Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

I only read a few pages. I couldn’t get any further because his bed was taken by a damn kid that wanted to be my best buddy right from the get-go and talked my ear off from morning till night. His head was all wrapped in bandages, both his legs were broken, he’d crashed his motorbike when he was drunk, and he was all pleased because he was getting out of doing jobs for his father. He never shut his trap once, whether anyone was listening or no. Most of all he liked to go on about his girlfriends, though it was mostly just dirty stories. Which one he’d been with, and where, and when, and how. Lying down, standing up, from the front, from the back, kneeling, squatting, straight up, and upside down. You really felt sorry for the girlfriends.

One time one of them visited him, she was a nice, good-looking young lady. She brought a basket of apples and gave one to each of us, she even had me take two, and she picked another one out herself and put it on my table. She gave you the impression she was visiting her father and grandfather and uncles, not the kid. She even took her basket around the beds like she was embarrassed at being the only girl among all those men. Though they weren’t much in the way of men, they were all wrinkled and feeble and gray and bald, their teeth falling out, their eyes failing, some of them with one foot in the grave. But they were kind of embarrassed as well, they were supposedly just taking apples from her, but everyone lowered their eyes so as not to look at her without her clothes on, because it was like she was giving out her breasts instead of apples after that animal had undressed her in front of us all.

Not only did he undress those girlfriends of his, he laughed at them as well. He laughed so much sometimes he slapped himself on the thigh, on his cast. He laughed the way a fool laughs at the slightest thing. He laughed to himself. And though it was none of our business, everyone looked at him as he laughed like he was on his way to his own funeral. How could you laugh like that on a bed that was still warm after someone else had died. Maybe he was so stupid he didn’t even know that through all that laughter and all those undressed girlfriends he was just continuing the other man’s dying. Old men can see straight through the world, and they could see that too.

Besides, is it true that there’re so many different ways? Stallions don’t do anything like that with mares, nor dogs with bitches. Why would people? And what for? After all, whichever way you do it the result’s the same. I was a young man too in my day and I may even have had more girls than him, but I always did it the way you’re supposed to.

The only one to laugh was old Albin in the corner by the door, he’d squeal with delight whenever the kid would put his hand between his girlfriend’s legs, or she’d do the same to him. But Albin’s back was broken and he just lay there like a tree stump, and his arms and legs lay next to him like chopped-off boughs. He could only dream of sleeping with a woman one more time before he died. He was forever cursing his life, cursing his injury, his children, everything. He promised an acre of land to the ward orderly, Jadzia, if she’d only put her hand under his covers, it could even be right before he died. Jadzia laughed and said death was probably a lot nicer than her hand, her hand was all work-worn and chapped and not exactly young. Because Jadzia was able to laugh at even the saddest things. Another woman would have given him an earful, but she laughed. Another woman would have burst into tears, but Jadzia laughed. Often it’d be quiet as the grave on the ward, then Jadzia would come in and say something and everyone would be laughing.

It wasn’t surprising really. To be surrounded like her for so many years by misery and pain and death and moaning, and it was constantly, clean up shit and piss, tidy the place, change the beds, take this out, bring this in — after all that you’d learn to laugh at anything. Plus, everyone was always trying to marry her, old, young, widows, married men, though all of them had half a foot in the next world. A good few couldn’t even stand up on their own, or turn over in bed by themselves, they were armless, legless, they shat their pants, their faces were all crooked, they ached everywhere. But the moment Jadzia came on the ward, every one of them was all set to marry her. Some of them would have married her one day and died the next. And she never turned anyone down, she never said no, she just laughed.

Often one of them would set about marrying her in a way he’d never have done with his own wife, because she’d have knocked his block off. But Jadzia the orderly let anyone try to marry her as much as they wanted, and she laughed with each one the way she would have done with her own man. She was never sad, never angry. It was just that when one of them would try to arrange a wedding with her, she’d ask:

“How am I going to get to the church? Are you planning to take me in a regular wagon with the boards all dirty with manure? Cause I’m not going unless it’s in a carriage drawn by four white horses.”

One guy would promise she’d be a fine lady when she lived with him.

“Then you’ll have to become a fine gentleman first.”

One of them would swear she’d never lack for caviar in his house.

“Caviar maybe not, but I’d lack for everything else.”

One tried to tempt her by saying he had gold rubles buried under a mow in his barn, and when he got back home he’d dig them up and they’d all be hers.

“Best go home first and dig them up, your kids might have gotten there first.”

Another one kept pestering her about getting together in the morning when everyone was still asleep.

“In the morning there’s no moonlight and your breath smells.”

One guy sighed and said that if the Lord let him get well even just for a moment from being with her, he’d buy a new bell for the church.

“Then buy the bell first so I can hear it ringing.”

Someone else boasted that though he was old, if he went with her he’d get his youth back.

“You should get your youth back first, because afterwards it might be too late and we’d both be embarrassed.”

One of them asked if he could at least feel her breast.

“What good would that do you? You’re not a baby anymore, you won’t get any milk from it.”

Another one complained he wanted her so bad it hurt, but he couldn’t move arm or leg.

“So you see yourself. No moving, no loving.”

Another guy would grin at her when she was putting a urinal in place for him, though he couldn’t ever go.

“You need to take a piss first, cause otherwise later it could be a problem.”

When one of them was dying she’d sit by him and say to him:

“You were supposed to marry me, and here you are dying. I laughed just because, but I would have gone with you even in a regular wagon with dirty boards.”

Maybe that’s why she never took a husband, because they were forever marrying her and then dying, and it was like she was constantly being made a widow. I laughed myself a good many times that if it wasn’t for my legs, or if I’d met Miss Jadzia earlier, she would have had to be my wife. I’m no spendthrift, Miss Jadzia was a sensible woman too, we’d have made a good couple. But nothing was lost, when I got home I’d come visit her one day, bring her a chicken, some eggs, cheese, and we’d talk it through. The house would have a housekeeper, I’d have a wife, because my brothers had been on at me about getting married. There was no point even talking about it right now with these legs, who knew if I’d ever walk again, and Miss Jadzia wouldn’t have been able to carry me, even though she had strong arms.

One time at the very beginning, when she was changing my sheets she saw the scars on my body and she was horrified: