Olga Tokarczuk - Primeval and Other Times

Deep under the ground, at the very centre of Wodenica, there is a great, white tangled mycelium ball pulsing away, the heart of the mushroom spawn. From here the spawn spreads out to all corners of the world. The forest here is dark and damp. Luxuriant brambles hold the tree stumps prisoner. Everything is covered in lush moss. People instinctively avoid Wodenica, though they don’t know that here, underneath, the heart of the mushroom spawn is beating.

Of all the people, only Ruta knows about it. She guessed it from the most beautiful amanitas, which grow here every year. The amanitas are the spawn’s guards. Ruta lies down on the ground among them and examines the underside of their foaming, snow-white petticoats.

Ruta once heard the life of the mushroom spawn. It was an underground rustling that sounded like a dull sigh, and then she could hear the gentle crackle of clumps of earth as the thread of the mycelium pushed its way between them. Ruta heard the spawn’s heartbeat, which happens once every eighty human years.

Ever since she has been coming to this damp spot in Wodenica, and always lies down on the wet moss. If she lies there for a while, she starts to sense the mushroom spawn in another way, too – because the spawn slows down time. Ruta falls into a waking sleep, and sees everything in a completely different way. She can see individual gusts of wind, the slow and graceful flight of insects, the fluent movements of ants, and particles of light that settle on the surfaces of leaves. All the high-up noises – the warbling of birds, the squealing of animals – change into booming and rumbling, and glide along just above the ground, like mist. Ruta feels as if she has been lying like that for hours, though only a moment has passed. So the mushroom spawn takes time into its possession.

Ruta was waiting for him under a lime tree. The wind was blowing, and the tree was creaking and moaning.

“It’s going to rain,” she said instead of a greeting.

They walked in silence along the Highway, then turned into their forest beyond Wodenica. Izydor walked half a pace behind, stealing a glance at the girl’s naked shoulders. Her skin looked ever so thin, almost transparent. He felt like touching and stroking it.

“Do you remember how I once showed you the border, ages ago?”

He nodded.

“We were going to investigate it one day. Sometimes I don’t believe in the border. It let in the foreigners…”

“From the scientific point of view that sort of border is impossible.”

Ruta burst out laughing and grabbed Izydor by the hand. She pulled him after her among the small pine trees.

“I’ll show you something else.”

“What? How many more things do you have to show me? Show me all of them at once.”

“It can’t be done like that.”

“Is it alive or dead?”

“Neither the one nor the other.”

“Is it an animal?”

“No.”

“A plant?”

“No.”

Izydor stopped and asked anxiously:

“A person?”

Ruta didn’t answer. She let go of his hand.

“I’m not going,” he said and squatted on the ground.

“No is no. After all, I’m not forcing you.”

She knelt down beside him and stared at the trails of big forest ants.

“Sometimes you’re so clever. And sometimes so stupid.”

“But more often stupid,” he said sadly.

“I wanted to show you something strange in the forest. Mama says it’s the centre of Primeval, but you don’t want to go.”

“All right, let’s go.”

In the forest they couldn’t hear the wind, and it had gone muggy. Izydor could see tiny drops of sweat on the back of Ruta’s neck.

“Let’s have a rest,” he said from behind. “Let’s lie down here and rest.”

“It’s just about to start raining, come on.”

Izydor lay on the grass and folded his hands under his head.

“I don’t want to look at the centre of the world. I want to lie here with you. Come here.”

Ruta hesitated. She walked a few steps away, then came back. Izydor narrowed his eyes, and Ruta changed into a blurred shape. The shape came up to him and sat down on the grass. Izydor stretched out a hand and found Ruta’s leg. He could feel tiny hairs under his fingers.

“I’d like to be your husband, Ruta. I’d like to make love with you.”

She pulled her leg away. Izydor opened his eyes and gazed straight into Ruta’s face. It looked cold and determined. Not as he knew it.

“I’m never going to do that with someone I love. Only with those I hate,” she said and got up. “I’m going. Come with me if you want.”

He hurriedly got up and headed after her, half a pace behind as usual.

“You’ve changed,” he said quietly.

She turned round abruptly and stopped.

“Of course I’ve changed. Are you surprised? The world is evil. You’ve seen it for yourself. What sort of a God created a world like this? Either He’s evil Himself, or He allows evil to happen. Or else He’s got it all messed up.”

“You’re not allowed to talk like that…”

“I am,” she said and ran ahead.

It became very quiet. Izydor couldn’t hear the wind or the birds or the buzzing of insects. It was hollow and empty, as if he had fallen into feathers, into the very middle of a huge eiderdown, or into a bank of snow.

“Ruta!” he shouted.

He saw her flash among the trees, and then she vanished. He rushed in that direction. He looked all round, feeling helpless, because he realised that without her he would never be capable of getting home.

“Ruta!” he shouted even louder.

“I’m here,” she said, and emerged from behind a tree.

“I want to see the centre of Primeval.”

She dragged him into some bushes – raspberries and wild blackberries. The plants caught on Izydor’s sweater. Before them lay a small glade among huge oak trees. The ground was covered in acorns, old ones and this year’s. Some were crumbling to dust, others were sprouting, and yet others were shining a fresh green colour. In the very middle of the glade stood a tall, oblong rock made of white sandstone. Another one, broader and more solid, lay on top of this obelisk. It looked like a hat. Izydor could see the outline of a face under the stone hat. He went nearer, to take a closer look, and then he noticed that the same face appeared on either side, too. So there were three faces. And suddenly Izydor was aware of a deep sense of incompleteness, a lack of something extremely important. He felt as if he knew all this from somewhere already, as if he had seen the glade and the stone in the middle of it, and its three faces before. He sought Ruta’s hand, but that didn’t reassure him. Ruta’s hand pulled him after it and they began to walk around the glade, on the bed of acorns. Then Izydor saw a fourth face, just the same as the others. He kept walking faster, and then let go of Ruta’s hand, because he was starting to run, with his eyes glued to the stone. He could always see one face turned towards him and two in profile. And now he realised where his sense of lack was coming from, the sorrow that underlay everything, the sorrow that was present in every single thing, in every phenomenon, and always had been – it is impossible to grasp everything at once.

“It’s impossible to see the fourth face,” said Ruta, as if reading his thoughts. “That is the very centre of Primeval.”

It began to pour, and when they reached the Highway they were completely soaked. Ruta’s dress was clinging to her body.

“Come to our place. You can dry off,” he suggested.

Ruta stood opposite Izydor. She had the whole village behind her.

“Izek, I’m going to marry Ukleja.”

“No,” said Izydor.