The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski [73]
Her piercing shrieks caused pandemonium in the yard. The terrified rabbits went mad in their hutches, the excited females trampled their young, the males fought one another, squealing, hitting their rumps on the walls. Ditko was jumping and straining at his chain. The hens flapped their wings in a desperate attempt to fly away and then collapsed, resigned and humiliated, in the tomatoes and onions.
The rabbit, now completely red, was still running. She dashed through the grass, then returned to the hutches; she tried to struggle through the bean patch. Each time her loose hanging skin caught on some obstacle she halted with a horrid scream and spurted blood.
Makar rushed out of the house finally with an ax in his hand. He ran after the bloody creature and split it in two with one blow. Then he hit the heap of gore again and again. His face was pale yellow and he bellowed horrible curses.
When only a bloody pulp remained of the rabbit, Makar noticed me and came toward me quivering with rage. I did not have time to dodge and a powerful kick in the stomach sent me breathless over the fence. The world seemed to swirl. I was blinded as if my own skin were falling over my head in a black hood.
The kick immobilized me for several weeks. I lay in an old rabbit hutch. Once a day Quail or Ewka brought me some food. Sometimes Ewka came alone, but left without a word when she saw my condition.
One day Anulka, who heard about my injuries, brought me a live mole. She tore it apart before my eyes and applied it to my abdomen until the animal’s body turned quite cold. When she finished she was confident that her treatment would make me well quite soon.
I missed Ewka’s presence, her voice, her touch, her smile. I tried to get better rapidly, but will power alone was not sufficient. Whenever I tried to stand, a spasm of pain in my belly paralyzed me for minutes. Crawling out of the hutch to urinate was sheer agony, and I often gave up and did it where I slept.
Finally Makar himself looked in and told me that if I did not return to work within two days he would hand me over to the peasants. They were about to deliver some quotas to the railroad station and would gladly turn me over to the German military police.
I began to practice walking. My legs did not obey me and I tired easily.
One night I heard noises outside. I peered through a slot between the boards. Quail was leading the he-goat to his father’s room, where an oil lamp burned dimly.
The he-goat was seldom taken out. He was a large, stinking animal, fierce and afraid of no one. Even Ditko preferred not to take him on. The he-goat attacked hens and turkeys and butted his head against fences and tree trunks. Once he chased me, but I hid in the rabbit hutches until Quail led him away.
Intrigued by this unexpected visit to Makar’s room, I climbed onto the roof of the hutch, from where I could see into the hut. Soon Ewka came into the room, huddled in a sheet. Makar approached the buck and stroked its under-belly with birch twigs until the animal became sufficiently aroused. Then with a few light blows of the stick he forced the beast to stand up, resting his forelegs on a shelf. Ewka tossed off her sheet and, to my horror, naked she slipped under the goat, clinging to it as though it were a man. Now and then Makar pushed her aside and excited the animal still more. Then he let Ewka couple passionately with the buck, gyrating, thrusting, and then embracing it.
Something collapsed inside me. My thoughts fell apart and shattered into broken fragments like a smashed jug. I felt as empty as a fish bladder punctured again and again and sinking into deep, muddy waters.
All these events became suddenly clear and obvious. They explained the expression I had often heard people use about people who