when he went off, she found an excuse to linger. She saw the boy take off his linen shirt, fold it carefully and hang it over the stair rail. She was moved when she saw his naked rib cage – slim, but muscular, and his swarthy skin, under which his blood was pulsating and his heart was beating. She went home, but from then on she often found a reason to go down to the gate, where the sacks of grain or flour were received and collected. Or she came at dinner time, when the men came down to eat. She looked at their flour-dusted shoulders, sinewy arms and their linen trousers, damp with sweat. Involuntarily her gaze sought out one among them, and when it found him, she felt a hot flush as the blood rushed to her face.
That boy, that Eli – as she heard him being called – aroused fear in her, anxiety and shame. At the sight of him her heart began to pound and her breathing became faster. She tried to watch coolly and indifferently. His dark, curling hair, strong nose and strange, dark lips. The dark, hairy atrium of his armpit as he wiped the sweat from his face. He swayed as he walked. Several times he met her gaze and was startled, like an animal that has come too close. Finally they bumped into each other in the narrow doorway. She smiled at him.
“Bring a sack of flour to my house,” she said.
From then on she stopped waiting for her husband.
Eli put the sack down on the floor and took off his linen cap. He crumpled it in his whitened hands. She thanked him, but he didn’t leave. She saw that he was chewing his lip.
“Would you like some fruit juice?”
He said yes. She handed him a mug and watched him drink. He lowered his long, girlish eyelashes.
“I’d like to ask you a favour …”
“Yes?”
“Come and chop some wood for me this evening, could you?”
He nodded and left.
She waited all afternoon. She did up her hair and looked at herself in the mirror. Then, once he had come, as he was chopping the wood, she brought him some buttermilk and bread. He sat down on the chopping block and ate. Without knowing why, she told him about Michał at the war. He said: “The war’s over now. Everyone’s coming back.”
She gave him a bag of flour. She asked him to come the next day, and the next day she asked him to come again.
Eli chopped wood, cleaned the stove, and did some minor repairs. They rarely talked, and always on trivial subjects. Genowefa watched him furtively, and the longer she looked at him the more her gaze grew attached to him. Finally she could not bear not to look at him. She devoured him with her gaze. At night she dreamed she was making love with a man, and it was not Michał, or Eli, but a stranger. She would wake up feeling dirty. She would get up, fill the basin with water and wash her entire body. She wanted to forget the dream. Then she would watch through the window as the workmen came down to the mill. She would see Eli furtively looking in at her windows. She would hide behind the curtain, angry with herself because her heart was thumping as if she had been running. “I won’t think about him, I swear,” she would decide, and get down to work. At about noon she would go and see Niedziela, always by some chance meeting Eli on the way. Amazed by her own voice, one day she asked him to come by.
“I’ve baked you a bun,” she said, and pointed at the table.
He timidly took a seat and put his cap down in front of him. She sat opposite, watching him eat. He ate cautiously and slowly. White crumbs remained on his lips.
“Eli?”
“Yes?” He looked up at her.
“Did you like it?”
“Yes.”
He stretched his hand out across the table towards her face. She recoiled abruptly.
“Don’t touch me,” she said.
The boy lowered his head. His hand went back to the cap. He said nothing. Genowefa sat down.
“Tell me, where did you want to touch me?” she asked quietly.
He raised his head and stared at her. She thought she could see flashes of red in his eyes.
“I’d
Janwillem van de Wetering