I didn’t say a word. I stood my rifle in the corner by the door and flopped down on the bench. I didn’t even have the strength to pull the cap off my
head. Water was dripping down my face. Mother begged me, come on now, take off your cap, take off your jacket, pull your boots off, but I could feel sleep wrapping around me like a rope, round my body and my eyes and my will. On my back, underneath my shirt I could feel the lice starting to itch from the heat. But I couldn’t even be bothered to reach back and scratch.
We’d been searching all sorts of barns and cattle sheds and wagon houses and cellars and attics, not to mention the houses themselves. And as it happened the harvest had just been taken in and the barns were filled to the roof, in the cellars there were potatoes and carrots and beets, the attics were packed with hay, and on top of everything else it rained day and night without a break as if the flood was coming. And wherever you went it’d be:
“You got any guns?”
To which everyone would answer meek as lambs:
“Guns? What would we need guns for, officer? What are we, soldiers? We don’t even know how to use a gun. We work with plows, scythes, rakes – those are the tools the Lord meant for us. Not guns. Who would we even shoot at? The enemy’s all gone. There’s nothing but our own people everywhere. When you’re among your own, even if someone gets mad at someone else they just call them names, get even with them, threaten them. Maybe go after them with a fence post. But a fence post isn’t a gun. Besides, the war’s barely over. We’ve had enough gunfire to last us a lifetime. These days, you hear a bee buzz close to your ear and you think you’ve been hit. All we did was cry and pray for it to stop. So when it did, were we going to keep on shooting? The land was waiting for us. The land suffered too. It was tired out as well like everyone else. That Lord Jesus or Our Lady up there in that picture, they can be our witness – we don’t have any guns.”
But you only needed to reach behind the Our Lady or the Lord Jesus and pull out a pistol. You’d look in the stove, and inside there’d be a rifle. Have them open the chest, and there under a pile of headscarves, rounds and grenades. Or go up to the attic. Their Sunday suit was hanging from a rafter
like it was just waiting for mass, but you’d nudge it and there’d be a clank of metal. Not to even mention what was in the hay, among their clothes, in with the onions, in the thatch, in barrels full of grain, in old shoes – everywhere you’d find stuff. Where did they not hide things. In dogs’ kennels, in chaff-cutters, in cows’ and horses’ mangers, in holes up in old trees.
At one guy’s place, under the grain in the barn we found an entire arsenal. He had everything you could imagine. Rifles, pistols, regular ones and automatics, all of it oiled and wrapped in rags. There were helmets, belts, mess kits, backpacks, Russian and German maps, over a dozen ammunition belts, a couple dozen pairs of boots.
“Where did you get all this?” It was a stupid question, because you knew where he got it, but we were staggered, we didn’t know what else to say.
“Off dead bodies, sir. You know – they were all over the place out in the fields. Was it all supposed to go to waste? And it didn’t feel right to bury it.”
“There was an order to turn in weapons, right?”
“That there was.”
“So why didn’t you hand them over?”
“Well, what if we have to fight again?”
“Fight who, for God’s sake?”
“Whoever. They might invade us again.”
At another guy’s, in the barn as well, we found four heavy machine guns and several cases of ammunition. Another one had a motorcycle and sidecar, and a whole pile of guns in the sidecar. They most of them hid the stuff in their barns, like they reckoned the crop was the most innocent place for it. You sometimes had to dig down through three or four layers of sheaves. And on your own, because the farmer would claim his back had suddenly gone out. At another farm we had to muck the place out ourselves, because the farmer ran away the moment he saw us.
There was one house we went to, all we find is this little old lady in bed. She’s got her cat with her, there’s no one else around.
“What a good thing you’ve come to save me! That Judas son-in-law of mine, he’s put so many rifles under my bedding my sides are all sore. I’m afraid to even move in case they go off.”
We took five wagonloads away from that place. You even felt envious there were so many guns, when in the resistance any old pistol could cost you your life.
Not many people got fined, because what were you going to fine them for. It was the war that brought folks all those guns, the war was the one that should have been punished. But how can you punish a war? Besides, there was enough to do fining the ones that got caught with guns actually in their hands. Even if you just went into the fields you’d always catch two or three of them that were out hunting hares. No one bothered setting snares anymore, there was no point when they had rifles, handguns, automatic pistols. And how many hares could there be left after that long of a war? When you saw one hopping by somewhere it was like seeing a miracle. Look, a hare, a hare! And it didn’t even look much like a hare, it’d have its ears shot away or a missing leg and it’d be peg-legging it along more like an old man than a hare.
Those days almost everyone went hunting with a gun. Not to mention when they were driving their wagon to market or to a wedding, or to gather wood in the forest, they’d always stick a pistol under the seat or in the horse’s feed bag.
One time we had to search a school because the teacher told us the boys were chasing the girls with pistols during the break. Another time Tomala comes rushing into the station all white and shaking and shouting, help! What is it, Wojtek? Turned out his wife is waking their Tomek saying it’s time to go to school, and Tomek pulls a gun from under the pillow and says he’ll shoot her if she doesn’t leave him alone. He needs his sleep, and he’s not going to go to school anymore. Or the boys grazing the cattle, every one of them would have a gun stuck in his belt. And day after day there’d be shooting out in the meadows like the war was still going on out there.
And some parent would come running to the police to say their cow had a gunshot wound or it had come home with its horns shot away, because the little bastards had been using the cows’ horns for target practice like they couldn’t think of anything else to shoot at.
And if it had only been in the meadows. But sometimes it was in the middle of the village. Anyone that bore a grudge against someone else, before, they’d have just shouted at them and called them names, or at the most set fire to their place, but now they’d take out their gun and start firing. It could be over women, debts, field boundaries, anything. Wrongs from the time of their fathers or grandfathers. And even if they didn’t shoot directly at each other they’d fire over the guy’s head, at his windows or his roof if he had a tile roof or metal roofing, or they’d put a hole in his wagon or shoot his dog.
Or like it happened once at Rędzinówka. One farmer runs into his neighbor’s yard with an automatic handgun and shoots all his geese and chickens and ducks, then to finish he shoots up the stable door. So then the other guy takes revenge on the first guy’s orchard. He ties a couple of blocks of TNT with a fuse and a detonator to each of the trees, then he lights the fuse from his cigarette. He goes up on the hill and watches the trees blow up one after another. We went to take a look and it was like the worst war you could imagine had passed through that orchard. We had to put both of them away. Though some people said they were just crazy. But you can’t claim they were crazy when everyone was shooting guns left, right, and center. And it wasn’t just one person against another, there were whole villages fighting each other. One time we even had to call in the military because we thought we were being attacked by an army.
After a few months I’d had enough of the police. All I’d done was ruin my tall boots. They were the kind they call officer’s boots. I’d brought them back almost new from the resistance, but after the police you wouldn’t have known they were the same boots. You had to wade through manure and mud
and water in them. And those were boots that should only have been worn to church. Plus, you’d think you wouldn’t work as much as when you’re working the land, but there I was, day and night, chasing, looking, searching like the worst bandit, and on top of that everyone was out to get their revenge on me. And instead of the number of guns getting smaller, it was like people were growing them in the fields.
Worst of all was at the dances. People stopped fighting with knives, now it was only ever with guns. There wasn’t a single dance without any shooting, and every second one someone got killed. And there were no culprits. No one could say who’d been shooting, who the killer was. Butter wouldn’t melt. They’d all been dancing and singing, they couldn’t hear anything over the music. Maybe the guy was already dead when he came to the dance? And you lost count of the number of shot-up windows, lamps, beer barrels, bottles, drums, fiddles. And when a fiddle gets shot there’s no more playing it. A drum can be patched up and it’ll still work. But when you put a gunshot in a fiddle it’s a goner, it’s dead. Like a person.
People really had fun in those days. They were happy because the war was over. There was one dance after another. Not a Sunday went by without one. Sometimes there were two or three dances on the same Sunday in different villages. Musicians even came by train from far away, because there weren’t enough local ones for all those dances. Besides, the local musicians played the way they used to before the war, but who danced like before the war now. Now different dances were in fashion.
There were times you didn’t know which dance to go to first. You get word from one here and you get word from one over that way. There’s shooting here and shooting there. And at the station there’s only five of us officers and one bicycle. And of course you can’t leave the station unmanned.
“You were asleep,” said father, not on my case anymore.
“No I wasn’t,” I answered, though I don’t know, maybe I was.
“Look around the house.”
I looked, but I didn’t notice anything in particular.
“What about it?”
“Antek’s gone,” said father in a painful voice.
“Where is he?”
“He left.”
Then a few years later Stasiek followed Antek. Though you’d have thought that of all us four brothers Stasiek was the one God intended to stay on the land. And that no force on earth could have torn him away from it. Ever since he was tiny, come rain or shine, heat or cold, he’d always be out in the fields with father. If father was plowing, Stasiek would walk alongside him holding the whip. Give her a flick, Stasiek, the damn creature’s stopping and starting. And Stasiek would flick the whip just like father told him to. When father was sowing, he had to at least tie one of mother’s shawls around Stasiek’s neck and give him a handful of grain so he could sow too. When father mowed, every time he stood the scythe upright and sharpened the blade with a whetstone, Stasiek would hold the handle for him. When he grew up a bit, one day he took the scythe himself and straight away he started mowing like he’d been doing it all his life. Me and Antek and Michał, father had to teach us for a long time, first how you had to stand, how to grip the scythe, how to take short, even steps, how to move the scythe back and forth, how to do it with rye and wheat and barley and oats, how to lay it down and how to keep it straight. And did he ever used to get mad while he was teaching us. He was forever having to tighten the handle and sharpen the blade. Our hands would be covered in blisters from those lessons. But with Stasiek, it was like he’d come into the world knowing how to do it. He just picked up the scythe and mowed.
“Stasiek now, he’ll be a proper mower soon as he gets his strength up.” Father would watch Stasiek mowing like he was gazing at the sunrise. “None of you is as good as him. He’ll probably end up better than me. I’ve been mowing all my life and I never move that evenly. He doesn’t jerk the scythe,
he doesn’t leave too much stubble. If you look at his arms it’s as smooth as if he was scooping up water. And the way he walks forward, it’s like the earth itself was moving along under his feet. That’s how it is when God means someone to do something. You can see right away, even though he’s only a child. Take a break, Stasiek! Sit for a while! Drink some water! Or throw pebbles at sparrows a bit! You’ll do your fill of mowing yet!”
Or another time father was getting all worried about how little land we had, and how would he ever be able to divide it up between the four of us sons, and Stasiek pipes up like a true farmer that can find a solution to any problem:
“We can buy some more land, daddy. You said Kaczocha was looking to sell his two acres because he was going to the mill to be a miller. That would be two more acres!”
“He’s taking over the mill, you say.” Father fell deep in thought. After a moment he said: “Well, two acres is a lot of land, that’s for sure. And it’s right next to ours. All we’d have to do is plow over the field boundary.” And he cheered up right away. He slapped his knee and said to mother: “So? Maybe we could have a slice of bread each? Can you go bring us the loaf?”
“It’s the last one,” mother reminded him.
“Never mind that. Even the last one has to be eaten sooner or later.” Father was all cheerful, like he’d just had a drink, he was so pleased about those two acres of Kaczocha’s.
Mother went and brought the bread. She cut each of us a good thick slice, not a crumb more or less for anyone, we all got exactly the same. She only hesitated when she was cutting father’s slice, but she went ahead and gave him one too, though his was much thinner. She left herself out.
“What about you?” father said. “If we’re celebrating, everyone should. Or take mine. I’ll do fine without.”
He reached into his pocket and took out his tobacco pouch, then slowly, his mind somewhere else, he started rolling himself a cigarette. And when
father rolled a cigarette it meant something good was happening inside him. Because he rarely felt like smoking when he was down. As he puffed out clouds of smoke, he said to mother: