Wieslaw Mysliwski - A Treatise on Shelling Beans

You know, she sensed that she was going to die. Or maybe she just didn’t want to live? One time I helped her take the laundry down to the lake. There was a lot of it. As she washed and rinsed the things, I took them and hung them out to dry on the branches. It was one of those days that don’t come along very often. The sky was blue as can be, without the tiniest cloud. The lindens were in bloom, you could smell honey in the air, bees were buzzing, the heat was intensifying, it was the perfect weather for washing and drying. All at once she dropped the clothes, sat down on the shore, pulled her knees up under her chin, put her arms around them, and stared and stared at the lake.

“I really don’t feel like doing the laundry today,” she said. “What I’d most like to do is go lie down on the lake, you know? Just lie there. What do you think, would I sink?”

She jumped to her feet and started to undress.

“I’m going to go bathe. You keep guard. Go stand over there.”

And she leaped into the water. I watched her swimming, and I began to choke with fear that in a moment she’d lie down on the water and stop moving. Luckily she swam for a bit and came back. She got dressed again.

“Now get on with the laundry, sister,” she said, telling herself off. In between giving me items of clothing to hang out, she said: “You know what, you should move in and live with me, would you like to? Goodness, it’s hard to even call it living in these dugouts, these pits.” When I took the next piece of clothing from her to hang it out: “None of them have tried anything with you?” I didn’t know what she meant. “What are you staring at me for? That’s why you’re going to live with me. Too bad I didn’t think of it sooner. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep better too.” I didn’t understand either why she couldn’t sleep.

She brought a litter and made a place for me next to her. She had to squeeze over a bit so there’d be room for me. After picking out all the pine cones and acorns and twigs from the litter, she covered the litter with dry grass. So it’ll be nice and soft for you, she said. Then she laid some old rags on top. Sometimes, on a cooler night she’d ask if I was warm enough and put her coat over the blanket I slept under. But I didn’t sleep that well with her. Even though neither of us snored, or smoked cigarettes, or swore, or shouted in our sleep. She slept as quiet as anything, often I couldn’t hear a thing. It was just that the silence was hard for me to bear. It was the silence itself that woke me up several times a night. I’d jerk awake, listening fearfully to see if she was asleep. If I couldn’t hear her breathing, I’d get up from the bedding and place my ear close to her. And though I’d be reassured that she was sleeping, I often couldn’t get back to sleep myself.

One night, I don’t know why, I woke terrified, I sat up and gently touched her forehead to see if it was warm. She jolted upright, equally scared:

“Oh, it’s you. I had such a fright. Don’t touch me ever when I’m sleeping. Remember, don’t touch me.”

“I just wanted —”

“I know,” she said. “Lie down and go back to sleep.”

There were also times when she would sit up from her bedding and, holding her breath, she would listen to see if I was asleep. When she was sure I was, though in fact I was pretending, she’d take her coat if she hadn’t put it over me and she’d go off somewhere. All kinds of thoughts rattled around in my brain at those times, and I’d wait till she came back. When she did, sometimes I’d pretend to have just woken up.

“Did I wake you? I’m sorry. I went to bathe. In the nighttime at least no one watches you,” she explained. “The water’s so warm. It’s a full moon. The lake is even lovelier than during the day.”

That was how it was every time. So I decided I wouldn’t wake up anymore when she came back. But one time when she returned, and I was pretending to be asleep, she lay down and all of a sudden I heard her crying.

“I know you’re not asleep,” she said. “I can’t take it anymore. It’s so hard for them. But I can’t take it any longer.”

Lost yourself in thought there, did you? What were you thinking about, if I may ask? True, there’s a lot to think about. And there doesn’t have to be any particular reason. There’s just lots of things to think about in general. In one country I once saw a sculpture. This man lost in thought. You’ve seen it too? There you go. I stood in front of it and began to wonder. I really wanted to ask what he was thinking about. But how can you ask a sculpture? If a person really decided to think about themselves so hard, they’d probably become a sculpture too. But in that case, tell me, is it only sculptures and paintings and books and music that can think about themselves, while we can’t?

I don’t mean anything in particular. I was just asking you, as if I were asking that sculpture. Of course I know I won’t get an answer either from you or from the sculpture. Sometimes people ask a question without expecting an answer. You have to agree there are questions that are sufficient in themselves. Especially as no answer would satisfy them anyway. And if you ask me, it has nothing to do with what we’re asking about. It’s a matter of who is asking who. Even when we’re asking ourselves, there’s always one who’s asking and one who’s being asked. It only seems like the person doing the asking is the same one giving the answer. If you think about it though, it’s always a different person asking and a different person answering. Or not answering, because maybe for instance they’re lost in thought. Every question selects an appropriate someone inside us. Even the most trivial question chooses a different person. Not just the person who’s supposed to answer it, but also the one who’s supposed to ask it. And with each question both the one and the other will be different people. After all, inside us there’s a child, and an old man, and a young man, and someone who’s going to die, and someone who doubts, and someone who has hope, and someone who no longer has any. And so on, and so forth.

If things were otherwise, no one would ever have to ask themselves anything, or have to answer anything. Yet no one can say of themselves that that’s me, that’s the way I was and the way I’m going to be in the future. No person can draw the boundaries of their self or establish themselves as themselves. That’s why we keep having to ask ourselves questions, first from one self, then from that one, then from another one still, and ask first one person, then another, then a third person, even though none of the questions is going to be answered anyway.

See — we’re sitting here shelling beans, you could say you’re here, I’m here, and between our hands we feel every pod, and every bean that we shell from it. Yet what’s more important still is how you and I imagine one another, how I imagine myself in relation to you, and how you imagine yourself in relation to me. The fact that we can see each other shelling beans doesn’t prove anything. If all we were doing was shelling beans, that wouldn’t be enough to experience the shelling. It’s only our imaginings of one another that fill out the fact that we’re shelling beans. Just like they fill out everything. Honestly, I even think it’s only what’s imagined that’s actually real.

Why does that surprise you? Then I don’t understand why it was me you came to for beans. I mean, you couldn’t have known I grow them. A few, just enough for myself, like I said. So all the more you couldn’t have expected me to have any to sell. And at this time of year who would come and visit me here? At the most someone from the dead. So I couldn’t have expected you either. Besides, I was going to go to bed soon. I would just have done my rounds of the cabins. I usually go to bed about this time. It’s early, because nightfall’s getting earlier these days. Though I read in bed a bit, listen to music, before I fall asleep, or don’t fall asleep, it varies. If I do get to sleep I’ll wake up after an hour or two, read some more, listen to music again, till I drop back off. Then when I wake again I’ll get up and do the rounds. Sometimes, though, there’ll be a night that’s like daytime, I go to bed but I know I won’t fall asleep. On nights like those I get up and repaint some nameplates. It takes me a long time, as you saw, but I hope to get them all done. If I had the hands I used to have, when I played …