Him and Antek, the two of them only came back for mother’s funeral. And they left the same day, after the burial, because they didn’t have time. And after that it was always the same. One of them or both of them would visit, but there was never time to sit and talk or ask them how things were, what they were up to, they were always in a hurry. And right away they’d start arguing with me about any little thing, that the table was still the same one from the war, that I’d not put a wooden floor in, even that the lightbulb was covered in fly droppings, one thing on top of another, as if their old home was somehow painful to them. Yet it was still their home.
It was the same when they came about the tomb. They shouted and protested, and I didn’t say a thing. In the end I took the sacks they’d brought for the flour and went to the pantry to fill them. I didn’t have anything to give them except for flour. Then they left.
I didn’t know how to tell Chmiel that we’d be putting up a smaller tomb now. We’d already settled on eight places. Chmiel had measured it all and done the calculations. I’d even given him a down payment. I’d been holding off on the final decision just in case, till they wrote back and said yes. I didn’t want to go ahead without their say-so. The tomb was for them as well. If they were going to be buried in it they had a right to decide. I only had to go and tell Chmiel they’d agreed.
Whether they say yes or no, they have to be reckoned with, I’d said to myself. They were good boys one time. Maybe the outside world had just gotten to them a bit. When they came they were wearing suits and overcoats and hats, it all looked brand-new. Stasiek even had an umbrella. Antek was wearing eyeglasses and he had a little leather case. It was no surprise they weren’t in any hurry to die. But if not now, then maybe another time, or maybe when they got old. Because when people get old you can never tell. When death’s staring you in the face even a college graduate becomes a person again, so does an engineer. At those times everything falls off life like leaves dropping from a tree in the fall, and you’re left like a bare trunk. At those times you’re not drawn to the outside world but back to the land where you were born and grew up, because that’s your only place on this earth. In that land, even a tomb is like a home for you.
So I went and told Chmiel they’d agreed.
IV. The Land
Sometimes I think to myself, what does the land actually care about me? What does it know about me? Does it even know I exist? Does it know how long I’ve traipsed around it? If you counted up all the steps together I might even have gone all the way around this world of ours. Or maybe I’d even have made it into the next world, and I’m still walking along. Over ridges and furrows and ruts, over stubble fields, in rain and cold and swelter, in agony, spring and summer and autumn, with scythe or plow. And for what?
On top of that, does it know how much you’ve quarreled over it, how much you’ve hated? To the point that you were amazed where all that hatred inside you came from. Did you enter the world with it already in you? And the hatred only later turned into the land?
In any case, before I was ever born, father had a law case with the Prażuchs over our field boundary. He didn’t believe in earthly justice, but he came back from the field one time shaking with anger, saying:
“Whether there’s any justice or no, that crook Prażuch needs to be taken to court. The land can’t take it anymore.”
What had happened was, Prażuch had yet again plowed over our field boundary. And so it began. One time father sued Prażuch, then Prażuch sued father, and so on in turn, depending on whose land happened not to be able to take it any longer. It went on for years, because the courts weren’t exactly in any kind of hurry to make a final judgment. Judges have to earn a living too.
Maybe you couldn’t even say who was in the wrong, maybe the Lord God himself couldn’t have decided. Because when it comes to the land there aren’t any guilty or innocent folks, only those that are wronged. And everyone knows what courts are like, it’s all about being guilty or innocent. But that wasn’t the right measure. And so the courts took their course, while father and Prażuch doled out their own justice. Where Prażuch would plow over a strip of our land in the spring, father would plow it back in the autumn, and add at least another half-furrow from Prażuch’s field to make up for the wrong he’d suffered. That bandit shouldn’t think he can get off scot-free.
Then one day, after yet another time in court that hadn’t resolved a thing, father met Prażuch out in the fields. Father was harrowing his land, Prażuch was mucking his. Prażuch ups and says, when you need to sell that field to pay for the courts, I’ll buy it off you. Wishful thinking, answers father, because if the courts don’t finish you the Lord God will. One way or another you’ll get what you deserve, and then maybe you’ll finally drop dead, you crook. It turned into a terrible argument between the two of them, you could hear it way off, like two whole villages were at each other’s throats, or two whole manor houses, or the sky and the land. Anyone who was out working the fields straightened up, stopped their plow or their harrow, stood for a moment, and looked around to see where the quarrel was. They argued so loud the larks vanished from the sky. And even the sky, that had been clear, clouded over and there were flashes of lightning in the distance.
In the end father had had enough, he ran up to Prażuch and landed him one with his whip. Without thinking Prażuch pushed his pitchfork at father. Father fell down, there was blood, and the other man stood over him, leaned on his pitchfork, and jeered:
“Who’s dying now, you bastard? Who’s getting what they deserve?”
Father was barely conscious, but he threatened him back:
“You just wait till my Szymek grows up, you crook.”
And so when I did grow up there was nothing for it. One time I was plowing the same field, and Prażuch was in his field sowing wheat. A flock of crows landed on his field and mine, and they walked about pecking at things, the way crows do. All of a sudden the old guy bent down, grabbed a clod of earth, and chucked it, supposedly at the crows that were on his field. But the ones on mine flew up as well. That made me mad, because I like it when the crows follow behind me when I’m plowing. I stopped the horse and shouted:
“Leave the crows alone, you old fart! Scare them off your own land! Keep the hell away from mine!”
Not only did Prażuch keep throwing clods of earth at the crows, he also started cawing, caw! caw! caw!
“Shut it, or I’ll shut it for you!”
But on he goes with his, caw! caw! caw!
I ran up to him and landed my fist right between his eyes. He flipped over and all the grain scattered from his canvas sheet. I kicked him where he lay on the ground.
“Who’s getting what they deserve now?” I said. I went back and plowed half my field and he still couldn’t even get up, he just lay there grunting and cursing. People even said I’d done something to his back, because he was stuck in bed almost till the spring.
Then autumn came again, and Antek was grazing the cows one day among the potato stalks, and Prażuch was plowing his land. And somehow or other one of the cows strayed onto his field. Antek ran over to drive it back. Prażuch left his plow and horse and set about Antek with his whip. He beat the kid so bad he had purple welts all over. Then he whipped the cow that had strayed. And as if that wasn’t enough, he ran over onto our land and whipped the other cow, that hadn’t done a damn thing to him. Antek came back home crying, it wasn’t even close to midday, and the cows were flogged so bad their skin was covered in ridges.