Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski Page A

us all night to get home along that road. The rooster would crow once, twice, three times. The cows would be hungry and lowing in the cattle sheds. Buckets would be clanking at the wells. And here someone was still on their way home. Sometimes till it was broad daylight. Till morning. What was the hurry? The dance was still spinning in our heads, the music was still playing, and we’d cut a step on the roadway like it was the floor of the barn and sing the first thing that came into our heads. “Stone upon stone, on stone a stone!” And the road never let out a word of complaint that you were waking it up. And it never dared hurry you. It’d go step for step under your feet, alongside you, like a faithful dog. When you stopped it stopped also. You could go one way or another, any direction you wanted, you could even turn back to the dance and it would turn back with you. From one edge to the other it was yours. Like a girl on a bed of hay, underneath you.
    The night could be black as pitch, and you’d be three sheets to the wind. One moment you had the sky over your head, the next the earth, then the next nothing at all, maybe not even God himself, because why would God want to watch over a drunken man. But the road never left you. The whole world would rear like a stallion under you, try and throw you off. Sometimes a tree would hold you up, sometimes a post or a shrine. Or you’d just fall over, pick yourself up, and continue on your way. If not on your feet then on all fours. Or you didn’t get up at all. Till you got woken in the early morning by the birds singing like a heavenly choir in the acacias. And if you didn’t know where you were, the road itself would lead you home like a guardian angel. Unless you got a ride from Szmul when he was taking the milk churns into town of a morning. But Szmul was just as much a part of the road as the acacia trees.
    I never missed a single dance, not just in our village but anywhere in the neighborhood. There were times we’d go five and ten villages away when we heard there was going to be a bash. And since I knew how to have a good time more than most folks, I was always greeted with open arms and they knew me far and wide. Hey look, Szymek Pietruszka’s here! Then they knew the party would be a blast. When I’d show up in the doorway it’d be, in with the band! in with the dancers! Musicians, play a march for Szymek Pietruszka! And the band would play like wild horses. And I’d enter dancing the march.
    The first thing you’d do was go to the buffet in the middle of the room. Like bride and groom walking up the aisle. Stand aside, everyone! At the buffet you’d meet people you knew and people you didn’t, but they were all friends. Szymek, Szymuś, you’re here, greetings, friend, buddy, pal. Somebody’s pouring a drink, someone’s handing you one already poured, a third person gives you an even bigger glass, someone else a piece of sausage and a pickle. Drink up, Szymuś! Here’s to being single! We’re gonna have fun tonight! Long live us! And when on top of that my watch chain would be dangling from my belt, the whole dance shivered in anticipation. Now there’d be a party. Because on my watch chain I carried a knife.
    Oh, that knife of mine was famous. It looked like just a handle. Anyone who didn’t know might think I was only carrying it for good luck, like a keepsake. And having it on a watch chain like a watch, it seemed almost innocent. But all you had to do was press a button at the side and the blade would pop out like a wasp stinger. Often they’d come at me with sticks, and all I’d have was my knife. A whole mob of them, from every side, and me in the middle all on my lonesome, with nothing but the knife. But even a sword wouldn’t have matched it.
    Sometimes I didn’t even have to take it out. All I needed was to unbutton my jacket and flash the watch chain, fear did the rest. It was the same at the buffet – because of the knife I barely