While Boski was busy building the house, Stasia had more peace. By noon she had to feed the animals, and then she got down to making the dinner. First she went to the field, and from the sandy earth she dug up some potatoes. She dreamed she might find treasure under the bushes, jewels wrapped in a rag or a tin full of dollars. Later on as she peeled the small potatoes, she would imagine she was a healer, the potatoes were the sick people who had come to her, and she was removing their illness and cleansing their bodies of all foul matter. Then as she tossed the peeled potatoes into the boiling water she would imagine she was brewing an elixir of beauty, and as soon as she drank it, her life would change once and for all. Some doctor or lawyer from Kielce would see her on the Highway, shower her in gifts and fall in love with her like a princess.
That was why making the dinner took so long.
Imagining is essentially creative; it is a bridge reconciling matter and spirit. Especially when it is done intensely and often. Then the image turns into a drop of matter, and joins the currents of life. Sometimes along the way something in it gets distorted and changes. Therefore, if they are strong enough, all human desires come true – but not always entirely as expected.
One day, when Stasia went outside to pour away the dirty water, she saw a strange man. And it was just as in her dreams. He came up to her and asked the way to Kielce, and she replied. A few hours later he came back and ran into Stasia again, this time with a yoke across her shoulders, so he helped her and they talked for longer. He was not actually a lawyer or a doctor, but a postal worker, employed to install the telephone line from Kielce to Taszów. Stasia found him jolly and self-confident. He arranged to meet her for a walk on Wednesday and for some fun on Saturday. And the amazing thing was that old Boski liked him. The newcomer was called Papuga.
From then on Stasia’s life started taking a different course. She bloomed. She spent time in Jeszkotle and went shopping at Szenbert’s, and everyone saw Papuga driving her there in a chaise. In the autumn of 1937 Stasia fell pregnant, and at Christmas they were married and she became Mrs Papuga. The modest wedding reception was held in the one room of the newly completed cottage. The next day old Boski put up a wooden wall across the room, and in this way he divided the house in two.
In the summer Stasia gave birth to a son. By now the telephone line went far beyond the boundaries of Primeval. Papuga only appeared on Sundays, when he was tired and demanding. His wife’s endearments irritated him, and he was annoyed at having to wait so long for his dinner. Then he only came every other Sunday, and at All Saints he didn’t turn up at all. He said he had to visit his parents’ graves, and Stasia believed him.
As she waited for him with the Christmas Eve supper, she saw her reflection in the windowpane, which the night had made into a mirror, and realised Papuga had gone for good.
THE TIME OF MISIA’S ANGEL
As Misia was giving birth to her first child, the angel showed her Jerusalem.
Misia was lying in bed in her bedroom between white sheets, amid a scent of floors scrubbed with lye, shielded from the sun by grosgrain lily-pattern curtains. The doctor from Jeszkotle was there, and a nurse, and Genowefa, and Paweł, who kept sterilising all sorts of instruments, and the angel, whom no one could see.
Everything was muddled in Misia’s head. She was tired. The pains came suddenly, and she couldn’t cope with them. She drifted into a sleep, a half-sleep, a waking dream. She imagined she was as tiny as a coffee bean and was falling into the funnel of a grinder as vast as the manor house. Down she fell into the black abyss, and landed in the grinding machinery. It hurt. Her body was being turned into dust.
The angel could see Misia’s thoughts and felt for her body, though it could not understand what the pain was really like. So for a brief moment it took Misia’s soul away to a completely different place, and showed her Jerusalem.
Misia saw vast stretches of a tawny desert that undulated as if it were in motion. In a gentle depression in this sea of sand lay a city. It was circular. Around it there were stone walls, in which stood four gates. The first gate was the Milk Gate, the second Honey, the third Wine, and the fourth Olive Oil. From each gate a single road led into the middle. Along the first oxen were being driven, along the second lions were being led, along the third falcons were being carried, and along the fourth people were walking. Misia found herself in the middle of the city, where on a cobbled marketplace stood the Saviour’s house. She was standing outside his door.
To her surprise, someone knocked from the inside, and Misia asked: “Who’s there?” “It’s me,” replied a voice. “Come in,” she said. Then the Lord Jesus came out to her and hugged her to his chest. Misia could smell the scent of the cloth in which he was dressed. The Lord Jesus and the entire world loved her.
But at this point Misia’s angel, who was paying close attention all the time, took her from the arms of the Lord Jesus and threw her back into her child-bearing body. Misia sighed and gave birth to a son.
THE TIME OF CORNSPIKE
During the first autumn full moon Cornspike dug up the roots of herbs – soapwort, comfrey, coriander, chicory, and marshmallow. There were lots of them growing by the ponds in Primeval. So Cornspike would take her daughter with her, and they would walk by night through the forest and village.
One day as they were passing Maybug Hill, they saw a hunched female figure surrounded by dogs. The silver moonlight was making the tops of all their heads white.
Cornspike headed towards the woman, pulling Ruta after her. They went up to the old woman. The dogs began to growl anxiously.
“Florentynka,” said Cornspike softly.
The woman turned to face them. Her eyes were faded, as if rinsed out. Her face was like a shrivelled apple. A skinny grey plait lay on her thin shoulders.
They sat on the ground next to the old woman. They started gazing, as she was, at the great, round, self-satisfied face of the moon.
“He took my children, he fooled my old man, and now he’s muddled my senses,” complained Florentynka.
Cornspike sighed heavily and stared into the face of the moon.
One of the dogs suddenly began to howl.
“I had a dream,” said Cornspike. “The moon knocked at my windows and said: ‘You haven’t got a mother, Cornspike, and your daughter hasn’t got a grandmother, is that right?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. And then he said: ‘In the village there is a good, lonely woman, whom I once wronged, I don’t even know why any more. She hasn’t any children or grandchildren. Go to her and tell her to forgive me. I am old now and I have a weak mind.’ That’s what he said. And then he added: ‘You’ll find her on the Hill, that’s where she curses me, every month when I appear to the world in my complete form.’ Then I asked him: ‘Why do you want her to forgive you? What do you need a human being’s forgiveness for?’ And he replied: ‘Because human suffering carves dark furrows on my face. One day I’ll be extinguished by human pain.’ That’s what he told me, so here I am.”
Florentynka stared piercingly into Cornspike’s eyes.
“Is that the truth?”
“It is. The pure truth.”
“He wanted me to forgive him?”
“Yes.”
“And for you to be my daughter, and her my granddaughter?”
“That’s what he told me.”
Florentynka raised her face to the sky and something shone in her pale eyes.
“Granny, what’s the big dog’s name?” asked little Ruta.
“Billygoat.”
“Billygoat?”