Because mother didn’t need to ask anything at all, she cried her eyes out and everything was clear to her. But that’s how things are in the world, for a woman, weeping is there to help when reason stops understanding. And weeping knows everything, words don’t know, thoughts don’t know, dreams don’t know, and sometimes God himself doesn’t know, but human weeping knows. Because weeping is weeping, and it’s also the thing that it’s weeping over.
When mother’s tears eased off she still didn’t ask me anything, she just started telling her own news. That her chickens weren’t laying. Yesterday she only found three eggs. How could she expect them to lay, though? If they’d had wheat they’d be laying. But here all we had was potatoes and chaff, and nothing but what they could find on the ground by themselves. On top of that one of them got eaten by a polecat last month. And it had been the best one, it was going to be a brood hen. The speckled one, remember? I did remember, though there’d been more than one speckled hen. That was one smart hen. The second it caught sight of me it’d come pattering from the other end of the yard to see if I had any grain or bread crumbs to drop down for it. Why did it have to be that one the polecat killed. When it found something to eat on the ground it would rather let the other hens have it than get into a fight with them. It never squeezed through the fence into other people’s farms, or onto the road. And it would always go roost at sundown of its own accord, when the other ones, you’d have to shoo them into the barn. It would have been a good mother to its chicks. I was so glad I had it, Lord I was so glad. But one morning I go into the barn and there’s feathers and blood all over the place. She bled and bled. I’ve never seen so much blood from a single chicken. Another one they had to slaughter cause it looked to have some kind of sickness. It started keeping its distance from the other chickens. Then all it would do was stand by the barn, on one leg. I thought to myself, aha, there’s a storm coming, just don’t let there be lightning, Lord. Or maybe it was hail. That would have ruined everything. All it would do, once in a while it would go over to the water trough and drink and drink, then it would go back near the barn on its one leg. This went on for a day or two. I took a handful of wheat and put it right under its nose, but it never even poked its head out from its feathers. And at night you had to pick it up and carry it into the barn, because on its own it wouldn’t have known it was nighttime. Then, at one moment I lift up its head and I see its eyelids are starting to close up over its eyes, that its eyes are like little tiny millet seeds. You poor thing, I can tell you’re never getting better. Oh dear Lord Jesus!
“Leave him alone, you and your chickens!” Father had had enough. “On and on about them! Like there was nothing in the world except for chickens. I wish that damn polecat would just eat the rest of them. Or the sickness would kill them all.”
At that point mother started crying again. But father must have needed her tears as well. Because he went off on her right away. What are you crying for, you silly woman? What are you crying for?
“It wouldn’t be so bad if you had something to cry about. But what is there to cry over? Did someone hurt you? No, they didn’t. So what is it? You’ve gotten so much into the habit of crying, your tears come whether you’ve a reason to cry or no. So then why? You’ll cry yourself out, then something’ll come along that you really need to cry your heart out over and you won’t be able to. What will you do, cry with dry eyes? With dry eyes you can’t even laugh, let alone cry. Crying’s like money, you need to keep some back for a rainy day. Because a person doesn’t have too much crying in them, that’s a fact. And what they have is all there is. If a person cried like you, with or without a good reason, they’d run out of tears a quarter way through their life, when they need them their whole life through. When the bailiff came you cried just the same, you thought it would do some good. But all he wanted was your sewing machine, the bandit, he didn’t give a tinker’s damn about your tears. So what are they for? He was dead and you cried, now he’s alive and you’re crying. Those tears aren’t worth a thing. That’s what eyelids are for, you squeeze them shut and your tears go back inside. Because otherwise you’d have to cry every time you looked at the sun. Every time the wind blew in your eyes. Or whenever someone poked you in the backside with an awl. Cut it out, for goodness’ sake! You’ve already cried your eyes out, all that’s left are little slits. Then afterwards it’ll be, come thread this needle for me because I can’t see. How can you see when the eye of the needle’s way smaller than a tear. Just so you know, I’m not threading any needles for you, you can do it yourself, go blind.”
He was all riled up, he went to the bed and tugged at mother’s quilt.
“Give it a rest. The polecats’ll kill more chickens. That’s what polecats do. The brown one will be just as good of a brood hen as the speckled one. I don’t know why you think hens are so clever. How smart do you need to be to lay eggs. Sparrows do it, crows do it, everything does it. God told them to lay eggs so they do. Let them so much as try on their own. The only thing they’re smart for is wheat grain. Go throw your tears down for them and see if they come running. For wheat grain they’d come. Though both things are like seeds. I’ll turn down the lamp, maybe that’ll make you stop. Tears like light. It makes them shine. If you must cry, cry in the dark. If we leave the light on now there’ll be no kerosene left for when the cow’s calving, you’ll have cried it all away. Or someone’ll see the light from the road and come running to ask what happened here. What could have happened? Nothing’s happened. Szymek’s back, is all. It’s not the first time. How often did he come back from being with some young girl. From dances. In the early morning. Drunk, sometimes beat up. Mother’s warming him up some dumplings from dinner. And she’s crying because she happened to have just dreamed he was never coming back. But who believes in dreams in wartime, only one in a thousand comes true, and it’s always the dream you didn’t have. If you have to cry, you should cry yourself out in your dreams. Not now, waking up and then crying. Tell me, what are you crying for?”
He must have gotten cold, he was wearing nothing but his long johns and nightshirt. He was barefoot because he’d gotten straight out of bed to let me in, the night was a chilly one and the earth floor was cold. He tugged at the quilt mother was lying under.
“Come on, get up and heat him up those dumplings if you’re going to.”
The moment she got up, he slipped back into bed in the warm place she’d left. He asked her:
“Did I say my prayers this evening?”
“You never say them if I don’t remind you.”
“It must have been yesterday then.” He covered himself with the quilt, even putting his head under.
He couldn’t stand it when mother cried. And when nothing would work to make her stop, he’d do all sorts of strange things. He’d hammer on a pail with the masher, or open and close the door, clatter the pans in the kitchen, or stamp his feet on the floor. Or he’d take the broom and pretend it was a rifle and he’d drill himself, calling out orders to himself the whole time like he was the colonel of a regiment. He’d shout so loud the windows rang. Another time he’d march back and forth across the room with his broom-rifle on his shoulder singing army songs that he knew from long ago, and since he didn’t remember all the words he’d hum and whistle and wheeze the other parts, because he didn’t even have the voice for it. And if that didn’t do the trick either, he’d pretend to cry along with mother, but much louder and more painfully than her. There were times he’d curl up and hide his face in his hands, he’d keep shaking his head and he’d start calling, Lord Jesus, my Lord Jesus, sometimes he’d even shed real tears.