A Treatise on Shelling Beans (45 page)

One time I was so set on edge by it that I thought the only thing to do was smother them. But I got up and went outside instead. I sat on the stoop and lit a cigarette. It was summertime, the air was warm, dawn was beginning to break. I was intending to just sit there till it was time to get ready for work. The widow joined me outside. She hadn’t been able to sleep either, even though there was a thick wall with plastering on both sides between her room and ours, not just a thin partition.

“They’re snoring, huh?” she asked. “Yeah, they woke me up too. In the war I’d even sleep through the bombings. But I’m sensitive to snoring. Do you snore?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “No one ever told me.”

“You’re so young, at the most you might make a little bit of noise when you’re dreaming. Give me a cigarette. I don’t smoke, but I feel like one right now.”

“I left them inside.”

“Too bad. On a close night like this I feel like smoking.” She fanned herself with her nightshirt, she’d come out in the nightshirt with a kind of shawl thrown over it.

“You can finish mine if you like, ma’am,” I said. “There’s enough for a few drags. If you don’t mind.”

“Why should I mind?” she retorted. “Women kiss men and they don’t mind that.” She drew on the cigarette and coughed so violently her breasts almost fell out of her nightshirt. “Ugh, these cigarettes are disgusting. How can you smoke them? Don’t they make you sick? You’re not even a full-grown man yet. And you work too much. I see when you go to work and when you come back. Plus, you never get a decent night’s sleep from all their snoring. At your age you need more sleep. Later on you won’t need as much. Today I can see you’re going to go to work tired. And you work with electricity. Just be careful you don’t get a shock. I admit it is pretty convenient with the electricity, but when I turn it on I’m always afraid.”

“There’s no reason to be afraid,” I said.

“I’m sure you’re right,” she said.

I crushed my cigarette butt under my shoe and I was about to get up when she leaned down from where she was standing over me and stroked my hair.

“Come on, you can get some sleep in my bed. There’s no point going back to their room. I don’t snore. As it is you’ll have to get up soon to go to work, but even an hour or two will do you good. My bed’s nice and wide. There was plenty of room with my husbands, when we didn’t feel like it we didn’t even
bump into each other. You shouldn’t have to hang around out here till morning. Don’t worry, you won’t be late. I’ll wake you up.”

She took me by the hand and helped me up. Perhaps all those sleepless nights had suddenly overpowered me; in any case, I put up no resistance. While I was smoking I was somehow able to stay awake, but once I’d finished, my eyes started to close of their own accord. Maybe if I’d had another cigarette …

“You can barely keep your eyes open, I see,” she said. “You really are short on sleep. Even an hour or two will help.”

She was quite a lot older than me, though today I’d say she was still young. You know how it is. As you grow older, everyone around you gets younger. All the more so in memory. You often catch yourself thinking that back then someone seemed old, while at the time they were a lot younger than you are now. Or perhaps she seemed much older then because she’d already had two husbands. One of them she kicked out for drinking not long after they got married, the other one died from drink. And she was just thinking about whether to get married a third time. He drank too, but he was a widower like her, he had two small children, and that way she’d at least have children, she said. Because she’d have hated to get pregnant with a drunk, God forbid. Never with a drunk, she told herself. It would have been too much for her to see them born into unhappiness. She’d seen those kinds of kids. With this new husband she’d have a purpose in life, because it’s hard to live with the thought that life comes to an end with you. And whether it’s your own kids or someone else’s, either way you never know what’s going to come of them. Someone else’s child could even be more caring later because you gave him your heart when the heart of his own mother failed. He might turn out to be a good husband, who knew? He only turned to drink when his wife left him with the two children. He didn’t know what to do. A man’s always drawn to vodka. But when he got drunk he’d sometimes come to her and weep at having gotten drunk. And he would beg her, help me, help me. So sometimes she’d weep with him.

He was completely different in his drinking from the other two. The first one, when he drank he slept like a log. And he drank almost every day, so every day she had a log in bed – or rather, every night. The second one, when he came home drunk he’d start by beating her. It was only once he’d beaten her that he’d make a move on her. He liked to make love with a woman like that, with her beaten and crying. Now this third one … Should she marry him or not?

“What do you think?” she asked, when we were already in bed. “Though never mind, you go to sleep. I’m not going to go back to sleep. I don’t want you being late for work because of me. I don’t know what to do, I go over it night after night in my thoughts. I might end up being too old for a fourth husband, if I take this third one. The older a woman is, the worse the guys that come along. The fourth one, I might have to make him take the cure. Or I’d kill him. And make no mistake, at times there’s nothing you can do. True, even among older men you occasionally meet a decent guy that doesn’t drink. But he could take to drink after he’s married, or he’d feel closer and closer to dying, and I’d feel it too. And try dying with a drunk. Suffering for his drinking afterwards. By then it’s too late to be thinking about a new husband. So you see how it is – you marry one person, but afterwards you have to live with a different one.” She sighed so deeply a wave of warmth hit me. “But you should go to sleep. You have to get up soon.”

I was so tired I was half asleep. Still, I was listening to her, especially because she seemed to be waiting to hear what I’d say about her troubles. But what could I say, I was appalled by her lust for life. By all those husbands of hers, she had two of them under her belt and she was already imagining not just a fourth, if the third one turned out to be a drunk after they got married, but more and more all the way till she died, and maybe even after death. How could I have any idea what it was like to be a third husband, or what it could be like for a woman to be with a third one.

“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am,” I said.

“What are you calling me ma’am for?” she said, bridling, and I felt another
wave of heat. “You’re lying in bed with me and saying ma’am. Just call me ma’am when we’re around the other men. I wasn’t asking for your opinion. I have to figure it out on my own. What can you know.” She slipped her hand under my head and held me to her. “Is this the first time you’ve been with a woman? I thought so, you’re lying there all shy, all tensed up. But you should sleep. Today nothing’s going to happen anyway. You need at least a bit of sleep before you go to work. See, the dawn’s starting to come up. It’ll be morning before you know it. Get to sleep. Lord, going without sleep night after night like that. Were you always sensitive to snoring? Me too. Good lord. If you like I can put a straw mattress down for you in the kitchen, and you can leave their room for the night, tell them you can’t sleep because of their snoring. And sometimes you can come into my bed. I’ve never had anyone as young as you. You’re a sweet boy.” She shook me, as I was already falling asleep. She raised her head and leaned over me, suddenly bothered. “Are you telling the truth that it’s your first time?” Relieved, she fell back on the pillow. “What a bit of luck. God must be making up for those drunkards of mine.” She abruptly pressed my head to her breast. “I don’t even know what to do with someone when it’s their first time. When it was me it was quite an experience, I remember. I didn’t like it. You probably have no idea what to do. But don’t worry, I’ll teach you everything. Whatever you do though, for God’s sake don’t let them persuade you to drink. You can have one or two drinks. That won’t do you any harm. But not any more. It’s not good for the man to have too much. Or for the woman either. Though for the woman it’s not such a big thing. I’ve had drunken men, I know. I’m wondering where I could put that mattress down for you. I think I’ll move the table against the wall. You’ll finally be able to get some sleep. You don’t have to come to me every night. Only when you’re not too tired. I don’t have the urge every night either. But go to sleep now. Today it’s like you’re with family. Brother and sister. I could be your older sister. Why not? There are bigger age differences. Though you sometimes hear about brothers and sisters doing it together. Nothing’s sacred anymore.” She stroked me, kissed me on the forehead, pressed me to her
so hard that my nose was squashed against her downy chest. “Oh, you sweet thing.”

Let me tell you, I started to be afraid of her. Maybe because what did I know back then about women. If I hadn’t been so sleepy I might have gotten out of bed, said I felt like smoking again, I was going to fetch my cigarettes. But I was too timid to even get up.

“Go to sleep.” She held me to her again. “This isn’t the only night we’ll have. There’ll be plenty more! I asked your boss, he said the job’s going to take a long while yet. We’ll have lots of time to tell each other secrets. I’ll leave the door from the kitchen to my room ajar so you don’t have to move the handle. And I’ll have the hinges oiled tomorrow. Go to sleep now. I won’t turn around, I’ll listen to you sleeping. When someone’s asleep you can often tell a lot about them. One person sleeps like a child, while with someone else, God help him. It comes out of them in their sleep. Whether they keep turning from one side to the other, or they sleep on the same side all night long, or sleep facing you all night, you can know a lot. Or if they’re curled up in a ball like they were clinging to their mommy. The worst ones are the ones that lie on their backs, like those drunkards of mine. The one and the other both slept on their backs. I always had to roll them over onto their sides to stop them from snoring so loud. Whenever I think of them I stop feeling sleepy, however tired I was before. When you want to go to sleep you ought to think of something nice. But how can you have enough nice things to last for every time you have to fall asleep. It’s mostly unpleasant things that crowd into your mind, there’s never any shortage of those. It looks like dawn’s beginning. The curtain’s getting lighter. And you can see the Lord Jesus better. He’s always the first thing you see when the sun comes up. But you can still sleep a little at least. I’ll wake you so you get up just before the other men. When you go in to get dressed it’ll be like you were just coming back from the bathroom. Go to sleep. It won’t be for long, but you won’t be as exhausted as if you’d not slept at all. Especially working with electricity. Lord in heaven, what if you were to get a shock. Lord in heaven. I got a shock from the iron one
time. I was only touching it to see if it was hot. It made me tingle all the way up my arm. Gave me such a scare. I burned a pillowcase. People say you get all kinds of illnesses from the electricity. Is that true?”

I don’t know if I told her it wasn’t, or if I only dreamed that I told her so.

“I won’t deny it, a thing like an iron is really handy. All that work you used to have to do heating the charcoal, blowing on it. One time I burned my eyebrows, I’ve had to dye them since then. The flat-irons with the heated slug inside weren’t any better. They were so heavy, and the slug would keep losing its heat. You’d have to be always putting it in the fire and taking it out. You’d use the kitchen stove. One time, a heated slug fell on my foot. Lucky I was wearing shoes. Now all you have to do is plug it in. It’s convenient. Though if people start getting sick … Lord forbid. But there’s no point worrying about illnesses ahead of time. If they come we’ll deal with them, better or worse, either that or we’ll die right away. Dying right away would be good. Even without electricity there comes a time of sickness. That’s how life is. For now I’d rather just think about what it’s going to be like with you. Your first time. Mother of God. I’m actually scared. My bed for sure never saw this coming. Though I have to change the sheets. I’ll put the embroidered ones on. Quilt and pillowcases. I embroidered them myself. I’d be waiting in the evenings for those drunken husbands of mine, what was I supposed to do? I did embroidery. Though not for them. No sir. No way would I have let them sleep in embroidered sheets. And I’ll buy us a new bottom sheet. Just make sure you wash. Your boss told me you have a shower over on the site. It’s not you, I just know how guys wash themselves. Someone has to make sure you do it right. I’ll have a good wash too. I’ll soak myself in the bathtub. I’ll fill it with foam, maybe even put in some fragrance. Will you make an outlet for me by my bed? I’d like to get a bedside lamp. We could turn it on sometimes. Instead of always only doing it in the dark. For once I’d like it to be light. I read somewhere it’s a lot nicer that way. And I like to read from time to time. After you’re gone, I’ll be able to read in bed. Or think awhile with the light on. You probably have more pleasant thoughts that way. But you, don’t
think, go to sleep. I know what you’re thinking about, but there’s not much time. There wouldn’t be enough. Best not to start. When you got up you’d be in worse shape than if you’d just not slept. Often your legs will barely carry you, and your head is whirling. The daylight’s here, but it’s like the night refuses to go out of you. You cook, you do the laundry, but it’s still nighttime. As if you were doing everything in the dark. And you’d be mad at me. I don’t want you to be mad. When a man’s mad, someone has to be to blame. And the way it is, it’s always the woman. Or you’d be late for work, and that’d be my fault too. But don’t worry, I’ll teach you, you’ll see. There’s always a first time. When you don’t know what you’re doing it can be all over before you know it, and I don’t want that. I’ve had enough of that. I was raped by soldiers, I know all about that kind. There were five of them, with all these medals swinging to and fro over my head. I didn’t even feel like crying. Though why am I even telling you these things. You don’t need to know what the world was like only yesterday. Maybe you’ve come into a better world. You should want it to be better. If men want to fight, let them, but women and children shouldn’t have to pay for their wars. Though those drunkards of mine weren’t soldiers, and they weren’t any better. They’d come home drunk, and it’d be the same thing, over before you knew it, without any feeling, then they’d be asleep a moment later. And when they did it that way it was like they were paying you back for something. Whether it was a soldier or a husband. For what? That the world’s arranged in such a way that it takes two people? Surely the world is made for loving. Without loving there’d be no reason to live. Nothing but sleeping and eating, what for? Working, what for? Who’d feel like working in a world like that? I read a book once where some guy died while he was making love to a woman. His heart gave out. His heart, can you believe it. Everything collects in the heart. When too much gathers there it can’t take it. Are you still awake?”