“Don’t make me take this cane to you! Get a spade and come with me!”
He didn’t even try to resist, and he stopped staggering. I got him a spade and we went to the cemetery. I showed him the place, I marked off from where to where, and I told him how deep it needed to be.
“Is that all? I thought you wanted something three times bigger. It’ll be dug by sundown. Just have that half-bottle waiting, and a couple of pickles.”
While I was still there he took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, then as I was leaving he even spat on his hands.
“Come by when you’re done,” I said.
I bought a full bottle instead of a half and I was planning on giving him the whole thing, because I thought he might come in handy again. I didn’t have any pickles so I went over to Mrs. Waliszka’s and she gave me almost a whole canful. But of course he never showed up that evening or any of the next days. It wasn’t till a week later he came by, in the early morning. I could see he wasn’t himself, or he was still sleepy or something.
“So did you dig the pit?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“Well, it’s not completely finished.”
“Weren’t you supposed to keep digging till the evening?”
“I would have, but I hit some roots. Must have been from that elm by Kosiorek’s tomb. One of the damn things was thick as my leg. And the smaller ones, there were so many of them you couldn’t even count them. I needed an ax. I was going to get my own, but I can’t find it. You wouldn’t have anything to drink, would you?”
I thought to myself, Kosiorek’s tomb is over thirty yards from mine, and where is there an elm there? The elm’s way over in the corner of the cemetery. Could its roots reach all the way across? He’s pulling the wool over my eyes, the son of a bitch. But if I don’t give him a drink he won’t finish the job.
“Here, have one drink.” I poured him out a quarter cupful. “Come back this evening after you’ve finished the job, you’ll get the rest.”
His face lit up like a little sun.
“The job’ll get done. I’m telling you, there’s no one in the village I respect like I respect you. Your health.” He drank the vodka, made a face and shuddered.
“Off you go then,” I said.
“What’s your hurry? My word is my word. Let me have one more. After the work I don’t need to drink. To tell the truth, after work I don’t even like to. After work all you want to do is sleep.”
I poured out another drink. He drank it. I poured another one. He didn’t leave till he’d seen the bottom of the bottle.
“Right, now I’m gonna go dig your pit. Just hand me that ax.”
And again he didn’t show up for several days. I was all set to go looking for him. I thought to myself, I’ll rip his arms off, the shit, because I had a feeling that once again he’d not finished the job, otherwise he’d have come for his money, and of course his booze. Then one day Michał and I are eating breakfast and he walks in.
“How long are you gonna string me along, damn you! Are you done or not?”
“Almost.”
“What do you mean, almost?!”
“I just have one more spade length to go. I thought it would go quick as anything. The topsoil’s fine, but lower down it’s clay. I could’ve dug three pits in ordinary soil in the time it’s taken to dig this one. You chose a bad place. It’ll be damp there in the clay. Give me at least enough for a beer. I’m cruel tired.”
“Where did you get so tired?”
“Where do you think? Working on your tomb.”
I knew he was cheating me, but here you go, that’s for a beer, just don’t show your face again till the job’s done. And so he didn’t. Almost a full month passed. I thought to myself, I ought to at least go over to the cemetery and see how much he has left to go, maybe I could even finish it myself. I go over there, and my tomb hasn’t even been started. Not even a single spade length. There’s just the outline. I was furious. You lying bastard, you this, you that, I cursed him up and down and swore I’d get even with him. There I was giving you a half-bottle, giving you money for another, and for beer, and on top of everything you had the gall to make up stories about roots and clay!
For a whole week I went looking for him around the village, but it was like he’d moved away for good. Sometimes someone had seen him, but word must have gotten out that I was on the warpath and I was threatening to knock his block off soon as I found him, so he might have been hiding and sleeping during the day then coming out at night like a damn bat. Or maybe it wasn’t me chasing him, but he was the one following me. There was a reason they called him the Postman. As for me, all that hobbling about on my walking sticks and my injured legs, to the pub, to the shrine and back, I’d soon had enough.
I needed to get started on doing the digging myself, because I could have spent another week looking for him and it would have been a waste of time. I never got my spade or my ax back either. I had to borrow a spade off Stach Sobieraj. Luckily I didn’t find any roots or clay.
I was digging virtually with my arms alone, helping myself a bit with my stomach, because whenever I tried to push on the spade with my foot I got a pain that felt like it was coming up from deep in the earth. Though I often had to use my foot, because my arms weren’t enough on their own, and my stomach was sore as anything from helping my arms. I was drenched in sweat, I saw darkness in front of my eyes, I could barely stand, but I had to keep on digging, because who else was going to do it, even half a spade length was good. And I went on like that day after day, like I was struggling with a huge mountain I had to level to the ground as some kind of punishment.
Many days I didn’t even have the strength to walk back home. I’d go down to the road in front of the cemetery, sit by the roadside and wait to see if someone would be driving their wagon from the fields and could give me a ride part of the way. If no one came along I rested a bit, grabbed my walking sticks, put my spade on my back like a rifle, because I’d made a special cord for it like a rifle strap, and off I’d hobble. Some people even joked, they said, what’s this, are you coming home from the wars?
Sometimes I’d had enough of that tomb. The hell with it, I thought to myself, what have I done to deserve having to slave away like this, will someone finally tell me? Father and mother were long since in the ground, my brothers can get buried wherever they like. I’ll put Michał in an ordinary grave, in the earth, and me, when I die, at most the district administration will bury me. They owe me at least that much for all the years I worked there. I went on digging. I swore at the Postman, I cursed God, I cursed myself. And I kept on digging.
At times I regretted not having gone to my grave long ago, because I’d already dug a grave for myself one time, when the Germans took us into the woods to shoot us and ordered us to dig. I’d have been at peace now, I’d be nothing but dust and I wouldn’t have to dig a second time. I’d be lying there and I wouldn’t know a thing, I wouldn’t feel anything, think anything, I wouldn’t be worried about anything. And on the memorial it would say, Szymon Pietruszka, Aged 23, that’s how old I was back then. These days not many folks remember the war, but if you just go to that place you’ll see there’s a nice memorial, it’s clean and tidy and there’s fresh flowers in a jar, who knows who brings them but they’re always there, whether it’s harvesttime or no, mowing, potato digging, spring, summer, fall, whatever happens to be in bloom. Then on All Souls’ there’s also a wreath with ribbons and lit candles, and always a few people standing at the memorial and crying. Who’s going to cry for you when you’re gone?
When they were building the memorial people even came to me from the Borowice district administration, because the bastards had taken us all the way out to the Borowice woods. Three of them there were, the head of the council, at that time he was called chairman, the district secretary, and another guy. They had briefcases and they were all dressed up in suits and ties, even though it was an ordinary weekday, a Tuesday. I’d just come in from mowing the meadow, I was fit to drop, hot, filthy, I was sitting on the bench in my undershirt and Antek’s old pants that came halfway up my shins and had holes in the knees. I’d taken my boots off and propped my feet on them. But when they asked, are you Szymon Pietruszka, I wasn’t going to deny who I was. Szymon Pietruszka. I was taken aback, because I mean, what could people from Borowice want with me? It’s a ways away. I didn’t even know any girls from over there. To begin with, all they said was they’re from the district administration in Borowice, and they started smiling in this dopey way. Have a seat, I said.