A Treatise on Shelling Beans (20 page)

“This is a revolt!” someone exclaimed.

“A revolt?” He hiccupped so hard his whole body swayed. “Good for you. I was in a revolt one time myself. You can see where that got me. But maybe you’ll do better out of it. All right, just let me through now. For some reason I feel like going to bed tonight.”

“It’s a real revolt!” another boy shouted virtually in his ear.

“We’ve smashed all the windows! Now we’re going to burn the school to the ground! All the huts!” They were yelling over one another across his nodding head, forming an ever tighter circle around him.

“I believe you that it’s real,” he murmured. “I believe everything nowadays, boys. All right, let me through. I want to sleep, to sleep.”

Then out of the middle of the crowd there came a shout, though afterwards no one fessed up to it:

“We should hang
him!
He’s so drunk he won’t even feel it!”

Someone else objected. But a third person screamed:

“A revolt’s a revolt! It’s all the same who we hang! There’s no better or worse choices! Put the noose on him!”

He’d been so drunk he could barely stand, but he sobered up at once:

“For what, boys? For what?”

“We have to. It’s a revolt.” Whoever said it, their voice cracked as they slippd the noose around his neck.

What do you think about that? I mean, he was the only one of them we
actually liked. Of all the teachers. Whether you wanted to learn to play an instrument or not. Actually most boys didn’t, but still all of us really liked him. Maybe it was just that we didn’t know the rules of revolts, and we were bursting with rage. He on the other hand, he must have known, because he treated it like a joke.

“Hang away, boys, if you must. Just let me have a drink first.” He took out his bottle, from this pocket here. “Be a pity to leave even a little drop.” Though I think the bottle was probably empty, it kind of rang hollow when he lifted it to his lips. “Well, at least I’ll die like a true artist. At the hands of those dearest to me. That’s something.” At that point he checked the noose, which they’d already tied around his neck. “Are you sure this thing will hold, boys? It doesn’t seem that strong. I’d prefer not to have to come back.”

We started to lead him along by the rope, looking for a place to hang him. But it turned out there weren’t any protruding beams, or any trees nearby. Everyone racked their brains about where to do it. The music teacher was getting antsy:

“Well then, boys? I’m ready.”

At that moment someone ran out in front of the others and kicked his legs from under him. He dropped to the ground, his hat fell off, and the bottle he’d been holding in his hand slid off somewhere.

“My bottle! My bottle!” he gasped. “Don’t let it get smashed!” Then more calmly, with a touch of resentment, as he struggled to get up: “Too soon, boys. I’m not hanging yet.”

And what do you make of this, the same boys that tied the noose around his neck hurried forward to help him up. Others looked for the bottle in the darkness. Someone put his hat back on his head, someone brushed off his clothes. The one that had brought him down, the others beat him and kicked him. Then the whole mob together walked him back to the hut where he lived.

“Too bad, boys,” he said in farewell. “I’d finally have been done with it all. Find me my bottle tomorrow. Right now I want to sleep.”

And that was the end of the revolt. No, they didn’t show the film again.
Besides, who would have wanted to watch it now? The power came on the next day, as usual. There were no musters, reports, speeches. All they did was make us clean up. They had us bring in the instruments that had been thrown out of the windows. Lessons and shop and work were all put on hold. We got breakfast and lunch and dinner as before, not reduced portions. Right away glaziers came in and started putting in new windows, starting with the rec room. Then the insurance people came to assess the damage. So it seemed like our revolt had been insured. Nor could you tell from the teachers that there’d been any kind of rebellion. They even got more lenient. In any case none of them raised his voice or frowned. The commandant responded to our bows, which came as a shock, because up till then he’d hardly ever nodded back when you bowed to him. Mostly he didn’t notice you. Unless something he didn’t like caught his eye, in which case he could even slap you in the face. In front of everyone else, to make it worse.

Our biggest surprise, though, was the music teacher. Not the fact that he was going around sober. It was that when he was sober he was a completely different person, quite unlike himself you might say. Lost in thought, older, and he rarely showed himself. No, we never did find his bottle, though we did what he asked and scoured the entire parade ground the following morning. That was the strangest thing of all, it was like the bottle had vanished into thin air. I’d understand if there’d been grass or bushes, but the whole square was covered with gravel. There was nothing on it but gravel and huts. We even wanted to buy him a new one, because it wasn’t just an ordinary bottle, these days flat bottles like that are everywhere, but back then there were only round ones. Where he got it from I couldn’t say. I think he went looking for it himself as well, because he’d sometimes come out in the morning and walk around the parade ground.

Otherwise, nothing happened. One time only, once the windows had been fixed in the rec room they had us all assemble there. There was the commandant, the teachers, and us. They told us to think about our revolt, about whether it had been worth it. Whether we’d have it easier without the school. No one said
anything about the film. The whole affair was pretty short. The only other thing they said was that until order was restored, until the damage had been repaired, they were giving us some free days to think about everything. We were being punished by being made to think, as one of the boys put it.

So, whereas to begin with we’d reckoned that things wouldn’t end there and it was only the calm before the storm, eventually we stopped suspecting anything, since they’d told us to reflect on it all. Some of the boys even began to regret we’d not at least burned down the teachers’ hut.

Maybe a week passed, maybe less, in any case we still had free days, and here there was a muster at the crack of dawn. Not a normal one, but like something unusual had happened. We ran out onto the parade ground and there were three military jeeps. You know, cross-country vehicles. They had us fall into line two deep, and told us we’d be questioned after breakfast.

They sent us off to eat. They must have been eating also, because they waited a long time. The sun was already well up in the sky when they began calling us in to the rec room for questioning. Not in alphabetical order, not according to age, not team by team or room by room. At random. There had to be some principle at work, but we couldn’t figure out what it was. It wasn’t even who had shouted the most during the revolt, who had been the loudest or the most involved. Nor was it who had been the first to suggest we should make a noose and hang someone. Though everyone knew who that had been. They started with one of the boys who happened to have fallen sick after the revolt and had had a fever.

They were seated at a table, a handful of civilians, a few military, and our commandant at the end. The table stood by the far wall of the room. It was a long one, made of several tables pushed together and covered with a red cloth. There were two vases with flowers, and everyone had glasses of tea in front of them. It even looked nice, they smiled at us in a friendly way, not just the civilians but the army guys as well. They asked us their questions politely, no one raised his voice, it was like they’d just come by to chat with us.

What did they ask us? Most of all about the teachers, as if the main thing was
whether they treated us well. For example, do we often ask the teachers questions, and how they answer. What do they say when the power goes out. Or what do they say when the food is worse than usual. Do we ask them about that. That question none of us could understand, since the food was always worse than usual. They must have known that. But they didn’t ask anyone what we actually ate. If they had, they might have learned that a great deal depends on food. It’s not always about a film. The film, it was the first time they’d shown it. Whereas we ate every day. Things depend on food, and on what you eat it from and with what, on the plates, spoons, knives, forks. Us, we always ate from beat-up old mess kits. We’d been told the army had donated them to the school. But no one believed it. There were rumors they’d been gathered from dead soldiers at the front. So you could imagine that you’re sitting there eating from a mess plate, and next to you is the dead guy whose plate it was. Even if you had a nice pork chop on the plate, do you think you’re going to enjoy it? Heck no, we never got pork chops. If there was any meat, at most it’d be a piece of liver or spleen, or very rarely heart or kidneys. All the time it was kasha, potatoes, potatoes, kasha. Pearl barley it was. To this day I can’t stand it. The soup was usually watery. Often the boys would just dip their spoons in it, then flick it over each other, they were so mad. They’d start at one table, and pretty soon the whole cafeteria would be splashing soup over one another. Little thing like soup, but it could have led to a revolt. The spoons and forks were made of cheap aluminum, they’d get bent and you’d keep having to straighten them. Not to mention that most of the forks were missing a prong, sometimes two. And there weren’t enough knives to go around, when there was something to cut up, of course. Luckily they weren’t needed that often. And they really didn’t know about all that?

With the teachers, it was like they were trying to analyze them in detail. But there wasn’t much we could tell them, because in our eyes all the teachers were alike. Besides, what was the point of dwelling on the teachers when it was all about the film breaking off when the power went out? Some of the boys did their best to tell them about the man in the film, and about Mary. That he kept trying
on hat after hat. But they interrupted as if that was of no interest to them. At one moment apparently one of the military guys even smiled, though it wasn’t me being questioned at the time. In my opinion, first they should have watched the film, and only then questioned us. And it should have been stopped in the same place it was for us. Maybe then they would have understood how a revolt can break out. You don’t think they’d get it? You reckon they’d think it had to be more than the film? Or that they wouldn’t understand how it could all be about the hat? I have to disagree with you there.

In any case, they wouldn’t listen to anything about the film. And as far as the revolt itself was concerned, they asked us for instance what we shouted, they told us to tell them if not the exact words, because we might not remember, then at least the gist of what was said. They also asked each of us what each boy did during the revolt. As if each person could be doing something different in the middle of a revolt. A revolt means everyone does everything together, and no one’s aware of what they’re doing individually. One person shouts, and everyone thinks they’re the one who shouted. Or like one person’s at the front of the crowd, but everyone will think they were at the front. It’s like in a war, one man dies and all the others think they’ve died as well. If someone is alive it’s only because there has to be someone who remembers that the others died. Running away is the only thing you do on your own.

Maybe they got something out of us after all. You know how things are in that kind of questioning. You don’t want to say something, yet you don’t even realize you’ve already said it. You have nothing to confess to, but between the lines you confess all the same. In general, in questioning what they ask is more important than what you answer. The questions contain the answers they’re looking for. Your guilt is already in the questions, even if you don’t feel guilty. Whether you say you don’t remember, or whether you say nothing, you confess. Especially with silence, because that way all you’re doing is confirming your guilt. Inside you is enough guilt for every possible question. Even those that no one has ever
asked, and maybe no one ever will. Because what is a person if not a question about guilt? The only good thing is that at least he rarely demands an answer of himself. It’s just as well, because he wouldn’t be able to give it.

On top of everything we were afraid they’d arrest us all, so we could have accidentally given various things away. They asked us for example about the ringleaders, as one of the army guys called them. He explained right away that that meant the ones who had led us, who had been the most eager, who had shouted the loudest and the most, that we should give their names. Each of us gave a different name, so maybe it turned out we were all ringleaders, because they didn’t arrest any of us.

But the matter couldn’t end there. And it didn’t. You know who they arrested? That’s right, the music teacher, who’d done nothing wrong whatsoever. Maybe someone had let slip that we were going to hang him. That was enough for them. That was enough of a clue. Because no other clue led to anyone else. True, later on word went around that he’d been under an obligation to inform them about anything that happened in the school. And he’d failed in that obligation. But you know what it means to say “word went around,” so none of us believed it. How could it have been him, the music teacher. A guy who was almost always drunk, aside from anything. What could he have seen or heard when he was drunk. His eyes were permanently misted over, his ears must have been filled with other sounds. The sounds might have been in his eyes too, because often he didn’t know which way he was going. There were times he couldn’t find his own room. He needed to be led there. You had to take the key from his pocket, open the door for him. Help him off with his hat and coat and shoes. Lie him down on the bed. Who knows, we might have been no more to him than sounds he kept trying to put together in a way that made sense, and when he couldn’t it wasn’t his fault but ours.

Would you have believed it? There you go. But that’s what people said. And the worst of it was that no one knew anything, no one said anything, but
the rumor went around as if the information had come into being of its own accord. Where does such a thing come from, can you tell me that? Maybe there’s something like the spontaneous generation of words, what do you reckon?