Arseny closed the book, which he had been reading at the cemetery in the rays of the setting sun. It was not yet cold. Stones that had warmed during the day radiated heat. When the boy stretched out on a gravestone, he felt the warmth with his entire body. The stone bore no name.
Why are there no names on the graves? Arseny once asked.
Because they are already known to the Lord, responded Christofer. And their descendants have no need of the names. In one hundred years nobody will remember who they belonged to. Sometimes that even happens after fifty. Or maybe even after thirty.
Do people remember like that in the whole world or only in Rukina Quarter?
The whole world, I suppose. But especially in Rukina Quarter. We do not build marble crypts and we do not carve out names, for our cemeteries are granted the right to turn into forests and fields. Which is gratifying.
Does that mean our people have a short memory?
One might say that. It is just that memory should not be too long. That, you know, is not for the best. After all, some things should be forgotten. As it happens, I remember (Christofer indicated a gray stone) that Yeleazar Windblower lies here. He was a prosperous person and could afford a stone like this. But I would have remembered him without the stone. This person had a slight limp and spoke with a sharp, guttural voice. He spoke in spurts, going silent from time to time, so his speech limped, too. He suffered from excess gases. He farted loudly and I gave him a chamomile infusion. I gave him dill water and other antiflatulence treatments. And forbade him to drink freshly drawn milk before bed. But since he had a cow, Yeleazar loved milk beyond measure and drank his fill in the evening hours. Which led to winds in the belly. Yeleazar also loved carving wood. And nobody in Rukina Quarter carved better than he, especially where window frames were concerned. He sniffled when he worked. He would keep saying something in low tones, as if to himself. He ran his palm along his lips, as if he were stopping his speech. As if he were afraid of what had been said. When it came right down to it, though, there was nothing dangerous in what he said. So he would hold forth about the qualities of wood, about what all of us in the quarter already knew: that oak is hard and pine is soft. And can you believe it, O Arseny, his window frames are still up, but people no longer remember Yeleazar? One might ask a young person, who is this Yeleazar? And he would not answer. And even the old men only vaguely remember him because they remember indifferently, without love. But the Lord remembers with love and does not let any small detail slip his memory, thus He does not need his name.
Arseny is lying on the warm stone. He is lying with his belly down, the closed Alexander Romance alongside him. The heads of yellow buttercups touch his face. It is ticklish and he smiles. The wolf wags his tail the slightest bit.
Yeleazar, fart, the boy quietly requests. Even if it is just once. Let that be your signal from there.
Offended, Yeleazar remains silent.
The elder Nektary was killed during the stifling days of July. The elder lived in a forest cell not far from the monastery. Birds sat on his shoulders in the mornings and he gave them bread he had obtained from the monastery. Elder Nektary had been tortured before his death, with the expectation of money being found, but he had no money. He had only a few books. They were taken and the elder’s tortured body was left in the glade in front of his cell. The monastery’s novices found the body the next morning and thought he was dead. His spirit, however, continued to keep watch in the body, but only two words remained: I forgive. The scoundrels, though, continued roaming the region, languishing as they awaited Judgment Day. They attacked solitary travelers and distant hamlets, and nobody knew what they looked like because, as yet, nobody had come away alive.
One day they killed a man who was walking with a dog. They took the man’s clothing and threw the body to lie in the road, but the dog stayed to keep watch over its master. And a merciful man who owned a roadside hostelry found him. He recited the prayer for the eternal rest of God’s servant, only God knows his name, and committed his naked body to the earth. After seeing this act of mercy, the dog followed him and even stayed at his hostelry.
And then one day a certain drunkard attempted to enter the hostelry and the dog began barking horribly, preventing him from entering. When this happened several more times, the people of the hostelry remembered the dog’s history and suspected something was amiss.
The man was caught and subjected to dunking. He was bound and thrown into the lake, where he began sinking. This made everyone begin to think the man was innocent, just as he had maintained, but then an instant later he appeared over the lake’s ripples, swimming as if nothing at all had happened. He shouted that alcohol was holding him on the surface because it was lighter than water, but everyone understood it was evil forces holding him there.
After his guilt became apparent to everyone, he was subjected to torture with red-hot iron, another test he did not pass, since the character of the burns made it obvious he was lying. After he had been burned good and proper, he told them they ought to search for the other scoundrels, who numbered three, in an abandoned hamlet five versts away. They galloped those five versts so fast it might have been one, and surrounded the hamlet so no one could leave. They found two of the men in the very first house, along with the books taken from the elder. They did not notice that they had killed them as they were tying them up. And when they returned, they learned the man caught earlier was deade after the torture. Being humanitarians, they breathed a sigh of relief, because they had given the deceased men hope for Judgment Day: if not for acquittal (the dead men had, after all, killed a holy man), then at last for leniency, so that after suffering the ordeal here, their ordeal would be lessened there.
But the fourth scoundrel remained at large. They made additional attempts to capture him but that was challenging because both his appearance and even his identity were unknown.
Who is he? Arseny asked, woeful.
A Russian man, who else, Christofer answered. There does not seem to be an abundance of others here.
And then one day, as dusk was settling in, they noticed motion in the cemetery. More likely they sensed it. Disquiet had been breathed onto them from the wordless country graveyard. Arseny seemed to see in a flickering shadow the shadowy shape of someone deceased, but Christofer appealed to his grandson to maintain his presence of spirit. It was clear to the old man that it was the living who should be feared. All the unpleasantries that had occurred in his life hitherto had certainly originated with them. Without explaining anything to Arseny, he ordered him to leave the house unnoticed and go to the village to get people.
Let us go together, Grandfather. There is no need to stay here.