King of the Fields

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  “Come, Kora, let us go!”

  “I fell asleep and dreamed about you. Every night you came to me in my dreams. You and Kostek, Kostek and you. Then I would open my eyes and find somebody pulling my arms, my legs, my hair. They defiled all of us, they enjoyed our suffering. They ripped open fat Yonda’s belly and put a rat inside. She writhed in pain, and they spit on her face …”

  “Kora, enough …”

  “Where are you taking me? Master of mine, son-in-law. I have always loved you—since we were children. You were supposed to be my husband, you belonged to me. But your Yasna came running and took you away. Came like a she-wolf, dug in her claws, and dragged you to her lair. She left me with an ache and an empty heart. But you remembered, you did not forget. And now Yagoda will carry your seed. Your child will suck at her breast. It is a miracle, an omen from the gods that our love did not die.”

  “It is true, Kora, I longed for you.”

  Cybula shivered. His teeth chattered. Was it from the cold or from desire? His stomach tightened. He bent his head down low. In the midst of all his trials and pains, old desires of his were being rekindled. More than once he had imagined Kostek dead, Kora a widow, Yagoda an orphan. In his lust he had lain with both mother and daughter. But those had been just dreams. Gods or elves listened to every worthless trifle, every whim and wish, and sometimes fulfilled his desires. Kora took his arm and pressed it to her breast. She kissed him and her hair tickled his cheek. She asked, “Is there no cave somewhere near here?”

  “Yes, a little farther.”

  “Looks as if dawn is breaking.”

  “Yes.”

  Cybula raised his eyes to the sky. Stars were going out one by one. Birds awakened, each with its own call. In the east a cloud reddened, like a sore about to burst. In the west the edge of a cloud began to glow. The great and mighty gods took care of heaven. It was the minor godlings who looked after every drop of dew, every pebble on the ground. He, Cybula, had lost a spear and a bow, but he had regained a woman. Now, with everything in ruins, women no longer required wedding ceremonies; men no longer had to send gifts to brides—the old customs had crumbled. All they needed was a cave. He had longed for her when they were still children playing husband-and-wife. He used to pretend to go hunting and bring her a fox, a marten, a rabbit. She would pretend to roast a bird for him. Together they crawled into the bushes, tickled each other, and murmured words whose meanings they did not understand. Now Kora’s daughter was his wife, Kostek was dead, and Kora, his mother-in-law, was looking for a cave after all these years of hidden passion.

  All at once the sky was splashed with crimson. The sun arrived shining and wet, fresh from bathing in the sea. A flock of birds flew up to meet it, squawking a birdish good morning. Cybula glanced at Kora: she was only a bit shorter than he was, her loose brown hair now sprinkled with crimson, her face thin, her cheeks hollow, her long neck lined with wrinkles and veins. He observed her belly, her hips, the calves of her legs. The pelt covered only her shoulders. A submissiveness looked at him out of her large dark eyes, a willingness to surrender to him with a love whose fire was never extinguished.

  (5)

  When Cybula had set out the morning before with his bow and his spear, Yagoda had asked him how long he would be, and he had shrugged his shoulders. Now, as day ended and Cybula had not come back, Yagoda grew worried. A daughter of hunters, she knew that animals were not hunted at night. Yagoda lit a fire in the cave and roasted a piece of meat, but she had no desire to eat it. Shadows danced on the rock walls. Outside, the air was cool, but inside the cave reigned a wintry chill. Had a wild beast attacked him, or a woyak? There was talk in the mountains that the woyaks were planning to climb up and slaughter them all. Sitting by the fire, wrapped in a pelt, Yagoda made up her mind that if Cybula did not return by morning, she would put an end to her life. True, she could let the other Lesniks know that Cybula had not come back, but their caves were too far from hers and she was sure to lose her way in the mountains. It also seemed to her that some of these men had been looking at her with hungry eyes. Every one of these witless men repeated the same tasteless joke: “Yagoda, I’d like to eat you up.” (Yagoda, in the language of the Lesniks, meant berry.)

  Most of the Lesniks were light-haired and blue-eyed; she, Yagoda, had dark skin and brown eyes. The tribe’s jesters said she resembled a porcupine, a mouse, a squirrel. The few women who managed to run away from the Poles were blabbers, backbiters. They poked fun at each other, whispered in each other’s ears, gossiped that this one did not keep herself clean, the other could not cook or roast, the third was unfaithful to her husband, the fourth was too thin, too fat, too foolish, too sly. When they dug roots or picked fruits, they struggled to outdo one another in speed, dexterity, in extracting the best from the earth or the tree. But Yagoda did not try to join in with them. They envied her because Cybula had chosen her to be his wife. “What did he see in you?” they would ask her. “What is it that you have there between your legs?” And they would wink, and hint, and give each other knowing looks.

  She, Yagoda, was so different from them all. She was, at the same time, both childish and too earnest. She was almost thirteen years old, but she played like a girl of five or six: she gathered pinecones—not to burn them for heat, but to use them as toys. For no reason at all she picked thistles, poisonous berries, mushrooms, colored pebbles, tiny eggs of unknown birds, butterflies, feathers, plumes, and other such childish things. She made believe that a tree was her dead father, Kostek, and she spoke to it and even kissed its bark. She had similar fantasies about her mother, Kora, who remained in the camp. Sometimes Yagoda pretended that her long-dead brothers and sisters were still living, and she spoke to them, danced with them, played hide-and-seek with them.

  Since the woyak raid, and after what Krol Rudy had done to her, Yagoda’s life was like one long dream. Her mother, Kora, believed in a spirit called a domowik. She often said that a domowik lived with her, hiding out among the trees, the bushes, the pelts. He brought her wood from the forest, found food, carried water from the spring for her. Mother Kora allegedly inherited him from her father, Chmielnik, and her mother, Trawka. Kora swore that once, when she had some ailment in her eyes and could not see, a domowik had climbed into her bed and with his tongue licked her eyes all through the night. In the morning, when she opened them, she saw clearly again. Yagoda often searched for this domowik, wanted to make him her own spirit as well, but he eluded her. Only from time to time did he make his presence known, when he rustled through the logs that her father had chopped, or splashed the water in the barrel. Sometimes, when Yagoda went out to relieve herself behind the hut, he tickled her buttocks. Sometimes he blew a whisper in her ear, but what he said she did not know. When Yagoda complained to her mother that the domowik avoided her, Kora promised that he would disclose himself to Yagoda after her, Kora’s, death. Or else in a time of danger.

  On this night, when Cybula did not return, Yagoda spoke to the domowik. She told him all that had befallen her and begged him to help find Cybula. She spoke out loud, asking, “Is he still among the living? Or is he already in the hollows of the earth, where it is always dark? Is he together with father Kostek and my grandfathers and grandmothers? I miss him, domowik. Without Cybula I don’t want to live,” Yagoda said. “Make me as I was before I was born—nothing. I don’t want to remember that Krol Rudy raped me. I don’t want Cybula to know that it really happened. I want to become nothing, I want to cease to be …”

  So drowsy did Yagoda become that she slipped off the log on which she was sitting and remained lying on the bare stone floor. Sleep overcame her, and she did cease to be. But something remained alive—a bubble, a hair, a cobweb from which she hung like a spider. She was too heavy for the web, but she did not dare to let go, because below her yawned a bottomless pit: if she let go, she would fall and sink into the abyss.

  When Yagoda opened her eyes, daylight was streaming in through the opening of the cave. The fire
had gone out and only ashes remained. Her feet felt numb and she could not stand up. She forgot where she was. She could not at first remember her name. Suddenly she remembered—Yagoda. Cybula had not come home last night; he was dead. Yagoda could not even cry. I’ll never leave this cave again, she thought to herself; here is where I’ll die. She usually arose hungry, but this time her tongue was coated and her throat constricted, and she could not even swallow her own saliva. She closed her eyes once again, and immediately began to dream. She was no longer in the mountains but in another camp, where a massacre apparently had taken place. Men were lying everywhere, their throats slit, and she could see women with their bellies ripped open. How odd: one of them seemed to be giving birth and a calf’s head protruded from her thighs …

  Yagoda slept for a long time. Whenever she started to awaken she remembered that Cybula had not returned, and again she went off to sleep. Her head, pressing down on her shoulders, felt as if it were a heavy rock. One instant she was awake, the next asleep. Again her wanderings began: strange camps, unfamiliar faces. Yagoda was searching for her cave, and people were showing her paths, trails, crevices in the earth which would lead her back. But she knew that instead of drawing nearer, she was drifting farther away …

  Yagoda opened her eyes, and by the reddish light outside, she knew it was dusk. She sat up and shuffled toward the opening. The sun had set behind the mountain. Birds were sitting on the branches of trees. Yagoda walked out naked and went to the stream to bathe. Though the water was ice cold, Yagoda immersed herself in the rushing current. Cybula had told her that the stream flowed into a larger river, and the river into the sea. Two-headed giants, with long tails and four arms, lived there. Every time Yagoda plunged into the water, she opened her eyes to look for Topiel, the spirit said to dwell at the river bottom with his wives. When she raised her head from the water for the fifth time, she heard someone calling her name. The voice seemed familiar, but she was not certain to whom it belonged. Soon another voice joined the first. Two half-naked people jumped into the stream. Cybula grabbed Yagoda in his arms and someone else—Kora, her mother—hugged her with a wild cry.

  (6)

  That evening the news spread among the Lesniks in the mountains that Cybula had returned with Kora, Yagoda’s mother and Kostek’s widow. They hastily gathered outside Cybula’s cave, bringing with them food and drinks squeezed from fruits. The night was warm and they sat outside on the ground. Cybula told them how the tracks of an unseen animal had led him down to the valley, and how he had rescued Kora. He spoke about the field, the blessing that the gods had bestowed upon the land. Cybula had brought with him a few stalks of wheat, which he showed to the Lesniks against the light of the moon. Every Lesnik took a stalk and examined it. Some dug out a kernel and tasted it. Several of their spies had brought back the news that the wheat grew poorly, and that nothing would remain of the crop but empty shells and chaff that the wind would blow away. But the wheat which Cybula brought back was good to the taste. Cybula said that yes, the Poles were murderers, but the grain they brought with them was not at fault. It held in it seeds that would grow and multiply in years to come. The work in the fields was not done by the woyaks, Cybula said, but by the old men and the young women who remained alive in the camp. He mentioned something else: most of the young women in the camp were carrying the offspring of these woyaks and it would be an injustice for the unborn children to be made orphans before they came into the world.

  The Lesniks listened silently. One of them blurted out, “You are defending the murderers because they made your daughter their queen.”

  “No, not true,” Cybula answered. “For my sake you can go ahead and kill Krol Rudy, but don’t forget the woyaks have iron swords and spears, which we do not. They are not going to sit with folded arms and wait for you to kill them. A new slaughter will start and the first victims will be our sisters and daughters.”

  “What is your advice?” asked another.

  Cybula did not answer immediately. “My advice is that we make peace.”

  The talk went on for a long time. Several of the Lesniks were whispering quietly into each other’s ears. Cybula caught the word “traitor.”

  2

  Cybula and Nosek

  In the valley the summer turned out to be blessed. The days were bright. Once in a while the sky clouded over and some rain fell. Then the clouds dispersed and again the sun was shining. Flocks of birds flew over the fields trying to taste the grain, but Krol Rudy, who had been raised by parents who worked the land, had several corpses dug up, the flesh peeled from their bones, and the skeletons set up on poles. The terrified birds shrieked and flew away. Old women grumbled that Krol Rudy was sinning, because what the earth covered up should not be uncovered. They warned of famine and plague. But Krol Rudy was determined that the seeds he and his woyaks had carried in bags on their backs would not be devoured by birds.

  That night, as on all other nights, Krol Rudy went to bed drunk. He could stifle neither his craving for strong drink nor his sadness. Things were not turning out the way he had planned. The house which was being built for him was still not ready. The women were too busy in the fields. The woyaks could not or would not pitch in and help with the building. They were all lazy, fit neither for hunting nor for working the land. Several among them became half crazy. They ran around at night howling, making frightful noises. They wanted to kill the old and crippled Lesniks, set fire to the fields, and move on. Where? They themselves did not know; perhaps over the mountains. Krol Rudy held this to be ill-advised. The number of woyaks was small—perhaps no more than forty. The number of men who had escaped to the mountains was at least one hundred. To bring back these runaways and allow them to live—wouldn’t this turn victory into defeat?

  Krol Rudy glanced at the bed where Laska lay sleeping. Her mood was even darker than his. She still grieved for her mother. She longed for her father. The few times that Krol Rudy had approached her, she remained cold. She lay so still in the night that he never knew whether she was asleep or awake. Now he stretched out his hand and touched her. “You are sleeping, what?”

  Laska awakened immediately. “Yes. No. What is it?”

  “What do you do all night? You think?”

  “Yes, sometimes.”

  “What do you think about? Tell me!”

  Laska did not answer. Krol Rudy was ready to give her an embrace, but at that moment he heard her say, “Ah, all sorts of things. You should not have killed so many men in the camp.”

  “I should not, eh? If you don’t kill an enemy, he kills you.”

  “Not everyone. Others might have given in and made peace.”

  “Nonsense!” Krol Rudy said to Laska and himself. “Maybe this is what happens among women, but not among men. A man, if you grab the least of his possessions, immediately thinks of revenge. They are plotting something up there in the mountains, preparing to war against us. Your own father is their leader. I know everything. I have spies.”

  “My father wants to harm no one,” Laska said, amazed at her courage to speak in this manner to her husband and master. Krol Rudy scolded her: “You are his daughter, that is why you take his side. He is an enemy like all the others. He dragged Yagoda to his cave like a wolf. He stole her mother also. They plan to attack us with their bows and arrows and their spears, but we will behead every one of them. If the women go over to their side, we will tear them to pieces.”

  “All the women want is peace.”

  “Who is going to make peace, you?”

  Krol Rudy was shaking. For a moment he wanted to stand up and choke Laska, but he restrained himself. With whom would he replace her? He closed his eyes and soon began to snore. A while later he woke up. “If you want, I’ll send you to your father to arrange for peace. But real peace, with no lies. No one can deceive me.”

  Laska sat up. “You mean this?”

  “I am not one for making jokes.”

  “I won’t know what to say.”

&nb
sp; “I’ll send Nosek with you. If they harm him or threaten you, we’ll come up and there will be a bloodbath in the mountains. Swear to me that you’ll return. I’ll hold your grandmother Mala as a hostage.”

  “I’ll return.”

  “Tell them to come to the valley as brothers, not as foes—without weapons.”

  “Yes.”

  “I need them for the harvest. If there is bread, everyone will eat.”

  The two of them fell silent. Laska could no longer hold back tears.

  “What are you crying for? No one has died yet.”

  (2)

  All day long the Lesniks were busy in the mountains. The weather was hot even at that elevation. From sunrise to sunset Kora and Yagoda picked cherries, gooseberries, currants, immature fruit which the women later let ripen in the sun. Several of the women had brought clay pots with them from the valley, and they cooked some unripe fruit as well as roots which were too tough to be eaten raw. Meat was also plentiful. The woods swarmed with animals and birds, and the men either caught them in traps or shot them with arrows. Cybula and some other hunters killed several stags and does, and as was their custom, the whole camp ate them together. Some of the older hunters argued again and again that to plow the body of Mother Earth and sow seeds in her womb would bring nothing but grief. The spirits of the earth would be furious with those who tore up her flesh, and they would seek revenge. Men who nourished themselves only on plants would become like dumb cattle, begin to eat grass, bellow like oxen, and be eaten by beasts of prey. Sooner or later the kniezes, pans, or whatever the Poles called themselves, would take the fields for themselves, and those who plowed and sowed and reaped would become their slaves—as had already happened in many faraway places. Cybula tried to argue with the Lesniks, but they shouted him down. There could be no peace between hunters and growers. The Lesniks should arm themselves as well as they could, go down to the valley, kill off the remaining woyaks, and return to the old ways.