“Don’t talk so much, Bartłomiej. Watch the road,” I said, but in a way that wouldn’t make him take offense.
He stopped talking and kind of hunched over, and from behind you couldn’t tell if he was watching the cars closely, or he was praying.
“Hey, Bartłomiej! Are you asleep?”
“Why would I be sleeping,” he said angrily, turning toward me. “You think I’ve never done guard duty? Let me tell you, I was a soldier long before you were even a twinkle in your mother’s eye.”
But a moment later he pointed to the road with his whip and shouted almost pleased:
“Szymek, look how that green one’s chasing the red one. And the red one won’t let him past. He’s a feisty little devil, even if he’s small.”
All of a sudden Franek Jędrys called from behind:
“Hey, you there up front! Watch out! There’s a gap after the red one! The second he passes, Kuś needs to get out there. And you after him, Szymek!”
You could already see the first bigger gap from around the bend. Behind a black car the next one was only just entering the curve, and the black one was almost on a level with us. I tightened the reins on the horse and lifted my whip, all ready to flick it and shout, gee up! and follow right behind Kuś. I called to the old man:
“Lookout, Bartłomiej! Come on, now! Off you go! Gee up!”
But instead of tugging at the reins right away he had to sit himself up straight, switch the reins from his left hand to his right, and he didn’t even give a decent tug, he just twitched them like he was setting off from home, and at first his mare didn’t even know what he wanted. It was only when he said, “Gee up!” But even the gee up was like when you start plowing. So there was only time for the horse to strain forward a bit, the wagon jerked and he had to stop because it was too late. The car from the other side of the gap was almost there, and behind it there was a snake of cars so long you couldn’t see the end of it.
“Goddammit!” I said, furious at Kuś, especially because I’d moved off quicker than him and my shaft got stuck in his load and twisted my horse’s neck. “The hell you were in the army! You wouldn’t have survived a day in the war at that speed! You’d have been pushing up the daisies long ago! Why you had to be at the goddam front of the line instead of the back I don’t know. All you needed was to get your horse’s front legs on the blacktop and you’d be on your way! You should’ve used the whip, not the reins! Give her a good lash instead of being gentle on her!” I was so furious I yanked my horse back as hard as I could, and the trace almost ripped the creature’s head off. I used the whip on both sides, it’s not easy backing up with a loaded wagon.
“Fucking hell!”
“Shit!”
“He had to go and straighten himself up!”
“He forgot to cross himself as well!”
“You get a guy like that up there and all he’ll do is wait! You can’t go around him, you can’t go over him!”
“He ought to be saying his goodbyes to the world, not bringing in the crops!”
“Or haul his sons’ asses back from the town and let them do the job!”
“He’s got one foot in the grave and he can’t leave the earth alone! You’ll have enough of it when you’re six feet under!”
“He should give his land to the government, let it be!”
“The countryside’s supposed to be moving forward, but how can it with old farts like him standing in the way!”
Curses and insults stormed down on Kuś’s head. All he did was hunch up, his head tucked in, and wait till it all passed. Or maybe somewhere there in his lap he was saying his rosary, like he was waiting his turn at the district administration or the co-op. In the end I felt sorry for him. I’d stopped being angry, because what was the point of being angry at the wrong person, and I called out to him:
“Hey, Bartłomiej! Maybe you could take my wagon and I’ll drive yours?”
I had no idea he’d be so upset.
“Why should I take your wagon? What’s wrong with mine? I’ve been a farmer longer than you have. I’ve got more acres than you. No one plows or sows for me, and no one else needs to drive my wagon for me either. Eighty-two years it’s been, that’s long enough to know how to farm.”
At that, one of the other men shouted:
“Eighty-two years and he’s still clinging to life, goddammit!”
Someone cracked his whip and it made all the horses twitch. Kuś turned around oh so slowly to the other wagons, gave us this strange look, and said:
“It’s not my life I’m worried about, it’s the horse’s.”
Everyone suddenly felt foolish. No one said another word one way or the other. Someone tugged quietly at the reins, whoa! but not because his horse was uneasy, the reins were maybe just stinging his hands. No one even reached into his pocket to have a smoke. And that’s always the best remedy when you can’t think of anything to say or you’ve got a bad conscience. But Kuś seemed to be kind of overcome by bitterness, maybe not at the other farmers but just in generaclass="underline"
“She’s eighteen years old, you know, and it’s good she can still pull. Because that’s like a dog being ten, or a person, however old they’re meant to get. Only ravens live longer. But you won’t find any ravens these days! It’s all crows and rooks, though people call them all ravens. You know, she already almost died on me one time. I was plowing the potato field and she started playing up, so I give her a flick with the tip of the whip and I shout, gee up! All of a sudden, you know, she goes down on her knees, then she falls on her side. I run up, I think, maybe she’s got a touch of the colic. I grabbed her by the bridle and pulled, get up now. I think, I’ll try with the whip. I gave her a good crack, but you know, I look and I see it’s death, not colic. She turned her head but she couldn’t get back up. What could I do? Tell me what to do, Lord, my mare’s dying. But not a peep from up there. All you can hear is crows and rooks cawing away. So I squatted down, I took her head on my lap, I held it and I said to her, get up, are you going to leave me with the potato field half done? We can die together. You know it won’t be long. Get up. We’ve worked so long together, why should we die separately? We’ll plow this field next year again, maybe the year after as well, and that’ll be that. Or maybe God’ll only let us finish this field, nothing more. Get up. And she did.”