Free Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk

two-storey doll’s house and several teddy bears. Wherever Michał went, he always thought of Misia, and always missed her. He never raised his voice to her.
    “If you’d only smack her on the bottom once,” said Genowefa peevishly.
    The very thought that he might hit this trusting little body caused Michał to feel weak, in the same way that had once ended in him fainting. That was why Misia often ran from her angry mother to her father. She would hide in his flour-whitened jacket like a little animal. He would stop in his tracks, amazed over and over again at her pure, unsullied trust.
    When she started going to school, every day he took a short break from his work in the mill to go out onto the bridge and see her coming back. Her small figure would emerge by the poplars – the sight of her restored everything Michał had lost since Misia had left that morning. Then he would look over her exercise books and help with her lessons. He also taught her Russian and German. He guided her little hand across all the letters of the alphabet. He sharpened her pencils.
    Then something began to change, in 1929. By then Izydor had been born, and the rhythm of life had changed. One day Michał saw both of them, Misia and Genowefa, as they were hanging out the washing, both the same height, in white headscarves, and the underclothes on the lines – tops, brassieres, and petticoats, one set just a little smaller than the other, women’s clothes. For a moment he wondered whose the smaller ones were, and when he realised, he felt disconcerted, like a young boy. Until now the petite size of Misia’s clothes had aroused his affection. Now, as he looked at the lines of washing, he was filled with anger at the idea that time could run so fast. He would have preferred not to see that underwear.
    At the same time, maybe a little later, one evening before falling asleep, in a drowsy voice Genowefa told him Misia had already started her periods. Then she nodded off, cuddling up to him and sighing in her sleep like an old woman. Michał couldn’t fall asleep. He lay and stared into the darkness. When he finally got to sleep, he had a dream, bizarre and disjointed.
    He dreamed he was walking along a border, and on both sides grew corn, or maybe tall, yellow grass. He could see Cornspike going along it. She was holding a sickle, and using this sickle to cut spikes of grass.
    “Look,” she said to him. “They’re bleeding.”
    He leaned forward, and indeed, on the cut blades of grass he saw drops of blood welling up. It seemed to him unnatural and dreadful. He began to feel afraid. He wanted to get out of there, but when he turned around, he saw Misia in the grass. She was wearing her school uniform, lying there with her eyes closed. He knew she had died of typhoid.
    “She’s alive,” said Cornspike. “But it’s always the case that at first you die.”
    She leaned over Misia and said something into her ear. Misia woke up.
    “Come on, let’s go home.” Michał took his daughter by the hand and tried to pull her after him.
    But Misia was different, as if she hadn’t yet gained consciousness. She wasn’t looking at him.
    “No, Papa, I have so many things to do. I’m not coming.”
    Then Cornspike pointed at her lips.
    “Look, she’s not moving her lips when she speaks.”
    Michał understood in the dream that Misia had been touched by a sort of death, an incomplete death, but just as paralysing as real death.
     
     
    THE TIME OF IZYDOR
     
    November 1928 was rainy and windy. And so it was the day Genowefa gave birth to her second child.
    As soon as Kucmerka the midwife had rushed over, Michał took Misia to the Serafins. Serafin put a bottle of vodka on the table, and soon the other neighbours arrived. They all wanted to drink to Michał Niebieski’s offspring.
    At the same time Kucmerka was heating water and preparing the sheets. Moaning monotonously, Genowefa was pacing the length of the kitchen.
    At the same time in the