Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

Once she started sleeping with the corporal she even learned to be picky, she got as finicky as a fine lady though she was just a regular girl. She made them buy her a fur coat and knee-length boots, and Siudak had to sell a cow to pay for it. As for the hairdresser, she could spend half the day there. The thing that upset people even more than the corporal was the fact she had her hair washed at the hairdresser’s. Whoever heard of such a thing — a man washing a woman’s hair. The hairdresser fussed around her like he was dancing on eggshells, he’d do anything he could to satisfy her and it was always yes, Miss Gabryjela, no, Miss Gabryjela. In the end, as well as doing all those perms he became an informer. When the front got close, all of a sudden he disappeared overnight. And Gabrysia, she left for the West and married some official over there. She came back one year to visit her mother and father’s graves, but no one mentioned what she’d done when she was younger. What was there to mention? It was a different world, a different village; more than half the people from those times were in the cemetery. They were just lying there, what did they care about Gabrysia. From the other world it didn’t mean a thing that at one time, in this world, some Gabrysia used to sleep with a German corporal.

Me too, when I go to the cemetery I sometimes think it’s strange so many people are buried there that back then I shaved and cut their hair, and now they don’t remember anymore. Stanisław Kiciński. When he sat down and I told him, don’t move, he virtually turned to stone. Later I couldn’t turn his head either to the left or right. I had to squat down, twist and turn one way and the other. I asked him, I got annoyed with him, just turn a bit Stanisław or I won’t be able to finish cutting your hair. See, look over at that apostle at the Last Supper. The third one from Jesus’s left. Come on, look. Though on the other hand, when he finally stood up and passed his hand over his head, he said:

“It’s like a fellow was born a second time. God bless you, Szymuś.”

“Here, take a look in the mirror.”

“I don’t need to look, I can feel it.”

Or Wincenty Mitręga, may he rest in peace. He looked at himself in that scrap of mirror, ran out the house without a word, then a short while later he came back with a milk can full of moonshine.

“I was going to buy myself some new pants and a new dress for the old lady, but have a drink, lads, because that goddam war finally finished today. Your health, Szymek!” He tipped the can back and took the longest swig you ever saw. When he finally set it aside he didn’t even have the strength to pass it to the next person, he just hunkered down on the stoop and fell asleep.

There were days so many men came by that Stasiek would get back from school and I still hadn’t finished. They’d sit around the place wherever they could, on the beds, on the doorstep, some would stand or squat by the wall. They’d smoke till the room was black with smoke. Mother would complain she couldn’t breathe, and every so often she’d air the place out. But father was in seventh heaven, because everyone would give him a smoke and he could at least have his fill of cigarettes. I brought two logs and laid down a board to make a bench, because people even started coming from other villages.

To begin with my hands were a bit stiff when I worked. But anyone sitting there with hair that hadn’t been cut for months, that was dirty and sometimes full of lice, their mind was on other things and so what did they care about my hands. They could only feel themselves. Some folks would shudder like a horse being stung by a bee when I’d pass the comb through their hair. Some of them, the skin on their heads would stretch tight as sheet metal. Some of them shut their eyes as hard as they could. Or they’d grip the chair with both hands like I was about to cut their head off, not their hair. Or they’d clam up and not say a single word the whole time, till it was over and they could relax. Some of them even let other people in line go ahead of them just to put off the moment. You’d have been forgiven for thinking I was baptizing them, not cutting their hair.

I got better and better at it from one head to the next. I stopped doing everyone the same, instead I’d ask do you want it longer, shorter, to the side or to the back. I learned to do shading. I’d shave necks till they shone. And I did sideburns in two different ways, straight and angled.

Later I bought an electric razor from a Russian guy for a half-gallon of moonshine. He’d worked as a barber as well, but the war was over and he was heading home. Another time a traveling saleswoman sold me a bottle of cologne, and after that I’d ask, splash of cologne? Naturally cologne was more expensive, so not everyone wanted it. I bought a sheet and mother made me cloths to put around people’s necks. I was going great guns. All I needed was to hang out a sign. And as I worked I’d tell stories about the resistance, so no one got bored even if they had to wait the whole morning.

I probably would have stuck with being a barber, because winter passed and spring came, Stasiek gave me the boots back since he could go to school barefoot now, but I was still cutting people’s hair and giving shaves. I even thought about renting the room at Madej’s that Basiak had used. Luckily Madej’s place survived the war except for the roof got damaged and the windows were broken. But Madej had already more or less repaired it. Maybe one day I’d learn how to do perms. Szymon Pietruszka, permanent waves, water waves. No worse than Jan Basiak. Hairdressing’s a decent trade, and it’s a whole lot easier than working the land. At the most I’d just go take a course. Or I might not even have to do that. The war had done away with a good number of hairdressers as well. In town there used to be three of them and now only one was left.

Plus, harvesttime was getting close. And harvesttime was a curse. From dawn till night you worked like an animal. Your head’s pounding from the mowing, your eyes are blinded by sweat. Instead of crossing the sky, the sun just keeps moving to and fro across your back, all the time from when it rises in the east till when it sets in the west. It’s like its claws were sunk into your skin. Because it’s not even the sun, the sun is what shines over the river and the meadow and in the reeds, this thing is a huge bright bird that’s got it in for you. The moment you feel like straightening up a bit, it jabs you in the back of the head with its beak. Like it was reminding you your life belongs down below, not up above, that your life is this eternal unmown field that you keep moving across, swinging your scythe. And you don’t even know if you’ll ever finish mowing it. You’ll only be done when death takes you.

It was the same when I went to war, I was glad to be missing the harvest because it had just begun. Father had gone out into the fields with his scythe at the crack of dawn, I was supposed to follow with mine and we were going to mow, the two of us. It was right then Gunia brought me the letter with my call-up. I was so pleased, I forgot to take the scythe with me, I just grabbed the letter and ran out to the field to tell father:

“It’s war, father.”

Father looks at me surprised and says:

“Where’s your scythe? You were supposed to bring your scythe.”

“I just said, it’s war.” I waved the letter in front of him. “Read this.”

“I don’t need to read anything. If there was a war we’d be hearing it. Can you hear anything?” He tipped his head back as if he was listening, but the only sound was larks singing in the sky. “There’s nothing but larks. It’s probably just talk. I mean, how long has it been since the last war? And there’s going to be another one? What are they fighting about? When there’s a war, first there has to be a sign in the sky. When the last one started there was a burning cross up there in the south at night. Come on, get to work. You can mow with my scythe, I’ll bind the sheaves.”