We’d sometimes laugh so hard at father it made our bellies hurt. Though with me it didn’t take much, I’d laugh at anything at all. It was like a pair of invisible hands were tickling me under the arms, and even if no one was in the mood to laugh, I’d burst out laughing out of the blue and for no reason. We could be sitting at the table and eating, there was nothing but the clink of spoons and the sounds of eating, and that would set me off. We could be kneeling at our beds in the evening repeating our prayers aloud after mother. Or even when father was sharpening his razor and had me hold the other end of the strop.
The laughter would first of all start pricking me with needles, then all of a sudden it would spread like fire though a haystack and there was nothing I could do to stop it, however much I might have squeezed my eyes and my mouth shut and held it inside with all my will. I could have scraped my fists against my cheeks and pulled at my hair and hunched over till my head was between my knees, the laughter would still bubble up and boil up and I’d curl over laughing. Then when father started in on me, saying, what are you laughing at, you twit, I’d laugh even more. And then, when he’d sometimes give me a whack across the head, then everything in me would be howling with laughter, my head, my belly, my legs, my arms. Worst of all was when it happened at a mealtime, because father would stop eating and wait furiously till I stopped, but I’d laugh so much I almost fell to pieces.
“Come on, eat up while it’s still hot,” mother would say to calm him down. “He’ll laugh his fill and then he’ll stop. Everyone has to go through their own foolishness. Did you never laugh when you were his age? He’s still a child.”
But often she didn’t succeed in calming him, and when his fury got too much for him he’d jump up and grab me by the scruff of the neck and throw me out of the house, go do your laughing outside, damn you!
But I never got my fill of laughter as much as when father would make fun of mother crying. At those times he allowed us to laugh as well, he even encouraged us, go on, you keep laughing, maybe she’ll stop. So we all laughed. Even Michał laughed, though he’d been a gloomy kid ever since he was little and he rarely laughed. Because of that I didn’t like sharing a bed with him, because I could never have any fun with him before we went to sleep. He always either had a headache or a stomachache, or he’d tell me to stop because we’d tear the quilt, that we’d already said our prayers and God might get angry with us. When I tickled him it would sometimes make him cry. Even mother would say to him:
“You should laugh more, Michał, why are you so glum. See, everyone’s laughing.”
I mean, how could you not laugh when the mummers came by after the New Year, and Stach Szczypa was the devil with a black face, he wore an inside-out sheepskin jacket, he had a tail stuck to his backside and horns on his head, and he ran around the house like a madman sticking everyone with his pitchfork like he was taking them to hell. Anyone would have laughed at that. But Michał got all scared and went pale, he clung to mother and no one could explain to him that it was only Stach.
“It’s just Stach Szczypa, son, don’t be frightened. Tell him you’re Stach Szczypa, Mr. Devil.”
Antek as well, when father would make fun of mother crying he’d enjoy it so much he’d squeal and he’d laugh so hard he’d sometimes wet himself, though he was so small he was still crawling around on all fours. And Stasiek in his cradle, though he was too young to be able to laugh, he’d still try and gurgle in his own way. Even mother, you got the feeling she was only pretending to cry and that deep in her heart she was laughing with us and with father.
It was only much, much later, when I’d long gotten over the laughter, that I finally realized why father would make fun of mother crying, why he’d drill himself and sing army songs, why he’d rattle the pots and slam the door and bang on the pail with a masher and do all those crazy things. Because just like him, I couldn’t bear it when mother would cry. I’d rather have mucked out the stable from dawn till dusk, or said rosaries for every one of us the way she did for us, than see her crying. In theory I could have just said, let her cry, crying is what mothers are supposed to do. But I couldn’t. Often I’d be mad at myself that I didn’t happen to be out in the fields at the time, or at the pub, or with a girl, or with the guys down in the village, there were so many places where no one was crying, but here I was sitting at home, letting her cry like a child. Every tear of hers caused me pain. I could have lifted up a horse, or a wagon, I had so much strength in me, but I didn’t have the strength to raise my head and look into her teary face. I’d just sit there staring at the ground. I didn’t even have the courage to say, don’t cry, mother. I felt almost guilty for her crying, hurt by it, and I didn’t hurt easily. Her crying fell on me like rain from a cloudy sky, and I just sat there meekly getting wet, like I’d deliberately gone and stood out in that rain of tears so it would fall on me.
Sometimes the crying did something to me, it was as if she was still carrying me in her belly, and together we were carrying something heavy, together we were picking up sheaves of hay during the mowing, and the sun was burning down on both our backs at the same time. I was bending over just like her and standing with her up to my knees in the river and we were washing clothes, beating them with the washing beetle, and the echo carried along the water all the way to the source of the river in one direction and its mouth in the other. Then when we went to the store to buy salt or kerosene or matches, I’d even hear the other women in there saying to her, so not much longer, huh, Magdzia? Any day now. And she would answer that it was still a long time yet, maybe it would never happen. And with my hands inside her hands she’d pick thyme and horsetail and chamomile, and all the herbs that grow along the field boundaries. And when she was kneading dough in the kneading-trough to make bread, I was in her and I was already the bread inside her. And after the whole day, when we were both exhausted, we would kneel to our prayers like a single body, me inside her knees.
Even at moments when she was weeping for joy, like now, I still felt guilty towards her, though I had no idea why. Maybe our wrongs are only known to our mothers, never mind what they say about only God knowing them. She must have known for me the things I didn’t know myself.
Of the four of us brothers, I was probably the one mother cried over the most. Then Michał. But with Michał, obviously he’s not going to understand any of it. Even if someone cried and cried. Because it wasn’t anything that could be understood either through reason or through crying. Though you can sometimes understand things more through crying than with your reason. In any case it’s a lot easier after you’ve cried your fill than after you’ve understood. Because it’s only through crying that you can be with someone when you’re apart forever.
As for Stasiek and Antek, of course she cried, that’s how it is — you always cry for the ones that are gone. But I was there, except for the war I’d been at home all the time from when I was a kid till now, what was there to cry about? Unless she was crying for all of us and it just happened to be me that was there. The fact was, I lived however I could and however I had to, it couldn’t have been any different, because no one lives the way they want to. Besides, even if you could live the way you wanted, would you be any the happier? You can never tell if the way you’d like to live wouldn’t actually be worse. Maybe everyone has a different life than the one they’d want, but it’s the best one they can have. When I was small she’d cry over me, but all mothers cry over their little ones. Not just people, cows do it, mares, bitches, she-cats.