With Michał and me it was different, we had teeth like wolves, as far as we were concerned the bread could have been drying for a hundred years and it would still be bread. The best bread of all, that mother had held against her stomach and as she cut it she asked us how much we wanted. Your gums itched when you remembered about the bread that was up in the attic. Though you didn’t need to remember it, you always had it before your eyes. Half the time, hunger would stir you so your mouth watered, the rest of the time you’d be tempted so hard by the idea of being full that you could almost feel the bread filling your belly. It tempted you all the time, from morning till evening, and even for a long time into the night, after we’d gone to bed, it still wouldn’t leave us alone.
I shared a bed with father and Michał, I was next to father. Michał slept crosswise at our feet, because he didn’t thrash around in his sleep, and also he was shorter than me, because for the longest time he didn’t grow. The moment father got into bed he’d turn his back toward me, maybe mutter something about me not pulling the quilt off him, and he’d be snoring right away. I didn’t need to wait much longer for Michał either. He’d dig around with his legs a bit at the beginning, because he could never find the right place for them. But once he’d found it, his legs would twitch a couple of times then he’d sleep like the dead. After that, by the bed under the window where mother slept with Antek, Stasiek’s cradle would stop rocking, sometimes Stasiek would whimper some more, but mother didn’t hear him now.
As for Antek, even if he’d heard something he would just have pretended all the more to be asleep, more than if he’d actually been sleeping. Our grandparents slept in the other room across the hallway. Also, grandmother would go off to bed the moment it got dark, and grandfather would just sit on a stool for as long as he could, dozing. So when he finally went off to bed he was already as sound asleep as if it was the middle of the night. Mother would have to help him over the doorstep, because the threshold grew bigger under grandfather’s feet, like he was already dreaming that he was trying to cross over into his own house but he kept not being able to do it. Though as it happens the actual threshold was quite high. Because thresholds were made not just for the sake of it, but so there’d be somewhere to sit when you had more people than usual.
The roosters were already crowing for midnight. Father would turn on his other side so he was facing me. Then he’d turn his back again. Michał would move his legs because they’d gotten stiff. Stasiek would squeal in his sleep, and the cradle would start to rock. But I’d still be seeing that slice of bread high up on the rafter, it’d be shining there like the brightest star, and the picture wouldn’t go away. At times it ached like a sore tooth, other times it nagged at me like a bad conscience. If I could have wriggled around a bit it might have gone away. But there was no room in the bed, and right next to me was father’s back, big as a mountain. He could have woken up at any moment and asked:
“Are you not asleep yet?”
Just in case, I’d decided I would say the fleas were biting. But I don’t know if he would have believed me, because we didn’t have fleas in our house. Mother would air the sheets outside every day, and underneath she’d put dried thyme. When I finally managed to get to sleep, I could never tell whether I was dreaming or awake, because I still had the slice of bread before my eyes. One time I dreamed I went to the attic, and propped up the ladder, but the ladder was too short, so I climbed a poplar tree, but the poplar turned
out to be too short as well. It could have been the same whether it was a dream or waking. In the morning father asked me:
“Why were you squirming around so much? Were you having a dream?”
I got out of it by saying it was probably from the cabbage and beans I ate the day before, because with dreams you can get out of it by saying anything at all. Luckily father wasn’t in the dream, so he believed me without a problem.
It was worse during the day, when he happened to be sitting in the main room. Sometimes he was just across the table from me. And it was like someone had deliberately pushed the bread into my mouth and told me to eat it in front of him, because it was only bread. And bread is there to be eaten. My whole head filled with the sound of me crunching the dry bread between my teeth. I looked around terrified, because I was sure everyone could hear. Father, mother, Michał, Antek, even Stasiek in his cradle. And grandfather seemed about to open his mouth and say:
“Listen, everyone, there’s some kind of crunching sound. Michał, go check under the bed, see if that damn cat’s eating a mouse under there.”
And father, it would be like he’d been waiting for exactly that:
“Cat? What cat? I put the cat outside! Come on, fess up, which one of you is it? Is it you, Szymek? Open your mouth this instant, you little pip-squeak!”
Because I think father suspected something as it was, he’d sometimes look at me like he was about to ask:
“What are you eating there?”
I’d cringe under his gaze, and I’d repeat to myself in my head, I’m not eating anything, I’m not eating anything, I’m not eating anything. Or, I’m just having a plum, because I was thinking how we had plums at the priest’s house in the fall. Or I was remembering how we went picking hazelnuts at
the manor before the Assumption, I’m eating one of those. But they weren’t ripe, daddy. And the steward chased us off.
One time he stared and stared at me and then all of a sudden he asked:
“What are you thinking about?”
At first I froze, I couldn’t get a word out. It was as if my mouth was still full of bread. I was like a mouse being chased by a cat. So I pretended I thought he was asking Michał, not me. I looked at Michał like I was expecting him to answer. Michał looked at me. But father wasn’t fooled:
“Not Michał. I know what Michał’s thinking. Michał’s thoughts are clear as springwater. I mean you.”
“Me?” I said with a surprised look, buying myself a few extra seconds to decide what I was thinking about. Before he said anything back, I already knew.
“I’m thinking about Lord Jesus,” I got out in a single breath.
Father’s eyes opened as wide as they would go, he straightened up and looked at me like a blind man looking at the sun. He didn’t know what to say. I thought he’d leave me alone now. Maybe he’d get up and say:
“I have to go check on the horse.”
Or start to ask grandfather:
“So did you remember yet? Maybe you buried them under that wild pear behind the barn? Remember there was a wild pear that grew there?”
“Of course I remember the wild pear. It was taller than the barn, the fruit was sweet as honey.” Because the fact was, grandfather remembered absolutely everything, his whole life was written in his memory day by day. Except for that one matter of where he’d buried the papers. “But it wasn’t under the pear. More likely it was under the apple tree. There was one apple tree had apples that were half red and half yellow. But one day there was a storm and it got blown down along with its roots.”
Father narrowed his eyes again, he might have been wondering whether
or not to believe me. Then, as if he wanted to hear one more time what I was thinking, he said:
“So you’re thinking about Lord Jesus?”
“Lord Jesus.” I nodded eagerly, and even grandfather was touched:
“You’re wanting to send Michał for a priest, but it looks like Szymuś is the one God’s chosen. Little kid like that, and see what ideas he’s got in his head. Lord Jesus, how do you like that. Even grown-ups might not think of that. I’m telling you, he’s the one going to be a priest.”
I bit my tongue to stop myself saying I wouldn’t be. I couldn’t see myself as a priest. Doing nothing but saying mass all my life, and on top of that having to wear a dress like a woman. Though the other boys said that under the dress the priest wore pants like any man. But what kind of pants could they be that he had to cover them up. Plus, I already liked Staśka Makuła. She grazed cows with us on the meadow, and even Wicek Szumiel, who was the oldest one of us, he couldn’t take her because she was too strong, even though she was a girl. And she cussed better than many a grown-up, however mad they might get. Her though, she’d not be mad at all, she’d be laughing and skipping about, but she’d be swearing up a storm. Come on, Staśka, let it rip, we’d say to egg her on, and she’d curse so much even the cows turned their heads to look. And when she ran off to bring the cows back in, her boobs would bounce up and down like pears in the wind. We’d chase behind her like dogs after a bitch, hoping they might pop out. Look at Staśka’s titties! Like you could already see them white against the grass.
We sometimes tried to get her to show us what she had under her dress, but she wanted a zloty to do it. So we scraped together a zloty, everyone put in what they could or pinched some change at home, and we gave it to her and said, okay, Staśka, show us what you’ve got there. But then she said that for a zloty she could only show us what she had up top, if we wanted to see more it would be another fifty groszes. Where were we supposed to get fifty groszes? Fifty groszes was what young men got from their fathers when they
were going out with a young lady. But luck would have it that Kazek Socha’s father came back from the fair rolling drunk, they had to lift him down off his wagon, and Kazek swiped fifty groszy from his pocket. So now we had it. Come on, Staśka, show us. But she put the price up again, she said two zlotys, because she needed new silk stockings, like Tereska the miller’s daughter had. We were so mad we threw ourselves on her, we’ll take your clothes off ourselves, goddammit, but she got free of us, and she took out her penknife and stood there with her feet planted:
“If anyone comes closer I’ll cut their weenie off, you little bastards.”
It was only when we grew up that she didn’t ask for anything.
The only thing I liked about a priest’s work was confession. It must be great to sit there in the confessional behind the grate and listen to the sins of the whole village. Boy would you learn some stuff. And forgiving sins or not forgiving them, ordering penance. Most of all I’d have scared people with hell, I’d make their hair stand on end and their blood curdle, I’d make their teeth chatter and their eyes weep endless tears. Though I’d need to invent a different hell, because people have stopped being afraid of the old one. Perhaps it ought to be that it’s not just the soul that suffers, but the body along with it? Or that people wouldn’t be together, but each person would be alone? Maybe there shouldn’t even be any devils, just people and their own torments.
I’d give the longest confessions to three young women from our village: Kryśka Latra, Weronka Maziarz, and Magda Kukawa. And among the married women, Mrs. Balbus. Because before she married Balbus, she had more boyfriends than you could shake a stick at. Every evening her father would chase her around the village with a whip, and she’d be running away. People even said she’d had a bastard child, but that she’d drowned it. Though when she was with Balbus it didn’t change anything. But to find out if what people were saying was true, I’d have to give her confession. I wouldn’t confess old women or old men. The curate could do them. Well, maybe old Mrs.
Przygaj, to find out if girls slept around in the old days as well. Because who would know better that Mrs. Przygaj. Apparently she never let an opportunity go by. The village mayor, a farmhand, the miller, a neighbor, whoever came along. And most of all with the soldiers that used to be stationed in the village. They had dark blue jackets and red pants, people said that was what drew her to them. Her husband would pray to God that he’d drive the demon out of her, and she’d just laugh at him. One time she brought three soldiers home at the same time and partied with them naked, and her husband had to look on. He beat her afterwards with a wet rope, so she arranged for him to be drafted into the army and he never came back. Though would she be willing to admit to all of that in the confessional?
“Michał or Szymuś,” said mother, “God grant it’ll be one of them.”
“I’m telling you, it’ll be Szymuś,” grandfather insisted. “Maybe he could serve right here, in our parish. I won’t live to see the day. But you could move to the presbytery. It’d be heaven there. The orchard alone must be four acres. And you’ve got the church right there.”
“What exactly were you thinking about?” Father didn’t let all that about the priest distract him from asking me more questions.
“I was thinking …” I tripped over my tongue, because I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been thinking.
“What was he thinking about?” Grandfather came to my rescue. “He was thinking about Jesus, he already said. He’s hanging on the cross right up there, you only need to look, there’s nothing else to think about.”
I looked up at the cross in panic, and it was like something opened up inside of me.
“I was thinking,” I said, “about how he suffered for us and how he died on the cross.”
“He truly did suffer, that’s for sure,” mother put in from by the stove. “But people are the same as they always were.”
“Maybe they’d have been even worse,” grandfather suggested.
“Even worse?” Mother shuddered.
“Think about it, what if everyone was like that no-good Marchewka. Could you stand that? Think about all the chickens he’s stolen from you.”
“What else?” Father wouldn’t give it up.
“What else?” Grandfather bridled because he thought father was on at him. “He cut down those willows on your pasture. And he gave you an earful for good measure. Is that not enough for you?”
“I’m not asking you, father, I’m asking him.”
“Szymek? What on earth’s he done to you?”
“Not what he’s done, what he’s thinking about. Out with it.” It was like he was driving a horse uphill with a whip.
I got this sinking feeling in my belly. Out with what? On top of everything else it was lashing down outside, so there was no chance father would leave the house, a dog wouldn’t want to go out in that. He could keep grilling me all afternoon. I rooted around desperately among my thoughts, but my thoughts were like mice, they kept running away. All of a sudden grandfather got up, took a step toward the middle of the room, and sighed: