A Treatise on Shelling Beans by Wiesław Myśliwski Read Free Book Online Page A

the tango. Do you live here permanently? Since when? What brought you here? How did you manage to get a place in aband in a club like this? Was it right away, or did you have to start by washing dishes? So you must have known someone. Normally everyone begins by washing dishes. Even for that you need to have good luck. Then if you’re really lucky you might get to wait tables. But this is something else! I bet it’s so great living here. Working in a place like this. Dance parties every evening. And they pay a decent wage, not like … One of them even asked:
    “You can be honest with us. Did you leave for political reasons? Did you escape?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Oh, then I know!” cried one of the women as if she’d finally hit on why I’d found myself there. “I bet it was because of a woman. Well? Was that it?” They crowded in to hear what I’d say.
    Another woman, who was sitting at the next table and up till now hadn’t asked any questions, gave a sigh and said:
    “The things love can make you do.”
    “The hell with love,” Mr. Robert retorted in irritation. “Who can afford love these days. It’s all about going to bed, nothing more.”
    “Don’t say that,” the woman protested. “Love is the most important thing in life.”
    Fortunately the other musicians waved to say the break was over. But the matter didn’t end there. You might say that was only the beginning. A few days later, a postcard arrived addressed to me at the club, in which Mr. Robert thanked me for an unforgettable evening. He said he was glad to have met me and that he’d write a real letter soon. With no idea of what might come, I wrote a postcard in return to say I’d also enjoyed the evening and I was glad I’d gotten to know him. But you know, it’s not good to be too polite. You can never be sure that even with common courtesy you’re not setting a trap for yourself. It was just that his postcard had kind of touched an unhealed wound in me. I’d never gotten a postcard from anyone back in Poland before.
    Some time later the promised letter arrived. It was long and cordial. Heinvited me to come take a vacation. He wrote that he had a summer cabin on some lake. All around there were woods. It was secluded, quiet, peaceful, in a word a magical place, as he put it. Even if it was true that some woman had left me, like we’d been saying that evening, in this place I’d be able to forget her. Because here you could forget anything. Here you went back to being a part of nature, without any obligations, without memories. Besides, if it was women I was after, there were any number of them here, and he’d find one who’d be right for me, cheer me up after the other one. Pretty young things, they come here on the weekends, or for their vacation. Some even spend the whole summer here, so there’s no need to try very hard even, they fall into your arms of their own accord. You won’t be disappointed, especially as you’re coming from abroad.
    In the next letter, which arrived right on the heels of the first one and was even longer, he invited me to at least come for mushroom picking. They were expecting a big crop that year. He had a battery-driven heating device for drying the mushrooms. Because he was sure I liked picking mushrooms, who doesn’t? He loved it. Apart from women, there wasn’t much he enjoyed more than picking mushrooms. He’d get crazy jealous when someone else found a boletus and he had nothing, or maybe just some slippery Jack. He’d hope the other person’s mushroom was maggoty. But was there any deeper way of experiencing nature? It hurts to even think about what people can be like. Mushroom picking’s also the best form of relaxation. You don’t think of anything, don’t remember a thing, all your attention, all your senses are concentrated on the search for a mushroom. You might say the entire world shrinks to the proportions of that mushroom you’re looking for. So if someone wants true