A Treatise on Shelling Beans (6 page)

In the next letter, which arrived right on the heels of the first one and was even longer, he invited me to at least come for mushroom picking. They were expecting a big crop that year. He had a battery-driven heating device for drying the mushrooms. Because he was sure I liked picking mushrooms, who doesn’t? He loved it. Apart from women, there wasn’t much he enjoyed more than picking mushrooms. He’d get crazy jealous when someone else found a boletus and he had nothing, or maybe just some slippery Jack. He’d hope the other person’s mushroom was maggoty. But was there any deeper way of experiencing nature? It hurts to even think about what people can be like. Mushroom picking’s also the best form of relaxation. You don’t think of anything, don’t remember a thing, all your attention, all your senses are concentrated on the search for a mushroom. You might say the entire world shrinks to the proportions of that mushroom you’re looking for. So if someone wants true relaxation, it’s actually better when there aren’t that many mushrooms. Him, he said, when he needed to relax he’d head off into the woods even if there weren’t any mushrooms. Take his basket and his penknife and go looking.

It would be a source of great pleasure to him if we could do that together. I took a liking to you, he wrote. On that very first evening I had a feeling we could become friends. I value people who I can tell in advance are hard to make out,
impossible even. I’d really like you to come. The cabin has all the amenities. Fridge, radio, TV. There’s a bathroom with a shower, a water heater, you just need to turn it on and in a short while you have hot running water. Upstairs there are two bedrooms, we won’t get in each other’s way. If you wanted to bring someone along I can sleep downstairs on the couch. Or I’ll take my vacation at a different time and just visit on Saturdays and Sundays. I have a boat, we could go out on the lake. And if you like kayaking, you can borrow the neighbor’s kayak. You could even go with his wife. She’s good-looking and she likes to go kayaking. He’s some director or other, he’s had two heart attacks and spends all his time indoors because the sun bothers him. No wonder she gets bored. And the bored ones are always the most willing. You really must come. Write and let me know when.

I wrote back to say thank you for the invitation, but for the moment I wasn’t able to take him up on it. As he knew, I played in a band, I wasn’t a free agent. And in those kinds of clubs the musicians rarely have much time off. Only when the club is being renovated or redecorated. I thought that would discourage him.

But a short time later he wrote another letter. And it was the same thing all over again. He was inviting me, when would I come. I replied with a postcard saying thank you, I send my best wishes, but let’s wait till I have more free time. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wrote one letter after another, and in every one he kept repeating his invitation.

In one of the letters he gave me his phone number and asked for mine, saying he often wished he could call me up. I could hardly refuse, but I made a point of saying it was hard to catch me at home. Rehearsals in the morning, gigs in the evening, and life in general kept you busy, as he well knew. He rang on what turned out to be the same day he’d gotten my letter:

“I’ve been calling and calling since morning. You’re right, it’s hard to get a hold of you. But there’s nothing like the sound of an actual voice. Letters are fine, but they don’t speak. There’s no comparison with a live voice. Hearing
you, it feels like we’re meeting again. Have you decided yet when you’re going to come visit?”

This went on for years. I would always put off replying to his cards and letters as long as I could. Then I’d apologize, saying it was for this or that reason, I hoped he understood. He understood completely. In the next letter he’d send me an even more enthusiastic invitation. One time he wrote to say he’d gotten a color TV to replace the old black-and-white one in the cabin, he told me what kind, how big of a screen it had. Another time he said something else was new there. And with each letter he painted an ever more vivid picture to convince me to come. While I for my part felt an increasing distrust toward him. To be honest, I even started to be afraid of him, suspecting him of something, though I couldn’t have said exactly what. He was trying to drag me into something, that much I was sure of. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me, because distrust toward other people was the defensive wall I’d built around myself.

With every letter he grew more heartfelt, almost poetic, and so open toward the world that it terrified me. In one letter he said, you can’t imagine how the smell of sap from the woods fills this place, especially in the early morning. It’s a pleasure just to breathe. There are even crayfish in the lake, that’s the best proof of how clean the water is. The deer have gotten so comfortable with humans that they come and graze among the cabins. You can even stroke them. One time an owl perched on his windowsill, he wrote. One sultry night he opened the window. When he opened his eyes, there it was, right on the sill. He thought he was dreaming. He got up and shone a flashlight in its eyes, I’m telling you, he wrote, they shone like two diamonds. Another time he was lounging about on the deck and a squirrel came up to him. It stood on its hind legs, and they just stared at each other. He was mad at himself for not having any nuts around. This was the only place I’d be able to see a proper sunrise and sunset. It wasn’t at all the same as where I lived, in the city. It might not be the same anywhere else at all. If he didn’t have a cabin here he might never have known what sunrises
and sunsets really are, what humans have lost for good. Because what can they see in their cities? What can he see from his souvenir shop?

Of course, from all those letters over the years I could easily have figured out where the place was, but it never entered my head that it might be here. Thankfully, after a while he stopped writing so frequently. His letters got shorter and his invitations were less eager, I thought our chance acquaintance would eventually dry up. So all the more I’d no reason to wonder if this might be the place. The whole business had come and gone, the way things often happen. And if he’d been playing some kind of game, maybe he’d finally understood that I wasn’t the kind to play along.

By now our correspondence was limited to cards with best wishes and season’s greetings. He’d sometimes just scribble a few words in tiny handwriting in the margin to ask if he could hope I’d come visit one day. Or, Think about it, time’s passing and more and more plans come to nothing. Soon even the cards stopped coming. What I found worrying, though, was that the phone calls also ceased.

I started to wonder if something might have happened to him. Perhaps I should at least give him a call? I couldn’t muster up the courage. But whenever my phone rang, I’d pick up in hopes that it might be him. Previously, I’d never felt like answering his letters and cards, it was always an effort to do so; now, whenever the telephone rang I wanted it to be him. I came up with all kinds of explanations for his silence, despite the fact that I barely knew anything about him. For all the effusiveness of his letters there were never any confidences apart from the fact that he had a cabin by a lake in the woods and a souvenir shop in the city. It was as if he’d set firm boundaries on what he could write to me about. And in fact it was the same with me. Though of course I was supposedly the put-upon one in the relationship.

A year went by, and another. Then out of the blue he wrote me – a long, cordial, enthusiastic letter just like before, filled with the same efforts to entice me out there. You can’t imagine what a wonderful crop of mushrooms we have
this year, he wrote. Ceps, birch boletes, chanterelles, slippery Jacks, milk-caps, parasols – you name it. Parasols fried up in butter – makes your mouth water. Better than a veal cutlet any day of the week. Or milk-caps with onion in sour cream – delicious. And the best place to find them is where the graves are. No one picks them there. What are they afraid of? It makes no difference to me whether they’re from around the graves or not. They’re just mushrooms. Who cares what’s in the earth underneath? If you started thinking about that you’d have to stop walking, driving, building houses, you couldn’t even plow or sow, because the whole world till now is down there. We’d have to fly above the earth or move away from it completely. But where to?

Everyone’s picking, drying, preserving, frying. In the evenings there are mushrooms everywhere. Pints, quarts. You can’t imagine how much fun it is. Did you ever eat pickled wild mushrooms? They’re a real delicacy. There’s a woman here who’s a dab hand at pickling. Though for pickling, tricholomas are the best. And they’d be right in season if you came for a visit. Please let me know. Come try the pickled ones at least. I talked with her, she’ll pickle some for you if you come.

Where the graves are, that struck me. I picked up the phone impulsively to call him and say, I’m on my way. But I put it down again at once. And almost every day from then on I did the same thing. I’d pick up the phone and put it down again, telling myself I’d call the next day. Though each time something seemed to whisper to me that if I didn’t do it now I never would. But still I’d put it off till the next day. One time I actually dialed his number, waited till the second ring, then hung up. Another time I even heard his voice:

“Hello? Hello? Goddammit, someone’s having trouble getting through again. The hell with these telephones!”

I could barely keep from saying, it’s me, Mr. Robert. Then one time I had the day off. I poured myself a glass of brandy and drank it. Then a second, a third. Mr. Robert? It’s me. I’m coming. There was a moment of silence, I thought he must just be taken aback. Then I heard a kind of sigh:

“Finally. What made you decide?”

“I couldn’t resist those pickled mushrooms, Mr. Robert. I’ve never had pickled mushrooms.”

“I just wish you’d have let me know sooner. I don’t know if the woman’ll have enough time to do the pickling. I mean, she has to pick them first. I don’t even know if there are any tricholomas this time of year.”

“Don’t worry about that. I was only joking. Sooner or later I had to make up my mind, and I did.”

“I’m glad. I understand. I’ve been inviting you all these years.”

Yet I didn’t hear in his voice that he was as pleased as I might have expected from all those letters of his, especially the last one.

I arrived at his home towards evening on the Saturday. Because you don’t know where the place is, he said over the phone. You wouldn’t be able to find it on your own. So Sunday morning we set off together for the lake.

“This is a nice car. Must have cost a pretty penny. Me, I drive a baby Fiat, as you see.” His little Fiat was parked outside the building. “I just had the bodywork all redone. It was rusting away. And I work like a dog. All day long in the store. I don’t even break for lunch. In this country you can never earn any real money. Even selling souvenirs.” Then, when we got into my car: “I see you have a stereo as well. You’ve got all sorts of things.” He was so taken with the car that it brought on a whole litany of gripes. In fact, he forgot to give me directions for the lake. It was only when we were already in the woods, on the last stretch, that he suddenly snapped out of it:

“How do you know the way?”

“From your letters, Mr. Robert. And the map.”

“You must have looked at an ordinance map, the lake isn’t on the regular road maps. Good thing too.” A note of doubt sounded in his voice: “From my letters? I don’t recall describing the way.”

“All these years, there were so many letters, Mr. Robert. You can’t remember everything. Me, I tried to learn something from each one of them. It just goes
to show how carefully I read them. All the more because for a long time now I’ve wanted to come visit.”

“It’s true, I wrote endless letters.” He relaxed a little. “You didn’t always reply. You’d write back once to every two or three of my letters. And usually only a few lines. Or just a postcard, thanks, greetings, best wishes. I often used to think you weren’t interested. That it got on your nerves. Though after all …” I could tell he was upset. So I jumped in:

“The thing is, Mr. Robert, I hate writing letters. I’d much sooner call, or even just come, as you see.” I gave a laugh.

“You hate it?” He thought for a moment. “But it’s like talking with someone, confiding in them. Except on paper.”

“That’s exactly it – the paper.”

“What about the paper?”

“The letter’s on paper. All we’re doing is leaving unnecessary traces.”

“In that case why didn’t you let me know I should stop writing to you?”

“You were the only person who wrote to me from here, Mr. Robert.”

“How is that possible?”

“Let’s drop it.”

“We can drop it.” He didn’t say another word till we reached the lake.

But in his silence I could sense a growing mistrust. When we arrived, all he said was:

“Park the car over there.” Whereas he ought to have at least said, Here we are, take a look around. It’s like I said in my letters, just like I said. I didn’t need to make anything up.

He took our things from the trunk and with a jerk of the head as if to show where his cabin was, he said:

“Come on.”

He’d written so much about that cabin of his, yet he didn’t even suggest a tour.

“Let’s sit out on the deck awhile,” he said. “Should I put the parasol up or do you prefer it like this?” He carried out a little wicker table, two wicker armchairs,
two cans of beer and a couple of glasses. “See the logo? I bought these glasses that evening, as a souvenir.”

“How about that,” I said.

“Are you hungry maybe?” he asked. “Fine, then let’s just have a drink. I’ll make something to eat later.”

Something was clearly bothering him. As we drank our beers he hardly said a word, he just mumbled some triviality or other every so often. As for me, I was overcome by a feeling of helplessness in the face of everything that was happening to me. I couldn’t think of anything worth saying. So we sat there sipping our beers, and the sun rose and rose, as if it meant to reach the top of the sky and then, instead of starting to drop toward the west, it was intending to keep on rising upwards till it disappeared in the distance, breaking the age-old laws. So that even the sun seemed to have changed from those earlier years when it would set every day beyond the hills that could be seen in the distance. Nothing here looked like itself anymore. The smell of sap did still come from the woods, but I somehow couldn’t even believe in the sap. Its scent seemed no more than a faint trace, not as bitter as it should be. Back then it would make your nose wrinkle up and your eyes water, especially when sap was collected from the mature trees. Except that those trees grew only before my eyes, because as I gazed at it all I was looking inside myself. But I wasn’t able to retrieve much from my memory. Not even the old course of the Rutka. Maybe because the new lake dominated everything – earth, sky, woods, memory. All the more so because it resounded, it made a din – it fairly shook from all the shouts and cries and squeals and laughter, as if it was showing me how it was able to change the world. Its shores seemed to push deep into the woods. Or perhaps the woods had retreated before it of their own accord, making room for the sunbathing bodies that kept spilling from the cabins and the incoming cars, or emerging from the water. The water in turn was strewn with boats, canoes, floating mattresses, and with heads, heads in colorful caps, that looked as if they were crawling unhurriedly across the surface in every direction, without rhyme or
reason. They would disappear only to pop up again a few yards further on, or rise suddenly above the surface of the water as if they were trying to break loose of their bonds. There were multitudes of them. They reminded me of the water lilies, the ones called white lotuses, when they’d bloom in one of the broad bends of the Rutka. In the midst of all this I felt like a thorn able only to inflict pain, because I was evidently incapable of anything else. I decided to leave that same afternoon.