Above him, among the black shadows of the tree tops, glowered cold, bright stars. At home in the Far East they had seemed yellower, closer. At home in Kyakhta—a long, long time ago. …
2
Ilya’s father, Anatoly Shirayev, had been a rich fur dealer in the Siberian trans-shipping town of Kyakhta. After his first wife died he took into his home a beautiful girl of mixed Buryat-Russian parentage. His fellow merchants who had esteemed only fair haired, buxom women never approved of Anatoly Shirayev’s choice. Anatoly never married her—even after she bore him Ilya, his third son.
Ilya remembered his mother as a wrinkled old woman. She must have been pretty when she was young, he thought, contrasting the Asian crescent of brows, the long, bright-green eyes of Mongolian gods with the gentle background of an oval Russian face. He took after her, whereas his two older brothers were tall and red-haired like their father. They used to tease him with cat calls because of his malachite-colored eyes. Ilya thought of himself as homely.
There was Anisa, the daughter of a Trans-Baykal cossack. She was fair and often wore pink dresses. Ilya liked her. Fair and pink, that was all he thought of her.
But Anisa, echoing grown-ups, told him once that he was a “slant-eyed bastard” and should stop looking at her. He had been avoiding her for quite some time after that. Until one day he handed her a squirrel skin which he had tanned himself.
The skin must have felt good to her hands. “You’ve cat eyes,” she said. “You must stop looking at me.” Ilya watched her fair, little fingers caress the soft fur. Then Anisa threw the skin to the chain dog; the dog tore it to shreds.
Then the Revolution came. His mother died and his life with his brothers and father became unbearable. He was in everybody’s way—a stocky, black-haired boy who wasn’t allowed to sit at the table when his father had company. Ilya would go off wandering into the steppe, accompanied only by his silent, nine-year-old shadow, and stay there until the early hours of the morning. The far hills on the steppe horizon reminded him of a huge, sleeping beast. The farther from town he’d wander, the fewer were the thoughts of his father’s business to follow him—as if they had been afraid of the wide spaces, of the free air and sun which were hard to catalog. The sun would be immense, dark-red and settle heavily into the steppe like into water. Night would fall fast without dusk. Succulent stars would appear low in the sky and soon they’d be consorted by a youthful moon sailing like a boat with raised prow and stern. Ilya would love to hum in the dusk, then boom wistful Buryat songs which he might have heard from his grandfather years back. At times like these, songs would come up onto the surface of his memory like stars from an empty sky.
Coming home one night, long after midnight, Ilya as usual whistled from behind the fence to the two chained wolfhounds, which were let out after dark to run around the house on wires. They were very friendly to him, these shaggy, bearlike dogs. One of them, Hayda, he had cured of the mange all by himself. His brothers had been set to destroy the animal, but he had pleaded with them and his father. They had scoffed when he had patiently medicated Hayda with sheep liniment bartered from the veterinarian for skins. But how happy he had been to see the big dog coming to greet him.
Now, as he clambered over the fence, Ilya heard no clanking of chains nor any friendly canine panting. The house was dark. A faltering strip of light broke through the closed shutters and stretched into the yard, onto a pair of horses hitched onto a carriage. The wheel-horse restlessly stamped the ground with his left foreleg. It snorted noisily, leering into the corner of the yard, toward a dark, formless pile.
Ilya, too, gave a feral snort: a sharp odor of wheel pitch and the familiar, saline odor of blood was in the dark night air. He dashed to the corner of the yard and picked up the heavy, dear head by its short ears. As he let go of it, the head fell back with a limp thud; the dogs were still warm, the blood hadn’t coagulated yet.
He was frantic. Up the porch he sprinted, into the house, into the hall. “Hayda,” he howled, “Hayda’s been axed to death. … And Murat too. Both of them axed to death!”
Overwhelmed by his grief, bubbling incoherently, Ilya had not noticed that his father and brothers were all dressed and ready to travel. He stared at them in stupor.
“You fool,” his father said somberly but without anger, “get dressed. We’re leaving. You wouldn’t expect us to leave good dogs.”
“Hayda!” the older brother sneered. “The world’s in flames and all he thinks of are his dogs. At least you could go and wash your hands.”
Only now, leaning against the doorpost, did Ilya notice that his hands were bloodstained. He slowly began to rub his sticky palms.
“No understand, huh?” the other brother noted with malignant gaiety, apparently amused at Ilya’s bewilderment. A moment later neither of them seemed to notice him any more. His father took an axe from the table and tested its edge with his finger. There was a moment’s hesitation, as the dim light of the kerosene lamp threw his dull reflection on the clean metal.
“Where is it?” the older brother asked, clearing his throat and raising the lamp in an impatient gesture. Shadows of people and potted fig plants darted silently on the walls. An unseen storm raged in the room.
“In the corner, under the second board,” the old man rasped, handing the axe reluctantly to the younger son.
“Step aside,” said the younger son, toying with the axe. The older didn’t immediately move out of the way. First he pulled up and loosened the floor board, then, freeing both his hands, he put the lamp on the table in one quick, cautious move. For a split second both brothers faced each other, as if ready to jump. In the light shining down on them their powerful jowls stood out clearly. As if on command they both bent down simultaneously; the board groaned and squeaked. A compact little bag, smelling raw and musty, was clutched by two pairs of hands and laid reluctantly on the table. The father nimbly loosened its neck—there was a heavy, lifeless murmur. A thick, short snake seemed to have slithered out; it stared at the people with hundreds of lusterless, yellow eyes of the gold coins it had disgorged.
Ilya’s father and brothers hastily divided the coins; each hid his share on his person. There were only a few coins left when his father called without turning around, “Ilya, take some.”
His brothers bristled; they glared resentfully at the old man. But old Shirayev rebuked them. “He’s your brother,” he said in a calm voice which Ilya didn’t recognize.
It seemed as if all of his terrible influence had melted together with the gold in their pockets. “I’m not coming with you,” he said proudly.
His father turned around and walked back to him. “Ilyusha, come with us, boy,” he said gently, peering into the flushed face of his youngest, the illegitimate one. Perhaps he suddenly recognized in it the features of the woman he had loved or of his own youth. Perhaps he realized that he had loved poorly and hadn’t known how to appreciate love—that he had always been too careful of what people might say about him, or too afraid of their envy. He became aware, perhaps, that he had lived for others, not to himself, and was wondering now who and where those others were?
Ilya recoiled. He wasn’t used to the pleading affection on the part of his father. And as he hesitated, waving his arms, the old man suddenly shuddered, as if he had just noticed the blood on the boy’s hands. He cast a ponderous glance at the mutilated floor, at the despoiled table, and gave a deep sigh.
“Why’re you pleading with this waif?” the older brother sternly admonished. “It’s almost dawn, we haven’t got too much time left.” His voice carried no respect for his father.
The old man made no response.
According to custom they sat down for a few seconds. The brothers were the first to go outside. Ilya stared at his father’s stooping back but could find no pity in his heart. The horses, tired of waiting, took off eagerly. And in the morning, trying not to look at the dead Hayda and Murat, not to listen to the worried crows overhead, Ilya locked the house and
took the keys to the new authorities—a former Shirayev laborer.
The house was taken for the headquarters of the local Soviet and Ilya was sent to school—to do what he wanted most, breed expensive animals and grow rare trees.
Ilya would have probably never returned to Kyakhta had it not been for the black-memory year 1937, the year of turmoil and purges, when he, a young man of twenty-six had to tear himself away from his beloved wilderness of the forest reserve to prove that he had never had any part in his father’s riches.
Even then, he would have left equipped with lifesaving certificates had it not been for the little girl whom he had given years back his first tanned pelt for its destruction. He met her in Kyakhta.
Of course, Anisa was no little girl any more. She was a young woman in the fullest bloom of her beauty, a beauty for which in times past Kyakhtan magnates used to pay big money. In Anisa’s alabaster face, in her fabulously dreamy eyes, Ilya was pained to detect the unmasked terror of a baited animal. The despair in her eyes had determined his destiny. Her dowry, now limited to the name of her father who had perished with the armies of Baron Ungern, had attracted no suitors. Ilya married her and was joyously received into her home.
They lived with her mother. For a year or so he enjoyed the affectionate, solicitous treatment of a family head. He was madly in love with his wife and believed wholeheartedly that she was in love with him too.
It was June 1938. Anisa went to visit her sister in Dauria. Without her, the house felt empty, the nights were long. She came back, wearing a new dress, looking lovelier yet different. In the evening Ilya was first to retire to the bedroom; he waited and waited for her. He undressed, tried to read, but nothing came out of it. Another minute, she’d clean up the dishes, have another word with her mother and come upstairs, he told himself.
Finally Anisa came into the bedroom. His embrace was tender; fantasy is no substitute for reality, he thought, watching his dark-skinned hand caress her fair shoulder.
“All right, make it faster,” she snapped. “Turn the lights off.”
“Why?” he asked trustfully, still smiling, though her voice was strangely harsh.
She stared at him with a weird expression in her wide-open eyes, as if inviting him to delve into a place where he had had no admittance before. “Why?” she shouted out in revulsion, pushing him roughly aside. “Lord, what slanting eyes you have! Like a cat!”
Ilya sat quietly on the very edge of the bed. Slowly an icy chill began enveloping him from the back of his head to his bare feet. Anisa cried inconsolably—like a baby. He felt pity for her, helpless anger, but above all shame, unbearable shame. His fingers trembled as he tried hastily to button up his nightshirt.
Ilya’s happiness had come to an end that night. He signed up for a long trip.
Anisa and her mother made an effort to sweeten the last few days in their house for him. “Patience’s important,” the old woman tried to comfort him. “Wait for your grain to be ground and flour will come.” When it was time to leave Anisa went with him to the station.
The express train came in the evening. A penetrating Trans-Baykal wind blew up whirls of sand; it crunched on the teeth. Somewhere in the dark somebody was knocking on the wheels. The station signals were twinkling. Ilya spoke gently to his wife, patting her beautiful, plump hand. “Wait for me,” he said. Though she responded affectionately, he had a strong suspicion that she was anxious to catch her bus home. Perhaps she was chilly too; there wasn’t really much to their parting.
From the trip he had sent Anisa a great deal of money. He had hopefully sent her a squirrel coat, and now, on his way home, among other things he was bringing her a blue polar fox.
The boat was steaming into the Upper Reaches of the Yenissey River. The passengers were gay, full of money, glad to get home after long work and months of loneliness. From Igarka many women were returning home after working on contract jobs. The voyage had been long; a few managed to marry, a few even remarried.
Ilya took pride in showing off his fox. The women gingerly caressed it with calloused hands, taking turns in trying it on in front of a broken mirror. “For your wife?” asked a tall, slender woman, nudging his shoulder. “You better put it away. You’re so deep in thoughts that you don’t hear anything. Put it away, there’re all kinds of people on this boat.” Then, watching him as he carefully tucked away the fox, she suddenly thrust her hands into the sleeves of her quilted jacket. “I’m chilly,” she said.
Overcome by a desire for frankness, which occasionally happens with traveling people, Ilya told her a few things about himself and about Anisa. Then he became reticent, as he realized that she guessed even facts he’d rather not reveal. “Eh,” he replied tersely to some of her questions, though he felt like telling her everything. He liked this woman—Tatyana; her language was devoid of the vulgarity other women passengers displayed. She must have seen better times, he conjectured, noticing that her tiny ears had been pierced but carried no earrings now.
One evening, after the other occupants of their quarters had wandered off, Ilya was left alone with Tatyana. In the dim light of a little lamp tremulous shadows made her face appear cold, her grey eyes dark and motionless. Only her platinum blond hair, gently crowding her high forehead, appeared as soft as ever. Having nothing else to do, he began to draw her out.
She was reluctant to talk at first. “I’m Russian,” she said, playing with her fingers coupled on her knees. “I lived on the Ukraine, worked as a nurse then went along with my husband to Siberia.” Tatyana crossed her legs and began to rock lightly to the tune of a cheerless waltz somebody was playing softly on an accordion behind the partition. There was silence for a moment before she resumed speaking. “Our relations went from bad to worse and then I made up my mind to go to the Far North and work in construction. … I worked off my time and now I’m going to Ulan-Udé … to work as a nurse again. … That’s all,” she paused, shrugging her shoulders.
“How about him? What happened to your husband?” Ilya inquired.
“They took him away,” she hitched her shoulders again.
“Why, without any charge?”
“Why without charge?” Tatyana smiled. “Forgery. Dissipation … you know,” she suddenly began to talk fast, with fervor, leaning up to him. Her face, out of the shadows, looked youthfully excited. “You know, it seems I would have understood much better if he had debauched all that money. ‘You mustn’t open a window, heat’s escaping, wood costs money,’ he insisted. Couldn’t understand that fresh air came in through that same open window. Of course, it was my fault that I couldn’t figure him out. Yet, believe me, I couldn’t bear to find out how far his stinginess was going to go. I’d try to convince him. ‘I’m concerned,’ he’d say, ‘about tomorrow. You got to look ahead.’ The trouble was that he looked ahead from the wrong end. There are such people. They look ahead only because ‘yesterday’ is gone and ‘today’ isn’t what they’d like it to be. … They smother you.”
Withdrawing into the shadows again, Tatyana unbuttoned her jacket and gave a deep sigh.
“Then why did you come with him?”
“I thought he’d change, he’d understand. Later … well, I should have been doing the leaving earlier, before he got into all that mess.”
Ilya became very curious.
“So, now why do you go to Ulan-Udé and not back West?”
“I’m ashamed to go back to my relatives,” she whispered. “They told me ‘why go,’ but I kept telling myself: I’ll change him, I’ll make him over, we’ll be like other people. But no good. Therefore, as long as I’m not myself again, I don’t want them to see me. I have to do it now all by myself. It was my vice, it’ll be my virtue.”
As her face moved out of the quivering shadows again, Ilya thought that neither its gentleness nor her low voice were consonant with the firmness of her words.
He studied Tatyana with an increasing sense of participating interest. He admired her fine fingers peeking out from
the thick jacket sleeves. “Poor Dovie Girl,” he told himself.
“All right, enough of your questioning,” Tatyana told him half-jokingly, half-angrily. She was first to get up, climb the ladder and go out on deck. The air was cool; the dark, heavy water growled overboard, rushing to get behind the stern.
“It’s hard for a woman alone,” Ilya said, standing beside her at the thin, thin railing. He didn’t know how to express his sympathy. But, by the way she abruptly straightened up, he knew his remark had been inappropriate.
She doesn’t like to be pitied, he thought approvingly.
“Please, don’t pity me,” she said, staring into the water. “The troubles are mine and I’ll manage,” she added softly, though stubbornly.
The wind coming from the prow danced in her uncovered hair until it unfastened a long strand and tossed it playfully into Ilya’s face.
“It’s chilly,” for some reason he felt like whispering.
He went over to the weather side to shelter her from the wind and gently covered her with the flap of his sheepskin. She didn’t try to move away. Clasping the cold railing firmly, as if she had been afraid of falling overboard, she stood there, her head bowed. Ilya was overcome by a sudden wave of tenderness toward her.
The boat steamed slowly up the river. Ilya was in no hurry now. He felt calm and happy in her presence. Her belief that one can fully repay a mistake, cast off its burden and recover to breathe again—freely and fully—made him feel strong.
“Poor Dovie Girl,” he mused. “After suffering and suffering she voyages all by herself into a strange town, yet believes that everything will turn out fine. As if happiness was not behind but ahead of her.”
He thought it was his duty to watch over her and show her as good a time as one could on this wretched steamer. At the same time, he also sensed that Tatyana in many ways was seriously interested in helping him out. A feeling of complete trust and indebtedness, which he had never experienced toward any woman before, rose in him toward her.
Treasury of Russian Short Stories 1900-1966 Page 10