“Have people never thought about attacking the rich folks’ houses?”
Grandfather realized right away, so that’s what this is about, you old son of a gun, and he said:
“What for?”
“You know, to burn and steal and kill!”
“Not at all, the village people are God-fearing, they’re quiet, hardworking. We live fine with the rich folk.”
“How’s that?” said the squire, his hackles rising. “Don’t you want to be the masters?”
“Being peasants is good too,” said grandfather cleverly. “That’s how things were set up, evidently it’s for the best.” So the other man gets even more upset, and starts banging his cane on the road and saying people ought to attack the manors. That the rich folk have done them so much wrong, and they’re still at it. And he starts going on about what they could burn, how much blood could be spilled, how much weeping there’d be, it’d be like the whole world was crashing down, not just the rich folks’ houses. Grandfather’s legs began to shake and he crossed himself out of fear. At that moment the wind blew up and knocked the other man’s top hat off, and grandfather saw he had horns on his head.
“Let me go, Satan!” he shouted, and all of a sudden no one was holding his arm anymore.
But was I going to be scared of a devil? I bought the willow. I put it down by the barn, and it’s been lying there ever since. Because truth be told, it’s no good either for chopping up for firewood, or for making something out of. Though at least I have the willow, after I missed out on an acacia. I can’t say I’ve seen the dog bristling at it or the cat giving it a wide berth. The chickens like it the best, they roost on it all the time. If there’s a devil in there let him come out and we’ll square up. Later on I tried to buy an acacia off Józef Winiarczyk, I offered him double the price. He’d bought six of them and I said to him, what do you need so many for. I could have used it to have a new wagon made. Or if not a wagon then a new table. Actually I need a table even more. The one I have now I got way back when the front came through and it’s barely standing. You can’t put anything heavy on it or lean on it. If you move it, it creaks and sways like it was in the wind. Not long ago I had to put a new leg on it. The dog rubbed against the old one and it fell off. Before that I had to replace the middle board. I put a bowl of cabbage on it and the next thing I know it’s crashing to the ground. I sawed off a piece of an old sideboard from the wagon. It was rotten as well but I didn’t have anything else. When I hammered in the nails they went in like it was butter. The leg I made out of the plum tree that had stood there dead for a good few years, I just hadn’t had time to dig it up. It doesn’t match the other three legs, but at least the table’s standing. I mean, how can plumwood match when the other three are carved oak. Each one’s got a sort of wreath around it at the top, while at the bottom they’re slim as horses’ fetlocks and they have these funny paws that stand on the floor.
Right after the front passed through and I was doing a bit of work as a barber, when a bunch of farmers would gather together here on a Sunday they’d always argue about those legs. There were even bets about whether they were lions’ feet or if they were some other monster. No one managed to figure it out, but we got through a good few bottles while we were trying. And it wasn’t just about the legs but also who’d sat at the table, what they’d eaten and drunk. There were times they got so excited when they were guessing that it turned into a feast. You’d hear nothing but laughter and shouts and cheers. Even popping corks and clinking glasses. The table would be groaning under the weight of the food. And they’d keep bringing more and more dishes. The smells would make your head spin. Till finally one of them would come to his senses and say:
“Come on, get on with shaving us, Szymek. All those bastards are stuffing themselves, and we’re walking around like Moses with these beards.”
But back then the table still had all four legs, and there was this sort of bindweed twirled across the top. There was a drawer with a gilt handle. It was a good place to keep your pliers and hammer, screws, nails, shaving equipment, receipts, mother’s old rosaries, because she had four of them. One of them was even from the pilgrimage my mother took me on one time when I was a kid.
But when I came home from the hospital the drawer had disappeared. Someone must have taken a liking to it. From that time on there was a hole in the table, like it had no soul. Also, the top had long lost its shine, and it was covered with woodworm holes that looked like freckles on a freckly face. What can I say, a person’s time comes and so does a table’s.
I found it the day after I came back from the resistance. Father had told me to go check whether our fields weren’t mined, because spring was coming and we’d have to plow and sow. Though really it was nowhere near springtime, there was still snow on the ground. Not far from our land I was just poking around and I saw something lying on manor property in the unmown rye, under a sprinkling of snow. A body? No, it was a tabletop. So I started to look for the legs. I found one straightaway close by, then two others way over by the woods. Then the fourth one turned up in a ruined potato clamp when I was looking for shoes for Stasiek. The drawer I spotted around Easter at our neighbor’s. He was feeding the pigs out of it.
“Karol,” I say, “I think that drawer might fit my table. You could take my trough. It makes no difference to the pigs what they eat out of, and we could share a bottle together.”
“Sure, why not,” he says. “But if you give me the trough so the pigs’ll have something to eat out of, what’ll you give me for the drawer?”
“What do you mean? I just told you.”
“Sure you did. But what’ll you give me?”
“You’ll take my trough and we’ll have a bottle together.”
“We can have a bottle together. But you’ll have to throw in a half-bushel of rye. Your folks managed to gather it in before the front came through, on my field they dug trenches. And for the handle you can lend me your horse for plowing for a day or two. It’s no ordinary handle. It’s a bit dirty, but if you clean it up with ash it’ll shine. You could make a nice door handle out of it. And never mind that I found it on my land. Or how many mines there were. My kid spent a week getting rid of them. Day after day we were terrified he’d get blown up. Bolek, the Szczerbas’ kid, was clearing mines over there, and that was the end of him. There wasn’t a body left even. An arm here, a leg there. That way you get your drawer practically for free.”
And that was how the table ended up back together.
Mother even killed a chicken and made broth to celebrate. We sit down at the table, me opposite father, Stasiek and Antek opposite mother. We cross ourselves and start to eat. Father says:
“Finally we’re eating like human beings.”
Mother sighs:
“Lord, if only Michał was with us. All these years and no word, no sign. Who knows if he’s even still alive?”
“He’s alive, he’s alive,” father reassures her.
And Stasiek tries to change the subject and says:
“Can you imagine if someone came to visit right now, with the chicken, and the table.”
And it was like he’d said it in an evil hour. The door opens and in comes Mateja from across the river.
“Christ be praised.”
“Forever and ever.” But I can see there’s something about him. He’s smiling, but there’s a fox in his eyes, you can even see its teeth.
“You’re having chicken,” he says. “Lucky for you.”
“We got a new table so I killed a chicken,” mother explains.
“I know you do. That’s what I’m here about.” And without so much as a by-your-leave he starts checking the table from every side, tapping it, rapping it, tugging at the legs to see if it isn’t wobbly, patting it like you pat a horse’s rump, and in the end he says it’s his table.