“Just half a glass, Miss Małgorzata,” I said, trying to persuade her. “It’ll do you good. What sort of dance is it when you’ve not had anything to drink? You might as well be at evening mass. Look, everyone’s drinking. The girls too. Some of them because of their troubles, others for good health, plus everyone has their own reasons for having a drink. Vodka helps people get by. It makes you feel more like having a ball, and if it’s time to die, it makes you feel more like dying. Because when you’ve had a drink of vodka, dying and having a ball kind of join into one. If I hadn’t drunk in the resistance I doubt I’d be dancing here with you today. Once you’d had a drink you’d go out among the flying bullets like you were just walking through a stand of willow trees. Many a time, if you’d been sober your hand would have been shaking from your bad conscience. Once you had a drink your conscience did one thing and your hand another. See, you didn’t bring a sweater, in the evenings it can be chilly. It’d warm you up. And it never hurts to make your head spin a little bit. There’s no shame in having just the one glass. There’s more shame in not drinking. Well then, Małgosia?”
But she dug her heels in, no. And right away she said she had to be going back because it was getting late, and I didn’t need to walk her home if I didn’t want to, she could go on her own. Let it be no, don’t think l’m going to beg. Wonder if Maślanka has to beg as well. But I will walk you back, I know the right thing to do. I tipped back the bottle and emptied it on my own. Then I tossed the bottle and the glasses and the rest of the sandwiches into the bushes. Normally a bottle was nothing for me. We’d usually drink two bottles each, it was only after two that your soul became like a wide-open barn, like a stream from a spring, and you felt you could grasp your whole life in your hand.
One time, after two bottles I bet two more I could shave without cutting myself. We were drinking at Wicek Kudła’s place. I’d managed to get Kudła’s quota reduced, because by that time I was working in the quotas department. He didn’t have a decent mirror, just a broken piece of an old one. And no one would even hold it for me, they were all drunk and they were afraid of putting their hand to some misfortune. They were babbling on trying to talk me out of it, but I sharpened the razor on the strop and lathered up, and I was ready. Don’t be crazy, Szymek, no one shaves after a bottle of vodka, after two bottles all you’re going to do is cut your face up, you don’t mess with razors. Razors or scythes or God. God, you might be able to beg him to change his mind. But a razor, when your hand’s shaking and your eye’s iffy it’s all up and down, and your face is nothing but ups and downs, that’s just how it is. You’d think all you’d need would be an eye somewhere in the middle of your forehead, you could use it for seeing, drinking, eating, talking, sniffing, crying, whatever you needed. But you, on top of everything you’ve got a hole in your chin and your jaw sticks out. Just give him the other bottles, don’t let him shave, I’d rather drink than watch someone bleed, it’s okay watching a hog bleed but with a person every drop hurts. I was seeing double, at times I could hardly see myself at all, and the razor in that scrap of mirror was shaking like it was afraid as well. But I shaved myself and I didn’t cut myself once. Give those bottles here.
But this time, that one stupid bottle went to my head and it was like I was walking up hill and down dale, and the ground under me was rocking into the bargain. At one point it must have rocked more than usual because I staggered and if she hadn’t caught me I would have hit the deck.
“You’re drunk, Mr. Szymek,” she said. “I can get home on my own from here.”
“It’s just my legs, Miss Małgosia,” I said. “My head’s as clear as the moon up there above us.”
The moon was like a cow’s udder, if you’d pulled at its teats we’d have been covered in streams of moonlight.
“I could go all the way to the edge of the world with you, Miss Małgosia, we’d never lose our way. Wherever you wanted to go, nearby or far away, it’d all be the same to me, I could walk through the woods, I could walk forever.”
Then I started going on about the resistance and how I had seven wounds. All healed up long ago, of course. But sometimes, like today, it’s as if I can feel them bleeding. If she wanted I could show her and tell about each one. Then I tried to count how many Germans I’d killed. But for some reason I couldn’t get past five. I checked them off on the fingers of my left hand, but when I got to the fifth finger the list broke off like the earth had swallowed it up. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. All that shooting I’d done, and there were only five of them? Could they have risen from the dead?
Aside from that I could feel anger welling up inside of me. I was walking and walking, and all for nothing. She wasn’t saying a word. It was probably the anger that made me think, so she’ll go with Maślanka but not with me. How is he better than me? He wasn’t even in the resistance, the loser, all he did was trade in hogs, other people spilled their blood for him. How do I know? People in the offices talk, you can’t hide anything there. Though the people that talk do the same things themselves, there’s nothing to get upset about. She wasn’t planning on being a saint, right? Why would she? She’d get old and then regret it. What pleasure was there in being a saint? All you’d do is be in a picture on the church wall, or they’d hand you out during the priest’s Christmastime visit or sell you at church fairs, or you’d have your name in the calendar. But you have to be a big-time saint for that. You’d have to kick another saint off, because there’s already four or five of them for every day. Even the most saintly ones are going to get squeezed out soon. It’s not worth the effort. On top of everything else, you never know if it’s only down here you’re considered a saint, but afterwards you’re actually going to go roast in hell. How can we know what happens afterwards? So then, Miss Małgosia, is it far yet? We’ll be through the woods soon. But I can keep going if you want. And if you want, I can marry you. It’s high time I got married. People go on and on at me about how I ought to be married. Tell me, Miss Małgosia, would you be my wife? I can’t promise you happiness because I don’t have happiness inside me. But we’d get by somehow or other. I could even marry you tomorrow. I’ll perform the ceremony myself. I’ll make such a speech they’ll remember us even after we’re dead. At Mayor Rożek’s funeral, the one that they shot, I gave this speech that had everyone in tears. The guy that came from the county offices, he just mumbled something, he didn’t say a word about Rożek, he just went on about enemies the whole time. In the end Rożek himself rose up out of his casket and said, you, piss off, I want Pietruszka to make the speech. And no blubbering, I want to be able to hear it clear. That’s how he was, he never minced his words, but he had a heart of gold. If you want, we can even get married in church. I don’t know if God exists. But if he exists for you, he’ll exist for me. The tailor could make me a suit and the dressmaker will sew a dress for you. What do you say, Miss Małgosia?
She was walking along like a shadow, still not saying a thing. I even had the impression that it wasn’t her walking along but the woods, and I was talking any old nonsense to the trees. And maybe because of not knowing whether it was her or not, I suddenly put my arms around her and whispered: