Chapter 4. The Angry God, Vaska the Cat, and the Brave Little Tailor
Besides Evpatoria, one other place played a special, largely similar role for me. The village. My mother and I went there every year in the summer, for a month or two.
There we lived with my grandmother Vera and grandfather Kirill, my mother's parents, and often visited my great-grandmother Domna and great-grandfather Rodion, the parents of my grandmother Anna. The village was also a dreamland for me, a marvellous place. A rural street with its quiet charm, but also with the most real attractions for a city child — for example, when a shepherd would drive a herd of cows along it in the evening, snapping his whip. They stomped and mooed, each turning into its own yard, where it was met by its hostess, and the herd gradually melted away. About the middle of the village, the side of the street on which our house stood rose up on a high hill. That's where we lived. It was so pleasant to sit on the green grassy slope and look down at the road, where occasionally a truck or a tractor passed by, and at the other side of the street. Or to sit on a bench by the gate, under a huge acacia tree, with my mother, grandmother and grandfather. Neighbours would come over, sit next to us, and talk about life. Or just to sit in the yard and absorb the mystery of the coming twilight with your whole being. The evenings were fabulous, and every day for me began with the anticipation of something unusual and exciting.
The yard with the barn, the annexe, the henhouse and pigsty, the vegetable garden, the bathhouse, the apple trees, the potato field, the street beyond the gate, — this was the immediate area of the marvellous world. Further on, one could walk round the village in both directions. If you move to the left, there on the edge of the village great-grandmother Domna lived, there was a village shop, a church, an infirmary with an old lady doctor, a small library and a bus stop. If you turn right, you could go beyond the outskirts and going a little further, you could reach a collective farm. From our hillside we could clearly see the fields behind the houses on the other side of the street, the space behind them, and further on — the strip of woods. On our side behind the vegetable gardens and fields there was a river, and almost immediately behind it there was also a forest. I had to go to the river and to the forest more than once, though it was not easy with a wheelchair.
Grandma Vera worked tirelessly on the household. Even the mangled hand did not seem to complicate her work at all — she had such dexterity. She was not very religious, but it was with her that I first and last thought of God as a reality. It was like this. We were on our way home from somewhere — she, me and Mum — it was evening and clouds were gathering in the sky. There was a distant clap of thunder, and my grandmother looked at me and said, "God is swearing." That's when I thought about it. It turns out that this incomprehensible being dwelling in the sky has something against me. He swears at me. But why? What have I done to him? I spent the rest of the journey trying to figure out what the point was. As a result of thinking, I formed an opinion about God as someone capricious and unjust, and in general extremely unpleasant. However, I was not given more reasons to think about this topic, and I did not return to it until it was explained to me at school that there is no God.
Granpa Kirill was a colourful person in his own way. He was on his own, commanded the household, and when he was angry he could shout so terribly at the offender and bang his fist on the table that you involuntarily thought — how good it is that not at me! At the same time, grandfather was a man of fun, loved a good joke, and could tell stories — something between anecdotes from life and everyday tales — which made everyone laugh until they cried, but which were difficult to retell in decent society because of some plot twists and the lexicon.
I liked to watch my granpa peel the bark off the pre-cut vines, split the twigs with a big knife and weave baskets and wickers from the resulting strips. Sometimes, while they digging potatoes, at my request they put me in such a wicker where I could fit with my head, and to make it more fun they put a chicken with me. I sat there, as if in a kind of shelter, and looked out through the gaps between the vines. It was entertaining.
It was even more interesting and cosy in the evening to sit on the stove, in the warm semi-darkness, and listen to what was going on in the house.
Sometimes, we all together — grandpa and grandma, my mother and me, my mother's brothers and sister — would get on a cart (as we used to say, "on wheels"), and grandfather would take us to one of the fishing grounds. Unlike the authorities, we did not kill the fish, but caught them with brednels, stompers, and sometimes, in the shallowest and muddy places, we used our hands to catch redfish and loaches. And once, I don't remember how, they pulled out a huge pike. It was really huge, about two and a half metres long, thick as a log, and all overgrown with greenish moss. It was hardly lifted on a cart and brought home. There was something to brag about to the neighbors, but it was impossible to eat the prey. The meat turned out to be very tough and with an unpleasant odour. The pike was chopped up with an axe and given to the pigs. I still feel sorry that such a wonderful animal was killed for nothing.
Grandpa loved to play cards. His mates used to come to him, and the four of them would spend hours at the kitchen table, smacking cards and teasing each other. One day one of them, named Timofei, whom everyone just called Grandpa Timka — and the way my grandma called him is out of print — went into the room where I was sitting and treated me with a cigarette. I was five years old at the time. When my mother came in and saw that we were smoking like two locomotives, she grabbed poor Timka by the scruff of the neck, dragged him through the kitchen past the company of players and my grandmother, and, to everyone's amusement, kicked him out of the door. The next day, sobered up, he came to apologise.
By the way, when I learnt cards a couple of years later, my grandfather, no matter how much I persuaded him, flatly refused to play with me, explaining it to others as follows, "If I win against a small — will be ashamed. If I lose, it will be even more shameful."
Sometimes, other villagers came to visit. Once there was a funny case. A family named Beliakovs lived not far from us. They were all called Beliaks (Whites). And so, when I heard the adults talking about the fact that the Beliaks would come to us today, I was very frightened and cried. I was asked what was the matter, and I answered through tears, "So the whites will come! They will kill us!" I thought they were the whites from the cinema, The White Guards who did all sorts of cruelties on the screen.
Children are often frightened by all sorts of horror stories — babai, wolves and others. I wasn't scared. But in the village, I was. An old man named Mikhalka lived there, and they used him to scare children. It was said that Mikhalka's grandfather stuffed those who misbehaved into a sack, took them to his house, tied them there and fed them with straw sprinkled with sand. My grandfather told me this story. And one day we were sitting on a bench near the house, and on the other side of the street the notorious Mikhalka was walking, carrying something in a sack over his shoulders. Grandpa shouts to him, "Hey, Mikhalka! — What? — What, are you bringing home a naughty child to feed with straw and sand?" And he knows he's scaring the kids, so he plays along, "Yes, I carry it, now I will feed it with straw." I sit and listen to this dialogue, frozen with fear...
But soon the fear was over. Because even in making frightening you have to know when to stop. Late one night, when we had already gone to bed, a motorbike began to rumble back and forth along the street, headlights shone in the windows, girls squealed. The village youth were having fun. I asked my mother what was going on, and she replied, "It's Grandpa Mikhalka catching girls on his motorbike." However, even for a five-year-old child, it was clear that the old Mikhalka could not daredevil on a motorbike. All the more so he grabs children, not girls... In short, it was excessive. That's when I realised that I had been shamelessly deceived all along. I drew conclusions, and no longer believed in any scary stories.
My grandfather liked to troll me sometimes, as they say nowadays. He would start some strange, completely confusing argument with me. For example, why people don't eat flies. I would take it all seriously and explain with fervour that flies should not be eaten — because, for example, they eat shit. My grandfather objected, "Pigs eat shit too, you've seen it yourself. But we eat pigs." He managed to break all my arguments. I knew for sure that you can not eat flies, but I could not prove it to the harmful grandfather, and I was very worried. And he, looking at my suffering, only chuckled slyly.
By the way, he stabbed pigs with his own hands. The animal was hanged by its hind legs, and he would stab it in the heart with a long awl. I knew how it happened, but I never wanted to see it.
There was a rumour about my grandfather, who was very stingy, that he had some gold pieces hidden somewhere, still tsarist. When he died, my grandmother and relatives searched the whole house and the plot, almost breaking the walls looking for a hiding place. They found nothing. And then for a long time there were versions and guesses about the location of grandfather's treasure.
Now a few words about great-grandmother Domna. She was a witch, and the whole village feared her. It was said that she had the Black Book, no one could tell what kind of book it was though. There were stories of her doing bad things to people she didn't like. And sometimes just for show, so that they would know and be afraid. For example, I was told next story. One day she had guests, all sat in the house. Through the window they could see a man on a cart passing by the house on the street. She said, "I wish you'd turn over!" The man drove out of sight and there was a rumble. Everyone ran out into the street and saw that the cart was lying with its wheels upside down, on a completely flat place, and a bewildered man was standing next to it scratching the back of his head, trying to understand how it could have happened.
My great-grandmother used to make dire predictions about the end of the world, but she said she had heard them from her grandmother. And she also told me how to make creases in the rye, how to pour spelled sand over the paths to spoil the one who walks on them, and much more. I can therefore confirm that there was every reason to believe that her tales of witchcraft were true. At the time I listened to it as children listen to various entertaining tales. But many years later, studying magic and, including folk witchcraft, I had the opportunity to make sure that those were not empty words. Why she told me all this is another question, and I have no answer to it.
Not surprisingly, she had a difficult relationship with the churchmen. Although I can't say anything specific here.
Since she was familiar with the devilry, she herself was not afraid of anything. Once a fellow villager died, and the old women sat by the coffin at night. One of them was reading what was supposed to be read, the others were talking quietly. And suddenly the dead woman's hands moved. Everyone was stunned in horror. Domna with the words "The dead don't move!" went to the body, threw back the coverlet, and under it was found a cat lurking on the hostess's chest.
They say that such people die long and painful if they do not have time to transfer their knowledge to anyone. That's how my great-grandmother died. This went on for several months. I did not see it myself, but eyewitnesses told me that everything was so scary that they wanted to break the ceiling and roof over it so that the soul could finally fly away.
I remember my great-grandfather Rodion very old, a hundred years old. But age didn't break him. Great-grandfather was always waddling back and forth, doing something about the household. He was cunning, able to pretend to be a simpleton, as well as deaf. I've seen funny dialogues between him and my great-grandmother. "Go get the goat drunk. — Huh? — Go get the goat drunk. — What? — Get the goat drunk! — Huh? — You old stump! — Why are you swearing? I'll go and get your goat drunk."
The village was exciting, fun, cosy and free — even for me, limited in mobility. There were wooded horizons, roosters singing in the morning, interesting people, fresh berries, clean air, steamed cow and goat milk, a bathhouse with aromas that could not be compared to anything else. There I rode a cart and for the first and only time in my life sat on a live horse. Every arrival there was a holiday, every departure became a great sorrow.
But we will visit the village again. In the meantime, let's go back to Manastyrok. There were some events here that became significant for me.
One of them concerns animals. I've always been interested in them, but not really fascinated by them. No more than all small children are interested in something running, crawling, flying or floating. So one day...
I was sitting on my bed eating meat. The cat Vaska came and started circling around me, obviously expecting to grab a piece from the plate. I tried to kick the robber away, but it didn't work. Then I started to take salt from the saltcellar next to me and throw it at the cat. At some point it got into his eyes. He started screaming, jumping, tumbling over his head. Mum came in and the cat jumped out into the yard with a shrill meow. When she asked me, "What's the matter with Vaska?" I laughingly replied, "I put salt in his eyes." Then my mother said, "Do you know that he is not jumping because he is having fun? He's in a lot of pain. He could go blind. He's out there in the yard right now, crying." I was shocked by these words, and sat frozen as the horror of what I had done came to me. Then I burst into tears. I was very ashamed and very sorry for the cat. I cried for a long time, I couldn't stop. When I calmed down a little, I remembered what had happened again and cried again. Nobody knew how to calm me down. And in the evening Vaska came back, absolutely healthy and pleased with himself. I was tormented by guilt, and from then on I gave him the tastiest bits.
It was then that I developed a serious interest in and love for animals. Soon I saw a hamster at a relative's house and asked my parents to buy me one. Then another... And another... And another... Then hamsters began to breed and there were dozens of them. Then I got a couple of wavy parrots. And the animals didn't disappear from our house for the next twenty years. There were all kinds of animals... Dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, parrots, hedgehogs, snakes, turtles, frogs, newts, pond snails, huge grasshoppers, and even a wild duck. And that's not even a complete list.
Apparently, because of the described case, I became extremely sentimental and pitiful, especially in relation to animals. I could not watch a movie in which they suffered, or hear a song where there was at least a hint of it, or read such a book. I'd burst into tears. Seeing a crippled animal on the street was a terrible tragedy that made me weep for hours. Eventually I began to realise that I couldn't go on like this. What to do? I couldn't do anything about real cases. But I began to wean myself off such reactions to films, songs and book stories. I began to explain to myself that all this is not true and is invented specially to make me and other people cry. Actually, by and large, it was true. And I managed to realise it. By the time I was about eight or nine, I stopped crying for any reason. That was the first time in my memory when I realised that I had to change something in myself, and I succeeded through willful effort and comprehension.
Another important event was that I learnt to read. This happened at the age of five. By that time I already knew the letters and could read individual syllables, but I was not yet learnt how to combine them into words. Somehow it didn't work out. My mum read aloud to me. And then one day I was looking at pictures in a children's book. I even remember what kind of book it was: "The Brave Little Tailor". You know, the "Seven at One Blow" one. And suddenly something amazing happened. The letters that my eyes ran over from time to time began to form words by themselves, and I began to understand what was written there. It was a real miracle! I immediately called my mother and, triumphing, began to read aloud to her — slowly, confusedly, but independently. Then I sat over the book until the evening, unable to tear myself away and asking only to be allowed to stay up longer and to read more.
From that day on I began to read vigorously. By the age of ten, in addition to children's literature, I read quite adult adventure books, such as "The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne, "Ivanhoe" by Walter Scott, "The Last of the Mohicans" by Fenimore Cooper, etc. Well, and the first glasses I got already in the first grade, thanks to the vision deteriorated by reading. But I didn't wear them.
About the same time when I started reading, I began to master the Belarusian language. It is the native language of my family. But nobody spoke it (though they understood it by ear), and nobody read books in it. In our region, the vast majority of the population speaks either pure Russian, as our family does, or a mixture of Russian and Belarusian, often with Ukrainian words. Apparently, geography plays its role. Even the speech of my village grandparents could hardly be called Belarusian. My parents bought me books in my native language along with Russian-language children's books. I don't know what motivated them to do that. Thus, I started reading in both languages almost simultaneously. I learnt the pronunciation mainly from Belarusian TV programmes. Even now I am probably the only one of my numerous relatives who reads and speaks Belarusian fluently. Though I must admit that I do not speak it as fluently as in Russian, because the lack of speaking practice affects me. It will sound strange, but until recently I had never had the chance to speak to anyone in my native language. There were simply never such people in my environment.
Books radically changed my life, giving it a new fullness. Literally, they became a window to the world. Life, despite all the limitations of my opportunities, became much more exciting.
As for the very fact of limitation, fortunately, no one specifically focused my attention on it. My relatives suffered a lot themselves. My parents experienced everything so painfully that, for example, when they were in a bad mood, they could curse someone in the street, whether it was an adult or a child, even for a curious look directed at me. At the same time, my family did not oohing and aahing over me, did not lament "Poor, unfortunate, deprived", did not talk about how much I was losing in life. That's why I myself treated my situation quite calmly. I had escaped the moral anguish of childhood associated with it. I have never considered myself worse than other children in anything, I have never envied them, I have never wondered "Why do they run and I don't?" If they run, it means that it is normal for them; if I do not run, but sit and read a book, it means that it is normal for me. Now I am even a little surprised by my attitude to the situation at that time. I guess I was very lucky that this was the case. I suppose it prevented serious psychological traumas and complexes from arising, prevented the development of a feeling of inferiority with all its consequences.
I got a wheelchair at the age of eight. Before that, I was driven in an ordinary baby stroller — one of those where a child sits with his feet on a small footrest. It was a strange sight indeed, because some people on the street looked at me, literally opening their mouths. And also the left front wheel of the pram had broken, and was replaced by another, not quite suitable, for which reason it was always driving to the left. I was almost perished once because of that.
Grandma Anna had a brother Mikhail, whom everyone called Grandpa Mishka. He was a rare rude and drunkard, almost never sober and tried to drink even denatured alcohol. He lived in the village with his parents and came to visit his sister, that is, us, a couple of times. It was hard to imagine a more unpleasant person. And then one day my mother and I went for a walk, and he followed us. Leaving the gate and turning to the right, you could reach the end of the alley and and come to the railway. There was an asphalt path along it, rising higher and higher and coming out to the railway bridge. As you climbed up it, the railway was far down on the right, under a rather steep slope. That day we climbed up, then turned round and started to descend. Grandfather Mishka asked my mother to let him "steer" my stroller. It ran down the path on its own; I only had to hold and guide it slightly. After a few steps, he suddenly let go of it. The stroller sped down the path and immediately veered to the left, towards the edge of the path and the slope. Mum screamed, Grandpa Mishka laughed merrily. I realised that I was about to go down, and I would be finished, but I didn't have time to be really scared. A guy and a girl were walking towards me. He pushed his companion away and rushed to me. I had never seen a person run like that before or since. A second ago, he was still far away — and now he clung to the stroller, which just started diving down to the rails, from a height of five or six meters. Mum ran up. When she calmed down, we continued on our way. Grandfather Mishka, continuing to laugh, tried to take control again, but received a fierce rebuff, and then also got scolding at home. Did he understand at all what might have happened? Who knows...
Here I want to quote another passage from the pandect, from the text already quoted: "Bodily you were saved three times, and people saved you and those who are always with them" (Eosfor II, 24). "Those who are always with them" are the guardians. Two cases are known to me: the first is the one with the poisoning, the second is the one just described. What kind of third case is a mystery to myself. And one can only guess what role the guardians played in them.
Time passed. Grandma retired. But it was already too difficult for her to cope with me alone while my parents were not at home, so my mother had to leave her job. I had to go to first grade. But we did not know that it was possible to organise education at home so that a teacher would come from the school. Then someone suggested, everything was settled, and I began to study, albeit a year later. For the family, the very fact of my studies was of great importance, because it made me no worse than other children in this respect. It brought the situation closer to normal, like everyone else's.
Svetlana got married. There was a funny situation with her wedding. There are all sorts of folk customs, like bride price and other things. By that time, there was little left of them, especially in the city. But still, during weddings, they still try to do something as much as possible — to make it more interesting and fun. So ours decided to force the groom to look for and buy back the bride. They hid her at a neighbors' house. And instead of her they left my grandmother Vera, who had come from the village. She put an old curtain on her head, which was supposed to be a veil, and modestly nestled in a corner. Everyone went outside to wait for the groom. I stayed with her, as I wanted to be at the forefront of events. The groom arrived — also, by the way, Mikhail — and he was told, "She's there in the house, go get her." He soared up the stairs, literally rushed into the house, ran into the room, rushed to the bride, handing flowers... She turned around sharply — horror of horrors: it was an old woman smiling with a toothless mouth. He pulled back, almost dropping the bouquet. The others had already entered after him, and his fright was accompanied by laughter. But then he turned to them, his lips quivering with resentment and his eyes full of tears. The jokers took pity and, in order to avoid embarrassment and not to show the world a tearful groom, ran to the neighbors for the bride.
In those years there were many sad things, but there were also many funny things, for we liked to joke. And there were also instructive things. Sometimes I brought it on my head myself.
I've never been beaten by parents. But I did see other children punished. The favourite instrument of punishment was the famous mesh bag. The offenders were whipped with its handles. Seeing the screaming and crying it causes, I wondered — does it really hurt so much..? And one day out of curiosity, wanting to know the feelings of the punished, I asked my mother and grandmother to whip me with this thing. They asked, "How many times?" I said, "Two." Now I laugh, remembering the occasion, as it looks like one episode from "The Good Soldier Švejk". And then I got a mesh bag. It really hurt a lot. I cried and screamed, "No more! I understand everything already!" They said, "No way! You wanted twice — and you'll get twice." And I got everything I was owed.
That day I realised one very important thing: you have to be responsible for what you say. And I never forgot again.
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