He’d worked up a sweat and he was breathing so hard he had dried flecks of foam in the corners of his mouth. But you could see he was pleased with himself. It was like he didn’t know whether to laugh or spread his arms to
show the conversation was over. Or maybe he was just waiting for me to say something now. I tell you one thing, Leon, you’ve got your head screwed on right. All those years being director have paid off. Times change, people die but you’re planted here solid as an oak tree. Not only that, you just saved fifteen hundredweight of cement from being put into the ground.
But I didn’t say a thing. I just shifted my walking sticks to get ready to stand. At that point he jumped up, pushed open the door to the secretary’s office, and called:
“Miss Hania! Two glasses and two coffees! And hold all my meetings for the rest of the day!” Then to me: “Wait up, what’s your hurry? Let’s have a drink. We haven’t seen each other in years.” It was like he was suddenly reluctant to part, not from me so much as from his own self-satisfaction. He even rubbed his hands and moved things around on his desk, and slapped me on the back. “I’m glad you came. Oh yes.” He shuffled over to the cupboard and took out a stubby bottle. “I don’t drink. Except sometimes, when the opportunity comes along. And this is something special.” He held the bottle in front of me, turning it in his hands.
“What kind of vodka is that?” I asked.
“It’s not vodka. It’s brandy. You ever try it?”
“I don’t recall. I’ve drunk all kinds of things, maybe I had this one time.”
“You sip it. Not like vodka.”
“Then I don’t think so.”
Miss Hania brought glasses and coffee on a tray. She passed right close by me, she sent a gust of air towards me from her body. She smelled of perfume and youth. I thought to myself, this isn’t the same place I used to work. We ate on sheets of newspaper, and here they were bringing things in on a tray. She had slim hands. You could almost see through the skin, and her fingernails were painted red. It was like she’d never worked the land, like she’d worked in these offices since she was a child.
“I made yours a bit weaker, director,” she said with an ingratiating smile, putting tiny little spoons on the saucers next to the coffee cups.
“Good job.” And he patted her on the backside like she was his Józka. She acted like she was embarrassed, but probably because it was in front of me, and she bounded out of the room like a deer. “Ha!” he laughed. “She’s a cute one, huh?”
“Do you pat all of them like that?”
“If you were in my place you’d be patting them too. When you’re in authority you have to pat the girls. You pat one of them, another one you don’t, and you know everything that’s going on in the building. Besides, they like it. You forget to give one of them a pat and she’ll sulk. You should see her without her clothes on. It makes you want to live twice as long. The fact is, when they’re properly fed everything else is the way it should be. Not like when we were young. Remember how many of the girls had crooked legs? They’d have the face of a Madonna and legs like a hoop on a barrel. These days it’s all vitamins. And bread, friend, bread, no one has to go without, and so the young women grow up so fine all you want to do is climb on top of them. But what of it, when a guy’s stuck with his Józka. And you might say it’s all because of the reforms. Sometimes I might do the odd thing, but you have to watch out. Someone else’ll knock her up and she’ll say it’s the director’s. And even if it wasn’t true they’d boot me out in a flash. Let’s drink.”
We clinked glasses. He drank a little bit, I did the same, because I was watching to see how much he took so I wouldn’t come out looking like a bumpkin, since it was this strange kind of vodka that you only sip. It was disgusting, like moonshine watered down with tea and soapsuds. On top of that you had to slurp it like a bird. There’s nothing like pure grain vodka, it slips down like a roaring stream. It makes you shudder and scrunch your face up, and it jabs you so hard you feel from the top of your head right down to your feet that it’s you. And no one else has the right to be you. Not like with this pisswater.
“Well?” He looked down at me.
“Not bad,” I said.
“There you go. You have to know what’s what. And it’s good for the heart. Do you take sugar? I don’t. I learned to drink it without.” He pushed the sugar bowl over.
“You’ve got a sugar bowl now as well.”
“Life’s not actually that bad when you think of it. And it’s going to be even better. There’ll be more cement, more of everything. There won’t need to be allocations, or applications, or signatures. Remember way back when, it was the same with buckets. If you wanted to buy a bucket you had to buy a book as well. Nowadays you can buy all the buckets you want. Zinc-plated ones, enamel ones, plastic ones, yellow, red, blue. And the district administration won’t care who’s buying stuff or what it’s for, whether they’re building a silo or a tomb. All you need is what you might call the right attitude. Not demand too much. It’s all right to complain a bit, so long as it’s harmless. The most important thing is to look boldly into the future. Not backwards. Efficiency, plans, cultivation, investment, indicators – these are measures for today. Not blood and wounds. No one’s yet lost out on the future, but the past has left a good many folks stranded. If you can get that into your head you won’t come out the loser. Don’t think I’m arguing for cooperatives. Even if that was what I wanted, this isn’t the right moment. Today it’s doing things of your own free will. Course, you have to help out when people want to join their farms, cancel someone’s loan, or give them priority. But individual farmers count with us also. And they can do well for themselves. We’re not standing in their way. Take Sieniak for instance. He has an apartment building, a car, his wife’s got a fur coat, he’s got a fur coat and his daughter too, and he’s got two million in the bank. From what? Flax. No problem. The government gets a cut, let him have his share too. Kulaks and middling peasants and poor peasants, those labels don’t hold anymore. Back then it had to be that way because of the dialectics, friend. You had to grab
the peasants by the shoulders and shake them so they didn’t sleep through the revolution. And also so they believed less in God and more in us. Besides that, we had to show people who was in charge. But that’s all been and gone. There’s no turning back. You have to change your soul, friend, your soul. These days you can’t live with a peasant soul anymore. And things’ll get even worse. They put aside class reckonings long ago. Now we’re all children of the same mother again. There’s no more orphans, no more stepsons, no one that doesn’t belong to anyone. There’s an enemy, of course. There’ll always be an enemy. That’s the nature of enemies. But it’s not the same enemy that burned haystacks or that killed Rożek. That enemy, we could more or less live with them. These days people are their own enemy. And that’s the worst kind of enemy, because he’s hidden in your thoughts, in what you feel, he’s tied up like a dog on a chain. In the old days, when someone had the devil in them it was easy to see. But how can you tell today, when there aren’t any more devils? Me, if I’d been trying to live with the same soul as before I’d be long gone. Better folks than me lost the fight. But me, I sense things before they’re even coming. I don’t need swallows to know the spring. You just have to constantly believe, not just once in a while, but each day, every hour. And during working hours you have to believe twice over. Exactly what you believe in might change, but you just keep on believing. Because the worst thing of all is when you run out of steam, then it’s all over for you. You’re gone before you can say Jack Robinson. Looks like you’re still there, but in reality you’re not. My Józka says to me, Leon, it’s like you were born a second time. You know everything in advance, you understand everything. Me, I keep praying and praying and I don’t understand a thing, all I feel is regrets. You see? And you’d have thought she’s just a dumb woman. Shall we have another? I’m glad you came. Ever since morning I’ve been feeling like having a drink with someone. Though I’m not supposed to. Because of my heart. Before you know it you’re left behind. And you’ll never catch up ever, friend. Because the peasant soul only ever travels by foot, or on a pony, it’s
never in a hurry, God forbid you should ever overtake the day. For the peasant soul every road leads to death, every life leads to the cross. These days people fly by jet, they overtake centuries, not just days. You ever been in a plane? I flew to France. I brought Józka a handbag back, got myself a pipe. Maybe I’ll start smoking it. Pipes are fashionable these days. The trees, the fields, rivers, houses, it’s all underneath you. It’s so tiny you could take a whole village in the palm of your hand and watch the little people living there. You feel like you’re an angel, or God himself. On top of that they give you things to eat and drink. Administrating from up there would be a piece of cake. All you’d need to do would be point your finger. This guy gets this, that guy gets that. And if you touched someone on the head he’d think he’d been struck by lightning out of a clear sky. If any of them complained you’d just squeeze them a bit, here, they could squeal away. Or when you needed to organize a day of community service, you could just drum your fingers on the village and it’d be like an earthquake, they’d all come rushing out of their houses. You wouldn’t have to talk them into it, persuade them, beg them. You’d just grab them by the hair and here, here’s your spade, here’s your pickax. When you think how much time I’ve wasted on those kind of things. I’m telling you, when I get home from work all I wanna do is collapse on the bed and sleep. Just as well there’s the television, it can talk to the missus for you, and the children, keep them entertained, do some of your worrying for you. Even better than you. All you do is press a button and you can go to sleep. Who’d’ve thought there’d be such wonders? People didn’t believe there’d be the radio, or telephones. And here you have pictures flitting around your house like they were dreams. Yours, other people’s. And you can watch. Maybe people’ll stop dreaming one of these days? I mean, when it comes down to it why do they need to? You get all tired, all sweaty, you jerk about and run away and get scared, and on top of everything you never know what it all means. Back in your time what did they use to calculate on in the office? The abacus. There was only one in the whole building. It was on
Rożek’s desk so you could tell he was the mayor. Now, you saw, there’s a machine on every desk, and they do all the adding on their own. Hundreds, thousands, millions, in a split second – all it does is hum for a moment. That peasant soul of yours is applesauce, if I say so. It was thought up by the masters to stop the peasants rebelling. But the masters are all long gone. There’s no more manor houses. Did we have a reform? We did. Did you get your five acres? You did. In other words, your hunger for land was satisfied. If it wasn’t, we can give you another five. The Walichs’ land is standing fallow, they handed it over to the government in return for a pension. If you want it it’s yours, help yourself. But you ought to know that with a peasant soul, you could have a hundred acres and you’d still be eating
żurek
and potatoes and sleeping on a sheet of canvas. Because you can’t bring yourself to use up anything you have. Anything except yourself. If the land produces, you’ll take what it gives. If it doesn’t, you won’t. And you won’t say a bad word against it, in case it punishes you even worse the next year. At most you’ll have a mass said for it or you’ll put up a shrine, a shrine to the holy earth, so it’ll take care of you. You, Szymon Pietruszka. Except these days the earth doesn’t believe anymore either. It needs superphosphates, lime, nitrolime, saltpeter, not superstitions. And you might say it’s not even as attached to people as it used to be. If the farmer’s bad at what he does the land’ll just abandon him and move on to the next one and the next one after that, whoever can calculate better. The peasant soul doesn’t like to calculate, it only likes to suffer. But why should you suffer when calculating is better for you. It’s gotten used to it, suffering is its lot. And for the peasant soul the land is nothing but suffering either. And that’s bad for the land. The land has to produce things, my friend. The world wants more and more food. Mountains of food. Bigger and bigger mountains. And the land has to provide it. It has to! Even if it spills its guts trying. And the peasant soul can go rest in the museum for all the centuries of work it’s done. It deserves it. Let it remind people they used to be peasants. Young people can go take a look, or
tourists. Tourism, I’m telling you, that’s happening all over the world. More and more people are traveling all over the place and back again. Pretty soon everyone’ll be traveling. Even old folks won’t want to stay at home. You’ll go knocking, and the place’ll be empty. It’s like people discovered that the world goes around, so they have to go around the world as well. Hardly anyone’s capable of just sitting on their ass. Back in the day, someone went traveling it was either out of hardship or because they were going for a soldier. These days everyone wants to be a tourist, like there was nothing else they could be. Think of everything that’s needed, all the trains, boats, airplanes, roads, hotels, stations, and of course all the sights. And the sights have to be there whether they exist or not. We thought about maybe turning the Bąks’ place into a traditional cottage. It’d be perfect for it – it’s got no soleplates, it has a thatched roof and tiny little windows like knots in trees. Bąk could be the farmer, and his missus would be the farmer’s wife. We’d make them traditional costumes, we could round up some wooden spoons and dishes and what-have-you, they’d be paid. We’d put up signs, traditional cottage half a mile. But they won’t agree, they want us to build them a proper house in return. They’d just go to the cottage during working hours. What else can tourists go see in a village? You can’t show them rye growing, or wheat. It’s just growing there, let it grow. Or cows being milked. Or calves putting on a pound and a half to two pounds daily. All they’d say would be, why are their eyes so sad? What kind of eyes are they supposed to have! They eat all they want, they don’t care what they see or what they don’t. People are no different, when they’ve eaten their fill they can’t see much, on the outside they might even look happy. But if you really want to see their happiness, look in their bellies. With calves it’s the same, their happiness isn’t in their eyes. Or maybe they’ve just seen the people that are gonna eat them, and that’s why they’re sad. The thing is, that would never occur to those folks, they just go on about sad eyes. Damn philosophers. Try sticking a plate of meat in front of them, see if they complain about its eyes then. A peasant
soul’d be just about right for them, they could get all sentimental over it as much as they wanted. And it would be a sight that had to do with class. Harmless, you might say. The burden of the ages. A thing to itself. As for you, friend, I mean good grief, you were a policeman but you still don’t have the consciousness. I mean, you’re not that old. Older people than you have started over. Take Boleń for example, going on seventy and he’s building a farm. Maryka’s planting flax, Janiszewski’s switching to cauliflower. You’ll have plenty of time to build your tomb! The job won’t go away. Besides, maybe soon they’ll stop burying people in tombs. They’ll cremate them instead. That way you’d save your money. The land, there’s less and less of it, not more and more. It’s not such a problem when it’s used for factories. But for cemeteries? There’s more and more people. And everyone has to die sooner or later. Just think how much land you’d need if everyone was buried. And in walled tombs on top of that. The dead would take up all the land there was. Then where would we go – the moon? Besides, let me tell you, death isn’t what it used to be either. You’re here and then you’re gone. There’s a hundred others jockeying to take your place. They even occupy the memory of you. Back when, friend, when you died there was a hole left in the village, like in the road. But in those times, you might say death was attached to people. Everyone lived their whole life in one place, so the death of one person was kind of like the death of all of them. These days everyone’s in motion, so death moves around as well. And moving around is like being in the front lines. They’re attacking you left and right, and all you can do is keep pushing forward. People die of no one knows what, no one knows when, no one knows if it can still be called death. You don’t even need to fall ill, there can be no reason at all. You get tired and bam, you’re gone. Before, when you got tired you sat down on a field boundary, you took a breather and went on living. I’m telling you, the way we die you can’t see we’re dead after we’re gone. Sometimes you can’t even tell if someone’s dead or they’re still alive. And dying doesn’t give you anything at all. It’s only life that can
still give you something. So live while you can. It won’t be long. Few more years at the most, then maybe you won’t need that tomb. They’ll just slide you in the oven and all that’ll be left is a heap of ashes. And it won’t cost you a penny. The district’ll cover it. You worked here for a good few years, you deserve it. The whole of you will fit in a clay jar. Would you rather get eaten by worms? That way’s disgusting, friend. Even when a fly lands on you you brush it away. Down there there’s masses of them. You’ve plowed, you know how much there is in the earth. They’ll be tucking into you like you were shit, pardon my French, and you won’t even be able to scratch yourself. Because how do you know you won’t feel anything? Maybe death lasts a long time, not just a moment? Maybe it has no end? But what’s left after fire? Fire is clean as can be. Cleaner than air or water. Even cleaner than conscience. You’d be the first in the village. The first in the whole district. Though I dunno why I’m saying all this to you. I know you’re not going to agree. That peasant soul of yours mewling inside you, it won’t allow it. And they don’t do cremations here yet. Though you have to be able to see the future today already. Otherwise you’ll go astray. Or go backwards. And what then? Start out all over again? That’s not gonna happen, friend. I know life. You have to when you’ve worked with it as long as I have. At different stages. Here, there. And it’s always been like a soldier in the trenches, so to speak. When it comes to life, I can say I’m something of an expert. I could run rings around a good few folks that are higher up than me. So what if I’m still here in the district administration. Do I have it bad here? If I fall, at least I won’t fall far. And there’s always those seven acres of mine. I’ve got my own potatoes, my own tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, carrots. I’m telling you, I know life better than almost anyone. And not from any school. The kind of life they write about in those schools, it’s suckered all kinds of people. Ground them up like a machine. Forgotten they ever existed. But me, I’m still here, like you see. Sure, in school they teach you your multiplication tables, you need that, like they say. But they don’t teach you life. You can fill your head with all sorts of