Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

Heat poured down from the sky, and the earth was hot underfoot. I could feel it, not just in my feet and through the sticks, but even up under my ribs. My back was in agony. I’d never had any problems with my back before. I could lift all I wanted, walk anywhere, didn’t feel a thing. I needed to rest up at least a short while.

“Afternoon, Seweryn!” Old Grabiec was sitting on the bench outside his house. I’d been sure he was dead already. I don’t know where I got the idea. It was another matter that at his age he could have been dead three times over. Perhaps someone told me in the hospital. “I’ll join you for a minute.”

“Help yourself, there’s room enough for the both of us. And who are you?”

“Don’t you know me? It’s Szymek Pietruszka.”

“Right, Szymek. My eyes are going dark, son, I can only half see. But now I see you. You used to be quite the fighter at the dances, you put on a show. And you used to like to drink. Are you coming from the fields?”

“No, I’m looking for my brother Michał. He’s gone off somewhere.”

“Doesn’t he know where he’s gone?”

“He probably does, but in his own way.”

“How else is he supposed to know? Everyone knows in their own way. Is he older than you or younger?”

“Older.”

“Then he’ll know better than you. Are your folks still alive?”

“No, they died a long time ago.”

“They did right. There’s no sense living too long. One war for one life, then a person should move on. Not like me, four of them. Were you in a war as well?”

“I was. But that was a while back.”

“I thought you might have been, cause you’ve got walking sticks.”

“That’s not from the war. It was on the road.”

“You fell off a wagonload of sheaves.”

“Kind of.”

“There’s no point taking too many at one go. The wagon can rock. And it’s harder for the horse. It’s better to make two trips. Tell me now, is it true about them Sputniks?”

“Well, they’re flying up there, it must be.”

“I guess, though who’s actually seen them. You can see the stars on a clear night. And the dogs would bark.”

“It’s too high for dogs.”

“The moon’s even higher, and they bark at that. Have you heard anything about a war, maybe? Are they getting ready to fight?”

“Why are you so interested in war? It’s not been that long since the last one.”

“Because the powers that be have to go head-to-head. Otherwise they wouldn’t be powers. At least I might get out of paying my taxes. It’s got to the point I owe thousands, dammit. They keep adding penalties. And I’ve got nothing.”

“No one does, Seweryn. One harvest goes well, then the next one rots. How’s your grain been?”

“Like everyone else’s.”

“Kernels big?”

“Neither big nor small.”

“Why aren’t you mowing yet?”

“I’m waiting for one of them to bring their wagon.”

“What did you sow?”

“Nothing. What’s the point in sowing when there’s no one to get the harvest in.”

“Doesn’t it pain you that the land’s just lying there?”

“Why should it pain me. Pain doesn’t feel pain. The world was there, then it went away. You have to accept it.”

“Get your scythes! Get your scythes! Get out into the fields! Another day or two and the weather might turn.” Gula had appeared in front of us, his missus had sent him out to buy salt for their dinner and he was on his way back from the co-op.

“Say, Marian, you haven’t seen my Michał anywhere, have you?” I was only asking, because I knew he wouldn’t know. And Gula just casually says:

“Yeah, he’s mucking out at Skobel’s place.”

“Mucking out at Skobel’s?” I jumped up and grabbed my walking sticks. “Damn, and here I am looking all over the village for him!”

“What were you looking for him for? You should have just gone straight to Skobel’s.”

Luckily Skobel’s place wasn’t far, he lived right the other side of the co-op, it was just a bit downhill, closer to the river. It would never have occurred to me to go ask Skobel if Michał was there. No one ever went to Skobel’s even to borrow a whetstone for a scythe, or leaven for bread, base for żurek , you wouldn’t borrow his plow or wagon or horse, not to mention money. I walk into his yard and his dog comes out at me, it won’t let me take a step farther, just stands there yapping at me. I whacked it on the back with my stick like it was Skobel himself. Get lost, you little sod! It yelped and slunk back. Skobel came out of the barn.

“What’s the dog ever done to you?”

“Where’s Michał?”

“What are you all upset about? You’re supposed to say, Christ be praised, when you go visiting someone. He’s in the cattle shed, he’s mucking out.”

I hurried into the shed and I saw Michał, my brother, barefoot, up to his ankles in manure, working a pitchfork like he was Skobel’s farmhand. He was skin and bones. His beard reached his chest, his hair was all the way down his back. I barely recognized the brand-new dark blue suit with white stripes that I’d bought him the Easter before I went into the hospital. Thirty-five hundred zlotys it cost me. And it looked like he was wearing the same cherry-red tie with white dots I’d gotten him at the same time, since he had something tied around his neck. But I was just guessing, because he was covered in filth from head to foot like some animal.

“Michał! It’s me, Szymek!”

He looked in my direction, but only as if to say, who’s blocking the light in the doorway there, then he lowered his eyes again and dug the pitchfork back into the manure.

“You bastard, Skobel! How you could let him do the mucking out? A guy like him!”

“Keep your shirt on. You think this is the old days? Not anymore, things are different now. Was I supposed to feed him for free? Wasn’t for me, he’d have starved to death. Everyone else is only good for feeling sorry. But looking after him, feeding him, all of a sudden they don’t feel so sorry anymore. Let God look after him. One time I found him here in the orchard, he’s eating green plums.”

“So in return for a bowlful of food you make him your farm boy! You’re a piece of work! And him, do you know who he was?”

“Everyone knows. Like people don’t talk? But they forget when someone’s down on their luck.”

“People don’t know squat!”

“People know everything!”

“Michał!” I snatched the pitchfork from his hands. “Home now! Come on, on the double! You miserable shit, Skobel, I’d like to give you a taste of this!” I jammed the pitchfork in the ground inches from his feet, it made him blanch. I pushed Michał out ahead of me.

He walked in front obediently, with me barely limping along behind. Maybe he thought another farmer was taking him to a new job. He never asked questions about who and where, you could lead him anyplace. They could have led him to his death and he never would have even asked, why? It was like there was nothing inside him except the fact that he was walking. I was seething with anger. It was like someone had taken a big stick and stirred me up inside all the way to the bottom, like a pot filled with bubbling kasha. I felt I needed to do something to make him understand that I was back, that I was his brother, that I was taking him home and no Skobel or Macała or anyone else would ever take him again to tie up sheaves or cut beet tops or muck out the cattle shed.

“Hurry up.” I prodded him in the back with one of my sticks, though I couldn’t go any faster myself. My legs were fit to drop off, my hands were wet and stinging from blisters that had burst.

We came into the house.