Wieslaw Mysliwski: A Treatise on Shelling Beans

You’re here to buy beans, sir? From me? I mean, you can get beans in a store, any store. But please, come on in. Don’t let the dogs scare you. They’ll just sniff at you a bit. Whenever anyone visits for the first time they have to sniff them. For my benefit. I didn’t teach them that, they just do it of their own accord. Dogs are as much of a puzzle as people. Do you have a dog? You ought to get one. You can learn a lot from a dog. All right, sit, Rex, sit, Paws. Knock it off.

Out of curiosity, how did you find the place? I’m not that easy to find. Especially now, in the off-season. There isn’t even anyone around to ask. You saw for yourself, there’s not a living soul in the cabins. They’re all long gone. Not many people even know I live here. And here you come asking about beans. It’s true, I do grow some beans, but only enough for my own needs, which are pretty modest. Like with everything else. Carrots, beets, onions, garlic, parsnip, just so I have a little. And truth be told, I don’t even like beans that much. I mean, I’ll eat them, because I’ll eat almost anything. But I’m not wild about them. Once in a while I’ll make bean soup or bean stew, but not that often. And dogs don’t eat beans.

Back in the day, sure, a lot of people grew beans around here. Because as you might know, at one time beans used to take the place of meat. And when you work as hard as the folks hereabouts would work, from dawn till nighttime, you need your meat. Not to mention that the shopkeepers often used to come out here to stock up on beans. Not beans alone, but that’s what they’d buy most of. That’s right, during the war, when there was a village here. At that time, in the towns people were starving, as you know. Almost every day the locals would drive out to the station in their horse and cart to pick them up. The station’s a couple of miles away. Then afterwards they’d drive them back with what they’d bought. It was around this time of year, late fall, that they’d come most often. Or in any case more of them would come about now, when the harvest was all done. They’d take all the beans that anyone had had time to shell, down to the last bean. Often the pods hadn’t even dried out properly but already people would be shelling away in all the houses so as to finish in time. Whole families would be shelling together. From early morning till late at night. Sometimes you’d go outside at midnight and there’d still be a light in a window here and there. Especially when there’d been a good crop. Because beans are like everything else, sometimes they grow well, other times not. It has to be a good year weather-wise. Beans don’t like too much sun. When there’s too much sun there’s not enough rain, and they get parched. Whereas if there’s too much rain, they rot before they can grow. Even so, it can be a good weather year but still every other pod will be empty or the beans’ll be bad. And no one knows why. Simple thing like beans, but they have their secrets.

Did you used to come out here back then, as a shopkeeper? No, I think I’d have recognized you. I knew almost all the people that used to come to buy beans. We grew a lot of beans, and all kinds of merchants would come buy them. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had a good memory for faces. And everyone knows that what you remember in your childhood, you remember for good. Course, you’d have been young back then, and dressed differently. In those days the shopkeepers would wear any old clothes, however rich or poor they were, they’d dress down so as not to draw attention to themselves. In the trains they’d be searched, have their belongings confiscated. Shopkeepers was just our name for them. While now I see you’re wearing an overcoat, hat, scarf. I used to have a brown felt hat like that, and a coat like yours. And I’d wear a scarf, silk or cashmere. I liked to dress well.

But why don’t you take your coat off? Hang it on the back of the door, there’s a hook there. And please, sit yourself down. Either on a chair or on a bench, as you prefer. I’ll just finish this nameplate, I’m almost done. It wouldn’t take me so long, but my hands aren’t what they used to be. No, it’s rheumatism. Though it’s better than it used to be. I can do almost anything. I just can’t play the saxophone. That’s right, I used to play. But aside from that, anything. Even repainting these nameplates, as you see. And that needs concentration in your hands also. The worst is with the smallest letters. If the brush slips you have to wipe the whole letter off with benzine and start over.

Why did I think you maybe used to come here as a shopkeeper? Well, you just appeared out of nowhere wanting to buy beans. You must have known people used to grow beans around here and you thought they still did. People often think, what could possibly have changed in a place where they’ve grown beans since forever. But how did you manage to hold on to the conviction that there are timeless places like that? That I can’t understand. Didn’t you know that places like to mislead us? Everything misleads us, it’s true. But places more than anything. If it weren’t for these nameplates I myself wouldn’t know that this was the place.

You’ve never been here before? Not even as a shopkeeper back then? Then I’m sorry I took you for one. Evidently I’ve been sitting too long staring at these nameplates. What are they? First and last names, dates, God rest their souls. Every year at this time I take them from the gravestones and repaint them. It’s pretty time-consuming. The first name and last name alone’s a lot of letters. And I have to mind every letter so the deceased won’t think I repainted his nameplate any old how because, for instance, he was from the other side of the river. Folks here were always divided into this side and the other side of the river. When people can be divided by something they always will be. It doesn’t have to be a river.

Why do I think the dead have thoughts? Because we don’t know that they don’t. What do we know? Sometimes, after only two or three letters, especially the littlest ones, my eyes hurt and my hand starts to shake, and I have to break off. You need a lot of patience with those dead letters. I barely finish one lot when the paint starts peeling on the ones I did last year. It comes off faster in the woods. It’s damp there, you only get sunlight in the clearings, so I’m always having to repaint. If I didn’t do it, by now you wouldn’t know whose nameplate was whose. I’ve tried different kinds of paints, including foreign ones. They all peel. You don’t know any kind of paint that doesn’t peel? You’re right. It’s not in anyone’s interest that something should be permanent. Especially paint. Things are always being painted over with something else.

That I don’t know. Maybe someone used to repaint them before, though not for long probably, because I could barely read what was written on them. Whoever it was must have decided that either way no one can be guaranteed anything in perpetuity in this world, so they just stopped. Plus there are the costs, the paint alone, then the brushes, labor. It’s just as well I used to know everyone in these parts. Even so, I still had to scour my memory in some cases. It was worst with the children. Some of them I felt I was only now christening.

This here is Zenon Kużdżał. I’m almost done with him. He was the youngest of the Kużdżałs. Neighbors. Here on this side, a bit further into the woods. That was why they only had a fence on the side where the road was, the other three sides were woods, so they’d say they had no need of a fence. The woods are the best fence you can have. What danger could come from the woods? Who could come to the house through the woods? At most some animal. So they set snares and traps in their yard. Often their own chickens and geese and ducks would get caught if they forgot to remove the traps during the day. Though in the evening they never could count up all those chickens and ducks and what have you properly. And every evening they’d suspect their neighbors.