A Chip Shop in Poznań, page 24
I pack my things and tidy the hut. I return the key to Jerzy and he gives me an apple for my journey. For the amusement of the hiker, Jerzy says, ‘I feed this boy. He came with nothing and now I feed him, like a cat.’ They both laugh.
The hiker asks me if I think Jerzy is a sad man. I say it’s hard for me to judge, knowing him so little. The hiker throws away my response, says I’m being polite. ‘Be honest,’ he says. ‘Listen to your soul. What do you feel?’ I notice a bottle of vodka on the table, mostly gone. It’s clear the pair moved on from tea with lemon.
‘He has been good and kind to me,’ I say, ‘but unhappily so.’ The hiker wills me on – yes, yes, he says with his hands, give me more, that’s more like it. ‘He is certainly sad,’ I say, ‘but he is impressive and dignified, which must console him.’ This satisfies the hiker. He nods solemnly: that will do, that will do.
‘We spoke about you,’ says the hiker. ‘We decided, somewhere near the top of this bottle of vodka’ – he points to such a spot – ‘that you are in between, sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Also, we want to know about your little red book. Jerzy thinks it must be a bible, but I am not convinced.’
‘It’s a dictionary,’ I say.
He translates for Jerzy, who groans playfully, conceding defeat. The hiker says: ‘Okay, it is a dictionary, but this still fits our analysis. We decided you are searching for something, perhaps in your little red book, perhaps up here in the Polish mountains, perhaps everywhere.’ I ask Jerzy how best to return to the town. He gives a set of instructions that I half understand. The hiker senses my uncertainty and says to follow my nose. The two men lead me out of the hut and watch me go.
80 You know things are going to go wrong, right?
81 Although Schopenhauer’s take on pleasure looks downbeat it is arguably the opposite, because it implies that happiness isn’t about acquisition but avoidance, and generally speaking, it is much more affordable to avoid something than acquire something. We don’t need to fly to Miami, we simply need to not be in Walsall. We don’t need a personal cinema in our basement, we simply need to not be thinking about work. We don’t need popularity as measured by likes or followers or accolades, we simply need to not be so hard on ourselves.
35
It’s okay because you can live with me and become a farmer
23 February. Ełk. North-east Poland. Home to Hubert’s cows. (Hubert whom I met skiing.) The cows are not at the station. No one is. I go to a milk bar down the street to see if the cows are propping it up. Milk bars are cheap canteens that were ubiquitous during the communist period. They were subsidised by the state and in the early days all the products were loosely milk-based, hence the name. There are significantly fewer of them now, because people won’t stop experimenting with Asian soup. From my experience, the décor of a milk bar tends to be effortless, the food straightforward, and the aroma starchy. So it is today. A vase of plastic flowers and a display of Pepsi and Fanta cans represent the only efforts to win me over. I have gołąbki – mince wrapped in cabbage leaves and topped with a tomato sauce – and a side of warm shredded beetroot.
On the road north, I ask Hubert about Russia, which is only 30 kilometres away. I wish I hadn’t because Hubert’s answer involves taking his hands off the steering wheel. Basically, Hubert thinks I needn’t trouble myself to go there. The idea of my going somewhere – or not going somewhere – gets Hubert thinking. I’ve not seen this before. He doesn’t make it look easy. Before a kilometre has been added to the clock, Hubert is offering me a permanent job on the farm ‘drying’ the cows, four hours a day in perpetuity, 1,500 zloty a month. I say nothing. He assumes my hesitancy has to do with the terms, rather than the life he is offering. ‘I can’t pay more than 1,500,’ he says. ‘But it’s okay because you can live with me and become a farmer.’
Hubert’s house is being built twenty yards from his parents’. Two men are on the roof, not doing a good enough job apparently. I am introduced to the dogs and Hubert’s mother, Joanna. I’m told to take my shoes and hat off and go downstairs for soup. Downstairs is the workers’ quarters. A few of the men working on Hubert’s house sleep here, because they live a long way away – Ukraine, for example. Two such men are presently enjoying Joanna’s soup sat round a table. Hubert tells me to sit there and eat that. (I rather like Hubert’s rough brand of hospitality. You are rarely left in doubt regarding what’s expected of you. The lack of independence is liberating. Instead of making decisions I can look at things and daydream.) The fiddlers on the roof come in for their lunch and the five men talk shop as they eat. It is slightly unnerving being among them. I take my time with the soup so I can appear at ease. (I know how to eat soup, don’t know how to be with a basement full of working men from behind the Iron Curtain.) Sensing a spare part, Hubert tells me to go upstairs and watch television in the lounge with his younger brother and his girlfriend. We soon stop watching television because Magda and Jacob both speak excellent English and have a keen interest in Britishness. If I had to put a figure on it, I’d say the two of them are three times more interested in Britishness than I am. They bombard me with questions.
‘Is it true you have afternoon tea every day?’
‘Twice a day in fact: once in the afternoon and once in the evening.’
‘Is divorce really as common as I’ve read?’
‘Thankfully, yes.’
‘Does the Queen really have those little dogs?’
‘No. They’re holograms.’82
‘Are there any nice cities apart from London?’
‘Sorry?’
‘My uncle is in Peterborough and apparently that’s not an oil painting, and his uncle is in Basingstoke and apparently that’s even less of one.’
‘I’ve heard Coventry is nice.’
‘What’s a scone?’
‘No idea.’
‘Why are the buses red?’
‘So the blood of cyclists doesn’t show.’
‘Is it true the Earl of Sandwich invented bread?’
‘Er …’
‘Is it the case that animals are cared for better than children?’
‘In my experience, yes.’
‘Are the Poles going to be sent home?’
‘No. But there’ll be no more arrivals.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘I’ll send you a scone in the post.’
It is time to dry the cows. I’m given a suitable outfit. There’s quite a lot to it. Dungarees and wellington boots and goggles. What eventualities is Hubert allowing for? The wellington boots are too small by half, but I don’t make a fuss. While Hubert’s dungarees warm up in the tumble dryer, he makes a few phone calls in his Y-fronts and wellies, every inch the modern European farmer. When we get down to the cowshed, Hubert gives me a comprehensive tour, probably so he doesn’t have to do it again when I start working full-time. It becomes apparent during our site inspection that the cows prefer to toilet without warning, and at unlikely angles. You need eyes in the back of your head. I thought my milking outfit was a bit excessive, a case of belt and braces, but in the event the outfit isn’t sufficient – I take a strain of urine on the neck, and a flick of crap in the ear. Hubert has developed a sort of sixth sense; he’s able to anticipate where the shrapnel will come from: on more than one occasion he pulls me out of the firing line just in time.
Hubert hurdles a fence and gets among his herd. He slaps the odd bum to get it moving in the right direction, then invites me to do likewise. His invitation having no appreciable effect, he orders me to do likewise. Hubert funnels a batch of fourteen into the milking zone. It’s clear they know the drill. They respond to Hubert’s instructions as privates to an officer. Once in the milking zone, each cow is allotted a station, given a quick udder wash by Hubert’s sister-in-law, then hooked up to the grid. The craziest cows – whose parents had grass problems – are restrained with brackets. Were this precaution not taken, Hubert says, I wouldn’t be going home with many teeth. As if to support Hubert’s claim, Camilla starts lashing out and very nearly knocks Hubert’s nose off. Each drying bay is worth a fortune. The tech is impressive: it registers the cow’s identity – ‘Welcome back, Santiago!’ – and then displays their vital statistics on a screen. A red light starts flashing above one of the bays. I look to Hubert for an explanation. ‘She wants sex,’ he says. I’m disconcerted: surely that doesn’t fall within a farmer’s remit? I’m all for improving the welfare of animals, but they oughtn’t take the biscuit. ‘She needs to visit the bull,’ says Hubert, by way of explanation. Hubert then applies the extractors, a nozzle on each nipple, which draws out the milk and conveys it to a huge tank in a neighbouring room, where it is turned and cooled. These nozzles (to say nothing of the nipples) are clever little things. When the nipple is spent, the nozzle recognises the fact and simply falls off. When all the nozzles are off, the udder is cleaned and disinfected, and the cow is given a magazine to read. When all udders are empty and shining, the fourteen cows are ushered off stage and down a corridor that feeds them back into the main shed. All the while this is going on, the cows that are next in line clamber to get a peek of the action. I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet, but one cow in particular has been looking at me more or less constantly since the moment I turned up. Here she is now, straining for a close up, desperate to figure out what my arrival portends, and whether I’m free after work. While I’m considering the cow that’s been considering me, another cow starts lugubriously licking her ears and face. When I think the picture couldn’t get more amusing, a ginger cat enters the frame, clambers onto the licking cow’s head and settles there. All things considered, it’s one of the unlikeliest compositions I’ve ever seen. If Henri Cartier-Bresson were here, he’d say this was the decisive moment.
When the second batch have been admitted and hooked up, I’m sufficiently at ease to get up close and study their appearance. They are so angular, so irregularly bony, each frame a geometric puzzle, the work of Picasso. Moreover, each hide and udder is uniquely flecked, infinitely various like fingerprints, or butterfly wings. I’m convinced that various personality traits can be detected in the cows’ eyes. Take Camilla, the one whose alarm went off. There was naked ambition in those eyes. Take Janet, whose legs had to be bracketed. It was obvious from her eyes that the world makes less sense to her than to her peers. Take Megan, the one who can’t keep her eyes off me. She’s obviously an aesthete, born with refined taste, a superior critical faculty. Indeed, had Megan been born human – which, when you think about it, was as probable as her being born a cow – I’ve no doubt she would have become theatre critic for The Times.
When the milking is done Hubert takes me through to his office, which is decorated with pictures of half-naked women (not more nipples) and trophies for outstanding yields. Hubert pulls up some milking data on his computer then leans back proudly in his chair and gestures for me to take a closer look, as if showing off his children’s exceptional exam results. Most of the cows are knocking out 50 litres a day. Gosia has given 146,000 litres over her working life, God bless her. Hubert leaves me in the office while he helps his sister-in-law finish up. The office has a side door. Naturally, I open it to see what lies beyond, only I can’t, not fully, because a stream of cows is on the other side. It’s like the M25 out there. Quite why this is the case (the case being Hubert’s office having a door that gives onto a cow highway) is anyone’s guess. Perhaps every so often one of the herd is invited into Hubert’s office for a random drugs test, or to go over their stats. My boots are hurting now. They’ve been hurting all the time but now they’re really hurting. When Hubert returns to the office he can see I’m in pain. He probably thinks I’m deeply unsure about whether to take the job.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘My boots.’
‘What?’
‘Too small.’
‘Since when?’
‘Always.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘Not polite to say.’
‘Jezus Maria, Benji. Can you be a farmer like this?’
‘I don’t know, Hubert.’
‘We need to clean.’
‘Can I stay here?’
‘Nie, kurwa!’
Cleaning is evidently (and odorously) the worst part of the gig. Basically, we have to move everything that has emerged since yesterday into a central latrine. Hubert hands me a shovel and allots me a zone of interest. To take my mind off the task in hand, I ask Hubert whether the EU has been good for him and his girls. Hubert’s reaction is pleasingly dramatic. It’s like I’ve mentioned Russia again. He drops his shovel, sticks out his chest, regards me stonily for a few seconds, then spits on the floor. And that’s just him getting started, that’s just Hubert’s way of easing himself into the subject, the subject being the chronic mistreatment he suffers at the hands of the EU, who are nothing but an albatross about his neck, a thorn in his side, a faceless plutocracy designed to slowly smother his will to live. When he’s done, I mention the little plaque in his office that acknowledges receipt of a handsome amount of EU cash. Hubert tells me to shut up because I don’t know what I’m talking about. And he’s right. Knowing next to nothing about EU agricultural economics, I shouldn’t automatically take Hubert’s anti-EU sentiments with a pinch of salt. Sensing my thoughts, Hubert says: ‘Benji. Listen. They bought me things to modernise and grow. For this I am happy. But the tax they take gets me crazy.’ He lets his shovel fall to the ground despondently. He feels trapped, tied to the land, in debt. Worse still, he feels there’s no way out of it, that this cowshed is the rest of his life. I think: poor Hubert. And then: there’s no way I’m taking this job.
I am sent to my room to shower and change. I say ‘my room’ but of course it’s not mine, it’s Jacob’s. I have a nose around. Jacob is a dancer, that much is plain. The room is full of ballroom dancing trophies and certificates, and countless framed pictures of Jacob in competition. The only indication that ballroom dancing isn’t the only thing Jacob does or thinks about is a crucifix and a Pope figurine, probably installed by his parents to remind their son that Catholicism can be every bit as thrilling as throwing his girlfriend around a dancefloor. I find a board game under the bed called Unia Europejska. Who would have thought the EU could be transformed into fun for all the family? I suppose it’s like Monopoly, only instead of travelling around London buying things one travels around Europe investing in them – in a dairy farm, say, or a new fleet of trams – and I suppose instead of being sent to jail arbitrarily (which is pretty messed up when you think about it), players are interred for ignoring their constitutions, for refusing refugees, for working more than 35 hours a week, for letting straight bananas through the net and so on. If Sweden is Mayfair then what would Poland be? Trafalgar Square, I’d say. Not a bad part of town. Well-loved, historic, arty, a bit stressful at times. As for Britain? It would have to be Leicester Square. Overpriced and overrated. In any case, I’ll see if we can play tonight. I’m sure Hubert would love a game.
I’m called down for dinner. Hubert’s dad is home. More specifically, he is sat at the head of the table. The first thing that strikes me about Mirosław is that he is drinking from a mug that depicts a cow in sunglasses relaxing in a deckchair while being milked. The second thing that strikes me is that he’s wearing a gun. He’s a hunter. Much of the food on the table was once gambolling around in the form of a wild boar, which was subsequently reworked into paté, steaks, salami and ribs. A lot of the meat is smoked, which Mirosław does in a smoking hut at the bottom of the garden. The apple juice is also homemade – and so is the vodka, says Hubert, filling my shot glass. It really is a terrific spread: as well as boar six ways, there’s pickled mushrooms, pickled cucumbers, and eggs from the farm’s chickens, which have been boiled and minced and mixed with butter and mayonnaise and seasoning. I gesture to all the food and then suggest as a joke that Mirosław probably fashioned the table himself, the chairs, the house. ‘Yes,’ he says matter-of-factly, ‘I did all those things.’ Gosh. I begin to suspect that Mirosław drives a chariot, assembled with his own hands, pulled by homemade horses. Part of me is impressed with how Mirosław engages with the natural world, while another part wishes he’d just leave it alone. I don’t know whether to admire Mirosław’s evident and rampant capacity to husband nature, or to question his willingness to take life and be proud of the fact. In the end, I resolve to do both. I raise a glass and tell the table I’m grateful – to be here, to eat, to Poland, to Hubert and his family. Mirosław raises his glass, higher than mine. Nie, he says, we are grateful. I’m given no choice but to drink to that. Doing so, I feel a belated twinge of homesickness. It’s taken another’s home to remind me of my own. Hubert tells his dad what he told me about the EU. Mirosław nods knowingly, familiar with the arguments, then turns to me and whispers: ‘The EU is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Is that correct?’ I admit that it is.
