Free Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk Page A

autumn firmament Saturn was spreading out in Sagittarius like a great iceberg. Mighty Pluto, the planet that helps to cross all manner of borders, was lodged in Cancer. That night he took Mars and the delicate Moon in his arms. Within the harmony of the eight heavens, the sensitive ears of the angels picked up a clattering sound like the noise of a cup falling and smashing to smithereens.
    At the same time Cornspike had just swept the room and squatted down in the corner over a bundle of last year’s hay. She had begun to give birth. It took a few minutes. She bore a large, beautiful baby. The room was filled with the scent of masterwort.
    At the same time at the Niebieskis’, when the little head appeared, Genowefa started having complications. She fainted. The terrified Kucmerka opened the window and shouted into the darkness:
    “Michał! Michał! People!”
    But the gale drowned her voice, and Kucmerka realised she would have to manage on her own.
    “You’re a weakling, not a woman!” she shouted at the swooning Genowefa to give herself courage. “Fit for dancing, not child bearing. You’ll smother the child, you’ll smother it …”
    She slapped Genowefa’s face.
    “Christ Almighty, push! Push!”
    “A daughter? Son?” raved Genowefa and, brought round by pain, began to push.
    “Son, daughter, what’s the difference? Come on, again, again …”
    The child plopped into Kucmerka’s hands and Genowefa fainted again. Kucmerka attended to the child. It began to whine softly.
    “Daughter?” asked Genowefa, coming round.
    “Daughter? Daughter?” the midwife mocked her. “You’re a wimp, not a woman.”
    The breathless women entered the house.
    “Go and tell Michał he has a son,” Kucmerka ordered them.
    They gave the child the name Izydor. Genowefa was in a bad way. She had a fever and couldn’t feed the baby. She kept shouting things in her delirium, saying they had switched her child for another. When she came to, she immediately said: “Give me my daughter.”
    “We have a son,” Michał answered her.
    Genowefa spent a long time examining the baby. It was a boy, large and pale. He had thin eyelids, with small blue veins showing through them. His head looked too big, too solid. He was very restless, crying and squirming at the slightest sound, and screaming so hard that it was impossible to quieten him. He was woken by the floor creaking or the clock ticking.
    “It’s because of the cow’s milk,” said Kucmerka. “You must start feeding him.”
    “I haven’t got any milk, I haven’t got any milk,” groaned Genowefa in despair. “We must find a wet nurse quickly.”
    “Cornspike has given birth.”
    “I don’t want Cornspike,” said Genowefa.
    A wet nurse was found in Jeszkotle. She was a Jew. One of her twins had died. Michał had to go and fetch her twice a day by horse and cart.
    Even when fed on woman’s milk, Izydor went on crying. For nights on end Genowefa would carry him in her arms, to and fro, about the kitchen and the living room. She also tried going to bed and ignoring the crying, but then Michał got up and very quietly, to avoid disturbing Misia’s sleep, wrapped the baby in a blanket and took him outside, under the starry sky. He would take his son to the Hill or along the Highway towards the forest. The child would be calmed by the rocking motion and the scent of the pine trees, but as soon as Michał came home and crossed the threshold, he would start to cry again.
    Sometimes, pretending to be asleep, through half-open eyes Michał would watch his wife as she stood over the cradle and gazed at the child. She looked at him coldly and dispassionately, as if at a thing, an object, not a human being. As if sensing this gaze, the child would cry even louder, even more mournfully. Something was going on in the heads of mother and child, Michał didn’t know what, but one night Genowefa whispered to him confidentially:
    “That’s not our child. That’s Cornspike’s