“There’s a smell of bread from somewhere.”
But father was always keeping an eye on our thoughts to make sure we were thinking about anything but bread, and he’d disagree right away:
“What are you talking about? The Maszczyks are probably just burning straw, they must be out of firewood. Or maybe Dereń was mucking out this morning, manure sometimes gives a smell like bread. Especially horse manure.” He’d sniff and make like he couldn’t smell anything himself. He’d even go over, open the door and let the air in, and he’d say he couldn’t smell a thing. To prove his point he’d sometimes ask grandfather:
“Can you smell anything, father?”
And grandfather wouldn’t smell anything either and he’d nod to say he couldn’t smell anything.
“There must be a thaw on the way. I’ve had ants crawling up my legs all morning, the little buggers. Biting ones. The weather must be about to change. Did you see there’s a wind blowing up? The wind often brings new weather. If anyone was baking bread it could only have been the Wronas, and they’re east of us, but when the wind blows for a change of weather it’s always from the west. One time the Turks were eating bread in their trenches, and we could smell it so plain in ours it made our bellies hurt from hunger. You can smell bread from miles away.”
Mother was the only one that believed I must have smelled bread, because otherwise I wouldn’t have said anything, and she started sending me to bed right away:
“It’s bedtime, you need to go to bed and get to sleep. Don’t think about bread, son.”
Because her too, when she was clearing the table, she’d often cup her hand and make as if she was gathering bread crumbs, she’d even cross over to the range and toss the crumbs into the firebox.
One time, despite myself I blurted out:
“Mama, there isn’t any bread!”
Father was sitting at the table staring out the window, he came down on me like a ton of bricks:
“What are you shouting about, you little nuisance? Let her throw it on the fire! If she’s swept it up let her throw it in! Crumbs always have to be thrown into the fire! It’s a sin to do otherwise!” He was so mad he actually stood up and walked back and forth across the room, then in the end he went outside.
I don’t know what could have ruffled his feathers like that, I hadn’t said it so loud. But maybe it was just the fact that it was bread? Because after the bread ran out, everyone would avoid talking about bread as well. No one actually said not to talk about it, but still it was as if we’d forgotten the word “bread.” Even grandfather, he’d be talking about what they ate in the different wars he’d been in, he’d mention beans and cabbage, kasha, noodles, sometimes meat, but he never mentioned bread. It was the same with us kids, when we were kneeling by our bed saying our prayers out loud, and mother was standing over us making sure we didn’t miss out any words, when it came time to say, our daily bread, we’d drop our voices and mother would let it go. Though there was even something about our prayers that bothered father, he’d say to mother:
“They ought to say a Hail Mary instead. Our Lady’s more likely to grant children’s wishes. She had a child of her own.”
Father seemed to be just sitting there and thinking, he rarely said anything, but he didn’t trust a soul. He must have known that at a time like that the slice of bread wedged up there on the rafter was like the apple in the Garden of Eden, it could have tempted anybody. Most of all he didn’t trust me. Whenever he watched us all, his gray eyes drilled into me more than any of us. But he didn’t even trust grandfather. Though grandfather didn’t have a single tooth in his head, how could he have been tempted by bread that had been there since Christmas Eve and had dried as hard as stone. Even when he had fresh bread he’d only pick out the inside, and he’d have to chew every mouthful forever before he swallowed it.
With Michał and me it was different, we had teeth like wolves, as far as we were concerned the bread could have been drying for a hundred years and it would still be bread. The best bread of all, that mother had held against her stomach and as she cut it she asked us how much we wanted. Your gums itched when you remembered about the bread that was up in the attic. Though you didn’t need to remember it, you always had it before your eyes. Half the time, hunger would stir you so your mouth watered, the rest of the time you’d be tempted so hard by the idea of being full that you could almost feel the bread filling your belly. It tempted you all the time, from morning till evening, and even for a long time into the night, after we’d gone to bed, it still wouldn’t leave us alone.
I shared a bed with father and Michał, I was next to father. Michał slept crosswise at our feet, because he didn’t thrash around in his sleep, and also he was shorter than me, because for the longest time he didn’t grow. The moment father got into bed he’d turn his back toward me, maybe mutter something about me not pulling the quilt off him, and he’d be snoring right away. I didn’t need to wait much longer for Michał either. He’d dig around with his legs a bit at the beginning, because he could never find the right place for them. But once he’d found it, his legs would twitch a couple of times then he’d sleep like the dead. After that, by the bed under the window where mother slept with Antek, Stasiek’s cradle would stop rocking, sometimes Stasiek would whimper some more, but mother didn’t hear him now. As for Antek, even if he’d heard something he would just have pretended all the more to be asleep, more than if he’d actually been sleeping. Our grandparents slept in the other room across the hallway. Also, grandmother would go off to bed the moment it got dark, and grandfather would just sit on a stool for as long as he could, dozing. So when he finally went off to bed he was already as sound asleep as if it was the middle of the night. Mother would have to help him over the doorstep, because the threshold grew bigger under grandfather’s feet, like he was already dreaming that he was trying to cross over into his own house but he kept not being able to do it. Though as it happens the actual threshold was quite high. Because thresholds were made not just for the sake of it, but so there’d be somewhere to sit when you had more people than usual.
The roosters were already crowing for midnight. Father would turn on his other side so he was facing me. Then he’d turn his back again. Michał would move his legs because they’d gotten stiff. Stasiek would squeal in his sleep, and the cradle would start to rock. But I’d still be seeing that slice of bread high up on the rafter, it’d be shining there like the brightest star, and the picture wouldn’t go away. At times it ached like a sore tooth, other times it nagged at me like a bad conscience. If I could have wriggled around a bit it might have gone away. But there was no room in the bed, and right next to me was father’s back, big as a mountain. He could have woken up at any moment and asked:
“Are you not asleep yet?”
Just in case, I’d decided I would say the fleas were biting. But I don’t know if he would have believed me, because we didn’t have fleas in our house. Mother would air the sheets outside every day, and underneath she’d put dried thyme. When I finally managed to get to sleep, I could never tell whether I was dreaming or awake, because I still had the slice of bread before my eyes. One time I dreamed I went to the attic, and propped up the ladder, but the ladder was too short, so I climbed a poplar tree, but the poplar turned out to be too short as well. It could have been the same whether it was a dream or waking. In the morning father asked me: