Stone Upon Stone (61 page)

“Kneel down,” father grunted.

I dropped instantly to my knees, the chain rattled around my neck.

“Say all the deadly sins,” he said. “Beat yourself on the chest. Ask God to forgive you. And say three Hail Marys so Our Lady will help you as well.” He knelt next to me. He clasped his hands on his stomach, half closed his eyes, and started praying. The sparrows were chirping above us all around the barn, as if they were mad at being disturbed. I repeated all the seven deadly sins like father told me to, but none of them resembled the sin I’d committed. I wondered to myself, what’s father hanging me for if it’s only the deadly sins that God doesn’t forgive?

All of a sudden the barn door creaked softly. I turned my head and in a patch of light at the edge of the threshing floor I saw mother. I looked over to father, but he seemed not to have heard her, he was still praying, his hands on his stomach, his eyes half closed.

“There’s no wrongdoing so bad you can’t forgive your own child,” said mother. “And he’s your child. Bad or good, he’s yours.”

I suddenly twisted my whole body around toward mother, the chain rattled again, and I called out:

“Mama, what’s father hanging me for? I can just go climb the highest poplar across the dike and throw myself off!”

“Even if you kill him, he’ll still be yours.” This time it was like she hadn’t heard me. “Except you won’t be his father anymore, you won’t even be a human being.”

At that moment father’s hands parted on his stomach and came to rest heavily on his knees. He seemed to be holding back tears under his half-closed eyelids. After a moment he wiped his eyes and said in a tired voice:

“Take him away. I’m going to kneel here awhile yet.”

Another time, mother took me with her on a pilgrimage after the harvest.
A whole crowd of people went from our village and from other villages. Old folks, children, men, women, young girls and young men, married folks, single family members and whole families. The priest was there, and the organist, and Franciszek the sacristan. There were banners and the picture of Our Lady from our church. We walked from dawn till dusk with two breaks for a rest and one for dinner. Though some people wouldn’t have rested at all, they’d have just kept on walking and walking. At night we mostly stopped in the villages, though one time we slept in the woods in the open air, and another time in haystacks that belonged to a manor. The breaks were also breaks from singing, because they sang the livelong day. Some folks even ignored the organist, who was supposed to be leading the singing, and they sang on in the breaks, mostly the people up front.

People went hoarse from all the singing, and after a couple of days it was nothing but rasping and croaking and barking till it hurt your ears to listen. The organist, it was like one of his lungs had dried up, he kept ordering more and more frequent breaks and he’d cough longer and longer after each hymn. But people didn’t pay any mind to his coughing either and when he didn’t begin the singing they’d start up themselves, and the organist had to join in whether he wanted or no. The keenest singer of all was Zdun. Maybe because people said he should have been the organist, if he’d only been a bit younger. Because apparently it used to be that if someone wanted a Veni Creator to be sung at their wedding so you could hear it all around the church, they’d always pick Zdun, and only the organist would accompany him. On the way back home Zdun actually lost his voice from all the singing and he had to communicate with people in sign language. My mother went hoarse as well, for two months afterward she kept drinking chamomile tea for her throat. It wasn’t really surprising, given that the whole way we were walking in a cloud of dust. Twice there was a bit of drizzle, otherwise it was nothing but sunshine, and people got lumps in their throats from the dust and dryness.

I didn’t sing because I didn’t yet know the hymns, but my throat was dry as well and I kept spitting the whole time. Mrs. Orysz was walking in front of us and she moved farther forward because she said the Pietruszkas’ kid wouldn’t stop spitting. Mrs. Waliszyn actually got into an argument with mother, saying I’d spat on her skirt, she showed it and said, see, are you telling me the little brat didn’t spit on me, take a look. Then he’ll try to tell me I sat in some shit in the dust. I spat on Mikuta’s boots as well because he happened to be passing by and he got in the way of my spit. But it hit the tops, he didn’t feel it and he just carried on walking.

Mother gave me a rosary so I could say a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys instead of daydreaming. To begin with I carried it in my hands. But it felt awkward, like I had my hands tied together. Besides, even if you carry a feather for long enough it starts to feel as heavy as a whole chicken, or a goose or duck. So the rosary got to feel as heavy as a chain. I hung it round my neck and my arms immediately felt like wings.

We happened to be walking past a fruit orchard. There were raspberry apples shining in among the leaves. I could see mother was lost in song, her head held high, her eyes half closed, because we had the sun in our eyes. Below, the cloud of dust came up over our knees. To make matters worse Kolasa was walking next to us and he had a stiff leg from the war, it was like he was dragging that leg deliberately through the dust. Everyone was always moving away from him and telling him to go walk at the back, but he insisted on being in the middle.

To begin with I drifted away a bit so I wouldn’t be right next to mother. Then I moved to the edge of the procession, and from there I slipped into the orchard. At that moment they were singing O Mary, we greet thee, and no one noticed me. Besides, everyone had gotten used to people disappearing off to the side to go to the toilet, they could have thought that’s what I was doing. I ran to the apple tree with the most fruit and started picking as
fast as my hands would go. I’d gotten an armful when I suddenly heard a shout through the trees:

“Get him, Azor! Catch the thief! I’ll teach you to steal apples, you little bastard!”

But before Azor could reach me I was already back in the pilgrimage. The dog ran to the edge of the orchard and stopped in its tracks dumbfounded, because he’d been chasing one person and all at once he saw a whole swarm of people, all of them singing into the bargain. Instead of barking, he started this terrible howling. A moment later the farmer appeared out of the orchard, he shouted something and waved his walking stick and I thought he was about to chase me through the procession. I decided that if push came to shove I’d shelter under the banner. But all of a sudden he came to a halt too and fell silent, maybe it had occurred to him that he ought to go on a pilgrimage as well, because he’d racked up a whole lot of sins, that was for sure.

“Quiet, Azor, quiet,” he said, calling the dog to heel. He took his hat off, and we walked on.

Later, two women up front started an argument, one of them said the other one had stepped on her heel so hard she’d made it bleed. Actually you couldn’t even figure out who’d done what to who, they were jabbering so loud you could barely hear one of them saying the other one walked like a cart horse, the other one said the first one waddled like a duck, one of them sang like she only wanted Our Lady to hear her, the other one sounded like kasha boiling in the pan. The first one said the other one’s husband ran around after other women, but you couldn’t blame him because who could stand being with a dragon like her. The other one said the first one went chasing after other men herself. They were virtually at each other’s throats, so maybe it wasn’t just because of one stepping on the other one’s heels. People from way the other end of the procession started calling out:

“Hey, quiet down at the front there! We can’t hear ourselves sing! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”

One guy with a pockmarked face lifted up his walking stick and started pushing his way forward shouting:

“Get out of here! Get out! Damn nuisances! Witches!”

Other folks got mad with him in turn, asking him what he was doing pushing through like that. The way to God was the same whether you were at the front or the back. The important thing was to have a pure soul.

“Jesus and Mary!” someone yelled. “Goddammit! Are you blind?!”

“Stop cussing!” people told them off. “We took an oath there wouldn’t be any bad language!”

I took advantage of the commotion and made my way back to mother.

“Where were you?” she asked me sharply.

But right at that moment, in an attempt to calm the procession down the organist started singing:

“Sing out, our lips, and tell the Virgin’s praise!…”

The rest of the hymn followed from the crowd:

“Sing of her glory to the end of days!…” Mother joined in too.

I took an apple from inside my shirt and started eating. I ate four of them or more before the hymn ended. I was just finishing the last one when mother asked:

“Where did you get that?”

“From the orchard. We passed by an orchard, didn’t you see, mama?”

“Throw it away,” she snapped.

“It’s ripe, mama!” I said almost in a shout. “Do you want a bite?”

“I said throw it away. And where’s your rosary?”

It turned out the rosary had ended up on my back when I’d run from the orchard to get away from Azor. Or maybe I’d twisted it back there when I was sticking apples under my shirt.

“You should be embarrassed,” she said, all upset, though she was talking
in a whisper. “You’re on a pilgrimage to repent your sins, and here you go stealing. He’s a punishment from God, this boy. Are you ever going to mend your ways?”

Luckily Duda and his daughter were walking right behind us. Duda was as quarrelsome as the worst old woman, in the breaks between hymns he was forever arguing with someone, even his own daughter if there wasn’t anyone else. She was an old maid and ugly as sin, but she was a real angel. It rarely did her any good though. Duda started grumbling again now:

“This isn’t the right way. I’m telling you, we’ve been on the wrong road the whole time. This isn’t the road. It’s nothing but dust, and there’s sight nor sound of the highway.”

No one wanted to get into it with Duda about the road, because it wasn’t the first time he’d said it. Besides, there was nothing but women around, the men were all closer to the back where they could at least have a bit of a natter. The women, even when they weren’t singing they were whispering prayers or saying them in their heads, or counting their rosaries that they wore wrapped around their hands. But one of them couldn’t take any more of Duda’s griping and she said the priest was leading the pilgrimage, not Duda, and the priest knew which way was right and which way was wrong better than him. He wasn’t going to get us lost, after all. Duda should cut it out or go take his own route if this one was the wrong one. But it didn’t do any good, she just spurred Duda into attacking her and the priest as well, he said he’s just a boy, not a priest, he’s still wet behind the ears, all he knows is book learning. Her he went after for defending the priest, she was a young’un just like him, she was probably always hanging around the presbytery trying to get in his pants. How was a priest any better than a regular guy? The woman went red, she lowered her head and started quickly saying her rosary. The other women lost themselves in prayer the same, because none of them felt like tangling with Duda. Mother was the only one that told him off:

“Shame on you, Duda. There’s a child present.” This was meant to refer to me. She hugged my head to her side, forgetting about the apples.

Duda carried on bellyaching about the road, saying it was the wrong way.

“Whether it’s the wrong one or the right one, it’s leading us to God, daddy.” His daughter Weronka tried to cheer him up. “Why don’t you think about what you’re going to ask him when we get there? Or would you like some bread and cheese?”

We stopped for the night in some village and we were already lying on hay in a barn when mother remembered about the stolen apples. Had I thrown them away? But she wasn’t mad.

“It’s just that my throat is dry,” she said.

I still had four. I pulled one out of my shirt and pressed it into her hand in the dark.

“Here, mama,” I said. “It was such a big orchard, the wind’ll blow down more than this, or they’ll fall on their own.”

She took the apple, but it was like her hand was lifeless.

“It’s a sin, Szymek,” she said.

“Then let it be my sin,” I said. “You can eat it, mama.” To encourage her I took out another apple and started crunching away loudly. But I didn’t hear her eating. Though maybe she just ate real quiet, or after I’d fallen asleep.

It was black as pitch in there, but you could hear absolutely everything, even from the farthest corners of the barn, who was doing what. Some people were eating, others were rubbing their aching feet, others still were saying their prayers, and some were already snoring. It was only the young folks that evidently weren’t tired from the journey, and they were messing around like there was no tomorrow, every other minute you could hear a squeal from one of the girls accompanied by guffaws from the guys. In the
end someone couldn’t take it any longer and they shouted from the threshing floor down below:

“Get to sleep, damn you! Or if you have to fool around, go outside!”

Silence filled the darkness for a moment, then things slowly started up again. Close to us some people took out a bottle of vodka, because as well as the smell, they were given away by the sound of the bottle as they pulled it from their lips. You could even tell if it was a man or a woman drinking. From time to time there was a gulping sound when someone must have taken too big a swig, or maybe their throat was sore from singing and the drink wouldn’t go down smoothly.

For the longest time I couldn’t get to sleep. The hay was prickly, and folks were snoring on every side. I could never have imagined that people snored in such different ways, even when they were all together in one big group. Some of them were quiet as anything, like they were just whistling a little under their breath to show what a good sleep they were having. Some were a little noisier, but it was still just as if they were spitting out the last remnants of their singing in their sleep. With others it came from the lungs, but it was still bearable. Worst of all were the old men, it was like they were struggling through a thicket of blackthorn and juniper and haw, or they were crossing pastureland and getting deeper and deeper into mud. At times one of them would make a cracking sound like he’d just torn down the trunk of a willow tree, then sat on the trunk and he was gasping. Though it could also have been a woman. On the pilgrimage there were women built like men, women like stoves, like barrels, sacks, drums, not just the skinny quarrelsome ones, or the spitfires or the painted young things. Some people in the corner nearby started giggling in a funny way, as if they were trying to be as quiet as they could, almost secretly, but you could tell they felt like laughing so loud the whole barn would hear them, maybe even the whole world. I thought they must be tickling each other, probably under the arms, because
when you’re tickled under your arms you want to laugh so bad you feel like jumping out of your skin.