House of Day, House of Night

by Olga Tokarczuk

  more gloomy, found a newly finished coffin down there.

  The Germans had left spices, salt-cellars, oil at the bottom of

  bottles, containers full of buckwheat, sugar and ersatz coffee in

  the sideboards. They had left curtains in the windows, irons on

  the hotplates, and pictures on the walls. Bills, rental and sale

  contracts, christening photos and letters lay about in drawers.

  Some houses still had books, but they had lost their powers of

  persuasion - the world around them had moved on to another

  language.

  There were children's prams, piles of yellowed newspaper and

  broken suitcases full of Christmas tree baubles in the a! lic. An

  alien smell still lingered in the kitchens and bedrooms, emanating most strongly from the wardrobes and chests of drawers. The women opened them timidly and fetched out articles of clothing.

  one by one, with some amazement because t he clot hes were so

  foreign, strange and funny Finally they plucked up the courage

  to try on the dresses and jackets. They often didn't know the

  names of the materials they were made of. As t hey stood before

  the mirror, they instinctively plunged their hands into t he pockets and were surprised to find crumpled handkerchiefs. sweet wrappers and old banknotes. The women showed J special

  talent for discovering closets no one had noticed. drawers t hat

  had been overlooked, and well-hidden shoe-boxes. from which

  children's milk teeth or locks of hair spilled forth. They ran t heir

  fingers over the patterns on plates. admi ring their dt-.tinct ivc.

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  sky-blue symmetry. They didn't know what the gadget with the

  crank handle hanging on the wall was for, or what the labels on

  the little china drawers in the sideboard meant.

  Sometimes, while sorting out the cellar or digging in the

  garden, someone found something special - a wooden box full

  of chinaware or a jar of coins, or a set of silver cutlery wrapped

  in oilcloth . The news went round the village in a flash, then the

  whole district, and soon everyone was hoping to find a treasure

  trove left by the Germans. There was a dreamlike quality to this

  treasure hunting; it was like tracking down the roots of a dangerous, alien plant that might start growing again one day, that might rob them of all their possessions and hound them back

  into homelessness.

  Some people were remarkably blessed with these gifts, though

  not by pure accident. You could choose to believe their story that

  one day, while they were digging near the house, all of a sudden

  their spade just happened to clang against a metal box. But they

  could equally have taken a pickaxe and spade and headed into

  the fields, dug under one of the bigger trees or near a lonely

  shrine, shifted the stones in a ruined building, or explored an

  old well.

  For the first year none of the men in Pietno sowed their

  fields - they were all looking for treasure i nstead. Only the

  women bothered to plant cabbages and radishes in their gardens. Every morning, at the first hint of dawn, the men set off on their treasure hunts. They looked as if they were going to

  work, because they had spades, pickaxes and coils of rope slung

  over their shoulders. Sometimes they teamed up in pairs or

  small groups and lowered themselves down into wells. Ever

  since one of them had found a metal box containing a hundred

  knives in the wall of a well - or rather, a hundred blades,

  because the wooden handles had crumbled to dust - they had

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  started investigating all sorts of holes in the ground . Those with

  foresight were already teaching their sons to look for treasure,

  because t hey thought it a very good profession.

  Years later their grandsons were still looking for treasure; they

  bought metal detectors from the Ukrainians at the market and

  waded through waist-high grass, as if they were examining the

  ground through enormous magnifying-glasses. They spent their

  afternoons loitering outside the shop with bottles of warm beer,

  discussing the fact that yet another German coach had stopped

  on the road, and some of the Germans had gone creeping about

  in the bushes behind the church. Someone had seen them that

  night , shining torches and quietly calling to each other in

  excited whispers. In the morning there was a freshly dug hole in

  that spot.

  The greatest treasure hunter of all was old Poploc h. He

  looked for treasure the way o ther people looked for mushrooms, and in both cases you have to have a nose for it. E'ery solid object in the Poplochs' house came from his treasure hunting - brass pots, plates and crockery, including a set of tiny cups so dainty that no one knew what to drink out of them.

  Anything that was subject to decay or putrefaction, howe'er,

  had to be bought.

  Poploch used to wander nonchalantly ahou t the fields and

  copses, staring at the sky as if scenting out tomorrow's weather.

  Then suddenly he'd come across a stone lying on the boundary

  between two fields, walk right round it and feel it, then dash

  home for his pickaxe and spade. Under this sort of stone he

  would find a suitcase fu ll of cutlery, or a pot full of Nazi army

  badges. Two or three times in his life Poploch found a gun

  Each time he took it home, cleaned it, showed his wife and

  daughter how to put on the safety catch and hid it i n the attic with a gun in the house he felt safer. He had found a box fu ll llf

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  stamp albums and drove to Walbrzych now and then to sell a

  few German stamps. He also sold apparently useless old

  objects, like wire-framed spec tacles, to one o f the antique

  shops there.

  But when he found a real piece of treasure he didn't realize

  what it was. What would you think if you found a wooden box

  with iron fittings containing twenty-four place settings made of

  light metal, most of it coated in verdigris or tarnished? It was

  quite a nice set of plates, mugs, forks, knives, spoons and teaspoons, as well as some saucepans and pots with wooden handles. Mrs Poploch used to boil milk in them - they were

  really solid and never got burned. They stacked all these items in

  the sideboard, where they sat quietly for many a long year, until

  martial law, when a dealer in old furniture came by and happened to notice the milk pan. He looked on the bottom for a mark, but he didn't say whether he had found one. When

  Poploch showed him the whole sideboard full of the rest of the

  service, the dealer went silent for a moment, then offered him an

  enormous sum of money out of his own pocket. The Poplochs

  didn't bother to haggle; only their daughter was sorry to part

  with the silvery gleam of the pots and pans that, like the glow of

  the television, used to fill the room of an evening. But for the

  same amount she bought herself a living-room suite in Nowa

  Ruda, and still had enough left over for a three-day office outing

  to Rome.

  I f you had X-ray eyes and could light up the earth like the

  human body, what would you see there? Bones of rock, the clay

  of the earth's internal
organs, livers of granite and hearts of sandstone, and the intestines of underground rivers, and some items of treasure buried in the ground, like implants or splinters of

  shrapnel.

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  D a h l i a s

  Marta was sitting among the dahlias. I could see her head, and I

  waved to her, but she didn't notice. She was poking about in the

  leaves, tying them back perhaps, or maybe flicking the snails off

  them. She planted the rhizomes in spring and has taken almost

  as much care of them as of her rhubarb. They bloomed i n

  August , and their petals were s o even that I felt like counting

  them. Where do they get their perfect symmetry? Mana says

  dahlias are always more popular with children than adults. Why

  is that? No one knows. 'Adults prefer roses,' says Marta, because

  roses are so unpredictable.

  I'd like to be old like Marta. Old age seems to be the same

  everywhere, consisting of long mornings, pleasantly protracted

  afternoons spent watching a sluggish TV serial with the blinds

  drawn down while the sun stands still above the rooftops. A n

  expedition t o the shop i s a major event still being commented

  on over dinner. Being old means washing the plates ca refully.

  and collecting crumbs from the table in nylon bags for twiceweekly outings to feed the pigeons in the park. Old age means inspecting the wound on the stalk of a croton that has lost a leaf

  in the night , shaking the aphids off the velvety leaves of a hibiscus, or putting the napkins straight; admiring the beet root in the vegetable patch for managing to grow so large, listening to

  the radio with your hands idle, or planning some buuon-sort ing

  for tomorrow. It also means worrying about the electricity hi ll

  that came yesterday, watching the postman as he zigzags fmm

  door to door, staring at the sky from the kitchen wi ndow and

  knowing every phase of the sun. It means ope n i ng the fridge

  casually to reassure yoursel f it's not empty, care fully tearing

  leaves fro m the calendar and put ting them in a drawe r. keeping

  museumfuls of old newspapers, and putting nwthh;d J.., anwng

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  dresses that have gone brown with age, and are too small or too

  large to fit.

  Then I realized that it's not that I want to be old - it's not a

  particular age I'm longing for, but a certain way of life, one that's

  reserved for old age, perhaps. It involves not taking action, but

  if you do, doing it slowly, as if it's not the result of the action that

  matters, but the actual movement, the rhythm and melody of the

  movement. It means watching the ebb and flow of time, but no

  longer having the courage to go with the tide, or against it. It

  means ignoring time, and doing nothing, just counti ng the

  strokes of the living-room clock, the pit-a-pat of pigeons' feet on

  the window-sill, and the beats of your heart - and then immediately forgetting them all. It means not longing or thirsting for anything - at most, it might mean looking forward to a holiday;

  after all, that's what holidays are for. Being old means swallowing your spittle and feeling it slip down your throat, or touching the skin on your hand and feeling how icy smooth it has

  become. It means cuddling up to your own knees, or remembering something in pedantic detail, from start to finish, until you nod off out of boredom.

  The white fuzz on Marta's h ead shone silver among the

  flowers. It wasn't moving; maybe Marta thought that by keeping still she might defeat the hot weather. Maybe she was counting the flower petals, or maybe their beauty had simply

  taken her breath away. Suddenly, for a brief i nstant, I knew

  exactly what she was thinking. The thought appeared in my

  head, pushed its way forward among my own, exploded and

  vanished. Surprised, I froze on the spot with my hand raised to

  my eyes.

  Marta was thinking, 'The most beau tiful petals are the

  ones chewed jagged by snails. The most beautiful are the least

  perfect.'

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  Stuffed amanitas

  three large fresh amanita caps

  five hundred grams of dried amanita

  two rolls

  a glass of milk

  one onion

  parsley tops without stalhs

  a whole egg

  an egg yolk

  breadcrumbs

  salt and pepper to taste

  Soak the rolls in the milk. Fry the onion in fat , add the

  soaked and finely chopped dried mushrooms, beat in the

  egg yolk, add the chopped parsley, and season the stuffing

  mixture to taste. Coat the mushroom caps in egg and

  breadcrumbs and fry until golden. Fill with stuffing and

  bake au gratin in the oven.

  A h e a n d a s h e

  They came here just after the war, as evacuees from t he cast.

  They fell in love - amid empty houses and empty streets, their

  empty hearts were ready for love. Nothing existed properly yet it was all just starting to gear up for normal existence . Trains ran without a set timetable, someone still fired t he occasional shot at

  night, and it was hard to understand the German signs ahm-e the

  broken shop windows.

  Her slender, wel l-groomed hands, that c'c n the war had n"t

  ruined , found work a mong the l i t t l e medicine bot t l r.., in a

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  pharmacy embellished with Asclepius's serpent. For the first few

  months she stuck on German labels and wrote in the Polish

  names. He meanwhile, in his glossy knee-high boots, was busy

  reviving the mine. They got married two months after meeting,

  and were allocated a house, into which they moved furniture

  from some abandoned flats near the marketplace - a mahogany

  sideboard decorated with little turrets, huge still-lifes in heavy

  frames, a desk full of papers and photographs that she used to

  light the fire, and some leather chairs with worn, shiny arms.

  Both of them had always dreamed of such a home; it had a

  narrow stairwell lit by colourful stained-glass panels in the front

  door, a solid staircase with a handrail, a hall full of mirrors too

  huge to have been looted, a living-room with a veranda and

  sliding doors, and a large cool kitchen with tiled walls. The tiles

  showed rural scenes - a windmill in a cobalt blue landscape, a

  village by a pond, and hills criss-crossed by paths. The pattern

  repeated every few tiles, giving the room order. Each thing had

  to have its own special place, even the marble paperweight

  shaped like a scorpion .

  From then o n they were always attracted b y pretty things:

  beautiful flats, and eye-catching clothes in the latest fashion -

  they were so elegant and refined, the opposite of uniforms,

  wartime rags and canvas knapsacks slung across shoulders. In

  the afternoons they went to neglected gardens and dug up flowers

  they couldn't name. They planted them in borders around their

  house like fortifications. Now as they played whist in the evenings

  they could smell the scent of the flowers, but half-way through

  dealing out the cards they'd want to go to bed and make love.

  He wa
s quickly promoted , and moved from the mine to

  Blachobyt, the biggest enterprise in town. She became manageress of the pharmacy. They went on shopping expeditions to Swidnica and Wrodaw. They often went out walking, to show

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  themselves to the town, and so the town could show itself to

  them.

  As they sauntered about in their bright, clean, fashionable

  clothes that seemed to give their faces a heavenly glow, the very

  sight of this self-possessed couple made you feel like kneeling

  down on the pavement at their feet and crossing yourseiL

  They didn't want children from the start. They were careful,

  took precautions and felt somehow superior to all those couples

  who lost control and got into trouble. They thought it banal to

  live like that, to produce a child and watch everything become an

  everyday routine - a stink in the kitchen of milk and piss, nappies

  drying in the bathroom, and an ironing-board and its unsightly

  metal frame as a new, permanent fixture in the living-room. I t

  meant having to queue for veal, go t o the doctor, worry about

  milk teeth and whether they'd come through yet. 'We're doing so

  well,' he whispered in her ear and, snuggling up to his manly

  chest with the scars she never asked about, she added, 'How

  could I share my love for you?' 'We'd be torn apart if we had to

  love someone else too - it would take up all our time and affection .' So condom wrappers lay scattered by their bed, and a douche stood on the little shelf in the bathroom - vulgar evidence

  of the fact that they had their lives under control, which meant

  they were free, really and truly free. They were among the first in

  town to have a car, and they used to drive to Klodzko, sometimes

  all the way to Wrodaw, to go to the theatre, or the tai lor's for fi ttings when they needed a new suit , or a beautiful d ress with a froth of petticoats. Whenever other couples, painfully growmg

  older, asked them about children, they replied in unison: "\'by on

  earth have children in such uncertain t imes, in a part of the country that still doesn't fully belong to us. after all that happened during the war, after what they shmved us at the cinema about the

  camps. What on earth should we have children forr

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