The Naked Year (18 page)

THE THIRD PART OF THE TRIPTYCH
(
the brightest)

Over the ravine, over Vologa is a Kremlin, with its red, collapsed, cumbersome walls, which are overgrown with elder, burdocks and nettles. The last houses, set up in the Kremlin under Nicholas I, stone, large, many–windowed, white and yellow–are somber and majestic in their antiquity. The streets of the Kremlin are paved with huge cobblestones. The streets are winding, with cul-de-sacs and side streets, and on the corners–churches. Many heat waves have incinerated the Kremlin, and many years–naked years–have trodden the cobbles of the pavements.

Russia. Revolution. The owls cry out: terrifyingly human-like, joyfully animal-like. Dusk. Autumn. In the Kremlin, in the towers, there are many owls. The dusks in autumn close up the golden earth, as a damper a stove chimney. The wind wails in the Kremlin, in the side streets: Gu-vuu-zii-maa!… And the roof iron of the old houses roars:–gla-vbum! Over the empty cobbles in the gray wind a man is walking in a leather jacket. The wind whips up the yellow leaves. The man passes through Zaradye, where the tradesmen's stalls are destroyed, goes out beyond the Kremlin rampart, where the wall has been destroyed by the Whites' artillery, and there–on another hill–stands the hospital among slender green fir trees, like Nesterov's saints. This man is–Arkhip Ivanovich Arkhipov. The wind is autumnal–it rummages through everything, inflates everything, and the autumn wind brings coughs. But in the hospital in Doctor Natalya Evgrafovna's apartment–wood-log walls, a smell of tar from the walls, linoleum on the floor, wide, large windows, as new, and over the linoleum moves the dull light of day, of the huge philodendrons, of the table covered in papers, of the white tiles of the stove. Dull is the day, dull is the dusk, but in the room it is bright, as in a room, and for the first time today the Dutch stove is burning.

“Sit down, Arkhipov, here, on the settee.”

“I'm O.K., thanks. I'll stay here, by the stove.”

Arkhipov's beard, like Pugachov's, is black, abundant, disheveled –and dark are his eyes.

“Listen, Arkhipov–you never talk about your father. I want to talk to you about this… You are his son, y'know.”

“Yes. And I do too. It's difficult to tear out an old root. And with these roots it's very painful. But it's bound to pass. Reason tells me he had to die early–consequently, why suffer? One must live and work.”

“But you're all alone–alone forever!”

“Yes. So what? I have always been alone–I'm with all my friends. I'm really only just freeing myself–from stupidity.”

Natalya Evgrafovna stood up from the table, went and stood by the stove next to Arkhipov.

“Tell me the truth. Aren't you afraid?”

“How could I not be afraid? –and it's frightening, sickening. Only suffering–is not necessary. The old man died as was necessary. I just kept thinking of one spot, so then, I don't suffer.” Arkhipov with both hands took hold of Natalya's hand. “I'd rather you, Natalya Evgrafovna, told me about yourself. There now.”

“There's nothing to tell. What then?…”

“Well, then, I'll do the talking. I've been busy all the time with the factory, on the committee, in the Revolution. And when my father died, I got to thinking about myself. It's necessary to work–so I worked. And that's not all. I came to make you a proposal–to offer my hand. As a lad I fell in love, well, I sinned with women. But then it passed. I think we'll have kids. We'll work together, as one. And we'll bring the kids up properly. I want to have sensible kids, and you're more intelligent than me. And I'll learn something, too. And we're both young, healthy.” Arkhipov bowed his head. Natalya Evgrafovna did not take her hands away from his hands.

“Yes; O.K.” she answered after a moment. “But I'm no young girl… Children–yes, there's just one thing. I don't love you that way, –well, you know…”

Arkhipov raised his head, looked into Natalya's eyes–they were transparent and calm. Arkhipov lifted Natalya Evgrafovna's hand awkwardly to his lips and kissed it quietly.

“Well then. If you're not a girl–you still need a man.”

“This will all be very cold, uncozy, Arkhipov.”

“How's that? Uncozy?–I don't understand that word.”

The heavenly damper closed off the earth, the windows merged with the walls, in the stove the coal got coated with ash–the stove had to be closed. In the dining room, where there were also wood-log walls, on the table on a white tablecloth the coffee pot, the tray, the glassholders gleam coldly, like nickel. Arkhipov drinks out of the saucer, with fingers outstretched, under the leather jacket– a waist-coat, and a Russian shirt under the waist–coat. Natalya Evgrafovna wears a red knitted blouse and black skirt, and her hair in a garland–of plaits. The linoleum gleams cold–through the windows the dim moon is clouded over, it's night–and in the dim coldness of the linoleum are reflected the moon, the walls, the upside-down table, the gloom of an open door and the dark room. And on the table in the dining room there's a “ministry” lamp.

–Man is necessary, purity, intelligence!

Moonlight in the study, and the moonbeams have lain down on the linoleum. Arkhipov accidentally touched Natalya Evgrafovna's shoulder, the moonlight fell on Natalya Evgrafovna, her eyes vanished in the darkness–tenderly, femininely-softly Natalya snuggled up against Arkhipov, whispered just audibly:

“Dear one, only one, mine…”

Arkhipov was lost for a reply–from joy.

“You understand–to live, darling!”

The owls cry out: terrifyingly human-like, joyfully animal-like. “But man is not an animal, to love like an animal.” The heavenly damper closed off the earth. Night. The Kremlin. The owls are crying out in the sidestreets:
gu-vu-zee-maa!
… Stone, large, many-windowed white and yellow houses are sullen at night and majestic in their antiquity. The streets are winding with cul-de-sacs and sidestreets, and the streets are cobbled, and on the corners are churches. Naked years. Darkness. Night. Autumn. The moon crawls slowly, green.

“Dear one, only one, mine!”

Natalya is standing by the window in the study, the linoleum gleams cold, the philodendrons have shot up in the darkness. Moonlight falls onto the window. Today for the first time the stove has been lit–the windows are steamed up. The ghostly moonlight is broken up and reflected–in the tears on the glass and in the tears in the eyes.

“Not to love–and to love. Ah, and there'll be comfort, and there'll be kids and–work, work!… Dear one, only one, mine! There will be
no
lies and pain.”

In the Ordinin's house, in the hostel, having taken off his shoes and sweetly kneaded his fingers after his boots, on the bed somehow huddled up to the lamps on all fours, Yegor Sobachkin was reading a brochure for a long time, and, having finished, said thoughtfully:

“But still truth and joy will triumph! It cain't be otherwise.”

Arkhipov came in, silently walked though to his room–in the small dictionary of foreign words which have come into Russian, compiled by Gavkin–the word “Coziness” was not included.

–Dear one, only one, mine!

CHAPTER VII
(the last, without a title)

Russia.

Revolution.

Snowstorm
.

Conclution

THE LAST TRIPTYCH
(material, in essence)

Incantations

Towards October the wolf's offspring is no smaller than a good dog. Silence. A bough snapped. From the ravine to the clearing, where in the daytime the lads from Chornye Rechki were on sawing duty, there drifted the smell of decay, of mushrooms, of autumnal alcohol. And this autumnal alcohol faithfully told that the rains were ended: autumn would pour out gold for a week, and then in the frosts, snow would fall. In the Indian summer when the hardening earth smells like alcohol, over the fields Dobryna-Zlatopoyas-Nikitich travels–in the day his armor gleams like the cinnabar of aspens, the gold of the birches, the sky blue (deep blue, like alcohol), but at night, having grown dim, his armor–like burnished steel, rusted by the woods, dampened by the mists and still hardened, distinct, resonant like the first pieces of ice, shining like the starts of soldered joints. Frost, and still from the ravine to the clearing drifts the smell of the last dampness and last warmth. Towards October the wolves' offspring leaves the adults, and the offspring walk alone. A wolf came out of the clearing, in the distance the smoke from the guttering campfire circled, hovered a moment amidst the felled birches and flowed down the bank to the fields, where the hares were trampling over the winter crops. In the black night and in the black silence one could not see beyond the dry valleys of Chornye Rechki. At the Chornye Rechki, in the barns, girls began to bawl their medley and immediately grew quiet, having sent it to autumn fields and the wood squealingly-sad. Out of the woods through the ravine, towards Nikola, towards Yegroka walked Arina. A wolf met her by the edge of the wood and dodged into the bushes. Arina must have seen the wolf–a pair of green lights flashed in the bushes–Arina did not turn off, did not begin to hurry… In Yegorka's hut, black, there was a smell of autumn, of medicinal herbs. Arina blew up the heat in the iron stove, lit a candle, cast in wax from Yegorka's bee house–the hut lit up, compact, large, with benches along all the walls, with a multicolored stove, from the stove protruded the heels of Yegorka, the one-eyed wizard. The cock crowed for midnight. The cats jumped onto the floor. Yegorka rurned round, hung down his white shaggy head from the stove; he crowed wheezily in a sleepy voice:

“You've come? –Ah! You've come, you witch. Don't turn away-y-y, don't turn away-y-y-y, you'll be mine, I'll charm you, you witch.”

“So, what then, I've come. And I'll never go away from you, you one-eyed devil. And I'll torture you, and I'll drink your blood, witch's blood. I'll send you to your death, you squinting devil.”

On the porch the as yet ungathered bees droned excitedly. The shadows from the candlelight ran and congealed in the corners. Again the cock crowed. Arina sat down on a bench, the kittens walked across the floor, arching their backs, jumped onto Arina's knees. Yegorka jumped down from the stove–his bare feet and toes shone like juniper tan.

“You've come?! –Ah, you've come, you witch! I'll drink your blood…”

“So what, then, I've come, you one-eyed devil. You've confused me, you've got me drunk.”

“Take off your boots, climb up onto the stove! Get undressed!”

Yegorka bent down at Arina's feet, tugged at her boots, lifted her skirts, and Arina did not in shamelessness rearrange her skirts.

“You've got me drunk, you cross-eyed devil! And you've got yourself drunk. I've brought some herbs, I put them on the porch.”

“I've got myself drunk, I've got myself drunk!… You won't go away anywhere, you'll be mine, you won't go away anywhere, you won't go away, my girl…”

Dogs began barking under the shed: –a wolf must have been passing. And again the cock crowed, the third cocks. Night was moving at midnight.

Towards the frosty season at Chornye Rechki they were up to date with their work in the fields–peasant life dies together with the earth. The women set up house at the threshing floors, and the girls after the summer harvest work got themselves pregnant before their marriages, did not leave the threshing floors at night, spent their nights in the barns, bunched together, they stoked the earthen barn smoky stoves, sang till cock-crow their vigorous medleys–probably the lads, too, who went to saw wood, were crowded together near the barns in the evenings. Dobrynya moved over the fields, cast handfulls of white stars (some of them fell into the black earth), through the icy, autumnal heavenly firmament–the earth lay weary, silent–like the burnished steel of Dobrynya's armor, the steels had rusted in the woods, they ring with clips of icicles, and gleam like the mold of the final mists. In the evening the girls in the barns yelled out their medleys, the lads arrived with an accordion, the girls locked in the barns, the lads crashed into the barns, the girls began to screech, rushed into the corners, dived into the straw, the lads gave chase, caught them, squeezed them, kissed them, embraced them. The ashes gleamed brown in the barn stove-hole, the smoke was blinding, the straw rustled winterishly

–Chi-vi-li, chi-vi-li-

“Take whomever you wish!” a girl began to play this soldier's song in a corner, surrendering herself. They went into an adjoining room, and stood solemnly in a circle. The accordion squeaked. The girls snorted sternly.

“You long-legged storks

Lost your road and way!”

The girls began to play.

Apart from the smoke there was a smell of trampled straw, sweat and sheepskins. The first cocks crowed in the village. A star fell over the earth.

Alexei Semyonov Knyazkov-Kononov caught Ulyanka Kononova in a dark corner on the straw, where there was a smell of straw, rye and mice. Ulyanka fell down, hiding her lips. Alexei knelt on her stomach, pulling her arms away, fell, thrust his hands into Ulyanka's breasts, Ulyanka's head fell back–her lips were moist, salty, her breath hot, there was the bitter, sweet and drunken smell of sweat.

–Chi-vi-li, vi-li, vili!..

Zlatopoyas Dobrynya scattered white stars across the heavenly ice, and in silence the weary earth lay down, the village slept–over the river, with the woods on the right side, with the fields on the left and at the back–stumpy with its cottages, which looked downwards with its blind, cataract-covered little windows, with its thatched roofs combed the old-fashioned way. The lads spent the night in the neighboring barn to the girls'. After the second cock-crows Alexei came out of the barn. The moon shone over the roof like a flickering candle, the earth was salted with hoar-frost, the ice crunched under foot, the trees stood, bony, and barely noticeably crawled the white mist among them. The girls' barn stood at the side, mutely, straw gleaming on the threshing floor. And immediately after Alexei the door of the girls' barn creaked, and Ulyanka came out into the moonlight. Alexei was standing in the darkness. Ulyanka looked quietly around, spread her feet apart, began to urinate–in the biting autumnal silence the crashing of the falling stream was heard clearly–she drew her hand across her skirt over her privy parts, took one bow-legged step and went off to the barn. The cocks in the yards began to sing–one, two, many. For the first time Alyoshka got the scent of a woman, really.

And two days before the Feast of the Visitation, at night, the first snow–for a few hours–fell. The earth met the morning with winter, in a crimson dawn. But together with the snow came warmth, and the day turned gray, like an old woman, was windy, homeless; autumn had returned. On this day before the Feast of the Visitation at Chornye Rechki by the rivulet the bathhouses were heated. At dawn the girls, barefoot in the snow, with their hems tucked in, carried the water, and the chimneyless stoves were heating all day. In the cottages the older folk raked the ashes, gathered the smocks, and towards dusk they went in families to steam themselves–old men, peasants, sons-in-law, lads, mothers, wives, daughters-in-law, young girls, children. In the bathhouses there were no chimneys, in the smoke, in the steam, in the red stove glow, white human bodies were crammed tightly together, men and women, they washed in the same alkaline solution, and the senior men rubbed everyone's back, and they all ran down to the river for a dip, in the damp evening frost, in the cold wind.

And Alyoshka Knyazkov on that day at dawn walked up to Nikola to see one-eyed Yegorka–the wizard. The wood at dawn was silent, misty, frightening and the sorcerer Yegorka was whispering frighteningly: “In the bathhouse, in the bathhouse, I say, in the bathhouse!…” The evening came damp and cold, the wind whistled all the notes and combinations of notes. In the evening Alyoshka stood guard at the Kononova-Gnedoi bathhouse. A crazed young girl jumped out, naked, with disheveled plaits, rushed down to the river and from there ran up the hill to the hut, her white body dissolved in the darkness. And an old man came out twice, plunged coughing into the water and again went away for a steaming. A mother was dragging her kids to the river under her arms. Ulyanka lingered in the bathhouse alone, she was cleaning up the bathhouse. Alexei made his way to the foreroom and began whispering in great fear, what had been whispered to him by Yegor:

“I stand, Lexei, with my back to the West, my face to the East, I see, I look–from the clear sky flies a fiery arrow. I pray to that arrow, I submit to that arrow, I question it: –whither have you been sent, fiery arrow?”–“To the dark woods, to the shifting swamps, to the damp roots.”–Come on now, fiery arrow! fly where I'll send you: fly to Ulyana, to Kononova, strike into her ardent breast, her dark liver, her passionate blood, her main artery, her sugary lips, so that she may yearn for, long for me in the sun, in the (morning) dawn, at the young moon, in the cold wind, on days that have passed and days to come, that she might kiss me, Lexei Semyonov, embrace me, and fornicate with me! My words are complete and contain the powers of incantation, like the mighty ocean sea, are strong and sticky, getting
stronger and stickier than isinglass, firmer and stronger than damask steel and stone. For ever and ever. Amen.”

Ulyanka was wiping the floor, doing it quickly, her muscles were playing lightly on her powerful crupper. Suddenly a fit of ecstacy hit her–was the spell taking effect?–she opened the door, leaned on the door jamb wearily and submissively, breathed in the cold air, smiled weakly, stretched–there was a sweet ringing noise in her ears, a cold refreshing wind blew around her. From the mountain her mother called:

“Ulyanka-aa! Hurry-y-y! Milk the cows!”

“Right away-y-y-y!” she hurried off, three or so slaps on the floor with the rag, splashing the corners, pulled on her shirt, and, going up the mountain, began to sing mischievously:

“I'm going to get wed in Ozerki,

I'm not going to shame myself,

I'm not going to mess around,

I'm not going to get covered in dust.”

In the dark cow shed under the awning there was a warm smell of droppings and cow sweat. A cow stood resignedly. Ulyanka squatted down, milk spurted into the pail, the cow's udders were soft, the cow sighed deeply…

And at the Feast of the Visitation, at matins in the dark church among the slender-legged and dark-faced saints, Ulyanka composed her simple virgin's prayer:

“Holy Mother of God, cover the earth with snow, and me with a husband!”

And the snow that year fell early, the winter set in before Our Lady of Kazan Day.