“Go to the cemetery! The cemetery! Over there!” And he pointed with his stick at a stand of trees that looked as though they’d popped up in the middle of the flatness just to give us shelter.
We ran there and crawled into the first tomb we found. We pulled the cover over and stayed there. They must have buried someone in it not that long ago, because on the top there was still a wreath made of fir and spruce and flowers, all dried up. Over the whole thing there was the most beautiful Lord Jesus I think I’ve ever seen. He had one hand on his heart and the other stretched out in front of him like he was checking whether it was raining out in the world. Inside, it was dark and smelly, but you just had to say to yourself, tough. Though it was actually hard to say anything at all, words just left a bitter taste in your mouth. Besides, what can you talk about in a tomb. You let out a fuck it or whatever and that’s pretty much all you have to say. Even when we tried to talk to pass the time, the only thing that came to our lips were more cusswords, like we’d forgotten all the decent words. But there are times when all the decent words in the world won’t do the job of a single fuck it. It’s like they’re all hollow and blind and lame. And too stupid for the whole situation, however decent they are. Decent words are good for when life is decent. But in there the lice were biting like there was no tomorrow, it was all we could do to just keep it together. Once they got properly going there wasn’t an inch of our bodies that didn’t itch. We were a paradise for them in that tomb. And in addition, it was like we were sharing the lice and our bodies were shared as well. When his body started to itch, mine upped and started to also. I’d scratch my belly or the back of my neck, and he’d start scratching in exactly the same place. Though it was hardly surprising. We were crammed in there, bent double, and they could hop about on us to their heart’s content. Besides, if we hadn’t had lice we would have itched anyway. When a person isn’t talking or thinking or moving, they have to at least have an itch.
I was tougher, I’d scratch and for a while it would go away. But he was a town kid and he’d probably never had to deal with lice before. He’d start scratching his head and all you could hear was scrit, scrit, scrit, like someone was planing a casket nearby.
“Cut it out,” I’d say, because I was starting to hurt from his skin. But he’d just keep on, scrit, scrit, scrit.
“Cut it out for chrissakes, you hear?”
And he’d just be scrit, scrit, scrit. He was going to scratch himself to death, or give us away. At one moment I got so mad I pulled my gun on him.
“If you don’t cut it out I’ll shoot you, I swear to God I will.”
“Fire away. Makes no difference to me whether I die from a bullet or from lice.”
That same day, in the late afternoon, the old man that had pointed the way to the cemetery came to visit. How he figured out which tomb we were in I couldn’t say. First we heard this light tapping on the cover. Our hearts stopped and I grabbed the other guy’s arms in case he felt the need to scratch himself. Then all of a sudden there’s this banging noise, and when you’re in a tomb it sounds like you’re inside a drum.
“Hey there, say something. I know you’re in there. It’s me.” I moved the cover aside a bit and I saw it was the old man from outside the house. He was kneeling with his hands together as though he was praying.
“Because of you I gotta kneel at the Siewierskis’ tomb, and they’re a right bunch of good-for-nothings. One of those bastards in there with you stole my heifer, the crook. But what can I do. I brought you some moonshine and some bread and lard. You ought to eat something.”
“God bless you,” I said. “How are things in the village?”
“Not good. There’s going to be hangings. They gathered all the men outside the firehouse and picked out ten of them that haven’t provided a levy like they were supposed to. The carpenters are building a gallows. When they’re gone I’ll let you know.”
The moonshine was strong — not at all watered down. We each tried a mouthful to begin with. He was going to refuse, said he didn’t drink, but I made him. Then we took another mouthful. It was supposed to just warm us up and help with the lice, because when you’ve got vodka in your system they don’t bite so bad. But would that work from two mouthfuls only? Your blood has to be properly drunk, so there’s not a single drop left sober. And if you could measure it, two mouthfuls wouldn’t even be enough to get your finger tipsy. So we had another drink. In addition, we didn’t want to waste the food, because who knew if the old man would come back again. So we drank without eating, like we were drinking to the dead, on empty bellies. He started saying no, he couldn’t drink any more, that it stank of beetroot.
“Drink,” I said. “You see, the lice aren’t biting. If you were sober you’d already be scratching away.”
So we drank, him a mouthful, me a mouthful, and so on in turns till the bottle was empty. Nothing was biting, nothing was itching, and the tomb seemed less cramped. You even felt you could have stood up and stretched. In the end we fell asleep.
Except that when we woke up, then the lice really started in. Once he got to scratching himself I thought I’d lose it. I gave him some of the bread and lard. He ate it with one hand and with the other he just went on scratching. Plus he started whining about whether there wasn’t a little drop of hooch left. There wasn’t. I could’ve used a drink myself. I felt sorry for him. I was itching like hell myself, but you could tell it was worse for him. In the end I pulled my belt out.
“Give me your hands, I’ll tie them.”
He started begging me not to do it because he’d itch even more. True, I thought.
“Then get a goddam grip!”
“I can’t though, it itches so bad.”
“Then eat sunflower seeds.”
“Sunflower seeds? Where would I find sunflower seeds?”
“Don’t ask questions, just get on with it.”
“I would, but how can I do it without a sunflower?”
“It’s easy. It’s so dark in here you can’t see a thing anyway. Just imagine you’ve got a big sunflower dial on your lap and you’re picking out the seeds. You’re putting the seeds in your mouth and biting out the insides. Don’t you remember? You found the sunflower at the edge of the village outside that one house. The one that was painted blue, with the pots drying on the fence and the cat sunning itself by the wall and chickens pecking in the dust. You slipped into the yard and tried to twist off the head of a sunflower but it wouldn’t come off. Then this girl came out of the house and said, I’ll get a knife. And she did. Take that big one, she said. Or you can take all of them if you want. And she kept smiling at you. What about that one, see, it’s got nice big seeds. You got it there? Just don’t spit the husks out on me.”
“It’s good and ripe, did you try it?”
“Sure it’s ripe. It’s fall, this time of year everything’s ripe.”
“You want to pick some seeds with me?”
“I’m not the one the lice are bothering.”
So he picked away. He’d only scratch himself once in a while, the rest of the time he picked seeds. You could hear them crack in his mouth and then he’d spit out the husks. I was already thinking he’d forget about the lice. Even I was itching less, though I wasn’t picking sunflower seeds. Then all at once he ups and says:
“At the edge of the village, outside that blue house? That was where they were growing?”
“Keep picking,” I said. “Why’ve you stopped?”