Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

By March, Janina’s ailments flare up again. She experiences mysterious shooting pains, skin rashes, and various other symptoms that baffle doctors. She says,

The only coarse and primitive Tool gifted us for consolation is pain. The angels, if they really do exist, must be splitting their sides laughing at us. Fancy being given a body and not knowing anything about it. There’s no instruction manual (83).

Dizzy has told Janina about a book shop across the border that carries a good edition of Blake’s work. Janina thinks wistfully of how much better life is for people in the Czech Republic and wishes she lived there instead of the gloomy mountains that are her abode.

With the first signs of spring melt, Janina feels better and makes the rounds of all the vacation houses she has been hired to manage during the off-season. When she discovers a gutter in need of repair, she enlists Oddball’s aid with the task. While they work, she confides her theory that the animals are taking their revenge, first by killing Big Foot and later the commandant. Oddball advises her to keep her crazy theory to herself.

Later in the week, Janina receives a summons for another police interrogation. The postman who brings the notice stops by for a chat. He shares a few choice bits of gossip, including the fact that the commandant was taking bribes to look the other way while his pal Innerd was engaged in smuggling operations.

When Dizzy arrives for his usual Friday night translation session with Janina, he has collected more information about the crime. The commandant was apparently hit on the head by a sharp blow, but no murder weapon was found at the scene. The dead man was also carrying a large sum of money in an envelope tucked into his waistband, presumably a bribe. Janina says that perhaps the commandant merely fell down the well since he was drunk at the time. However, Dizzy is adamant that the man was murdered.

Because the commandant may have been involved in a smuggling ring, the inquiry into his death has escalated, and Janina is called in several more times for questioning. By mid-March, she feels better and makes her usual rounds as caretaker of the local properties. She widens her circle and goes for a ramble in the nearby countryside. Close to the infamous pulpit hunting stands, she finds the carcass of a wild boar, which was apparently shot out of season.

Incensed, Janina goes back to the police station to file a complaint. As usual, she is treated condescendingly, but the policeman grudgingly agrees to take her statement. As he writes it down, Janina rants at the random cruelty that humans inflict on animals. She says, “What sort of a world is this? Someone’s body is made into shoes, into meatballs, sausages, a bedside rug, someone’s bones are boiled to make broth” (106). By this time, everybody else in the station house is doing their best to ignore her except for an old man who walks in with his poodle. He agrees that Janina is right.

Back at home, Janina is still disturbed but tries to sleep. She once again dreams about her dead mother in the boiler room, but now her mother is joined by her grandmother. Janina attempts to banish them both, but they won’t leave, so she slams the boiler room door. 

Janina tells the reader about her past career as a bridge construction engineer until her ailments prevented her from traveling. Then, she took work as a primary school teacher but was pensioned off early. Now, she is limited to teaching English to the local village children on Wednesdays. Aside from that, Janina also works as a caretaker for the vacation homes in her area. She speculates that her ailments may force her to discontinue this job. Soon, she may have to move back to her apartment in Wrocław, where life isn’t as rugged as in the isolated mountains.

She then veers off into the topic of astrology and explains that she finds it comforting to know the reasons why events happen to people. She tells Dizzy, “Uranus was entering Leo when the French Revolution erupted, when the January Uprising occurred and when Lenin was born. Remember that Uranus in Leo always represents revolutionary power” (119). Dizzy and the rest of her friends dismiss her outlandish theories, but Janina isn’t bothered by this.

After her Wednesday class, Janina stops at the village resale shop. It is staffed by a charming young woman whom Janina calls Good News. The girl has a congenital affliction that prevents her from growing hair on her head or body. She has faced a life of hardship but has retained her innocence and kindness. These are traits that Janina finds appealing. On this particular day, once Good News closes up shop, she, Janina, and Dizzy are going to the bookstore in the Czech Republic, where Dizzy spotted a good copy of Blake’s poems.

While Janina waits, she again encounters the old man with the poodle. He has come in to buy a pair of trousers. He tells her that some white foxes were released from the estate of a rich man named Innerd and that they are roaming the countryside. Innerd was one of the commandant’s cronies and is wanted for questioning regarding the smuggling ring. Among other shady dealings, he was supposedly importing illegal furs from Russia and was seen in the commandant’s company just before he died. For some unknown reason, Innerd released the foxes before he fled.