One time the music teacher gave us a big funerary candle he’d bought for himself. Another time, before Christmas the boys stole a packet of Christmas tree candles from somewhere or other. But we used them all up even before Christmas, because the power went off almost every day. So our little Christmas tree had no candles. Yes, they let us have one. It stood in the rec room. They got it from the woods, it was decorated with something or other, we made our own ornaments and chains and streamers. But without candles it wasn’t a proper Christmas tree.
You like having a Christmas tree? I used to too. But it had to have real candles burning. It didn’t need to have much in the way of decorations, but it had to have lighted candles. It was always us kids that lit them, according to age, except backwards, first me as the youngest, then Leonka, then Jagoda. I couldn’t reach the highest ones so father would lift me up. They were real, of course, they burned with a living flame. They had to be real so the tree would be real too. I was an electrician, but I don’t like electric candles, that’s the truth. These days everyone has electric ones, but in my book those aren’t real candles. Their light has no life in it.
Wigilia — Christmas Eve dinner — always began with lighting the candles on the Christmas tree. Then mother would put a white tablecloth on the table and bring in the different dishes. There were always twelve of them. First we’d share the Christmas wafer, then we’d all sit at the table. Everyone had their own place at Wigilia. And everyone ate carefully so as for goodness’ sake not to spill anything on the tablecloth. Even Granddad only took small spoonfuls so the soup wouldn’t dribble. And he would eat like he never used to, without slurping or smacking his lips. Grandmother even complimented him, couldn’t you eat like that every day?
It wasn’t just an ordinary tablecloth. Mother only ever used it for Wigilia. She’d woven it and embroidered it herself, intending it all along to be only for Wigilia. Everyone knew how much work had gone into that tablecloth. She’d even sown the flax for the linen herself, in the best soil. She sowed it sparsely so the sun would reach each stalk. Then she went out every day to see how it was doing. Whenever a weed would poke its head out of the ground, right away she’d pull it out. So when the flax grew, it was a handsome crop, let me tell you. She cut it herself with a sickle. Exactly, you didn’t know what a sickle is. She used a sickle so as not to break the stalks. It dried for a long time in the sun, then later for a bit longer still in the barn. Then it was bound in sheaves, fastened with pegs down in the Rutka where the current ran fastest, and soaked there. Then it was dried again. Then she broke it up in the brake. I won’t go into what a brake is. In other places they call it a flax mill. She threw out any fibers that were too thick or too short. You can’t imagine how much sorting and combing there was. Till all that was left was a kind of gossamer. So every Wigilia, Grandmother would tell us the tablecloth was woven from gossamer.
Once the fabric had been woven, she washed it and dried it several times over. When the sun shone she’d spread it out on the grass to make it even whiter. Though it was hard to imagine it could get any whiter than it was. All summer long almost, day after day, if only the sun came out she’d spread the tablecloth in the sunlight. It wasn’t till winter that she set about embroidering it. It was supposed to be ready for Wigilia that year, but she kept embroidering it more and more, and it wasn’t till Wigilia of the following year that it was finished. As she worked on it she taught both Jagoda and Leonka to embroider. She embroidered a whole Garden of Eden. It was fancier than you see in some pictures. Grandfather, once he’d taken the edge off of his appetite, he liked to move his finger over mother’s embroidery.
“That’s where we’ll be,” he would say. “See, that’s where we’ll be.”
What did we eat at Wigilia? First a little cheese with mint, to represent the shepherds. Then ?urek sour rye soup with wild mushrooms and buckwheat kasha. Pierogies with cabbage and mushrooms. Potatoes boiled in their skins, and salted. Whey soup to wash it down. Pierogies with dried plums, sprinkled with nuts and slathered with fried sour cream. Noodles with poppy seed. Boiled or fried fish. You have no idea how many fish there were in the Rutka back then. These days, in the lake you won’t find half of what there used to be. I see it, people come here to fish and they sit for hours and hours by their poles. Sometimes I go watch, and it’s rare that any of them gets a bite. Back in the day you could catch something just by dipping a basket in the river. You’d put it in near the bank, tap a stick against where it had holes, and every time something would end up inside it. Before Wigilia, when the Rutka froze over, you’d cut a hole in the ice, drop a net through it, and wait till a fish came along. Anyway, after that there’d be cabbage and peas, or cabbage on its own, fried in linseed oil. If it was cabbage on its own, then separately there’d be green beans in honey and vinegar. If it was cabbage with peas, there wouldn’t be any green beans, just broad beans, that you had to take the skin off of. Then cranberry jelly. And finally compote from dried fruit.
We’d eat till we were fit to burst, even though it was always just a little of each dish. After that we’d go to midnight mass. Us children, we were usually sleepy by then, since the mass started so late. But we still had to go. It was only then that we’d put out the candles on the tree. To be honest, it wasn’t the dishes, it was the candles that kind of proved it was Wigilia. When they were lit like that, I was prepared to believe anything. I believed in mother’s tablecloth and in what grandfather said about how that was where we would be going, as he passed his finger across the embroidery. Sometimes I even had the feeling we were already there.
Maybe that’s why for the whole of my life I’ve always liked to see candles burning. Whenever I was at some party abroad, if there were candles burning as well as ceiling lamps and wall lamps, I’d always remember that particular party. Whenever I invited anyone to my place, I’d always have to have candles. When the guests left, if the candles were still burning I’d not put them out. I’d sit there till they burned out by themselves. You might not believe me, but it hurts me to put out a candle. I have the feeling I’m shortening its life. As if something was suddenly ending, while nothing else was beginning. As if I were extinguishing something inside myself. I don’t know how I can explain it to you.
Let me put it this way. In my view, there’s something in a burning candle. Maybe everything. The same way that a drop of water contains all water, every body of water there is. Try putting out a candle one day.
I have two candlesticks. Silver. I bought them when I was living abroad. As if I knew you’d come visit me one day. If not right away, then at some time in the future. Shall I fetch them? They’re through there in the living room. On the sideboard. I can put candles in them, we’ll light them and watch them burn, and you’ll see. I used to sometimes swing by an antique shop on the ground floor of the building I lived in. For no particular reason. I liked looking at all the old furniture, pictures, objects. All those cabinets, chests of drawers, writing bureaus, looking glasses, lamps, clocks, or even the inkstands, blotters, paper knives. When you think about it, all that furniture and those objects contain an infinite number of human touches, looks, how many heartbeats, sighs, sorrows, tears, fears, and of course smiles, excitements, outbursts of joy, though a lot fewer of those, those are always rarer. Or how many words, just think about it. Now all of that has gone. But has it really? For instance, a mortar for grinding pepper or cinnamon, when I touched it, you have to believe me, it would speak to me. It’s just that it wasn’t given to me to hear it.