A Treatise on Shelling Beans Read online

  Copyright © Wiesław Myśliwski, 2006

  English language translation © Bill Johnston, 2013

  First Archipelago Books Edition, 2013

  This translation is published by arrangement with

  Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy ZNAK, Kraków (Poland)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Archipelago Books

  232 3rd Street #A111

  Brooklyn, NY 11215

  www.archipelagobooks.org

  Distributed by Random House

  www.randomhouse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mysliwski, Wieslaw.

  [Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli. English]

  A treatise on shelling beans / by Wieslaw Mysliwski; translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston. – First Archipelago Books edition.

  Originally published in Polish as Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli.

  eISBN 978-0-914671-01-5

  I. Title.

  PG7172.Y8T7313 2013

  891.8’5373—dc23 2013010328

  Cover art: Paul Klee

  The publication of A Treatise On Shelling Beans was made possible with generous support from Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

  This publication has been funded by the Book Institute – the © POLAND Translation Program.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  1

  You’re here to buy beans, sir? From me? I mean, you can get beans in a store, any store. But please, come on in. Don’t let the dogs scare you. They’ll just sniff at you a bit. Whenever anyone visits for the first time they have to sniff them. For my benefit. I didn’t teach them that, they just do it of their own accord. Dogs are as much of a puzzle as people. Do you have a dog? You ought to get one. You can learn a lot from a dog. All right, sit, Rex, sit, Paws. Knock it off.

  Out of curiosity, how did you find the place? I’m not that easy to find. Especially now, in the off-season. There isn’t even anyone around to ask. You saw for yourself, there’s not a living soul in the cabins. They’re all long gone. Not many people even know I live here. And here you come asking about beans. It’s true, I do grow some beans, but only enough for my own needs, which are pretty modest. Like with everything else. Carrots, beets, onions, garlic, parsnip, just so I have a little. And truth be told, I don’t even like beans that much. I mean, I’ll eat them, because I’ll eat almost anything. But I’m not wild about them. Once in a while I’ll make bean soup or bean stew, but not that often. And dogs don’t eat beans.

  Back in the day, sure, a lot of people grew beans around here. Because as you might know, at one time beans used to take the place of meat. And when you work as hard as the folks hereabouts would work, from dawn till nighttime, you need your meat. Not to mention that the shopkeepers often used to come out here to stock up on beans. Not beans alone, but that’s what they’d buy most of. That’s right, during the war, when there was a village here. At that time, in the towns people were starving, as you know. Almost every day the locals would drive out to the station in their horse and cart to pick them up. The station’s a couple of miles away. Then afterwards they’d drive them back with what they’d bought. It was around this time of year, late fall, that they’d come most often. Or in any case more of them would come about now, when the harvest was all done. They’d take all the beans that anyone had had time to shell, down to the last bean. Often the pods hadn’t even dried out properly but already people would be shelling away in all the houses so as to finish in time. Whole families would be shelling together. From early morning till late at night. Sometimes you’d go outside at midnight and there’d still be a light in a window here and there. Especially when there’d been a good crop. Because beans are like everything else, sometimes they grow well, other times not. It has to be a good year weather-wise. Beans don’t like too much sun. When there’s too much sun there’s not enough rain, and they get parched. Whereas if there’s too much rain, they rot before they can grow. Even so, it can be a good weather year but still every other pod will be empty or the beans’ll be bad. And no one knows why. Simple thing like beans, but they have their secrets.

  Did you used to come out here back then, as a shopkeeper? No, I think I’d have recognized you. I knew almost all the people that used to come to buy beans. We grew a lot of beans, and all kinds of merchants would come buy them. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had a good memory for faces. And everyone knows that what you remember in your childhood, you remember for good. Course, you’d have been young back then, and dressed differently. In those days the shopkeepers would wear any old clothes, however rich or poor they were, they’d dress down so as not to draw attention to themselves. In the trains they’d be searched, have their belongings confiscated. Shopkeepers was just our name for them. While now I see you’re wearing an overcoat, hat, scarf. I used to have a brown felt hat like that, and a coat like yours. And I’d wear a scarf, silk or cashmere. I liked to dress well.

  But why don’t you take your coat off? Hang it on the back of the door, there’s a hook there. And please, sit yourself down. Either on a chair or on a bench, as you prefer. I’ll just finish this nameplate, I’m almost done. It wouldn’t take me so long, but my hands aren’t what they used to be. No, it’s rheumatism. Though it’s better than it used to be. I can do almost anything. I just can’t play the saxophone. That’s right, I used to play. But aside from that, anything. Even repainting these nameplates, as you see. And that needs concentration in your hands also. The worst is with the smallest letters. If the brush slips you have to wipe the whole letter off with benzine and start over.

  Why did I think you maybe used to come here as a shopkeeper? Well, you just appeared out of nowhere wanting to buy beans. You must have known people used to grow beans around here and you thought they still did. People often think, what could possibly have changed in a place where they’ve grown beans since forever. But how did you manage to hold on to the conviction that there are timeless places like that? That I can’t understand. Didn’t you know that places like to mislead us? Everything misleads us, it’s true. But places more than anything. If it weren’t for these nameplates I myself wouldn’t know that this was the place.

  You’ve never been here before? Not even as a shopkeeper back then? Then I’m sorry I took you for one. Evidently I’ve been sitting too long staring at these nameplates. What are they? First and last names, dates, God rest their souls. Every year at this time I take them from the gravestones and repaint them. It’s pretty time-consuming. The first name and last name alone’s a lot of letters. And I have to mind every letter so the deceased won’t think I repainted his nameplate any old how because, for instance, he was from the other side of the river. Folks here were always divided into this side and the other side of the river. When people can be divided by something they always will be. It doesn’t have to be a river.

  Why do I think the dead have thoughts? Because we don’t know that they don’t. What do we know? Sometimes, after only two or three letters, especially the littlest ones, my eyes hurt and my hand
starts to shake, and I have to break off. You need a lot of patience with those dead letters. I barely finish one lot when the paint starts peeling on the ones I did last year. It comes off faster in the woods. It’s damp there, you only get sunlight in the clearings, so I’m always having to repaint. If I didn’t do it, by now you wouldn’t know whose nameplate was whose. I’ve tried different kinds of paints, including foreign ones. They all peel. You don’t know any kind of paint that doesn’t peel? You’re right. It’s not in anyone’s interest that something should be permanent. Especially paint. Things are always being painted over with something else.

  That I don’t know. Maybe someone used to repaint them before, though not for long probably, because I could barely read what was written on them. Whoever it was must have decided that either way no one can be guaranteed anything in perpetuity in this world, so they just stopped. Plus there are the costs, the paint alone, then the brushes, labor. It’s just as well I used to know everyone in these parts. Even so, I still had to scour my memory in some cases. It was worst with the children. Some of them I felt I was only now christening.

  This here is Zenon Kużdżał. I’m almost done with him. He was the youngest of the Kużdżałs. Neighbors. Here on this side, a bit further into the woods. That was why they only had a fence on the side where the road was, the other three sides were woods, so they’d say they had no need of a fence. The woods are the best fence you can have. What danger could come from the woods? Who could come to the house through the woods? At most some animal. So they set snares and traps in their yard. Often their own chickens and geese and ducks would get caught if they forgot to remove the traps during the day. Though in the evening they never could count up all those chickens and ducks and what have you properly. And every evening they’d suspect their neighbors.

  They only ever let the neighbors in through the wicket gate on the road. The wicket gate was in one side of the main gateway, and the gateway wasn’t just an ordinary gateway. It was twice as high as the fence, and it had a shingled roof and two figures on either side. I don’t remember which particular saints they were. The fence itself was tall. The tallest person in the village was Uncle Jan, and he couldn’t touch the top even when he went up on tiptoe and stretched out his hand. A rattle hung on the wicket gate, you had to rattle it and someone would come down from the house and let you in. But try getting in through the woods and right away they’d be coming at you with crowbars, sicking their dogs on you. You’d have to go back to the wicket gate and shake the rattle.

  You wouldn’t have gotten any beans from them, though, because they were all carvers. The grandfather made carvings, he was old as the hills, he had cataracts but if you could have seen him carving away you’d never have believed he couldn’t see. How he did it I have no idea. Maybe he made his hands look? His three grandsons, Stach, Mietek, and Zenek, they were all carvers. All strapping guys, though you’d never see them out with young ladies. You only ever saw them carving. The only one who wasn’t a carver was their father. He’d cut blocks of wood for them to make their carvings out of, rough-hew them. He probably would have made carvings as well but he was missing these three fingers here on this hand, they were blown off in the war before the last war. But he somehow managed with chopping and hewing. Word was the great-grandfather had been a carver, and the great-great-grandfather, and there was no telling how far back in time you’d have to go with those carver ancestors, because from what they said everyone in their family had made carvings since time immemorial. Even on Sundays, after the service or high mass they’d come back from church and right away they’d start carving what they’d heard from the Gospel so as not to forget it. They had plans to carve the whole Gospel, because as the grandfather put it, the world was the way God described it, not the way people saw it.

  Their whole yard was littered with those carvings of theirs, they stood them all the way up into the woods. They went further and further. That may have been another reason they didn’t build a fence on the side of the woods. You couldn’t turn a wagon round in their yard, you had to back up. When they’d lead the cows out to pasture they had to mind they didn’t knock the carvings over. Cats would lie about on them sunning themselves. Sometimes their dog would start yapping out of the blue, they’d rush out of the house thinking someone must have come in from the woods, but it would turn out the dog was only barking at one of the carvings. Just as well he was on a short leash. Mrs. Kużdżał would go out to throw grain down for her poultry and people would laugh and say she was feeding the carvings, because they were getting bigger and bigger.

  They weren’t regular carvings like you might imagine. I can see you’re a decent height yourself, but those carvings were way bigger than either you or me. “The Last Supper,” for instance, when they started carving that they made a clearing in the woods. The table alone was like several of these tables of mine, the benches were several times the size of my benches. And even so, the apostles were sitting so close to each other that it seemed there wasn’t any room for Jesus. He was squashed between one apostle who stood with a glass in his outstretched hand, and another one who was already asleep with his head on the table, and he was a lot smaller than the others. If they’d all stood up next to one another he wouldn’t even have come up to their waists. He was already wearing his crown of thorns, and he seemed worried about something; his head rested on his hand. From the other side of the table another one of the apostles was reaching out toward the crown of thorns as if he wanted to lift it off his head because it was too soon for it, but he couldn’t reach it. On the table there were pitchers of wine, and each one of them, I don’t own anything to compare with it. That big jug over there, or that bucket, they’d be too small. As for the bread, I don’t recall ever seeing such huge loaves being baked anywhere. And back then people would bake loaves that weighed over twenty pounds. They were going to add a roof over the scene, but they didn’t manage to.

  I couldn’t tell you what those carvings were worth. Back then I was simply afraid of them. But can fear be a measure for carvings? Especially when you’re the age I was then. When mother sent me over there on some errand, to ask about something or borrow something, I’d tell her they didn’t have any or that nobody had been home. Did you shake the rattle? I did, but no one came out. Actually I don’t think she believed me, because a short while later she’d send over one of my sisters, Jagoda or Leonka, but she’d do it so I wouldn’t see.

  You never heard of them trying to sell any of their carvings. Who would they have sold them to? Take them to market? What an idea. And who would come all the way out here to the village to buy carvings? People came for foodstuffs, like I said, beans, flour, kasha. Though one time the grandfather, that’s right, the blind one, he went to ask the priest for permission to put one or two of the carvings up in the church. But the priest wouldn’t allow it because none of them had gone to any school to learn to carve.

  Sometimes I’d have dreams about those carvings. I’d jerk awake in the middle of the night with a shout, bathed in sweat. Mother would think I was coming down with something. I’d have to drink herbs and eat honey because I was afraid to tell her it was the carvings. I don’t know why. Maybe I was afraid that I was afraid. And of carvings on top of everything. Every fear has different levels, as you know. One kind of fear tears you from your sleep, another kind makes you fall asleep. And yet another kind … But there’s no point talking about it. The carvings are gone, the Kużdżałs are gone. Besides, I actually liked honey, though the herbs made me scrunch up my face. But mother would stand over me, drink it all up, it’ll do you good.

  Do you like herbs? Then you’re like me. But I bet you like honey? I’ll give you a jar to take with you. At least you won’t be mad at yourself for making a wasted trip. I have my own, not store-bought. Here at the edge of the woods, maybe you noticed, there’s a handful of hives, they’re mine. There aren’t that many of them but when it’s a good year I get oodles of honey. I couldn’t eat it all myself. I
’ve got some from a couple of years ago, the best kind is when it’s left to stand awhile. When someone does a favor for me I’ll thank them with honey if they won’t let me pay them. Or like now, in the off-season, whenever anyone comes to visit they won’t leave without a jar of honey. Or if someone has a name day party in one of the cabins, I’ll go wish them all the best and at least take a jar of honey as a gift. Or where there are children, I always remember children even without any special occasion. Children ought to eat honey.

  But honey’s best when it’s drunk. How? You put a teaspoon of honey in half a glass of lukewarm water. Let it stand till the next morning. Squeeze in a half or a quarter of lemon, stir it, and drink it on an empty stomach at least half an hour before breakfast. If it’s too cold, add just a dash of hot water. It’s pure goodness. Good for your heart, for rheumatism. Honey’s good for everything. It’ll keep you from catching cold. When I was young and I worked on building sites, one time we roomed at the house of this one beekeeper and he taught me all that. But back then who gave a thought to drinking honey? There was never the time. And if you were going to drink anything it would be vodka. In those days vodka was the best for everything, not honey.

  What kind do you prefer, heather or honey-dew? The honey-dew is from conifers, not deciduous trees, it’s virtually black, it’s much better. In that case I’ll give you a jar of each. My favorite is buckwheat honey. There used to be a guy here grew a lot of buckwheat. Three days ago I repainted his nameplate. The buckwheat hadn’t even begun to flower and already he’d be putting up hives in it. I used to go watch him collecting honey from those hives of his. He’d be wearing a hood with a net over his face, and I’d just be there. And you won’t believe it, but I never got stung by a bee. They’d land on me, but they never did a thing. He couldn’t get over it. You’re a strange kid, that you are. I’m the beekeeper here … Go bring a pot. And he’d pour me some honey straight from the hive.