Wieslaw Mysliwski - A Treatise on Shelling Beans

Me, I started shaving when I was still at school. Once in a while. My chin was only just starting to get covered with fluff. But since the older boys were already shaving, us younger kids wanted to be the same as them. We shaved each other with a razor we borrowed from the custodian. At a price, you understand. Every Saturday we had to sweep out his yard and the sidewalk in front of his house, and clear the snow in winter. I only bought my own razor when I went to work on a building site. When I was working on the electrification of the villages I still used to borrow one from the guys I roomed with. I was saving up for a saxophone, I didn’t want to spend money on a razor.

As it happened, there was this blacksmith in the next village that made razors out of tank bearings. You can’t imagine what those razors were like. The only thing that might have come close were the Swedish steel ones, and even that I’m not so sure of. In the fields there were still all these smashed-up tanks from the war, he’d remove the bearings and make razors out of them. They were a bit unwieldy, true, the handles were awkward to hold, they were thick, made of elm wood or acacia, but the blade took your beard off all by itself. I bought two, I used one of them and kept the other in reserve, then later I gave it as a gift to the warehouse keeper who taught me the saxophone. He wouldn’t take any money for the lessons, like I said, so I thought I’d at least give him a razor. He tried to give it back when I stopped going to him.

No, from that time on, even when I needed some item from the warehouse I’d ask one of the other electricians to go get it for me. I don’t remember how long that went on. Then one day I was passing the warehouse, he must have seen me through the window and he started knocking on the pane, but I pretended not to hear. I thought to myself, he probably wants to tell me again how bad the band is. A week before it had been Women’s Day. There was a celebration, and we performed in the musical part of the evening. He came, I saw him there, he sat right in the back. There were speeches, flowers and chocolates and stockings for the women. Construction was still going on, the plans were way behind, but they always had various celebrations in the course of the year. Though Women’s Day was the most enjoyable.

I’d already passed the warehouse, but he called after me. He was standing in the doorway shouting:

“Are you pretending not to hear? And you say you want to be a saxophone player! Come back here!”

I turned around and went up to him.

“What do you want?”

“I’ll buy that saxophone back from you.”

“What saxophone?” I didn’t follow, I didn’t have any saxophone. He hadn’t told me to save up, so I didn’t. The one I played on in the band belonged to the company. And his, the one he taught me on in the evenings, was with him.

“The one that used to be mine,” he says.

“It’s still yours,” I say. “And you still have it.”

“I have it, but it’s yours,” he says.

“What do you mean, mine?” I still didn’t know what he was talking about.

“It’s yours. I gave it to you. I meant to tell you a long time ago, but I never got around to it. Now I’d like to buy it back from you. Take this as a down payment.” He stuck a wad of banknotes in my palm. I pulled my hand away but he caught hold of it, pushed the money into it and closed my fingers over it. “Here.”

Let me tell you, it was like the will went out of my hand, the blood went out of it. I stood there not knowing what to do, what to say. One banknote fell out, he leaned down and picked it up.

“Don’t lose this. Count it, make sure it’s all there. There ought to be …”

I didn’t even hear how much. I could only feel my heart pounding. There was a tightness in my throat.

“I’ll pay the rest bit by bit. Every month on pay day. Don’t worry, you’ll get it all down to the last penny. The amount it’s worth. I don’t expect any concessions. I’m not trying to pull one over on you. I never cheated anyone in my life. The amount it’s worth. And it’s worth quite a bundle. Every month on pay day. If you don’t believe me, make sure you’re standing behind me every month in the line for the cashier. I’ll give it to you right away, the moment I get my wages. Every month. I can’t give a lot each time, I don’t earn that much, as you know, I need to be able to live. But each month. They won’t close the site down, a job like this’ll take a long while yet, I’ll have time to pay off the whole thing. Even if they finish earlier, the warehouse will still be here. They can’t get by without a warehouse. They promised they’d let me keep my job till I retire. But even if I don’t finish paying it by then, don’t worry about that either. I’ve thought it all through. You can write me to say where you are and I’ll send you the money, every month. I’ll even pay for a money transfer, so you’re not out. I thought about taking a loan from payroll, but I’d prefer monthly payments, if that’s OK with you. I don’t like paying off one debt by taking on another. Then you have two debts to fret about. And there’s nothing worse than getting tied up in debts. Life’s a debt as it is, even if you don’t owe anything to anyone and you haven’t borrowed anything from anybody.”

It goes without saying that I didn’t take his money. How could I have? He was going to buy his own saxophone back from me? He died about a year and a half after that. Construction was still going on. Someone went to get something from the warehouse, he wrote them a chit and all he needed to do was sign it, when his head tipped forward. And that was that. But he didn’t drop the pencil, can you imagine. As if he’d meant to sign off on his own death, one death, check.

A signature is an important thing, let me tell you. Especially when you sign off on your own death. Why shouldn’t a person sign for his own death? You sign for all kinds of trivial things all your life. Whether you need to or not. Most of the time it’s not even needed. Imagine counting up all the times someone’s signed their name in the course of their life. As if they kept having to vouch for the fact that it really is them, not someone else in their place. As if there even could be anyone taking your place, say, or mine. So why shouldn’t he have signed off on his own death? It was his, after all. If you ask me, death shouldn’t have stopped his hand. Death itself should have needed him to sign.

You say that people are born without signing to say they want to be born. That’s understandable. There are very few people who’d want it, if it depended on their signature. Death is a different matter entirely. You should at least be free in the face of death. In any case, what difference would it have made to wait a short moment. What was a moment like that for death. You’re talking as if I were only referring to appearances. Let me tell you that even if that were so, appearances shouldn’t be scorned. When the truth turns against us, thank goodness there are still appearances. There are times when after a whole life, appearances are the only record of a person’s life.

For that year and a half I took lessons from him. It was as if one day we were practicing together, then the next day he died. I tried much harder than before. Almost every day, if only they didn’t keep us back at the site, right after work I’d quickly wash, change, eat something or not, and go to him. He’d always be waiting for me, sometimes dozing with his head resting on the desk. But the moment I walked in he’d start up.

“Oh, it’s you. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come today, and every day counts.”

He took a piece of chalk and drew a circle on the floor that I had to stand inside when I played. He made another one for himself, at a suitable distance, in which he sat on a chair.