Wieslaw Mysliwski - A Treatise on Shelling Beans

Not for money. We didn’t have any money. Sometimes those who knew how to remove a wallet from a pocket had a bit. Not for cigarettes. We smoked cherry leaves, clover, other disgusting things. The game was about not coming last. You’re surprised the stakes were so low. Then let me say this: what was remarkable was that the stakes were so high. There was only one loser, however many of us were playing, and it was the one who got the lowest score. He then became the victim of all the other players. We could do whatever we liked with him, and he had to do what he was told to do. In other words, the game wasn’t about winning, like all other games, where that’s the whole point. The point of this game, as I said, was not to come in last. What it meant to be last, well, the best indication was that some of them would burst into tears. Some people would try to run away, but there was no way you could get away when there were so many winners. Other losers would try and buy off the rest with all sorts of promises. But no one could be bought. Some of them even reached for their knives. But that didn’t help much either. When there are too many winners, tears and knives are useless. Just one time, one kid managed to escape. But he also never came back to the school ever. He’d had a feeling he was going to come out last and before the game was over he jumped through the window, which was closed, he smashed the pane with his head as if he was leaping into a pool of water.

But I have to say that we always played fair. None of the players kept track of the score. One boy was chosen as scorekeeper, and he got a pencil and a sheet of paper and no one was allowed to look at it. You can imagine the excitement once the game finished. Not who had won, but who was last.

There was one kid once who came last, he took it calmly but he said that first he had to go to the latrine. If we didn’t trust him, we could go with him. We went. The latrine was in a corner of the parade ground, a little ways behind the barracks. I don’t know if you know what a latrine like that looks like. It’s a pit about as deep as the height of a person, maybe a bit more. I don’t remember them ever emptying it, so it could have been deeper. It was about as wide as from you to the wall, and long enough for a dozen or more people to sit at the same time. There were two horizontal poles, you sat on the lower one and leaned your back against the other one. They were thick things, and they were propped up by struts so they wouldn’t break. Around the latrine there was a solid high enclosure made of planking. I could stand on tiptoe and reach up my hand and still not be able to touch the top. Of course, I was a lot smaller then. There was a roof raised a foot and a half or so above the walls, to allow for ventilation. Though when it rained, it was hard to find a place on the pole where the rain didn’t come in. And when it was really pouring, you could do your business on the fly, as they say, but you still got soaked.

The latrine was the only place you could go to talk, complain, curse, confide in each other, tell your woes, or every often even cry. Everywhere else, whenever a few people gathered together, however quietly they talked or even, God forbid, whispered, immediately someone would squeal. Whispers were the most suspicious of all. And they’d get hauled in right away.

“So what are these secrets of yours? We don’t have any secrets here. Secrets are a selfish relic of old ways. And school isn’t just about teaching you a trade, but how to behave as well. Out with it.”

And you’d have to make something up on the spot. It goes without saying there were informers among us. But how could we tell who it was? I mean, they didn’t exactly have “snitch” stamped on their foreheads. Even if you suspected one or another kid, he could still have been innocent. Whereas in your wildest dreams you’d never imagine it could be the guy who slept in the bunk above you or below you. He even hid under the blanket when he crossed himself.

Of course, you had to be careful in the latrine as well. Everyone would drop their pants whether they needed to go or not, and we’d all sit on the pole, while one guy would keep guard outside, his fly undone like he’d just finished. You should remember that back then flies were button-up, and fastening three or four buttons took longer than the zippers you have today. If someone we didn’t trust came along, the kid outside would tip us off by whistling or coughing, then he’d start to button himself up. So when the person came into the latrine he wouldn’t see anything wrong, because we’d all just be sitting there on the pole grunting away, often more than we needed to.

So anyway, the loser of the game said he had to use the latrine. We went with him. He unbuttoned his pants, sat down on the pole, there was no way anyone could have known it was just a trick. All of a sudden he slid off the pole and began to drop down into the pit. He didn’t shout out for us to save him, because he had no intention of drowning. He just wanted to dunk himself in so he’d stink. He was quite right in thinking no one would want to come near anyone who stank like that, and none of the winners would order him to do anything. Even after he washed. After something like that getting rid of the smell is easier said than done, even if you take a bath every day. Plus he was fully dressed, wearing his boots. It would take the longest time for the smell to go away.

But he hadn’t realized how deep the pit was. He was in up to his chest already, and his feet still hadn’t touched the bottom. At that moment he began asking us, begging us, to save him, afterwards he’d do anything we wanted. What would we have him do? Whatever anyone of that age and at that school could come up with. I won’t even tell you what. Another boy and I broke one of the support struts with the idea of handing it to him. The older ones wouldn’t let us. Hold on a minute! Stop! Let it come up to his neck first! Then his chin. Let him eat the stuff, the little bastard. They were even making fun of him. You thought you could save yourself in shit. In the end he sank down to his forehead and we had to drag him out by the hair. That was what the game was like.

Supposedly it was just flipping a matchbox to see if it would land upright, scratchboard, or flat. And whoever came last, well, you might say it was a part of themselves that they lost. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t experience being last. That may have been why the limits of losing became blurred. When one of the older boys lost, us younger ones were no better. We’d make him do things that I don’t even want to think about.

Then why did we play? Well, who starts playing a game with the idea that he’s going to lose? Plus, in our game only one person lost, the one who came last. In any other game one person wins and everyone else loses. In this one, everyone wins except a single person. Tell me yourself, can you think of a more easy-going game? Or simpler? Exactly. Upright, scratchboard, flat.

Maybe we could take a little break from shelling, I could show you? I should have matches here somewhere. Here we are, the box is full even. You know, I actually sometimes play by myself. I take a box of matches, it has to be full, forty-eight matches, at least that’s how many there used to be in a box back then, I sit down right here at the table, and I flip the box. Upright, scratchboard, flat. I don’t keep score, what for? I’m not playing for anything. What could I play for, especially against myself? Unless you’d like to play for something. Then please say. At our age we can hardly play for the things we played for at school. Oh, I don’t know. You’re the guest here, you choose. I’m fine with anything.

Yes, the box is full. I don’t use matches. I buy them sometimes just so I can play. I have lighters. Besides, it’s all electric here. I am an electrician, after all. The stove is electric too. Come sit at the table. Maybe you sit over there, I’ll be here. Or would you prefer the other way around? See, this is how you place the box, it shouldn’t be sticking out from the tabletop any more or it’ll fall off. And you flip it up like this, with this finger, though you have to bend it a little.