The war wasn’t a matter of years any longer; these would be the last battles that stood between him and peace. Ilya was confident in the future. As he went to receive his new assignment he was happy.
1951
The “Cleclecks”
by Anna Valtseva
Anna Valtseva, born Anna Valius, in 1916. Reporter and writer. Her travelogue Yenisei, Yenisei appeared in 1963. She visited the United States in 1965.
The flock had been coming down the hilly meadow in a wide column, but when it reached the dusty road the geese began to align themselves in a single file and cross in a true gooselike fashion. On the other side, where the meadow sloped toward the river, the geese were falling again into rows of three or fours, whereas the rear, spread wide over the bright-green grass, kept honking in low voices and patiently waiting their turn to cross the road in a single file.
“Just like infantry,” the smallish, thin stranger marvelled. He had been standing at the road, in the shade of a tall oak, reluctant to disturb the birds. “How smartly they realign on the march,” he said aloud.
“They listen to their leader. There ’ee is, way a’ead,” a feminine voice advised.
He turned around. Behind the low wattled hedge full of drying pots, pans and colanders spiked on sticks, stood a tall, aged woman whose silver-grey hair still had a few jet-black skeins. As the stranger made a step toward her and startled the geese into a dazzling-white, gaggling flutter, the woman slowly turned around and walked back to the cottage, to shucking beans. It made him feel embarrassed; when the last goose had risen and winged across the road, the stranger threw his knapsack off his shoulders, leaned against the oak, and slid down to the ground. In the fields around him the sunshine and the shadows seemed to be playing a game of hide-and-seek, as sunlit streaks of clouds a little farther away—over a crest of forests—kept changing shape from minute to minute.
The stranger listened: crowns of the trees rustled in the breeze; somewhere in the village to his right a motor rattled. The woman still shucked beans, flipping the seeds into a pot in front of her, throwing the pods to another at her side, and the dried-up legumes into a third. Her strong, full arms moved with sureness and energy.
Suddenly there was a heavy flutter above their heads. Three long-legged baby birds stood up in a nest on the cottage thatch, craning their necks, beating their wings, and clacking. From the direction of the river, a big, white-and-black bird came floating toward the village, circled above the cottage and alighted heavily on the roof.
“Storks,” the stranger shouted. “I’ll be darned, storks!”
“By the books its storks all right,” the old woman shouted back. “But ’ere we call ’em ‘clecleck.’ Nothing but cleclecks. On the Lower Dyneper where I come from they call ’em ‘black-buttons,’ nothing but ‘blackbuttons.’ “
“Oh, I know,” the stranger said in a loud voice. “There’s plenty of them in the Ukraine, but here in the Voronezh country? This is the first time I’ve seen them.”
The woman hugged the pot at the rim, and pressing it to her chest so that the beans wouldn’t spill, she walked back to the hedge. “We’ve got only one couple ’ere,” she said, “but before that there was none. During the war, it was forty-three or forty-four … No, I think it was forty-three because the Germans was still in the Ukraine, one couple of them came to us ’ere. The war probably did it. They came after the Fast, right on the eve of May first. Why they picked my cottage and not the next one I’ll never know. They came and began to make a nest as noisy as you please. Then, of course, laid some eggs too … ‘Ave a look how she takes care of them, what a mother!”
The mother stork had been feeding her offspring. Dexterously using her beak and talons, she tore apart the frog she had brought, stuffing the pieces into the open mouths of her babies, making sure that each one of them was fed. When the last morsel was gone, she stalked away to the chimney, looking in all directions and completely ignoring her progeny. “Resting from ’er chores,” the old woman laughed, “or lookin’ for ’er ’usband—just like humans.”
“An interesting species,” the stranger observed.
“There’s quite a story about these birds,” the woman said after a moment of silence. She took a good look at the stranger. She liked his dark, wavy hair, his fair forehead divided by two thin wrinkles, and the blue, rather sad eyes. No more than thirty, she thought.
“What kind of story?” he asked.
“Come into the yard,” she gestured. “I’ll treat you to a glass of nice, fresh milk.”
“I’d appreciate.” He nimbly hurdled over the hedge and perched on the bench at the square table firmly dug into the ground. The old woman brought a pitcher full of milk and a glass. “Take’s much as you like,” she said, moving up the glass closer to him. “I don’t know your name or surname …”
“They call me Anton.”
He opened his knapsack and got out of it some bread, cheese, and a hunk of kelbasa. After cutting it into neat slices, he offered some to his hostess. She declined. “You’re single, I gather,” she said.
“How did you guess?”
“A wife would’ve packed in pastry’n fried chicken for’er man t’take … Comin’ t’stay ’ere for a short while?”
“No,” Anton replied, pouring himself some milk. “For a long while. I’ve come to work here. But I’m curious about those … cleclecks, what’s the story?”
The old woman had been gazing pensively at the roof. “The story’s this,” she began. “You see, they came to us one year, then next, an’ the third year the clecleck female comes by ’erself. She begins to fix ’er nest… drags up more sticks, clay, ’orse dung. Patches, knocks with ’er beak, but then … ev’ry now’n then she stops, stares somewhere an’ cries … it tears your ’eart out.
“Then one day she’s gone … to find ’er mate, I suppose. Two weeks go by, nothing … Then one morning, I see, she’s back an’ with’er a brand new mate. She lays one egg, it’s too late for more, and begin to ’atch it. You should’ve seen ’ow lovie-dovie that ersatz mate of ’ers was!” The old woman laughed heartily. “ ’ee’d prune’r, pinch’r all over, drag in poods o’frogs, keep fixin’er nest … My God, you’d ’ave thought it was their ’oneymoon.”
Anton looked up at the birds with renewed interest. The babies stalked around the nest, lifting their red feet high like ballet dancers, squatting or pruning themselves with their beaks. One chick started pruning its neck with its foot—like a kitten. Their mother, her head turned toward the river, stood motionless at the chimney, paying no attention to her offspring.
“Anton,” the old woman declared, “you’re a good man. I can tell a good man right away by the way ’ee looks at cattle or fowl. There’s all kinds’n kinds o’ people.”
There’s more to come to her story, Anton thought, waiting for his hostess to pick up her thread of thought.
“Anton, you know, I’ve got a daughter,” the old woman said, emphasizing the last syllable. “Sure enough I ’ad sons too, but now only the two o’us widow-orphans are left. ’er ’usband was killed the first year o’the war; she ’adn’t lived with ’im more than a year … if that. There was a baby too, they couldn’t save’im … died. My daughter’s a nice girl …just too shy …
“Around forty-five,” the old woman went on, “a fellow came ’ere to the kolkhoz … Young, full o’pep ’ee was; ’is fightin’ days were over and there were so few men around … ’ee was elected vice-chairman of the kolkhoz. Then ’ee began to court my daughter, Dusya. She wanted to know what I thought. What could I tell’er? I ’ated to see’er widowed so long, so … ’ee came over to live with us. But ’ee brought no ’appiness. A strange man ’ee was, ’adn’t seen anything like’im in ages. Always on the outs with somebody … and selfish! My daughter pouts an’ pouts …
“And so, my son,” the old woman dropped her beans and walked up to Anton, “one morning somethin’ went on between’em; what exactly I don’t know … I
’appened to be busy with the cows, ’ee came running out of the chamber and began to pull on his boots—right on this bench you’re sittin’ now. Sin wanted that ’ee look up: there on the roof the man-clecleck was showin’ loving care to ’is wife who sat in the nest ’atchin’ the eggs. That fool began to shake like mad. ‘You tryin’ to rile me,’ ’ee yells. ‘I’ll show’ye.’ ’ee looks around then picks up a brick and aims right at the birds. ‘Don’t’ I screamed in from the barn. Dusya, too, came out runnin’. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she scolds ’er ’usband. Some’ow we managed to take the brick away from’im … After that Dusya brought out ’is suitcase an’ asked’im to leave.”
“Then what?” Anton asked.
“ ’ee left. My Dusya, she’s only shy to a point. When ’is job was taken away from ’im, ’ee didn’t like it and left our village.”
“No,” Anton explained, “I meant what happened to Dusya?”
“ ’er? Nothing. She’s around. As our kolkhoz became bigger’n bigger they made ’er steward in the neighborin’ village. She lives there now and comes ’ome only on Sundays, an’ some Sunday she don’t even come either. An ’ard workin’ girl she is, my Dusya, always was,” the old woman added pensively.
“She’s probably pretty, your Dusya?” Anton asked softly after a moment of silence.
“Well, what shall I tell you?” the old woman smiled. “She’s not a beauty, but she ’as somethin’ that’ll you draw you to ’er. Everybody says it. See for youself—she ’as suitors no end. But now she’ll think twice before she’ll say yes again …” the old woman paused. “Still I think she’s too shy …”
Anton didn’t quite understand what it was about Dusya that struck her mother as shy but he preferred not to ask. He got up, thanked his hostess for her hospitality and began to tie up his knapsack. “Tell me, son,” she suddenly asked, “you were sayin’ you came to work ’ere. Why so few belongin’s?”
Anton explained that he left his baggage in the truck that had picked him up at the railway station. They had trouble getting started and then the motor kept conking out, so he had decided to come the rest of the way by foot. “The driver will bring the rest of my things,” he assured her.
“The sta-a-shon?” the old woman drawled. And then she shot out a fast question: “You were riding with Semyon?”
“I believe that was his name. Why?”
“Never mind,” she said in reply. “You goin’ to see the management now? The chairman’s away for a few days.”
“Will I be able to see somebody else in authority?” Anton asked.
The old woman smiled. “If you won’t find anybody there, sit down and wait. Somebody’ll show up. Go on. You can leave your bag ’ere.”
Anton was more than pleased at her invitation. He made sure that the documents were in his pocket, asked for the shortest way to the kolkhoz office and left. He had barely turned the corner when the knocking of the motor made him stop. “Semyon,” he heard the old woman’s forceful voice, “were you the one to go to the station to bring the new agronomist?”
“Yes, Ma’am, Daria Timofyeyevna,” Semyon reported.
“Yes, Ma’am,” the old woman scoffed. “So where is ’ee then?”
“Well Aunt Daria, it was this way,” Semyon was about to explain.
“You’ve got no ounce of sense, Semyon,” she scolded. “ ’ow could you ask a complete stranger to crawl under the machine? ’is jacket was all covered with dust. Were you too lazy to fix the motor yourself?”
“I didn’t ask him, Aunt Daria, honest,” Semyon apologized. “He volunteered.”
“Volunteered!” the old woman scoffed again. “If I know you … Get busy an’ bring in ’is suitcase. ’ee’s goin’ to lodge ’ere.”
“But the chairman said …”
“The chairman says many things,” she snapped. “Come on, ’urry. I’ve got to leave for the MTF.”
Anton laughed to himself and went on his way.
* * *
In the afternoon Anton lay down for a nap and when he woke up it was already dusk. He was about to get up when he heard a slight noise behind the partition that divided the spacious chamber, separating his room from the hostess’. A not too bright light shining through the chintz curtain allowed him to see the outline of a young feminine figure bent over the sewing machine. Then he saw Aunt Daria enter. “Daughter,” she whispered, “I’ve fried a chicken for you. Will you do me the favor an’ ’ave some?”
“Later, later, Mama,” the young woman answered. “I want to finish first this jacket for Maryasha. I can’t drag it on for another week. She wants to wear it tonight.”
“Dusya, you can’t be both,” Aunt Daria scolded in a whisper. “Either you’re a steward or a seamstress!”
“There isn’t much to do here,” Dusya laughed out. “On the machine I could do it in no time, but I don’t feel right waking the man.”
Anton thought he should tell them that he was awake. But the pleasant sensation he had, lying in the dusk, listening to the soft voice of this woman, Dusya, made him linger … and listen.
“Well, ’Ow are things goin’, Dusya?” Daria Timofyeyevna asked in a low voice.
“It’s all right now, Mama. But at first, when they gave me the list of my crew and I didn’t know anybody by name, where they lived, what I can expect from them—I was scared. Just do the best you can … in a village you don’t know!”
“So you fell on your face, Dusya …”
“Doesn’t matter if I did,” Dusya laughed. “The most important thing is that I’ve no trouble now.”
“Was Pyotr Grigoryevitch of any assistance?”
“He was, others too. They’re all good folks; they’ve treated me very well.”
“Sure. They see ’ow little you spare yourself. ’ow about Vera, you know, Mikhailovna? Is she good to you?”
“Very good. She treats Mariana and me as if she’d raised us from childhood.”
“She’s a wonderful woman,” Aunt Daria mused in a warm voice. “I’ve a little present for ’er, some lard. Don’t forget to take it.”
“She doesn’t need any.”
“Don’t matter. A present’s a present. But, Dusya, don’t let ’er do the washin’ for you. Bring it ’ere, I’ll do it. Now rest a little. What else is there?”
“Nothing.” Dusya cut the thread with her teeth. As she rose, it suddenly became lighter. She had been blocking off the lamp.
“ ’ow about Nicolai—you know, Nicolayevitch?” Aunt Daria probed cautiously. “Is ’e seein’ you?”
“Sometimes.”
There was a moment of silence after which the old woman left for the kitchen and Dusya switched on the radio. It took a while for the tubes to warm up. A distant, barely audible song wafted in:
Full, oh full’o wonders,
Is Nature’s mighty flow …
“Snow White,” Dusya said to herself and got busy again with her stitching. A moment later Aunt Daria came in again. “Vera, you-know, Mikhailovna praises ’im ’ighly,” she whispered, sitting beside her daughter. “She says, ’ee’s quite independent.”
“They all praise him.”
“And ’ow about you? What do you think?”
“I don’t know, Mama.” As Dusya reached out for the scissors on the table, a shade flitted over the curtain. “He was showing me his little girl’s snapshot.”
“ ’ow does she look?”
“She’s cute; a happy-looking girl.”
“Poor child,” Aunt Daria sighed. “Poor, little orphan, Dusya, it isn’t ’er fault that ’er mother died. She needs somebody to take care of’er.”
“I know,” Dusya, too, sighed. “She has eyebrows like two thin silk threads. She lives with her grandmother now. ‘Just say the word,’ Nicolai Nicolayevitch tells me, ‘and we’ll bring her here. She needs a mother, and you could make a wonderful mother for her.’ “ Dusya heaved another deep sigh. “Our little Mitya would’ve been two years older by now.”
�
�Don’t ’ee drink, Nicolai, you know, Nicolayevitch?” Aunt Daria asked after some silence.
“He does from time to time. I asked him about it. ‘Don’t worry, Dusya,’ he assured me. ‘I never drank before and I won’t again once you’re with me.’ He’s got no home, no family, he drinks from loneliness.”
“That’s possible,” Aunt Daria agreed. “It ’appens this way, Dusya. But I’d advise you to ’ave another thought ’bout it.”
“I haven’t decided yet, Mama. I’m still thinking.”
Something in the kitchen crackled, something sizzled. Aunt Daria rose hastily. “But the child,” she said, walking out. “It isn’t ’er fault; she needs tender lovin’ care.”
While Dusya bent again over her stitching, Anton lay behind the partition, gazing into the darkness, wondering how she looked, this daughter of Aunt Daria’s. He knew already so much about her that he began to be concerned as to how things were going to turn out with her, with that Nicolai Nicolayevitch, and that little girl with the silken thin brows. How about his own future? Would he be able to find a home here, among those people who were only a little more than strangers? Would he figure in their lives? That woman behind the partition, probably no older than he, is she wise in deciding to tie her life with a man’s for the third time?
His reflections were interrupted by merry noises. Two young women broke into the room. “My outfit ready?” one of them asked in a throaty voice.
“Quiet Mariasha!” Aunt Daria hissed from the kitchen. “We’ve a lodger now, the new agronomist. ’ee’s asleep, traveled all night.”
“Is he young?” Mariana asked gaily, without lowering her voice. “If he’s young he won’t wake up for nothing. How’s my jacket, Dusya?”
“Only the buttons left to sew on. What’s your fancy, white or red?”
“Nothing but red! I want to make sure they match my earrings.”
“White ones would be more modest,” Dusya timidly suggested.
“Who needs modesty?” the other girl remarked. “She’s not an old woman.”
Treasury of Russian Short Stories 1900-1966 Page 13