“But God is standing over you, have you ever thought about that?”
“If he is, he sometimes lets himself be forgotten. It may even be wisdom on God’s part that when there’s nothing he can do, he lets himself be forgotten.”
“Now you’re blaspheming, my friend, you’re blaspheming terribly.” He raised his hands as if he wanted to push away from me. He made the sign of the cross. “But may he forgive you in his great mercy.” He hung his head as if he was praying silently. Also, our conversation might have tired him a bit, he was old after all, sometimes he’d fall asleep during confession. All of a
sudden he started and gave me a sort of kindly look. “You’re going to stand before him as well one day, what will you say to him then?”
“I won’t say anything. When your lips are dead your words are dead as well, father. Whatever you may or may not have said here on earth, you won’t say it up there. God too, what he had to say to people, he said it all here, on earth. Up there he became a mystery and he keeps his peace.”
“I truly feel sorry for you, my son. But perhaps one day you’ll understand, if only in your final hour, that you too, you were only human. A lost, stray human being like every one of us in this vale of tears. And that strength of yours you keep going on about is nothing but ordinary human weakness that you won’t accept, that you hate so much in yourself.”
“What do you mean?” I was upset, who was he to talk to me that way, even if he was a priest. “Do I not know who I am? I paid a heavy price for that knowledge. It didn’t come for free.”
“Right, my son. Perhaps you hated it within yourself more than others do. Perhaps you were harder on it than others. Perhaps it hurt you more than it hurt other people. But believe me, it’s only thanks to our weakness that we’re connected to other people, that we recognize ourselves in other people, and they recognize themselves in us. And that’s how our human fate is shared. It has room for everyone. In it our humanity is fulfilled. Because we don’t exist outside of our fate. We belong to human fate through weakness, not strength. And it’s in this weakness of ours that God manifests himself in every person, not in their strength. So you too, be forbearing toward it, don’t shield yourself from it, submit to it, because otherwise you’ll have a hard death. And that’s not the same thing as having a hard life. And who knows, you might take months and years to die, the way God sometimes tests people, they’re confined to their bed by some terrible illness, their death has no end. The sight fades in their eyes, their ears stop hearing, their mind stops understanding, and they lose all feeling except pain. How are
you going to die then, if you can’t come to terms with yourself, or at the very least understand yourself?”
“Death’ll come somehow or other. Death isn’t anything special, father. People aren’t just living from cradle to grave, they’re also dying from cradle to grave. Dying isn’t something you do just the one time. Who knows, maybe dying takes longer than living. I mean, dying goes on even after you’re dead. You continue to die among the people that are still alive. That one time, maybe it’s only the end of dying. But before a person reaches that end, how many times do they have to die first. The truth is, father, with each person that dies in our life, those of us left behind die a little bit ourselves. The person goes away and they leave us their death, and we have to shoulder it. They just lie there rotting in their grave and they don’t know, they don’t feel that they’re rotting because they don’t know anything or feel anything at all, not even that they left someone behind. And even if there’s no one close to follow them in death, still those further from them die, their neighbors, people they know, even strangers, though the strangers might not even be aware of it. You see, father, it’s enough for us to be surrounded by constant dying for it to shape us. Or say a cow dies, or a horse drops dead, or a hawk gets in among the chicks. Those are our deaths as well. Maybe it’s from those deaths, when too many of them collect inside you, that your own death comes. I sometimes even have the feeling that I come from the dead. I seem to be alive, but it’s like death is just letting me be so I can bury the last ones. And as if that’s to be the end of something ending forever.”
“But what about the next world? Has it ever occurred to you that you’ll have to go on living there? Eternity’s promised to everyone, after all. Whether it’ll be good or bad, that God has to decide.”
“Has anyone ever come back from there, father, so we can believe something’s there? We only die in the one direction, not the opposite one.”
“And what about hell? Are you not afraid of hell?” he exclaimed in a bitter tone.
“What’s hell to me, father, after I’ve been on earth.”
His head drooped, he folded his hands across his stomach and froze like that without a word. I began to regret getting drawn into the discussion. Stach Sobieraj was supposed to give me a hand bringing in the potatoes. In return I was going to lend him my horse the next day. What could I tell him now? That I’d been at the priest’s all this time? What, were you making confession? No. Then what on earth were you up to?
He said in a voice that seemed to emerge from his thoughts:
“I knew you’d come one of these days. If not of your own free will, then because of the tomb. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to this moment. How long is it since I came to this parish. Half a century it’ll be. I can still remember you running around in short pants. Your hair was the color of flax. And I seem to remember that for the longest time you wouldn’t grow.”
“That wasn’t me. Maybe you’re thinking of Michał, father. Michał didn’t grow for a long time.”
“Come on, don’t try to wriggle out of it. I remember I used to make fun of you, so when do you finally plan to start growing, Pietruszka? See, Bąk’s already getting a mustache. And Sobieraj’s going to start chasing after the young ladies any day now. Now what’s the seventh commandment, Pietruszka? Do you know or don’t you? Tell him, Kasiński. Because Kasiński couldn’t contain himself, he knew. That Kasiński, he always knew everything. That’s why he rose so high. I can’t remember if the two of you sat side by side at the same desk or if he was right in front of you. But when it came to picking apples from my orchard, I remember, the two of you went together. Except you never wanted to even repeat after Kasiński. You’d stand there like a post, your eyes on the floor. By the end the whole class was prompting you, but you, it was like you’d set your mind on not knowing. And when Franciszek the sacristan and my dog Flaps caught you in the apple tree, remember? Kasiński got away, and you were left in the tree and
you wouldn’t come down. Flaps was barking at you, Franciszek was shouting, get down this minute, you little monkey! In the end I heard the ruckus in the orchard and came out, I pleaded with you, threatened, come down, Pietruszka. Come down or in school I’ll make you recite the ten commandments and the seven deadly sins and the six articles of faith. And you’ll have to stand in the middle of the classroom, not just say them from your seat. Come down. In the end Franciszek had to go get a ladder and bring you down by force. He was so mad he was all set to thrash you then and there, he’d already taken his belt off, but I stopped him:
‘ “Beating’s wrong, Franciszek. He’ll come to confession tomorrow morning and confess his sins. You will come, won’t you, Pietruszka?’
‘ “He needs a good hiding,’ he said, angry at me as well. ‘He’ll come to confession and you’ll absolve him, father, is that it? He ought to go picking apples at Macisz’s place, that’s no church orchard! Macisz never so much as shows his face in church! On top of that he goes around saying there’s no God, that everything came from water. Heretic. See, the apple tree was bent over it had so much fruit, look at it now. And all you’ll do is give him three Hail Marys to say, for all those apples. You punish people more when they only sin in their thoughts. Twelve or more – and litanies, not Hail Marys. One litany is like five Hail Marys. What’s a Hail Mary? Hail Mary, Mother of God, that’s it. And sins in your thoughts are no sins at all, those people aren’t going to go stealing somebody else’s apples. You even make me bring apples to religious instruction, father. The last priest, Father Sierożyński, he had this oak ruler and he’d whack the little monsters on the hands till they swelled up and they weren’t even able to pick apples. But you, you tell me, go get a basketful of the raspberry apples by the fence there. I’ve got religious instruction tomorrow, let God be good to those little kids of mine if he can’t be good to everyone. And God is good, Franciszek is bad because he’s the one that has to chase after the little buggers. When one lot grows up, another bunch comes along, it never stops, your whole life chasing and
minding. And they’re worse and worse behaved. Not one of them’s ever going to learn properly how to serve at mass. All they want to do is dress up in their surplices. But carrying the missal from left to right, for that they need a shove in the back from Franciszek, go on, now’s the moment. See, another broken branch.’
“I waited all morning for you back then,” he suddenly said in a resentful voice. His resentment seemed so old it was like it came from another world. Half a century is a long time. “I would’ve forgiven you. I even came much earlier to the church, though I hadn’t intended to take confession that day. Franciszek wasn’t there yet, and he usually came right after sunrise. I truly don’t know why that youthful confession of yours was so important to me. Over a handful of apples from my orchard. But God must have known. All I remember is that when I was already sitting in the confessional I suddenly felt crushed by the great silence in the church. I had the impression the church was built of that silence. And it was strange, but I had no desire to pray, though praying’s in a priest’s blood, it’s a matter of habit, anywhere and anytime. Perhaps I didn’t want the words of the rosary to give away the fact that I was there. Even to myself, even to God. I just leaned my head against the grille and surrendered to the silence that was still dark from the night. It was like I was curled up in its darkest corner, like I was hiding, not there. It was only in the depths of my soul I heard something like the soft sound of a barely smoldering hope that you would come, that any minute now in the silence I’d hear your nervous steps, like drops of water falling on the floor of the church. At the same time I was worried that God would see that hope in me, because it could be the shadow of a sin I didn’t know to confess. That hope has smoldered in me all my life now. Often afterwards I’d come much earlier to the church, just to sit in the confessional and listen to the silence of the dark building. Besides, when you’re in the confessional it’s as if it forces you to listen hard, and you listen even if you don’t hear anything, even when there’s nothing but complete silence on the other side of the grille you can
still hear the whisper of people’s confessions. And still in your helplessness you never know how to tell sins from sufferings. At a certain moment the door would creak and I’d look out to see if it was you. But it would be Franciszek arriving.
‘ “You’re here early, father,’ he’d grunt. You could tell he was annoyed. And he’d set about sweeping the floor. Out of irritation he’d not sprinkle water on it and he’d end up brushing big dust clouds through the whole church. You could barely see him through the dust.
‘ “You’re spreading it around, Franciszek,’ I’d tell him off. ‘You need to sprinkle some water.’
‘ “You’re wasting your time, father! He’s not going to come!’ he’d call back, and carry on what he was doing. ‘He’d come for apples! You’d be better off taking a stroll and getting some fresh air instead of sitting in all this dust! The sun’s shining, the sparrows are chirping, it’ll do you good! A church needs to be properly swept so people don’t say afterward that it’s the house of God but it looks like a pigsty in there!’
‘ “Leave off with the sweeping, Franciszek! Come over here, I’ll confess you.’
‘ “Me?’ He was so taken aback he stopped sweeping. ‘My sins are old ones, father, and they’re always the same. You gave me confession just last week. This week all I’ve done is dig potatoes for my sister. What new sins could I have committed?’
‘ “We’ll always find something or other. Come on.’ It was ever so easy to comfort Franciszek. He was a simple, trustful soul, and he’d spent his whole life around the church. Though I may have been a bit too generous with the Kingdom of Heaven when I offered consolation. Perhaps I promised folks too much in return for everything they lacked, for all their wanderings and despair and fear. After all, I’ve been providing consolation here for so, so many years. The world passes by me, but also through me, time passes, people pass, and I keep on and on giving consolation. I sometimes wonder if
I ever really succeeded in comforting anyone at all, if anyone fully believed me. I mean, how much do I actually know about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, what hell is like? What do I actually know about where one person or another is going to end up, what his fate in eternity is going to be? Whether it won’t just be a continuation of his life here? Because if we take our souls from this world, maybe we take our fates as well? These are probably sinful thoughts that I’m admitting to you here, may God forgive me. But I sometimes think that the only wisdom life has left us is to be horrified at life. And despite that I offer comfort, because that’s the kind of service I chose to perform. Though when I realize that the people I’ve offered consolation to might be damning me and cursing me, I don’t know if God might not tell me I made the wrong choice. Of course, it’s said that whoever you absolve, their sins will be absolved, whoever you deny, they’ll be denied. But can I really be certain who deserves forgiveness and who doesn’t? What I’d most like to do is to absolve everyone, because I feel sorry for everyone. But do I have the right to use God’s mercy as my own mercy, even when I feel great pity toward someone? Does God also feel that pity? It’s true his mercy is without limit. But I have no idea how what I’m allowed to do relates to that boundlessness. I’m just a human among other humans, everything connects me to them. So I absolve them, perhaps in vain, I deny them absolution when I’m no longer able to absolve them, but I wander among these mysteries the way only humans can wander, not knowing in the painful way only humans can not know, taking other people’s sins on my own conscience and being sinful myself. But perhaps my calling isn’t to know but to offer comfort? It’s truly a hard way to earn your daily bread, spending your whole life comforting those without comfort, the helpless, the lost. Hard and so very bitter. You have to be one of them yourself, perhaps even the poorest of the poor, lost in uncertainty about this world and the next, maybe even as sinful as them, in order for the comfort you provide to be more than just words, for you both to share your comfort the way you share your fate. I sometimes
wonder if in all the hopes I’ve tried to stir in human hearts, all those hopes of others, I wasn’t seeking consolation for myself. It’s just that the longer a person consoles others, the less he finds for himself, and the worse he’s prey to doubt. So you see, that’s why I’m a sorry kind of priest. Or perhaps it’s old age. Yes, it’s probably old age. All that’s left for me is solitude with God.” He lost himself in thought for a moment, but he livened up right away. “So who’s going to be building the tomb for you?”