Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg

Author:Wioletta Greg [Greg, Wioletta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781846276088
Publisher: Granta Publications
Published: 2017-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

Strawberry

SO WHERE’S THE YOUNG LADY GOING, ALL BY herself? Częstochowa? The train’s really crawling along today, isn’t it, just crawling along, but we’ll be in Korwinów before you can say knife. Where are you from, miss? Hektary? My goodness. I used to live there myself. Do you know the birch grove by the forest? When I was a young lad, I used to go mushroom picking there, with Jadzia, the Nowaks’ girl. Oh, Jadzia… she was pretty as a picture. You look a bit like her, young lady.

What was I saying? Ah, yes. Before the war, the place was full of mushrooms. They spread like wildfire under the young birches. You just had to take care not to mix up the good ones with the bad. We used to put salt on them and grill them on stove lids. I’ve never eaten anything better in my life. They tasted like heaven.

Oh no, in the countryside before the war, you’d never think of buying toys for kids. We didn’t even have a privy, only a bucket in the hallway. The girls played with dolls made from corncobs. Do you know, miss, how to make a doll like that? Before the corncobs ripen, they grow green and lilac silks, just like hair. Jadzia loved those cobs. I used to go behind the priest’s field and bring back a few inside my shirt, so that she’d have some for later.

In July of thirty-nine, we would play in our little hollow almost every day. There was a stream running through it. The water was cold and shallow, but we wanted to swim, so we dragged together lots of sticks and stones. It was hard work for a couple of days, but when the dam was ready the water rose and made a little pond. We splashed around till evening, with burdock leaves on our heads to keep the sun off. When we got bored of splashing, we’d have a rest under the oak tree. That oak tree is still there, isn’t it? Even the Germans didn’t touch it. Ha! Jadzia loved lying under that oak, flushing the game from the clouds, as she’d say. Around five, we’d usually go home our separate ways. Hiding from everyone, Jadzia and I would sneak into Sitkowa’s barn, go up to the top of the mow, which was full of hay, and slide down on sacks. I’d climb up to the very peak with a hat full of chaff and toss it out so that it rained down over the threshing floor. Jadzia had such fun with this, until a husk got into her eye and she started bawling and ran off home.

One day, I leaned down to scoop up some chaff into my hat, and my shirt rode up. Jadzia saw the birthmark on my back – a strawberry, we used to call it back then, miss. She started laughing and fled from the barn. I chased after her, but she’d hidden somewhere behind the woodshed, the little demon.

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