Ольга Токарчук - Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

‘I can’t not answer, I’m still working for the Police,’ replied Dizzy, and said into the phone: ‘Yes?’

We looked at him expectantly. The mustard soup was going cold.

‘I’ll be right there,’ said Dizzy, and a wave of panic swept over me at the thought that everything was lost, and now they’d be leaving forever.

‘The presbytery’s on fire. Father Rustle is dead,’ said Dizzy, but instead of leaving, he sat down at the table and started mechanically drinking the soup.

I have Mercury in retrograde, so I’m better at expressing myself in writing than in speech. I could have been a pretty good writer. But at the same time I have trouble explaining my feelings and the motives for my behaviour. I had to tell them, but at the same time I couldn’t tell them. How was I to put it all into words? Out of sheer loyalty I had to explain to them what I had done before they found out from others. But Dizzy spoke first.

‘We know it’s you,’ he said. ‘That’s why we came today. To make a decision.’

‘We wanted to take you away,’ said Oddball in a sepulchral tone.

‘But we didn’t think you’d do it again. Did you do it?’ said Dizzy, pushing aside the half-drunk soup.

‘Yes,’ I said.

I put the pan back on the stove and took off my apron. I stood before them, ready for Judgement.

‘We realised when we heard how the President died,’ said Dizzy quietly. ‘The beetles. Only you could have done that. Or Boros, but Boros had gone long ago. So I called him to check. He couldn’t believe it, but he admitted that some of his valuable pheromones had indeed gone missing, for which he had no explanation. He was in his forest and he had an alibi. I spent a long time wondering why, what on earth you had in common with someone like the President, but then I guessed it must have a connection with your Little Girls. Anyway, you’ve never hidden the fact that they hunted, have you? All of them. And now I can see that Father Rustle hunted too.’

‘He was their chaplain,’ I whispered.

‘I had some suspicions earlier, when I saw what you carry about in your car. I’ve never told anyone about it. But are you aware of the fact that your Samurai looks like a commando vehicle?’

Suddenly I felt myself losing the power in my legs, and I sat down on the floor. The strength supporting me had left me, evaporated like air.

‘Do you think they’ll arrest me? Are they going to come for me now and shut me in prison again?’ I asked.

‘You’ve murdered people. Are you conscious of that? Are you aware?’ said Dizzy.

‘Easy now,’ said Oddball. ‘Easy.’

Dizzy leaned forward, grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. ‘How did it happen? How did you do it? Why?’

On my knees, I shuffled over to the sideboard, and from under the wax cloth I pulled the photograph I’d taken from Big Foot’s house. I handed it to them without looking at it. It was etched in my brain, and I couldn’t forget the tiniest detail.

It was all plain to see in the photograph. The best proof of a Crime that one could possibly imagine.

There stood the men in uniforms, in a row, and on the grass in front of them lay the neatly arranged corpses of Animals – Hares, one beside another, two Boars, one large, one smaller, some Deer and then a lot of Pheasants and Ducks, Mallards and Teals, like little dots, as if those Animals’ bodies were a sentence written to me, and the Birds formed a long ellipsis to say ‘this will go on and on’.

But what I saw in the corner of the picture almost caused me to faint, and everything went dark before my eyes. You didn’t notice, Oddball, you were occupied with Big Foot’s dead body, you were saying something while I was fighting my nausea. Who could have failed to recognise that white fur and those black patches? In the corner of the picture lay three dead Dogs, neatly laid out, like trophies. One of them was unfamiliar to me. The other two were my Little Girls.

The men cut proud figures in their uniforms, smiling as they posed for the photograph. I had no trouble identifying them. In the middle was the Commandant, and beside him the President. On the other side stood Innerd, dressed like a commando, and next to him was Father Rustle in his clerical collar. Then the head of the hospital, the fire chief, and the owner of the petrol station. The fathers of families, exemplary citizens. Behind this row of VIPs, the helpers and beaters were standing slightly to one side; they weren’t posing. There was Big Foot, turned three-quarters facing, as if he had been holding back, and had only run into the picture at the last moment, and some of the Moustachios with armfuls of branches for the large bonfire they were about to make. If not for the corpses lying at their feet, one might have thought these people were celebrating a happy event, so self-satisfied did they look. Pots of hunter’s stew, sausages and kebabs skewered on sticks, bottles of vodka cooling in buckets. The masculine odour of tanned hide, oiled shotguns, alcohol and sweat. Gestures of domination, insignia of power.

I had fully memorised every detail at first glance, without having to study it.

Not surprisingly, above all I felt relief. I had finally found out what had happened to my Little Girls. I had been searching for them right up to Christmas, until I lost hope. I had been to all the tourist hostels and asked people; I had put up notices. ‘Mrs Duszejko’s dogs are missing – have you seen them?’ the children from school were asking. Two Dogs had vanished into thin air. Without trace. Nobody had seen them – and how could they, considering they were dead? Now I could guess where their bodies had gone. Someone had told me that Innerd always took the leftovers from hunting to the farm and fed them to the Foxes.

Big Foot knew about it from the very start and he must have been amused by my distress. He saw me calling them, in desperation, and walking all the way to the other side of the border. He never said a word.

That fateful night he had made himself a meal of the Deer he’d poached. To tell the truth, I have never understood the difference between ‘poaching’ and ‘hunting’. Both words mean killing. The former in a covert, illegal way, the latter openly, within the full majesty of the law. And he had simply choked on one of its bones. He met a well-deserved Punishment. I couldn’t help thinking of it like that – as a Punishment. The Deer punished him for killing them in such a cruel way. He choked on their flesh. Their bones stuck in his throat. Why didn’t the hunters react to Big Foot’s poaching? I don’t know. I think he knew too much about what went on after the hunting, when, as Father Rustle would have us believe, they devoted themselves to ethical debate.

So while you were looking for a phone signal, Świętopełk, I found this photograph. I also took the Deer’s head, to bury the remains in my graveyard.

At dawn, by the time I went home after that dreadful Night of dressing Big Foot, I knew what I had to do. Those Deer we saw outside the house had told me. They chose me from among others – maybe because I don’t eat meat and they can sense it – to continue to act in their Name. They appeared before me, like the Stag to Saint Hubert, to have me become the punitive hand of justice, in secret. Not just for the Deer, but for other Animals too. For they have no voice in parliament. They even gave me a Weapon, a very clever one. Nobody guessed a thing.

I followed the Commandant for several days, and it gave me satisfaction. I observed his life. It wasn’t interesting. I discovered for example that he often went to Innerd’s illegal brothel. And he drank nothing but Absolut vodka.