Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

Not a cross, not a Lord Jesus, not a propeller. So what should I put on the tomb? I even thought about maybe building a gateway like the one out in the fields. A lot smaller, of course, because the one in the fields could be the gateway for the whole cemetery, not just a single tomb. Except these days who could make iron gates like that, there isn’t even anyone to shoe horses, you have to go all the way to Boleszyce. While Siudak was still alive he shod horses, did all the ironwork on wagons, whatever anyone wanted, plows, grates, grapnels for the fire brigade. For Pociejka the miller he made a whole iron fence for around his house. He was getting well on, but he kept working. Someone would be passing by the smithy, they’d stop for a while, operate the bellows for him, hold something for him, and he went on working almost till the very end. And the things you could learn from him, he knew more about iron than folks that lived all their lives in America could tell you about America. He’d say, for instance, that iron gets old just like a person, and it has a soul just the same. There ought to be a smithy if only for the sound it makes all through the village. But here the smithy’s stood empty a good few years now, since Siudak died. It’s going to ruin, and for some reason no one’s interested in being a blacksmith. Even Siudak’s sons got into mending televisions, and however much you asked them they couldn’t even repair a simple lock. And what would a gateway be without gates?

One time I had a dream about it. A huge crowd of people was cramming between the gateposts, it was as if there was no other way through, though all the fields were wide open. They milled around and squeezed together and cussed each other out, they were clambering over each other’s backs, it was exactly like people getting on the bus on market day. You could barely even see the gateway itself, there were so many people surrounding it they formed a big pile, and at the very top of the pile, among all the heads and backs, stood Wojtek Kubik with his arms stretched out, shouting: one at a time, one at a time! Stop pushing! Where do you think you’re all going, damn you! I’m over here, dad! Give me your hand, which one is yours? The one with calluses, Wojciu! They’ve all got calluses, which one is yours?! Then Mrs. Waliszyn pipes up, look at him, he’s standing on all our heads and he can only see his own folks! At that point I shouted to Wojtek as well, Wojciu, have you seen my family, did they go through already? No one’s gone through at all, Szymek, not the least little bug has passed, it’s empty as the fields.

But I probably needed to ask someone if it was right to put a gateway on a tomb. It’s another thing to have one out in the fields, anything can be there. On top of everything people’ll say I’ve got a screw loose. You put a gateway on your tomb? You don’t even have a gate into your yard. You ought to put new doors on your barn, the old ones are falling to pieces. You ought to mend your front door. One time they used to put a gateway up for the harvest festival, or when the starosta of the district was going to visit, or when newlyweds were coming back from the church they’d put one up so the young couple would buy them a bottle. For a barracks you need a gateway. Gate of Heaven you say in the litany, but that’s not a real gateway, it’s Our Lady. The best person to ask would be the priest, priests know about these things. But we’ve just gotten a new one and he’s a bit strange, he plays soccer with the boys, one time he brought the harvest in with Sójka like he was a farmhand, or he’ll go out in front of the presbytery and play the fiddle. His housekeeper says she’s going to quit, he’s such an oddball. You can’t ask someone like that for advice about what to put on your tomb.

The last one, if he’d still been alive he would have given me advice. He taught me religion way back in school, knew me since I was little. He knew everyone, he’d been in the village for years. But he passed away not long after I came back from the hospital. I just had time to go buy the plot for the tomb from him. Though he didn’t look at all like he was about to die. Sure he was getting on, but he had a good firm step and he held his head up straight. He even recommended that I choose a place closer to the wall, said it’d be quieter there, because these days on All Souls’ it gets like market day at the cemetery, people pushing their way around, trampling across the graves, they’ve no respect for anything. Though they bring ten times as many wreaths and flowers as they used to, and there’s enough candles to light the whole village. Best of all would be if I wanted to be right in the corner, where there’s that old oak tree, the only one that survived the war. But I happened to be fond of the propeller on Jaś Król’s tomb, and I wanted to be near him.

“As you prefer,” he said. “Your tomb, your wishes.”

I didn’t expect him to receive me in such a friendly way. When I went to him I was all set for a fight, in my head I was figuring out what to say to him when he asked questions. Because things weren’t as good as they might have been between us. A couple of times he’d singled me out during his sermon, when he needed a bad example that wasn’t from the Bible but from the village instead, so he could get through to people better. Because they were quite happy to hear about Judas or Mary Magdalene or the prodigal son, but then they’d go off and do whatever they wanted. On top of that, while my old folks were still alive he kept visiting them, scaring them, lecturing them, nagging them to get me to change. After every visit I’d get it at home even worse than in the sermon. I’d come through the door and right away father would be:

“I never thought I’d live to see the day. The priest criticizing our family from the pulpit. Like we’re no better than thieves. One of these days I’m gonna take my ax and smash your head in, you animal. Or you should leave this world of your own accord, then finally there’d be peace.”

When I went in he was sitting at his desk writing. He didn’t even raise his head, though I made a lot of noise, what with the legs and the walking sticks and all, also I struggled with the door. When I greeted him with “Christ be praised” he barely nodded. It was only when I clattered a bit more with my sticks that he glanced up over his eyeglasses and muttered something that was supposed to be:

“Oh, it’s you.”

I started in right away telling him why I was there, but he interrupted me.

“Are you still a wild one? It’s high time you settled down. Wait a minute while I finish.” He went on writing, his big gray head almost leaning on the desktop, as if he was writing something that took a huge effort.

“It’s a funeral oration,” he said when he finally stopped. A guy by the name of Molenda from Lisice had just died, and though he knew the man well, he knew all the parishioners like the back of his hand, still he didn’t have the memory he used to. He’d sometimes use the wrong name for the deceased at the graveside, and even get his life mixed up with someone else’s life. Though if you ask me, mixing up lives isn’t as bad, because either way it’s all the same water flowing into the same world.

But to get a person’s name wrong, it’s like that person never even existed, and there was no telling what you were burying.

He set aside his pen and took off his glasses. From the folds of his cassock he took out a handkerchief big as a headscarf and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

“I’m not as young as I used to be,” he said. “Time was, I could bury three or four, one after the other, and I’d have something different to say about each one of them. And from memory, I didn’t have to write anything beforehand. But back then one life seemed so different from the next.” He blew his nose into the handkerchief so loud that the glasses in the dresser jingled. He put the handkerchief away and said with a sigh: “So what, you’re finally giving it up? You thought you’d live forever. All those years fighting, and where’s it gotten you?”