I spent all Saturday bringing in the sheaves, till late at night, and I counted on finishing Monday. The horse could rest up on Sunday, eat its fill of oats, then on Monday he’d work like a machine. And I’d be fresher after Sunday as well.
On Sunday there happened to be a church fair because it was the Feast of the Assumption. I’ve always liked fairs ever since I was a kid, so I went. But fairs aren’t what they used to be. Two or three wagons, other than that it was all cars and motorcycles. More outsiders than locals. There was no knowing where they’d all come from or why. Pretzels with no taste, nothing but water and baking powder and flour; back then you could have any kind you wanted. And there wasn’t half the stuff for sale there used to be. Back then there’d be two or three rows of stalls around the church wall, and every one loaded with things, especially all kinds of candies. Even the grown-ups would be watering at the mouth. And you could buy whatever your heart desired. Every animal that ever lived under the sun. Every saint there ever was. Our Ladies, big ones, small ones, with veils or wreaths on their head, crowned, with an Infant Jesus and without. Lord Jesuses on the cross and fallen under the cross, on Golgotha, with the lamb, risen from the dead. Armfuls of rosaries, beads, all sorts of trinkets. And on every stall, piles of mouth organs, swords, trumpets, pipes, whistles, everything a child could wish for. There was bunion cream, shoe polish, whetstones. You could listen to adventures from wartime, from plagues, from the wide world. People played and sang songs about bandits and rebels and bad children who threw their parents out of the house, and about evil stepmothers. There were people prophesying what would happen in a year’s time, in ten years and a hundred, and a good few things even came true. You could play black-and-white, hoops, dice, fishing, or try the shooting gallery. You could have a tooth pulled on the spot if you had the toothache. Or get your boots patched. Or have your picture taken in an airplane, on a camel, in a general’s uniform, or with your girl in a cutout heart.
But today? Today it’s all about conning people out of their money. And people are daft as monkeys, they’ll let themselves get taken in by any old thing. They buy and buy, whatever’s put in front of them, you can barely push through to see what’s at the stalls. Though even if I wanted to buy something, who would I buy it for?
The only thing I bought was an Our Lady in a blue dress. Years ago I’d broken one like that of mother’s. She’d gotten it on a pilgrimage way back when she was still single. I’d been swatting flies, the house was so full of them they wouldn’t let you sit in peace, and they were biting especially badly, the way they do before a storm. Mother was getting dinner ready and the Our Lady was up on this little shelf. One of the flies landed on it, and I swatted at it, but I missed the fly and the Our Lady came crashing down onto the floor. I froze, and mother burst out:
“Oh my Lord, he’s broken it!” And she looked at me as if I’d done the worst thing in the world. Then she took a clean white cloth from the chest and gathered all the broken pieces in it. She might even have been crying, though I couldn’t see because she was bent over.
“I’ll buy you another one,” I said after a bit.
“You won’t buy one like this,” she answered sadly. “I always prayed to her about you. She knew everything.”
Afterwards I looked around at different fairs, but I never did find one just like it. Then the war came. After the war I went less and less to the fairs. And the fairs seemed more and more timid somehow, it was hard enough to get an Our Lady at all, let alone one like the broken one. But even after mother died I carried on looking, because the thing kept gnawing at me.
Then I went to the shooting gallery to see if I still had a good eye. Ever since I was a boy I used to like to go shooting at the fair. Turned out I hadn’t lost it. The first five shots were spot on, then the second five too. I almost didn’t even have to take aim, just bang bang bang, and hand over the flowers, because you shot at tissue-paper flowers, or rather, at the string they hung by. There was a target as well, that had a black ring like a saucer in the middle, but any idiot could hit that and you didn’t get a prize. But with the flowers, every one you shot down was yours. All the people gathered around the gallery, kids, young men, girls, adults — they were all gobstruck. And the shooting gallery guy tried to take the gun away from me.
“Come on there, mister, let the young folks try their luck.”
But just out of spite I bought five more shots. Again every one was a hit. I gave the flowers to Irka Kwiatkowska, because of all the young girls in the village I thought she was the prettiest.
“Here, Irka, take this. That young fellow of yours isn’t going to hit anything for you. That’s young men these days for you.” Irka jumped up and down she was so pleased, and she gave me a kiss on the cheek, because her and that Zbyszek of hers had been watching me shoot.
Toward the end I bought two strings of pretzels, because that afternoon I was supposed to go watch television at Stach Sobieraj’s, and his Darek called me uncle and whenever I’d go there he’d always badger me to tell about the resistance, even if it was the same stories over and over. Sometimes I’d say to him:
“Darek, I really don’t remember any more.”
“Then tell what you remember.”
Or:
“I already told you that story.”
“Then tell it again.” And he’d sit there openmouthed. It was mostly whether I’d killed anyone, and what that was like. So I had to at least take him some pretzels.
For lunch I made cabbage soup and served it with bacon. It was good. We had two helpings each, the soup in a bowl and the bacon and bread on a plate. I could tell Michał liked it too.
“You like it?” I asked him. As usual, he didn’t answer. I washed the dishes. Saw to the animals. Then I started to get ready for the television.
But I go outside and I see the farmers are starting to drive out to the fields. There’s Stach Partyka, Barański, Socha. More and more of them.
“What are you doing standing there?” says Heniek Maszczyk. “Put your work clothes on and get out into the fields. Can’t you see, there are storm clouds coming, it’s gonna rain. We can at least get a wagonload or two in.”
I look at the sky and I think, what’s he talking about, rain? The sun’s bright as anything, sky’s blue as a cornflower. There’s a little dark spot over in the west, but that can mean good weather. Or it’ll pass us by.
“What do you mean, rain,” I say. “Look at the sky.”
“Never mind the sky, they said on the radio. Gee up!” And off he went.
I stood there and thought, it’d be a pity if the crop got rained on. The wheat had come up like never before. And here you couldn’t tell if it’d just be a few drops or whether the rain would set in. If it did set in it could rain and rain. And I’d be standing there staring at the sky, looking out the window, and worrying about not having brought the wheat in. For a moment I’d think it was brightening up a bit over there. But then Maszczyk’s rooster would crow and that would mean the rain would keep up. When the chickens ruffled their feathers you could tell the rain wouldn’t stop. And if the cat stayed over in the stove corner, it would all go to hell in a handcart. And my wheat would get so wet it’d make your heart ache.