“You’ll put out the candles, won’t you, lad? You’ll get five cents on Sunday.” Piotr didn’t understand what he meant and suspected some dangerous trap. However, he did not run away. He stood on the spot, his mouth gaping wide as though enchanted by the lure of this mysterious, alien world. Then he followed the red-bearded man into the room where the Jews were praying. In the doorway he took off his cap, not so much out of respect as out of fear. In a flash, Red-Beard replaced it on his head so forcibly that it hurt. Piotr was trembling all over. But no one present condescended to so much as look at him. They were all removing their tablecloths, folding them carefully. They then kissed them tenderly and packed them away into their little velvet bags. Piotr Niewiadomski extinguished the candles for the Jews. On the Sunday he really did receive five cents. That was years ago. But the memory of the mysterious task he had carried out once upon a time, not even knowing what his role had been, came back to him at the sight of those wagons, and his dormant fear of Jews raised its head again.
“They are always praying,” he thought, “and yet they will end up in hell anyway.” Piotr believed in hell.
The prayer wagon disappeared from sight. No candles had been burning in it. But in the next wagon, Piotr noticed an unlit table lamp with a light green shade. A pretty young girl with large, dark eyes, looking more like a gypsy than Jewish, was clutching it to her breast as if it was not a lamp but a very dear child. She would not let go of this lamp—as though it was the only one in the world—the only source of light, intended to light up the darkness of exile for these nomadic peoples. Where were they bound? Had they resumed their wanderings, interrupted centuries earlier? This railway line was bearing Israel across the desert, beyond which their promised land awaits. This land, by the grace of Emperor Franz Joseph, is in Moravia. Wooden huts will be the refuge for fugitives of the faith of Moses from Galicia.
These were the scenes as the evacuation of Pokuttya proceeded. State officials with their families, and some landowners and merchants, were also fleeing from the Muscovites. The Hutsuls were not running away. Hutsuls never run away from anyone; after all, you can’t take your land, your cows and your sheep with you.
Piotr’s duties were exceptionally onerous in those days, but he managed. He had acquired a fondness for the railway—that is, for the section entrusted to him. Every day, he walked the four kilometres to signal box 87, beyond which his responsibilities ended. He left his post only when Magda visited. She stood in for him competently, just like a legitimate signalman’s wife. The sight of the young girl standing at her post with the little red flag had already on several occasions brought smiles to the weary faces of those who were returning from death. As if life itself had placed her on watch.
On Piotr’s stretch of track, order always reigned. No “elements” dared to place blocks on the line. His four kilometres were loyal to the Emperor and the Imperial troops could travel here as safely as in Vienna itself. How he wished he could stay on this stretch for the rest of his life! Then life would have some value, some sense. As a signalman, Piotr would feel like a lord of the manor. For ages he had wanted to be independent. As a signalman, he would answer first to himself, and only then to the stationmaster sitting three kilometres away to his right.
To the right or to the left? This question was the sore point in Piotr Niewiadomski’s heart. Although he was over forty years old, he still did not know his right from his left. Trying to work it out with his hands confused him even more. At his post, it’s true, it made no difference. You didn’t have to distinguish the relative concepts of left-handedness and right-handedness; you just used your eyes. Where Topory-Czernielica station stood—that was on the right, and on the left was the neighbouring signal box no. 87. But that is only the case when you are standing at the door of the signal box, or at the barrier. In the field, on the other hand, where the devil often twists the land around, what was on the left a few minutes ago is now suddenly on the right. Piotr had often been confused by this, but fortunately, so far… Better not to tempt the devil. Of course, Jesus himself had given people certain instructions about right and left, something to do with giving alms. Piotr took fright whenever Father Makarucha read out the relevant passage from the gospel. He felt he was being given over to the devil, but he wasn’t brave enough to confess his affliction to anyone, not even to the priest. He felt that sooner or later this defect would be revealed, and the devil would do his worst. His undoing would actually come about from over there, but which is it, left or right? Who can tell?
Oh yes, Piotr was fond of his little signal box. It was small, but it was important, and the little man who was in residence here felt he was important. Right next to it was a Dutch barn belonging to signalman Banasik. There was not much hay left in it, as Banasik’s wife had sold it to the army in good time. The crooked thatched roof, looking like a cap on the head of a massive drunkard, had collapsed. Just the four tall posts stood majestically erect, like flag-staffs with no flags. This Dutch barn was Bass’s favourite haunt. He would bury himself in what was left of the hay for an afternoon nap, and he probably caught mice too. When full of hay, the barn had the appearance of a formidable tower guarding a sovereign principality, with a black crest on a white metal shield in the form of the number 86. Now the tower lay in ruins and Piotr Niewiadomski dreamt of replenishing it with fresh hay.
That same day, at about six o’clock in the evening, all his dreams were dashed. In living memory, Topory had never been anything other than an ordinary village. It numbered two hundred and eighty-one souls (according to the latest census) and seventy-eight chimneys. The term “chimney” is not accurate, since in Pokuttya few huts boasted chimneys. So let us say seventy-eight roofs. The war, at the outset, disgorged all the best men from the huts, and about forty peasants went off, all reservists and new recruits, not counting those already serving as regulars. As though someone had threshed out the best grain with a flail, the households were left like empty sheaves lying along the crooked trail, stripped bare of their young. Along with the old people and the children, there remained only the chaff of the male population, the reserve militia. Under oath and equipped with their papers, they waited patiently for the day when they would be mobilized. However, when faced with urgent economic matters, for example haymaking, that day seemed to be continually receding instead of getting nearer. In the end, many of the recruits began to feel that the day would never come at all. And until the windowpanes began to rattle, everyone tried to live as though there was no war at all.
Until suddenly, on 20th August, the tiny village of Topory gained the elevated status of a rear-echelon headquarters in the Great War. It was not even aware of this glory bestowed on it by the grace of the army high command. Once again, gendarme Corporal Durek began going round the village with his bag and his gold tooth. Once again he issued papers to the illiterates on which their lives depended. When he turned up at the signal box, Bass no longer barked at him. He had become used to the war. Piotr was no longer afraid of the gendarmerie either. Since he had been recruited into the army he felt a kind of distant cousin to all members of the armed forces. He could now hold his head high at the sight of a rifle or bayonet.