Wieslaw Mysliwski - A Treatise on Shelling Beans

Sometimes we’d have a pretend dance on a Sunday evening, in the rec room. In fall and winter the evenings were long, there were no classes, on Sundays we didn’t go to work. We’d decorate the rec room and put up a poster saying there was a dance. A few kids were chosen to be in the band, the younger ones were made the girls, the older boys were the gentlemen. But what kind of dance could it be when we didn’t know how to dance — how could we have? Maybe one or two of us knew this or that, but most of us just stepped on each other’s toes. There was constant cursing and name-calling. You so-and-so, you trod on my big toe, you trod on this, on that. You stepped on me with your whole boot, goddammit! The hell with girls like you. The worst words were thrown about. Get off my toes and dance, you son of a b …, and so on. Pardon my language, I’m just repeating what was said.

Though how could you step on their toes when everyone was wearing hobnailed boots? We wore them for dancing too — we didn’t have anything else to change into. We wore them summer and winter. The most you could do was dance barefoot. We tried that, but you got splinters in the soles of your feet because the floorboards were rough and jagged, they were all torn up from the nails in our boots. When someone got an accidental kick on the ankle from one of the boots, it made them howl. They sometimes whopped you if it was the girl who’d kicked them, or if one of the younger ones had kicked an older boy.

And when the band played a faster number, it wasn’t just your dance partner, the whole room stepped on everyone’s feet, people bumped against each other deliberately it seemed, some of them knocked other ones down. At those moments the insults and curses erupted like volcanoes, there were scuffles, sometimes someone even pulled a knife. Plus, can it really be a dance when no one throws their arms around anyone, no one whispers tender words in anyone’s ear? At most one of the gentlemen would say to the girl he was dancing with, hold me tighter, you little shit.

The dances were mostly about the older boys, which is to say the gentlemen, taking it out on us, which is to say the girls. They took it out on us every day anyway, but at the dances they went the whole hog. The teachers? They didn’t do a thing. Once in a while one of them would show up, watch for a bit, then leave. At those times, we’d just happen to be dancing nicely. No one trod on anyone’s toes, you never heard a single cuss word. But the moment the teacher left, you can imagine what happened. It was total pandemonium, sometimes they even turned off the lights. And what went on when the lights were out, well, it’s best not to say.

Oh yes, of course there was a master of ceremonies. This kid that was one of the oldest ones. It was always him, at every dance. He’d pin a bundle of ribbons on his lapel. He could actually dance a bit. He was a smooth talker, though he also had a mouth on him. But he always took the side of the older boys. He might have been the worst of the lot. He was pleasant, never swore, never called people names, when you stepped on his toe he’d just make you apologize. But before the number was over he’d lead his girl outside, supposedly to go take a walk, and there he did what he liked with her. Often he beat her till she bled. Complain to who? It would have cost you dearly afterwards.

He called circles, baskets, pair by pair, swap partners, and white tango. For the white tango, us girls had to ask the older boys, that is, the gentlemen. As master of ceremonies he decided everything, he’d say, you go with him, you go with so-and-so. If anyone tried to object, he’d grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him across the room, now ask him and bow to him, get on with it before I kick you in the pants. And you could feel his hand gripping the back of your neck.

Let me tell you, for a long time after that I was afraid to dance. I was put off by the idea of dancing, which sort of goes against the nature of the thing, because after all dancing is supposed to attract people. Maybe because all through school it was as if I was the girl, and that makes you look at everything entirely differently, experience it all differently, it’s hard to even trust to the dance. It was only when I began playing in the worksite band that I finally started to like dancing. A band has to know how to dance, not just how to play music for dancing. Especially a saxophonist.

They chose seven of the guys who’d put their names forward. An instructor came, brought instruments, listened to us play. And he said, We’ll practice, we’ll learn to play together and we’ll make a decent band. No, it wasn’t till the next time that he brought a saxophone, he auditioned me separately. He even asked where I’d learned to play, seeing I was so young. Had I been in a band before? A school band, I told him. It must have been a really good school. You must have had excellent teachers. Yes, I said, one of them in particular was.

On each instrument they painted an identification number to show it was official property. Just like they had on all the desks, office machines, telephones, equipment, towels, everything that was company property. Each of us had to sign a list to say we’d been given such and such an instrument to use, and that we’d be responsible for it. They also bought us company outfits so we’d all look the same: gray suits, white nylon shirts, neck-ties all the same color and the same pattern. The outfits were kept in a closet in the social department, we had to sign them out whenever we had a show. The only things of our own we had were our shoes and socks.

After that, for several months the instructor came and we rehearsed with him two, sometimes three times a week. After work, it goes without saying, because they only let us off overtime. And so we wouldn’t lose out, they added two extra hours each day for the rehearsal. To tell the truth, after a couple of rehearsals we didn’t really need the instructor, each of us knew more than he did. There was a cement mason, a welder, a tile layer, a crane operator, an office worker, and another electrician, and aside from me they’d all played before in various bands. One had been in a military band, another one had played at a spa resort, one had been a street musician during the war, or before the war. One of them had studied for a time at a conservatory, one was an organist, and one of them had a father who played fiddle at the opera, and his father had taught him to play even better than him, he said.

They chose me because I was the only one who’d come forward as a saxophonist. You know, in those days the sax wasn’t a regular instrument. You didn’t often see one in a band. Elsewhere in the world sure, but not here, not in company bands, especially from a building site. Though it was precisely the saxophone that made us so successful. Those guys have a saxophone — it gave us an advantage over other bands. Pretty soon we started getting invited to play here and there, on other sites, factories, army units. And not just for dances, but other things too, we were asked to perform at celebrations, anniversaries, holiday events.

Let me tell you, our band often did more for the site than management. So you don’t think I’m just saying that, one time we did a special event at a cement works. Maybe you know how things were with cement in those days. With everything else too, it’s true. But on a building site, without cement you couldn’t do a thing. You’d sometimes have to beg for every ton of it, organize parties for the cement works management or their workers’ board, remember the name days of this or that person, which people were important and who made the decisions, bring gifts. Or send telegrams, call. And when nothing helped, who to call higher up, though that was always the least help of all. The site would grind to a halt and stay that way.