Before you could say Jack Robinson I’d figured out how to give weddings, and soon marrying people was no harder than eating a slice of bread for me. Like I’d been marrying people since God knows when. Though really, what was the big deal. To start off you said a few official words. Do you, Piotr, Jan, Władysław, Kazimierz, take Helena, Wanda, Bronisława, or whoever to be your lawful wedded wife, do you swear to love and honor her till death do you part. I do. And do you, Helena, Wanda, Bronisława, and so on. I do. Then you put the rings on their fingers, if they had rings. You said that they were married in the eyes of the law. Then you added something from yourself. I wish you a life spread with roses, and you should respect one another, because from this moment on you’re the closest one of all for each other.
I always spoke from the heart and the words pretty much flowed of their own accord, so whenever I was giving a marriage everyone in the offices would set aside their work and come down to watch and listen, even if it was through the half-open door. When the window in the room was open as well, it’d be lined with the heads of people listening outside, like flowerpots. Because the people that had come to the administration to get their business done, they wanted to see it as well. May you always help each other in hard times and in misfortune. May you never show anger, but always treat each other well, like land and sky. May you never be the source of worries for one another, because life itself will put enough worries in your way. Don’t ever curse one another, don’t insult each other, and may neither of you ever raise a hand against the other. If you do, may that hand wither. And not just because that’s what people always say, but because you, husband, and you, wife, together you’re like the hands of a single body, her the left, you the right. Your body is one. If one of you is struck down by illness, or is in pain, or if one of you weeps tears, it’s all yours in common. You, wife, you’ll never be able to say that you’re not the one in pain. Nor you, husband, that you’re not the one weeping. And may you both remember that you’ll not be young forever. How much of life is youth? The tiniest part, less than springtime out of the whole year. Your woman will get wrinkles, you’ll become an old man and go bald or gray, and then it’s hardest of all to be husband and wife. At that time some couples are at each other’s throats, though neither of them has done anything wrong. They’d kill the other one soon as look at them, though once upon a time they loved each other. Just remember that conflict never brought any relief to anyone, and you have to go on living till everything ends of itself. So it’s better to live in harmony. Because you haven’t gotten married only for a short time, till your youth passes, but until you stop being old as well. From now on you’re like that tree outside the window.
In front of the offices there happened to be a huge maple that remembered the times when there was no district administration, just the four-flat buildings where they used to keep the cholera patients. In the summer people that had come to do business at the offices would wait in its shade, and you often had to tell them to be quiet because they’d talk as loud as if it was market day. Quiet there! There’s a wedding going on! So then, you, husband, you’re like the trunk of the tree, and she’s like its branches. If you cut off the branches the trunk will dry up, and if you chop down the trunk the branches will dry up. I wish you good fortune, good health, and handsome children. Now you may kiss each other. Then I’d go for a glass of vodka with the newlyweds, because although it was mostly poorer folk that got married at the registry office, they’d always invite you for a drink.
For all the marriages I gave, there was only one time they had a proper wedding party afterward. The Kowaliks’ son Józef was marrying Zośka Siekiera. His old folks slaughtered a hog and hired a band. They invited a few relatives and neighbors, and me as well. It wasn’t about the young folks getting married, more that old Kowalik had too much land for those times and people were always accusing him of being a kulak and a parasite because he still kept a farmhand. Though the farmhand never complained, and when people asked him he even used to say he was better off with Kowalik than he would have been on his own. Actually Kowalik might not have had to worry about being called a kulak and a parasite, but when they started raising his quotas every year, in the end it was too much for him. He came running to the offices one day and said that either we should take his land from him, or he’d hang himself.
“I don’t want any land!” he shouted, waving his arms. “I don’t want it if all it’s gonna do is bring me harm! Take it away from me! Plow it, seed it, mow it, set aside any amount you like! It said in the prophecies of the Queen of Sheba there’d come a time when the farmers would be giving back the land of their own accord! Now it’s come true!”
At that time Mayor Rożek told him there was no need for him to give his land away like that or hang himself. Kowalik had a son, Józef. He should have Józef get married as soon as he could, because there were deadlines coming up, and he could divide his farm into two. Who should he marry? Anyone, whoever’s available. Afterwards, if they don’t hit it off they can get divorced. It won’t be a church wedding because the registry office isn’t a church and Szymon Pietruszka isn’t a priest. But in the books it’ll be written in stone that there are two medium-sized farms, and medium-sized farms aren’t a problem for anyone. Because it would have been easier to get married and divorced three times over than reduce the quotas by a single hundredweight.
They chose Zośka Siekiera for the job, because she happened to live next door and she was poor as a church mouse. And she could only dream of marrying a rich man like Józef. For her it made no difference whether she had a church wedding or one in the registry office, whether it was for her whole life or just till they could reregister the farm, with banns or without, in a veil or in a regular dress, in front of a priest or in front of me. She would have stood before the devil in hell if only she’d been able to marry Józef.
Kowalik stuck five hundred zlotys in my pocket so I wouldn’t make any speeches, just marry them and have done with it. Three months hadn’t gone by when he was already trying to get them to separate. Except that at that point, Józef put his foot down and said no. He hadn’t gotten married just so he could get divorced again right afterward. He’d taken Zośka to be his wife, not his serving woman, and he wouldn’t let them do wrong by her. And now that the land had been reregistered, his father could kiss his backside. At most he’d stay on his land, and his father could work his own.
But as long as the old man lived, and he lived a long time, Zośka didn’t have an easy time of it. Whenever he talked about her he’d only ever call her that beggar, that slut, that stray. He’d sometimes even kick her out of the house, he’d say, this isn’t your place, get back over the fence, that’s where you belong. Even when they had a child the old man didn’t soften a bit. He never once minded the baby or played with it the way other grandfathers do, when they laugh with their grandsons and talk to them and tell them all sorts of wonders about the world. Plus he kept on saying bad things the whole time.
“It can’t be yours, Józef, it doesn’t look anything like you. When it laughs it’s got the same beady little eyes as Heniek Skobel.”
Zośka never so much as said to the old man, have you no conscience? At the most she’d run into the pantry or out into the orchard to cry, and Józef would follow and comfort her. What was he supposed to do — beat his own father?