Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk & Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Author:Olga Tokarczuk & Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2018-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

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CUCUJUS HAEMATODES

Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.

By early June the houses were inhabited, at the weekends at least, but I was still taking my duties quite seriously. For instance, at least once a day I’d go up the hill and conduct my usual surveillance through binoculars. First I’d monitor the houses, of course. In a sense, houses are living creatures that coexist with Man in exemplary symbiosis. My heart swelled with joy, for now it was plain to see that their symbionts had returned. They had filled the empty interiors with their comings and goings, the warmth of their own bodies, their thoughts. Their dainty hands were mending all the little cuts and bruises left by the winter, drying out the damp walls, washing the windows and fixing the ballcocks. Now the houses looked as if they had awoken from the deep sleep into which material sinks when it’s not disturbed. Plastic tables and chairs had already been carried into the front yards, the wooden shutters had been opened, and finally the Sunlight could get inside. At the weekends smoke rose from the chimneys. The Professor and his wife appeared more and more often, always in the company of friends. They’d walk along the road – they never ventured onto the field boundaries. They went on a daily post-prandial walk to the chapel and back, stopping on the road, deep in conversation. Occasionally, when the wind was blowing from their direction, the odd word would reach me: Canaletto, chiaroscuro, tenebrism.

Every Friday the Wellers started to show up too. In unison, they set about tearing up the plants that had been growing around their house until now, in order to plant others that they’d bought at a shop. It was hard to tell what logic was driving them, why they didn’t like elderberry, but preferred wisteria in its place. One time, standing on tiptoes to look at them over their enormous fence, I told them the wisteria probably wouldn’t survive the February frosts here, but they just smiled, nodded and went on doing their thing. They cut down a beautiful wild rose and ripped up some clumps of thyme. They arranged some stones to build a fanciful mound in front of the house, and planted it with conifers, as they put it: ornamental cedars, creeping pine, dwarf cypresses and firs. Utterly pointless, to my mind.

The Grey Lady was coming for longer stays by now, and I’d see her walking along the field boundaries at a slow pace, stiff as a post. One evening I went to her house with the keys and the repair bills. She offered me some herbal tea. To be polite, I drank it. Once we had finished settling the accounts, I dared to ask a question.

‘If I wanted to write my memoirs, how would I go about it?’ I said, sounding confused.

‘You must sit at the table and force yourself to write. It’ll come of its own accord. You mustn’t censor yourself. You must write down everything that comes into your head.

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