A Treatise on Shelling Beans

by Wieslaw Mysliwski

After these words it was as if the life went out of him. Or perhaps he’d come to the conclusion that after what he had said, our meeting could return to being pure chance. And he no longer felt like talking. As for me, nothing came to mind to keep up the conversation. I only noticed to my own amazement that the pain in my right side under the ribs had gone away. I hadn’t even noticed when. It had ceased, just like that. So I’d have gladly had another slice of cake and another coffee. I was about to ask him if he felt like having more, but at that moment he glanced at his watch and said:

  “I didn’t realize it was so late. I’m deeply grateful to you. Unfortunately I have to be going.”

  He brought out his wallet, counted out the money and stuck it under the sugar bowl. As he was putting the wallet back in his pocket he suddenly hesitated and took it out again.

  “Just a minute, maybe it’s in here somewhere.”

  He began rummaging through the compartments as before. I thought that maybe this time he wanted to give me his business card. I put my hand inside my coat to get my own wallet and give him mine.

  “No, don’t bother looking, you won’t find it in your wallet. It ought to be somewhere in here. I’m certain I have it.” He was rifling ever more anxiously through the wallet. “I wanted to show you a really interesting photograph. Extremely interesting. The person who took the picture captured the exact moment when my father was standing in front of me. Where on earth is it? I refuse to believe it’s not here. The most extraordinary thing about it is that we’re looking into each other’s eyes. My terrified eyes looking at my father, and father’s face fixed in a grimace, his eyes staring at me. Both our faces can be seen together en face. It’s hard to credit, but you must believe me, both faces are opposite one another and both are en face. The place the picture was taken from seems physically impossible, to have two faces opposite one another and both at the same time looking at the camera. I’ve tried to figure out where that point must have been – so far without success. Because it was somewhere, the picture itself is the best proof of that. If I manage to find it it’ll be quite a discovery. Who can say if it won’t be a new dimension of space that for the moment is inaccessible to our senses, our imaginations, our consciences.”

  His hands were trembling, again he began tipping out the contents of the various sections of his wallet, emptying them to the last slip of paper.

  “Take a look.” He handed me a photograph. I thought it would be the one he was looking for. “My mother.”

  “A beautiful woman,” I said. She really was beautiful. But he didn’t take after her. Except perhaps for something in the eyes, the mouth.

  “That was how she looked before father came back from the war,” he said absentmindedly, busy looking for the other picture. Now he was searching for it among all the things he’d tossed out onto the tabletop. “Perhaps it isn’t possible to find that point in our everyday space. Especially as we’re overly used to it, we’ve become one of its dimensions. But after all it’s space that determines who we truly are. Just as it determines everything else. Not only in the physical meaning of the word. To judge from the photograph it may not be a physical space. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Sometimes, indications of that space can be seen in the old masters, in their most perfect paintings. The usual laws of physics would never have allowed such a place. But that’s the thing with great art. I mean art as a world, unfortunately one that includes humans. Oh, if only I could find that point. Too bad, I don’t seem to have the photograph,” he said resignedly, as if he’d let himself down. “I’m sorry.” He began gathering up all the things he’d scattered from the wallet and putting them back unthinkingly, without worrying what had been in which compartment. “I’m really sorry,” he repeated. “I was certain.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You can show me the next time.”

  “You’d like to meet again?” he said, surprised.

  “Of course. It could even be here, in this cafe. And if this particular table happened to be free …,” I added hurriedly, to assure him I wasn’t just being polite.

  “The thing is, though,” he said as he put his wallet back in his pocket, “I’m not sure that would be possible. In fact, I don’t think it would be,” he repeated emphatically. “We’d have to not know each other again, and again say hello to one another by mistake on the street, convinced that we’d already met someplace, some time before. But where, when? Otherwise you’d be right in saying it was just an unfortunate chance.”

  12

  You know, I wonder whether he just didn’t mention it, or whether his father hadn’t told him, that when he ran up to the door there was a pig standing in front of it. It had clambered out of the pig shed when the sheds began to burn. The sheds were a little off to one side, I could partly see them through the crack in the door. It walked slowly, it was old. Usually you don’t hold on to pigs as old as that, but this was an uncommon pig. It so was fat it could barely support itself on its short little legs. You could barely see its feet under its flabby sides. You had the impression it was moving along on its sides alone. It headed straight for the potato cellar where I was and started grunting, rubbing its snout against the door. Probably it could smell me. Plus, I was the one it was most attached to. Wheezing and snorting, it plopped down right by the door. He kicked it, and it struggled to its feet. Then, after he slammed the door shut and shouted to someone that there was no one there, out of rage he let loose with a burst of shots at it. He kept firing, though it was dead already. Till his last bullet. Flesh spattered everywhere. How do I know it was his last shot? He had to switch out the magazine.

  You can’t imagine what that pig was like. Right from when she was little we called her Zuzia. And from when she was little she wasn’t like a pig. I don’t know if you know it, but pigs are the most intelligent creatures. Even when she was still suckling she stood out from all the other piglets. Whenever you came into the shed she’d just up and stand in front of you with her snout in the air, wanting to be picked up. She was most comfortable around people. We’d often bring her into the house so she could be with us. She knew each of us: father, grandfather, grandmother, Uncle Jan, he was still alive when she was little, Jagoda, Leonka, and me. Me, she’d always nudge on the leg with her little snout. She never confused me with anyone else. It was easy to see she liked me best of all. She went everywhere with me. Many times I didn’t know how to get rid of her. I’d go graze the cows on the pasture, and here she’d be following behind. I’d be going to school, I’d look behind me and there she was. I’d have to turn back and lock her up in the pig shed. I’d often be late for school because of her. The teacher would ask why I was tardy, but I couldn’t say it was because of a pig. So I’d get a D for behavior that day. I got so many Ds because of Zuzia that by the end of the year I was bottom of the class in behavior.

  My mother would send me to the store for something. I’d go into the store, try and close the door behind me, and Zuzia would be blocking the doorway. The store lady would shout at me, what did I think I was doing bringing a pig into the store. Get out! How do you like that! That boy! People would be laughing, and I’d get all embarrassed. Often I’d not buy what I was sent for. And no threats or pleas did any good. Go home Zuzia, go on, go now. Go home, because this or that or the other. While Zuzia, she’d just raise that little snout of hers and look at you kind of reproachfully. Or when I went mushroom picking, there was no way to explain to her that she couldn’t pick mushrooms herself. She didn’t know mushrooms, and besides, what would happen if, God forbid, she should get lost in the woods? You had to pick her up and carry her back to the pig shed.

  Though that at least was doable till she got too heavy. After she’d grown some there was no way she could be carried. You’re not going to pick up a pig that weighs, say, over a hundred pounds, and she was getting heavier by the week. When you locked her in the shed she always found a way of getting out. When you took food in to her she’d slip past your legs and be out i
n the farmyard. Plus, from spring to fall the sheds were left open during the day so the animals could have some fresh air, especially when the weather was hot. She spent entire days roaming around the yard.

  You’d close a gate behind you when you were going somewhere, but still she’d appear. She didn’t need to go through the gate, there was always a hole in the fence somewhere or other. She made the holes herself. Father would fill them in, and she’d just make another one right away. Though of course, did you ever see a fence without holes? That’s just how it is with fences.

  One time mother was certain that father had plugged all the holes. She was on her way to May devotions at church. She closed the gate behind her and latched it. May devotions were usually held at a roadside shrine that had been made in a hollow oak tree near the woods. People said it was the oldest oak around, that it remembered everyone who had ever lived in those parts. It didn’t die because it contained the shrine, any other oak tree of that age would have fallen down long ago. There was a host of women gathered around the tree, it was mostly women that took part in May devotions. They sang and sang. All at once my mother feels something wriggling about by her skirt, she looks down. It’s Zuzia. She had to pick her up, and the rest of the service she sang with Zuzia in her arms. Zuzia was still little then.

  There was a guy from town that was courting the neighbors’ daughter. Actually, I repainted her nameplate just recently. He’d always come on Sundays and they’d go for a walk together in the afternoon. He had a camera, and when they went walking he’d always have the camera around his neck. Of course, back then cameras weren’t as common as they are today. A young man with a camera, well, no young man that only had land could measure up to him.

  One Sunday Zuzia had been following me and I was carrying her back to put her in the shed, when the two of them happened to be walking by. The neighbors’ daughter burst out laughing, and the guy asked me to stop a moment. Everyone came out of our house, because the neighbors’ daughter was in such fits of laughter. So he lined everybody up in front of the house, he had mother hold Zuzia in her arms and he took a picture of the whole family like that. One Sunday soon afterwards he brought us the photograph. We were all there, father, grandfather, grandmother, Jagoda, Leonka, me, Uncle Jan, and in front was mother with Zuzia in her arms like a baby.

  Perhaps he’d wanted to make a humorous picture. But it was the only photograph with all of us in it. No, I don’t have it anymore, but I remember it well. Though I have to say that whenever I think of it, I don’t find it remotely funny that there’s a pig in it. I’m even kind of grateful to Zuzia. Because it was thanks to her that we had our only family photo. So what if it’s only in my memory? While everyone thinks a pig like that is just for fattening up and slaughtering. Really, how are we so different from her? Are we smarter? Better? Not to mention that animals have just as much right to the world, since they’re in it. The world belongs to them too. Noah didn’t take just humans into his ark. And have you noticed that in their old age animals start to resemble old people? While they’re young and humans are young the similarities might not be so easy to see. But in old age they become just as decrepit as people. They get sick just the same, and from the same illnesses. And maybe the reason they don’t speak and don’t complain is that words wouldn’t bring them any relief anyway, just as words don’t bring relief to humans even though they can speak and complain. And if you ask me, they’re afraid of death just like humans are. How do I know?

  Pardon me for asking, but how old are you? It’s hard to tell from looking at you. I couldn’t say, really I couldn’t. When you came in I thought you must be about my age. Perhaps because you were wearing an overcoat and hat. Whereas now you seem a lot younger. Or maybe older? I really don’t know. Sometimes a person looks like they’re no age at all. Perhaps you’re one of those that time hasn’t touched. Am I right? In other words, I was not mistaken. Well, too bad, it’s coming to all of us sooner or later. Besides, I might have suspected it. The moment you said you’d come to buy beans, I might have suspected it.

  Though let me tell you, years don’t matter much either. Do you know how long a pig like that can live? Eight, ten years maximum, provided of course people let her live out the full time. But they don’t. So it must have cost her a huge effort to get herself from the shed to the potato cellar. It wasn’t far, but at her age … She barely ever got up, didn’t eat much at all. I’d take her boiled milk with bran, because from me she’d still accept a little food. Though even I had to plead with her, coax her. Come on, Zuzia, eat, you need to eat, if you don’t eat you’ll die. Only then would she deign to stick her snout in the trough and have a little.

  It was hard to see her in her old age. You couldn’t believe that at one time you’d carried her back home. Everyone would be saying her name. Zuzia. Zuzia, Zuzunia. The day virtually began with Zuzia. How’s Zuzia, Zuzia this, Zuzia that. And Zuzia herself would cling to everyone, not to mention following everyone around. At times she was a nuisance, we hoped she’d change when she got a little older. But she grew up and she didn’t change. She just made bigger and bigger holes in the fence. And still, when one of us was going somewhere Zuzia would follow behind. And not just our family, she got so comfortable with people that whenever anyone was walking past our house she’d make her way out onto the road and follow them. At times someone would get all upset and come running to say, Take that wretched Zuzia, that’s how they’d talk about her when they were mad, because they’d be walking along and Zuzia would be right behind. Whoever saw such a spoiled pig. You should slaughter her, it’s high time, actually she’s probably already over-fattened.

  But at home, no one said a word about slaughtering Zuzia. Though you couldn’t help but see she’d already grown to her destiny. After that, she even outgrew destiny. And everyone knows what a pig’s destiny is. One time father said something, Christmas was approaching, he said maybe we could slaughter her. At that everyone lowered their eyes, father felt uncomfortable and added:

  “Just an idea.”

  Grandfather put in:

  “There could be a war, it’s best to leave her be.”

  And so Zuzia kept growing bigger, and following everyone around. She got heavier and heavier. She wasn’t allowed in the house anymore, so she’d lie down outside the door and just stay there. When someone went out to shoo her away, she’d have a hard time clambering to her feet. One time father got mad and said:

  “If we can’t slaughter her, we should at least sell her.”

  He went into town and came back with a broker. Brokering was mostly done by the Jews. If you had a pig or a cow, or geese, or just goose down, you’d give it to a broker and he’d find a buyer. He came into the farmyard, and Zuzia happened to be lying outside the house. She picked herself up, went up to him, lifted her snout, and for a moment they just looked at each other. Then she lay down at his feet. And get this, the broker, who surely had no interest in pigs aside from their meat and their back fat, scratched his head and said:

  “You brought me here to see a pig, but I can’t say if she’s a pig or not. What she is, I can’t tell. She might look like a pig, but I really couldn’t say. Oy, I don’t know.”

  He wouldn’t even feel her to check how her back fat and hams were. And you should know that that’s what any broker would start from. Before they gave a price they’d always feel the animal for a long time, and they’d always grumble:

  “It’s got no more back fat than the width of my finger here. And as for the hams, you can see yourselves that my finger goes in like I won’t say in what. It’s not at all firm. What have you been feeding it? Starving it, more like. What kind of price is a butcher going to give for a starved pig? Not a penny more. And if he won’t give any more, there won’t be anything in it for me either. I’m not interested in making big money, I just want my cut.”

  But this broker wouldn’t even feel her.

  “She’s not meant to be turned into back fat or ham. She’s lying here at
my feet, for goodness’ sake. Maybe she thinks badly of me, what then?”

  It seemed like this was just his way of starting negotiations at the lowest price. Father kept asking him, swearing she was no different from any other pig, she ate the same things, and how long was she going to go following people about, she was too big for that. In the end the man had no choice but to start checking her over. The main thing is to feel for the thickness of the back fat. See, like here on my thigh. You have to spread your hand and feel with each finger separately, then make a final check with your thumb. A good broker can tell you precisely whether the pig has two, two and a half, three fingers. And in the same way, how firm the hams are.

  “She has back fat, hams. Everything’s fine there,” he said. “But she wants to live. And you all should pray she keeps wanting to for as long as possible. It may be some kind of sign, but to know that you’d need a rebbe. I’m just a broker.”

  Let me tell you, to this day I can’t understand it. What had Zuzia ever done to him? He emptied his whole magazine into her. You don’t think the father told his son about that? Why wouldn’t he? I don’t know either, though I can guess. But I had no intention of asking him the next time we met. In fact, we didn’t meet a second time. Or ever again. I often used to go by the cafe, even at the same time we’d run into each other that day. I’d at least look in on my way to a morning rehearsal. Sometimes I’d sit down, order a coffee, have some cake. I’d ask the waitress when it was the same one who’d served us that time. She knew him, you recall she’d smiled at him a different way than a waitress usually smiles. She remembered us meeting, she vaguely remembered me, but him she remembered well. She’d never mistake him for anyone else, she told me, but he hadn’t come back once since then.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about that photograph he’d mentioned, and I would have asked him about it. I kept wondering where the point could have been that the picture was taken from. It still bothers me today sometimes. True, I’ve never seen the picture. But you can think about it even without the picture. Let’s say someone took a picture of us as we’re shelling beans. We’re sitting here opposite each other like we are now, but in the picture we’re both shown full face. Your face seems to be looking at the photographer, and mine also, but at the same time we’re facing one another. The distance between him and me was no more than between me and you right now. I could see the muzzle of his gun like I can see your eyes now. So where could that point have been? Where do you think it could have been – here? Where could the photographer have been standing? There was very little space, no more than in this room. And here there’s no war, the dogs are asleep, and we’re sitting here talking and shelling beans. It ought to be a lot easier, don’t you think?