Stone Upon Stone (11 page)

But a penknife, at the most it’s only any good for killing frogs or whittling a pipe while you’re minding the cows. You can’t even cut tobacco with it. Its blade is weak as a willow leaf and the handle’s like a twig. When you’re up against someone in a leather jacket, what use is a penknife, it won’t even cut through the leather. Also, every dick in the village carried a penknife since they were knee-high to a grasshopper. You could buy one at any church fair or win it at one of the stalls with a fishing pole or an air gun. But as for taking it to a dance, you’d be better off with your bare hands.

So then, after you’d been to the buffet you went and danced. To begin with you were nice and polite. You’d take a young lady that was free and sitting on one of the benches or standing with her girlfriend. You’d bow to her and kiss her hand. And you wouldn’t hold her too tight, because what you’d had to drink was only enough for first courage. Besides, it was still light out. The sun was only just setting, it was shining straight in through the windows. And all the old women were sitting like crows on the benches around the edge of the barn with their eyes burrowing into all the couples like woodworms. There were small kids all over the place like it was a nursery. The band hadn’t had their supper yet and they were only playing slow numbers. All the dancers were still following the emcee’s instructions. In pairs, form a circle, one pair to the left, one to the right, make a basket, girls in the middle, girls choose their partner! And the firefighters in their golden helmets would still be sober as judges, standing there by the door like it was the entrance to Christ’s tomb, making sure no one drank too much. And if anyone did get drunk and went looking for a fight they’d haul his ass out the door. So a young lady could easily tell you you were a pig.

It wasn’t till later. Once the sun went down and the ceiling lamps were lit. When the old women round the edge of the room went off for the evening milking, and the mothers took their kids and put them to bed. When the first dew broke out on the foreheads of the band, and the party really started to get going. Then, sure, you could drag a young lady to the buffet. And at the buffet it would be a first and a second and a third and, what’s your name, honey? Zosia, Krysia, Wikcia, Jadwisia. I’m Szymek. So listen, Zosia, Krysia, Wikcia, Jadwisia, will you have a drink with Szymek? I’ve been going to one dance after another looking all over for you, and finally I’ve found you. Are you lying? Why would I lie? Come on, they’re playing our number. And in that dance she’d let herself be held close. You could run your hands over the embroidery on the back of her blouse. Some of them had blouses like a flower garden, covered in cherries and rosebuds and raspberries and rowan.
A good many of them would like it so much they’d show their teeth when you tickled their cherries and rosebuds and raspberries. Others would look at you reproachfully, like you were trying to pluck the fruit off of them.

Then it was back to the buffet. Then back to the dance floor. And not for a kujawiak or a waltz this time, but for the oberek! That was a dance and a half! You’d tap your foot, and spin faster and faster. To the left, to the right. Hey! And your partner would be clean off the floor, with only you holding her up. And you’d throw her way up to the ceiling. Her skirt would be flying and her blouse would be bouncing. And her braided hair would spin around as you danced across the room. Oh my Lord! Szymek! My head’s swimming! She falls into your arms all out of breath. This time she’s the one holding you tight. The devil’s in her eyes by now. Szymek, I have to take a break. You’re something else, Szymek. Come on then, Zosia, Krysia, Wikcia, Jadwisia, let’s go get some fresh air. Or maybe she’d suggest it even, come on Szymek, let’s get some air, it’s hot in here. And once you were outside you’d go as far as you could away from the dance. Not here, Szymek, farther away or someone might see us and afterwards there’ll be talk. And you might come to the next dance, but then again you might not.

Because the dance meant that all sins were forgiven. Even if one of them asked, will you take me for a wife? You could promise you would, sure, why not, but not right after tonight’s dance. Come on, get up, the music’s playing again.

If you took a liking to one of the young ladies, then whoever she was dancing with it didn’t matter, you treated her like she was yours and you didn’t ever have to apologize for cutting in. Hey, come have a dance with Szymek. Szymek’ll show you what dancing’s all about. And you, beat it, loser! If he was meek he’d go sit on a bench and watch or get drunk at the buffet. If he put up an argument the watch chain would get dangled in front of him. And if that didn’t do the job, he’d get a fist in his face.

Quite often that was how fights would start. Someone would shout,
they’re beating up on our guys! The young lady would scream. Someone would jump forward. Someone would step in, try and separate them. Someone would charge up waving a stool. Someone would already be reaching for his knife.

Though real fights usually started without any reason. When the dance was in full swing, and everybody was well watered. And whoever was going to stay had stayed. Whoever still had the strength to sing was singing. And whoever had lost their singing voice was reeling about and yelling. The young ladies would be squeaking like mice in the corners, and everything would have gotten good and mixed up. Dresses and shirts, souls and bodies, sweat and blood, and the ceiling lamps were hidden in a dark mist. And there was nothing but noise and crush from wall to wall. And no one knew anyone anymore. People’s feet would be making merry all on their own, the entire barn felt like an apple tree that someone was shaking with all their might. It was dusty as a dirt track in summer. Because by then every dance was a fast one. Obereks and polkas, polkas and obereks.

The musicians had had their supper, and the vodka was playing in their veins. They’d taken off their coats, they were playing in shirtsleeves. Some of them even unbuttoned their shirt down to their belly button, and loosened their belt, and took off their boots because they were pinching. And all for the music. Because it was only now the musicians’ souls would come out. And man, would they play! They couldn’t feel their lips or their hands, they’d play with their gut, like their fathers and their fathers’ fathers before them. They played like they were about to die. Till lightning flashed, and armies marched to war. And a wedding party rode on drunken horses. And flails flailed in barns. And earth fell on a casket. And there wasn’t any shame anymore in feeling up a young lady here and there, you could even put your hand on her backside. And reach under her blouse. And pull her legs to yours. And young ladies would find themselves between your knees of their own accord, like chickens coming home to roost. And they’d fly around the
dance floor breathless. They’d forget their fathers, their mothers, their conscience. Even the Lord God’s ten commandments. Because at those dances heaven and hell mixed together. Chest squeezed against chest, belly against belly. They’d giggle and faint their way into such a paradise, you could feel it flowing out of them even through their dresses. And the band would be filled with the devil, he’d have them waving their bows like scythes cutting off nobles’ heads. He’d put a storm wind in the clarinet. He’d set the accordion spinning. And hurl rocks at the drums. And if on top of everything else it was a hot close night outside, there was nothing for it but to let some blood.

By that time it could be over anything at all. Someone would suddenly stagger as if the room had been tipped on its side. And right away there’d be screams and shouts, Jesus and Mary, Staś, Jaś, goddammit, the sons of bitches! Over here, boys! They’re coming for us! And your legs weren’t even done with the last dance. Your girl was stuck on you like bracket fungus on a birch tree. It was like you had to cut her off with a knife. She wouldn’t let go of you and she’d be crying and begging you:

“Szymuś, let’s go outside. Don’t go over there! I’ll do it with you. I want to. Do you hear, Szymuś? I want to. I do! For the love of Christ, they’ll kill you! Szymek!”

But someone nearby is already whacking people on the head with a bench. A couple of swings of his bench and he goes down like his legs have been swept from under him. The crowd heads for the door or jumps out the windows. Someone hits a ceiling lamp with a bottle. And the band is playing louder than ever, it’s not obereks and polkas anymore but a full-blown thunderstorm. They play loud, louder, as loud as they can, to drown out the shouts and squeals and the you sons of bitches.

Then someone tips the room the other way. And back again. You don’t know whether you’re standing up or lying down. The girls are grabbing you by the jacket and the shirttails and the arms and neck, pulling you by the elbow, whimpering, screeching, crying. But what do you care about girls
now that the knives are out. Somewhere the emcees’s roaring, stay in your pairs! One pair after another! Now form a circle! All the pairs dance! Then suddenly there’s a groan, and all that’s left of the emcee is his colored ribbon. Someone’s trying to swing a chair. They spin it around once and twice and they’re swallowed up by the crowd. Because chairs are no use when it’s knives up against knives. Blood up against blood.

And the room is rolling down a big slope. There’s clattering and wailing and curses. The sound of breaking glass. There’s only one lamp left hanging from the ceiling. A second one is turned on somewhere. Probably over by the buffet. But someone quickly puts it out with another bottle. Glass flies everywhere. And the room goes back uphill through darkness and dust. All you can hear is panting. And the swish of knives like scythes at harvesttime. Then downhill again. All the way over to near the band. The musicians’ arms are dropping off. Keep playing! Keep playing! Play a march now! The fiddler leads off on the march, when all of a sudden someone bumps into his side. There’s blood on his white shirt. The fiddle comes flying down like it’s dropping from heaven to earth. And the drum stops in midbang because someone else has taken a knife to it like it was an exposed belly. The accordion’s been ripped open. And the clarinet is smashed over the clarinetist’s head. The hell with the band! It all started because of them.

And there’s no more band. There’s not a single pane of glass left in the windows. The buffet’s been turned upside down. The decorations hanging from the ceiling are all in tatters. Your jacket’s in rags. There’d be times you could wring the blood out of your shirt – your own blood and other people’s. Then after the whole thing was over you’d sing all the way home.

One night, after one of those dances some farmers took us back home in their wagons. We were drunk as lords. That time I spent three weeks or so hiding out in the loft over the cattle shed, because there’d been a dead body and the police were poking about the villages looking for the guilty party.
But you might as well go looking for the wind in the fields. When you’re having fun like that there is no guilty and innocent. Everyone lashes out left, right, and center, you could stab someone to death and you wouldn’t even know who. Or he’d get stabbed and he wouldn’t know who’d done it. Only the Lord God alone could know who was guilty, not the police.

I had three cuts, one in my side and two on my back. I could only lie on my stomach. Mother made compresses with different herbs. But it wasn’t healing up properly. The knife must have been rusty, because the wounds kept bleeding and bleeding, and mother was all teary:

“Szymuś, son. Think of your mother. One of these days they’ll kill you. I couldn’t take that.”

“They’re not going to kill me, mother. No way. Stop crying. I’m not that easy to kill. Look – I’ve got three holes in me, and did they kill me? You see yourself. And I’ll get even with them. Even if they do kill me, better it be sooner than later. There’s no point clinging to life, mother. Just living from one harvest to the next – what kind of life is that?”

As it happened the harvest was beginning, so at least those cuts got me out of mowing the rye and the barley. And more than half our land was barley and rye. On top of everything, that year there were rains, it rained and rained without stopping. Everything was flattened and mowing it was the hardest thing. One acre of flattened crop took as much work as three regular ones. You couldn’t feel your arms afterwards, your back was agony, your head felt like it was made of stone, and your legs would barely carry you home. What were those three holes in me in comparison.

I often tried to convince father to buy a harvester, because I was sick to death of all that mowing. Was it some punishment from God that the harvest had to be taken in year after year? Couldn’t it have grown some different way, so it didn’t have to be mowed and tied up and transported, then after that threshed and winnowed and driven to the mill, and only then you could
have bread? Bread could grow right from the start, you’d go out and collect the loaves straight from the field. They could even be small ones the size of heads of cabbage. Not tiny little seeds that you have to sweat over.

But father wouldn’t agree. We can’t afford it, and besides, the hay stays straight when you mow it, but harvesters mess it up so it isn’t any good either for mending the thatch, or making chaff, or stuffing mattresses. And Antek and Stasiek there, they’re growing up. They wouldn’t have anything to do, they’d have to sit around idle if we had a harvester. And when the crop’s been flattened by the rain, you need to mow it by hand anyway, a harvester’s not up to the job.

I didn’t get back on my feet till the wheat was ripe. But we only ever grew a half-acre or so of wheat. So as to have cake for Easter and Whitsun and Christmas, as a base for
żurek
, and from time to time, mostly on Sundays, for dumplings. As well, the crop hadn’t succeeded that year. It had been overgrown a bit by thistle and gotten lodged by the rain. The police had given up on looking for the culprit. Searching at harvesttime wasn’t the best idea anyway. The farmers were all carrying scythes and the blood was hot in everyone’s veins. And whatever happened the dead man wouldn’t be brought back to life. Besides, he’d been killed among his own people, it was none of the police’s business.