Jerzy Kosiński - The Painted Bird

A cow mooed far away. I quickly climbed a tree and after scanning the countryside from its height I noticed the twinkle of comets. People were coming home from the pastures. Cautiously I made my way in their direction, listening for the sound of their dog, which came toward me through the undergrowth.

The voices were quite close. There was obviously a path behind the thick wall of foliage. I heard the shuffle of the walking cows and the voices of young herdsmen. Now and then some sparks from their comets lit up the dark sky and then zigzagged down into oblivion. I followed them along the bushes, determined to attack the herdsmen and to seize a comet.

The dog they had with them picked up my scent several times. It dashed into the bushes, but evidently did not feel too secure in the dark. When I hissed like a snake it withdrew to the path, growling from time to time. The herdsmen, sensing danger, grew silent and listened to the sounds of the forest.

I approached the lane. The cows almost rubbed their flanks against the branches behind which I was hiding. They were so close I could smell their bodies. The dog tried another attack, but hissing drove it back to the road.

When the cows moved closer to me I jabbed two of them with a sharp stick. They bellowed and started trotting, followed by the dog. Then I screamed with a long, vibrating banshee howl and struck the nearest herder in the face. Before he had time to realize what was happening, I grabbed his comet and sped back into the bushes.

The other boys, frightened by the eerie howl and the panic of the cows, ran toward the village, dragging the dazed herder with them. Then I went deeper into the forest, dampening the bright fire of the comet with some fresh leaves.

When I was far enough, I blew at the comet. Its light lured scores of odd insects out of the dark. I saw witches hanging from the trees. They stared at me, trying to lead me astray and confuse me. I distinctly heard the shudders of wandering souls which had escaped from the bodies of penitent sinners. In the rusty glow of my comet I saw trees bending over me. I heard the plaintive voices and strange movements of ghosts and ghouls trying to bore their way out from inside their trunks.

Here and there I saw ax cuts on tree trunks. I remembered that Olga had told me that such cuts were made by peasants trying to cast evil spells on their enemies. Striking the juicy flesh of the tree with an ax, one had to utter the name of a hated person and visualize his face. The cut would then bring disease and death to the enemy. There were many such scars on the trees around me. People here must have had many enemies, and they were quite busy in their efforts to bring them disaster.

Frightened, I swung the comet wildly. I saw unending rows of trees bowing obsequiously to me, inviting me to step deeper and deeper into their closing ranks.

Sooner or later I had to heed their invitation. I wanted to stay away from the riverside villages.

I went ahead, firmly convinced that Olga’s spells would eventually bring me back to her. Didn’t she always say that if I tried to run away, she could bewitch my feet and make them walk me back to her? I had nothing to fear. Some unknown force, either from above or within myself, was leading me unerringly back to old Olga.

4

I was now living at the miller’s, whom the villagers had nicknamed Jealous. He was more taciturn than was usual in the area. Even when neighbors came to pay him a visit, he would just sit, taking an occasional sip of vodka, and drawling out a word once in a while, lost in thought or staring at a dried-up fly stuck to the wall.

He abandoned his reverie only when his wife entered the room. Equally quiet and reticent, she would always sit down behind her husband, modestly dropping her gaze when men entered the room and furtively glanced at her.

I slept in the attic directly above their bedroom. At night I was awakened by their quarrels. The miller suspected his wife of flirting and lasciviously displaying her body in the fields and in the mill before a young plowboy. His wife did not deny this, but sat passive and still. Sometimes the quarrel did not end. The enraged miller lit candles in the room, put on his boots, and beat his wife. I would cling to a crack in the floorboards and watch the miller lashing his naked wife with a horsewhip. The woman cowered behind a feather quilt tugged off the bed, but the man pulled it away, flung it on the floor, and standing over her with his legs spread wide continued to lash her plump body with the whip. After every stroke, red blood-swollen lines would appear on her tender skin.

The miller was merciless. With a grand sweep of the arm he looped the leather thong of the whip over her buttocks and thighs, slashed her breasts and neck, scourged her shoulders and shins. The woman weakened and lay whining like a puppy. Then she crawled toward her husband’s legs, begging forgiveness.

Finally the miller threw down the whip and, after blowing out the candle, went to bed. The woman remained groaning. The following day she would cover her wounds, move with difficulty, and wipe away her tears with bruised, cut palms.

There was another inhabitant of the hut: a well-fed tabby cat. One day she was seized by a frenzy. Instead of mewing she emitted half-smothered squeals. She slid along the walls as sinuously as a snake, swung her pulsating flanks, and clawed at the skirts of the miller’s wife. She growled in a strange voice and moaned, her raucous shrieks making everyone restless. At dusk the tabby whined insanely, her tail beating her flanks, her nose thrusting.

The miller locked the inflamed female in the cellar and went to his mill, telling his wife that he would bring the plowboy home for supper. Without a word the woman set about preparing the food and table.

The plowboy was an orphan. It was his first season of work at the miller’s farm. He was a tall, placid youth with flaxen hair which he habitually pushed back from his sweating brow. The miller knew that the villagers gossiped about his wife and the boy. It was said that she changed when she gazed into the boy’s blue eyes. Heedless of the risk of being noticed by her husband, she impulsively hiked her skirt high above her knees with one hand, and with the other pushed down the bodice of her dress to display her breasts, all the time staring into the boy’s eyes.

The miller returned with the young man, carrying in a sack slung over his shoulder, a tomcat borrowed from a neighbor. The tomcat had a head as large as a turnip and a long, strong tail. The tabby was howling lustingly in the cellar. When the miller released her, she sprang to the center of the room. The two cats began to circle one another mistrustfully, panting, coming nearer and nearer.

The miller’s wife served supper. They ate silently. The miller sat at the middle of the table, his wife on one side and the plowboy on the other. I ate my portion squatting by the oven. I admired the appetites of the two men: huge chunks of meat and bread, washed down with gulps of vodka, disappeared in their throats like hazelnuts.

The woman was the only one who chewed her food slowly. When she bowed her head low over the bowl the plowboy would dart a glance faster than lightning at her bulging bodice.

In the center of the room the tabby suddenly arched her body, bared her teeth and claws, and pounced on the tomcat. He halted, stretched his back, and sputtered saliva straight into her inflamed eyes. The female circled him, leaped toward him, recoiled, and then struck him in the muzzle. Now the tomcat stalked around her cautiously, sniffing her intoxicating odor. He arched his tail and tried to come at her from the rear. But the female would not let him; she flattened her body on the floor and turned like a millstone, striking his nose with her stiff, outstretched paws.