A Treatise on Shelling Beans (4 page)

Usually, twice during the day and at least once in the night, I do the rounds of all the cabins on both sides of the lake. Early morning, soon as the sun’s up I check all the windows and doors in every cabin, make sure nothing’s been smashed or broken into. If something doesn’t look right I’ll go peek inside. Actually, the dogs are always the first to sense when something’s amiss. They run around each cabin and they give a short bark to say everything’s fine. Then they run to the next one. If there’s something wrong they wait for me, barking like there’s no tomorrow.

And again in the evening. At that time I look in on every cabin, turn the lights on. Inside, on the deck. I leave the lights on and move to the next one. Cabin after cabin, it all gets brighter and brighter as I go. It’s like a chain of lights round the lake. The whole place glows, as if the lake was shining, and the sky above
it, and the woods. You have no idea how much the dogs love it then. I’d never have imagined dogs could enjoy something so much. Most of the time they’re real quiet, alert, they don’t bark unless they have a reason. They never howl like some dogs do. Not even to the moon. Or one time someone died in one of the cabins, not even then. Unless they’re imagining something to themselves, when that’s the case there doesn’t even need to be anything happening. You wouldn’t believe what they’re capable of imagining. So maybe when all those lights are lit, they imagine it’s their paradise? I mean, dogs don’t have to see paradise as a flowering garden that contains everything there is. All that matters to them is that there aren’t any people. What about me? Maybe they think I’m the one that looks after paradise for them.

Then we go back to the first cabin and switch off all the lights in each one in turn. What is it that you found surprising? About the dogs’ paradise? Well if you ask me, human beings are the worst creatures for dogs. I have my reasons for saying that. Rex there, I found him in the woods. He’d been tied to a tree with a steel cord. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed him, I was staring at the ground looking for wild strawberries, then all of a sudden I heard something whimpering like a child. It never even occurred to me it could be a dog. With a deer for instance, when it’s caught in a trap and dying, when you hear it you know right away it’s a deer. I’ve found dying deer like that once in a while. But this time it sounded like a kid. I stood still and held my breath. Could someone’s child have gotten lost in the woods? It must have been tiny, because only tiny ones whimper that way. Except that a baby couldn’t have made its way into the woods on its own. The sound stopped. I looked around, couldn’t see anything. I went back to looking for wild strawberries. Then a moment later I hear the whimpering again. It’s faint as anything, but I can hear it. I have good ears. There was this warehouse keeper used to teach me the saxophone, he’d always say, you’ve a long way to go with your playing, but you’ve got a good pair of ears. Just keep at it.

I started wondering which of the people in the cabins could have a newborn
baby. Let me tell you, nothing could surprise me anymore, even if someone had left a baby in the woods. I started checking one bush after another, all the nearby trees. All at once I see him, Rex, under a beech tree. He must have smelled me and whined, even though he was half dead. You should know that the sense of smell is the last thing to go in a dog. When he saw me he even tried to get up from the ground. But he didn’t have the strength. Then he whimpered again like a baby. Are you going to make it or not, I started wondering. If not I’ll have to bring a spade and bury you. One more grave in the woods won’t make any difference. I repaint everyone’s nameplates, I can do yours too. That was when I gave him the name Rex. Here lies Rex. May he rest in peace just the same. I won’t put a cross up for you, though you deserve a cross after what you’ve been through. He tried again to get up. He scratched at the earth with his claws and looked at me like he was begging me not to leave him there.

So I put my hands under his belly and stood him up. I thought to myself, if he can stand upright maybe he’ll pull through. I didn’t believe he’d be able to. And guess what, he stayed on his feet. Skin and bone. He was getting verminous. His neck was all bloody from the cord, and vermin had gotten into the wound. Into his eyes. Bloody foam was coming from his mouth. He swayed and he trembled, but he stayed on his feet. All right then, come on, I said, let’s try and live. I untied the cord from his neck and I urged him, come on, take one step and you’ll be able to walk. The first step is the most important. He did take one step, but then he collapsed. What was I to do? I picked him up and carried him. But my arms began to get tired. You can see what a huge animal he is, even though then he didn’t weigh half what he does now. I wished I’d had my penknife with me, I could have cut a few branches, made a stretcher and pulled him behind me somehow or other. Luckily I was wearing a jacket. I took it off, took off my shirt, tied them together, fastened them with the cord, put him into the whole thing, sat down, and somehow hoisted him onto my back, then I managed to struggle to my feet. And that was how I brought him home.

After that I asked around at the cabins whether anyone had lost a dog. No one had. I fed him up, brought him back to health, you see what he’s like now.
The only thing that made me think was that the folks from one of the cabins left immediately afterwards and they didn’t come back the next season, then they sold their cabin. It’s belonged to someone else for a good few years now, but whenever we do our rounds Rex always lies down outside that cabin, by the door to the deck. I always have to take him away from there, the new owner can’t understand why this dog always has to pick his doorway.

The other one, Paws, I saved him from drowning. One evening, it was also late autumn, the off-season, I was listening to music. When I listen to music I usually leave the lights off. All of a sudden I thought I heard someone driving up to the far shore of the lake in a car. You see, I can be listening to music and still hear everything. I went outside, didn’t see any lights, I thought I’d been mistaken. Then I heard a faint thud like a trunk being shut. Who on earth could it be at that time? Being so quiet, without lights? I thought, I’ll go see. And I snuck over there, stepping softly so whoever it was wouldn’t hear me coming and drive away. I was still some ways away when I recognized him. It was a guy from one of the cabins.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“Nothing really,” he said evasively. “I just came to pick up some stuff from my place, I didn’t mean to wake you up. Your lights were off, I figured you must be asleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep.” Then I hear a squealing sound. I look around, and in the dark I see what looks like a sack. And something’s clearly moving inside it. “What’s with the sack?” I ask.

“I took a few rocks,” he says. “I’ve got a yard at home. It looks nice when you put rocks around the flower beds, so my wife asked me while I’m here …”

“Rocks,” I say, “and they’re moving and squealing?”

In fact there were also rocks in the sack, but he couldn’t explain the movement and the squealing. In the end he couldn’t keep it up:

“Forgive me. It’s a little dog, a puppy. I came here to drown it. I bought it for my grandson. He was crazy about having a dog. But he doesn’t want it anymore.”

Ever since then, whenever he comes here he always brings something for
my dogs. Dog chow, or canned dog food with beef or turkey or salmon. And not just during the season, in the off-season as well, he often visits in the winter and brings them something. I tell him he needn’t bother, they have plenty to eat. All he’ll do is spoil them. But one time he says to me:

“You saved my soul.”

I was taken aback – all he’d been intending to do was drown a dog, and here he was talking about his soul. All the more because if you ask me, these days the soul is a commodity like anything else. You can buy it and sell it, and the prices aren’t high. Maybe it was always that way. I read in some book that centuries ago someone said the human soul is a piece of bread. Do you think bread could have been so very expensive back then? If so, it’s hardly surprising things are the way they are. Sorry for asking, but I imagine you must know what a human soul might cost these days, even just thinking about my dogs here. Or the graves in the woods.

You didn’t know there were graves in the woods? I was convinced you’d gone into the woods to look for them. I even wondered how you knew about them. Could Mr. Robert have told you? He let you stay in his cabin, said where to find the key, so maybe he told you about the graves as well. That was why I didn’t want to bother you. It’s always awkward to go ask someone who they are, why they’re here, how long for. Some folks I have to ask to show ID, because not everyone can be taken at their word. Or I even ask to see written permission that they can stay in someone’s cabin, especially if I’ve never seen them here before. But since it’s Mr. Robert …

Tell me at least how his health is. You don’t know Mr. Robert? Really? I bet you just don’t want to let on. Mr. Robert must have told you to say that. I was even thinking he must have sent you to let me know what’s going on with him. I thought maybe he’s ill and he couldn’t make it himself. So I waited till you’d had a good night’s sleep and came to see me. But you went off into the woods. To begin with I thought you’d gone for a walk, to relax a bit after the drive, get some fresh forest air, but that you’d be back soon. I kept looking out the window,
I even went outside a couple of times and stood there, but there was no sign of you. Everything started to get dark, the lake, the cabins, the woods. Soon it’d be night, then how would you find your way back? I was worried. It’s your first time here, you don’t know the woods, you could get lost. I’d have to take the dogs out and go looking for you. I turned a light on just in case, thinking that the light might lead you back. You saw it? There you are. It’s not hard to get lost out there, especially this time of year, in the fall. Right now nothing is what it is.

I almost got lost there myself. Yeah, that time the fog held me up on the way. It was all quiet and deserted, and just like you I went into the woods to find where the graves are. That was basically why I’d come in the first place. I didn’t know exactly where they were, only that they were in the woods. When Mr. Robert told me about them, he just waved toward the woods in general, as if to say, over that way. But the woods go on and on, where are you supposed to start? And if they were at least together, but no, they’re all over the place. I walked about the whole day, I don’t even remember how many of them I found that day. I didn’t notice it had started to get dark. Especially because the darkness doesn’t come all at once, as you know. For a long time you think you can see fine. And since you can see … I knew the woods, so I somehow managed to find my way back in the dark. But imagine this, it was only when I came out by the lake that I no longer knew where I was. On this shore or the other one. I remembered which direction the Rutka flowed, but now it seemed to me it was the opposite. The cabins could just about be made out in the darkness, but which one was Mr. Robert’s, I couldn’t have said. So I just stood there, I was completely unable to get my bearings. I even started to doubt whether it was me standing where I was standing.

All of a sudden, I saw a tiny light in the distance. At first it was ever so faint. I thought someone must be walking, lighting their way with a flashlight. But I didn’t know how I could call to them, whether they’d hear me at that distance, since I myself didn’t know where I was. All at once the light grew brighter, it stopped moving, and it came much closer. It was like I was standing on this side
of the Rutka and it was shining on the other side. At that moment you know what I thought? That they must be shelling beans at our place. And imagine this, they actually were.

Bean shelling always began with a light. Mother would wash the dishes after dinner, sweep up, then till dusk she’d disappear between the bed and the dresser with a rosary in her hands. Grandmother usually dozed off. Granddad would go out into the yard to check that everything was in its place. It was like everyone was waiting for the dusk, when we were going to shell beans. Father would sit on the bench by the window and smoke one cigarette after another, and stare out the window like he was expecting someone. Dusk gradually crept in everywhere, and he would just keep staring and staring out the window. You might have thought it was the dusk he was watching. But can you ever tell what a person’s staring at? You think they’re staring at one thing or another, but they may be staring inside themselves. People have things to look at inside themselves, that’s for sure. But perhaps he was also staring at the dusk as it settled in. What could have been so interesting about the dusk? Let me tell you, I often stare myself as dusk is falling, and at those times, I wonder whether it’s the same dusk my father used to stare at. That means something. From time to time he’d sort of accompany his staring with a running commentary:

“The days are really getting shorter. They really are. There’s barely room for people in them. They’re hardly over, and here it’s night. Why does there have to be so much night? What’s it for?” And as he put out yet another cigarette he’d turn to mother and say: “Light the lamp.”

Mother would get up from her rosary. She’d take the lamp down from the nail on the wall and check there was enough kerosene in it for the shelling. Sometimes she asked father:

“Should I top it up?”

To which he would usually say:

“Sure.” And he’d never fail to remind her to trim the wick, because it was probably burned hard, or to clean the glass because it had gotten sooty the day before.

He didn’t need to. Mother would have done those things anyway. Getting the lamp ready was like the crowning moment of the day for her. A kind of thanksgiving even, that the day had been gotten through. So she put all of her care into those preparations, as if surviving the next day depended on it. When she brought the match to the wick her hand would tremble and her face would be intent. After she put the glass back on the lamp she’d keep watching to make sure the flame caught. Only then would she turn the wick up a little. Her eyes behind their wire-rimmed glasses were lit up from underneath, and her expression would show she couldn’t quite believe that the miracle of light had happened by her own hand.