King of the Fields

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Cybula barely recognized his own voice, which sounded heavy and dull. Kora began to shout, wail, sigh. Cybula silenced her. “Be quiet! I don’t want the camp to see me in my shame.”

  “My heart told me that evil would strike you. As soon as you left my bed, I knew that Zla was waiting for you.”

  Kora bent over him. Whenever she touched a wound or a swelling, a muffled cry escaped from Cybula’s lips. She left the hut and returned carrying snow in both her arms. Gently she washed and rubbed his aching body. She hovered over him, choking back her sighs and laments. Scalding tears dropped from her eyes and landed on his face. He had warned her to make no noise and she restrained the wails that threatened to break out of her throat. “Woe is me! Who did this to you?”

  “Lis.”

  “Wait!” Kora ran out of the hut.

  Cybula lay still. Had Kora gone to Lis’s hut to seek revenge? If so, she was as good as lost. Lis would kill her on the spot. But Cybula had no strength to run after her and stop her. Soon dawn would break and the woyaks would come for him as well. “I must put an end to my life!” he warned himself. He carried in his sack a potion he had prepared from poisonous berries. He had promised himself that should a new woyak bloodbath break out, he would take his own life. But as the weeks and months passed, the potion had weakened and evaporated. Now, despairing of his life, Cybula called to Shmiercz, the spirit of death, to come and take him. A moment later he dozed off and began to dream.

  It was summertime, and he was running across a green swamp trying to kill some creature that lived in the murky waters. The water rose and covered his ankles, reaching almost up to his knees. But the creature—a crayfish, a snake, a turtle—swam on, playfully teasing and challenging him to follow. A kind of wheeze, a snort, a guffaw, issued from its throat, as if it was mocking Cybula for his clumsiness and helplessness. Cybula shivered and opened his eyes. Kora was back in the hut, and when she saw Cybula awake she said, “The act is done.”

  “What! Is Lis dead?”

  “I crushed his head with a rock. He cried out once, and no more.”

  Cybula said nothing. He should have felt joy, but he felt nothing but astonishment at the events of recent days and the speed with which they had happened. Kora said, “I went to his hut and heard him tossing and turning on his bed, bellowing like an ox. I ran in with the stone and crushed his head with one blow.”

  “Perhaps he is still alive,” Cybula murmured.

  “His brain oozed between my fingers,” Kora answered.

  Cybula lay still, with confused thoughts in his head. He was not asleep, but neither was he awake. It was as though something had petrified inside him. Kora’s action had come too quickly to satisfy his thirst for revenge. He even felt a kind of pity for the coarse giant who had so easily overpowered him. Soon the sun would rise and with it would come a new bloodbath, a massacre.

  “Kora, we must flee.”

  “Not without Yagoda!”

  “Yes.”

  Slowly and painfully Cybula sat up. Kora said, “I’ll gather a few things,” and left the hut. Holding on to his bed, Cybula stood up. In the darkness he found his sword, his spear, his bow with the arrows. He put them into his sack and added a roasted rabbit. “These things are all I possess in this world,” he said to himself. Around his shoulders he wrapped the skin of a bear he had caught in the mountains. The sky outside was red and the east had begun to glow. Kora was taking longer than was necessary to gather a few articles for herself. My life is as good as over, Cybula thought. Well, what is meant to happen will happen. Kora returned carrying a large pack wrapped in a straw mat.

  “Come, we are taking Yagoda with us,” she said.

  He followed her on limp legs and with a resignation he would never have believed possible. All fear had abandoned him. He no longer cared if they caught him, quartered him, tore off his flesh. Kora took his arm and together they walked in silence. He, Cybula, had brought misfortune upon everyone. The woyaks might even take their revenge on Laska, he thought. Daylight was growing stronger. He remembered that the Lesniks in the mountains had called him a traitor. He had escaped from one danger only to be caught in another, but he no longer feared death. I could have avoided all this, it occurred to him, if I had stayed with Kora in bed. From time to time he glanced back to see if they were being followed. But no, everyone still slept. When Cybula and Kora reached the oak, they found Yagoda waiting for them, barefoot and shivering.

  Kora called out to her, “Why are you outside?”

  “I couldn’t remain inside. Everything is wet.”

  “Never mind. Come, we are fleeing, running for our lives. See what they’ve done to him.” Kora pointed her finger at Cybula.

  Yagoda looked at Cybula and said, “Who did this?”

  “The one who struck Cybula has already descended into the valley of the dead,” Kora answered.

  They walked in silence until suddenly, from behind a clump of bushes and trees a distance away, they heard women’s voices raised in song and froze in their tracks. All three knew what the singing meant. A woyak was leading a small group of women into the forest to chop down trees and prepare new ground for sowing. He had ordered the women to sing, and they complied with a funeral song, a slow, mournful tune which they sang when they buried or burned the dead. Cybula drew in his breath. Kora put her finger to her mouth for silence. Cybula knew of the work that the women were forced to perform, but had never witnessed it at first hand. Their singing on this cold winter morning made Cybula shiver. It caused him to forget his own troubles. Their tired voices belonged to those with neither hopes nor dreams, the singing of orphans, widows, slaves. To Cybula it seemed that these women were marching to their own graves. The singing grew fainter and more distant.

  A thought came to Cybula, so simple that he wondered why it had not come to him sooner. “Kora, there is no reason for you and Yagoda to flee.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “When they see me and my wounded body, they will know that I had a hand in the killing of Lis. But they will never suspect a woman, you or Yagoda. Why should you run away with me? It would be better if you stayed here.”

  “What are you planning to do?”

  “I’ll wait until my wounds heal, and then I’ll return.”

  Yagoda broke her silence. “Cybula, don’t leave me behind!”

  “No, no, no. But your mother …”

  Kora interrupted him. “What are you trying to say, Cybula? That I did wrong by killing Lis?”

  “No, Kora. But we must free ourselves of the whole band of woyaks, or else put an end to our own lives. While they live, we cannot survive.”

  “What do you propose we do?”

  “I’ll go to our people in the mountains and ask for their help.”

  “When they see you, they’ll tear you limb from limb. When they came here, slaughtering their own wives and children, they were looking for you. It was your head they wanted. Besides, they are too few now, hungry and ill. They will not come to our aid. They will attack you and Yagoda like wolves. And I will remain all alone. No, Cybula. If we are destined to die, then let it be by your own sweet hand.”

  “Yes, Cybula. Kill us now,” Yagoda said.

  Cybula glanced at the handle of his sword. He was too tired, defeated, and disgraced to do away with himself or those he loved. Even death demanded strength. He heard himself say, “Before we die, let us eat.” And his own words made him laugh.

  (2)

  It was Kora’s decision, not his: the women alone would free themselves. It was not necessary to go begging to the Lesniks in the mountains. If she, Kora, could kill Lis, then sixty able-bodied women could bring down seventeen or eighteen woyaks. Cybula was amazed at Kora’s vehemence and at her solution to the problem.

  They did not venture far into the mountains, but instead found a cave where they could spend the night. The clouds thickened, an icy wind blew, snow arrived, whirling and falling in great heaps, so there was no danger th
at the woyaks would come out and search for them. Cybula had used the cave long ago, when he was a hunter. Ready shelters were essential when one hunted in the mountains, especially in winter. They had walked throughout the day, reaching their cave toward evening. Cybula feared that Yagoda could not endure the rigors of the journey, but the vigor of youth still throbbed within her. She clambered up the rocks with greater speed than he could muster. Being with them seemed to have brought her back to life. She said she had never been happier than in these days she spent with Cybula and her matka, her mother, in the cave.

  When they reached the cave, Cybula was astonished to discover half-decaying pelts he had used many years ago and stacks of wood, as well as stones he had once used to build an oven. He rubbed one piece of wood with another and a fire was lit. This cave extended farther than the others and led downward through narrow winding passages, so narrow that one had to crawl through them. At its bottom flowed a river, and they could hear the sound of the rushing water. Cybula realized it was easy here to put an end to one’s life: one had only to throw oneself into the cold current below.

  Sitting by the warm fire, eating the meat which they had brought with them, Kora discussed her plans. She would return to the camp, not in daylight, but long after dark, after the woyaks had fallen drunk into their beds. She would speak to those women who were strong and dependable, especially those wives of woyaks who hated their husbands, and together they would plot their massacre. Whoever among them had courage and daring would take up a knife, an ax, whatever she had at hand, steal into the woyak’s hut, and slay him while he slept. They would make sure that the woyaks all died on the same night, so that the plot could not be discovered in advance.

  Kora knew the camp’s women. She knew their natures and their fears. She did not need all sixty of them to help her rid the camp of eighteen woyaks. She would choose the ablest, the strongest, perhaps the youngest—those she could trust. When Kora discussed the details of her plan, she could not keep from laughing. She said, “Those woyaks will have a quick death, they will never know who did them in. In the morning we women shall rule the camp. We shall wear the swords, carry the spears. We shall never cut trees again! You, Cybula, will be our krol. Yagoda will be your krolowa, and I shall be the krolowa’s mother. Why didn’t we plan our revenge earlier—it is all so easy!”

  Yagoda, who until that moment had been depressed and sullen, suddenly brightened up. “You, Mother, be the krolowa. I shall be your maid.”

  Cybula listened and from time to time he smiled, but he remained silent. He knew that in life what appeared to be easy often proved in the end to be difficult, if not altogether impossible. The gods did not grant women the courage and skill to mount resistance, rise in revolt, conclude a pact, fight a war. They were better at talk, not action. They could not be entrusted with secrets. One of them was sure to blab about the plot, and a bloodbath would follow. Even if the plot was not discovered, some women were sure to lose their nerve at the last moment. Cybula had other reservations. Several women carried the woyaks’ offspring. His own daughter, Laska, was the krolowa and had borne Krol Rudy’s child. Would Laska stab her husband and make her child an orphan? And what would become of Nosek if all the Poles were murdered? Although he hated the woyaks’ oppression, it seemed to him wrong to slay unarmed men sleeping in their beds. And he had one final objection: he had sworn his loyalty to Krol Rudy.

  After some time he said, “If you women win your victory, why make a man your krol? You, Kora, should rule the camp.”

  “I don’t want to rule. I want to wash your feet, and afterward to drink the water,” Kora answered.

  “Oh, Mother, the things you say!”

  “It is the truth.”

  Yagoda had begun to yawn and soon was fast asleep. After carrying her to a pelt near the fire and covering her, Kora sat up with Cybula. From time to time she threw Cybula a glance whose meaning he knew. What she had done for him that morning and was planning for the future aroused in her a passion for him. Despite the beating he had received from Lis and his weariness from their journey, a desire for her was kindled in him also. At the same time, they both needed to rest. A film covered his eyes, and his arms and legs hung limply from his body. They lay down and Kora embraced him. Heat streamed from her face, her breasts, her belly. Even her hands were hot. Cybula closed his eyes and immediately sank into a deep sleep. Hours later, someone awakened him; it was Kora. She licked his ear and bit his earlobe. Through the cave’s opening he saw that it was still night, but he had awakened refreshed. An extraordinary heat flowed from Kora’s body to his. She whispered, “Cybula, my god, come to me!” And almost like an animal, she attacked him.

  (3)

  The next morning he heard a howling, a whistling, a hissing. A windstorm blew from the mountains, bringing with it a mixture of snow and hail. Kora was already up. She had added wood to the fire and was busy roasting a chunk of meat. Cybula had intended to hunt, but it was now impossible. The cave was fragrant with the smells of meat, blood, and smoke. The light of the fire fell on the bare calves of Kora’s legs, on her arms, her face. Cybula was reminded of the woman of valor, of whom Ben Dosa had spoken. Kora had often called him a god, but to Cybula it seemed that she herself possessed the powers of a goddess. Although she had given herself to him during the night, he awakened with renewed desire for her body. Yagoda was still sleeping. Cybula called to Kora to come and lie beside him, but she refused. “Not now, my lord and master. There is much that needs to be done today. I must preserve my strength.”

  “What can you do in this storm?”

  “First, I must fill your precious stomach with food. Then I’ll be on my way.”

  “In this blizzard? How? Your road will take you to the hollows of the earth.”

  “Whatever the gods have ordained, so shall it be. If they take me, you still have my daughter.”

  Cybula sat up. “What will you do in the camp? The woyaks will tear you limb from limb.”

  “Either they will kill me, or I’ll kill them. There is no middle ground. Give me your sword.”

  “Kora, I don’t want you to die. I need you.”

  “Don’t worry, my love. The stars are with me.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Baba Yaga came to me, but it was not in a dream. She revealed herself to me. You fell asleep with your head between my breasts. I was getting ready to lift your sweet head, to cling to you and go to sleep, when suddenly I saw her. She had a fearful face, disheveled hair—as black as a crow—with the eyes and claws of a hawk. She said to me, ‘Go, my girl, and clean them out. Spill the blood of your enemies.’ ”

  “She spoke a human language?”

  “As you speak to me and I to you.”

  “You must have dreamed it.”

  “No, Cybula. I was awake when I saw her. I saw her mortar, her pestle. Her hair bristled, as if thorns grew out of her head. When she spoke, her tongue spewed flames. Her eyes blazed, like lightning. Cybula, I must borrow your sword.”

  “Wait. You’re not going yet.”

  “I’m going.”

  Suddenly Yagoda sat up. She was still asleep. “Mother, don’t go!”

  “What is this?” Kora asked. “The chicks are wiser than the hen?”

  “Matka, I dreamed that you lay dying and vultures pecked out your eyes,” Yagoda said.

  “A deception, a trick, brought on by some babuk or demon!”

  Cybula argued with Kora, but she refused to yield. She picked up his sword, removed it from its sheath, then rapidly and forcefully waved it back and forth as if slashing off her enemies’ heads. At the same time she spoke. “You, Cybula, know the truth. When those murderers came upon us, they plunged us into darkness. How many times have I made up my mind to make peace with them? But I cannot. They have destroyed us forever. We thought they brought us the blessing of bread, but they afflicted us instead with curses and hatred. They preyed on us like the wolves, waiting for a chance to annihilate us.”


  “You lay with them, not I,” Cybula said, bewildered by his own words.

  “Those woyaks have already paid their price.” Kora had said what she wanted to say.

  Cybula went outside to relieve himself. He lifted a clump of ice from the branch of a tree and chewed on it. He would have liked to wash himself with the freshly fallen snow. He returned to the cave and said, “Kora, you will never get there.”

  “Wait. The day has just begun.”

  They sat by the fire and bit off chunks of half-roasted meat. He licked the clump of ice he had brought into the cave. Kora was silent and Cybula began to think about Shmiercz, the god of death. Everyone tried to draw away from him, but instead they only drew closer. If everything was God, as Cybula believed, then death was also a part of God. If everything had life in it, as Cybula also believed, then there was life even in death. But how could that be? Cybula decided to ask Ben Dosa. That Jew, born in a distant land, had an answer for every question. But who knew whether Ben Dosa was still alive? Cybula was sure that when the woyaks found Lis dead, they would begin a new round of killing, and Ben Dosa would be the first victim.

  Cybula had heard from the camp’s women that Kosoka loitered near Ben Dosa’s hut and brought him gifts, which he refused. In Miasto, where Cybula lay with her, he was not overly fond of Kosoka. She chattered too much; her body had an odor which other women did not have. Her breasts were hard as rocks, the nipples longer and stiffer than other women’s. The bone under her belly, where hair grew, protruded too much. But when he had seen how quickly she learned to read the letters and write with chalk on bark, a desire for her awoke in him. “If Ben Dosa is dead and I am alive,” Cybula decided, “I’ll take her and make her my servant.”

  Cybula had long known that bad seed gives rise to bad seedlings. Because of one six-fingered great-grandfather, there were twelve Lesniks in the camp who had six fingers on their hands. What was true of the body was also true of the spirit. The seed of murderers, drunkards, idlers, and fools produced their like. At night when he lay with Kora, Cybula often revealed his innermost thoughts, his masculine desires. He was not even ashamed to admit to her that he sometimes felt lust for Laska, his own daughter. Ben Dosa told him of a king in that distant land who had a thousand wives and concubines. Jacob, the father of the tribe to which Ben Dosa belonged, had four wives, two of them sisters. A whole nation descended from this man’s loins, as numerous as the sands of the sea and the stars in the heavens. Kora always agreed with Cybula and mocked women who begrudged their man his other loves. She argued, “Does a man sin against the gods when he tastes more than one dish?”