4
Saat dozed off at the end of the first kilometer. Matamey curiously watched the expression on the doctor’s face as he was swearing at each road bump. “Listen, Daj,” he asked the epicurean physician when they reached the asphalt highway, “was our school principal ever your patient?”
“You better ask who wasn’t.”
“Take me, for instance.”
The doctor gave him a wry look. “Just wait until you catch something and you’ll come running to me.”
“You’re sure?”
“You mean that you’ll catch something?”
“Yes.”
“Quite.”
“What are you going to do in town?”
“My friend,” the doctor bubbled, “I’m going to welcome the steamer Abkhazya. First, a few boys and myself are going to have some Odessa beer, then we’ll take a ride to the railroad station where they sell the best cognac, on the Moscow-Erevan express, you know.”
“Quite some program,” Matamey sighed.
“I should think so.”
Matamey returned to the original question. “So Audrey Butba was a patient of yours?”
“What do you mean ‘was’? He still is.”
“I’m asking you officially as the secretary of the village Soviet.”
“And I’m answering officially,” the doctor slowed down. “What happened?” he seemed worried.
Matamey found it difficult to believe that the doctor was worried about a patient. He had always thought there was not a humane vein in that mass of flesh of Daj’s. How could a physician be humane when he fleeced his patients out of eggs, live chickens, sour milk—apart from the money he took. He told the good doctor about the principal’s disappearance. “Any opinions?”
The doctor switched to high gear again. “A psycho, that’s what he is,” he declared, waving his arm.
Matamey was astonished.
“Why should you find it so strange?” Daj asked. “We’re all psychos. I’m a psycho, you’re a psycho, everybody … This is the atomic age, mind you. Psycho doesn’t necessarily mean insane, just well … as we say, a variety of a neurosis. Andrey, though, let me tell you, is a true psychopath. He racks his brains too much and thinks too hard. To a colleague I’d diagnose his sickness as agoraphobia.”
“Agoraphobia? What’s that Daj?”
“Fear of open spaces. A man suffering from this sickness locks himself in a closet …”
“Not at all, Daj, not at all,” Matamey interrupted.
Daj stopped the car on the road shoulder. “What not at all?” he asked, turning his thick-lipped face to the secretary.
“What I think, Daj, is that Andrey was not afraid of his house or the village.”
“Of what was he afraid then?”
“Of the earth. The earth began to look tiny to him.”
The doctor opened his mouth wide with astonishment. “In that case,” he shouted after a pause, waking Saat, “if what you say is true, his sickness is geophobia, fear of the earth. It is the sickness of our cosmic age. You see, man begins to feel cramped on this earth, he wants up, up through right there,” Daj stuck his finger into the ceiling of the car. “That reminds me, I’ll have to scrounge up a lamp for the ceiling.”
The doctor’s diagnosis seemed correct. Geophobia, this was something new. Was anybody else ever afflicted by it? Matamey asked himself. Hardly. Anyway neither Socrates nor Pythagoras could have had it. So where did this village scientist contract it? Apparently that thin, effeminate, semi-egghead semi-peasant was deluded by his own fantasies and calculations into a positive belief that his fantasy was not a legend but the reality. In the end, as the world became too crowded for him, or rather, for his thoughts, Andrey began to feel bad … That’s how it must have been.
“Where did you say you were going?” the doctor asked, stepping on the gas.
“To the grain mill,” Matamey replied. “We want to have a talk with Butba’s only relative.”
“I understand,” Daj bellowed. He handled the car as surely as he examined a patient’s heart or felt his pulse, driving in a detached way, not being distracted by anything approaching or overtaking him. “Don’t worry,” he comforted Matamey on parting, “we’re all psychos. Our Andrey Butba won’t get lost. Give him my regards.”
5
The mill was as busy as on a workday: the river roared, the grindstones grated, a thin flour dust hung in the air. The miller, Mas Bargandgia, sat on a big stone, smoking a pipe. Very likely in immemorial times of Homer, when the Argonaut plied toward the shore of Caucasus, the Colchice had mills like this; and then, too, like now, streams flowed down along clay beds in the shades of inaccessible blackberry bushes. In short, this place had the aura of antiquity, an antiquity that was lovable, a little melancholy but very dear to sentimental souls.
Sprinkled with corn powder, Mas appeared to be as antique an establishment as his rather crooked, rather musty, rather overworked millhouse. And yet, he was only sixty-five years young, young indeed by Abkhaz standards of age.
The heavy duty of reporting to the miller the highly unpleasant news of Butba’s disappearance was left to Saat. It was supposed that no matter how distant a relative Andrey was, Mas’ humanitarian heart would shrink at the first words of the grief-bearer, and Saat, being the senior by age, was more endowed to fulfill that mission than the younger village Soviet secretary.
Their arrival was a surprise to Mas—not too often did the secretary of the village Soviet visit a grain mill. He offered Matamey a seat on the stone while he let himself down onto the shaky steps leading to the oscillating mill yawn.
“God beware if this dry spell lasts a little longer,” the janitor opened the conversation, panting heavily.
“What if it does?” the miller asked.
“The crop will be lost.”
“It won’t, Saat,” Mas assured. “Nature knows its business. Nature is no mill. A mill needs someone to look after it, but nature can get along without us.”
“Easy to say,” Saat denied. “I say just take and mix things up and you won’t have anybody to blame but yourself.”
“It’s always like that,” Matamey observed. “If no rain is coming, there won’t be any. If there’s a hot spell, there will be one too. You might stand on your hands but you won’t change it.”
These somber thoughts brought to mind not only a man’s helplessness but our planet’s shortcomings as well. Hell, no wonder that Andrey didn’t feel well.
“See that accursed water,” the miller pointed his index finger over his shoulder toward the roaring stream. “That water will teach wisdom to any fool. You sit here day after day and listen to it bubbling to you all sorts of rigmarole. And yet, that thing there is not even alive. To be a good miller you’ve got to have a head on your shoulders—you need no hands at all. And what do you need not to worry about droughts or torrents? A heart. I’m serious. A heart will make you love the soil and this means everything—a good crop and riches. Because love comes from the heart! And from love comes good crops. So stop blaming nature. Nature hasn’t changed since creation and it’ll be the same on doomsday in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.”
“In other words that little river will take you to the Bible,” Matamey said.
“You mean you have read the Bible?”
“No.”
“But I studied it,” Mas went on. “In parish school. And why am I telling you all this? You’ve got to have wisdom, like an apostle. But we, all we’re concerned about is petty business, how to live through today … But do we think about tomorrow? Or what’s going to be a hundred years from now?”
“We think about it,” Matamey said hesitantly.
“Fiddlesticks! We don’t. Take Saat, for instance. What do you think about, Saat?”
Saat smiled. “You want an honest answer?”
“What else.”
“I think it would be nice to have a bite. Haven’t had a poppy seed to eat since early morning.”
Without a word in reply the miller went inside and brought out a few pieces of cold churek meat pie, cheese and a bottle of wine. Saat didn’t refuse. “Matamey and I are hungry like dogs,” he said, “How about a glass?”
The miller rinsed a glass in the stream and handed it to the janitor.
“The thing is this,” Saat resumed, “Matamey and I have been out since early morning on an unpleasant task. … To your health,” he took a sip of wine and poured some to Matamey who being the younger had politely refused it earlier. The miller had guessed that those two did not come just for a chat. And the conversation about the weather was not just chat either. Whoever heard of people traveling for hours then talking about the weather? Only fools would do such a thing and their number in the world was apparently getting smaller and smaller. Therefore, he was waiting patiently for his guests to broach the true topic. His patience was rewarded.
“Listen, Mas,” the janitor inquired. “Did Andrey Butba stop here this morning?”
“Andrey? I haven’t seen him in ages.”
“Strange!”
“What is strange?”
“You see, Mas, Andrey has disappeared somewhere. We’ve decided to ask you, in any case. After all, he’s a relative of yours, even if many times removed. …”
The village Soviet secretary broke into the conversation and nimbly, in a few words, presented the gist of the matter to Mas. The young man, being quite prudent for his age, was careful to leave out the guesswork and skip the geophobia bit, as well as their conversation with the doctor. It was absolutely necessary not to tax the old relative’s heart.
Listening with the utmost attentiveness of which only the ancient wise men were capable, the miller puffed on his pipe and stared at the tip of his slipper. Finally, after an agonizing pause, also according to the ways of the ancient, he uttered in a firm and decisive voice, “He was taken ill!”
“Why should you think so?” Matamey tried to comfort him.
Saat hastened to clarify: “Andrey began to feel cramped on this earth. He felt crowded like your grindstone in your little pantry. So he fled to Suipsara.”
“But why the Suipsara?”
Saat spread his arms.
“No doubt I, too, will have to set out to search for him,” Mas announced, as if the matter were settled. Then he rose, covered the dike to halt the grindstones, and hung up a barn lock on the door.
“I’m ready,” he exclaimed.
Saat emptied the wine bottle to the last drop, took a bite of cheese, and apparently having regained his strength, he, too, was ready to go to the end of the world. Using an old cliché, he said, “When the belly is full, the legs are ready.”
“What’s that sickness called, Matamey?” the miller asked. “Come on, tell me, don’t be shy.”
“It’s a new sickness. Andrey’s the first to have it.”
“In other words, there’s no cure for it yet.”
“That I don’t know,” Matamey was evasive. “A man begins to feel crowded on this earth, but he doesn’t run to do away with himself—he runs to the open spaces. He climbs mountains. He wants to be closer to the stars. He believes he has outgrown the cocoon he was born in. He wants the universe!”
A pensive mood overcame Mas. “He wants to go to the moon,” he finally said, after shaking off some flour dust.
“Maybe even farther.”
“How much farther can you go?”
“To the stars.”
“A bad sickness,” Mas diagnosed.
“What could be worse?” Saat consented. “You don’t have to crawl out of your skin to run away someplace. Let me tell you this: my garden is cleaner than any moon or any star. Just make a little hocus-pocus over your fruit and watch them fill up with juices. No friends, give me a million, and I still won’t leave this earth. I’m tied to the earth with such a strong navel cord that nobody can cut it.”
“Old wives’ tales,” Matamey waved his arm. “A mite’s philosophy.”
“Who needs giant philosophies?” Saat argued, “I’m teensy-weensy and so’s my philosophy. Isn’t one sick man enough?” he began to shout. “Go and get people back to earth!”
Matamey shuddered. Another one going off his mind, he thought glumly.
“Let’s go,” Mas suggested. “We’ll have time to argue on the way.”
6
Mas Bargandgia walked in silence, tilting out his torso as if he were spinning the terrestial globe with his feet. He was wondering what the farmers would think when they’d come at noon for their flour and wouldn’t be able to get it. And all because of that Andrey’s foolish obsession. He was always like that, even as a boy. In the privacy of his mind Mas had to admit to himself: kinship is kinship, no matter how far removed.
Without seeming to be tiring through chatter, Saat talked and talked. His words were flowing like the river that turned the waterwheel. However, his words never moved anyone to work—they were like the leaves in the wind. When it came to long-winded speeches, Saat was a master. Instead of saying simply, “I planted parsley,” he said, “I planted a great little grass which, so help me, adds aroma to any sauce and brings a good price on the bazaar so that, you see, it’ll not only pay for itself but even bring in a nice little profit too, that is if I nurse it through properly and don’t let it look like a withered grass on a dry summer.” Passing to tomatoes, he marveled, “Those little red globes that I planted on my beds, the ones that resemble gold, those things known by simple names, they’re quite expensive, quite expensive.” He went on telling how he’d crumble clumps of manure with his fingers, with greater solicitude and patience than that of Benvenuto Cellini in minting the medals for the pope. Saat was capable of quoting fruit prices for the last ten years faster than any cybernetic machine, although he had no conception whatsoever of logarithms, square roots, not to mention cubic roots. His knowledge in that area was limited to the multiplication table found on the students’ notebook covers. Fools like him were to be counted on one’s fingers in the whole of Abkhazia.
If only we could hitch a ride, Matamey thought. But that was out of the question; this dusty road was nothing but a mule track, and besides, who’d go up this way on a Sunday? He was getting quite hungry and couldn’t imagine how long they’d have to go on without food. “Listen, Saat,” he said, “your talk about fruit is giving me an appetite.”
“I know it does,” Saat said cheerfully, “my fruit will do even more than that.”
“Windbag,” Mas growled.
“What did you say?”
“I said you’re full of wind, Saat,” the miller told him. “What kind of rubbish are you telling about grasses? A grass is a grass, no matter how you look at it.”
Saat stopped as if he had bumped against an invisible wall. “Are you serious?” he shouted.
“Quite.”
Saat quickened his pace. “Oh grief,” he uttered like a stricken Hamlet. “The day you don’t have this grass around you may write off everything.”
“No I won’t. I won’t write off a single word.”
“No, you will!”
“To heck I won’t.”
“More than that. You will abandon your thousand-year-old mill and hurl yourself into the garden beds. You will cultivate this grass and praise God besides.”
“Wait,” Mas bellowed. “I’m tired of praising God for everything—for being born, for food, for water, and for the fact that I’m alive. I’ve had enough of it. In return for that much praise, God could have covered me from head to foot with gold, not flour.”
“What a man!” Saat thrashed his arms. “Are you trying to get me riled?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe what?”
“Get you riled.”
“Listen Matamey,” Saat requested, “You’d better arbitrate. It’s impossible to talk to him.”
At that moment, ahead loomed the little store of the geranium state farm. It looked so tidy under the canopy of weeping willows that the flaring tempers of the two men s
uddenly subsided. There was nothing to arbitrate any more apart from the empty flow of words which Matamey knew so well. From his own experience and from the experience of relatives.
7
Their guess was right—the store carried almost everything needed to convince one that this was the age tens of thousands of years removed from pithecanthropus. The three men passed a critical eye over the wooden shelves well stocked with displays of Moroccan sardines, Greek butter cookies, Murmansk cod, Iceland fillet, Pacific herring and sundries of this sort of food.
“I could eat buffalo cheese,” Saat went into a reverie.
“Cheese?”
“Naturally. Our own, Abkhazian.”
The salesman, one Eugen Chizmaa, made no reply. A trade graduate, just starting in this business, he was thin looking, that is, neither fat nor lean, the typical meritorious counterman, an artist by his own right. Glum-faced, shifty-eyed, he gave the impression of being busy doing something illegal, something one ought to be ashamed of. Finally, in reply to the janitor’s question, he mumbled something.
“I can’t hear you,” Saat said.
The other two travelers picked something from the foreign selection in addition to a bottle of Abkhazian wine and took it out to a shaded place not far from the store door. For a while Saat stained to extract from the salesman a kind word or at least a smile—in vain. Admitting failure, he joined his friends outside.
After a manly lunch, a meal that lasted exactly the time required for three cans of meat and two kilos of bread to be transposed to three stomachs, the men were ready to set out again.
“Eugen,” Matamey returned to the store, “did you by any chance see the principal of our school?”
“No.”
“They say he was walking up this road.”
“He hasn’t been here.”
“He was on his way up to the mountains, they say.”
“I don’t know.”
“You mean you haven’t heard anything about it?”
“About what?”
“About that he was seen on this road.”
“No.”
Matamey tried to inject some humor into the conversation. “When are you getting in Abkhaz cheese?” he asked.
Treasury of Russian Short Stories 1900-1966 Page 24