Primeval and Other Times

by Olga Tokarczuk

  “I’d like to be your husband, Ruta. I’d like to make love with you.”

  She pulled her leg away. Izydor opened his eyes and gazed straight into Ruta’s face. It looked cold and determined. Not as he knew it.

  “I’m never going to do that with someone I love. Only with those I hate,” she said and got up. “I’m going. Come with me if you want.”

  He hurriedly got up and headed after her, half a pace behind as usual.

  “You’ve changed,” he said quietly.

  She turned round abruptly and stopped.

  “Of course I’ve changed. Are you surprised? The world is evil. You’ve seen it for yourself. What sort of a God created a world like this? Either He’s evil Himself, or He allows evil to happen. Or else He’s got it all messed up.”

  “You’re not allowed to talk like that …”

  “I am,” she said and ran ahead.

  It became very quiet. Izydor couldn’t hear the wind or the birds or the buzzing of insects. It was hollow and empty, as if he had fallen into feathers, into the very middle of a huge eiderdown, or into a bank of snow.

  “Ruta!” he shouted.

  He saw her flash among the trees, and then she vanished. He rushed in that direction. He looked all round, feeling helpless, because he realised that without her he would never be capable of getting home.

  “Ruta!” he shouted even louder.

  “I’m here,” she said, and emerged from behind a tree.

  “I want to see the centre of Primeval.”

  She dragged him into some bushes – raspberries and wild blackberries. The plants caught on Izydor’s sweater. Before them lay a small glade among huge oak trees. The ground was covered in acorns, old ones and this year’s. Some were crumbling to dust, others were sprouting, and yet others were shining a fresh green colour. In the very middle of the glade stood a tall, oblong rock made of white sandstone. Another one, broader and more solid, lay on top of this obelisk. It looked like a hat. Izydor could see the outline of a face under the stone hat. He went nearer, to take a closer look, and then he noticed that the same face appeared on either side, too. So there were three faces. And suddenly Izydor was aware of a deep sense of incompleteness, a lack of something extremely important. He felt as if he knew all this from somewhere already, as if he had seen the glade and the stone in the middle of it, and its three faces before. He sought Ruta’s hand, but that didn’t reassure him. Ruta’s hand pulled him after it and they began to walk around the glade, on the bed of acorns. Then Izydor saw a fourth face, just the same as the others. He kept walking faster, and then let go of Ruta’s hand, because he was starting to run, with his eyes glued to the stone. He could always see one face turned towards him and two in profile. And now he realised where his sense of lack was coming from, the sorrow that underlay everything, the sorrow that was present in every single thing, in every phenomenon, and always had been – it is impossible to grasp everything at once.

  “It’s impossible to see the fourth face,” said Ruta, as if reading his thoughts. “That is the very centre of Primeval.”

  It began to pour, and when they reached the Highway they were completely soaked. Ruta’s dress was clinging to her body.

  “Come to our place. You can dry off,” he suggested.

  Ruta stood opposite Izydor. She had the whole village behind her.

  “Izek, I’m going to marry Ukleja.”

  “No,” said Izydor.

  “I want to leave here for the city, I want to travel, I want to have earrings and smart shoes.”

  “No,” repeated Izydor and began to tremble. Water poured down his face and blurred his view of Primeval.

  “Yes,” said Ruta and took a few steps backwards.

  Izydor’s legs gave way under him. He was afraid he would fall over.

  “I’ll only be in Taszów. It’s not far away!” she cried and turned towards the forest.

  THE TIME OF CORNSPIKE

  The Bad Man came to Wydymacz in the evening. He would emerge from the forest at dusk, and it looked as if he had come unglued from its wall: he was dark, on his face he had the shadow of the trees which never disappeared. Cobwebs shone in his hair, earwigs and maybugs roamed in his beard – it disgusted Cornspike. And he smelled different. Not like a man, but like wood, like moss, like a wild boar’s hair, like a hare’s fur. Whenever she allowed him to enter her, she knew she wasn’t copulating with a human. He wasn’t a human being, despite his human form, despite the two or three human words he was able to say. When she realised this, she was seized with terror, but excitement, too, at the idea that she herself was changing into a doe, a sow, an elk, that she was nothing more than a female animal, like billions of female creatures the world over, and that she had in her a male like billions of males the world over. Then the Bad Man let out a long, piercing howl that must have been heard all over the forest.

  At dawn he would leave her, and on his way out he always pinched some of her food. Many times Cornspike tried to follow him through the forest to spot his hideout. If she knew where it was, she would have more power over him, because in his hiding place an animal or a man reveals the weak sides of his nature.

  She never succeeded in tracking the Bad Man further than to the big lime tree. If she turned her gaze for just a moment from his hunched shoulders flashing between the trees, the Bad Man vanished, as if the earth had swallowed him.

  Finally Cornspike realised that she was betrayed by her human, female smell, and so the Bad Man knew he was being followed. So she gathered some mushrooms and tree bark, took some pine needles and leaves, and put it all in a stone pot. She poured in rainwater and waited a few days. And when the Bad Man came to her, and then at dawn went off into the forest with a bit of pork fat between his teeth, she quickly undressed, smeared the mixture on herself and set off after him.

  She saw him sit down on the grass at the edge of a meadow and eat the pork fat. Then he wiped his hands on the ground and went into the long grass. In an open space he looked around fearfully and sniffed. Once he even fell to the ground, and only a little later did Cornspike hear the rattle of a cart on the Wola Road.

  The Bad Man went into Papiernia. Cornspike threw herself down in the grass now and, bending close to the earth, ran after him. When she found herself at the edge of the forest, she couldn’t see him anywhere. She tried sniffing, just as he did, but she couldn’t smell anything. She hung about helplessly under a large oak tree, when suddenly a branch fell beside her, then another, and a third. Cornspike realised her mistake, and looked up. The Bad Man was sitting on a branch of the oak tree, baring his teeth. She felt terrified of her nocturnal lover. He didn’t look like a human being. He growled at her in warning, and Cornspike realised she must go away.

  She went straight to the river, where she washed off the odours of the earth and forest.

  THE TIME OF RUTA

  Ukleja’s Warszawa car went as far as it was possible to go. Then he had to get out and walk the last few metres on foot. He tripped on the ruts in the forest road and cursed. Finally he was standing outside Cornspike’s half tumbledown cottage, spitting with rage.

  “Good woman, if you please, I’ve business to discuss with you!” he called.

  Cornspike came outside and stared straight into Ukleja’s bloodshot eyes.

  “I won’t give her to you.”

  For a moment he lost his confidence, but instantly pulled himself together again.

  “She’s already mine,” he said calmly. “She merely insists that you have to bless her. I am to ask you for her hand.”

  “I won’t give her to you.”

  Ukleja turned towards the car and shouted:

  “Ruta!”

  A moment later the door opened and Ruta got out of the car. Her hair was short now, with curls of it escaping from under a little hat. In a narrow skirt and heels she seemed very slender and very tall. In those shoes of hers she hobbled along the sandy road. Cornspike looked at her possessively.

  Ruta
stopped beside Ukleja and hesitantly put her arm through his. This gesture gave Ukleja the courage he needed.

  “Bless your daughter, woman, because we haven’t much time.”

  He gently pushed the girl forwards.

  “Go home, Ruta,” said Cornspike.

  “No, Mama, I want to marry him.”

  “He’ll do you wrong. I’ll lose you because of him. He’s a werewolf.”

  Ukleja laughed.

  “Ruta, let’s go … this is pointless.”

  The girl abruptly turned to face him and threw her handbag at his feet.

  “I’m not going until she lets me!” she cried in anger.

  She walked up to her mother. Cornspike hugged her, and they stood like that until Ukleja began to grow impatient.

  “Let’s go, Ruta. You don’t have to convince her. No means no. What a fine lady of the manor …”

  Then Cornspike spoke to him over her daughter’s head.

  “You can take her, but on one condition.”

  “Well?” said Ukleja, intrigued. He liked bargaining.

  “From October to the end of April she is yours. From May to September she is mine.”

  The amazed Ukleja looked at her as if he didn’t understand. Then he started counting the months on his fingers, and found that this division was not even, and that he profited by it. He had more months than Cornspike. He smiled slyly.

  “All right, so be it.”

  Ruta took her mother’s hand and laid it on her own cheek.

  “Thank you, Mama. I’ll be fine. I’ve got everything I could wish for there.”

  Cornspike kissed her brow. She didn’t even glance at Ukleja as they left. Before it got going, the car emitted clouds of grey smoke, and for the first time in their lives the trees in Wydymacz got a taste of exhaust fumes.

  THE TIME OF MISIA

  For his family and colleagues from work, for the secretaries and lawyers, Paweł gave a name-day party in June, on Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s day. But for his birthday he only ever invited Ukleja. Birthdays are for close friends, and Paweł had one close friend.

  When the children heard the dull whirr of the Warszawa car, they ran away in panic to the hideout under the stairs. Unaware that he caused terror, Ukleja brought the children a large thermos of ice cream and wafers in a cardboard box.

  In a blue maternity dress, Misia asked them to come and sit at table in the living room, but they were reluctant to take their places. Izydor stopped Ruta in the doorway.

  “I’ve got some new stamps,” he said.

  “Izydor, don’t pester the guests,” Misia scolded him.

  “You look lovely in that fur coat, like the Snow Queen,” Izydor whispered to Ruta.

  Misia began to serve the food. There were jellied pig’s feet and two kinds of salad. There were plates of cold meat and stuffed egg shells. There was bigos stew heating up and chicken thighs sizzling in the kitchen. Paweł filled the shot glasses with vodka. The men sat opposite each other and talked about the prices of animal hides in Taszów and Kielce. Then Ukleja told a dirty joke. The vodka kept disappearing down their throats, and the glasses seemed too small to slake their bodies’ monstrous thirst. And the men still seemed sober, though their faces had gone red and both had undone their collars. Finally their eyes misted over, as if they had frozen from the inside. Then Ruta followed Misia into the kitchen.

  “I’ll help you,” she said, and Misia handed her a knife. Ruta’s large hands sliced the cake, her red fingernails flashing against the whiteness of the cream like drops of blood.

  The men started singing, and Misia glanced anxiously at Ruta.

  “I must put the children to bed. Take them the cake,” she asked her.

  “I’ll wait for you. I’ll do the dishes.”

  “Ruta!” the drunken Ukleja suddenly screamed from the living room. “Come here, you floozy!”

  “Come on,” said Misia quickly, and took the tray with the cake.

  Ruta put down the knife and reluctantly followed Misia. They sat down by their husbands.

  “Look what a nice bodice I bought my wife!” cried Ukleja, and tugged at her blouse, revealing a freckly cleavage and a snow-white lacy brassiere. “French!”

  “Stop it,” said Ruta quietly.

  “What do you mean, stop it? Aren’t I allowed? You’re mine, all of you and everything you’ve got on.” Ukleja looked at the amused Paweł and repeated:

  “She’s all mine! And so’s everything she’s got on! I’ve got her all winter. In summer she fucks off to her mother.”

  Paweł pointed at his guest’s full shot glass. They took no notice when the women went back into the kitchen. Ruta sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. Then Izydor, who was lying in wait for her, took the opportunity to bring out his box of stamps and postcards.

  “Look,” he said encouragingly.

  Ruta picked up the postcards and looked at each one for a while. She blew streams of white smoke from her mouth, and her lipstick left mysterious marks on the cigarette.

  “I can give them to you,” said Izydor.

  “No. I prefer to look at them at your place, Izek.”

  “You’ll have more time in the summer, won’t you?”

  Izydor saw that a big tear had settled on Ruta’s stiff, mascara-coated eyelashes. Misia handed her a glass of vodka.

  “I’m so unlucky, Misia,” said Ruta, and the tear trapped in her lashes rolled down her cheek.

  THE TIME OF ADELKA

  Adelka didn’t like her father’s friends, all those men whose clothes stank of cigarettes and dust. The most important of them was Ukleja – surely because he was so big and fat. But even Ukleja was nice and polite and spoke in a less booming voice when Mr Widyna came to see her father.

  Widyna was brought by a chauffeur, who then waited all evening outside in his car. Widyna had a green hunter’s uniform and a feather in his hat. He clapped Paweł on the shoulder in greeting and gave Misia’s hand a long, disgusting kiss. Misia told Adelka to look after little Witek while she fetched the best provisions from the larder. The knife flashed in her hand as she sliced dry sausage and ham. Paweł talked of Widyna with pride, saying: “In this day and age it’s good to have such acquaintances.”

  These particular acquaintances of her father’s were keen on hunting, and would arrive from the forest laden with hares or pheasants. They would put it all on the table in the hall, and before sitting down to dinner they would knock back half a tumbler of vodka. The house smelled of bigos stew.

  Adelka knew that on this sort of evening she would have to play. She also made sure Antek was on hand with his accordion. There was nothing she feared as much as her father when he got angry.

  When the time came, her mother told them to fetch their instruments and go into the living room. The men would be smoking cigarettes, and silence would fall. Adelka struck the key note, and then she and Antek began to play together. For In the Trenches of Manchuria Paweł fetched his violin and joined their duet. Misia stood in the doorway and watched them proudly.

  “I’m buying a double bass for the youngest one,” said Paweł.

  Witek hid behind his mother whenever people looked at him.

  The whole time she played, Adelka kept thinking about the dead animals on the hall table.

  They all had their eyes open. The birds’ eyes looked like glass stones from rings, but the hares’ eyes were terrible somehow. They seemed to follow her every move. The birds lay tied by the legs in bunches, like radishes. The hares lay singly. She looked for bullet wounds in their fur and feathers, but she only occasionally managed to find congealed round scabs. The dead hares’ blood dripped from their noses onto the floor. They had sweet little muzzles similar to a cat’s. Adelka would adjust their heads to make sure they were on the table.

  One day, among the shot pheasants she noticed another kind of bird. It was smaller and had beautiful blue feathers. Their colour thrilled her, and she longed to have them. She didn’t yet know what she
would do with them, but she knew she wanted them. She carefully pulled out the feathers, one after another, until she was holding a feathery bouquet. She tied it with a white hair ribbon and went to show her mother. In the kitchen she ran straight into her father.

  “What’s this? What have you done? Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Adelka shrank back against the dresser.

  “You’ve plucked Mr Widyna’s jay! And he shot it specially.”

  Misia stood next to Paweł, and the guests’ curious heads appeared in the doorway.

  Her father grabbed Adelka by the arm with an iron grip and steered her into the living room. He pushed her angrily, so that she stopped in front of Widyna, who was talking to someone.

  “What is it?” he asked vacantly. His eyes were cloudy.

  “She’s plucked your jay!” cried Paweł.

  Adelka held out the bouquet of feathers. Her hands were shaking.

  “Give those feathers back to Mr Widyna,” Paweł snapped at her. “Misia, fetch me some peas. We’ll punish her as an example. You have to be tough with children … And keep them on a tight rein.”

  Misia reluctantly handed him a bag of peas. Paweł scattered the peas in a corner of the room and told his daughter to kneel down on them. Adelka knelt down, and there was a short silence. She could feel everyone looking at her. She thought she was going to die now.

  “To hell with the jay. Pour us a drink, Paweł,” gurgled Widyna in this silence, and the hubbub started up again.

  THE TIME OF PAWEŁ

  Paweł lay on his back and knew he’d never fall asleep now. Outside it was getting grey. His head ached and he was terribly thirsty. But he was too tired and downcast to get up and go to the kitchen. So he brooded on the whole of the previous evening, the big drinking spree, the first few toasts, because he couldn’t remember the rest, Ukleja’s vulgar jokes, the displeased expressions on some of the women’s faces and some of their grievances. And then he considered the fact that he had turned forty, and that the first part of his life was over. He had reached the peak, and now, lying on his back with a monstrous hangover, he was watching time go by. He started recalling other days and other evenings, too, watching them like a film when it is run from end to beginning – ludicrous, funny, and nonsensical, like his life. He could see all the images in detail, but they seemed trivial and meaningless. Like this he saw his entire past, and found nothing in it to be proud of, nothing to gladden him, or stir any kind of positive emotions. In this entire, bizarre tale there was nothing certain or permanent, nothing to get a grip on. There was just an endless struggle, some unfulfilled dreams and unsatisfied desires. “I’ve had no success at all,” he thought. He felt like crying, so he tried, but he must have forgotten how, because he hadn’t cried since childhood. He swallowed thick, bitter saliva and tried to emit a childish sob from his throat and lungs. But nothing came of it, so he cast his mind into the future and forced himself to think about what was going to happen, what he still had to do: a training course and certainly a promotion, the children going to middle school, building an extension for the house and some rooms to let – not just rooms but a boarding house, a holiday cottage for summer vacationers from Kielce and Kraków. For a while he cheered up inside and forgot about his headache, his bone-dry tongue and his suppressed tears. But the dreadful grief came back. He felt as if his future would be the same as his past – various things would happen in it that meant nothing and led nowhere. This idea made him feel fear, because after all that, after the course and the promotion, after the boarding house and the extension, after all sorts of ideas or any kind of activity came death. And Paweł Boski realised that on this sleepless, hung-over night he was staring helplessly at the birth of his own death – that in his life the hour of noon had already struck, and now, gradually, deviously, and imperceptibly the twilight was closing in.