And to think that when we were young men, after a dance it’d take us all night to get home along that road. The rooster would crow once, twice, three times. The cows would be hungry and lowing in the cattle sheds. Buckets would be clanking at the wells. And here someone was still on their way home. Sometimes till it was broad daylight. Till morning. What was the hurry? The dance was still spinning in our heads, the music was still playing, and we’d cut a step on the roadway like it was the floor of the barn and sing the first thing that came into our heads. “Stone upon stone, on stone a stone!” And the road never let out a word of complaint that you were waking it up. And it never dared hurry you. It’d go step for step under your feet, alongside you, like a faithful dog. When you stopped it stopped also. You could go one way or another, any direction you wanted, you could even turn back to the dance and it would turn back with you. From one edge to the other it was yours. Like a girl on a bed of hay, underneath you.
The night could be black as pitch, and you’d be three sheets to the wind. One moment you had the sky over your head, the next the earth, then the next nothing at all, maybe not even God himself, because why would God want to watch over a drunken man. But the road never left you. The whole world would rear like a stallion under you, try and throw you off. Sometimes a tree would hold you up, sometimes a post or a shrine. Or you’d just fall over, pick yourself up, and continue on your way. If not on your feet then on all fours. Or you didn’t get up at all. Till you got woken in the early morning by the birds singing like a heavenly choir in the acacias. And if you didn’t know where you were, the road itself would lead you home like a guardian angel. Unless you got a ride from Szmul when he was taking the milk churns into town of a morning. But Szmul was just as much a part of the road as the acacia trees.
I never missed a single dance, not just in our village but anywhere in the neighborhood. There were times we’d go five and ten villages away when we heard there was going to be a bash. And since I knew how to have a good time more than most folks, I was always greeted with open arms and they knew me far and wide. Hey look, Szymek Pietruszka’s here! Then they knew the party would be a blast. When I’d show up in the doorway it’d be, in with the band! in with the dancers! Musicians, play a march for Szymek Pietruszka! And the band would play like wild horses. And I’d enter dancing the march.
The first thing you’d do was go to the buffet in the middle of the room. Like bride and groom walking up the aisle. Stand aside, everyone! At the buffet you’d meet people you knew and people you didn’t, but they were all friends. Szymek, Szymuś, you’re here, greetings, friend, buddy, pal. Somebody’s pouring a drink, someone’s handing you one already poured, a third person gives you an even bigger glass, someone else a piece of sausage and a pickle. Drink up, Szymuś! Here’s to being single! We’re gonna have fun tonight! Long live us! And when on top of that my watch chain would be dangling from my belt, the whole dance shivered in anticipation. Now there’d be a party. Because on my watch chain I carried a knife.
Oh, that knife of mine was famous. It looked like just a handle. Anyone who didn’t know might think I was only carrying it for good luck, like a keepsake. And having it on a watch chain like a watch, it seemed almost innocent. But all you had to do was press a button at the side and the blade would pop out like a wasp stinger. Often they’d come at me with sticks, and all I’d have was my knife. A whole mob of them, from every side, and me in the middle all on my lonesome, with nothing but the knife. But even a sword wouldn’t have matched it.
Sometimes I didn’t even have to take it out. All I needed was to unbutton my jacket and flash the watch chain, fear did the rest. It was the same at the buffet — because of the knife I barely spent a penny. Anyone who wanted to see, it cost them a half-bottle of vodka. If you wanted to see it with the blade open, it was a half-bottle and a beer. And to handle it, a half-bottle, a beer, and something to eat. And if some wise guy pretended to want to know what time it was, you told him it’d be eternity when he found out, and he preferred to stand you a half-bottle as well.
Four strings of garlic that knife cost me. I bought it off this guy that went around the villages selling needles, thread, safety pins, head-lice lotion, various stuff. They called him Eye of the Needle, because he could talk all day about the eye of the needle, who’d passed through it and who hadn’t. Afterward mother went on and on about how someone had stolen some of her garlic from the attic. I told her to count again, that maybe she’d made a mistake. But each time she counted she was missing those four strings. It was only when she was dying and I wasn’t young anymore, and it had been so long ago that those four strings had shrunk to four heads of garlic, as you might say, that I confessed it had been me. By then the knife was long gone as well, missing or maybe stolen. There was no shortage of folks that had their eye on it. A good few tried to buy it off me. But at that time I wouldn’t have sold it for all the tea in China. I could have gotten ten strings of garlic for it, or a hundredweight of rye, a necktie or a pair of gaiters. One of them even offered his watch. No one had a knife like that in those parts. They usually fought with regular bread knives, sometimes a butcher’s knife, most often with penknives.
But a penknife, at the most it’s only any good for killing frogs or whittling a pipe while you’re minding the cows. You can’t even cut tobacco with it. Its blade is weak as a willow leaf and the handle’s like a twig. When you’re up against someone in a leather jacket, what use is a penknife, it won’t even cut through the leather. Also, every dick in the village carried a penknife since they were knee-high to a grasshopper. You could buy one at any church fair or win it at one of the stalls with a fishing pole or an air gun. But as for taking it to a dance, you’d be better off with your bare hands.
So then, after you’d been to the buffet you went and danced. To begin with you were nice and polite. You’d take a young lady that was free and sitting on one of the benches or standing with her girlfriend. You’d bow to her and kiss her hand. And you wouldn’t hold her too tight, because what you’d had to drink was only enough for first courage. Besides, it was still light out. The sun was only just setting, it was shining straight in through the windows. And all the old women were sitting like crows on the benches around the edge of the barn with their eyes burrowing into all the couples like woodworms. There were small kids all over the place like it was a nursery. The band hadn’t had their supper yet and they were only playing slow numbers. All the dancers were still following the emcee’s instructions. In pairs, form a circle, one pair to the left, one to the right, make a basket, girls in the middle, girls choose their partner! And the firefighters in their golden helmets would still be sober as judges, standing there by the door like it was the entrance to Christ’s tomb, making sure no one drank too much. And if anyone did get drunk and went looking for a fight they’d haul his ass out the door. So a young lady could easily tell you you were a pig.
It wasn’t till later. Once the sun went down and the ceiling lamps were lit. When the old women round the edge of the room went off for the evening milking, and the mothers took their kids and put them to bed. When the first dew broke out on the foreheads of the band, and the party really started to get going. Then, sure, you could drag a young lady to the buffet. And at the buffet it would be a first and a second and a third and, what’s your name, honey? Zosia, Krysia, Wikcia, Jadwisia. I’m Szymek. So listen, Zosia, Krysia, Wikcia, Jadwisia, will you have a drink with Szymek? I’ve been going to one dance after another looking all over for you, and finally I’ve found you. Are you lying? Why would I lie? Come on, they’re playing our number. And in that dance she’d let herself be held close. You could run your hands over the embroidery on the back of her blouse. Some of them had blouses like a flower garden, covered in cherries and rosebuds and raspberries and rowan. A good many of them would like it so much they’d show their teeth when you tickled their cherries and rosebuds and raspberries. Others would look at you reproachfully, like you were trying to pluck the fruit off of them.