Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk Page B

horseradish leaves and periwinkles.
    In Jeszkotle baskets full of the food to be blessed for the Easter Sunday meal are placed on the side altar of the Virgin Mary of Jeszkotle. It is the woman who should take care of the food – both its preparation and its blessing. God-the-man has more important matters in his head: wars, catastrophes, conquests, and distant journeys … Women take care of the food.
    So people brought their baskets to the side altar of the Virgin Mary of Jeszkotle and waited on benches for the priest to come and sprinkle holy water. Each person sat at a distance from the next and in silence, because on Easter Saturday the church is dark and hushed like a cave, like a concrete air-raid shelter.
    Florentynka went up to the side altar with her dog, whose name was Billygoat. She put her basket down among the other baskets. In the others there was sausage, cake, horseradish with cream, colourful painted eggs, and beautiful white bread. Ah, how hungry Florentynka was, and how hungry her dog was.
    Florentynka gazed at the picture of the Virgin Mary of Jeszkotle and saw a smile on her smooth face. Billygoat sniffed at someone’s basket and pulled a piece of sausage out of it.
    “Here you hang and smile, good Lady, while the dogs eat your gifts,” said Florentynka in a hushed tone. “Sometimes it’s hard for a person to understand a dog. You, good Lady, surely understand animals and people equally. Surely you even know the thoughts of the moon …”
    Florentynka sighed.
    “I’m going to pray to your husband, and you mind my dog.”
    She tied the dog to the railing in front of the miraculous icon, among the baskets, over which crocheted napkins had been thrown.
    “I’ll be back in a moment.”
    She found herself a place in the front row among the dressed-up women from Jeszkotle. They moved away from her a little and glanced at each other knowingly.
    Meanwhile the sacristan, who was meant to keep order in the church, went up to the side altar of the Virgin Mary of Jeszkotle. First he noticed something moving, but for some time his eyes could not make sense of what they were seeing. When he realised that a hideous great mangy dog had just been rummaging around in the baskets full of food to be blessed, he staggered in indignation and the blood rushed to his face. Horrified by this sacrilege, he leaped forward to drive away the impudent animal. He grabbed the string, and with hands trembling in dismay, undid the knot. Just then he heard a quiet woman’s voice coming from the icon:
    “Leave that dog alone! I’m minding him for Florentynka from Primeval.”
     
     
    THE TIME OF THE HOUSE
     
    The foundations were dug in a perfect square. Its sides corresponded to the four points of the compass.
    First Michał, Paweł Boski and the workmen built the walls out of stone – that was the underpinning – and then out of wooden beams.
    Once they had enclosed the cellars, they started talking about the place as a “house,” but only once they had built the roof and crowned it with a garland did it become a house for good and proper. For a house starts to exist as soon as its walls enclose a bit of space within them. It is this enclosed space that is the soul of the house.
    They spent two years building the house. They hoisted the garland onto the roof in the summer of 1936. They took a photo of themselves in front of the house.
    The house had several cellars. One of them had two windows, and this one was meant to be the basement and the summer kitchen in one. The next cellar had one window – they designated it the closet, laundry, and potato store. The third one had no windows at all – this was to be a storage space in case of need. Under this third one Michał ordered another, fourth little cellar to be dug, small and cold – for ice and goodness knows what else.
    The ground floor was high, on stone underpinnings. The way into the ground floor was up steps with a wooden balustrade. There were two