‘So watch out, everyone, watch out! Revenge is on the way!’ she says out loud. Lying in the hay and grimacing in pain, she stretches her limbs like a cat as a smile forms on her face. Her fingers touch the corners of her lips, and she thinks her face has nearly forgotten how to contract and extend its muscles in laughter. But this was not a smile of satisfaction, let alone one of reconciliation with the world and with her fate. This was a smile that since antiquity has spread across the faces of generals preparing for military action as they survey the enemy in the distance while glancing from time to time at their own soldiers, who from that moment on are nothing but nameless particles in the organism they will soon unleash, which will destroy the enemy to the last man. The father of her bastard child she will tackle methodically, and not even his wife will escape without consequences, not even his children – well, she’ll have to think about the children. Her attacks must be planned with a clear head, her goals carefully chosen. It makes no sense to strike in all directions; that will only turn people’s stomachs. But if in your battles you carefully cultivate a certain purpose, shifting it back and forth between the front lines and the rear, people will come to view the war first as understandable, then as acceptable and later as inevitable, until finally it seems well warranted and just.
In the war she is preparing she will at first be alone, but, like any good commander, she will gradually subjugate both individuals and the populace, who will be unwittingly enlisted in her army. She will play the helpless victim, which means she must choose her targets carefully if she wants to create the impression of a process driven by justice and humility before God. So she probably won’t go after the children. Anyway, his pock-faced daughter (who is her own age) is so ugly there’s little chance she’ll ever know passion, let alone love. And the other three children are still little so it wouldn’t do to make them suffer – that could bring down vengeance on her and her baby.
‘But why not use this opportunity and take care of everything that pains me in life?’ she thinks. ‘Sure, I’ve been a whore, but he wasn’t my first. Before him, years before, my own father got drunk and had his way with me right in our cottage. He was the first, and the next was my mother’s brother. And then there was the farmhand who grabbed my hair and pressed me up against one of the beams in the barn, and there was another time when some mowers pushed me into the hay and I don’t even remember how many there were. I know people do such things, but did I have to put up with it all? No! Nobody should do that to a child! It’s a sin, even if our priest never talks about it. And every time it happened, it hurt so much and I was so scared, I didn’t think I’d survive. But I did! And because I did, I’ll see to it that this wrong is put right. And I should do something about my mother, too, since she knew what was going on and even caught us at it a few times. But she did nothing. She just turned around and bustled into the house, kneeled down before Mary and prayed. So why didn’t you say anything to them? I used to ask her in my thoughts and from somewhere I’d hear her whining, “But I was afraid, I was so afraaiiid … It happened to me, too, you know, the same thing, when I was a child. Women are put in this world to kneel, and, whether on our knees or our backs, we must patiently bear it.”
‘Oh, is that right? Well, I couldn’t agree less! Surely, Mother, when you were a child and they were doing to you what they did to me, didn’t you pray to grow up as fast as you could and be married off to a man who wasn’t the brute men usually are? I have almost all of the names written down, not so I wouldn’t forget them but so I’d
preserve that memory of being unglued from my body in the midst of my pain and having a revelation, a revelation that sounds like this: We don’t have to accept what other people force us into. So anything that has ever been taken from me by force from this moment on becomes my weapon. I’ve heard and read that there are women who know how to rule entire kingdoms with their pussies. If that’s true – and I believe it is – then I, too, will create my own fiefdom. I used to blame myself a little for being naïve enough to think that if a man is nice to me the way he was, that if he doesn’t beat me or take me by force, it means he loves me. I know now it’s no good believing anyone, that I shouldn’t surrender so trustingly to pretty words or comforting arms, that I should never surrender and must always maintain control. Well, Mother, tell me because I’m curious: did the Virgin lay it on your heart, as you kneeled there snivelling beneath her picture, to patiently bear it the way you’ve done all your life? Or did she maybe point her hand in the direction of the man, your husband, who at that very moment was sticking it into me, and then look at you and say, “Now, Mother, go to the barn and take the pitchfork, or if the pitchfork is not at hand, take the sickle, and return to the house and swing it with all your might over the bed, only be sure that it is him you strike down and that she survives.” And if you later explained to people that he had taken his own daughter countless times, they would believe you, and I would have told them everything, too, and you and I would have run the farm together in peace.
‘But no, Mother, you have less sense than our entire henhouse! Whenever I suffered these unmentionable things, you would send me ugly looks as if to say, “It’s your own fault! Ever since you were a little girl you’ve had something of the whore in you. Even as a child you would point your finger at things – ‘Oh, look, Mother, look at the bull on top of the cow! And that bitch is in heat again!’ or, ‘What’s that sticking out the farmhand’s trousers? That thing he sometimes scratches so much it makes him grimace like he’s hurting all over, and then, when the pain passes, there’s a sort of white blood dripping off his hand? What’s the farmhand got in his trousers that I don’t have?’” And you would slap my face every time and yell at me and tell me not to look at such things, not to talk about them, because they’re disgusting and unsuitable for girls. Oh, but I will talk, and how I will talk! And I’ll point my finger at everyone who has ever done anything bad to me.
‘The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced I don’t have to meekly surrender. And what looks like my doom doesn’t have to be my destiny – my destiny is to turn things around to what’s best for me and my baby. If that’s God’s will, too, so much the better, although I’m not going to rely on God. Why should I wait around for someone to marry a disgraced girl with a bastard child out of pity? From now on, it’s me who does the choosing. My visits to the sacristy have served me very well. The priest always reimbursed me for my nice little favours by slipping a kreutzer in my blouse or giving me some little book to read. Back when he didn’t like Mary all that much he used to teach some of us children to read and write during our Sunday classes. I learned to read and write Slovene and German, and I took good care of the books he gave me. I’d read them at home in secret, so nobody could accuse me of wasting time on nonsense; then, at our next appointment, I would give them back to him and earn myself a new little book with my good works, which might not get me into heaven but they’d always get me a book and a coin, the priest said, who ever since that visit by the Church official has started giving us communion under one kind again. But I’ll leave the priest alone; that way he’ll stand up for me and support me. After all, when he hears my confession, he’ll be scared that he, too, might end up among the people I’m accusing, my tormenters and persecutors.
‘But what if nobody believes me? Oh, it’ll be hard for them not to! May is coming, and every day I’ll put flowers around the church altar and crawl on my knees from saint to saint with the rosary in my hand (I’ll wrap my knees in wadding so it won’t hurt), and during these scenes it’ll look like I’m praying, but what I’ll really be doing when I open my mouth is spinning the story I’ll use to bring justice to my life. I’ll keep the Holy Spirit in it, since I know that will make a strong impression on the community and the judge. White doves look like little angels and the souls of innocent babes, so whoever hears me talking will connect the bird to the baby in my belly, and to me, too, since I’ll look just like a wounded little sparrow. But birds don’t live on seeds alone; they’d rather peck on grasshoppers, worms and the flesh of other animals. And if a bird doesn’t watch out for herself, she’ll soon become someone else’s quarry.
‘So starting tomorrow, I’ll be good, pious and humble, or so it will seem. Now that spring’s here, I can easily sleep in barns and mangers, but I’ll need to get everything done by winter. And you who gave me this baby, you’d better be ready. Things are going to get hot for you, you selfish pervert, so hot that everything you have, everything you