Read Online Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk - Free Book Online Page B

closely to the plant living. The whole room was full of seductive aromas.
    And one night, when Cornspike had finally fallen asleep, a young man with fair hair stood before her. He was tall and powerfully built. His arms and thighs looked as if they were made of polished wood. The glow of the moon illuminated him.
    “I’ve been watching you through the window,” he said.
    “I know. The smell of you disturbs the senses.”
    The young man came inside the room and stretched both hands out to Cornspike. She snuggled in between them and pressed her face to the hard, powerful chest. He lifted her slightly so that their mouths could find each other. From under half-closed eyelids Cornspike saw his face – it was rough like the stem of a plant.
    “I have desired you all summer,” she said into a mouth tasting of sweets, candied fruits, and the earth when rain is going to fall.
    “And I you.”
    They lay down on the floor and brushed against each other like grasses. Then the masterwort planted Cornspike on his hips and took root in her rhythmically, deeper and deeper, pervading her entire body, penetrating its inner recesses, and drinking up its juices. He drank from her until morning, when the sky became grey and the birds began to sing. Then a shudder shook the masterwort, and his hard body froze still, like timber. The canopies began to rustle and dry, prickly seeds showered down on Cornspike’s naked, exhausted body. Then the fair-haired youth went back outside, and Cornspike spent all day picking the aromatic grains from her hair.
     
     
    THE TIME OF MICHAŁ
     
    Misia had always been lovely, from the first time he saw her outside the house, playing in the sand. He fell in love with her at once. She fitted perfectly in the small devastated space in his soul. He gave her the coffee grinder he had brought from the East as a war trophy. With the grinder he surrendered himself into the little girl’s hands, to be able to start everything anew.
    He watched as she grew, as her first teeth fell out, and in their place new ones appeared – white, too large for her little mouth. With sensuous pleasure he watched the nightly unplaiting of her braids and the slow, sleepy motions of her hairbrush. Misia’s hair was at first chestnut, then dark brown, and it always had red lights, like blood, like fire. Michał wouldn’t let it be cut, even when, matted with sweat, it stuck to her pillow during illness. That was the time the doctor from Jeszkotle said Misia might not survive. Michał fainted. He slipped off his chair and fell on the floor. It was clear what Michał’s body was saying by this fall – if Misia died, he would die, too. Just like that, literally, without a doubt.
    Michał didn’t know how to express what he felt. It seemed to him that anyone who loves is constantly giving. So he was always giving her little surprises, seeking out shiny stones for her in the river, carving little pipes out of willow, blowing eggs, folding birds out of paper, and buying toys in Kielce – he did whatever might please a little girl. But he cared most of all about big things, of the kind that are permanent, and also beautiful, of the kind time communes with, rather than man. These things were meant to stop time for his love forever. And to stop time for Misia forever. Thanks to them, their love would be eternal.
    If Michał had been a powerful ruler, he would have constructed a huge building for Misia on a mountaintop, beautiful and indestructible. But Michał was just an ordinary miller, so he bought Misia clothes and toys, and made her paper birds.
    She had the most dresses of all the children in the neighbourhood. She looked as beautiful as the young ladies from the manor house. She had real dolls, bought in Kielce, dolls that blinked, and when turned on their backs they let out a squeal that was meant to sound like a baby crying. She had a wooden pram for them, two prams even – one was made out of a dismantled kennel. She had a