Wieslaw Mysliwski - A Treatise on Shelling Beans

So we should live as long as memory permits us. No longer. People live too long, let me tell you, though everyone thinks it’s too short. You think so? If that’s the case, what would my dogs have to say about it, or other creatures? Too long. When I think they could die before me, then it’s too long by at least that much. A person’s memory is suited to a shorter life. No one’s memory can take in such a long existence. Just as well, you say? Why’s that? You say no one could bear a memory like that? That the world would fall to pieces from it? That could be. Though whatever memory doesn’t include, it’s still lying in wait for us. And that’s why we live too long in my view. Like I said, we should live as long as our memory allows, within the boundaries it lays down for us. Do you know of any other measure for life?

Forgive me for asking, but have you never had the feeling that your life is going on too long? That means you’re fond of living, like most people. I can understand that, especially if someone thinks they’re living in accordance with destiny. Oh yes, living in accordance with destiny is a lot easier. It’s just that I don’t believe in destiny. It’s chance, chance, all chance. That’s how the world looks, how life looks, if you were to check how things function here. So then, was it worth coming? All the more that I put you to work right away shelling beans. But you wanted to buy beans, remember? While all I had were unshelled. And as you see, I’ve been talking too long. I talked as long as memory allowed. Unless a person believes in dreams. Dreams are memory too, you know.

I might never have remembered that hat if I hadn’t dreamt about it. I should have figured out what the hat meant right when I was standing with the women around the pile of potato stalks. Except that like I told you, up till then I didn’t believe in dreams. It was only when I got rheumatism not long after. Rheumatism itself wouldn’t have been so terrible, everyone knows sicknesses are for people and you just have to put up with them. But in addition it turned out I wouldn’t be able to play anymore. And for me, playing was everything. You might say I wasn’t interested in myself, only in playing. Beyond playing it was like I didn’t exist. Who knows, maybe I actually didn’t, and it was only playing music that kind of summoned me out of non-existence and forced me to be.

In fact, it was because of playing that I left the country. Back in those days that wasn’t easy, as you know. But the firm I worked for got a foreign contract to build a cement works. And I never went back. I had no other reason. I could have continued to play in one company band or other. But I remembered what the warehouse keeper had said to me, that the saxophone had taken him around the world. Not to mention that I was trying to get away from my memories, which I always felt were pulling me back. I thought that the memories would stay here, while I’d be playing over there.

Then out of the blue there was this rheumatism. Everything came back with what seemed like redoubled strength. My whole life was suddenly reminding me it was there. I didn’t even know I’d been carrying it inside me. If it hadn’t been for the playing I wouldn’t have cared much whether or not I was alive, or since when. Because when it came down to it, why should I be alive? Because of some lucky chance? Except, was it so lucky? Maybe it was just mocking me? Or testing me? In what way? I couldn’t say.

Either way, my hands are better now. You saw when you came in how I was repainting those nameplates. And that’s no easy task. If your hand shakes, the brush shakes with it. Plus, the paints these days are much better quality, they’re harder to erase. Then you have to paint over the same letters, and often they’ve rubbed off, gotten rusty, you can’t see them clearly. You might get people mixed up. I can shell beans as well, like you see. It’s just that I can’t play the sax anymore. For the sax you need fingers like butterflies. They need to feel not just that they’re touching such and such a sound, but how deeply. This finger, see, it’s a little swollen, and on my left hand I can’t bend these two. They ache in the wet weather. But it’s a lot better than it used to be. I can do almost anything. Make repairs, chop wood, drive the car when I have errands or it needs the mechanic.

There was a time, though, when I couldn’t so much as lift a cup of coffee or tea, can you imagine it? Almost all my fingers were too stiff. And when you can’t bend your fingers, how are you supposed to play the saxophone? Here you’re blowing into the mouthpiece, and down there your fingers are afraid of the keys. No more playing. It’s out of the question. There you were, playing away, and now there’s just despair. Your whole life, and nothing left but despair. You beg your fingers, press them down, try to force them to bend, but it’s like they’re dead. You don’t mind if they hurt all they want, they can hurt so much it’s unbearable, they can throb and sting and burn, but let them bend. You can’t imagine what it’s like. All the hopes, desires, the suffering, all without meaning anymore. How can anyone come to terms with that?

Wait a moment, I’d never have expected you to say what you just said. I must have you confused with someone else. But I still have to figure out when and where we met. Something’s not quite right here. I’d never have thought. If it were someone else … No, not at all, I understood you perfectly. I even think that who knows, you could be right. After all, that is one way out. Though now it no longer holds any meaning. Because the worst thing is when there’s none at all. Yes, it’s a way out. Though it’s no longer of any importance. Maybe if it had happened back then.

The thing is, though, when something happens gradually, to begin with you don’t notice it. Then you make light of it, then after that you reassure yourself that maybe things aren’t so bad. Especially because other people also cheer you up by saying that some other person was in the same boat, or even worse, and in the end they were fine.

I came back one winter from a ski trip in the mountains and my hands started to feel strangely tired. And this finger here began to ache. Not the other fingers, the other ones just became kind of sluggish. I thought it was because of the skiing. That my hands had been overstrained by all the ski poles and ski lifts, the climbing, the falls. I was a pretty good skier. But I’d go for two or three weeks only, and not every year, and I was out of practice. It was hardly surprising it should make itself felt afterwards. But some time later my other fingers started hurting too, and getting stiff. When I was playing it would happen that I didn’t press the key down on time, or I pressed it in the wrong way. That’s not good, I thought to myself. I went to the doctor. He examined one hand, examined the other, bent my fingers this way and that, pinched them in different places and asked if it hurt.

“It does.”

“I’m sorry to say, but it’s rheumatism,” he said. “And advanced. You’ll need to get tests done. We’ll take a look, and at that point we can think about treatment. But you’ll have to spend some time at a sanatorium. Twice a year would be best.”

“But will I be able to play, doctor?” I asked.

“What do you play?”

“The saxophone.”

He gave me a sympathetic look.

“For the moment just think about your hands. Especially as it could spread further. You never know with rheumatism. Rheumatism’s one of those illnesses …”

But I was no longer listening to him describing what kind of illness it was, I was wondering how I could exist without playing. At the end of the visit he tried to cheer me up by saying that it was hard to make any predictions without tests, so perhaps I’d still be able to play. If I followed his instructions, of course.