so many torments. We are devout people, so it simply cannot be God who is poisoning our lives so randomly, burdening us with so many terrible afflictions and punishments, which, considering the degree of our sinfulness, we do not deserve. We are honest folk who love God – we give to the Church whatever God demands, and what the count wants we give to him, and what the prince wants, the Archduke Ferdinand, we give to him as well, although we also keep something back from all of the above, since they ask too much from us. And besides all these, there is also the emperor above us, who is so far away we can hardly imagine him and we’re only aware of his existence when we must render unto him that which is his. Which mainly means our lives, which the provincial armies throughout the empire enlist and send to war, the causes and purposes of which are unknown to us and don’t really concern us, except when it comes to fighting our land’s hereditary enemy, the Turks, who have been capturing, raping, pillaging and slaughtering us for some two hundred years.
Nevertheless, we have worked out methods for determining what is good and just and what isn’t entirely that. On feast days we process around the church, staggering beneath a heavy banner, and venerate especially our Virgin, all the way from when she was not yet a mother but Mary Immaculate (to whom our church is consecrated) to when she became a mother and was finally assumed into heaven. A wooden statue of her, beautifully painted, stands on our main altar, while carved into the side altar is an image where Mary is kneeling before her mother, St Anne, and offering her a large white lily. In December, when it’s cold in our province and our feet are sinking into snow or cold mud, we piously trudge to her shrine and, no matter if the weather is fair or foul, wrap our Virgin in pine needles and worthily venerate her, as good Catholics should, and on all her other feast days, too, we show her great honour. Mary the Queen of May we adorn with lilies of the valley, while she who was assumed into heaven by her son Jesus is presented with large roses. All this we do in humble faith, and we could list many other things, too, so it’s hard to believe that God the Father would treat us like naughty brats. Sure, in a way we can understand that he might as a reminder send us hail or drought or freezing cold, but at most all three in one year. Everything else, however, and almost at the same time – dysentery, rats, snakes, the plague, the black pox, Turks, mice, ice storms, special levies and tributes – no, all these things coming so thick and fast, they can’t be the Creator’s doing. And if not his, then they can only be the doing of someone created by God who later went his own dark way. And he does not do these things alone, oh no, not alone, for in every populace somebody can be found – and it’s usually more than one – who is willing to be his accomplice. Sometimes the entire populace will bow down to him, the way Sodom and Gomorrah did. But not us, we’re not like that, not most of us anyway, although there are a few among us who are different, and not many of these are men, which means that most are women – young, old, some almost children – women who like nothing better than cavorting with him whose name we will not pronounce, since we all know who we’re talking about. They’re the ones you need to keep an eye on, observing their behaviour and habits, listening carefully to how they talk. Do they pronounce their words in a strange way? Do they keep clearing their throat when they speak, make peculiar gestures, purse their lips and wink suspiciously? You need to see what they’re up to when they think nobody is watching. So it’s sometimes a good idea to follow one of them – carefully, of course, so she doesn’t notice that your eyes are glued to her back, and that’s not so simple, since such individuals in particular have extremely sharp senses and are quick to feel it when somebody is watching them from behind and following them. This sort of awareness goes beyond human powers. And how could it be otherwise, when they have the help of somebody whispering in their ear, constantly warning them – which is why they’re able to slink among us like foxes. When bad things happen, sickness or accidents, it’s a good idea, too, to have a look around, go for a stroll at night near their dwellings and see if there’s a light burning inside, peek through a crack in the window, press your ear to the wall and, later, ask the people who live with them a few
questions, incidentally, as it were. Regarding health, for example, or the livestock, or the field: Are the crops doing well or not so well? Is there anything unusual sprouting up? Are they maybe having an exceptionally good yield this year, even though nature has ravaged all the other farms in the area? The family of the individual may not realize that evil resides among them, so if any of their answers seem suspicious, it’s good to give them a hint, to wake them up a bit and get them on our side. Who better than the relatives of the depraved to keep track of the unusual activities and habits of these witches? And witches – vešče we say in our language – is just the right word for them, because at night, when honest folk are asleep, they fly around like moths (which we also call vešče). So it’s for the welfare of the community to check regularly and see if there’s any strange glow coming from a neighbour’s yard or house, any strange barks, noises, commotion, anything that can’t be attributed to people who always cross themselves before the crucifix and light incense on Three Kings’ Day to expel evil from their homes. But what can we do when those other ones are not without power of their own? We can light incense and sprinkle holy water as much as we want, but sometimes nothing seems to work.
So why doesn’t our beloved Creator deal with the lot of them in one fell swoop? We ask the priest about this from time to time. If anybody knows who is cavorting with evil, then surely it’s God. Why do we honest people have to suffer to the end of our strength because of them, when the Creator could fry them all with a single look? Why do we have to deal with this, when instead we could be devoting our time to other things, to worshipping God and his Son and venerating the Virgin Mary? We could devote more time to working our fields and raising our animals, or, some of us, to our trades, or the more industrious among us, who sell produce, cloth and other goods to the nearby town, to our commercial enterprises. We could take better care of our children, making sure they are healthy and well-fed, since hungry children are no use at all. This is what we ask our priest, and then, since we ourselves have no book learning, but we’re not dolts either, we wait and wait for the learned man to finally explain the things that are causing us no end of torment.
And our priest looks up at the sky, clears his throat and tells us, ‘God is mysterious and beyond comprehension, even more so for simple folks like you. He alone knows what, if any, plan he has for you. And so, my children, you must be obedient. Not for a moment should you think of looking in rage at the sky and, God forbid, shaking your fist at him, because not even Job, when he complained to God …’ ‘Job? What Job? He’s not from our village!’ we say, glancing at each other, but the priest snaps back, ‘Job from the Old Testament, you stupid peasants, who was a Jew and grumbled at God, but it didn’t help him, not in the least. On the contrary, God sent Job even more misfortunes so he’d come to his senses and prove how strong his faith was. So just you leave God alone. Do what I tell you, obey the Ten Commandments, avoid the seven deadly sins and in general try not to make God angry, since it’s best he doesn’t know that you exist …’
‘What are you saying? Aren’t we part of his creation, too?’
‘Well, at least don’t remind him of your pitiful insignificant lives. Accept what life gives you, in all humility, without complaining or grumbling about it. When you’re hungry, know that there’s a full table waiting for you in heaven, and anyway, an overfed man is no good for anything. When you’re sick, remember that there is neither sickness nor pain on the other side, and when the stench of rot strikes your nostrils, know that death reaps its victims only in this vale of tears, but after death there is everlasting life. So don’t squander your opportunities, lest at the Last Judgement Jesus places you not on his right but on his left, and lest, at the very gates of heaven, St Peter boots some of you into seething cauldrons of scalding-hot fat. And as for the ones you’ve been asking me about, know that the flames of hell are waiting in constant readiness for them, like frothing maws, to grab them after death and burn them to a crisp.’
That’s the sort of thing the parish priest fills our ears with. We ask him something, and he prattles on and on without ever giving us a straight answer. Did we go to school, or did you? we think, looking him up and down and saying nothing. It’s true, we’re simple people and we don’t understand everything. Only a few of us know how to read, and they learned it from a different priest in a different, smaller church, who professes a somewhat different Christian teaching, and, if anyone stays on after