The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski [30]
When there were no more birds to be painted, Lekh began to roam the fields with a bottle of vodka sticking out from under his jacket. Sometimes as I rambled along nearby, afraid that something might happen to him in the swamps, I would hear him singing. The man’s deep, sorrowful voice rose and spread grief over the bogs like a heavy winter fog. The song soared along with the flocks of migrating birds but grew remote as it reached the abysmal depths of the forests.
In the villages people laughed at Lekh. They said that Stupid Ludmila had cast a spell over him and put fire in his loins, a fire that would drive him insane. Lekh protested, hurling the most vile curses at them and threatening to send birds against them that would peck out their eyes. Once he rushed at me and struck me in the face. He shouted that my presence scared his woman off because she was afraid of my Gypsy eyes. For the next two days he lay ill. When he arose he packed his knapsack, took along a loaf of bread, and went into the forest, ordering me to keep setting new snares and catching new birds.
Weeks passed. The traps that I set according to Lekh’s orders more often than not caught only the tenuous, filmy gauze of cobwebs that drifted in the air. The storks and swallows had flown away. The forest was becoming deserted; only the snakes and lizards increased in numbers. The birds perched in their cages puffed up, their wings graying and still.
Then came an overcast day. Clouds of barely discernible shapes screened the skies like a thick feather bed, hiding the anemic sun. The wind whipped over the fields, wilting the blades of grass. The huts, cowering against the earth, were surrounded by vacant stubble, blackened and brown with mildew. In the undergrowth, where careless birds once thrashed, the wind ruthlessly scourged and sheared the gray shagginess of the tall thistles and shifted the rotting stalks of potato plants from place to place.
Suddenly Stupid Ludmila appeared, leading her huge dog on a rope. Her behavior was odd. She kept asking about Lekh; and when I told her that he had left many days ago and that I did not know where he was, she alternately sobbed and laughed, walking from one corner of the cabin to another, watched by the dog and the birds. She noticed Lekh’s old cap, pressed it against her cheeks and burst into tears. Then she abruptly threw the cap on the floor and trampled it with her feet. She found a bottle of vodka which Lekh had left under the bed. She drained it, then turned and, looking furtively at me, ordered me to go with her to the pasture. I tried to escape, but she set her dog on me.
The pastures stretched directly beyond the cemetery. A few cows were foraging not far off, and several young peasants warmed themselves at a fire. To avoid being noticed we quickly crossed through the cemetery and climbed over a high wall. On the other side, where we could not be seen, Stupid Ludmila tied the dog to a tree, threatened me with a belt and commanded me to take off my pants. She herself wriggled out of her sack and, naked, pulled me toward her.
After a moment of struggling and squirming, she drew my face closer to her and ordered me to lie down between her thighs. I tried to free myself but she whipped me with the belt. My screams attracted the other shepherds.
Stupid Ludmila noticed the approaching group of peasants and spread her legs wider. The men came over slowly, staring at her body.
Without a word they surrounded her. Two of them immediately began to let down their pants. The others stood undecided. No one paid any attention to me. The dog was struck by a rock and lay licking its wounded back.
A tall shepherd mounted the woman while she writhed below him, howling at his every move. The man struck open-handed blows at her breasts, leaned over and bit her nipples and kneaded her belly. When he finished and rose, another man took