Berezovo

by A J Allen

  It had taken him weeks to persuade her that she need never again leave their shack to go and squat out in the middle of the marshy field in full view of the road. In the end he had had to forcibly drag her, clucking and squawking like a startled hen, to the gornitsa and stand over her until she had consented to try his new invention. But, even after this demonstration, she had persisted in her refusal to use it, fearing that one day the board would give way beneath her weight.

  For three days the war between them had raged: she refusing to go near the bucket, he preventing her from using the field. She had become more and more irritable, while on his part, he had deliberately visited the gornitsa so often that he feared his bowels would become shrivelled like dried fruit. On the third night, after dropping three extra cloves of garlic into her stew, he had witnessed her capitulation. Feigning sleep he had listened as she had crept from the bed and made for the outhouse. Despite the cold night air he had followed her, grinning to himself in the darkness as he listened to her grumbling voice heap curses upon his head, quickly followed by her cry of terror as she overbalanced and landed four square on top of the solid door panel. As he knew it would, the board had held and his victory was made complete shortly after by her groans of satisfaction as she found relief.

  Thereafter she had used the bucket without complaint. To satisfy the honour of both parties a leather strap and chain, fashioned out of a discarded piece of bridle that their son Osip had found in the road, had been added for her to cling onto, and a candle was provided for nocturnal visits. Despite his assurances, he had been alarmed at hearing her lose her balance. The board had definitely creaked and he knew the hole to be deep. He had taken as his guide the military adage that in a year a man would shit his own height and weight, and had dug deep enough to cater for all three of them until the snows melted. He reckoned that in the event of a catastrophe, at least he would be able to pull his way out somehow. His wife, being shorter and broader, was at a disadvantage. As for Osip, like any boy, he would have to take his chances.

  Ineffectually shaking his last few drops over the hole, Goat’s Foot hawked and spat against the rim of the bucket. Jagged rocks thundered and clashed together inside his head, reminders of the drinking session he had had with the courier the night before. Tucking himself away in the folds of his undershirt, he made his way out into the grey morning light. He scooped a handful of snow from the low roof and pressed it like a cloth against his face and neck. For once, his homespun remedy for a blistering hangover failed him and he was strongly tempted to return to the warmth of his rough cot. Only the thought of his wife and the courier being there drove him on. Wiping the last of the snow from his cheeks he set off along the road towards the town.

  Like his shack, Goat’s Foot and his family stood close to and yet apart from the inhabitants of Berezovo. However much critics at home or abroad might fret over his class of peasantry (calling it in turn backward, drunken, shiftless, degenerate or oppressed) he paid little heed. Even with a hangover so fierce that it made him groan at every shaking step he took, he counted himself a lucky man, and in the currency of the world in which he lived, luck was more valuable than gold. Buried beneath his hearth in a small earthenware pot lay sixty-eight roubles; a smug testament that he was not lacking in either commodity.

  Goat’s Foot was not philosophically opposed to the viewpoint of those people such as Modest Tolkach who rejected the concept of “luck”. On the contrary, the two men shared many beliefs in common. Where he differed from Tolkach was that the Hospital Administrator, from the very beginning, had seen his future fortune as being dependent upon the rank and achievements of others, whereas Goat’s Foot, with all his native cunning, could admit to no man being his master.

  “Let others go to the moneylenders, or give their roubles to the Two Thieves” was his dictum. For himself, he would tend his desyatinas in summer, hunt game in the winter and if luck should fleetingly cross his path, had he not the same right as any other man to exploit the situation? Like Tolkach, he was not without an aptitude for creating lucrative encounters. Tolkach’s strength lay in his ability to manipulate a bureaucratic system to his advantage: Goat’s Foot’s talent was more basic and, at times, more brutal. He could drink.

  It might be said that any fool can drink, but not the way Goat’s Foot drank: beaker after beaker of fierce vodka that filled the head with its fumes, burnt the belly and turned the flames blue when you spat into the fire. Three beakers of that would settle most people, as it had done for Chevanin when he had called the day before. After the first cup, Dr. Tortsov’s assistant had become expansive; after the second argumentative; and after the third maudlin to the point of tears. While his expectation of not having to pay the sixty copecks visitation fee grew stronger with every sip, Goat’s Foot had exercised his other significant talent: he had listened. Similarly, when on the following night and long after the livery stables had closed, the carrier had stumbled half frozen into his shack at the height of the blizzard, it had never occurred to Goat’s Foot to refuse him shelter and hospitality as some in the town would have done. Instead he had poured beaker after beaker down the man’s throat, while Osip, roused still sleepy from his bed beside the fire, had stabled his horses in the gornitsa. For this simple action he had earned the carrier’s gratitude, his fifty copecks for the horse and his conversation.

  The two men had sat contentedly in front of the fire, the smoke from their pipes mingling with that from the wet timber in the grate. When the boy had returned, it was with the news that one of the horses had cast a shoe. The carrier had grunted his acknowledgement: the shoe had been lost two versts short of Berezovo; he would be lucky if the horse was not lame in the morning.

  And what was he carrying?

  Fumbling in his leather pouch, the carrier had produced a crumpled manifesto of his cargo for Goat’s Foot to read but, feigning illiteracy, his host had declined. Returning the paper to its pouch, the man had scratched his head and let his host pour him another drink while he recited his load. A sack of mail from the sorting office in Tobolsk; two cases of soap for Nadnikov at the general store; sixteen blankets for the Barracks commissariat; three bolts of cloth for the haberdashers; flour (white, mind) for Gvordyen’s bakery…

  And how had the journey gone?

  It had been fine until he had met the blizzard, then it had taken him a whole day to cover twenty versts, sweating at each step in case he lost the road.

  Why hadn’t he stopped at a yurt until the blow was over?

  The carrier shook his head, watching as the level of alcohol in his beaker rose once more towards the brim. No, the typhus was bad all along the road and grew worse as it neared the town. If he had stopped even for one night he would have been dead in the morning, he declared, crossing himself and emptying his beaker again in one swallow.

  The beaker was refilled. And was there news?

  The man had belched, and wondered when the peasant’s woman would bring him the food he had been promised.

  Yes, there was news, the courier admitted; there was always news. A party of high ranking exiles were on the road, guarded, it was said, by a whole battalion of Sibirsky. He himself had seen the “politicals” in the villages making red banners of welcome and baking biscuits for the prisoners. In some places, the rumour had changed: the exiles had become the Provincial Governor, but he considered this improbable. Even his Excellency would know better than to travel north in February and besides, it was unlikely that the condemned rioters and agitators would be baking biscuits for him. As Goat’s Foot filled his own cup, he had agreed that this prospect seemed remote.

  But who exactly were these people?

  The carrier had had a hard head and Goat’s Foot had lost count of the number of beakers they had drunk together. Now each cup seemed to be taking its individual revenge as he reached the town. Stooping down, he scraped up some more snow and thrust it into his mouth, cooling his swollen tongue and clearing his head. Unsteadily he continued on his
way, one hand pressing against the end wall of the Town Hall for support as he rounded the corner into Alexei Street. His blood thinned by the alcohol, he felt the cold in the marrow of his bones. Still he kept going, fearing that if he stopped his legs would buckle and give way under him. Seeing the shaggy figure weaving its way down the centre of the road, people began to stop and watch. Blearily he glared at them, but kept his strength for reaching his destination. Suddenly he stopped in the middle of Alexei Street, ignoring the curses of a sleigh driver who had to rein his team in hard to avoid running him over.

  Where was his destination? he wondered.

  He had intended to make the Doctor’s surgery his first port of call; the money he planned to extract from the Doctor’s assistant would pay for his purchases at the market. But what if old Tortsov himself was there? That would make his business very difficult indeed. Better to leave the matter until later on in the morning, he decided. He would go instead to the Black Cock and wait for Blonski. There, at least, he would get warm again.

  Located at the western end of the Market Square, the Black Eagle Inn (Proprietor: S.K. Lavrov) faced one of the two entrances of the barracks, whence it drew most of its regular custom. Strictly speaking it was not an inn at all since Lavrov did not hold a licence to offer sleeping quarters to the weary traveller. Nevertheless its landlord, a surly dark haired veteran of the Sibirsky, was occasionally disposed to allow late drinkers to remain on the premises overnight and to leave them undisturbed if they slipped unconscious beneath the rough plank tables at which they had been drinking. On the morrow, in lieu of payment, he expected them to perform various menial chores such as sweeping the floor, putting down new sawdust or emptying the cold ashes from the fire in front of which they had warmed themselves the night before.

  Such reciprocity was not extended to everyone. Bad payers were shown the door whatever the weather and soldiers from the barracks were never encouraged to stay beyond their permitted hours. Lavrov knew well that such delinquency would not go unnoticed by their commanding officer and could jeopardise his trade. It was one thing for Captain Steklov to spend the night entertaining a certain lady of high social position in the Hotel New Century; it was quite another to have half the garrison absent from their posts and unaccounted for.

  “Let Captain Steklov stay as long as he likes at the hotel” was the landlord’s point of view. Certainly let him stay there rather than bring his money to the Black Cock, for nothing would empty the place faster than the sight of an epaulette. The Black Cock always had been and always would be a soldiers’ bar and if it grew a little rough sometimes, it was only to be expected. That Colonel Izorov knew of such an arrangement there was little doubt, but being a man of discretion, he had long ago chosen to look the other way, sharing the town’s generally low regard for what were popularly referred to as Lavrov’s “sleepers and sweepers”.

  Although most of the townsfolk gave it a wide berth in the evenings, the Black Cock did not lack frequent civilian patronage. The establishment was convenient for the staff of the small municipal prison which stood adjacent to the barracks, and several of the policemen whose headquarters spanned the distance between the jailhouse and the Town Hall often dropped in as they came off duty. During the daytime, stall holders from the Market Square would come in for a glass of tea and a vodka, and it was a regular meeting place for those such as drivers or carriers whose work took them to the four corners of the town. In the days before he had made a killing on the town’s new building projects Belinsky had often drunk there, on the off chance of picking up repair work at the barracks or the prison. Now, with the exception of those occasions when he was chairing meetings of the local Black Hundreds, he usually preferred the bar at the Hotel New Century.

  Lavrov bore the hotel’s management no grudge. Fyodor Gregorivich could have as many of the barines as he liked and good luck to him. He would never have as many customers as crowded into the smoke filled front room of the Black Cock of an evening, winter or summer. They were Lavrov’s people: men who liked plain food and decent vodka at honest prices and were content to spend an evening playing cards or chess or talking amongst themselves. God-fearing people: no Jews, no Ostyaks, no women, no Reds… And if, at the end of the evening, some of them were the worse for wear for drink (which, after all, was only a good man’s fault) then let them lie down and sleep it off, for tomorrow would bring its own troubles. The doors of the Black Cock were open to such good company.

  Whether Goat’s Foot could be included in even the most generous interpretation of the phrase as “good company” was doubtful. What was beyond dispute, even to Lavrov’s eyes watching from behind the bar as the bedraggled peasant lurched through the open door, was that the man was badly in need of strong drink.

  Uncorking a flask of vodka, he poured a measure into the glass he had just finished polishing and pushed it towards the wan-faced figure as he reached the bar. Gratefully Goat’s Foot drained the glass and motioned for another. Lavrov obliged.

  “Semyon Konstantinovich. Prince amongst men,” the peasant saluted him. “What are you doing behind the bar so early? Where’s Mikhail?”

  “Taken ill,” the proprietor informed him. “Someone put lamp oil in his tea.”

  “Again?”

  Lavrov nodded. Without his pot boy he would be hard pressed to clear the tables and tend the bar that evening. Eyeing the man in front of him, he said:

  “I’ll need someone tonight, someone with a head on their shoulders. If you think of anyone, you might mention it.”

  Goat’s Foot rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “What’s the pay and how long for?”

  “Three hours. From seven to ten.”

  “And the pay?”

  “Same as usual,” Lavrov said with a shrug. “Ten copecks an hour and a hot meal.”

  Goat’s Foot drew his breath in sharply and gave a doubtful shake of his head.

  “And a bottle to go home with,” Lavrov added.

  Goat’s Foot looked round at the small number of customers that already sat drinking at the tables. He was in luck. Two of them were men he wanted to do business with.

  “And the drinks you’ve already had,” persisted the landlord.

  “Throw in two glasses of tea and you need look no further,” Goat’s Foot replied with a smile. “I’ll be over talking to Blonski.”

  “Is that tea with or without oil?” asked Lavrov asked sarcastically.

  Swallowing the rest of his vodka, Goat’s Foot smiled amiably at Lavrov and then looked back at the two men with whom he wished to do business that morning. Shrewdly he chose to approach the blacksmith Chirikov first.

  “Good morning, Innokenty Arseneyevich,” he said when he stood in front of the giant’s table.

  The blacksmith, busy eating his breakfast, was as hospitable as a dog with a bone. Narrowing his eyes, he glared up at the intruder and instinctively Goat’s Foot stepped back a pace. He had once seen Chirikov snap a man’s back in two during a wrestling bout at the summer fair and, although it had been accidental, it had done nothing to diminish the popular myth that the blacksmith was a man of violent temper.

  As engagingly as he could, Goat’s Foot told his tale as the man at the table attacked his food. When he had come to the part about how the carrier’s horse had lost a shoe, the wooden spoon carrying the grey fish stew momentarily paused in its flight to the blacksmith’s lips: the first sign that the man was listening to him at all. From under a low heavy brow, brooding eyes flicked over the peasant’s face as Goat’s Foot recounted how highly he had recommended Chirikov’s forge to the carrier.

  “‘No use going to the regimental farrier,’ I said, ‘He’s a butcher. Go to Innokenty Chirikov. He’ll do the job right’.”

  Chirikov’s eyes did not leave his face as he took a hunk of bread from the basket beside him and slowly tore it apart with his powerful fingers. With the minutest motion of his head the blacksmith acknowledged Goat’s Foot right to take his commission:
six old nails, long enough to mend a hole on his roof. It was with a heartfelt sense of relief that the peasant backed slowly away, bowing as he left his presence, and turned his attention to the second person he had to speak to: Corporal Yfem Borisovich Blonski.

  Despite the earliness of the hour, Blonski was already hunched over a half empty glass of beer. He returned Goat’s Foot’s greeting morosely.

  “What is the matter, Yfem Borisovich?” the peasant enquired sympathetically. “You look really fed up.”

  The soldier glared at him and spat expertly and with feeling into the battered shell casing that stood at the end of the table.

  “Bastards. That’s what the matter is, old friend. I’m surrounded by bastards.”

  As if in answer to his call, a movement behind the corporal’s back caught Goat’s Foot’s eye. Through the window he saw the barracks gates swing open and a troop of mounted cavalry emerge.

  “Well, here’s something,” the peasant remarked. “Is the Regiment moving, or what?”

  The jangling harnesses and the thud of hooves on the snow were now audible. Guiltily, the corporal looked over his shoulder and then pressed himself against the wall as the first pair of horsemen rode past the uncurtained window by which they sat.

  “It’s the Captain,” he hissed. “He’s gone mad, I swear it. Ever since last Wednesday he’s had the whole company out on daily manoeuvres, covering the road from the South.”

  “What? Even yesterday in the blizzard?” asked Goat’s Foot incredulously.

  “I told you. He’s a lunatic,” the corporal said, peering cagily through the window. “The young ones are always the worse. Especially when they have an uncle who is a Prince.”