It was only when death came for the old man and Zośka looked after him like he was her father, one time when she was straightening his pillows he took her by the hand and said:
“I’ve been a bad man, Zosia. And you’ve been a saint. I don’t need God’s forgiveness, I need yours.”
After he died Zośka washed his body like it was her own father’s. And she cried at his funeral like he’d been her dad.
I sometimes go over to their place to watch television and they sit there like two turtledoves, though they’re gray now. Zosieńka, Józeńko, they call each other. They’d do anything for each other. They have grandchildren now. No, you just sit and rest, I’ll do it, Zośka. You’ve done enough work today. I won’t come to any harm. That’s as may be. You’ve done just as much work as I have, Józef. Here, have some sour milk. And even at harvesttime, when people are sweating from the work and cursing left, right, and center, they’re all, Zosieńka, Józeńko. Like they were singing along with life. Recently they even had a church wedding, because the priest had been pestering them about it, he wouldn’t leave them in peace, he said what harm would it do if God joined in their happiness. He wouldn’t get in their way.
Three years I spent giving weddings, then they transferred me to the quotas department where there was a huge lot of work, because it wasn’t just grain but livestock as well, and milk, and there was all kinds of writing to be done, more every year. At the registry office, every now and then someone would come along to get married and that was it. Of course, once in a while they’d give me some other work so I wouldn’t get bored. Correct something or write out a fair copy, or do some calculations. Or one time we got some books and the librarian had just gone on leave to have a baby, so the district secretary put me to work cataloging the books, putting plastic covers on them, sticking on the numbers and stamping them with the district administration stamp, then putting them on the shelves. Another time there was no one to supervise the workers mending the road to the mill. When the autumn rains came or a thaw in the spring you couldn’t get through even with a pair of horses because the mud came up higher than the wheel hubs. So who could do the job? As usual everyone was up to their ears in work, while the “priest” was just sitting at his desk staring at the ceiling. Maybe you could go, Mr. Szymek. No one’s going to be getting married today. And though supervising workers supposedly wasn’t really work and you could go lie down in the shade of a bush, because the workers would get on with the job without anyone watching over them, the thing was that I’d gotten used to the office and being able to stare at the ceiling, and I didn’t at all feel like I wasn’t doing anything. You could have a nice little doze if the sun was hot through the window or if you’d been drinking the night before. Or someone would come by and you’d have a chat. Or you’d go and visit the other offices, or go flirt with the girls.
There were more girls in those offices than bees in a hive. A good few of them had only come to work at the administration so they could find themselves a husband quicker, and an office worker to boot. If I’d wanted I could have even gotten married, and more than once. But why would I, when I could have the same thing without getting married. In those days girls still used to like nylon stockings, and for a pair of stockings any of them was putty in your hands. You’d pull a pair out and show them and say, listen, Agnisia, Józia, Rózia, would you like these to be yours? So meet me this evening at such and such a time. Because there was something about those nylon stockings that the moment a girl set eyes on them she’d get this glassy look, her voice would soften, and she’d very near reach for your pants then and there. It was another thing that when one of them had crooked legs her legs seemed to straighten out when she was wearing stockings. They made fat legs look thin, and skinny ones look just right. When they were wearing those stockings even what their faces looked like wasn’t such a big deal, their legs became the most important thing. And when one of the girls appeared in church wearing stockings, the whole congregation would look down instead of looking up. Mass would be ruined for all the other women, and a good few of the men only half paid attention to God.
I bought the stockings from this trader woman that would sometimes come to the village selling various things. I’d known her from when I was in the police, and one time I’d had her at the station because she was suspected of selling yeast to moonshiners. I searched her belongings and she happened to have one pair of nylon stockings that she was delivering to someone.
“Bring some more for me, I’ll buy them off you. Maybe even a few pairs,” I said. And since then she did.
One time I bought all the pairs she had, there must have been a dozen of them, all different sizes — large, small, medium — and in different colors, mouse gray, fox red, like scorched straw, like wholemeal bread, all as fine as gossamer.
“I’ll take the lot,” I said.
“Well she must be a real lady,” she said. “All these pairs. Some girls have all the luck. What size foot does she have?”
“Who would that be?”
“The woman you’re buying them for, your girlfriend or your wife, whoever.”
“Don’t know yet.”
“The thing is, these are different sizes and they might not fit. And they’re so fine you only need to scratch them with your nail and there’ll be a run. She needs to take care of her hands. You ought to buy her some hand cream. I’ve got that as well. Otherwise she’ll be bringing me stockings with runs in them, wanting her money back. And I won’t take them. I can’t be traveling all this way and come out at a loss.”
“They’ll be the right size. If not for one then for another. Why worry ahead of time.”
“Well I guess it’s none of my business. Shall I bring you more?”
“Sure, you do that.”
I hid the stockings up in the attic, in the rye, in a plaited straw barrel. I pushed them as deep as I could into the grain so father wouldn’t find them by chance when he went up to check that the rye wasn’t getting damp. Though you didn’t need to dig down deep to see whether it was damp, all you had to do was scoop a little from the surface or just put your hand in and hold it there a moment, when it was damp you could feel it right away, like putting your hand over steam. I was certain there was no better hiding place. In the old days people would keep whole fortunes in barrels of grain, dollars, rubles, and in wartime weapons. Because grain arouses the least suspicion. What could be more innocent than grain. And who would ever want to dig down to the bottom of those things when they held ten bushels or more each.
But one day I come home from work and I see my stockings laid out on the table like on a market stall.
“Where are those stockings from?” I asked. I was shaken.
Father was sitting by mother’s bed, and he says calm as anything:
“You know what, they grew in the rye up in the attic. I went to check if it wasn’t getting damp, and I picked some of them to show your mother. But she won’t believe me. Maybe she’ll believe you. Tell her they’re stockings. What else could they be? Nylon ones. That’s all they wear these days. I wonder how much one of them pairs costs? Probably as much as a bushel of rye. And see how many pairs grew up there. We didn’t even sow or muck. Obviously it’s not worth keeping rye anymore. We’ll have to start growing stockings instead of rye, since God’s blessed us this way. Since the beginning of time only rye has grown from rye, but we’ve had a miracle.”
I was all set to grab the stockings, slam the door, and go wherever my feet took me. But I looked at mother. She was lying with her head turned to the wall as if she was embarrassed, and I suddenly felt sorry for her. I thought to myself, oh well. I took a bowl, poured myself some potato soup from the pot, sat down on the chair by the stove, because the table was covered with stockings, and I began to eat. Father was still going on about what had grown from what and how God had smiled on us, till in the end he got mixed up and forgot whether rye was growing from stockings or stockings from rye. But I didn’t say a word. What could I say? He knew what he knew, I knew what I knew.