that he told me. It was during my next visit, the one with all the fog I was telling you about before. I didn’t see him in person, we just talked on the phone. But he was still living in his old place. As to whether he still had the shop, that I couldn’t tell you.

  After he moved I made inquiries with his neighbors. They told me he’d first sold the shop, then the apartment. But where he’d moved to, no one knew. Everyone said they didn’t really know him that well. And more from the shop than from the neighborhood. In general, though, they didn’t see him that often, sometimes just as he was leaving or coming home, good morning, good morning, that was all. He wasn’t a big talker.

  The guy that bought the shop from him had no idea either. He even seemed to resent it when I asked if he maybe knew anything.

  “How should I know? I paid what he was asking. Didn’t even haggle. It’s a good location. What do you want from me, mister? I don’t sell souvenirs. Fruit and veg, like you see. He moved away and now he’s gone, that’s all there is to it.”

  It was the same at the lake, no one knew a thing. Some of them hadn’t even noticed that his cabin had been standing empty for a couple of seasons already. They raised their eyebrows as if they were surprised he’d stopped coming. Mr. Robert, you say? Wait, what season was that? What season was it? Oh yes, I remember now, you’re right. And you say he also left the city?

  I called him up before he moved to say I wanted to come for a visit. He didn’t seem the least bit pleased.

  “Now, in the fall?” His voiced sounded dry, irritated even.

  “Is it a bad time for you?”

  “No, it’s just I wasn’t expecting it. You should have come in the summer.”

  “I couldn’t make it in the summer, Mr. Robert. Also, I wanted to see what it’s like in the fall.”

  “Winter’s right around the corner. The leaves are almost all off the trees. It’ll be snowing before you know it. Why are you so drawn to the place, eh? You might end up regretting it.”

  I wondered if there was maybe something the matter with him, and I asked:

  “How’s your health?”

  “What you’d expect for my age,” he answered tersely. “I have an operation coming up.”

  “Is it anything serious?”

  “That remains to be seen. For the moment I’m waiting for an available bed in the hospital. They’ve promised me there’ll be one. It could even be tomorrow or the next day. They’re going to let me know. I already have a bag packed. I wouldn’t be able to drive down there with you. I haven’t sold the cabin yet. You can stay there.”

  He told me where to find the key. Under the deck, on a nail in one of the beams. He said I should just put it back there when I left. He told me where to turn the electricity on so I’d have light and hot water. And heating of course, since it was already cold there. Where the bedding was, towels, this and that.

  “When do you reckon you’ll be back from the hospital?” I asked.

  “How should I know?” he retorted almost rudely, as if he wanted to bring the conversation to a close.

  “Maybe I could come visit you if you’re still …?”

  “What for? A hospital’s no place for a visit. Besides, I don’t like that sort of thing.”

  “Perhaps I could be of help in some way?”

  “You, help me? How do you like that.” His tone was so ironic it left a really unpleasant impression.

  “Still, I hope we’ll meet again some time.”

  “We already did meet.”

  Those were his last words.

  3

  Haven’t we met before? But where and when? As I look at you, your face seems somehow familiar. Actually, I thought so the moment you walked in. Though maybe you just look like someone I must have met at some time. I don’t know who it could have been. If I could remember who it was I might also remember when and where. I mean, it can happen that people resemble one another, that one person can sometimes be mistaken for someone else. Especially if you were close with someone then you never see them again, you want to meet up with them again even in a stranger. Though when it comes down to it, what difference does it make whether someone looks like somebody else. As the years pass we resemble our own selves less and less. Even our memory isn’t always willing to remember us the way we once were. Let alone when it comes to other people.

  I often experience that here as well. I know everyone, I have it all written down, who lives in which cabin, but at the beginning of the season when they start arriving, with some of them I have to remind myself all over again whether or not they’re the same people. I sometimes wonder, can a human face have changed so very much from one season to the next? True, there are faces that seem in general to escape your memory. With a face like that, you can look at it every day, then it’s enough not to see it till the next season and you can’t say anymore whether it’s new or whether you’ve seen it before. But there are also faces that you barely catch a glimpse of, and already they’re fixed forever in your memory.

  Oftentimes I’ve been walking down some crowded city street, a throng of people, you’re constantly bumping into someone or other, and I might be seeing nothing at all, none of the buildings, advertisements, shop windows, cars, and people’s faces are just flashing by for a brief second, then suddenly amid all those glimpses there’s one face, why this particular one I couldn’t say, but it bores into my memory and remains there for good. Actually I carry inside me an infinite number of those faces that were conceived in those short flashes, as it were. I don’t know whose they are, I don’t know where or when, I don’t know anything about them. But they live in me. Their thoughts, their expressions, their paleness, their sorrows, grimaces, bitternesses – it all lives in me, fixed as if in a photograph. Except that these aren’t regular photographs where once someone’s captured, they stay that way forever. Then years later they themselves may not even recognize that it’s them. And even if they know it’s them,
they’re not able to believe it. No – in the photographs taken by my memory, even from a passing glance, over the years all those faces develop wrinkles and furrows, their eyelids begin to droop. So if someone used to have big wide eyes, for example, now they’re narrowed to slits. Someone else would smile and show a row of even white teeth, now all they have left is their open mouth. Frankly, they ought not to smile any more. Or a beautiful woman, it was her beauty that struck me in the flash of seeing her face, and now you wouldn’t want to meet her. I’ve known a number of beautiful women and let me tell you, whenever my memory brings back their image to me, I wonder whether beautiful women shouldn’t die before their time.

  But who on earth am I, what right do I have to them, to these faces that happen to be fixed in my memory and are with me as if my life were their life too? I feel as if those faces have left their stamp on me inside. I try to put them out of my mind, without success. I sometimes even have the impression that they themselves are asking me not to forget them. I tell you, it’s not easy living with so many faces inside yourself, not knowing anything about them.

  Though occasionally the opposite also happens. For example, I’ll have been traveling by train, sitting opposite someone, and as often happens on a train, we couldn’t help talking a bit with one another, and I can remember the day and date and the time the train departed, what its arrival time was, he got out and I continued on and I even thought about him later, but I couldn’t recall his face. So you and I may have traveled one time in the same train, in the same compartment, we could have talked, I could have thought about you afterwards, and now for some reason I can’t recall your face aside from the fact that it seems familiar. Maybe we were on a plane together, or a ship. So you don’t remember me either?

  No, I don’t mind. You had no reason to pay any attention to me. Why would you? Memory has no obligation of reciprocity, you didn’t have to notice me. Me, I try and remember this and that if only to maintain order, to try and keep everything neat and tidy. Maybe that’ll help me find myself also. Order isn’t only what you suppress, it’s what you allow. No, it isn’t that alone. That may not even be it at all. Sometimes I have the impression that it’s something like the flip side of life, where everything has its place and its time, things proceed not just according to their own wishes, and nothing can go beyond the limits imposed by order. I don’t know if you’ll agree with me on this, but it’s order that turns our life into fate. Not to mention that we’re merely specks in the order of the world. That’s why the world is so incomprehensible to us – because we’re nothing more than specks within it. Without order people wouldn’t be able to put up with themselves. The world wouldn’t be able to put up with itself. Even God, would he be God without order? Though people are the strangest beings in the world, who knows if they aren’t even stranger than God. And they refuse to understand that it’s better for them to know their place, their time, their limits. I mean, the fact that we’re born and we die, that’s already a sort of order imposed on us.