We had a she-cat once, I drowned her kittens. She’d had five of them. She’d wandered off somewhere, the attic or the barn. She wasn’t much of a mother. She’d sometimes leave those kittens all day long on their own, they’d mew for her so bad it wouldn’t even help if you gave them milk in a saucer. Besides, she’d had so many kittens you’d have thought she would forget whether she’d had them now or another time. Towards evening she slunk up, she saw that the old sieve where the kittens had been was empty, and she started rushing around the room like a mad thing. She crawled under the bed, jumped on the stove, she even hopped into Stasiek’s cradle and set him wailing. Father grabbed her and tossed her outside, but she started scratching at the door and mewing in this terrible voice so he had to let her back in. Mother gave father and me a telling-off for being so heartless, she took the cat on her lap, stroked her, and talked to her like one mother to another. But the cat soon jumped down and went back to the empty place where the kittens had been. She rolled into a ball there and we thought she’d gotten over it. Father even said that cats don’t hurt for long, and they cry even less, but in the morning she was dead. Except that with cats, when they grow up they don’t know each other, even a mother and her child, it’s like they were strangers, just two cats. Whereas me, I was already a young man but mother still liked to weep over me. It was as if her tears had stayed with her permanently from when I was a kid. And even when she was dying, instead of at least one time thinking about herself, she took my head in her skinny hands and wept over me. Then she passed away.
Something took hold of my throat and I couldn’t cry. The women that came to say goodbye to mother tried to get me to.
“You should have a cry, Szymek, you really should. A person ought to cry for their own mother. Even if they don’t think they can. Especially a mother like yours.”
But I couldn’t. Father was crying, he cried any time anyone came, even Michał was looking at mother in this odd way like he didn’t know whether he should cry, or instead not believe her that she was dead. But with me, something got stuck inside and I couldn’t do it.
Come to think of it, when was the last time I’d cried? It must have been when the Kubiks’ cow was calving on the meadow. I’d have been about ten years old. After that, never. I could say about myself that I’d gotten through life without crying.
Back then we used to graze the cattle on the meadow by the brick kiln. There was quite a band of us, and maybe three times that many cows, it was almost all the cows in the village. With so many cows it went without saying some of them had to be pregnant, because the pregnant ones were only kept back home a week before they were due to calve. Besides, no one worried whether they were pregnant or not. When your dads told you to take them out to pasture, you did it. You didn’t whack them so hard when they were pregnant, but it had to be plain to see. With the Kubiks’ cow you couldn’t tell anything from looking at it. It may have been a bit broader when you looked at it head-on, but it could just have had more to eat than usual. Wacek, the Kubiks’ boy, he didn’t say anything either, plus he was a stutterer and he liked to shout louder than any of us, because for us it was all a big game, and he didn’t give a second thought to his cow.
We played mountain. We’d shout, you, Fredek! Or, you, Kazek! Or, you, Jędrek! And whoever it was, he had to run away and the others tried to catch him. The first one that got to him jumped on top of him, then the others followed, till we made a mountain.
Władek Koziej was it, he was the smallest boy on the meadow. He didn’t want to play. He begged us and cried and promised he’d bring us wild pears, that he’d steal tobacco from his father and bring it for us. Then, when we were all jumping on top of him he squirmed and shouted, let me breathe! Let me breathe!
Later on, when we were young men we served in the fire brigade together. One time, in the spring we went to a flood. Actually it wasn’t even spring yet, it was just that the sun had been so warm for some reason that the ice had shifted and broken a dike over by Mikulczyce. Mikulczyce and Borek and Walentynów all got flooded out. As far as the eye could see, it was terrible. So much human suffering, it made you want to call out to God, where are you, Lord? We helped people down out of attics and trees and off roofs, they were mostly wet through and crying and half dead, because some of them had already given up hope of being rescued. We traveled by boat, but we couldn’t always get where we needed to be, because either there were fences in the way or blocks of ice, so we had to wade through the water on foot, and push the ice aside with our bare hands.
I was fine, I knocked back a bottle right afterwards and that was the end of the flood for me. Władek drank too, but he had to take to his bed right afterward, he was white as a sheet and shaking. When they cupped him, the marks were like black stamps. Then he started coughing, and he coughed worse and worse.
“You’ll get over it, Władek,” I said to comfort him. “All the bad blood’s been drawn out of you.”
Then they applied leeches. Then he drank herbs. But he got weaker and weaker, you could see him fading away. One day they sent for me and told me he was dying.
“I can’t breathe, you know, Szymuś,” he whispered. You could tell it hurt for him to use what was left of his voice. “Just like that time on the meadow, remember? It’s like you were all piled on top of me again. Let me breathe, just let me breathe.”
Suddenly someone shouted that the Kubiks’ cow had fallen over and it was grunting. The ones on top of the mountain jumped off and ran across the meadow, with me in the lead, because no one was faster than me. Behind me was Kazek Sroka and Stach Sobieraj, then all the others came after. But before they were even on their feet, we’d already reached the cow. She was lying there like something was pressing her down, she was rubbing her muzzle on the grass, and moaning the same way a person moans when they’re writhing in pain.
“She’s dying!” shouted Kazek, and he took off running. The others followed him like a flock of sparrows scared away, one after another, virtually racing each other. Even Wacek Kubik, he burst out crying but then he ran after them as well.
I started shouting, maybe she wasn’t dying, maybe she’d just eaten something, but they were already quite a ways from me. I could have set off after them, I would have caught up with them, let her die. Wasn’t my cow. But I wasn’t going to be the last one to run away. Running away the last was like being the biggest yellowbelly of all. Or even worse, you’re not running away because of your own fear but because of other people’s. As for the cow, it wasn’t mine, but it was still a cow. How could I run away from it? So I stayed. I just shouted after them:
“Cowards! Cowards!”
As for Wacek Kubik, I promised myself he’d get a knuckle sandwich from me later, because it was his cow, not mine.
All of a sudden the cow tossed her head, her side swelled up in a big lump, and inside the lump something started to move like it was trying to get out but didn’t know how. I thought to myself, she’s probably calving, and I got gooseflesh. I’d have preferred it to be dying. I’d never seen a cow calving from up close. Our cows had had calves, but father never let me into the barn when it was happening, he’d say I was still too young. Mother would bring him hot water, and he’d do whatever he did in the barn, behind closed doors. They’d only call me after the calf was born, to come take a look. One time I got angry and I told him I already knew everything, I’d seen a bull climbing on a cow, and a stallion on a mare, and a dog on a bitch, and everything on everything, I even saw Stefek Kulawik climbing on Bronka Siejka when she had no clothes on one time in the bushes along the river. But he told me those were dirty things, this was suffering and I’d have to grow up first.