Stone Upon Stone (47 page)

It was only those two years I spent in the hospital that I didn’t get my eggs blessed. But when I came home, the first Easter I boiled a whole
kopa
just like before. Though I didn’t have any of my own, I had to buy stamped ones from the co-op, because my chickens weren’t laying yet. Besides, I only had two chickens anyway, and a rooster. I’d just got the brood hen sitting on new ones, they hadn’t even hatched yet. I colored them all red with onion skins, because I didn’t feel up to tramping out to the fields for new rye, not on those lame legs of mine. I barely made it to the church. And I left home plenty early, if my legs had been healthy I could’ve gotten there and back again five times over. I thought I’d plop myself down in the pew and have a bit of a rest before the priest started the blessing, but I almost arrived too late, the priest was already going around doing the blessing. Fortunately he’d started from the side altar, and there was a whole crowd of people, in a lot of places they were having to stand, because our parish serves five villages, so before he got to my pew I’d already found a place between Mrs. Sekuła and some woman I didn’t know.

Except that when I leaned over to untie the scarf, because the basket was wrapped in mother’s old headscarf, the walking stick fell from my hand and crashed to the ground so loud it was like a thunderclap in the church. The noise went all the way up to the ceiling. Even the organ gave a groan in the choir stalls. Right away every head turned in my direction and frowned. The priest stopped the sprinkler in midair and followed where everyone was looking. I got all embarrassed, and for a moment I regretted wanting to get the eggs blessed. Why couldn’t I have waited till next Easter, maybe I’d be walking better by then.

As if that wasn’t enough, I couldn’t loosen the scarf, because I’d tied the ends firmly so it wouldn’t come undone on the way, and the priest was almost there. Plus I needed to kneel. How could I kneel when one leg was
completely stiff and the other could barely bend either? All my efforts came to nothing, because the priest hurried by like a storm. And though Mrs. Sekuła helped me, and the other woman too, we didn’t manage to get the scarf off in time, and I only got a few drops of holy water on my hands, none of it fell on the eggs and they didn’t get blessed. So they didn’t taste the way they should. They tasted like you’d just gotten them from the hen and boiled them and you were eating them. Though at least I didn’t have to regret not having gone. There’d been worse times and I’d always gone, my legs weren’t that much of an excuse.

When I worked in the district administration, the fact was I was a government worker, and the times weren’t right for blessing eggs. Still, when Holy Saturday came around I’d leave work during the day, I’d say I have to go get my eggs blessed. I didn’t hide it. And even when I got transferred to the quotas department it was the same, I’d say I need to go get my eggs blessed. Though the quotas department wouldn’t employ just anyone, they were always holding meetings to get us to collect more and more. You often had to be hard as nails with folks. They hadn’t even harvested their crop yet, it was still standing in the fields, and here we were sending all kinds of deadlines, provide your quota, provide your quota, anyone who doesn’t is in deep trouble. But it all came from the higher-ups. Someone up there was setting the deadlines. It must have been someone that thought he was more important than the land. But only God is more important than the land, for anyone that believes in him. If you don’t believe in God, then the land is the most important of all. And you can’t hurry it either with deadlines or with whips. If you got mad at it for not obeying you it would just say, kiss my ass. But what could we do?

There were times my hand went numb from writing, because we’d write and write, directives, reminders, fines. My eyes would be red as a rabbit’s. I’d get up in the morning and I could barely see. Mother would ask me, why on earth are your eyes so red. Why? From writing. Father would say, sure it’s
from writing. If that was the case no one would go to school, because there all they do is write. There wouldn’t be any priests or professors. It’s from drinking. Yesterday he barely made it over the threshold, then right away he crashed down on his bed like a hog. You were asleep, you didn’t see it. You just keep drinking. At work they even told me I should go see the doctor, maybe he could give me eyeglasses. Some people at work had glasses. Sąsiadek did, and this one guy in the insurance department, I think someone in highways did, the local policeman used to sometimes put them on as well when he got a written order to go somewhere and he couldn’t read where. And three of the women clerks wore glasses, but I didn’t like the looks of any of them. I tried Sąsiadek’s on one time, I actually looked pretty good, but it was like staring through fog.

Some people thought I’d taken the easy way out, but what was easy about it? After you’d dealt with them, people would come and curse me and the government to high heaven. At times my office would be bursting at the seams with all the papers I had to send out. And there was as much again stacked in the hallway or even outside. They’d bring in the letters they’d been sent and put them on my desk and say, you go and mow, and harvest, and thresh, you go collect it all. A good few of the women would point to their ass and tell me where I could stick my papers. All I could do was throw my hands up and keep repeating, it’s not me, it’s not my decision. Then whose is it? You’re all the damn same, the lot of you!

Of course, sometimes I’d help people out. One guy, I’d move his deadline back a bit, another I’d reduce his quota by a couple hundred pounds, with someone else I’d at least advise them how to write an appeal and where to send it. Then people would want to thank me somehow. How does one farmer say thank you to another? He invites him for vodka. Vodka isn’t a bribe. It isn’t that one person gives and the other one takes, no – both of them drink. So I got to drinking quite a bit. Actually, in a job like that you can’t not drink. Plus people think anything can be arranged with vodka,
more than through God. And you never can tell. Sometimes it helps to have a drink, and sometimes even praying doesn’t help. But if you want to live among people, you have to drink. Because then they accept you as one of them. And that means something.

In addition, the pub was virtually just over the road from the district offices, all you had to do was cross the road. And everyone knows gratitude isn’t something you measure out, you do this much for me and I’ll do this much for you, so it rarely ended with just a single bottle. Because gratitude isn’t in the pocket, it’s in the soul. And I don’t care how much of a schemer a man is, after a bottle his soul has to come out. And at that point it’s the soul that’s standing the drinks, the soul that’s paying, and moving from one soul to another is just like entering someone’s house.

Also, someone or other always sat down with you, because even if he didn’t have an actual reason to be grateful to you, he wanted to be grateful just in case. Then someone else would come along, then someone else again, often it was whoever found themselves in the pub at the time. Because who doesn’t want to be a soul instead of just a body? When it came time to shut the pub, Jasiński, the manager, would lock up on the outside, and inside we’d carry on drinking. At most the prices would go up some, he had to earn a bit extra too on top of his salary. He’d go lie down on the chairs behind the counter and we’d drink on. I’m telling you, we drank like it was our souls celebrating because they were in heaven, and not us in a pub. Wake me up on your way out. Come off it, Jasiński, who’s leaving, where would we go. We’re not gonna come all the way down to earth again. We poured drinks left, right, and center, wake up Jasiński, we need another bottle. Because I was Eagle again. Come on now! You’ve abandoned us God, good job Eagle’s here. Come on now! Soon as Eagle’s here, every tear we shed is one dead enemy body! Come on now! Eagle’s in the village with his men, they’re drinking at young Marysia Król’s, there’s going to be a parade through the village, bring your flour and lard! Though it often ended sadly,
one or another guy killed, a guy gets killed so many times and he has to keep on living. You were Eagle and now you’re a piece of crap, not a government official. Wake up, Jasiński, another bottle!

The next day you’d be sitting half dead at your desk, your head would be splitting and your belly would be aching, and on top of everything you’d have to listen to folks complaining about how hard life was. No one cared that maybe you had it even harder, but you weren’t going to take some form and go complain, who to? To God? Why is this happening to me, God?

Oftentimes I’d barely make it home when I had to be off to work, there’d only be time to have a quick mouthful of sour milk or cabbage juice. And though home was close by, once the devil began leading you astray he’d push you any which way, sometimes you even ended up back where you started. He’d mix your head up so bad you’d almost get lost in your own village. The only thing for it was to go from one house to the next. Luckily, in those days the houses were close together, like beads in a rosary, it was like they were only separated by the winter insulation on the outside, so you could count off the houses as you went, Hail Mary, full of grace, Our Father. Today almost all the houses are new, it’s like someone snapped the rosary and the beads got scattered to the four winds, and you’ll never be able to pray that way again.

When you get there, you still have to find the door, and find the handle in the door. There were times it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. I’d be looking and looking, and father would stand on the other side of the door and not open it.

“Open the door, father, it’s me, Szymek.”

“Open it your self, you drunken lout.”

“I can’t find the handle.”

“You hear that, mother? He can’t find the handle.”

“Come on, Józef, open the door for him, he’s your own son.”

“He’s a devil, he’s no son of mine. Do you hear him scraping his claws on
the door? I’m not letting any devil into my house, not while it’s still mine. Keep scraping, Antichrist, scrape till your claws are worn away.”

“Open the door, Józef,” mother would plead with him.

“Get up and open it yourself.”

“I would, but I can’t get up. Open the door, Józef. Even a prodigal son is still a son.”

“I had sons, but they all left. Anything that’s good, it either dies or it goes away, only what’s bad stays behind.”

One time when he refused to open the door for me, I somehow managed to find the handle, but it turned out he’d put the hook on inside. I started hammering with my fists, I knew he was standing right there, and in the end I was so furious I kicked at the door and I shouted:

“Soon as mother dies, I’m out of here! Nothing’s gonna keep me!” And I walked off and sat on a rock outside the house. The night was maybe halfway through. I’d barely sat down when someone joined me.

“Shift up there a bit.”

I looked, and it was Grandfather Łukasz, the one that had run away to America before the first war. The moon was bright as a shiny coin, the stars were like grains on the threshing floor, I couldn’t fail to know him. It even made me sober up a bit. They say that in such cases you have to ask what their soul needs. But what can a soul from America need? It’s only village souls that are always in need of something. Is it you, grandfather, I ask. Then greetings to you. How are things over there in America? They said you made a fortune, now I see you’re back. Maybe it’s true that when a person dies, his soul goes back to where he was born. Though why did you have to take it all the way to America in the first place? You paid its passage, and now it’s back. You should have left it here when the Cossacks came looking for you, they wouldn’t have harmed it, and people would have comforted it somehow or other. Then you wouldn’t be drawn back here after you died. Was it so bad
for you over there in America? If it makes you feel any better, you wouldn’t have had it any easier here. Here it’s the same as America, just on the other side of the world. Because America is anywhere we’re not, grandfather. Tell me at least, what’s it like in the next world? You killed the overseer, you know better than other people. You did the right thing, whether or not he was a bastard. A man often feels like killing someone, but these days there aren’t any more overseers. It’s a different system now. You probably don’t know what a system is? You know, like a government. You killed an overseer and you had to run away, and your grandson’s a government worker. You must have dreamed of having someone like that in the family? Here you are, he’s sitting right next to you on a rock. He’s a bit drunk, but that’s because of you, grandfather. With you grandparents, whatever popped into your head you lost yourselves dreaming about it, and because of that, afterwards your grandchildren have to drink. You’re all in the next world, your grandchildren are still in this one, and it’s all one big circle. And circles can’t be straightened out. So it’s better to go to the pub than go away, because it’s the same thing, just closer. Though sometimes, when there’s a full moon like tonight, I feel like tying myself up on a chain and howling. I’d be a better dog than our Twisty. I’d smell thieves, and I’d smell your soul, grandfather. You wouldn’t have to worry that no one would recognize you. Did you ever see a moon like that in America? You only ever get them here, over the village. Like someone took an ax and cut a hole in the sky. You could toss in a fishing net and catch yourself some fish. Do you know if fish from the sky are the same as fish from the river, grandfather?

We talked on and on, almost till sunup. He didn’t say a word, while I talked about this and about that. In the morning father came outside and gazed up at the sky.

“This is quite some weather. I don’t know why the sky looks so high up or so deep? Imagine having a farm like that sky. On a big plain. All you’d need
to do would be pray, and everything would sprout and grow and flower. Not the tiniest cloud in sight. A sun like Jesus’s eye. So then, maybe you could come do some work in the fields?”

“No way, not when I haven’t slept. I’ll do it tomorrow.”