Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

“Goddammit!” I said, furious at Kuś, especially because I’d moved off quicker than him and my shaft got stuck in his load and twisted my horse’s neck. “The hell you were in the army! You wouldn’t have survived a day in the war at that speed! You’d have been pushing up the daisies long ago! Why you had to be at the goddam front of the line instead of the back I don’t know. All you needed was to get your horse’s front legs on the blacktop and you’d be on your way! You should’ve used the whip, not the reins! Give her a good lash instead of being gentle on her!” I was so furious I yanked my horse back as hard as I could, and the trace almost ripped the creature’s head off. I used the whip on both sides, it’s not easy backing up with a loaded wagon.

“Fucking hell!”

“Shit!”

“He had to go and straighten himself up!”

“He forgot to cross himself as well!”

“You get a guy like that up there and all he’ll do is wait! You can’t go around him, you can’t go over him!”

“He ought to be saying his goodbyes to the world, not bringing in the crops!”

“Or haul his sons’ asses back from the town and let them do the job!”

“He’s got one foot in the grave and he can’t leave the earth alone! You’ll have enough of it when you’re six feet under!”

“He should give his land to the government, let it be!”

“The countryside’s supposed to be moving forward, but how can it with old farts like him standing in the way!”

Curses and insults stormed down on Kuś’s head. All he did was hunch up, his head tucked in, and wait till it all passed. Or maybe somewhere there in his lap he was saying his rosary, like he was waiting his turn at the district administration or the co-op. In the end I felt sorry for him. I’d stopped being angry, because what was the point of being angry at the wrong person, and I called out to him:

“Hey, Bartłomiej! Maybe you could take my wagon and I’ll drive yours?”

I had no idea he’d be so upset.

“Why should I take your wagon? What’s wrong with mine? I’ve been a farmer longer than you have. I’ve got more acres than you. No one plows or sows for me, and no one else needs to drive my wagon for me either. Eighty-two years it’s been, that’s long enough to know how to farm.”

At that, one of the other men shouted:

“Eighty-two years and he’s still clinging to life, goddammit!”

Someone cracked his whip and it made all the horses twitch. Kuś turned around oh so slowly to the other wagons, gave us this strange look, and said:

“It’s not my life I’m worried about, it’s the horse’s.”

Everyone suddenly felt foolish. No one said another word one way or the other. Someone tugged quietly at the reins, whoa! but not because his horse was uneasy, the reins were maybe just stinging his hands. No one even reached into his pocket to have a smoke. And that’s always the best remedy when you can’t think of anything to say or you’ve got a bad conscience. But Kuś seemed to be kind of overcome by bitterness, maybe not at the other farmers but just in general:

“She’s eighteen years old, you know, and it’s good she can still pull. Because that’s like a dog being ten, or a person, however old they’re meant to get. Only ravens live longer. But you won’t find any ravens these days! It’s all crows and rooks, though people call them all ravens. You know, she already almost died on me one time. I was plowing the potato field and she started playing up, so I give her a flick with the tip of the whip and I shout, gee up! All of a sudden, you know, she goes down on her knees, then she falls on her side. I run up, I think, maybe she’s got a touch of the colic. I grabbed her by the bridle and pulled, get up now. I think, I’ll try with the whip. I gave her a good crack, but you know, I look and I see it’s death, not colic. She turned her head but she couldn’t get back up. What could I do? Tell me what to do, Lord, my mare’s dying. But not a peep from up there. All you can hear is crows and rooks cawing away. So I squatted down, I took her head on my lap, I held it and I said to her, get up, are you going to leave me with the potato field half done? We can die together. You know it won’t be long. Get up. We’ve worked so long together, why should we die separately? We’ll plow this field next year again, maybe the year after as well, and that’ll be that. Or maybe God’ll only let us finish this field, nothing more. Get up. And she did.”

He sighed and coughed so hard he had to hit himself in the chest with his fist because something got stuck, then he coughed it up and spat it out and he turned back around to the wagons and carried on:

“One time, you know, my grandfather Mikołaj told me how long ago God was handing out riches. He called all the people that lived on earth because he wanted to give things out fairly. But first there came the princes and judges and merchants and other rich folk. They arrived in all different kinds of carriages. And, they were racing each other, the drivers were lashing the horses so hard their whips snapped. And the peasants, like you’d expect, even if some of them had a horse they didn’t want to tire it out if they didn’t need to, so they came on foot. And even though it was God they were visiting, it was still a ways. So when they got there God had already given everything away to those other folks. God was really upset that there were still some other people, because the rich men had told him that was everyone. Also, he could see the peasants were dressed in rags. They had shoes made of linden bark, and coarse shirts with rope belts. They didn’t even have caps to take off when they came into God’s presence. And so God was even more troubled.

“ ‘What have I got for you, my little golden people?’ he says. ‘I’ve given everything away. All I have left is the crown of thorns on my head and this cloak you see me in. I’m as poor as you are.’

“He sat there, he rested his chin on his hand, lowered his head, and thought and thought. The peasants reckoned nothing would come of it and one of them says:

‘ “All right, we’ll be on our way, God.’

“But God says:

‘ “Just a moment. I’ll give you a little of my patience. If you take it, you’ll be able to put up with anything. Because people are going to have more need for patience than for riches.” ’

Kuś fell to thinking and stared at the passing cars. All of us on our wagons followed suit and stared at the cars like he was. And maybe they were even a bit less mad at them. All of a sudden Kuś pointed at the road with his whip and shouted:

“Hey, two hundred!”

“What about two hundred?”

“That’s how many have driven past.”

“What are you counting them for? It’s a waste of time. They’re not worth it.”

“Well, when there’s nothing else a fellow can do, he can at least count. My old father, God rest his soul, he’d always tell me, count, son, keep counting, you never know when it’ll come in handy. One time, you know, in the summertime we were lying under this apple tree in the orchard of a Sunday. I was already grown up. Father wasn’t saying anything and I wasn’t saying anything either. Father let his hat slip down over his forehead, I thought he was asleep. So I closed my eyes a moment too. Then all at once he says:

‘ “Three thousand five hundred and eighty-three.’

‘ “What do you mean, three thousand five hundred and eighty-three, dad?’ I ask, I thought he was dreaming.

‘ “That’s how many apples there are on the tree.’

‘ “How do you know?’

“ ‘I counted them. I always count things when something’s bothering me. You should too. Start with raspberries. There aren’t that many raspberries on a bush, so it won’t be too hard. After that, try counting the sloes on a sloe tree. Then break open a poppy head and count the seeds. Go up on a hill and count the fields and meadows and field boundaries. Count whatever you see in front of you, pigeons, clouds, people at funerals, posts in a fence, rocks in the river. Just never be idle. And if one time you can count all the stars in the night sky, then you’ll be able to say you have patience and you can overcome anything. I never was able to, but you should try. Maybe you’ll manage it.’ ”