She complained a bit that her arms were all pricked from the harvesting, she had to wear a long-sleeved blouse, her back ached. But when we were saying our goodbyes in front of her house, she threw her arms around me even though it was still light out and her mother could have been standing in the window.
“Oh Szymek,” she sighed. But she often sighed like that. I said:
“Soon as the harvest’s done, Małgosia.”
Then I mowed the barley and brought it in, then the wheat, though there was only a couple of acres of that. Then right away I began the plowing. As I was plowing the last part, behind Przykopa’s place, the storks were gathering in the meadows getting ready to fly away. They’re strange birds. They clattered their bills for the longest time, then they all walked off in different directions and started preening, then they picked out one of their own kind and went for it with their bills. I ran at them with my whip, because they were going to peck it to death. But before I reached them they took off and flew farther away down the meadow, including the one they’d been attacking. Then they finished it off. Afterwards Bida found it dead when he was grazing his cows.
All I needed to do now was harrow and I could get on with the sowing. But it was dry, the earth was all clumpy, I thought I’d wait a few days and see if it rained. So at work I arranged with Małgosia that I’d walk her home. We walked slowly, dragging our feet, we even held hands and we looked each other in the eye this time, and she talked willingly, and laughed, she was the way she always used to be. But as we were saying goodbye outside her house, it was only then she seemed to remember she had something to tell me, and almost in a hurry she started explaining that she’d be gone for two, maybe three weeks, because she was taking some leave from tomorrow, she had to go visit her cousin, she’d gotten a list from her and the cousin was begging her to go and stay. She didn’t tell me sooner because we hadn’t seen each other, and she’d only gotten the letter the day before yesterday. The cousin was only a distant relative, the daughter of her father’s cousin, and Małgosia’s mother was her godmother, but they were as close as sisters, and they hadn’t seen each other in three years. Before she got married she’d come to stay with them in the country every summer. Then her husband had gone off with another woman and left her with two small children, plus the younger one, Januszek, had been born with a crooked head and he was having an operation, so she had to go.
I was a bit angry, she could have told me on the way at least instead of waiting till we were outside her house. We’d have sat down somewhere and said our goodbyes properly, not just any old how. Though I had no doubts it was all true. Everyone has cousins they sometimes don’t even know, they don’t remember them, they don’t know they exist, then all of a sudden they show up like ghosts from the underworld. She must have felt I was mad, because she clung to me and asked me not to hold it against her. She had to go. She even had tears in her eyes.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said. “Believe me.”
My anger passed, but I was a little sad, as if she was leaving for the next world, not to stay with her cousin for a couple of weeks.
“Go then,” I said. “But come back quickly.”
“It’ll be no time,” she said.
“Of course it will,” I said. “Maybe I’ll take some leave too. I could fix the roof on the barn. I never have time to get to it.”
“Will you think of me? Think of me. Please. It’ll make it easier for me.”
It rained, I harrowed and sowed, I fixed the barn roof and the time passed like the crack of a whip. I wanted to walk her home the first day she was back, but she said she was in a hurry because her mother was baking bread and she had to get home quickly to help. The next day she left work early and I didn’t see her. This went on for a few days, if it wasn’t one thing it was another, forgive me, I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry, I have to be back earlier than usual, I have an errand to run. Till one day, as we passed each other in the hallway I said:
“You’ve changed since you came back, Małgosia.”
“Why would I have changed? You’re imagining it.” She disappeared into her office.
I wasn’t going to force myself on her. Though various thoughts started rattling around in my head. But one day I leave work and I see she’s walking slowly in front of me, eventually she stops and smiles that sad smile of hers and asks if I’m mad at her. Me, mad at you, of course not. Then could I walk her home maybe? And, like nothing had happened, she starts telling me how she and her cousin hadn’t been able to get their fill of talking, every day they’d gone to the cinema, to visit her friends, on walks, sometimes to a café, but she didn’t like the taste of coffee, she preferred tea, and most of all she liked some of the cakes, she even said the name of them but it was something strange. She could have eaten four at once, except apparently they make you fat. But I haven’t gotten fat, right? She gave me a flirtatious look.
“What about Januszek?” I asked.
“Januszek?” She seemed flustered. “You know, it turned out he was too small, so he didn’t have the operation after all.”
And again I believed her. If that’s what she said, that’s how it must have been.
Some time passed, I’d almost forgotten about her leave and I was even thinking it was time to ask her seriously if she’d be my wife. I mean, how long would we be walking from work to her house, over and again? She was still young, but I was getting on for a bachelor. I decided that at Christmas I’d have a talk with her, and before then I’d think everything through. Because strange to say, up till then we’d never talked about what was going to happen with the two of us in the future, it was like we were unsure of each other the whole time or we were hiding something from each other.
It was November, gray and cold and windy, put your arm around me, she said. We happened to be by the woods when at one moment she slipped out from under my arm and stood still and said:
“Szymek, I have to tell you after all.”
“So tell me.” I was sure it wasn’t anything important, I didn’t sense anything from her tone of voice.
“I was pregnant,” she said.
My heart started pounding so hard it almost jumped out of my chest. But I stayed calm, like I was just a bit surprised, and I asked her:
“What do you mean, was?”
“Because I’m not anymore. That time, when I took time off, I went to a doctor. That was why I went away.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
It was as if the woods that were rustling all around us started to fall on me. Rage flooded through me. I didn’t know what was happening. Maybe that’s what it’s like to die a sudden and unexpected death.
“You whore!” I howled, and somewhere deep inside, tears began to choke me. Maybe I had to be furious to keep myself from crying.
“Szymek, forgive me!” She cowered, put her hands together like she was praying. “I was sure you wouldn’t want it!”