“You were supposed to come the next day, god damn you! And don’t even try to act drunk in front of me.”
“There’s no need to shout, I’ll be there. There’s always a next day.” And he leers at me with his supposedly drunken eye.
“Don’t make me take this cane to you! Get a spade and come with me!”
He didn’t even try to resist, and he stopped staggering. I got him a spade and we went to the cemetery. I showed him the place, I marked off from where to where, and I told him how deep it needed to be.
“Is that all? I thought you wanted something three times bigger. It’ll be dug by sundown. Just have that half-bottle waiting, and a couple of pickles.”
While I was still there he took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, then as I was leaving he even spat on his hands.
“Come by when you’re done,” I said.
I bought a full bottle instead of a half and I was planning on giving him the whole thing, because I thought he might come in handy again. I didn’t have any pickles so I went over to Mrs. Waliszka’s and she gave me almost a whole canful. But of course he never showed up that evening or any of the next days. It wasn’t till a week later he came by, in the early morning. I could see he wasn’t himself, or he was still sleepy or something.
“So did you dig the pit?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“Well, it’s not completely finished.”
“Weren’t you supposed to keep digging till the evening?”
“I would have, but I hit some roots. Must have been from that elm by Kosiorek’s tomb. One of the damn things was thick as my leg. And the smaller ones, there were so many of them you couldn’t even count them. I needed an ax. I was going to get my own, but I can’t find it. You wouldn’t have anything to drink, would you?”
I thought to myself, Kosiorek’s tomb is over thirty yards from mine, and where is there an elm there? The elm’s way over in the corner of the cemetery. Could its roots reach all the way across? He’s pulling the wool over my eyes, the son of a bitch. But if I don’t give him a drink he won’t finish the job.
“Here, have one drink.” I poured him out a quarter cupful. “Come back this evening after you’ve finished the job, you’ll get the rest.”
His face lit up like a little sun.
“The job’ll get done. I’m telling you, there’s no one in the village I respect like I respect you. Your health.” He drank the vodka, made a face and shuddered.
“Off you go then,” I said.
“What’s your hurry? My word is my word. Let me have one more. After the work I don’t need to drink. To tell the truth, after work I don’t even like to. After work all you want to do is sleep.”
I poured out another drink. He drank it. I poured another one. He didn’t leave till he’d seen the bottom of the bottle.
“Right, now I’m gonna go dig your pit. Just hand me that ax.”
And again he didn’t show up for several days. I was all set to go looking for him. I thought to myself, I’ll rip his arms off, the shit, because I had a feeling that once again he’d not finished the job, otherwise he’d have come for his money, and of course his booze. Then one day Michał and I are eating breakfast and he walks in.
“How long are you gonna string me along, damn you! Are you done or not?”
“Almost.”
“What do you mean, almost?!”
“I just have one more spade length to go. I thought it would go quick as anything. The topsoil’s fine, but lower down it’s clay. I could’ve dug three pits in ordinary soil in the time it’s taken to dig this one. You chose a bad place. It’ll be damp there in the clay. Give me at least enough for a beer. I’m cruel tired.”
“Where did you get so tired?”
“Where do you think? Working on your tomb.”
I knew he was cheating me, but here you go, that’s for a beer, just don’t show your face again till the job’s done. And so he didn’t. Almost a full month passed. I thought to myself, I ought to at least go over to the cemetery and see how much he has left to go, maybe I could even finish it myself. I go over there, and my tomb hasn’t even been started. Not even a single spade length. There’s just the outline. I was furious. You lying bastard, you this, you that, I cursed him up and down and swore I’d get even with him. There I was giving you a half-bottle, giving you money for another, and for beer, and on top of everything you had the gall to make up stories about roots and clay!
For a whole week I went looking for him around the village, but it was like he’d moved away for good. Sometimes someone had seen him, but word must have gotten out that I was on the warpath and I was threatening to knock his block off soon as I found him, so he might have been hiding and sleeping during the day then coming out at night like a damn bat. Or maybe it wasn’t me chasing him, but he was the one following me. There was a reason they called him the Postman. As for me, all that hobbling about on my walking sticks and my injured legs, to the pub, to the shrine and back, I’d soon had enough.
I needed to get started on doing the digging myself, because I could have spent another week looking for him and it would have been a waste of time. I never got my spade or my ax back either. I had to borrow a spade off Stach Sobieraj. Luckily I didn’t find any roots or clay.
I was digging virtually with my arms alone, helping myself a bit with my stomach, because whenever I tried to push on the spade with my foot I got a pain that felt like it was coming up from deep in the earth. Though I often had to use my foot, because my arms weren’t enough on their own, and my stomach was sore as anything from helping my arms. I was drenched in sweat, I saw darkness in front of my eyes, I could barely stand, but I had to keep on digging, because who else was going to do it, even half a spade length was good. And I went on like that day after day, like I was struggling with a huge mountain I had to level to the ground as some kind of punishment.
Many days I didn’t even have the strength to walk back home. I’d go down to the road in front of the cemetery, sit by the roadside and wait to see if someone would be driving their wagon from the fields and could give me a ride part of the way. If no one came along I rested a bit, grabbed my walking sticks, put my spade on my back like a rifle, because I’d made a special cord for it like a rifle strap, and off I’d hobble. Some people even joked, they said, what’s this, are you coming home from the wars?
Sometimes I’d had enough of that tomb. The hell with it, I thought to myself, what have I done to deserve having to slave away like this, will someone finally tell me? Father and mother were long since in the ground, my brothers can get buried wherever they like. I’ll put Michał in an ordinary grave, in the earth, and me, when I die, at most the district administration will bury me. They owe me at least that much for all the years I worked there. I went on digging. I swore at the Postman, I cursed God, I cursed myself. And I kept on digging.
At times I regretted not having gone to my grave long ago, because I’d already dug a grave for myself one time, when the Germans took us into the woods to shoot us and ordered us to dig. I’d have been at peace now, I’d be nothing but dust and I wouldn’t have to dig a second time. I’d be lying there and I wouldn’t know a thing, I wouldn’t feel anything, think anything, I wouldn’t be worried about anything. And on the memorial it would say, Szymon Pietruszka, Aged 23, that’s how old I was back then. These days not many folks remember the war, but if you just go to that place you’ll see there’s a nice memorial, it’s clean and tidy and there’s fresh flowers in a jar, who knows who brings them but they’re always there, whether it’s harvesttime or no, mowing, potato digging, spring, summer, fall, whatever happens to be in bloom. Then on All Souls’ there’s also a wreath with ribbons and lit candles, and always a few people standing at the memorial and crying. Who’s going to cry for you when you’re gone?
When they were building the memorial people even came to me from the Borowice district administration, because the bastards had taken us
all the way out to the Borowice woods. Three of them there were, the head of the council, at that time he was called chairman, the district secretary, and another guy. They had briefcases and they were all dressed up in suits and ties, even though it was an ordinary weekday, a Tuesday. I’d just come in from mowing the meadow, I was fit to drop, hot, filthy, I was sitting on the bench in my undershirt and Antek’s old pants that came halfway up my shins and had holes in the knees. I’d taken my boots off and propped my feet on them. But when they asked, are you Szymon Pietruszka, I wasn’t going to deny who I was. Szymon Pietruszka. I was taken aback, because I mean, what could people from Borowice want with me? It’s a ways away. I didn’t even know any girls from over there. To begin with, all they said was they’re from the district administration in Borowice, and they started smiling in this dopey way. Have a seat, I said.
“Would you have some glasses?” one of them said.
“Glasses? What for?”
The one who’d asked about the glasses turned to one of the other ones and said:
“Give it here, Zenek.” The guy called Zenek started opening the briefcases, out of one of them he took a quart-sized bottle of vodka and a loop of sausage, out of another one another quart and several dozen hard-boiled eggs, then out of the third another quart and half a loaf of country bread.
It was only then they said they’d come because they were putting up a memorial to us in the woods, at the place where we got shot, and they’d heard that one person got away, me, and they’d prefer it if everyone died and no one escaped. Because if one person escaped you’d have to write more about him than about the ones that were buried there. But otherwise no one escaped, this many men were brought there, this many men were shot. See, it’s all on the memorial. From here to there, all squared away. To say no one, it was like a bell ringing clearly. To say someone escaped was like he’d knocked off a piece of the cross. Or at least spoiled something.
“But I’m alive. What does that mean?”
Had I dug a grave? I had. For myself? For myself. They even shot at me, I’d been wounded, right? So it was like I’d half died as it was. If the bullet had been just a bit more on target I’d be completely dead. Besides, years later who was going to remember that I’d escaped. Only the ones buried there would be remembered, because every last one of them would have their name written on the memorial. I’d be there as well. What was the harm in agreeing?
“So let’s drink. Your health!”
But people see me, they know me, how would it look – here I am walking about alive, and over there I’m lying buried. Who knows, maybe it would’ve been better if I’d been killed with all the others back then. But I escaped, I can’t go around claiming I died with them.
What difference did it make to me? I wasn’t going to live forever either way, everyone has to die sooner or later, so eventually things’ll even out. Memorials aren’t built for the present. Now the people that remember are still alive. But they’ll die as well one of these days, and after that the memorials will have to do the remembering on their own. And memorials don’t like it when someone stands out. What did I care? The people that were killed and buried there, it’d be easier for them as well if one more joined them. And that way it’d be everyone. No one escaped. Your health!
“Here, have some sausage. It’s homemade, not shop-bought. The bread as well. You know, what does it mean that one guy got away? Did anyone see it? No one did. The ones that saw it are six feet under. He could have escaped or not escaped. Maybe people just said he did. People say all kinds of things. Did anyone ever escape from a hellish situation like that? But folks like it when at least one person always escapes, and even if he didn’t, they like to say he did. How could he have escaped? They brought them there, surrounded them, every one of them had a machine gun, plus they had dogs.”
“There weren’t any dogs,” I said.
“So what if there weren’t. There could have been. Besides, if death is staring you in the face it’s death you see, fear, even if they’d had dogs you wouldn’t have seen them. One time they came to Bolechów for this one guy, they had dogs and every one of them was trained like the devil, you couldn’t take a single step. Even if he’d run away the dogs wouldn’t have let him get far. They weren’t village mongrels. And with a gunshot wound on top of that? He wouldn’t have gotten more than a few yards. And those devils, once they smell human blood they’ll bite you to death. Being killed by bullets is better than being killed by dogs. So then, are we good?”
They got me so muddled I didn’t know whether I’d died or not. On top of that the vodka came over you in such a sweet way that you could have died and you wouldn’t have known it. And I would have felt foolish drinking and eating with them and then saying no. But then all of a sudden mother called from the kitchen:
“Get away with you now, stop leading him into temptation. He doesn’t need to be on a memorial, he’s at home, thank the Lord. I cried my fill for him back then, why should I have to do more crying?” She turned to father to back her up: “You say something as well, father!”
But father had been drinking with us all the while and eating sausage and eggs, it would have been hard for him to be against it, and you could tell his head was muddled up pretty good as well, because all he said was:
“So how’s the weather over in Borowice?”
“What kind of father are you!” Mother was so mad she clanged her ladle against the pot. “Here they are trying to convince your son that he was killed, and all you can do is ask about the weather!”
At this point, scared of getting in mother’s bad books, he mumbled reluctantly:
“The thing is, if he thinks he was killed he won’t feel like working. And there’s no end of work around here. Harvesttime is coming. This year we planted three acres of rye alone. Then there’ll be the potato digging. That’s a big job as well. You came at the wrong time. You should have come after the harvest and the potato digging. In the winter would have been better.”
Twenty-five of us they shot back then. They’d ordered a meeting on the square in front of the district offices. No one knew what they were capable of yet, they’d only been there a year, so the farmers all came in like it was market day, from our village, from others. Besides, there wasn’t anything to be afraid of, just like always the local policeman had gone around with a drum announcing there was going to be a meeting, so at most we figured they were after meat and milk and cereals, what else could they want from farmers. Father was going to attend, but at the last minute he changed his mind and said, you go, because he might pick some clover for the animals. Or maybe take a nap, the whole previous night he’d had a stomachache, probably from the black pudding the day before.
There was already a crowd on the square in front of the building. An officer was standing on a table they’d carried out from inside, making a speech. Actually he was screaming, jumping up and down on the table and waving his right arm around, his left hand was tucked into his belt and it wasn’t moving, like it didn’t belong with the other one. Right next to him on the table there was a civilian that was supposedly translating, though the officer didn’t give him much of a chance to translate. It looked like he missed about half of what the other guy was shouting about, because the other guy just kept on shouting and shouting. And he was having trouble with the translation, he stammered and stuttered and he was talking so quietly, like he was just telling someone in the next room. Maybe he was afraid, or he wasn’t allowed to talk as loud as the officer. So I didn’t even hear most of it, especially because the farmers were also muttering among themselves:
“Listen to the fucker yell.”
“Keep shouting like that and your balls are gonna drop off.”
“A dog can bark all it wants, it’ll never talk like a human.”
“Because you have to be born human to talk like a human, you can’t learn it, Wincenty.”
In any case, what I got out of it was that we needed to supply even more stuff, becau
se the German soldiers were fighting for us just the same. At the end he screamed something so loud he almost rose off the table and floated into the sky. At that exact moment a whole bunch of soldiers poured out from behind the administration building. Where had so many of them come from all at once? Socha from Malenice pointed to where two trucks were parked in back of the building. They started to push us back against the fence with the butts of their rifles. The translator told us to form lines, because the officer was going to come talk with some of us one-on-one.
So we formed lines and the officer started walking around. But he evidently didn’t have much to say anymore, because he just pointed at one or another of the men, and the soldiers pulled them out and had them stand in the middle of the square. He reached me and he might not have paid any attention to me, but he suddenly looked at my four-cornered Polish army cap and his face bulged. Because I wore a cap like that. I’d brought it back from when I’d been in the regular army, it didn’t have the eagle on it and without the eagle it just looked like an ordinary cap, so what did I have to be afraid of. He asked me through the translator if I’d been in the war? I had. So I’d fought against him? I had. He smashed me right in the face. He was a stocky guy with a bull neck and a face like a cobblestone. My nose started bleeding. He hit me with his other hand, then punched me in the stomach for good measure.
Truth was I’d barely done any fighting at all back then, less than three weeks, and most of it we were just marching endlessly back and forth, then off in another direction till we didn’t know which way was which. Then when we finally started to actually fight, right away the order came through to stop fighting and retreat. I shot my gun all of five times and I probably never killed anyone, unless God hit someone with one of my bullets. But I don’t know about it if he did. On top of that I came down with the dysentery, and whenever we halted for a moment I’d have to run off into the bushes. I lost weight, grew a beard, got infested with lice, and that was my war. But I wasn’t going to tell that bastard the truth when he asked if I’d fought. I had fought.
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