Primeval and Other Times

by Olga Tokarczuk

  “Let’s run away to the city, to Kielce.”

  “… Everything pushes us apart. You’re young, I’m old. You’re a Jew and I’m a Pole. You’re from Jeszkotle, I’m from Primeval. You’re single, and I’m married. You’re mobile, I’m fixed to the spot.”

  They stepped onto the wooden pier, and Genowefa started removing the laundry from the buckets and plunging it into the cold water. The dark water rinsed out the light soapsuds.

  “It was you that led me astray,” said Eli.

  “I know.”

  She put down the laundry, and for the first time leaned her head against his shoulder. He could smell the fragrance of her hair.

  “I fell in love with you as soon as I saw you. Instantly. Love like that never ends,” she said.

  “What is love?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I can see the mill from my windows,” said Eli.

  THE TIME OF FLORENTYNKA

  People think madness is caused by a great, dramatic event, some sort of suffering that is unbearable. They imagine you go mad for some reason – because of being abandoned by a lover, because of the death of someone you love, or the loss of a fortune, a glance at the face of God. People also think madness strikes suddenly, all at once, in unusual circumstances, and that insanity falls on a person like a net, fettering the mind and muddling the emotions.

  But Florentynka had gone mad in the normal course of things, you could say for no reason at all. Long ago she might have had reasons for madness – when her husband drowned in the White River while drunk, when seven of her nine children died, when she had miscarriage after miscarriage, when she got rid of the ones she didn’t miscarry, and the two times when she almost died as a result, when her barn burned down, when the two children left alive deserted her and disappeared into the world.

  Now Florentynka was old, and had all her experiences behind her. Skinny as a rake and toothless, she lived in a wooden cottage by the Hill. Some of her cottage windows looked onto the forest, and others onto the village. Florentynka had two cows left which fed her, and also fed her dogs. She had a small orchard full of maggoty plums, and in summer some large hydrangea bushes bloomed in front of her house.

  Florentynka went mad without anyone noticing. First her head ached and she couldn’t sleep at night. The moon was disturbing her. She told the neighbours it was watching her, that its vigilant gaze came through the walls and windowpanes, and its glowing light left traps for her in the mirrors, windowpanes, and reflections in water.

  Then, in the evenings, Florentynka started going outside and waiting for the moon. It rose above the common, always the same, though in a different form. Florentynka shook her fist at it. People saw this fist raised at the sky and said: she’s gone mad.

  Florentynka’s body was small and thin. After her period of non-stop child-bearing she was left with a round belly which now looked comical, like a loaf of bread stuffed under her skirt. After this time of child-bearing womanhood she did not have a single tooth left, true to the saying: “One child – one tooth.” Everything costs something. Florentynka’s breasts – or rather what time does with a woman’s breasts – were long and flat. They nestled against her body. Their skin was like tissue paper for wrapping the decorations after Christmas, and the fine blue veins were visible through it – a sign that Florentynka was still alive.

  And those were days when women died sooner than men, mothers sooner than fathers, wives sooner than husbands, because they had always been the vessels that secreted mankind. Children hatched out of them like chicks from eggs. Then the egg had to find a way to glue itself back together. The stronger the woman, the more children she bore, and so the weaker she became. In the forty-fifth year of life, freed from the endless round of child-bearing, Florentynka’s body reached its own particular nirvana of sterility.

  Ever since Florentynka had gone mad, cats and dogs had started frequenting her yard. Soon people began to treat her as a refuge for their consciences, and instead of drowning the kittens or puppies, they tossed them under the hydrangea bushes. At Florentynka’s hands, the two feeder-cows nourished a whole pack of animal foundlings. Florentynka always treated animals with respect, as she did people. In the morning she said “good day” to them, and whenever she put down a bowl of milk for them, she never forgot to say “bon appetit.” What’s more, she never called them just “dog” or “cat,” because it sounded as if she were talking about objects. She said “Mr Dog” and “Mr Cat,” like Mr Malak or Mr Chlipala.

  Florentynka didn’t regard herself as a lunatic at all. The moon was persecuting her, like any normal persecutor. But one night something strange happened.

  As usual when there was a full moon, Florentynka took her dogs and went out onto the hillside to curse the moon. The dogs lay down around her in the grass, and she shouted into the sky:

  “Where is my son? How did you seduce him, you fat, silver toad? You beguiled my old man and dragged him into the water! I saw you in the well today, I caught you red-handed – you poisoned our water …”

  A light went on in the Serafins’ house and a man’s voice shouted into the darkness.

  “Shut up, you mad woman! We’re trying to sleep.”

  “So go to sleep, sleep yourselves to death. Why on earth were you born if you’re only going to sleep?”

  The voice fell silent, and Florentynka sat on the ground and stared at the silvery face of her persecutor. It was furrowed with wrinkles, rheumy-eyed, with marks left by some sort of cosmic cowpox. The dogs lay on the grass, and the moon was reflected in their dark eyes too. They sat quietly, and then the old woman laid a hand on the head of the big shaggy bitch. Just then she saw in her mind a thought that wasn’t hers, not even a thought, but the outline of a thought, an image, an impression. This something was alien to her thinking, not just because – as she sensed – it came from outside, but because it was completely different: monotone, distinct, deep, sensual, scented.

  In it were the sky and two moons, one beside the other. There was a river – cold and joyful. There were houses – alluring and awful all at once. The line of the forest – a sight full of strange excitement. On the grass lay sticks, stones, and leaves filled with images and memories. Beside them, like paths, ran scent trails full of meanings. Under the ground ran warm, live corridors. Everything was different. Only the outlines of the world remained the same. Then with her human reason Florentynka realised that people were right – she had gone mad.

  “Am I talking to myself?” she asked the bitch, who was resting her head on her knees.

  She knew she was.

  They went home. Florentynka poured the remains of the evening’s milk into bowls. She, too, sat down to eat. She wetted a piece of bread in the milk and chewed it with her toothless gums. As she ate she stared at one of the dogs, trying to say something to him through pure images. She emitted a thought, “imagining” something like: “I am, and I am eating.” The dog raised its head.

  So that night, whether because of the persecutor-moon or her madness, Florentynka learned how to talk to her dogs and cats. The conversations relied on emitting images. What the animals imagined was not as concise and specific as human speech. It did not include thoughts, but it did have things seen from the inside, without the human distance that brings a sense of alienation. It made the world seem more friendly.

  Most important for Florentynka were the two moons from the animals’ images. It was astonishing to find that animals saw two moons, and people only one. Florentynka could not understand it, so finally she stopped trying to. The moons were different; in a way they were even opposed to each other, but also identical at the same time. One was soft, rather damp, and tender. The other was hard as silver, shining and jingling merrily. So Florentynka’s persecutor had a dual nature, and this very feature made it even more of a threat to her.

  THE TIME OF MISIA

  When she was ten years old, Misia was the smallest girl in her class, and so she sat in the front benc
h. As she walked between the benches, the teacher always stroked Misia’s head.

  On her way home from school Misia collected things her dollies needed: horse chestnut shells for plates, acorn tops for cups, and moss for pillows.

  But once she got home, she couldn’t decide what she wanted to play. On the one hand she was drawn to the dolls, to changing their dresses, and feeding them dishes that were invisible, but which did actually exist. She was drawn to wrapping their stiff bodies in baby quilts and telling them simple, rag-doll stories for bedtime. Then, once she had picked them up, she’d suddenly feel disheartened. They weren’t Karmilla, Judyta, or Bobaska any more. Misia’s eyes saw flat eyes painted onto pink faces, reddened cheeks and mouths that were permanently sealed, for which no food could exist. Misia turned over the thing she had once regarded as Karmilla and gave it a spanking. She could feel she was hitting sawdust covered in material. The doll didn’t complain or protest. So Misia sat her with her pink face to the windowpane and stopped bothering with her. She went to rummage in her Mama’s dressing table.

  It was wonderful to sneak into her parents’ bedroom and sit before the two-winged mirror that could even show things that were normally invisible – shadows in the corners, the back of your own head … Misia tried on the beads and rings, opened the little bottles and spent ages fathoming the mystery of lipstick. One day, when she was feeling especially disappointed with her Karmillas, she raised the lipstick to her mouth and painted it blood-red. The red of the lipstick set time in motion, and Misia saw herself in a few dozen years, just as she would die. She furiously wiped the lipstick off her mouth and went back to the dolls. She took their coarse, sawdust-stuffed paws in her hands and clapped them together soundlessly.

  But she always went back to her mother’s dressing table. She’d try on her silk camisoles and high-heeled shoes. She’d make herself a floor-length dress out of a lacy petticoat. She’d look at her reflection in the mirror, and suddenly think she looked funny. “Wouldn’t it be better to make a ball dress for Karmilla?” she’d think, and excited by this idea, go back to the dolls.

  One day, at the crossroads between her Mama’s dressing table and the dolls, Misia found a drawer in the kitchen table. In the drawer there was everything. The entire world.

  First of all, the photographs were kept here. One of them showed her father in a Russian uniform with a pal. They were standing with their arms around each other, like good friends. Her father had a moustache from ear to ear. In the background a fountain was playing. Another one showed her Papa’s and Mama’s heads. Mama was in a white veil, and Papa had the same black moustache. Misia’s favourite picture was one of her mother with her hair cut short, wearing a headband. Mama looked like a real lady in it. Misia had her own photo in here too. She was sitting on a bench in front of the house with the coffee grinder on her knees. Above her head the lilac was in bloom.

  Secondly, the most valuable object in the house, as far as Misia was concerned, was in here – the “moonstone,” as she called it. Her father had once found it in a field, and he said it was different from all normal stones. It was almost perfectly round, and there were tiny crumbs of something very shiny embedded in its surface. It looked like a Christmas tree decoration. Misia would put it to her ear and wait for a sound, a sign from the stone. But the stone from heaven was silent.

  Thirdly, there was an old thermometer with a broken mercury tube inside, so the mercury could move freely about the thermometer, not restricted by any scale, regardless of the temperature. One time it would stretch out in a stream, and then freeze, rolled in a ball like a frightened animal. One time it would look black, and another time it would be black, silvery, and white all at once. Misia loved playing with the thermometer with the mercury shut inside it. She thought the mercury was a living creature. She called it Sparky. Whenever she opened the drawer she said softly:

  “Hello, Sparky.”

  Fourthly, old, broken, unfashionable costume jewellery was thrown into the drawer, all those trashy purchases no one can resist: a snapped chain whose gold paint has come off, exposing the grey metal, a fine filigree brooch made of horn, depicting Cinderella, with the birds helping her to pick the peas out of the ashes. Between pieces of paper shone the glassy stones of forgotten rings from the fair, earring clasps, and glass beads of various shapes. Misia marvelled at their simple, useless beauty. She would look into the window through the green eye of the ring, and the world became different. Beautiful. She could never decide what sort of world she would prefer to live in: green, ruby, blue, or yellow.

  Fifthly, among the other things in here lay a switchblade, hidden from children. Misia was afraid of the knife, though sometimes she imagined she could use it. In defence of her father, for instance, if someone tried to do him harm. The knife looked innocent. It had a dark red ebonite handle, in which the blade was treacherously concealed. Misia had once seen her father release it with barely a flick of his finger. The mere “click” it gave sounded like an attack and made Misia shudder. That was why she reckoned she shouldn’t even touch the knife by accident. She left it in its place, deep in the right-hand corner of the drawer, under the holy pictures.

  Sixthly, on top of the knife lay some small holy pictures collected over the years, which the priest used to hand out to the children on his way round the parish. All of them showed either the Virgin Mary of Jeszkotle or the little Lord Jesus in a skimpy shirt, grazing a lamb. The Lord Jesus was chubby and had fair curly hair. Misia loved this sort of Lord Jesus. One of the pictures showed a bearded God the Father sprawling on a blue throne. God was holding a broken staff, and for a long time Misia didn’t know what it was. Then she realised that this Lord God was holding a thunderbolt, and began to be afraid of Him.

  There was a little medallion knocking around among the pictures. It wasn’t an ordinary medallion. It was made out of a kopeck. On one side the image of the Virgin Mary had been die-cast, and on the other an eagle was spreading its wings.

  Seventhly, there were some small, neatly shaped pig bones rattling about in the drawer that were used to play a throwing game. Misia kept an eye on her mother whenever she made aspic out of pig’s feet to make sure she didn’t throw away the bones. The shapely little bones had to be cleaned properly, then dried out on the stove. Misia liked holding them in her hand – they were light, and they looked so similar to each other, just the same, even from different pigs. How can it be, wondered Misia, that all the pigs that are killed for Christmas or Easter, all the pigs in the world have exactly the same little dice bones inside them? Sometimes Misia imagined the live pigs, and felt sorry for them. At least there was a bright side to their death – the dice bones were left after them.

  Eighthly, old, used Volta batteries were stored in the drawer. At first Misia didn’t touch them at all, just like the switchblade. Her father said they might still be charged with energy. But the notion of energy shut inside a small, flat box was extremely appealing. It reminded her of the mercury trapped in the thermometer. Though you could see the mercury, but not this energy. What did energy look like? Misia took a battery and weighed it in her hand for a while. Energy was heavy. There must be a lot of energy in such a little box. It must be packed in there like a cabbage for pickling, and pressed down with a fingertip. Then Misia touched the yellow wire with her tongue and felt a gentle tingling – it was the remains of the invisible electrical energy coming out of the battery.

  Ninthly, Misia found various medicines in the drawer, and knew it was absolutely forbidden to put them in her mouth. Mama’s tablets were in there, and Papa’s ointment. Misia had particular respect for her Mama’s white pills in a small paper bag. Before Mama took them, she was angry and irritated, and suffered from headaches. But afterwards, once she had swallowed them, she calmed down and began to play patience.

  And yes, tenthly there were cards in there for playing patience and rummy. On one side they all looked the same – a green plant design, but when Misia turned them over, a gallery of p
ortraits was revealed. She spent hours examining the faces of the kings and queens. She tried to fathom the relationships between them. She suspected that as soon as the drawer was closed they started holding long conversations with each other, maybe even quarrelling about their imaginary kingdoms. She liked the Queen of Spades the best. She thought her the most beautiful and the saddest. The Queen of Spades had a bad husband. The Queen of Spades didn’t have any friends. She was very lonely. Misia always looked for her in her mother’s patience rows. She also looked for her whenever Mama told fortunes. But Mama spent too long staring at the laid-out cards. Misia got bored when there was nothing happening on the table, and then she went back to rummaging in the drawer, inside which lay the entire world.

  THE TIME OF CORNSPIKE

  In Cornspike’s cottage in Wydymacz there lived a snake, an owl, and a kite. These creatures never got in each other’s way. The snake lived by the hearth in the kitchen, and Cornspike put out a bowl of milk for him there. The owl sat in the loft, in an alcove where a window had been bricked in. He looked like a statuette. The kite kept to the roof beams, at the highest point in the house, but his real home was the sky.

  Cornspike took longest to tame the snake. Every day she put out milk for him, gradually moving the bowl closer to the inside of the house. One day the snake crawled up to her feet. She picked him up, and she won him over with her warm skin, which smelled of grass and milk. The snake wound around her arm, and his golden pupils gazed into Cornspike’s clear eyes. She gave him the name Goldie.

  Goldie fell in love with Cornspike. Her warm skin heated the snake’s cold heart and cold body. He desired her odours and the velvet touch of her skin, with which nothing on earth could compare. Whenever Cornspike picked him up, he felt as if he, a common reptile, were changing into something completely different, into something extremely important. As gifts he brought her the mice he hunted, lovely milky pebbles from the riverside, and bits of bark. Once he brought her an apple, and the woman raised it to her face, laughing, and her laughter was fragrant with abundance.