Wieslaw Mysliwski - Stone Upon Stone

I even thought about quitting, because it was getting too much for me. Right after mother died I still got some help from the women that lived nearby. One of them would cook for us from time to time, another one would clean the house, another one would do the laundry, and a fourth one would at least come and offer her sympathy. But as mother’s death faded into the past, they stopped coming too. On the other hand I was reluctant to give up my job, because those few zlotys I brought in on the first of every month came in handy, you could always buy salt or sugar or a piece of sausage.

Then one day soon after Easter an inspector from the county came, and Chairman Maślanka showed him around the offices. This is highways, this is taxation, this is insurance, quotas, Mierzwa, Antos, Winiarski, Miss Krysia, Miss Jadzia. And I happened to be eating blessed eggs. In our offices we’d somehow gotten into the habit of always having a midmorning snack, Mrs. Kopeć, the caretaker, would even make tea and sell it for a zloty a glass. When I had something I could bring from home I did, so as to not be worse than the others. I mean, it wasn’t for being hungry, I could stand being hungry, I could go without food for three days straight. When they came in I’d set the eggs out on the table on a piece of newspaper and I was peeling them, one of them was colored red and the other one green.

“What’s this, you’re eating blessed eggs, Pietruszka?” said Maślanka, half asking, half making fun of me, and the guy from the county smiled awkwardly.

“That’s right.” I went on peeling them.

“So what, blessed ones are better than ordinary hen’s eggs?” says Maślanka.

“I think they’re better. If someone else disagrees they don’t have to eat them.”

“I see! You must have blessed a whole lot of them if you don’t have time to eat them all at home and you have to bring them to work?”

“A kopa .”

“The thing is, the district administration isn’t a church, Pietruszka!” he snapped like an angry dog.

“Right, but I’m not blessing them, I’m eating them.”

He didn’t say anything else, but I had the feeling he wasn’t going to let me off lightly with those blessed eggs, and in front of the county inspector as well. I must have really made him mad, because he started bugging other people about eating. Antos was having bread and cheese. Bread and cheese doesn’t have anything to do with God, except for saying, give us this day our daily bread, but believers and nonbelievers eat bread just the same. But he tore Antos off a strip, he said he had so many slices of bread he’d be eating for an hour, and the regulations specified fifteen minutes for the break.

A couple of days later he called me into his office, and though we’d been on first-name terms for a long time, he said:

“You drink too much, Pietruszka. It has to stop.”

I was so mad, if I’d had something at hand I would have smashed his skull open. But all there was on his desk was an inkpot and a blotter, that wouldn’t have been any good.

“Don’t you Pietruszka me, you little squirt. The name’s Szymek, in case you’d forgotten. And if I drink, it’s on my own time. Don’t think I don’t know what’s gotten your back up. It’s not my drinking. Like you don’t drink? I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen you under the table. You’re full of yourself because you’re the chairman. What did you do in the occupation? Shit your pants is what.”

A week later I lost my job. And it wasn’t because of the drinking like he was trying to make me believe, because at that time I was already drinking less. In reality it was those blessed eggs that had scared him. He might even have liked the taste of them just like me, except that him, he’d hide under his blanket to peel them, and on top of that he’d send his kid out in front of the house to look out, pretend he was playing when actually he was making sure no one was coming. Then all of a sudden he sees a government worker in a government office eating blessed eggs like it was the most natural thing in the world, and it felt to him like they were hand grenades, not eggs. Besides, he wasn’t just afraid of blessed eggs. He was afraid of everything. And God forbid you ever said in front of him, Dear God! He’d turn red as a beetroot and if he could he would’ve stuck the words right back down your throat.

“Save expressions like that for when you’re at home, after work! This is the district administration! We need to keep superstition out of here!” But people say those things without thinking, they’re just sighing. It’s easier to change the words you use or your thoughts than those kind of expressions. But that’s the sort of person he was.

When I started having a tomb built, all those years later, and I needed fifteen hundredweight of cement, he was still chairman, though his title had been changed to director. That was how much Chmiel had figured we’d need. And another two hundredweight on top, it might come in useful, we could at least make a couple steps so you wouldn’t have to jump down with the casket. I could have bought cement off someone under the counter, and if it was for something else I might have done, but not for a tomb. First I went to the co-op. They had cement, but you needed an allocation order from the district administration. I went there. You could get an allocation order, but you had to sign an application. I signed it.

“What’s the cement for?” the clerk asked me. She was maybe twenty years old, big blue eyes, she seemed a nice girl, a bit snub-nosed. But at her age even a snub nose looks pretty.

“I’m planning to build a tomb,” I said.

“A tomb!” She almost burst out laughing, she had to turn her head and pretend like she just happened to glance the other way. Then she took a sheet of paper out of her desk and started following down with her finger to see what you were allowed to get cement for. House, cattle shed, stable, barn, silo, manure pit, for breeding rabbits, poultry, foxes, coypu, for a greenhouse to grow vegetables, flowers, potted or cut. Look, they even mention chrysanthemums, she said, pleased. But there was nothing about tombs. She asked a clerk that was sitting in the corner by the window:

“Mr. Władek, are there any official instructions about cement allocations for tombs?”

“Who’s wanting to die?”

“This citizen here.”

The guy gave me a blank look and shrugged.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I asked.

She smiled, but she spread her hands helplessly.

“You’d need to go talk to the chairman.”

“Is he in?”

“He is, but he’s busy.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

Mr. Władek chipped in:

“If he’s busy, he’ll be busy till the end of the day.”

“I used to work here years ago,” I said. “This room was the tax department. It was before your time. They didn’t have those desks either.”

Mr. Władek seemed embarrassed. The girl hung her head too.

“Maybe I’ll go ask.” She looked at me, no longer with the eyes of an official this time, got up and went out of the room.

I didn’t have to wait long, he saw me right away, though he’d supposedly been busy.

“Have a seat, Szymek,” he said. I was surprised it wasn’t “Pietruszka.” He obviously remembered me, though a lot of years had passed. He’d really aged and put on even more weight, he was squashed against the arms of his chair. His nose had gotten lumpy as well and his eyes had a heavier look than before, or maybe he’d just been thinking hard about something before I came in. He gave a crooked sort of smile:

“So you’re planning to leave for the next world?”

I sat down, struggling with my walking sticks. But it was like he didn’t notice I had them.