I almost got lost there myself. Yeah, that time the fog held me up on the way. It was all quiet and deserted, and just like you I went into the woods to find where the graves are. That was basically why I’d come in the first place. I didn’t know exactly where they were, only that they were in the woods. When Mr. Robert told me about them, he just waved toward the woods in general, as if to say, over that way. But the woods go on and on, where are you supposed to start? And if they were at least together, but no, they’re all over the place. I walked about the whole day, I don’t even remember how many of them I found that day. I didn’t notice it had started to get dark. Especially because the darkness doesn’t come all at once, as you know. For a long time you think you can see fine. And since you can see … I knew the woods, so I somehow managed to find my way back in the dark. But imagine this, it was only when I came out by the lake that I no longer knew where I was. On this shore or the other one. I remembered which direction the Rutka flowed, but now it seemed to me it was the opposite. The cabins could just about be made out in the darkness, but which one was Mr. Robert’s, I couldn’t have said. So I just stood there, I was completely unable to get my bearings. I even started to doubt whether it was me standing where I was standing.
All of a sudden, I saw a tiny light in the distance. At first it was ever so faint. I thought someone must be walking, lighting their way with a flashlight. But I didn’t know how I could call to them, whether they’d hear me at that distance, since I myself didn’t know where I was. All at once the light grew brighter, it stopped moving, and it came much closer. It was like I was standing on this side of the Rutka and it was shining on the other side. At that moment you know what I thought? That they must be shelling beans at our place. And imagine this, they actually were.
Bean shelling always began with a light. Mother would wash the dishes after dinner, sweep up, then till dusk she’d disappear between the bed and the dresser with a rosary in her hands. Grandmother usually dozed off. Granddad would go out into the yard to check that everything was in its place. It was like everyone was waiting for the dusk, when we were going to shell beans. Father would sit on the bench by the window and smoke one cigarette after another, and stare out the window like he was expecting someone. Dusk gradually crept in everywhere, and he would just keep staring and staring out the window. You might have thought it was the dusk he was watching. But can you ever tell what a person’s staring at? You think they’re staring at one thing or another, but they may be staring inside themselves. People have things to look at inside themselves, that’s for sure. But perhaps he was also staring at the dusk as it settled in. What could have been so interesting about the dusk? Let me tell you, I often stare myself as dusk is falling, and at those times, I wonder whether it’s the same dusk my father used to stare at. That means something. From time to time he’d sort of accompany his staring with a running commentary:
“The days are really getting shorter. They really are. There’s barely room for people in them. They’re hardly over, and here it’s night. Why does there have to be so much night? What’s it for?” And as he put out yet another cigarette he’d turn to mother and say: “Light the lamp.”
Mother would get up from her rosary. She’d take the lamp down from the nail on the wall and check there was enough kerosene in it for the shelling. Sometimes she asked father:
“Should I top it up?”
To which he would usually say:
“Sure.” And he’d never fail to remind her to trim the wick, because it was probably burned hard, or to clean the glass because it had gotten sooty the day before.
He didn’t need to. Mother would have done those things anyway. Getting the lamp ready was like the crowning moment of the day for her. A kind of thanksgiving even, that the day had been gotten through. So she put all of her care into those preparations, as if surviving the next day depended on it. When she brought the match to the wick her hand would tremble and her face would be intent. After she put the glass back on the lamp she’d keep watching to make sure the flame caught. Only then would she turn the wick up a little. Her eyes behind their wire-rimmed glasses were lit up from underneath, and her expression would show she couldn’t quite believe that the miracle of light had happened by her own hand.
You may not believe me, but I couldn’t wait for the moment when mother would light the lamp. As soon as it started to get dark outside, I’d beg her: “Light the lamp, Mama, light the lamp.” I can’t explain it, but I wanted the light in our window to be the first one in the village. Father would hold her back, say it’s still too early, we can still see each other. Grandfather and grandmother would agree, they’d say it was a waste of kerosene. Uncle Jan would get up for a drink of water, which perhaps meant he had no need of light in general. And in my mother’s eyes there’d be a sort of indulgent smile as if she understood why I was so anxious for her to light the lamp.
Whenever she’d reach for the lamp on its nail on the wall, I’d rush out of the house, run down to the Rutka and wait there till the miracle of light by mother’s hand appeared in our window. When the first light in the whole village came on in our window, it was like the first light in the entire world. Let me tell you, the first light is completely different than when there are already lights here and there, in all the other windows, in all the other houses. It shines differently, and it’s immaterial whether it comes from a kerosene lamp or an electric bulb. It can be faint, like from a kerosene lamp, but you still have the impression it’s not just shining. It’s alive. Because the way I see it, there are living lights and dead lights. The kind that only shine, and the kind that remember. Ones that repel you, and ones that invite you. Ones that see, and ones that don’t know you. Ones that it’s all the same to them who they’re shining for, and ones that know who they shine for. Ones that however bright they shine, they’re still blind. And ones that even if they’re barely glowing, still they can see all the way to the end of life. They’d break through any darkness. The deepest shadows will surrender to them. For them there are no boundaries, there’s no time or space. They’re capable of summoning the most ancient memory, however eroded it is, even if a person’s been cut off from it. I don’t know if you agree, but in my view memory is like light that’s streaming toward us from a long-dead star. Or even just from a kerosene lamp. Except it’s not always able to reach us during our lifetime. It depends how far it has to travel and how far away from it we are. Because those two things aren’t the same. Actually, it may be that everything in general is memory. The whole of this world of ours ever since it’s existed. Including the two of us here, these dogs. Whose memory? That I don’t know.