Wieslaw Mysliwski - A Treatise on Shelling Beans

In any case, after the wedding bad things started happening between them. Him, he didn’t even look up when she served him his soup or his main course in the cafeteria. And as for her, it no longer made a difference whether she was putting the food in front of him or someone else. Her eyes seemed to be losing their shine from one day to the next. You couldn’t say, You look nice today, Miss Basia, or Basieńka, because she looked like she might burst into tears. She unbraided her hair and just tied it behind with a ribbon. It still looked nice, but it wasn’t the same as when she’d worn the braid. But no one had the courage to ask her why she’d done it.

The Priest stopped coming to the cafeteria, and that made you wonder as well. Apparently he went to some tavern to eat. Then one day she happened to be bringing the main course to the table where I was sitting when someone ran in to say that the Priest had fallen from the scaffolding. Either he’d fallen or it was something else, in any case the guy shouted to the whole cafeteria that he’d fallen. She had one more plate to put on the table and, as chance would have it it was mine. The plate fell from her hands to the floor. She burst out crying, covered her face with her hands and ran into the kitchen. What went on in there I couldn’t tell you. But people in the cafeteria could have thought it was because of the dropped plate.

We all rushed to the door, people came hurrying from the offices and from management, everyone was running, a crowd gathered and it was hard to push through to the place where he’d fallen. Someone checked his pulse and his heart, but he was dead. Soon an ambulance came, the police, they started questioning people and asking about witnesses. But it wasn’t by accident that it had happened at lunchtime, if you ask me.

I didn’t see her again that day. And him, he left that same evening. For the next few days she didn’t work in the cafeteria. One of the cooks took her place. They said she’d taken some sick days, but she’d be back soon. And she did come back. Only, you wouldn’t have recognized her. She took soup to the men from the foreign contract and right away she asked them when he was coming back. They didn’t say anything. She brought them their main course and asked again when he would be coming back. When they still said nothing, she made such a scene that they got up and left. She was crying and shouting that they’d come to get their meal and they’d left him to do all the work. He’d get exhausted working so much. As it was he didn’t look well. He was pale, he’d lost weight. The next day she was fired.

After that, from time to time she’d come to the cafeteria, stand by the hatch and say to the cooks that she just wanted to serve him his meal when he came. And the cooks, like you’d expect with cooks, they’d say to her, Come in to the kitchen, sit yourself down, we’ll tell you when he comes and you can serve him, we can see the door from here, when he comes in we’ll let you know.

You’d also meet her outside the gate waiting for him to get off work. Everyone had already left, but she’d sometimes wait till dusk, till night. It would be raining, pouring even, but she’d wait. She didn’t have her umbrella anymore, who knew what had happened to it. Out of pity the watchmen would sometimes bring her in to the watch house so she wouldn’t get so wet. Or they’d tell her to go away, that there was no point in waiting.

“My husband works here,” she would reply.

“He used to, but he doesn’t anymore. And what do you mean, your husband?”

“He’s my husband, he took an oath. I wore a wedding gown, a priest married us.”

“What do you mean, a priest. He was a welder. Besides, he’s dead now.”

Sometimes she’d beg them to let her onto the site.

“Let me in.”

“Come to your senses, girl.”

“I’ll just tell him I’m waiting for him.”

Occasionally they’d let her in. If not, she’d squeeze through a hole in the fence. She knew all the holes, after all. Even when they saw her wandering around the site they didn’t drive her off. They turned a blind eye. If someone from management had seen her they had a good excuse, that they’d not let her in through the main gate. Besides, she was quiet, all she did was walk around the main yard. She never stopped anyone, never asked any questions. If someone came along she wouldn’t hide anymore. No one asked her any questions either, everyone knew. Sometimes she’d sit down somewhere and lose herself in thought, like she didn’t even know where she was.

From time to time I’d cross paths with her when I happened to work late on the site. One time it was almost evening, she was sitting on a crate.

“Oh, Miss Basia,” I said.

“It’s not ‘miss’ anymore,” she said. “I’m married. Who are you?”

“An electrician, Miss Basia.”

“Oh, right. I remember you from the cafeteria. I used to think you were cute. You were a shy one, I remember. You used to want me to be your wife. A lot of them did.”

She surprised me, I’d never told her that. I wanted to say to her it wasn’t that I used to want her to be my wife, I still did now. You might not believe it, but I suddenly felt like I wanted to be in her unhappiness with her. True love is a wound. You can only find it inside yourself when someone else’s pain hurts you like your own.

But before I could explain this to her she said:

“Except that you guys working on building sites, wherever your site is, that’s where your wife is. What do you know about love.”

My courage failed me.

“Help me find my way out of here.”

“The gate’s over there,” I said. “I’ll walk you out.”

“I don’t want to use the gate.” She looked at me as if with those old eyes from the cafeteria. “You know, I still think you’re cute. But I already have a husband.”

Let me tell you, he changed my life. You know, the warehouse guy. I told you about him. The warehouse worker that turned out to be a saxophonist. I don’t know why you find it surprising. I mean, back then hardly anyone was who he was. A welder would turn out to be a priest. There were all kinds of guys working on building sites, hidden behind different occupations. But often it was only over vodka that you’d find out stuff like that. And not the first time you drank with them. Anyone who didn’t drink, or only occasionally, they weren’t trusted. It was because of that that I turned to drink. They’d ask a few questions but in only a general way. It wasn’t till later they’d start to probe into your life. Or your conscience. Especially since our consciences had turned out to be something different than before. You think a conscience is something permanent? Too bad you never worked on a building site back then. It was probably the same in other places. But I worked on building sites and that’s all I can speak about. You know, any change in the world is an assault on people’s consciences. Especially when it’s an attempt to make a new and better world.

In any case, you’d never have met such a mixture of people anywhere else. Bricklayers, concrete workers, plasterers, welders, electricians, crane operators, drivers, delivery men, all kinds, same in the offices, and it would turn out that one of them had been one thing, another had been something else, one was from here, another from there, they’d been in camps, prisons, one army or another, they’d fought in the uprising, in the woods, they had kidney problems from being beaten, they were missing teeth or fingernails, they were ageless, or still really young but already gray-haired. Every building site in those days was a true Tower of Babel, not of languages, but of what could happen to people. Though there were also folks, a good few of them, who had changed profession of their own accord so they could take part in building a better world, because they’d stopped believing in the old one.