‘Leave her alone,’ the old man urged Kiryak. ‘Let her be. She doesn’t do any harm… it’s shameful…’
‘Ma-arya!’ Kiryak shouted.
‘Leave her alone… it’s sinful… she’s not a bad woman.’
They both paused for a moment near the barn, then they moved on.
‘I lo-ove the flowers that bloom in the fields, oh!’9 the old man suddenly struck up in his shrill, piercing tenor voice. ‘Oh, I do lo-ove to pick the flo-owers!’
Then he spat, swore obscenely and went into the hut.
IV
Grannie stationed Sasha near her kitchen garden and told her to watch out for stray geese. It was a hot August day. The geese could have got into the garden from round the back, but now they were busily pecking at some oats near the inn, peacefully cackling to each other. Only the gander craned his neck, as though he were looking out for the old woman with her stick. The other geese might have come up from the slope, but they stayed far beyond the other side of the river and resembled a long white garland of flowers laid out over the meadow.
Sasha stood there for a few moments, after which she felt bored. When she saw that the geese weren’t coming, off she went down the steep slope. There she spotted Motka (Marya’s eldest daughter), standing motionless on a boulder, looking at the church. Marya had borne thirteen children, but only six survived, all of them girls – not a single boy among them; and the eldest was eight. Motka stood barefooted in her long smock, in the full glare of the sun which burnt down on her head. But she did not notice it and seemed petrified. Sasha stood next to her and said as she looked at the church, ‘God lives in churches. People have icon lamps and candles, but God has little red, green and blue lamps that are just like tiny eyes. At night-time God goes walking round the church with the Holy Virgin and Saint Nikolay… tap-tap-tap. And the watchman is scared stiff!’ Then she added, mimicking her mother, ‘Now, dear, when the Day of Judgement comes, every church will be whirled off to heaven!’
‘Wha-at, with their be-ells too?’ Motka asked in a deep voice, dragging each syllable.
‘Yes, bells and all. On the Day of Judgement, all good people will go to paradise, while the wicked ones will be burnt in everlasting fire, for ever and ever. And God will tell my mother and Marya, “You never harmed anyone, so you can take the path on the right that leads to paradise.” But he’ll say to Kiryak and Grannie, “You go to the left, into the fire. And all those who ate meat during Lent must go as well.”’
She gazed up at the sky with wide-open eyes and said, ‘If you look at the sky without blinking you can see the angels.’
Motka looked upwards and neither of them said a word for a minute or so.
‘Can you see them?’ Sasha asked.
‘Can’t see nothing,’ Motka said in her deep voice.
‘Well, I can. There’s tiny angels flying through the sky, flapping their wings and going buzz-buzz like mosquitoes.’
Motka pondered for a moment as she looked down at the ground and then she asked, ‘Will Grannie burn in the fire?’
‘Yes, she will, dear.’
From the rock down to the bottom, the slope was gentle and smooth. It was covered with soft green grass which made one feel like touching it or lying on it. Sasha lay down and rolled to the bottom. Motka took a deep breath and, looking very solemn and deadly serious, she lay down too and rolled to the bottom; on the way down her smock rode up to her shoulders.
‘That was great fun,’ Sasha said rapturously.
They both went up to the top again for another roll, but just then they heard that familiar, piercing voice again. It was really terrifying! That toothless, bony, hunchbacked old woman, with her short grey hair fluttering in the wind, was driving the geese out of her kitchen garden with a long stick, shouting, ‘So you had to tread all over my cabbages, blast you! May you be damned three times and rot in hell, you buggers!’
When she saw the girls, she threw the stick down, seized a whip made of twigs, gripped Sasha’s neck with fingers as hard and dry as stale rolls, and started beating her. Sasha cried out in pain and fear, but at that moment the gander, waddling along and craning its neck, went up to the old woman and hissed at her. When it returned to the flock all the females cackled approvingly. Then the old woman started beating Motka and her smock rode up again. With loud sobs and in utter desperation, Sasha went to the hut to complain about it. She was followed by Motka, who was crying as well, but much more throatily and without bothering to wipe the tears away. Her face was so wet it seemed she had just drenched it with water.
‘Good God!’ Olga said in astonishment when they entered the hut. ‘Holy Virgin!’
Sasha was just about to tell her what had happened when Grannie started shrieking and cursing. Fyokla became furious and the hut was filled with noise. Olga was pale and looked very upset as she stroked Sasha’s head and said consolingly, ‘It’s all right, it’s nothing. It’s sinful to get angry with your grandmother. It’s all right, my child.’
Nikolay, who by this time was exhausted by the never-ending shouting, by hunger, by the fumes from the stove and the terrible stench, who hated and despised poverty, and whose wife and daughter made him feel ashamed in front of his parents, sat over the stove with his legs dangling and turned to his mother in an irritable, plaintive voice: ‘You can’t beat her, you’ve no right at all!’
‘You feeble little man, rotting away up there over the stove,’ Fyokla shouted spitefully. ‘What the hell’s brought you lot here, you parasites!’
Both Sasha and Motka and all the little girls, who had taken refuge in the corner, over the stove, behind Nikolay’s back, were terrified and listened without saying a word, their little hearts pounding away.
When someone in a family has been terribly ill for a long time, when all hope has been given up, there are horrible moments when those near and dear to him harbour a timid, secret longing, deep down inside, for him to die. Only children fear the death of a loved one and the very thought of it fills them with terror. And now the little girls held their breath and looked at Nikolay with mournful expressions on their faces, thinking that he would soon be dead. They felt like crying and telling him something tender and comforting.
He clung to Olga, as though seeking protection, and he told her softly, tremulously, ‘My dear Olga, I can’t stand it any more here. All my strength has gone. For God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, write to your sister Claudia and tell her to sell or pawn all she has. Then she can send us the money to help us get out of this place.’
He went on in a voice that was full of yearning: ‘Oh God, just one glimpse of Moscow is all I ask! If only I just could dream about my dear Moscow!’
When evening came and it was dark in the hut, they felt so depressed they could hardly speak. Angry Grannie sat dipping rye crusts in a cup and sucking them for a whole hour. After Marya had milked the cow she brought a pail of milk and put it on a bench. Then Grannie poured it into some jugs, without hurrying, and she was visibly cheered by the thought that as it was the Fast of the Assumption10 (when milk was forbidden) no one would go near it. All she did was pour the tiniest little drop into a saucer for Fyokla’s baby. As she was carrying the jugs with Marya down to the cellar, Motka suddenly started, slid down from the stove, went over to the bench where the wooden cup with the crusts was standing and splashed some milk from the saucer over them.
When Grannie came back and sat down to her crusts, Sasha and Motka sat watching her from the stove, and it gave them great pleasure to see that now she had eaten forbidden food during Lent and would surely go to hell for it. They took comfort in this thought and lay down to sleep. As Sasha dozed off she had visions of the Day of Judgement; she saw a blazing furnace, like a potter’s kiln, and an evil spirit dressed all in black, with the horns of a cow, driving Grannie into the fire with a long stick, as she had driven the geese not so long ago.