I keep beating you?’
‘Yes, son … ’
Then they fell silent. He wanted to ask why the tall man didn’t beat her, why she didn’t ask him to do it. But something stopped him. Maybe he did, he thought. With this hope his loathing for Geder evaporated, to be replaced with something else. When he was drifting off to sleep, Geder assured him that he did beat his mother, that she was happy, and he felt he liked Geder, he even stroked his sleeve …
… then he drifted off completely …
… oblivious …
From then on his mother no longer returned late at night and Janek no longer wandered the woods until dusk. In the evenings they sat inside, eating corn bread or boiled potatoes, speaking quietly, a benign peace between them. They enjoyed watching each other’s gestures, the former sense of alienation had gone, they kept meeting each other’s eyes and feeling comfort in their closeness. The evenings were still humid and the moon kept shining.
One evening they heard a noise outside and a moment later the door opened. On the threshold stood the enormous figure of old Hudorovec.
They turned to stone.
Janek’s mother was poking the fire beneath the pot, Janek was sitting on the bed.
‘Home already?’ she asked in surprise, still mechanically poking at the fire.
‘Home, wife, home!’ said the old man. Janek was surprised that he gave ‘wife’ a strange emphasis. Usually he said ‘woman’. And he had never spoken so quietly, coldly, crisply. He put his battered suitcase in the corner. He closed the door behind him. He did everything slowly, pensively. Then he began to unfasten his belt.
‘What about you? You’re home, too?’ he asked, looking at her.
‘What do you mean?’ his wife whispered.
Her voice was hoarse, it trembled slightly.
‘You should be up there, with that one. Eh, wife?’
‘What are you saying?’
Hudorovec, meanwhile, had removed his belt and ran it through his open left hand. Then he stretched it in front of his chest, as if testing its strength. He was doing everything coldly, thoughtfully.
‘Come here, wife!’ he ordered. She froze.
‘Out, boy!’ He turned to Janek. ‘Did you hear me?’ he yelled, when Janek failed to move. Now his coolness was gone, his face distorted, saliva flew from his mouth, his eyes glistened.
‘Out!’ he yelled once more. Then his enormous paw grabbed Janek by the shoulder. As he flung him towards the door, Janek’s head struck it so hard he felt dizzy. Again the bony fingers reached for him and the next moment he was outside the door. It closed behind him. He got up, rushed at the nearest pine tree and grabbed hold of it, shaking.
From inside he heard his mother moaning. He could hear the blows of the leather belt. Hudorovec was panting and swearing. It sounded as if he was banging her head against the floor.
‘Whore … ’ he gasped, ‘bitch … ’
‘Stop it, stop it!’ pleaded his wife. ‘I had no choice, husband … my dear husband! How was I supposed to live, when you go off, not caring whether we die of starvation!’
‘You could work, you slut! Take that … and that … And the boy could work … ’
‘I did, I did … ’ she insisted, but she was becoming quieter. She cried out a few times, then she was silent. The blows kept falling.
Janek ran off through the woods. On the hill he stopped and watched the trunks of the beech trees trembling with light. He realised it was lightning. There was thunder above the plain, a wind had started up, a storm was coming, the first in quite some time.
Long into the night he was washed by the rain. He turned his cheeks to the sky. He opened his mouth and eyes to feel the falling drops. The treetops were shaking. The flashes of light shimmered, never disappearing.
The priest sat at the open window. He was looking across the valley to the village at the end of the ridge. He had a chilling recognition, for everything that he had planned to think calmly about was revealed in the first moment; but because it was revealed too quickly, he was confused. He felt he would be unable to focus, at least at the beginning, so that the delusions would be fragmented and deceptive.
It had started with the tall chestnut tree above the valley, which was over three centuries old. It was a special thing, not only in appearance, but also in its significance. The wood around it had long ago been cut down, long before the priest came to these parts. Where the trees had been felled there were saplings growing and thick bush. Next to this miniature wood the chestnut seemed even bigger, like a great grandfather or guardian. It could be seen from the other side of the valley and from the north, where the low hills became a higher rise, and even from the plain, from the south, when it was clear. For many years it had been washed by storms and had lost its crown a number of times during turbulent nights. Since the winds blew mainly from the west, over the years it had wearied and leaned crookedly over the valley. It aroused unpleasant feelings, especially on stormy summer nights, when it swayed menacingly before the flashing background. But lightning hadn’t struck it for many years.
People created a legend: when the burning hand from the sky shattered the solitary old tree or it was touched by unworthy human hand, then great misfortune would befall the valley. The legend had been woven from one generation to the next. The priest knew that all in the valley paid homage to the tree; they paid for masses to be said in its honour and spoke of it in whispers, cautiously. He also had a strange respect for it himself: whenever he went by he felt a special solemnity and hurried his step. Instead of fading away, the belief strengthened from one generation to the next, for children received it from their parents at that age when they are most open to the miraculous, the fairy-tale. The priest knew that the child’s soul is like a freshly ploughed field; when it absorbs faith, it carries it within, without being aware of it, for the rest of its days.
But the monotony of the empty belief had gone on for so long that no one really believed in the prophecy. He had spoken about this quite often with Geder, the tall, skinny farmer, who lived a solitary life on the edge of the village. Then it suddenly happened. It must have been the suddenness of the event that made the priest succumb so excessively to the mysterious premonition. One night, a storm raged above the valley, the like of which hadn’t been seen for a long time. It was the first storm of the year: it was barely the end of April and the heavens had opened. The next morning the whole valley was gripped by horror. The previous evening they had seen the sacred chestnut swaying violently on the hill, illuminated by lightning, but the next morning where it should have stood there was only clear blue sky, washed by the storm.
The priest once again looked across the valley and tried to work out whether the sky was really lighter. Of course it was, since it was early morning. He might not have realised what had happened if old Nancashka hadn’t rushed into the presbytery, fallen on her knees and sobbed that God had sent a sign and that the centuries-old chestnut tree was no more … It was then he turned and looked out of the window and saw empty sky. He was stunned, the ground felt unsteady beneath his feet. What disturbed him most was that a circle had been broken and he would need to work out what was happening.
‘What can you do,’ he tried to calm the almost hysterical woman, ‘we haven’t had such a storm … ’
‘No, Father!’ she almost yelled. ‘The chestnut was not uprooted, someone chopped it down! Can you imagine how much effort was involved? Only the devil could have done it!’
And she rushed off, as if the devil really was hot on her heels. The priest was awash with uncertainty; a feeling that continued all that day and all night, and even more so the next morning – a Sunday, when more people flocked to church than he had ever known. He stood in the pulpit. They stared at him, waiting for him to announce a miracle. How much despair flooded his heart, how many lies and