Żaba

Żaba is from a farmer, an old man who spent his whole life on a farm with animals. When I sit with him, he shows me photos from his childhood – when he was little and cuddled a horse. Then he thinks for a moment and adds that his father slaughtered the horse because he needed money. I don’t ask if he slaughtered it in the yard or sold it somewhere. But I know that those were different times, about which I have no idea.

After a while, the old man starts crying. He looks at other old photos and says that life is so fragile and time flies so fast. That he was angry at his father for having to exchange his horse for money. And today his son is doing the same. He smiles amidst his tears and quietly says: “I think I’m the only one who feels this way, you know?” He takes a piece of oilcloth in his fingers and looks at it twenty times, as if he was trying not to cry in front of me.

Sheep and me – both supposedly from the city. Well, I don’t feel like I’m from the city for most of my life. I grew up in the countryside. Now that I have my own family, I’ve returned to the countryside. Nevertheless, it’s a different village than Mr. Józef’s. Different times and different realities. When he was a child, no one had heard of saving horses. And there was no mass slaughter either. Industry, mass production and huge trade – these are our signs of the times. Not his.

I look out the window – and there’s a small garden and two cows. As if time had stopped. Chives are popping up in the garden. And some woman in a scarf is digging something in the ground. The frog was with Mr. Józef for nine years. He took it from a colt somehow, fed it on a bottle, because its mother had died – that’s how he tells it. For nine years, it was simply in a nearby meadow. And it was his everything. It was for her that he got up and thought about her when he went to sleep. She says that she always listened to him and never criticized him. And she adds again that people are not like that. That people are cruel today. And God did not succeed in old age.

Mr. Józef puts on his coat with a shaking hand. He nods towards the door of the room. We leave. The frog stands under the stairs. Mr. Józef thinks for a moment, then takes my hands in his and says: “But you know, child, I won’t let her get hurt. I bothered you for nothing. No one will take her away from here.” And that’s how we parted ways.

After three weeks, however, we got a call. Mr. Józef, shaken, says that his son came with some man and they simply loaded the frog. He, an old man, had no say in the matter. Because his pension is not even enough for electricity on the farm. They simply took her away. The love of his life. For slaughter. And the son took the money.

So I’m sending you a bunch of photos that we took quite recently. The dealer didn’t know if he wanted to keep her from Przeleszcza for foals, and we were waiting for information. But yesterday he called to say that nothing would come of it. And that if we wanted, we could take her.

You already know that Mr. Józef is waiting for my call. And you probably guess that he lives for it from morning to night. Today we have to take $450 for a deposit for Żaba. Today and tomorrow.