Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

“Don’t get all concerned about me.” He walked over to the dresser. “What a hypocrite,” he said, pretending to be in a huff. “You never bothered about my feelings before, you just did whatever you felt like. That vulture, that greedy pig with the big belly. Have you forgotten the things you used to say? And where’s that big belly of mine? I was always skinny, still am. When you passed me on the road, I wouldn’t have expected a ‘Christ be praised’ because it wouldn’t pass your lips, but you might at least have said good morning. Yet all you’d do was look down and scowl like there was no tomorrow. Or start gazing at the sky as if you’d heard an airplane. I was the one that taught you God’s ten commandments. You’re not going to try and tell me they never came in useful? For each of my students, good and bad, every day I say at least one Hail Mary.” He put a bottle of wine and two glasses on the table. “And don’t you worry about my time either. My time is for God and for my parishioners. Your potatoes can wait awhile too. The Lord’s given us a mild fall, thank goodness, you’ll have time to get them in.” He seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment. “Though I’m not sure I have the right to say this is still my time. I sometimes have the feeling I’m living at the expense of eternity. Come on, take a seat.”

He gestured to an armchair that happened to be right beneath a huge larchwood cross that took up almost the whole wall from ceiling to floor. It was like it was fresh from the ax, none of it had been planed, there were splinters everywhere. If you’d touched it you’d for sure have gotten a hand full of spelks. I was about to say that the carpenter that made the cross, I wouldn’t hire him to build a cattle shed, how could he leave so many splinters, but he spoke before me:

“You’re looking at the cross? It was made by someone special.”

“I can see,” I said, and dropped into the armchair. I sank into it like it was a pile of hay.

He took my walking sticks from me. One fell on the ground and he picked it up himself, though you could tell it was an effort for him to bend over, and he grunted and turned red. He looked around to see where to put the sticks, and in the end he hung them over one of the arms of the cross. He poured out two glasses, a full one for me, just a little for himself, explaining that he still had to lead the rosary because the sacristan was sick. He handed me the glass so I wouldn’t have to get up, because he’d put it down a short ways away. I tried to stand, though I don’t know how I would have managed it without my walking sticks. But he put a hand on my shoulder to tell me to stay seated. He took the armchair opposite.

The wine was so sweet it was sickly. Truth be told, I’m not a big fan of wine. When it’s sweet I can hardly get it down, I don’t know how people can drink the stuff. But I couldn’t tell him that. I said it was nice.

“Must be foreign.”

“No, it’s made with blackcurrants,” he said. “You like it? Helenka, my housekeeper, she makes it. She’ll be pleased when I tell her you said it was good. She adds a little rose hip, juniper seeds, something else besides. Though she won’t say exactly what, she treats it like a big secret. She won’t even tell me exactly what she makes it from. If you like it, father, she says, then drink it and don’t ask questions. There’s no need to know everything right from the get-go.” He raised his glass. “Your health, then.” He barely touched the rim of the glass, smacked his lips, and set the wine aside.

I raised my glass too.

“Your health, father.” Again I started worrying about what he’d charge for the plot. Because he suddenly started staring at the wall, like he was bothered by the same thought, how much he should ask. Or maybe he was just looking at the larchwood cross. He suddenly broke off staring and sighed:

“So are you not afraid of death?”

I gave a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been thinking about the price.

“What’s there to be afraid of? A person’s only afraid when they’re not certain about something.”

“All the same, everyone’s afraid of death.”

“Because that’s how life is, father, the fear comes from life. A person’s afraid of storms. He falls asleep and he’s afraid. He’s afraid of the next person. He’s constantly afraid. Even yesterday, it’s already past and it’s no threat to him, but he’s afraid of it. And it’s not just people. Animals, the land, water, everything’s afraid. Or take trees for instance, do you think they’re not afraid? They won’t say it because they can’t talk, they can’t cry, they just stand there. But why is it an aspen’s leaves shake the whole time? Even when there’s no wind. With oaks, of course, it doesn’t show. They’re hard as rock. And they live for centuries. But when an oak tree finally falls, the whole forest is terrified. And what’s a human next to an oak tree, father?” I grabbed my glass from the table and knocked it back in one. I felt like I’d just swallowed a frog, but I made sure it didn’t show.

“Will you have some more?” he asked, and without waiting for me to at least nod he filled my glass again. “That’s for sure,” he sighed, as if lost in the deepest thought. He might not even have been listening to what I was saying, because after a moment he said: “The thing is, I thought you needed me to comfort you. Forgive me, though — put it down to priestly weakness.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I took another sweet mouthful of frog juice.

“I’m not sure if a person can comfort another person, father.” It came out too arrogant, but the sweetness was making me sick to my stomach. “It’s a bit like a blind man leading another blind man through the woods. One’s as unfortunate as the other, and the woods are dark and unknown. You have to live alone, for yourself, and you have to die the same way, no one can die for someone else. Besides, people have tried to kill me so many times that when I come to die it won’t be the first time. As for living, I’ve done a good bit of that too, enough for three men. In the resistance I was wounded seven times. Once I even thought I was in the next world. No one believed I’d pull through. But here I am.”

“Has it not occurred to you that maybe God wanted you to live?”

“It’s hard to say whether it’s God, father. I was always strong. Before the war, at dances we’d sometimes stick each other with knives, I’d bleed so much another guy would’ve been dead, but me, I’m still alive. It’s only now that our wounds become so unforgiving, the slightest thing and you’re a goner. You might not believe me, but I’ve never had so much as a cold in all my life. Though in the resistance we often slept on the bare ground, in rain and mud, on moss, on snow. You’d wake up frozen to the earth, like you’d become part of it. You couldn’t open your eyes, the frost was so heavy you’d have ice in your mouth and your arms and legs would be stiff as boards. But we always had vodka with us, a mouthful or two and it would all thaw out. Or this accident of mine. The doctors were shaking their heads saying there was nothing they could do to save my legs. They explained they’d have to be amputated. First they said both of them. Then, that I’d lose at least one. I refused, because how can a person live without legs. And here I am walking.”

“You certainly are a tough nut, my son,” he said like it was part of a mass or service or confession that he’d memorized — he knew all those things by heart. “But that’s pride, believe me, it’s pride. Beware of pride. It can destroy the human soul worse than anything else. Don’t try to be strong at any cost. Strength separates us from other people. Remember that Jesus was God but he allowed himself to be crucified so he could experience human weakness. You have to admit to weakness as well, because it’s in you, it really is. It may even want you to weep over yourself. Weep, even if you have to force yourself to. Otherwise you’ll never understand yourself, or other people.”