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T h e fi re
'It's the year of the comet,' said Agnieszka as she poured milk
into my billycan. 'It's the penultimate year of the Pope's life. Two
elements are going to meet, and then there'll be a strange winter.
People will start to drop like flies.'
Sometimes Agnieszka makes prophecies. I f you spend all day
looking at the village of Pietno, the only thing you're likely to
predict is the end of the world. Time after time she has given us
a different version of future events. Her imagination is boundless, on top of which she knows how to manipulate words, so she always produces a story that changes, just like
Whatsisname's, depending on the season , place and circumstances in which it is told: evening or morning, by the well or at the Lido restaurant, with wine or vodka.
After this particular prediction I was on the way home when
I stopped and drank some milk straight from the can - it tasted
like pure, white heaven. I started thinking about mushrooms,
wondering whether there would be any yet. It was warm enough
for the first field mushrooms, damp enough for boletus and
sunny enough for puffballs. Then , my mouth full of milk, I
noticed that the meadows above the houses were ablaze. Fanned
by the wind, the fire was moving in a narrow chain uphill
towards the forest. The thin line advanced slowly and silently,
glittering in the sunlight; i t left a wide black trail behind i t ,
rather like the shadows of clouds, b u t a hundred times darker.
'Stop ! ' I said, hoping it would stop, like a computer game, or
a television weather map where the world is just made up of
wavy lines and numbers.
But nothing happened . Someone Vas calling me. It was
Agnieszka, standing in the pass, her small, squat figure looking
quite misshapen in a baggy old tracksuit .
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'Vhen the wind changes direction your houses will catch
fire,' she shouted. I thought I could hear a note of satisfaction in
her voice.
I rushed down the hill. The milk spilled out of the swinging
billycan and splashed my shoes.
Ve worked for several hours before the soot-caked firemen
arrived. They said the meadows on the other side of the hills
were on fire. They were stripped to the waist and quite relaxed.
They stepped nonchalantly through the wall of fire and took
control of either end of it. They certainly knew what they were
doing, and were able to manoeuvre it as if it were a long ribbon
stretched out on the ground. They twisted its two ends around
until they crossed , forming a circle. For a while the wind
dropped and a great, fiery ring rose up, its flames raging like a
whirlwind. Through the quivering air I could see pointed tufts of
grass vanishing for ever. The fiery cyclone roared until the fire
consumed itself and died out.
The meadows, part of the forest and some blackberry patches
had burned down. I was particularly sad about the blackberries in destroying them the fire had killed off future juiciness. Marta showed us the best way to put out the burning grass, patting the
fire gently with a spruce branch, as if giving it a little smack. If
you did it too hard you gave it air. Marta also told us that the
meadows catch fire every few years so it's nothing to worry
about. R. has a different opinion on the matter.
W h o w r o t e t h e l ife of t h e s a i n t a n d
h o w h e h n e w i t a l l
He began to write slowly, laboriously, building word by word the
story of the lit tle girl on whom in later years Our Lord had
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bestowed His face before consigning her to a martyr's death.
The first sentence ran as follows: 'Kummernis was born imperfect, but only according to a human understanding of imperfection.' The second read: 'Sometimes, however, what is
imperfect in the world of men is perfect in the world of God.'
This took him four days. He didn't actually understand what he
had written, what it really meant. Or, rather, he did understand
it, but not in words or thoughts. He lay on the floor, closed his
eyes and repeated those sentences until they had lost all meaning. Only then did he realize that he had written the most important thing of all. Somehow he knew what it would be like
from now on; that he would only be able to go on writing if he
sounds. He would become dry and numb, with no senses, he
would cease to enjoy the shaft of light in his cell, and the
warmth of the sun would seem weak, not worth his attention,
like everything else he had once loved. His body would turn to
wood, retreat and wait for his return.
He wrote on, and couldn't wait until it was finally finished
and he could be himself and live in his own body again, even loll
about in it in a comfortable bed.
He wrote about the saint's childhood, isolated within a large
family, lost among her siblings. 'One day her father, wanting to
call her to him, forgot her name, for he had so many children
and so many things on his mind, had waged so many wars and
had so many serfs that his daughter's name had slipped his
memory.' Paschalis was sure now that Kummernis's childhood
must have been unusual - her frail body exuded a balmy fragrance, and in her bed fresh roses were found, even though it was winter. Once when she was placed before a mirror while
preparing for a feast, the image of the face of the Son of God
appeared on its surface and remai ned there for some time.
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Paschalis recognized that this must have prompted Kummernis's
father ('he was strong in stature, violent and quick to anger') LO
entrust his daughter's education to the nuns. The convent
looked just as it did from the windows of his cell - a large
building, looking out on to the mountains. The Mother
Superior who took care of the girl was like the prioress. Of
course, she was less distinct, she didn't have down on her
upper lip, but her model was able to recognize herself in what
he had written.
'How do you know all this?' she asked him upon reading
the first few pages. But there was a note of admiration in her
voice.
How did he know it? He didn't know how. Such knowledge
comes from under closed eyelids, from prayers, from dreams,
from looking at the world around you, from everywhere. Maybe
the saint herself was speaking to him, maybe the scenes from her
life originated among the verses of her writings.
He was hindered by the fact that the saint had lived long ago,
before his parents or even his grandparents were alive - so how
was he LO know what her world looked like? After all, trees
grow, people cut down forests, new roads appear, and old ones
get overgrown with weeds. His village, too, must surely have
been different from how he remembered it in childhood. And
what about Rome, which he had never seen? Was it just as he
imagined? How was he to write about things he had never seen
or experienced?
Whether he wanted to or not, he always saw Kummernis in
familiar scenery, at this convent, in this courtyard, among the
chickens whose eggs he ate, under the chestnut tree whose
shade he enjoyed in summer, in a habit just like the prioress's.
Kummernis went on living as long as he wrote about her as a
living person, and she would never cease to exist, not even if he
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put her to death over and over again in his thoughts. And he
realized that the aim of his writing was to reconcile all possible
time scales, places and landscapes into one single image that
would remain fixed, never ageing or changing.
Paschalis spent until midday writing the story of the saint,
and in the afternoons he painstakingly began to transcribe Tlistia
and Hilaria. More and more often as he finished writing out one
of her sentences, he would grasp its entire inner meaning in a
sudden flash of understanding. He found it deeply moving and
a source of wonder that the same words could be read and
understood in so many different ways. He sat without moving,
pen in hand, but he was unable to detach his thoughts from
what he had discovered.
Kummernis had written: 'I saw myself as a jewel-encrusted
casket. I opened the lid, and inside was another casket, of pure
coral, and inside it yet another, of pure mo ther-of-pearl .
Impatiently I kept on opening myself, not knowing what it
would lead to , until in the smallest casket, in the tiniest little
box, at the very bottom of all the others, I saw Your image, vivid
and bright with colour. And straigh t away I snapped all the
clasps shut, for fear of losing You from inside myself, and ever
since I have been in harmony with myself, and I have even come
to love myself, because I bear You within me.
'Nothing that bears You within itself can be in vain, so I too
am not in vain.
'I am ever pregnant with You, just as other creatures too bear
You within themselves, without even knowing it.'
When Paschalis reached the moment in his history of the
saint when Kummernis fled from her fiance to the convent, he
became so excited that he jumped ahead and started writing
about the final events, her im prisonment and crucifixion. He
didn't need sleep or food. The nights were S\Titering, so he
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didn't feel cold, though his fingers were stiff and the back of his
neck ached.
Now he could see Kummernis as clearly as if he had known
her - as if she were the nun who tended the cows, or the one
who brought him food. She was tall, but slender, with large
hands and feet like the prioress. She had thick brown hair,
plaited and pinned up. Her white breasts were perfectly round.
She spoke quickly and passionately.
And then he dreamed about her. I n the dream he met her in
corridors that combined fea tures o f the convent and the
monastery. She was carrying some utensils, and as she came
close to him she handed him a tumbler. As soon as he drank
from it he realized that he had made a mistake and had drunk
fire. She smiled enigmatically and kissed him on the lips. In
the dream he thought he was going to die, that the fire was
already working and he was past help. He fel t forlorn and
friendless.
Next morning when the prioress came by he told her about
his dream, and she hugged him affectionately to her rough habit.
'Your hair has grown, my son,' she said, winding a black curl
around her finger. 'It's already over your ears. You're starting to
look like a girl.'
A fter compline she took him out into the garden. Paschalis
felt intoxicated by all the fragrances and the warm air. The
roses and white lilies were already in bloom, and immaculate
herb and vegetable patches made simple patterns among the
apple and pear trees. The prioress watched him with a smile as
he walked in delight among the flowers. Suddenly she tore off
a mint leaf and rubbed i t between her fingers. 'If I weren't . . .
'
she hesitated on the edge of these words, ' . . . I could adopt you
as my son,' she said. 'Or rather as your daughter,' he corrected
her.
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Towards the end of june Paschalis wrote the final sentence of
The Life of Kummernis of Schonau. It took him another month to
write out a fair copy and to finish transcribing Tristia and
Hilaria.
Meanwhile the prioress had written a long letter to the Bishop
of Glatz and soon Paschalis was ready to set off on his mission .
His habit was laundered and mended. I t must have shrunk (or
he had grown) , because it didn't reach his ankles any more. He
was given new sandals and a leather shoulder bag.
'You are sure to encounter many adventures on your journey,
and maybe even temptations. The country is full of unrest . . .'
Paschalis nodded in anticipation of what the prioress was about
to say, expecting to hear what his mother would have said, but
what she did then say was strange: 'Only succumb to those
adventures that you think worthwhile.' He looked at her in surprise. She hugged him tightly to her breast and· stroked his hair for a long while. He gently freed himself from her embrace and
kissed her hand. Her lips brushed against his brow, and he could
feel the down on her upper lip. 'God brought me to you,' he said.
'God be with you, my son.'
Paschalis set off the next day at dawn; just past the convent
gate he entered a summer morning mist, through which the sun
was shining as weakly as the moon. He walked towards the
mountains, going higher and higher until his head emerged
above the sea of mist and he could see the vivid green mountain
slopes and a bright blue sky. He had two books in his bag -
Kummernis's writings and her Life, bound in wooden covers.
Suddenly he felt light-hearted and happy.
Before him rose strange, Oat mountains, as if the giants had
sliced off their tops with an enormous knife. They stuck out of
the ground like the ruins of the giants' palaces, symbols of their
power crumbling to dust. Paschalis knew there was a winding
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road that ran in a comfortable arc around them, then on via
Ncurode to Glatz, but after a moment's hesitation he went
straight on towards those vast, Oat summits.
G r a s s a l l e rgy
Whenever the grass i s producing pollen R. and I both get hay
fever: our noses swell up and our eyes run with tears - and we
go weeping our way over the meadows and weed-choked waste
ground. There's nowhere in the house to hide from the invisible
specks of dust - except maybe the deepest cellar, where the
water is always flowing, and we would have to hide there in the
dark until the afternoon. In town it's different
- you can always
shut the windows and stay at horne. In town our eyes only
eYer encountered grass from a distance, and even then it was
cut short; the local council never let it go to seed. The only
ground our feet ever carne into contact with was the football
pitch and the little squares where we took the dog after work.
We could remain indifferent to the pollen; we didn't have to
think about it at all. Since last year the grass here has grown up
on to the terrace and filled in the narrow strips of earth
between the tiles. It has also invaded my flowerbeds and
choked the irises.
R. went out with a scythe and bravely cut the grass right
down to the ground. As it fell, its fea thery tops brushed against
his legs, leaving red marks on his skin that later turned into a
rine rash. People like us are unable to kill grass with impunity it puts up a fight against us. 'We're alien here,' I said, but R.
reckons that i t's all right, it's the sacrifice our bodies make to the
meadows, the only way the grass can relate to our existence. If it
couldn't do us any harm, it wouldn't have any awareness of us at
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all. Then we'd be alien, like the souls of the dead that walk
unnoticed among the living - just because they can't hurt us, we
deny their existence.
F r a n z F r o s t
Franz Frost liked going to church for a particular reason. He and
his wife had their own places - he sat on the right with the
other men, while she sat on the left. The church divided their
family, and they used to look at each other from opposite sides
of the nave, casting each other glances. His wife would check
whether he looked good in his Sunday suit, while he would
proudly admire her artful coiffure, all ringlets and hairpins,
styled in silence at the dressing-table in the bedroom, amid the
scent of violets, lavender and starched linen. Then, during mass,
as the congregation tunefully sang their responses to the priest's
chanting, Franz's eyes would wander from his wife's head to the
other things that most interested him in church. The way the
benches were made, for example - the skilful design of the invisible wooden pins that joined the seats and the backrest. Or he would delight in the metal plaques engraved with names. Their