Wieslaw Mysliwski - A Treatise on Shelling Beans

“You speak Polish?” He immediately held out his hand. “Robert’s the name.”

But I already had the mouthpiece between my lips so I didn’t reciprocate. We started up the tango. He went to each of their two tables in turn and said something, pointing at me. The people at both tables began watching me with a smile. He asked one of the women to dance. He didn’t lead her into the middle of the dance floor; instead they danced as close as possible to the band, as if he didn’t want to lose sight of me. He held her close, the way you do in a tango, and he kept smiling at me over her head as if we were good friends. I was mad at myself, I knew he wouldn’t leave me alone.

And he didn’t. During the next break he dragged me over to his table, just for a minute, so he could at least exchange a word or two with a fellow countryman. I didn’t let myself get drawn into any toasts to lucky meetings. All the same, from both tables they showered me with questions and I regretted giving myself away when he was trying to ask for the tango. Do you live here permanently? Since when? What brought you here? How did you manage to get a place in a band in a club like this? Was it right away, or did you have to start by washing dishes? So you must have known someone. Normally everyone begins by washing dishes. Even for that you need to have good luck. Then if you’re really lucky you might get to wait tables. But this is something else! I bet it’s so great living here. Working in a place like this. Dance parties every evening. And they pay a decent wage, not like … One of them even asked:

“You can be honest with us. Did you leave for political reasons? Did you escape?”

“No,” I said.

“Oh, then I know!” cried one of the women as if she’d finally hit on why I’d found myself there. “I bet it was because of a woman. Well? Was that it?” They crowded in to hear what I’d say.

Another woman, who was sitting at the next table and up till now hadn’t asked any questions, gave a sigh and said:

“The things love can make you do.”

“The hell with love,” Mr. Robert retorted in irritation. “Who can afford love these days. It’s all about going to bed, nothing more.”

“Don’t say that,” the woman protested. “Love is the most important thing in life.”

Fortunately the other musicians waved to say the break was over. But the matter didn’t end there. You might say that was only the beginning. A few days later, a postcard arrived addressed to me at the club, in which Mr. Robert thanked me for an unforgettable evening. He said he was glad to have met me and that he’d write a real letter soon. With no idea of what might come, I wrote a postcard in return to say I’d also enjoyed the evening and I was glad I’d gotten to know him. But you know, it’s not good to be too polite. You can never be sure that even with common courtesy you’re not setting a trap for yourself. It was just that his postcard had kind of touched an unhealed wound in me. I’d never gotten a postcard from anyone back in Poland before.

Some time later the promised letter arrived. It was long and cordial. He invited me to come take a vacation. He wrote that he had a summer cabin on some lake. All around there were woods. It was secluded, quiet, peaceful, in a word a magical place, as he put it. Even if it was true that some woman had left me, like we’d been saying that evening, in this place I’d be able to forget her. Because here you could forget anything. Here you went back to being a part of nature, without any obligations, without memories. Besides, if it was women I was after, there were any number of them here, and he’d find one who’d be right for me, cheer me up after the other one. Pretty young things, they come here on the weekends, or for their vacation. Some even spend the whole summer here, so there’s no need to try very hard even, they fall into your arms of their own accord. You won’t be disappointed, especially as you’re coming from abroad.

In the next letter, which arrived right on the heels of the first one and was even longer, he invited me to at least come for mushroom picking. They were expecting a big crop that year. He had a battery-driven heating device for drying the mushrooms. Because he was sure I liked picking mushrooms, who doesn’t? He loved it. Apart from women, there wasn’t much he enjoyed more than picking mushrooms. He’d get crazy jealous when someone else found a boletus and he had nothing, or maybe just some slippery Jack. He’d hope the other person’s mushroom was maggoty. But was there any deeper way of experiencing nature? It hurts to even think about what people can be like. Mushroom picking’s also the best form of relaxation. You don’t think of anything, don’t remember a thing, all your attention, all your senses are concentrated on the search for a mushroom. You might say the entire world shrinks to the proportions of that mushroom you’re looking for. So if someone wants true relaxation, it’s actually better when there aren’t that many mushrooms. Him, he said, when he needed to relax he’d head off into the woods even if there weren’t any mushrooms. Take his basket and his penknife and go looking.

It would be a source of great pleasure to him if we could do that together. I took a liking to you, he wrote. On that very first evening I had a feeling we could become friends. I value people who I can tell in advance are hard to make out, impossible even. I’d really like you to come. The cabin has all the amenities. Fridge, radio, TV. There’s a bathroom with a shower, a water heater, you just need to turn it on and in a short while you have hot running water. Upstairs there are two bedrooms, we won’t get in each other’s way. If you wanted to bring someone along I can sleep downstairs on the couch. Or I’ll take my vacation at a different time and just visit on Saturdays and Sundays. I have a boat, we could go out on the lake. And if you like kayaking, you can borrow the neighbor’s kayak. You could even go with his wife. She’s good-looking and she likes to go kayaking. He’s some director or other, he’s had two heart attacks and spends all his time indoors because the sun bothers him. No wonder she gets bored. And the bored ones are always the most willing. You really must come. Write and let me know when.

I wrote back to say thank you for the invitation, but for the moment I wasn’t able to take him up on it. As he knew, I played in a band, I wasn’t a free agent. And in those kinds of clubs the musicians rarely have much time off. Only when the club is being renovated or redecorated. I thought that would discourage him.

But a short time later he wrote another letter. And it was the same thing all over again. He was inviting me, when would I come. I replied with a postcard saying thank you, I send my best wishes, but let’s wait till I have more free time. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wrote one letter after another, and in every one he kept repeating his invitation.

In one of the letters he gave me his phone number and asked for mine, saying he often wished he could call me up. I could hardly refuse, but I made a point of saying it was hard to catch me at home. Rehearsals in the morning, gigs in the evening, and life in general kept you busy, as he well knew. He rang on what turned out to be the same day he’d gotten my letter:

“I’ve been calling and calling since morning. You’re right, it’s hard to get a hold of you. But there’s nothing like the sound of an actual voice. Letters are fine, but they don’t speak. There’s no comparison with a live voice. Hearing you, it feels like we’re meeting again. Have you decided yet when you’re going to come visit?”

This went on for years. I would always put off replying to his cards and letters as long as I could. Then I’d apologize, saying it was for this or that reason, I hoped he understood. He understood completely. In the next letter he’d send me an even more enthusiastic invitation. One time he wrote to say he’d gotten a color TV to replace the old black-and-white one in the cabin, he told me what kind, how big of a screen it had. Another time he said something else was new there. And with each letter he painted an ever more vivid picture to convince me to come. While I for my part felt an increasing distrust toward him. To be honest, I even started to be afraid of him, suspecting him of something, though I couldn’t have said exactly what. He was trying to drag me into something, that much I was sure of. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me, because distrust toward other people was the defensive wall I’d built around myself.