The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski [31]
From behind the cemetery appeared a mob of village women with rakes and shovels. It was led by several younger women who shouted and waved their hands. The shepherds hitched up their pants but did not flee; instead, they held on to the desperately struggling Ludmila. The dog strained at the leash and snarled, but the thick rope did not loosen. The women came closer. I sat down at a safe distance near the cemetery wall. Only then I noticed Lekh running across the pastures.
He must have returned to the village and learned what was going to happen. The women were quite close now. Before Stupid Ludmila had time to get up, the last of the men fled to the cemetery wall. The women now grabbed her. Lekh was still far away. Exhausted, he had to slow down. His pace was shambling and he stumbled several times.
The women held Stupid Ludmila down flat against the grass. They sat on her hands and legs and began beating her with the rakes, ripping her skin with their fingernails, tearing out her hair, spitting into her face. Lekh tried to push through, but they barred his way. He tried to fight, but they knocked him down and hit him brutally. He ceased to struggle and several women turned him over on his back and straddled him. Then the women killed Ludmila’s dog with vicious shovel blows. The peasants were sitting on the wall. When they moved closer toward me I edged away, ready at any moment to flee into the cemetery, where I would be safe among the graves. They feared the spirits and ghouls which were said to reside there.
Stupid Ludmila lay bleeding. Blue bruises appeared on her tormented body. She groaned loudly, arched her back, trembled, vainly trying to free herself. One of the women now approached, holding a corked bottle of brownish-black manure. To the accompaniment of raucous laughter and loud encouragements from the others, she kneeled between Ludmila’s legs and rammed the entire bottle inside her abused, assaulted slit, while she began to moan and howl like a beast. The other women looked on calmly. Suddenly with all her strength one of them kicked the bottom of the bottle sticking out of Stupid Ludmila’s groin. There was the muffled noise of glass shattering inside. Now all the women began to kick Ludmila; the blood spurted round their boots and calves. When the last woman had finished kicking, Ludmila was dead.
Their fury spent, the women went to the village chattering loudly. Lekh rose, his face bleeding. He swayed on his weak legs and spat out several teeth. Sobbing, he threw himself on the dead woman. He touched her mutilated body, crossing himself, babbling through his swollen lips.
I sat, huddled and chilled, on the cemetery wall, not daring to move. The sky grayed and darkened. The dead were whispering about the wandering soul of Stupid Ludmila, who was now asking mercy for all her sins. The moon came up. Its cold, pale, drained light illuminated only the dark shape of the kneeling man and the fair hair of the dead woman lying on the ground.
I slept and woke by turns. The wind raged over the graves, hanging wet leaves on the arms of the crosses. The spirits moaned, and the dogs could be heard howling in the village.
When I awoke, Lekh was still kneeling by Ludmila’s body, his hunched back shaken by sobs. I spoke to him, but he paid no attention. I was too frightened to go back to the hut. I resolved to leave. Above us wheeled a flock of birds, chirping and calling from all directions.
6
The carpenter and his wife were convinced that my black hair would attract lightning to their farm. It was true that on hot dry nights when the carpenter touched my hair with a flint or a bone comb bluish-yellow sparks jumped over my head like “the Devil’s lice.” In the village rapturous storms came often and abruptly, causing fires and killing people and cattle. The lightning was always described as a great fiery bolt hurled from the heavens. Therefore the villagers