Primeval and Other Times (6 page)

On Sunday from the pulpit the priest compared the river’s exploits to the work of Satan, saying that every day, hour by hour, just like the water, Satan puts pressure on a man’s soul. That in this way a man is forced to make a constant effort to put up barriers. That the slightest neglect of daily religious duties weakens the barrier and that the tenacity of the tempter is comparable with the tenacity of the water. That sin trickles, flows and drips onto the wings of the soul, and the enormity of evil keeps flooding a man until he falls into its whirlpools and goes to the bottom.

After this sermon the priest went on feeling agitated for a long time, and could not sleep. He could not sleep for hatred of the Black River. He told himself it is impossible to hate a river, a stream of turbid water, not even a plant, not an animal, just a geographical feature. How was it possible for him, a priest, to feel something so absurd? To hate a river.

And yet it was hatred. The priest wasn’t even bothered about the sodden hay, but he was bothered by the mindlessness and blunt obstinacy of the Black River, its impalpability, selfishness and limitless vacuity. When he thought about it like that, hot blood pulsed in his temples and ran round his body faster. It began to carry him away. He would get up and dress, regardless of the time of night, and then leave the presbytery and go into the meadows. The cold wind sobered him up. He smiled to himself and said: “How can I get angry at a river, a common dip in the ground? A river is just a river, nothing more.” But once he was standing on its bank, it all came back. He was filled with disgust, revulsion, and rage. He would gladly have buried it in earth, from its source to its mouth. And he looked around to make sure no one could see him, then tore off an alder branch and lashed the shameless, rounded hulk of the river.

THE TIME OF ELI

“Go away. If I see you, I can’t sleep,” Genowefa told him.

“And if I don’t see you, I can’t live.”

She gazed at him with her light grey eyes and again he felt her touch the very centre of his soul with that look of hers. She put down her buckets and brushed a strand of hair from her brow.

“Bring the buckets and come down to the river with me.”

“What will your husband say?”

“He’s at the manor.”

“What will the workmen say?”

“You’re helping me.”

Eli grabbed the buckets and followed her down the stony track.

“You’ve grown into a man,” said Genowefa without turning round.

“Do you think about me when we don’t see each other?”

“I think about you whenever you think about me. Every day. I dream about you.”

“Oh God, why don’t you end it?” Eli abruptly put the buckets down on the path. “What sin have I or my fathers committed? Why must I suffer so?”

Genowefa stopped and looked at her feet.

“Don’t blaspheme, Eli.”

For a while they said nothing. Eli picked up the buckets and they went onwards. The path widened, so now they could walk abreast of each other.

“We won’t be seeing each other any more, Eli. I’m pregnant. I’m going to have the child in autumn.”

“It ought to be my child.”

“It has all become clear and sorted itself out …”

“Let’s run away to the city, to Kielce.”

“… Everything pushes us apart. You’re young, I’m old. You’re a Jew and I’m a Pole. You’re from Jeszkotle, I’m from Primeval. You’re single, and I’m married. You’re mobile, I’m fixed to the spot.”

They stepped onto the wooden pier, and Genowefa started removing the laundry from the buckets and plunging it into the cold water. The dark water rinsed out the light soapsuds.

“It was you that led me astray,” said Eli.

“I know.”

She put down the laundry, and for the first time leaned her head against his shoulder. He could smell the fragrance of her hair.

“I fell in love with you as soon as I saw you. Instantly. Love like that never ends,” she said.

“What is love?”

She didn’t answer.

“I can see the mill from my windows,” said Eli.

THE TIME OF FLORENTYNKA

People think madness is caused by a great, dramatic event, some sort of suffering that is unbearable. They imagine you go mad for some reason – because of being abandoned by a lover, because of the death of someone you love, or the loss of a fortune, a glance at the face of God. People also think madness strikes suddenly, all at once, in unusual circumstances, and that insanity falls on a person like a net, fettering the mind and muddling the emotions.

But Florentynka had gone mad in the normal course of things, you could say for no reason at all. Long ago she might have had reasons for madness – when her husband drowned in the White River while drunk, when seven of her nine children died, when she had miscarriage after miscarriage, when she got rid of the ones she didn’t miscarry, and the two times when she almost died as a result, when her barn burned down, when the two children left alive deserted her and disappeared into the world.

Now Florentynka was old, and had all her experiences behind her. Skinny as a rake and toothless, she lived in a wooden cottage by the Hill. Some of her cottage windows looked onto the forest, and others onto the village. Florentynka had two cows left which fed her, and also fed her dogs. She had a small orchard full of maggoty plums, and in summer some large hydrangea bushes bloomed in front of her house.

Florentynka went mad without anyone noticing. First her head ached and she couldn’t sleep at night. The moon was disturbing her. She told the neighbours it was watching her, that its vigilant gaze came through the walls and windowpanes, and its glowing light left traps for her in the mirrors, windowpanes, and reflections in water.

Then, in the evenings, Florentynka started going outside and waiting for the moon. It rose above the common, always the same, though in a different form. Florentynka shook her fist at it. People saw this fist raised at the sky and said: she’s gone mad.

Florentynka’s body was small and thin. After her period of non-stop child-bearing she was left with a round belly which now looked comical, like a loaf of bread stuffed under her skirt. After this time of child-bearing womanhood she did not have a single tooth left, true to the saying: “One child – one tooth.” Everything costs something. Florentynka’s breasts – or rather what time does with a woman’s breasts – were long and flat. They nestled against her body. Their skin was like tissue paper for wrapping the decorations after Christmas, and the fine blue veins were visible through it – a sign that Florentynka was still alive.

And those were days when women died sooner than men, mothers sooner than fathers, wives sooner than husbands, because they had always been the vessels that secreted mankind. Children hatched out of them like chicks from eggs. Then the egg had to find a way to glue itself back together. The stronger the woman, the more children she bore, and so the weaker she became. In the forty-fifth year of life, freed from the endless round of child-bearing, Florentynka’s body reached its own particular nirvana of sterility.

Ever since Florentynka had gone mad, cats and dogs had started frequenting her yard. Soon people began to treat her as a refuge for their consciences, and instead of drowning the kittens or puppies, they tossed them under the hydrangea bushes. At Florentynka’s hands, the two feeder-cows nourished a whole pack of animal foundlings. Florentynka always treated animals with respect, as she did people. In the morning she said “good day” to them, and whenever she put down a bowl of milk for them, she never forgot to say “bon appetit.” What’s more, she never called them just “dog” or “cat,” because it sounded as if she were talking about objects. She said “Mr Dog” and “Mr Cat,” like Mr Malak or Mr Chlipala.

Florentynka didn’t regard herself as a lunatic at all. The moon was persecuting her, like any normal persecutor. But one night something strange happened.

As usual when there was a full moon, Florentynka took her dogs and went out onto the hillside to curse the moon. The dogs lay down around her in the grass, and she shouted into the sky:

“Where is my son? How did you seduce him, you fat, silver toad? You beguiled my old man and dragged him into the water! I saw you in the well today, I caught you red-handed – you poisoned our water …”

A light went on in the Serafins’ house and a man’s voice shouted into the darkness.

“Shut up, you mad woman! We’re trying to sleep.”

“So go to sleep, sleep yourselves to death. Why on earth were you born if you’re only going to sleep?”

The voice fell silent, and Florentynka sat on the ground and stared at the silvery face of her persecutor. It was furrowed with wrinkles, rheumy-eyed, with marks left by some sort of cosmic cowpox. The dogs lay on the grass, and the moon was reflected in their dark eyes too. They sat quietly, and then the old woman laid a hand on the head of the big shaggy bitch. Just then she saw in her mind a thought that wasn’t hers, not even a thought, but the outline of a thought, an image, an impression. This something was alien to her thinking, not just because – as she sensed – it came from outside, but because it was completely different: monotone, distinct, deep, sensual, scented.

In it were the sky and two moons, one beside the other. There was a river – cold and joyful. There were houses – alluring and awful all at once. The line of the forest – a sight full of strange excitement. On the grass lay sticks, stones, and leaves filled with images and memories. Beside them, like paths, ran scent trails full of meanings. Under the ground ran warm, live corridors. Everything was different. Only the outlines of the world remained the same. Then with her human reason Florentynka realised that people were right – she had gone mad.

“Am I talking to myself?” she asked the bitch, who was resting her head on her knees.

She knew she was.

They went home. Florentynka poured the remains of the evening’s milk into bowls. She, too, sat down to eat. She wetted a piece of bread in the milk and chewed it with her toothless gums. As she ate she stared at one of the dogs, trying to say something to him through pure images. She emitted a thought, “imagining” something like: “I am, and I am eating.” The dog raised its head.

So that night, whether because of the persecutor-moon or her madness, Florentynka learned how to talk to her dogs and cats. The conversations relied on emitting images. What the animals imagined was not as concise and specific as human speech. It did not include thoughts, but it did have things seen from the inside, without the human distance that brings a sense of alienation. It made the world seem more friendly.

Most important for Florentynka were the two moons from the animals’ images. It was astonishing to find that animals saw two moons, and people only one. Florentynka could not understand it, so finally she stopped trying to. The moons were different; in a way they were even opposed to each other, but also identical at the same time. One was soft, rather damp, and tender. The other was hard as silver, shining and jingling merrily. So Florentynka’s persecutor had a dual nature, and this very feature made it even more of a threat to her.

THE TIME OF MISIA

When she was ten years old, Misia was the smallest girl in her class, and so she sat in the front bench. As she walked between the benches, the teacher always stroked Misia’s head.

On her way home from school Misia collected things her dollies needed: horse chestnut shells for plates, acorn tops for cups, and moss for pillows.

But once she got home, she couldn’t decide what she wanted to play. On the one hand she was drawn to the dolls, to changing their dresses, and feeding them dishes that were invisible, but which did actually exist. She was drawn to wrapping their stiff bodies in baby quilts and telling them simple, rag-doll stories for bedtime. Then, once she had picked them up, she’d suddenly feel disheartened. They weren’t Karmilla, Judyta, or Bobaska any more. Misia’s eyes saw flat eyes painted onto pink faces, reddened cheeks and mouths that were permanently sealed, for which no food could exist. Misia turned over the thing she had once regarded as Karmilla and gave it a spanking. She could feel she was hitting sawdust covered in material. The doll didn’t complain or protest. So Misia sat her with her pink face to the windowpane and stopped bothering with her. She went to rummage in her Mama’s dressing table.

It was wonderful to sneak into her parents’ bedroom and sit before the two-winged mirror that could even show things that were normally invisible – shadows in the corners, the back of your own head … Misia tried on the beads and rings, opened the little bottles and spent ages fathoming the mystery of lipstick. One day, when she was feeling especially disappointed with her Karmillas, she raised the lipstick to her mouth and painted it blood-red. The red of the lipstick set time in motion, and Misia saw herself in a few dozen years, just as she would die. She furiously wiped the lipstick off her mouth and went back to the dolls. She took their coarse, sawdust-stuffed paws in her hands and clapped them together soundlessly.

But she always went back to her mother’s dressing table. She’d try on her silk camisoles and high-heeled shoes. She’d make herself a floor-length dress out of a lacy petticoat. She’d look at her reflection in the mirror, and suddenly think she looked funny. “Wouldn’t it be better to make a ball dress for Karmilla?” she’d think, and excited by this idea, go back to the dolls.

One day, at the crossroads between her Mama’s dressing table and the dolls, Misia found a drawer in the kitchen table. In the drawer there was everything. The entire world.

First of all, the photographs were kept here. One of them showed her father in a Russian uniform with a pal. They were standing with their arms around each other, like good friends. Her father had a moustache from ear to ear. In the background a fountain was playing. Another one showed her Papa’s and Mama’s heads. Mama was in a white veil, and Papa had the same black moustache. Misia’s favourite picture was one of her mother with her hair cut short, wearing a headband. Mama looked like a real lady in it. Misia had her own photo in here too. She was sitting on a bench in front of the house with the coffee grinder on her knees. Above her head the lilac was in bloom.