Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

Three of us went, me, Birchtree, and Sad Man. No, that’s not right, Sad Man was dead by then. It must have been Rowan. Because Rowan liked going and carrying out verdicts. There aren’t any dances these days, he’d say, it’s good we at least get to take out some scumbag once in a while. His eye was straight as a pine tree. Whatever got in his sights — man, bird, hare — it was curtains for it. Except he didn’t like taking orders, and for him there were no ranks or officers.

One time, after this one shoot-out he went missing. The guys went looking for his body, thinking he’d been killed and so he’d need burying. But they didn’t find him. We thought, maybe he’s been captured? But someone surely would have seen it. And it wasn’t like Rowan to get caught. He always carried a bullet in his breast pocket, he’d take it out whenever he had nothing else to do and roll it between his fingers or toss it in the palm of his hand till it got all shiny like gold. He’d laugh and say it was himself he was polishing it up for, just in case, that he wouldn’t let himself be caught. We started to think that maybe he’d been a spy. But Rowan a spy? In the end two men went off on bikes, because he had a wife and three kids and she needed to be told he’d died in action. They found her by the well, drawing water. But before they told her he was dead, just to be on the safe side they asked if she didn’t happen to know where he was. She got all flustered, she couldn’t tell who they were, and she started making stuff up, saying he’d been taken away to do forced labor, or he’d gone off after some hussy and left her with the children and the farm. It was too much for her on her own, she said. She even started to cry.

The guys didn’t know what to say. But they heard someone threshing in the barn. So they asked who it was threshing. She said it was a relative, and she offered them a drink of sour milk in the house. The guys were no fools, they said sure, that would be nice, but first they’d go ask the relative if he knew anything. They open up the barn door, and it’s Rowan doing the threshing.

“So you’re threshing, Rowan?” they say.

“Like you see,” he says.

“We thought you were dead, Rowan,” they say.

“If I was dead I wouldn’t be threshing,” he says.

“It wasn’t nice to run away from the unit like that, Rowan,” they say.

“I didn’t run away,” he says. “I just came to do the threshing for the missus, who else is going to do it for her.”

“Maybe you’re a spy, Rowan,” they say.

“If I was a spy I’d have a farmhand. The farmhand would be threshing, and I’d be informing on you,” he says.

“Get your things, we’re going, Rowan,” they say.

“I’ll get my things when I’m done threshing,” he says. “I’ve got another couple dozen sheaves of wheat to get through. Oh, and these oats for the horse.”

The men reached for their weapons, but Rowan whacked them on the head with the flail. Then he twisted their hands behind their back and took their guns away.

“Tell them I’m alive. And that I’m not a spy. Now go on up to the house, the wife’ll give you a drink of milk. Then get the hell out of here. I’ll come of my own free will, there’s no way you’ll make me.”

We went into the pub to have one drink. Rowan was disguised as a wagon driver, he was carrying a whip and wearing a sheepskin hat. Birchtree had stayed at the market, he was going to let us know when that bastard bailiff showed up. We didn’t want all three of us to be hanging around because it would have drawn attention. Plus, Rowan always had to have a drink when he was going to execute someone. He said it made his hand faster and his aim better, though he might not have been telling us everything. Actually, even when he wasn’t killing he was fond of a tipple, though he didn’t like to drink alone, and he always had to find himself someone that had some kind of problem, so he could act like a priest and find words of comfort for him. Because when you’ve got worries you have to have a drink, and at those times the comfort is surer as well.

That was how it was when Sad Man joined the unit. Rowan took to him like he was his own brother. Sad Man had only just gotten married and he’d had to run off to the woods to fight, and leave his young wife all alone at home. That was why his code name was Sad Man. He was a tall, strapping lad with black wavy hair and thick eyebrows, his wife must have been good-looking too. Some of the men envied him that young wife, though he never spoke about her, but Rowan started in right away comforting him.

“You’ll have plenty of time to be with her, brother. I found it hard too. Sometimes I couldn’t wait till nighttime. There were times I’d take her there in the fields, whether or not anyone was around. Sometimes people would even call and say hello to us. Now, when I go home sometimes I’ll chop wood for her, check the horse’s hooves to make sure it’s not lost a shoe, currycomb it, tell her what needs sowing where, or planting, and she’ll pull me to her, but I’ll say, there’s a war on, Waleria, we need to fight the enemy, let’s leave lovemaking till afterward. It might be nice to do it with a different woman. It’s basically the same, but a different one would always be a bit fatter or thinner, she’d make different noises. With your own woman the only thing you have in common is your worries. And it’s a good thing God provides them, because what else would you do together? Even if you’re not at loggerheads, the two of you, all you do is turn your back on each other at night, you even keep the quilt between you so you won’t get too hot. With your own woman, I’m telling you, brother, it’s like being with yourself. You or her, you’re one body, tired or not, bad or not. It’s better to just have a drink, the result’ll be the same. Also, we’ve already made three kids, do we really want a fourth? Who knows what would lie in its future. Maybe it’d be unhappy? You think I’d have joined the resistance if things had been different? The hell with that. I’m eaten alive by lice, I never get enough sleep, on top of that I could get killed. At home no one was chasing after me, no one came for me, I turned in my levies, hogs, earmarked cows. Windows always blacked out at night. Whatever they demanded, I never said a word. Even the military policeman said to me, Herr Sadziak, goot, goot . But I couldn’t keep it up any longer.”

Rowan died in an attack on the prison in Oleszyce. And Sad Man didn’t let himself be comforted either. One night he took off to see how that young wife of his was doing all on her own. The boys advised him not to go, stay put, Sad Man. Rowan gave him the same advice, you want to know too much, brother, you might end up knowing what you shouldn’t. You’d be better off just getting drunk.

It was a starry night. The dogs in the village knew him so only the occasional one barked in its sleep. Their dog had been shot by the military police during a search, a thief could have come and there wouldn’t have been anyone to bark at him. He knocked on the window and waited for her to get up and appear there like a glowing light in her pure white nightgown, and she wouldn’t believe it was him, she’d think he was a glowing light like her. Then she’d rush to the door and unlock it, and fall into his open arms. All around there’d be the smell of lilac from all the bushes that grew by the house.

He knocked a second time, a little louder, but nothing seemed to be moving in the house and no one appeared in the window. He stood a while longer and listened and watched, then he tried the door. It was unlocked. He went in and said into the darkness, Christ be praised, he said, it’s me, are you there, Wandzia? But the only answer was a squawk from the brood hen in its basket under the table, because it probably thought someone was coming to take its little ones away.