In autumn he gathered wild pears and various berries in the forest and dried them in the sun for winter. He gathered a lot of mushrooms, too, so he made a good supply for the winter. He had a Russian iron stove in the hut, and he baked bread in it and kept the hut always warm.
He was not keen on hunting, though he had a rifle and could shoot very well.
“These evil people are neither hungry nor thirsty. So why do they kill poor animals?” he grumbled to himself.
Nevertheless, he always walked in the forest with his rifle. It was simply a matter of habit. Sometimes he even forgot to take the cartridge. He had a flair of a wild animal, and could guess the exact direction of the shot. Nobody could escape his sharp eye. He used to raid the hunters quite unexpectedly and deprive them of all their prey. He buried the hunted animals and birds in the forest with a mad expression on his face, and nobody could resist him at such moments. He had to shoot several times, and he had been even wounded once. As a result, he couldn’t bend one of his arms properly. In the end, everybody understood that he would never surrender, and they gave up their evil business. Who would enjoy such hunting?
The villagers now entered the forest only to gather the firewood. But they didn’t cut down the trees; they gathered only the dry branches.
Nobody loved the old man, but they all felt great respect and for him, and were afraid of him. He used to inspect the forest too often, but now he felt a terrible pain in his knee. He gathered some herbs, dried and boiled them, and drank the liquid as a remedy before his meal every morning.
He was rarely taken ill. Only once he had caught a very bad cold.
He ran a high fever and had been drinking the garlic juice mixed with vodka all night through. He didn’t consult a doctor. He simply stayed in bed for two days and recovered easily. He spent several days sitting by the furnace, thinking about Tina, his late wife. He dreamt about Tina in his sleep, too. Her death had changed the whole of his life. He was gradually becoming quite wild, and took no interest in socializing with anyone. Now he loved only the nature with which he had more in common than with the villagers.
He had favorite places in the forest. He visited those places quite often and spoke to the trees. At times he even heard their responses and thought he might have gone mad. Then he got used to this strange phenomenon. Beasts were not afraid of him; on the contrary, they felt some kind of close links with the old man.
Once, sitting by the furnace, he recalled that he last ate his chicken four years earlier, and the fact gave him a serious shock. He couldn’t understand what made him do so. Then he recalled that some of his chicken died of old age the previous year, and he buried them in the forest.
He had a notebook on the shelf. He made notes in it from time to time. The notes were very short and often rather ambiguous. Some of them contained only a couple of words, like: I made a giant walk, The creek tastes of hawthorn, The old oak is in trouble, The snipes are nowhere to be seen, The wild pears have ripened too early.He never read the old notes. He even had no idea, why he had made them.
It was already evening. He walked a lot in the forest that day. He tried to take different ways without beating new tracks. At times he found new places he had never visited before and rejoiced with all his heart. He was glad to see the virgin nature.
He put his wet socks and boots near the furnace, and lay down on the sofa. Soon he fell asleep. He was woken up by the morning frost. He put some wood into the furnace and started to string the dry mushrooms. At moments he stopped still, spotting his wife’s smiling face in front of him. “If she were alive, the life would be worth living,” he thought and gave up his job.
He went out. It was a cold morning of the late autumn. The grass was covered with dew. He thoughtlessly followed the path running along the forest. Then he entered the forest.
He walked along the path covered with high dry grass. He touched the trees on his way. The touch gave him some sort of comfort. He walked and walked for quite a while. Then he sat down on a log and gave an attentive look to the surroundings. The place was quite familiar to him. He felt terribly exhausted.
Suddenly he realized that he was lazy to live any longer.
August 25, 2005
A DREAM
Gogia was blind in both eyes. He learned to play the guitar in his childhood. His next door neighbor, Tamara, had been teaching him for a while. He was still a ten-year-old boy and had learned only several chords when the terrible misfortune fell upon him. Children poured some water into the bottle full of carbide and shook it. The bottle exploded and poor Gogia lost the sight. Doctors had been trying to help him for several months, but all in vain. He gave up his studies, stayed at home all the time and played the guitar. They say, he was brilliant on the guitar.
At the age of fifteen he could already play serious music. He would listen to the melody several times, and repeated it precisely, reproducing every sound.
It was impossible to imagine Gogia without his guitar. The neighbors would take him out into the courtyard of the old Georgian house every evening, and the show began. His teacher, Tamara, gave up playing, admitting she had brought up such a musician that there was no use of her playing any longer.
Gogia composed his own music too. His music was sweet and melodic. The neighbors enjoyed listening to it very much. Stout Tamaz was exceptionally crazy about it. ”Come on, buddy, play
The Carousel, and don’t go away without playing
The Palms,please!” Antonina liked
Chardashbest of all. Lame Tengiz preferred the “tough, underworld songs.” He used to bring a stool from home and sat on it. He had tattoos all over his body, and was especially proud of the eight-pointed stars on his shoulders. “Only the genuine thieves and the ‘zone fathers’
The admirers and the fans came from the whole neighborhood, but only the locals could order the blind different songs.
Time passed, and the twenty-four-year-old Gogia was left alone. All his family members died, and the life became too hard for the poor young man.
The mailman in a leather jacket brought him his pension, but it was not enough for leaving. The neighbors helped him, doing the shopping for him quite often, but all were busy with their own lives and couldn’t take regular care of the blind.
The underground crossing was rather far, and it was difficult for Gogia to get there alone. He couldn’t get used to walking with a stick, and couldn’t remember the exact route. Whenever he tried to walk on his own, he ran into different obsticles every now and then. Sometimes the passers-by helped him to cross the street.
Gogia had his own chair in the underground passage. He was sitting on it for hours, filling the passage with wonderful melodies.
Everybody was fond of him, even the salespeople working in the underground passage: the florists, the news agents, and the shop-assistants in the souvenir shops.
The passers-by often stopped to listen to Gogia; especially the young people. There was an empty tin standing at his feet, and the listeners would drop some coins into it. Gogia played with a smiling face, and nobody could guess that it was merely his usual expression.
Once a group of foreigners stopped beside him. They listened to him for quite a long time. Then they dropped coins into the tin and started to applaud.
Gogia was amazed. He stopped playing his guitar and sat still for a while, tears running down his cheeks. Then he wiped his eyes and went on playing.