The barn was attached to it, not separate as it ought to be. There
was a small yard paved with wide, flat stones, where the lilac was
in bloom. They went on sitting in the wagon, no one daring to
get down first. Bobol spat on the ground and stared into the windows of the house. Then he searched anxiously for the well, but couldn't see it anywhere; perhaps it was behind the house.
Finally the jeep appeared and braked just in front of them.
'Come on then,' said the man with the cigarette. 'It's yours
now.'
He stepped boldly up to the door, but seemed to hesitate
slightly just before reaching it. He glanced over at them and
rapped on it. Shortly after, the door opened and he went inside.
They waited until he reappeared and impatiently urged them to
follow him. 'Come on, what's the matter?'
They began to unload their eiderdowns and pots from the
cart. Bobol was the first to enter the hallway. It was dark inside,
with an arched ceiling, and the familiar smell of cows. Shuffling
in the silence, they went on into the main room and stood
facing the windows, so at first they couldn't see anything
because the light was in their eyes. The official lit a cigarette
and said something in German . That was when they noticed
the two women - one old and grey, the o ther younger, with a
child on her arm; another child was huddling up to rhe older
woman.
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t
235
'You stay in this room, they go in that one,' said the official .
They'll be coming for them later.' Then he walked past them and
disappeared. They heard the jeep rattle off.
They went on standing there, until a cat appeared out of
nowhere, sat down in the middle of the room and began to lick
its paws. The first to make a move was the old woman, who took
the sheets and blankets from the bed and went into the other
room, followed by the younger woman and the children. Then
Mrs Bobol crashed about arranging her pots and pans on the
kitchen range.
They spent the rest of the morning unloadi ng their belongings from the cart. They didn't have much - a few items of clothing, some icons, the eiderdowns and some photographs in
wooden frames. Mrs Bobol lit a fire in the peculiar range because
she wanted to put on some soup, but she couldn't find the water.
She went all round the house with her pot, and began to wonder
whether they fetched water from the stream. Finally she plucked
up the courage to peep into the other room where the German
women were sitting. The younger one sprang to her feet at the
sight of her.
'Water,' said Mrs Bobol, and pointed at the pot.
The younger woman moved towards the kitchen , but the
older one growled at her. She stood still for a moment , as if hesitating, then reluctantly she showed Mrs Bobol a )eyer in the wall by the stove, on which Bobol had already hung up his trousers.
She placed the pot under it and moved the lever up and down.
Water flowed.
'Help yourself to the stove - it's already lit ,' said Mrs Bohol to
the woman.
When the German woman brought a large pot of potatoes and
set it on the hotplate, Mrs 13obol explained to her that it clearly
said 'temporary evacuation' in their document s. mea n i ng that
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O l ga To k a r c z u k
they wouldn't be here for long, and that everyone was talking
about the next war anyway. At this the woman burst into tears,
without making a sound, swallowing her sobs, and as there was
no way to comfort her, Mrs Bobol bit her lip and left the room.
They spent the whole summer living together. The men
quickly assembled their alcohol-making apparatus, and from
then on a thin stream of vodka flowed continuously into cans and
jugs. They began drinking in the early afternoon when the heat
became unbearable and they didn't know what to do with themselves. The women made dinner together in virtual silence, exchanging single words and reluctantly, involuntarily picking up
each others hateful language. The Poles eyed the Germans' habits
with suspicion - how strangely they ate ! For breakfast they had
a sort of milky soup, for dinner jacket potatoes with some cheese
and butter, and on Sundays they killed a rabbit or some pigeons
and made barley soup. For their second course they inevitably
inspect the Germans' farm machines, but they didn't know what
they were for or how they worked. They'd squat outside arguing
about it and drinking their horne-made vodka - that usually went
on until evening. Finally someone would fetch an accordion, the
women would come along and the dancing would begin. They
turned that first summer into one long Polish holiday. Some of
them were never sober. They just felt glad they had survived and
had reached a destination somewhere, anywhere. It was better
not to think about the future, because it was uncertain; better to
sing duets, dance, make wild passionate love in the bushes, and
not look those leftover Germans in the face, because it was all
their fault - they were the ones who had sparked off the war and
it was their fault the world had ended. Sometimes the Poles lost
their temper and staggered horne, took down the Germans' holy
icons and threw them behind the cupboard, smashing the glass.
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t
237
On the same nails they hung up their own , very similar, maybe
identical Christs and Madonnas with bleeding hearts.
In autumn, tired of celebrating, and disappointed that the
authorities had forgotten them, they nailed together a cross and
erected it at a fork in the road with the inscription : 'To the Lord
God from the Poles.'
The Poles didn't work that summer - while the Germans were
still there they didn't have to. They gave the Germans exactly
what they deserved - after all, it wasn't the Poles' fault they had
ended up here, it hadn't been their idea to leave their extensive
fields in the east and spend two months wandering about. They
had never asked for these strange, stone houses. The German
women milked the cows and mucked out the cowshed, then
went to the fields or did the cleaning, scared, stooping and
silent. They were only allowed to rest on Sundays, so they put
on their best clothes, white gloves and all, and went to church to
redeem their sinful German souls.
In autumn the official came back for the German women ,
and told them t o get ready t o leave. The young woman excitedly
started bundling up her belongings, but the older one sat on the
bed and didn't react. Next morning they were standing outside
waiting. M rs Bobol gave them dripping for the journey. and fe lt
glad they would have an extra room now. At last a man came and
told them in German to set off towards the town . Pulling along
her cart, the young woman went and joined the caravan of other
Germans who had stopped on the little bridge, but the old one
didn't want to go. She went back into th
e kitchen and seized a
china bowl ; Bobol, already tipsy, tried to tear it from her grasp.
They struggled for a while, until the old woman's white hair
was rufOed and suddenly, for the first time in nwnth-.. -.he
started shouting. She ran outside, still shou ting and w.l,·ing her
fist.
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0 I g a To k a r c z u k
'What did she say, what's she yelling?' Bobol asked, but the
official refused to tell him.
After the Germans had vanished over the hills the official
came back lO tell them that their village was no longer called
Einsiedler, but had been given a new, Polish name - now it was
Pietno. Bobol also found out that the old woman had cursed
him.
'She showered you in curses - may your land be infertile,
may you end up alone, may no illnesses leave you in peace, may
your animals drop dead, may your trees be frui tless, may fire
consume your meadows and water flood your fields. That's what
she was shouting,' said the official and lit one cigarette from
another. 'But only a fool would take any notice.'
T h e p e w t e r p l a t e
Marta has a lot of broken things: single cups, saucers with the
pattern worn away, so you can only guess at the gilded meanders
of leaves, tin mugs with makeshift wire handles, and pots with
rusty marks where the enamel has peeled off. She has one huge
fork with a swastika on it, and knives with blades so pared down
by thousands of sharpenings that they look like skewers. I suspect that she digs them up each spring while working in the garden, washes them, polishes them with a bit of ash and tosses
them in the drawer. If so, M arta could be self-sufficient in
kitchenware. Our land has also given birth to some grotesque
objects. We haven't treated them with much respect, preferring
like everyone else to have shiny new things with traces of glue
from the price sticker and a guarantee that they'll last, in the
form of a perfectly smooth surface or the faintly metallic smell of
the factory.
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f N i g h t
239
So I don't covet Marta's things, or her heavy pillows, in which
the feathers wander about during their nocturnal wrestling with
the human body, or her faded samplers embroidered in German
with uplifting mottoes like: 'Wo Mutters Hiinde licbe•td wcrltcn, dc1
bleibt das G liich im Haus erhalten ,' or 'Eigner Herd isl Goldcs
wert.'*
There's only one object I'm fond of - a pewter plate, heavy
and bulky, decorated round the edge with an embossed geometrical pattern worn down by the touch of fingers. The paLLern is fading and melting into the background in so many places that
I enjoy touching it and trying to identify it by feel, without looking. It is Greek in style, or art deco; it has alternating circles and squares linked by crosses that add them together like plus signs.
In many places the gilt has come off, revealing bare grey metal.
In summer Marta puts frui t in it, and in autumn nuts. The
plate reigns supreme at the very centre of her oilcloth-covered
table. It is the only attractive item in her hoard of flawed objects.
The rest inspire nothing but sympathy.
T h e n a n ny
I had a German nanny, whose name was Gertruda Nietschc. She
was small and brisk like a rodent, and she wore thick glasses that
reflected every source of light, from electric bulbs to the sun,
several times over. She knew only a few words of Polish and
used them mainly in conversations with my mother. while to me
she spoke the way she though t, in German. I can remember her
face well, her brusque-but-loving movements. the softnc-.s of
* Translator's note: 'Where a mot her's hands arc huw. therr luck rrm.tllh in
t he house'; 'Your own herd is worth its \Ti)!.ht in gold.'
2 40
0 I g a To k a r c z u k
her cardigans, and a smell of cocoa, but I can't remember her
words. In those days I didn't have any language at my disposal.
I had no need for words yet, either Polish or German or any
other. She had her own language , which to everyone in the
vicinity sounded foreign, or even hateful (after all, it was only
twenty years since the war had ended). She spoke to me, sang to
me and scolded me in that language. She used to put me in a
wooden pushchair and take me across the weir to visit her relatives the Kampas, the only original inhabitants left, and there, in their home full of knick-knacks, we joined in endless conversations - I, of course, remained silent.
During these conversations I sat on a bedspread, propped up
on pillows, while Gertruda sat at the tabl e with Mrs Kampa
chinking their cups together. Then she used to take me in her
arms, and I must have been reflected in her glasses, but I don't
remember, because 1 wasn't aware of my own presence in reflections yet, and I didn't exist as far as mirrors were concerned.
Because of Gertruda I retain the hope that I might remember
some German, that the language is lying dormant inside me,
buried in the dust of innumerable conversations in Polish, the
stacks o f books I've read, from my Polish reading primer
onwards; if not the whole language, then at least enough of the
most important words to get by. I'm just waiting for this language to come to the surface, without the help of textbooks and boring lessons. I'm hoping I'll suddenly start to understand it out of the blue, and maybe even start to speak it, though that's sure to be difficult, as my lips and tongue aren't
used to making foreign shapes. I'm sure I would understand
German if someone - like Gertruda - were to lean O'er me,
caress me and feed me, or show me the park, and ask the sort
of silly questions adults ask children, 'And what's that? Who's
coming? Where's Mummy?' I'm �ure I would also understand it
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f J' i g h t
2 4 1
if they were t o let m e feel the u nique contours of t heir face, or
if they were the last image I saw before falling asleep, and the
first on waking.
At the Kampas I gained my first visual memory of myself. I
would have been about a year old then, because I was already
sitting up. It must have been the same itinerant photographer
who took my photo in the first class at school several years
later. He must have amused and cajoled Gertruda, and talked
her into it, because she undressed me and sat me on a white fur.
I'm sure I must have screamed in protest, because I was given a
saucepan lid to play with . What with the touch of that lid
against my naked belly, the bright lamp and the eye o f the
camera aimed at me - with all that attention focused on me -
for the first time in my life, rather shakily and uncertain ly, I
stood outside mysel f and looked at myself through the eye of
that lens, taking a view other than my own, a cold, distant , dispassionate view. From then on this viewpoint i nside myself, that I look out from, would appear more and more often , until
finally it would start to change me; I would stan to be unsure
who I was and where my cen tre was, the point around which
everything else was arranged. Each time I looked at the same
things, I would see them differently. At first I would get lost in
it all, I'd be t errified, desperately search ing fo r constancy.
Finally I'd realize that constancy really does exist, but way
beyond my reach, while I'm like a stream, like the river in "owa
Ruda that keeps changing colour, and the only thing I can he
sure of is that I'm flowing through a point in space and time.
and I'm nothing more than the sum of the prope rties or that
place and that time.
The one advantage to emerge from this is that the world seen
from a different viewpoint is a differen t world , so I can live in as
many worlds as I am able to sec .
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O l g a To k a r c z u k
The Cutlers' psalm
Futility on all the earth
blessed be barren wombs
holy be all sterility
sacred is decay, desirous is decline
wondrous the frui tlessness of winter
the empty shells of nuts
logs burnt to ashes that still keep the shape of the
tree
seeds that fall on to stony ground
knives gone blunt
streams run dry
the beast that devours another's offspring
the bird that feeds on another's eggs
war that is always the start of peace
hunger that is the beginning of repletion
Sacred old age, daybreak of death,
time trapped in the body,
death sudden, unexpected,
death downtrodden like a path in the grass
To do, but have no results
to act, but stir nothing
to age, but change nothing
to set off, but never arrive
to speak, but not give voice
Tr e a s u r e h u n t i n g
In time the German houses grew more willing to surrender their
contents to their new Polish ow,ners - pots, plates, mugs with
H o u s e o f D a y, H o u s e o f 0-: i g h t
2·+3
handles, bedding, and clothes that were almost new, some of them
truly elegant. Sometimes they found simple wooden toys t hat
they gave to their children - after years of war this was real treasure. The cellars were full of jars of jam, puree and apple wine.
berries preserved in sugar with juice thick as ink, yellow chunks
of pickled melon that they didn't much like the taste of, and spicy
marinated mushrooms. Old Bobol, who was growing more and