Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

The only thing I liked about a priest’s work was confession. It must be great to sit there in the confessional behind the grate and listen to the sins of the whole village. Boy would you learn some stuff. And forgiving sins or not forgiving them, ordering penance. Most of all I’d have scared people with hell, I’d make their hair stand on end and their blood curdle, I’d make their teeth chatter and their eyes weep endless tears. Though I’d need to invent a different hell, because people have stopped being afraid of the old one. Perhaps it ought to be that it’s not just the soul that suffers, but the body along with it? Or that people wouldn’t be together, but each person would be alone? Maybe there shouldn’t even be any devils, just people and their own torments.

I’d give the longest confessions to three young women from our village: Kryśka Latra, Weronka Maziarz, and Magda Kukawa. And among the married women, Mrs. Balbus. Because before she married Balbus, she had more boyfriends than you could shake a stick at. Every evening her father would chase her around the village with a whip, and she’d be running away. People even said she’d had a bastard child, but that she’d drowned it. Though when she was with Balbus it didn’t change anything. But to find out if what people were saying was true, I’d have to give her confession. I wouldn’t confess old women or old men. The curate could do them. Well, maybe old Mrs. Przygaj, to find out if girls slept around in the old days as well. Because who would know better that Mrs. Przygaj. Apparently she never let an opportunity go by. The village mayor, a farmhand, the miller, a neighbor, whoever came along. And most of all with the soldiers that used to be stationed in the village. They had dark blue jackets and red pants, people said that was what drew her to them. Her husband would pray to God that he’d drive the demon out of her, and she’d just laugh at him. One time she brought three soldiers home at the same time and partied with them naked, and her husband had to look on. He beat her afterwards with a wet rope, so she arranged for him to be drafted into the army and he never came back. Though would she be willing to admit to all of that in the confessional?

“Michał or Szymuś,” said mother, “God grant it’ll be one of them.”

“I’m telling you, it’ll be Szymuś,” grandfather insisted. “Maybe he could serve right here, in our parish. I won’t live to see the day. But you could move to the presbytery. It’d be heaven there. The orchard alone must be four acres. And you’ve got the church right there.”

“What exactly were you thinking about?” Father didn’t let all that about the priest distract him from asking me more questions.

“I was thinking …” I tripped over my tongue, because I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been thinking.

“What was he thinking about?” Grandfather came to my rescue. “He was thinking about Jesus, he already said. He’s hanging on the cross right up there, you only need to look, there’s nothing else to think about.”

I looked up at the cross in panic, and it was like something opened up inside of me.

“I was thinking,” I said, “about how he suffered for us and how he died on the cross.”

“He truly did suffer, that’s for sure,” mother put in from by the stove. “But people are the same as they always were.”

“Maybe they’d have been even worse,” grandfather suggested.

“Even worse?” Mother shuddered.

“Think about it, what if everyone was like that no-good Marchewka. Could you stand that? Think about all the chickens he’s stolen from you.”

“What else?” Father wouldn’t give it up.

“What else?” Grandfather bridled because he thought father was on at him. “He cut down those willows on your pasture. And he gave you an earful for good measure. Is that not enough for you?”

“I’m not asking you, father, I’m asking him.”

“Szymek? What on earth’s he done to you?”

“Not what he’s done, what he’s thinking about. Out with it.” It was like he was driving a horse uphill with a whip.

I got this sinking feeling in my belly. Out with what? On top of everything else it was lashing down outside, so there was no chance father would leave the house, a dog wouldn’t want to go out in that. He could keep grilling me all afternoon. I rooted around desperately among my thoughts, but my thoughts were like mice, they kept running away. All of a sudden grandfather got up, took a step toward the middle of the room, and sighed:

“When you’re old, taking a single step is like walking to Calvary.”

At that very moment it came to me.

“I was thinking,” I quoted from memory, “about how when Jesus was carrying his cross to Calvary and he fell, there was a farmer walking by on his way back from the fields, and he helped him carry it.”

“Not a farmer, Simon of Cyrene. What’s that damn priest been teaching you!” father said, getting all testy.

“I said so right from the beginning,” grandfather agreed with father. “The moment he first came here I said, he’s supposed to be a priest? He’s got a face like a little girl. He can’t even grow a beard, he’s just got fuzz here and there. How could he know anything. He doesn’t know the first thing about Jesus, just like he doesn’t know the first thing about people.”

“People are one thing, Jesus is another,” mother objected.

“What do you mean, another thing?” grandfather said, bridling in turn. “Was Jesus not a person? It was only after he died he became God.”

“Of course he was, he even let himself be crucified because he couldn’t take it anymore.”

“It wasn’t that he couldn’t take it anymore, he wanted to redeem people.”

“And in return they gave him something bitter to drink, and stabbed him in the side, am I right? I’d never have saved those villains. I’d have sent them to hell, let them roast down there, let them howl like wolves! Let them tear their hair out and shout for God’s mercy! Let them weep and weep till the darkness covers them over!” Mother was like a wasp with those villains, she wouldn’t leave them alone and she probably would have gone on longer if father hadn’t roared:

“What else?!”

My heart missed a beat. Luckily mother was still filled with anger at the villains that killed Jesus, and at that moment she started taking it out on father like he was one of them:

“Leave the boy alone, will you! He’s told you almost the whole gospel and all you can say is, what else, what else! Show me another child that knows that much. They can’t even tell you the ten commandments.”

Something came to me again.

“I was thinking, daddy, that he was proclaiming the ten commandments,” I threw out breathlessly, like I was trying to get this piece of good news out before mother.

But father bristled like a turkey-cock.

“Who?”

“You know, the Lord … God,” I said, though less surely, because I sensed something bad in his voice.

“Which one?” he asked with a frown.

“There’s only one Lord God, father. That’s what the priest told us. And there’s only one hanging on the wall there.”

“But in three persons! In three persons, you little twit!” He was shaking with anger.

I was all set to burst into tears. But something told me father wasn’t entirely on solid ground with Jesus. I pretended to be upset that someone had gotten it all muddled up, and I asked hesitantly:

“What do you mean, daddy, that there’s only one but in three?”

“Because it’s in three persons!” His chin twitched. “The Son of God! The Holy Ghost! And God the Father!”

“So which one of them is God?”

“They all are!”