“What do you think, Mary? Take a look. Do you like me in this one? It’s not at all bad.” But Mary, even if she raised her eyes, she would just lower them again without a word. And the man would regretfully shake his head. “No, not this one after all.”
At these moments all of us in the rec room shared his sense of regret. You could tell from the creaking of the floorboards and benches, because everyone straightened themselves at the same time. No one whistled or swore or laughed. But it wasn’t ordinary regret. He ought to strangle that bitch, you could hear someone whisper in a bitter voice. I’m sorry, those were everyday expressions at the school, other words couldn’t have conveyed one feeling or another. Just as no words could comprehend why Mary was so uninterested in it all. Was it so hard to say yes, no, especially since it was only a hat?
At times Mary lifted her eyes from her magazine, other times not. And even when she did, it was with an increasing sense of boredom. And she made the room increasingly irate. We were all convinced it was her fault that he couldn’t pick out a hat. Though if you thought about it, what had she done, she was was just sitting quietly reading a magazine. But it was enough for the man to turn to her and say, Take a look, Mary, what do you think, Mary, what about this one, Mary? It was like the room caught a fever. They were starting to express not just their rage, but rage mixed with helplessness, pain, despair even. Against Mary, that’s right. But for what? You tell me. It was the man who was trying on hats and not liking himself in any of them, how was Mary to blame?
He could have realized that in all that trying on of hats he wouldn’t like any of them. And he didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t trying on hats anymore so much as battling with them. But what can a person battle a hat about? About himself, you say? Still, the hat’s always going to come out the winner. It made no difference whether he took it off his head right away or no, if he kept it on longer, even if he posed in it in front of the mirror. It came out the same. He could have tried on hats through the entire film, he could have tried on hats till kingdom come, it would have made no difference. Trying things on that way only ever ends along with the end of everything.
True, those hats just kept coming and coming. It wasn’t just any old shop. Wherever you looked there were hats. The clerk even kept bringing more and more from the back, always with a new rush of hope that this one or that one would be to sir’s liking. So there were plenty of hats to go before the clerk would lose hope too.
Though maybe the man would have lost hope first. The more so because there were already signs of discouragement on his face, in his gestures, as he gazed at himself in each new hat in the mirror. He would put the hat on and take it off as if casually. He stopped saying thank you or apologizing. He took each new hat from the clerk and gave him back the one he’d just taken off. He seemed to be doing nothing but moving the hats from the clerk’s hands to his head then back from his head into the clerk’s hands, barely even glancing in the mirror. He ought to have stopped trying them on, but he was evidently incapable even of that. Or maybe he’d started to feel sorry for the clerk, who had been fetching all those hats in vain. That’s why he kept trying more and more on.
All at once, with one of the hats that wasn’t particularly either good or bad, when we were already certain he’d take it off and say, not this one, he hesitated. His hands fell to his sides, he went up to the mirror and stood motionless facing his reflection. His face was still too but it conveyed distress, should I take it off, leave it on, take it off, leave it on, take it off, leave it on. The rec room froze. There was a silence so profound it was like everyone’s hearts had stopped beating. As he stood there you could feel the fever rising and rising. Till at one moment it crossed the bounds of expectation and it made no difference whether he took it off or not, since he’d reached the point where it was no longer right either to take the hat off or leave it on. The only path open to him was to take out a gun and shoot himself through the hat. True, the clerk was already waiting with a new hat, inclining in a half-bow, the same smile on his face, which would suggest that he refused to envisage such a turn of events. But all of us in the rec room demanded exactly that, that he take out a pistol and shoot himself through the hat. Then his final words would be spoken as if to spite Mary:
“Mary, pay the man for the hat.”
He may well have been about to put a gun to the hat when suddenly Mary twittered in an animated voice:
“Listen Johnny, it says here that this season brown felt hats are in for men. Try a brown felt one!”
“I already did.”
“But it says here!”
You might have thought that a shot would ring out at this moment. I thought the same when I tried to imagine how the film might have ended. It would only have been right. You can’t keep trying things on endlessly, even hats. Have you seen that film? Too bad. You could have told me whether he buys a hat or shoots a gun. I never got to see what happened, there was a power outage and the movie stopped. There often used to be outages. Especially in the evenings. And it rarely happened that the power got turned back on again soon. At the earliest after an hour or two. Most of the time, though, when the electricity went off in the evening it didn’t come back till morning.
Oftentimes we’d return from work, barely able to walk, and on top of everything they’d have made us sing on the way, then when we got back there’d be no light. We’d have been breaking rocks for road-building, in the dust and swelter, everyone would be sweaty and thirsty, our hair sticking to our heads, and here there was no light. You couldn’t wash, eat, undress. On top of which, by morning your uniform had to be cleaned, your boots polished, because the next day we had class, and in class you had to look like a student. We didn’t have a change of uniform or boots. They’d only give us new ones when the old uniform or boots couldn’t be darned or mended anymore. And evening was the only time you had to wash something, sew it, patch it. And here the lights were out.
One time the music teacher gave us a big funerary candle he’d bought for himself. Another time, before Christmas the boys stole a packet of Christmas tree candles from somewhere or other. But we used them all up even before Christmas, because the power went off almost every day. So our little Christmas tree had no candles. Yes, they let us have one. It stood in the rec room. They got it from the woods, it was decorated with something or other, we made our own ornaments and chains and streamers. But without candles it wasn’t a proper Christmas tree.
You like having a Christmas tree? I used to too. But it had to have real candles burning. It didn’t need to have much in the way of decorations, but it had to have lighted candles. It was always us kids that lit them, according to age, except backwards, first me as the youngest, then Leonka, then Jagoda. I couldn’t reach the highest ones so father would lift me up. They were real, of course, they burned with a living flame. They had to be real so the tree would be real too. I was an electrician, but I don’t like electric candles, that’s the truth. These days everyone has electric ones, but in my book those aren’t real candles. Their light has no life in it.
Wigilia – Christmas Eve dinner – always began with lighting the candles on the Christmas tree. Then mother would put a white tablecloth on the table and bring in the different dishes. There were always twelve of them. First we’d share the Christmas wafer, then we’d all sit at the table. Everyone had their own place at Wigilia. And everyone ate carefully so as for goodness’ sake not to spill anything on the tablecloth. Even Granddad only took small spoonfuls so the soup wouldn’t dribble. And he would eat like he never used to, without slurping or smacking his lips. Grandmother even complimented him, couldn’t you eat like that every day?
It wasn’t just an ordinary tablecloth. Mother only ever used it for Wigilia. She’d woven it and embroidered it herself, intending it all along to be only for Wigilia. Everyone knew how much work had gone into that tablecloth. She’d even sown the flax for the linen herself, in the best soil. She sowed it sparsely so the sun would reach each sta
lk. Then she went out every day to see how it was doing. Whenever a weed would poke its head out of the ground, right away she’d pull it out. So when the flax grew, it was a handsome crop, let me tell you. She cut it herself with a sickle. Exactly, you didn’t know what a sickle is. She used a sickle so as not to break the stalks. It dried for a long time in the sun, then later for a bit longer still in the barn. Then it was bound in sheaves, fastened with pegs down in the Rutka where the current ran fastest, and soaked there. Then it was dried again. Then she broke it up in the brake. I won’t go into what a brake is. In other places they call it a flax mill. She threw out any fibers that were too thick or too short. You can’t imagine how much sorting and combing there was. Till all that was left was a kind of gossamer. So every Wigilia, Grandmother would tell us the tablecloth was woven from gossamer.
Once the fabric had been woven, she washed it and dried it several times over. When the sun shone she’d spread it out on the grass to make it even whiter. Though it was hard to imagine it could get any whiter than it was. All summer long almost, day after day, if only the sun came out she’d spread the tablecloth in the sunlight. It wasn’t till winter that she set about embroidering it. It was supposed to be ready for Wigilia that year, but she kept embroidering it more and more, and it wasn’t till Wigilia of the following year that it was finished. As she worked on it she taught both Jagoda and Leonka to embroider. She embroidered a whole Garden of Eden. It was fancier than you see in some pictures. Grandfather, once he’d taken the edge off of his appetite, he liked to move his finger over mother’s embroidery.
“That’s where we’ll be,” he would say. “See, that’s where we’ll be.”
What did we eat at Wigilia? First a little cheese with mint, to represent the shepherds. Then ?urek sour rye soup with wild mushrooms and buckwheat kasha. Pierogies with cabbage and mushrooms. Potatoes boiled in their skins, and salted. Whey soup to wash it down. Pierogies with dried plums, sprinkled with nuts and slathered with fried sour cream. Noodles with poppy seed. Boiled or fried fish. You have no idea how many fish there were in the Rutka back then. These days, in the lake you won’t find half of what there used to be. I see it, people come here to fish and they sit for hours and hours by their poles. Sometimes I go watch, and it’s rare that any of them gets a bite. Back in the day you could catch something just by dipping a basket in the river. You’d put it in near the bank, tap a stick against where it had holes, and every time something would end up inside it. Before Wigilia, when the Rutka froze over, you’d cut a hole in the ice, drop a net through it, and wait till a fish came along. Anyway, after that there’d be cabbage and peas, or cabbage on its own, fried in linseed oil. If it was cabbage on its own, then separately there’d be green beans in honey and vinegar. If it was cabbage with peas, there wouldn’t be any green beans, just broad beans, that you had to take the skin off of. Then cranberry jelly. And finally compote from dried fruit.
We’d eat till we were fit to burst, even though it was always just a little of each dish. After that we’d go to midnight mass. Us children, we were usually sleepy by then, since the mass started so late. But we still had to go. It was only then that we’d put out the candles on the tree. To be honest, it wasn’t the dishes, it was the candles that kind of proved it was Wigilia. When they were lit like that, I was prepared to believe anything. I believed in mother’s tablecloth and in what grandfather said about how that was where we would be going, as he passed his finger across the embroidery. Sometimes I even had the feeling we were already there.
Maybe that’s why for the whole of my life I’ve always liked to see candles burning. Whenever I was at some party abroad, if there were candles burning as well as ceiling lamps and wall lamps, I’d always remember that particular party. Whenever I invited anyone to my place, I’d always have to have candles. When the guests left, if the candles were still burning I’d not put them out. I’d sit there till they burned out by themselves. You might not believe me, but it hurts me to put out a candle. I have the feeling I’m shortening its life. As if something was suddenly ending, while nothing else was beginning. As if I were extinguishing something inside myself. I don’t know how I can explain it to you.
Let me put it this way. In my view, there’s something in a burning candle. Maybe everything. The same way that a drop of water contains all water, every body of water there is. Try putting out a candle one day.
I have two candlesticks. Silver. I bought them when I was living abroad. As if I knew you’d come visit me one day. If not right away, then at some time in the future. Shall I fetch them? They’re through there in the living room. On the sideboard. I can put candles in them, we’ll light them and watch them burn, and you’ll see. I used to sometimes swing by an antique shop on the ground floor of the building I lived in. For no particular reason. I liked looking at all the old furniture, pictures, objects. All those cabinets, chests of drawers, writing bureaus, looking glasses, lamps, clocks, or even the inkstands, blotters, paper knives. When you think about it, all that furniture and those objects contain an infinite number of human touches, looks, how many heartbeats, sighs, sorrows, tears, fears, and of course smiles, excitements, outbursts of joy, though a lot fewer of those, those are always rarer. Or how many words, just think about it. Now all of that has gone. But has it really? For instance, a mortar for grinding pepper or cinnamon, when I touched it, you have to believe me, it would speak to me. It’s just that it wasn’t given to me to hear it.
I’m sorry for asking, but have you never had a similar longing to live both here and there? Never mind when. Never, not even for a moment? A moment is important.
So one day the antique shop owner, who always gave me a smile whenever I came in, although until then we’d never spoken – anyway, he came up to me and asked:
“Excuse me, I know you, I’ve often seen you come by, but so far nothing’s caught your eye. Tell me, is there something in particular you’re looking for? I can keep an eye open for you.”
And though I’d had no intention of buying anything, I surprised myself by saying:
“I’m looking for a nice old candlestick.”
“Oh, I have plenty of candlesticks. Take a look.” He pointed to the cabinets lining the walls. “Brass, bronze, porcelain, majolica, lacquer, silver. Whatever you like.” He began opening one cabinet after another, unnecessarily, because they had glass doors and you could see inside. He took a candlestick from one of the cabinets and placed it before me, singing its praises. “Maybe this one?” He took out another. “Or perhaps this is what you’re looking for?”
“No, not that one,” I said to each one he lifted out. “I’ve seen all these ones before. This isn’t my first time here.”
“Right,” he acknowledged. “Could it be a pair?”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s actually a pair that I’m after.”
“In that case I have something for you. I asked because they can’t be separated. I couldn’t sell just one of them.”
And from a heavy cabinet with solid wood doors that he unlocked with a key he kept in his vest pocket he took out the two that I ended up buying. He stood them in front of me.
“Have a good look. Are these not the kind you’re looking for? I knew it right away. They’re baroque. Venetian. Superb craftsmanship, I’m sure you’ll agree. I have to warn you though –”
“I can imagine,” I said, interrupting him. “The price is immaterial. Please wrap them.”
He probably wasn’t expecting me to buy them, because as he was wrapping them up he continued trying to persuade me:
“It’s a miracle they survived to the present day. And both of them together. You can only imagine what their story has been. You know, the stories of objects are as curious as human stories. And just as tragic. For example, imagine recreating the story of these candlesticks. Not their history, their story. At the same time we’d learn a great deal about the people who owned them. Things that might seem the most ephemeral, but which, who knows, might be t
he most important of all, though we’d never find out from any documents. Because sometimes a person can only count on objects to understand him. Sometimes he entrusts something to an object that he’d never entrust to anyone. Sometimes it’s only objects that are truly capable of co-existing with us. I hope these candlesticks will be like that for you … Please come again.”
Shall I bring them through, so you can take a look? I could light some candles. You say the light we have is enough for shelling beans. You misunderstand me. I didn’t mean that we’d have more light. Oftentimes I don’t feel like reading, I don’t feel like listening to music. Especially when it’s like this, in the fall or winter, the evenings are long, and I’m with the dogs, I sometimes bring the candlesticks in here to the kitchen, put in candles and watch them burn. And you know, as I watch I stop feeling that it’s me watching. It’s like there was someone here in my place. I don’t know who. Besides, it makes no difference. The dogs will be lying just like they are now, over by the wall in the shadows, sleeping or pretending to sleep, while inside me it’s as if everything is passing and I’m being overcome by an even greater calm. I become almost indifferent to myself, the whole world becomes indifferent to me, that it’s this way and not otherwise. I even have the sense that I’ve refound myself in an order I never knew before. And like you see, you’d think they were just ordinary candles. They burn and say nothing. But maybe in that silence of theirs there’s something more than silence, what do you think?
A Treatise on Shelling Beans Page 13
