Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

Luckily people were crowding round the stalls like bees on honey, and there was no way we could elbow through. Though as it happened I didn’t feel a whole lot like pushing anyway, and for Zośka it was enough that she was on my arm. She would have given anything to be seen around the fair with a young fellow like me, never mind puppies or kittens or beads. Also, even though it was wartime the fair was grander than many a one before the war. The rows of stalls stretched all the way to the cemetery. There were as many wagons as on market day. And the crowd was so big the place was stifling, it was like processions moving this way and that, you couldn’t even tell which one was going which direction, because they were all squeezed together. And all the squeals and shouts and laughter, and trumpeting, and whistling, and roosters crowing, like there was no war and the whole world was one giant fair. Plus, I told her I liked it when she laughed, so she kept laughing the whole time.

All at once the three Prażuchs are standing there in front of us like three pine trees. They’re eyeing us like bandits. Uh-oh, I think to myself, this could turn nasty. I tried to go around them, because I had rye flour and bread-making on my mind, not fighting. But on the right there happened to be a stall with a crowd of customers, and on the left a wagon that someone was selling cherries off of, and I wasn’t about to turn around and beat a retreat. I let Zośka go ahead first, thinking it might be easier if we passed them one by one. They let her through, though as she passed Bolek, the youngest one, he said with a sneer:

“He’s found himself a genuine dwarf girl.”

The three of them snickered, and I was sure they’d let me past too, at Zośka’s expense. Then suddenly the oldest one, Wojtek, blocks my way with his shoulder and he’s all, Where the hell do you think you’re going? Can’t you see we’re standing here?

“Of course I can see,” I answered. And without a second thought I punched him in the mouth as he stood there still grinning. He didn’t even have time to duck. He swayed, I straightened him up with my other fist and he rolled backwards onto the wagon with the cherries. His head hit the wheel and after that he didn’t get up. Bolek jumped forward and grabbed me by the shoulders, and we struggled for a moment. There was a commotion. Some folks got out of the way, but others pushed forward so they could see. There were even some wanted to join in. Someone called out like they were selling candy:

“Fight! There’s a fight!”

Someone else shouted:

“Jesus and Mary! Isn’t it enough there’s a war on, damn them!”

“Get the priest! Have him spray holy water on them, the goddam fools! Get the priest!”

Zośka was tugging at my jacket.

“Szymek! Szymuś! You’re the smart one! Let the stupid idiots have their way!”

At that exact moment a massive weight hit my head from behind. I reeled, and my eyes went blank. But I managed to stay on my feet, and I swung my fist blindly into the darkness in front of me. I missed. It made me stagger, and so as not to fall over I lurched after my arm. My head landed in someone’s belly and there was a grunt. I got my sight back. I saw Bolek, it was his belly, spin back against a stall and knock it over. Plaster figures flew every which way. The stall owner let rip with a stream of curses, he took Bolek by the shoulders and pushed him back toward me. I held up my fist, and Bolek smashed into it with his nose like it was a wagon shaft. His eyes spun. But he was a strong one, even though he was the smallest of the three of them. He just shook his head like someone had thrown a bucket of water over him. I gave him a left hook, he rocked but stayed upright. If I’d punched him one more time that probably would’ve done it. But by now Jędrek, the tallest one, had pushed all the people aside and he was reaching his arms out toward me like he wanted to put them round me and crush me. I leaned back a bit and with all the force I could muster I hit him halfway between those arms. They opened up like wings. It was almost like he was suspended by them. All at once he clapped his left hand to his eye and gave a terrible howl:

“Jesus!” He swayed for a moment with his hand to his eye as if he didn’t know whether to fall or not. I helped him out with a pretty gentle blow under the elbow and he dropped down at my knees, moaning: “My eye! I can’t see! My eye! You fucking bastard!”

I wondered whether I should keep fighting, most of all I’d have liked to stomp him into the ground. I just pulled his hand away from his eye and I said, Look at me with that bloody eye of yours, you son of a bitch, I want you to remember this. He thought I was fixing to keep at him and he burst into tears:

“Don’t hit me anymore! Leave me alone! We’re from the same village!”

Except that while Jędrek was begging for me to spare him, Bolek had recovered and was coming at me from the side with a knife. I might not even have seen it, but there was a sudden flash, as if the sun had glanced off the gold cross on the church steeple. Plus, a well-wisher in the crowd warned me at the last moment:

“He’s got a knife!”

It was too late for me to knock the knife out of his hand because he was already swiping it at me. But I managed to dodge, and I gave him an almighty kick between the legs. He folded in two, and the knife flew out of his hand like a little sparrow. I lifted his limp body from the ground. With my left hand I held him up by his lapels, and with my right I started hitting him as payback for the knife, slowly, with pauses, because I could barely keep on my feet myself. Though maybe I only thought I was hitting him because of the knife, and really it was for that damned field boundary that had been plowed over so many times. I pulled him up every time he started slipping back down, and I kept hitting him. He came round and passed out again in turns, as if he didn’t even feel he was being hit. I was running out of strength, but I still had so much rage in me it probably wouldn’t have been satisfied even if I’d killed him. In the end blood welled up out of his mouth.

“Let him go. He’s had enough,” some angel said to me from the side. And I let him go.

He dropped like a lump of earth, but my legs buckled as well and I almost fell down with him. For a moment I stood there like a drunk, afraid to take even a single step, it was like someone was striking sparks in my eyes. Then I heard the angel’s voice again:

“Come sit here, young falcon.”

I turned my head, and right by me I saw a stall, and the owner sitting behind it. She was a plump old woman, her face was all pitted with the smallpox, but the angelic voice was hers. She gave a kind of strange smile, as if two different smiles were competing on her face, maybe it was because of the smallpox, or maybe I was just seeing double. I suddenly remembered I was supposed to get the rye milled with Zośka. I looked around, but there was no sign of her.

“Don’t waste your time looking for her,” said the stall owner in her angelic voice. “She squealed and squealed, then off she ran. That’s young women today for you. Come over here and rest up.” She put a stool out for me in front of the stall. She even took her headscarf off and laid it down on the stool. “Szymek’s your name? I heard her calling you that. Nice name. Pull your jacket off and I’ll sew the buttons back on, they’ve all gotten ripped off.”

She came out from behind the stall and removed my jacket. She took it to the neighboring stalls, and a moment later she came back with a handful of buttons.

“Here. These’ll look even nicer than the old ones.”

She squeezed back behind the stall and started sewing. As I watched her worn, swollen hands at work, she picked a string of pretzels from a pile in her stall and tossed them into my lap.