And just like the time before, I had to nod and agree with him:
“Yes, I’ll bring them.”
VI. Weeping
People keep asking me, when are you finally going to get that tomb finished? You might at least roof it with tar paper, keep the water out. Well I would have finished it, I’d have finished it long ago, if that was all I had to worry about. But as if I didn’t have enough on my plate already, here one of my pigs went and died. She was getting up close to her weight, she would have been a good three thirty, three fifty pounds. I figured, when I sold her I could get some more work done on the tomb. The walls have been up for a long time now, the partitions were ready even, all it needed was a roof and push comes to shove, people could be buried in it even if it was unfinished.
Chmiel was patient, waiting for when we’d start again, though he was getting old and bent over. Just one time he sent his old lady over to say his aches and pains were getting worse and worse, and by the way how were things with that tomb of mine, because he’d like to finish what he began. When I met him from time to time in the village he’d just nod back and walk on, or at the most he’d ask: so when? But like he wasn’t asking about my tomb, just in general. He was content with any old excuse, it’s because of this or that, Chmiel, though mostly it was, once I’m done fattening the pig. Everyone knows a pig’s the fastest way to make a bit of money. So long as it doesn’t get sick, you wait your eight months then it’s off to the purchasing center. Fatten her up then, fast as you can, he’d say, cause you might run out of time. The fact was, whenever I did fatten a pig there were always more urgent things that needed paying. First it was taxes, next it was quilt covers, then winter clothes for Michał, one thing or another, or I had to order a supply of coal, and the tomb could wait, luckily no one was dying. Besides, I didn’t rear that many pigs, one or two, as the chance came along. Because if you want to fatten a pig you need a woman at home, a guy on his own can’t handle it. Though sometimes I thought about taking out a loan, building a pig shed for a hundred or so pigs and starting to raise them for money like some folks do around here. If it’s not pigs it’s something else, but only for money. Take Ciamciaga for instance, the man can’t add three plus three but he started keeping sheep. No one had sheep in the village before. There were sheep once, but it was at the manor before the war. He even learned how to shear them. The first time he did it the poor creature was so cut up it looked like wolves had been at it. But now he shears, his old lady spins, his daughters knit sweaters, and everyone wears sweaters made of Ciamciaga’s wool. Or Franek Kukla, he started an orchard and now he sells apples by the cartload. He’s got apple trees all in long rows like cows in a big cattle barn. Plus each row is a different kind of apple. All the rows are straight and neat, all the trees are the same height. They’re all as clean as if he combed them every day. I think they even all have the same number of branches, because where there used to be more, you can see they’ve been sawn off. And on each one it’s like there’s nothing but apples growing, no leaves, no branches, no trunk, no earth even. Except it’s kind of quiet in his orchard, you don’t hear bees buzzing or birds chirping, it’s nothing but apple trees as far as the eye can see. I said to him one time:
“So you’ve got your orchard. But it’s kind of sad in there.”
He laughed:
“Ha, ha! What do I need a happy orchard for. All it has to do is make me money.”
Maybe that’s how things ought to be. Sometimes I’ve even seen myself going into that pig shed for a hundred pigs, inside it’s white from all the animals and the only thing you can see is the rise and fall of fat bellies. And it’s all mine. But I soon get over it. What do I need all that money for. I’m not planning to build anything. I don’t have anyone to leave it to. So one or two pigs is enough. Pigs take work. You sometimes don’t have time to cook your own dinner, you’ll grab a slice of bread with milk or with a piece of sausage, but a pig has to have two meals a day. I might not even have reared the one or two, but someone’s sow in the village would have piglets and they’d say, do you want one? Take it. They’re a healthy size, they’ll fatten up nicely. Or when I rode to market, coming home with an empty wagon seemed wrong somehow, so I’d ride back with a young pig at least.
One time Felek Midura convinced me to take one, he didn’t even want the money right away but later, whenever I had it. Or we’d figure something out, I’d lend him my horse for plowing in the spring, because it was difficult for him with one horse on that hillside of his. Or I could pay him back in hay in the winter, since I had a meadow and he’d sold his. Or if not in hay then in potatoes. Come on, take one, they’ve got little short snouts and tiny ears, they’ll be good eaters — even now I can barely pull them off the teat. So I took one.
But it had some kind of sickness in it. It ate enough for two piglets but it didn’t get any fatter. A whole year I fed it and it never grew bigger than a cat. A pig like that is the worst, you don’t have the heart to kill it but keeping on rearing it is a waste of time. Besides, what was the point of slaughtering it, you could hold the thing in your hands like a baby, why even bother. After a year I got used to having it around. I called him Squeals — the name just came to me. I kept saying to him, stop squealing, stop squealing, so he became Squeals. Besides, I’d started to feel he needed a name, I couldn’t just keep calling to him, come and get it, especially as the eating didn’t do any good. If I’d had more of them they wouldn’t have needed names. But when there was only one, and there he was all alone between the horse and the cows, he had to be called something. Oftentimes I used to sit myself down in the shed and watch him feed. And however angry I was that he wasn’t growing, I forgave him, because just watching him eat so healthily was a pleasure. Though one time I got so mad I grabbed him up away from the trough and hauled him over to Midura’s.
“Here, take your crappy pig back, damn you. You knew, that’s why you didn’t want any money. Yours are all fattened up and sold, look at this one.”
But the next morning I step outside and I see my Squeals running around the farmyard and grubbing about for food. It touched my heart.
“Squeals!” I called, and there he was trotting towards me at full tilt. It made me think. He was just a piglet, but he was capable of getting attached to someone. There had to be some intelligence there. Though it could also have been that Midura dropped him in my yard in the night to make it look like the pig had gotten attached to me. But I didn’t take him to Midura a second time. Just so he’d come back or be brought back yet again? Luckily I’d not gotten around to thinking what I’d do with the money once he was fattened up, so it wasn’t such a big disappointment. Because the one that died, ever since it was small that one had been meant to pay for the roof on the tomb. The moment I brought it back from market I put it in the shed, poured food in its trough, and said:
“Eat up and get big, you’re going to pay for the roof.”
Every time I fed it I repeated to myself that it was for the roof, that I needed to make sure it didn’t go on something more urgent this time. And it was like it understood, because you could almost watch it getting fatter. Though for my part I never scrimped on the potatoes or the coarse-ground flour. And the whey was all for the pig. When there wasn’t any whey I’d even give it milk. Sometimes I’d go pick nettles to fill it up even more.
Eight months hadn’t gone by and it was ready to be taken down to the purchasing center. But I decided to hold on to it a bit longer, it ate like the devil and every day was a gain, every pound meant more money. Besides, a pig has to be at least three twenty, three forty, mother always reared them that big, it’s only then that it’s a real pig. After it’s slaughtered there’s less waste, with one that’s not been properly fattened a good third of it can go to waste. Plus, when you take a big pig like that down to the center everyone wants to guess how much it weighs, everyone pats its back to see what kind of bacon it’s going to give, sometimes the guys even get into an argument about whether it’ll be three fingers or four. It makes your heart swell to think you’ve reared a pig like that.