One constantly felt the presence of people in these woods—dead-end roads patched over with new growth like the bedsore scars on Gennady’s back; plastic cones for collecting zhivitsa—fir sap that was used to make stinging turpentine; cast iron skeletons of tractors peeking out of their mossy lairs, ready to hook and mangle a carelessly placed foot. You also stumbled across axe-hewn posts—block markers, an original forest compass. Their chemically penciled signs bled and faded, turning letters and numbers into forest spirit scrawls. After the sunset, the bubbling, guttural voice of the forest, filled with sobs and moans, rolled far and wide, mixing with the peat-aged, rich aromas of the marsh; it rose like a wind-blown scent, as if from nowhere, and fell without a trace—not even a secret language, but a broken line of call-and-response, a chorus of ancient forces that kept watch over the strangers who stole their ancient wealth. Holes pierced in the forest by human greed were overgrown with raspberries and small bushes and turned into winter pastures for the moose—they learned to walk over the fallen debris, biting off the juicy tops of brush and saplings.
I stuck to the edges of such clearings. Stumps stood festooned with over-ripe, lifeless honey agarics; morels poked through here and there—faded, washed out from cold rains like threadbare linens, colorless like globs of carpenters’ glue. In the blueberry patches on the edges, there hung a few leftover berries, ones the grouse had missed; scarlet ash berries and elderberries, dangerous as small shot, burned in the bushes, and on the mossy marsh tussocks lay strings of cranberries, big and tough, like coral necklaces on the bosoms of elderly Turkmen women.
I liked walking in the forest: I had no purpose, didn’t need to gather things, find things, or preserve them for the winter, as Aunt Leyda had always made me do. Here, in this half-decimated forest, one could feel a special strength, like in a wounded person who is quickly recovering. Quietly but steadily, the gaping sores were closing; trees, mushrooms, moss and grass, thorny raspberry bushes, birds, bumblebees, caterpillars and wood-borers did their job, lived for each other, eating and sustaining each other. I walked past this life, shared in its fragrant air, infused with heady aromas, and within me the feeling of raucous freedom overflowed like champagne spilling over the edge of a glass. Where was I going? Why did I turn first right, then left? Why did I cross the looping stream twice and then not a third time, instead climbing its tall bank and turning my back on it, cutting my path with a stick in the tall nettle? I realized I could not possibly become lost—there were twenty, at most thirty square kilometers of thick growth, no more; everywhere somebody was living, and eventually I just had to arrive someplace.
And yet I became lost.
I spent the night under a fir tree. I made a fire, boiled some tea, and slept fitfully through the darkness. Woke up with dawn and set out again, and again did not reach any human dwelling by nightfall. Even the old roads that I had stumbled across at first disappeared. I made the most unforgivable mistake: I began changing my course. It was as if the leshy, the forest trickster spirit, was spinning me around. Sometimes it would appear that I had already stood by this little marsh or that one, and hadn’t crossed it. But then again, it could have been any other marsh and I found no human tracks, but plenty left by wild pigs.
On the third night, I distinctly heard their squealing and grunting; wild pigs were rumbling about in the marsh. Andrei Mamoshkin, who brought groups of hunters from Moscow to Karmanovo and always made sure to spend the night at Aunt Leyda’s, told horror stories about those pigs. I kept telling myself that at least I hadn’t wounded any of them, hadn’t done them any harm, but every new squeal, every rustle and crack of a broken twig sent shivers down my spine. I stared into the night but could not see anything. The tops of the trees swayed in the wind, back and forth, and the breeze dangled brushes of leaves across the bushes; the owl screeched, but that seemed to be it. I fed the fire and drank more of my watery tea—I started saving my potatoes, and had already finished the bread.
The feelings of vigor and elation had left me a while ago, and I was tired. My body—so accustomed to the hollowed-out bed in the village and the spiking springs of its mattress, which I padded with rags—was not well adapted to lying on branches and cold ground. My skin itched with dirt and sweat; muscles went numb and hurt, and it did not matter how long I rested—I only became more tired.
On the fourth day, the rain began. I was immediately drenched and decided to return to my camp from the night before, which at least had a bed and a big tree that could shelter me from the rain. But the rain brought the wind with it; the air cooled off. I was chilled to the bone and started to cough. Soon there was sweat on my forehead—I managed to catch a cold and was running a fever. At that point, as soon as the night lightened to grey and the early birds raised their voices, I got up and set out. I walked straight, without turning; I swore to myself that I would walk until I dropped. On that day, I learned that “when bones hurt” was not an exaggeration.
After an hour or hour and a half of pushing myself forward, I came upon an old road, and in another half hour, weed-choked fields began to appear. The woods ended suddenly—the road took me to their edge and to an endless uncut field. Animal paths ran through its rain-beaten and wind-tussled grass; the road hadn’t been traveled on for a long time, and its ruts were deep and almost everywhere full of water. I walked on the dense turf between the ruts and felt sure that I would get somewhere. And I did.
In the grey skies, thickly woven with clouds, there was movement; invisible bellows began pumping, tearing woolly shreds from looms of loose grey and blowing them away. It grew lighter. Far ahead, the underbellies of the clouds filled with purple. And then, like thunder, a thick, tragic sound spilled over the fields. Bom-m-m! I stood still, all ears. The hum poured over the earth like melted pewter, unhurried; it wrapped itself around things, like the rich aroma of a waking garden just before sunrise at home in Panjakent. Just when it seemed that I was hallucinating from exhaustion, when the last threads of this mournful voice thinned, tore, and were lost in the still, tense air, the sound came back. Bom-m-m! It reached out again, it called, it had such wonderful power that my eyes involuntarily filled with tears. Bom-m-m! It struck sooner, chasing and overtaking the previous wave as if it had lain itself down to smooth the way and was pulling the new sound after itself toward the light from an invisible source—just as a wolf tenderly pulls her first sighted pup out of her lair. Bom-m-m!—it spilled again, seeming sooner still, and stronger, happier. I did not doubt that somewhere, someone was sounding a bell, not to call for help, but in measured, mighty strokes, as if tuning the new day to its sound. Bom-m-m! Bom-m-m! Bom-m-m! A new rhythm appeared. It was still unhurried, not the quick canticle like in a Dushanbe church at Easter, where I had once gone with the kids to see the procession, mostly to spite Gennady. Still the bell grew stronger, drawn by an experienced hand that swung it with certain amplitude, making the tongue hit the dome every time a bit sooner, a bit stronger: one-two-three, one and one, and one-and-two, and one, and one-two-three. I came back to my senses and ran towards the sound. This was not a coincidence—someone was letting me know that rescue was at hand; bells had served as beacons to lost travelers since the beginning of time.
The field rolled down to a river. On its far shore, uphill, stood dark shapes of buildings—barns, a house—the wind carried the dogs’ barking. Another half an hour straight, then across the river, on the stones. I mis-stepped and fell waist-deep into the icy, burning water, but I did not fear any more. The bell kept ringing, urging me on. I walked up the hill—on this side, someone had cut the grass. Here was the house, the banya, two barns, and an orchard—a homestead, like Leyda Yanovna’s. Behind the house were the woods severed by the road that had saved me. Then the sound stopped, as if it had never been, and only its echoes rang in my head for a little longer.
Straight ahead the sun was rising from behind the forest. It took my breath away; I stood still and finally noticed that, next to the house, beside a simple bell-t
ower—a crossbar on tall posts with a shingled roof to protect the bell from the weather—stood a tall old man in a quilted jacket, his back to me, his face to the sun. He raised his hands as if in greeting, as I used to do on the remains of the Panjakent fortress, not paying attention to the dog who was barking madly, lunging after me on its chain. I couldn’t help it anymore; I hollered, “Ogo-go-go!” and ran towards him.
Finally the old man turned and saw me, but did not move. Tall, strong, with a long grey beard, he was looking at me, holding a hand to his forehead as if he had a pair of binoculars. I tripped suddenly; the ground spun away from my feet, rose up to my face.
I came to inside the house. Somehow, the old man had managed to drag me inside. I was lying on a bed. Next to me a stove was burning, a radio burbled, and the old man was sitting on a chair just as I had sat so many times next to an ill person, waiting for their eyes to open. I opened my eyes. The old man had a kind face. I smiled at him and closed my eyes again, falling into blissful sleep. I was growing feverish—it hurt to look at the light. My body felt like it was on fire, and it seemed to me that the fire from the books in Karmanovo had leapt onto me from the stove and was branding its revenge into my face, arms, shoulders and chest. I was breathing fast but not getting any air, and again I lost consciousness.
. 11 .
A sharp smell brought me back to consciousness; I raised my head and looked around, but could not get up. I was lying naked on an old blanket, swaddled in a wet, acrid-smelling sheet.
“Vinnegaar will pull oout the heat, you’re on fire.”
The old man elongated his words, pronouncing them with a strong Estonian accent. A towel soaked in the same sharply-smelling fluid rested on my forehead. It would have been a pleasant feeling if not for the heavy, aggressive smell. Soon, however, I got used to it. My white-hot body clung to the wet fabric, it felt good and then cold; I had the chills. The old man rubbed me with a towel, thoroughly massaging every bone, and then covered me with a fresh, dry sheet and a warm down comforter. Then he made me drink some bitter herbal brew. I had a strong headache; fiery gnats danced before my eyes.
“Get stronger, sleep, we’ll talk later.”
He put his heavy, knotty hand on my forehead and started massaging my temple, very lightly, with the tips of his fingers. The miserable ache soon retreated, and the gnats disappeared.
His caring fingers, rough as sandpaper, stroked and tickled my temples, brushed against my eyebrows. My Pavlik used to stroke my head this way. I thought of him, but strangely I felt neither bitterness, nor pain or fatigue. I felt nothing but these hands, which had begun to command me with their tender rhythm. My mind quieted. My fever dropped significantly. My body no longer burned. I felt peaceful atop the thick linen sheet. I warmed up and fell asleep, and when I woke up the old man was right there, sitting on a stool in the head of my bed. He was not sleeping. A small lamp burned dimly next to his bed in the other corner of the cabin. It was dark outside the window. I had slept all day.
“Do your business, don’t be shy, I won’t look,” he held out a chamber-pot for me.
How many times had I put a bedpan under a patient, how many times had I held out a chamber pot—the very sick were never embarrassed, and I even helped them with words of encouragement. Judging by the fact that I felt not a drop of shame in front of this strange old man, I concluded that I was seriously ill. I went into the pot, he took it out, and I sank again into the soft bed, pulling the multicolored, patched comforter up to my chin. My chest hurt, my throat was raw, it was painful to cough—it had to be my lungs. The old man came back from the yard, poured tepid broth into a cup and had me drink it, then made me drink a still bitterer brew. I felt better, but it was only the beginning.
The old man was always at hand—chopping firewood in the yard, fixing a harness in the stable, replacing a rotten board on his sleigh. And he would interrupt his work to check on me every hour or two. When he came, he told me what he was doing. He talked, and I listened silently. He even skipped his regular trip to Konakovo to buy bread. Once a week, a truck came there from the factory bakery. So instead, the old man made his own dough, baked bread, some buns and Danishes. He had two cows—a heifer, and a calf—and more milk than he could possibly use himself.
The only hour when he abandoned his watch over me was in the morning, before dawn. I would wake up to the peals of his bell and listen to its fine report. Its anxiously-triumphant song outside my window marked the day that had passed and the new one that was beginning.
I got used to the sound of the bell and waited for it. The first drawn-out “Bom-m-m” spread through me like sweet wine and then, for a very long minute, I waited, impatiently, for the second, and then the third peal to follow. The voice of the Estonian bell stirred my strength, which, I have to confess, I was very short of.
I spent a week, and then another, and a third in bed—the old man prohibited me from getting up. I alternated between being awash in sweat and shaking with chills. Vinegar, herbs, rubs, broth, gogl-mogl,[22] cottage-cheese soaked in milk, and constant care and attention the like of which I had never known. Honey. Weak tea. Cranberry mors.[23] Those were the medicines. And the living bell ringing before dawn.
“You should get antibiotics and call for a doctor.”
“Lie quiet. I’m in charge of you. I’ve cured worse.”
I believed him immediately. What other choice did I have?
At the end of the third week I got up—skinny and weak—shuffled to the kitchen table and ate some mashed potatoes with a glass of sour milk. My illness retreated. The cough clawed at me for another week or two, but the pain in my chest was gone—old Yuku Manizer had cured me.
Like Leyda Kyart, he lived in the only house that was left in his small village—Kukovkino. By himself. The last Estonian in Nurmekundia. The colonists’ lands ended behind the river and the uncut hay-field that I had crossed on my way here.
They were brought there at the end of the 1920s—the Manizers, Tokmans, Hurts, Loiks and Melzers. The Manizers’ homestead was just at the edge of the field where I heard the first peals of the bell. Yuku promised to show me the stone that marked the boundary between his land and his neighbors’, the Tokmans, but he did not have time. When I finally stepped outside the earth was covered with snow. Winter had come.
. 12 .
Yuku Manizer had been living alone for a very long time. He was born in 1899, which means that he was ninety-six the year I met him, but I’ve never met even a seventy year-old who was stronger. He wouldn’t think twice about, say, fetching a sack of flour from the pantry—Yuku would carry it in his arms like a baby, grinning. Surprisingly, he had kept all his front teeth and even a few molars; his cheeks did not look hollow, as often happens to old people. True, his lush beard, which cascaded down onto his chest, hid his cheekbones. And were it not for his naturally slim, sinewy build, Yuku would have thoroughly resembled Santa Claus, or, rather Jõuluvana—“The Christmas Man,” as the Estonians call him.
Pure white hair; large bald spots on his forehead, etched with wrinkles; nose like a potato; round eyes that had been bright-blue in his youth and were now bleached as if from repeated washing. He only wore glasses for short-sightedness; he put them on when he worked on small details or read the local rag, Firov Truth, which he picked up in Konakovo when he went there each week to buy bread.
The old man identified me as soon as he found me, even as I lay that first day raving in fever and could not speak. When Leyda saw that I had disappeared, she sent the news around the district with the mailman. People did not go looking for me, exactly, but knew that I might turn up somewhere. As soon as he realized I was the missing Vera from Karmanovo, Yuku hitched up his horse and made a quick trip to Konakovo to let people know that the escapee had been found. The message went down the line to Leyda and she stopped worrying. It only took a day or two—an incredibly short time given the absence of telephones. The oral editions of the “Nurmekundia Daily” must have discussed my escape and
miraculous rescue for weeks.
When I came around and could move again, the first thing Yuku said to me was: “Get your things together, I’ll take you back to Karmanovo. Leyda’s waiting for you and is keeping your house warm. But, if you’re not in a hurry, stay with me a while, I’ve gotten used to you.”
Somehow, it immediately made sense for me to stay. I delighted him. The old man even started dressing in clean shirts: first I noticed it myself, and later he shyly confirmed it, not looking me in the eye. When I felt like myself again, I took up housekeeping: I washed and scrubbed every log with a wire brush dipped in baking soda, swept out century-old dirt, painted window frames, doors and the floor. I had everything I needed—Manizer’s fortress was as ready for a long siege as the Kyart homestead, but Yuku could not manage such large-scale cleaning on his own. He meant to every year, but just never got around to it. He already had his hands full with the chores: he woke before dawn, drank tea with a bun and his homemade butter, and went to the bell-tower. After he rang the bell and welcomed the sun, he attended to the immediate needs of his farm, and did not come back inside until I called him to breakfast at nine. If he ran out of work, he found new tasks—sharpening knives, axes, or saws, fixing his tools, or hemming the horse blanket (which hadn’t been on a horse in years). He didn’t know how to be idle.
Fish- a History of One Migration Page 18