Dusk began to set in. The rain continued to hit against the window. As Kulik turned into the adjoining room that acted as his office and switched on the light, the rain became a violent downpour, rattling the panes, while fierce thunder exploded overhead. He couldn’t help but feel restless and irritable. Ever since he had been appointed headmaster of School Number Seven, a few weeks earlier, an intense dreariness had set in. He felt miserable in this out-of-the-way place, as if his mind was being buried alive. And the surrounding countryside of bog and marsh that seemed to go on forever only heightened his feelings of isolation and loneliness.
At that moment he heard footsteps on the porch stairs. There was an abrupt knock on the door and a young man of about nineteen appeared on the threshold. He was quite good-looking: tall, with cropped yellow hair, and wore a dark brown student’s jacket from some now-defunct Polish gymnasium.
“Good evening, Director.” The visitor smiled politely and offered his hand. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name’s Sergei Stepanovich. I’d like to welcome you to our village.”
“Please, have a seat.” Kulik pointed to one of two comfortable-looking armchairs standing against the wall.
“I live in a small cottage on the other side of the school,” the young man said. “My ‘castle,’ so to speak. I had to secure it with support beams this past summer because the porch was starting to sag. My grandfather built the cottage when he was just twenty years old. If you look outside your kitchen window you can probably catch the tip of my rooftop.” Then, curiously, “Excuse my asking, but are you from Hvador? That’s what I’ve heard.”
A barely perceptible smile touched Kulik’s lips. “Yes, that’s correct, but I haven’t been there for quite some time.”
The two men chatted and soon felt comfortable with each other. There was only a few years’ difference in age between them, and they both tended to be even-tempered and easy-going.
After about half an hour of friendly talk, noises erupted from the corridor. Someone coughed and from a neighboring yard a sharp whistle blew. The front door banged open and shut, and before long young voices surfaced. Girls giggled and boys shouted.
“Hurry up, get going!”
“Leave me alone, don’t push!”
For several minutes, the stamping of feet and slamming of doors grew louder. Eventually everything quieted down, only to start up again.
“It sounds like there’s going to be another meeting tonight,” Sergei observed. “What do you think of these meetings?”
“Well, if anything, I find them rather amusing.” Kulik went to the door and peered outside. “I had better go and turn on the lights before something gets broken.”
He was walking down the corridor, when, to his surprise, two men suddenly emerged from one of the side doors along the left wall. They pushed past him, directly into his office. One was Cornelius Kovzalo, the recently elected Village Chairman; the other, Iofe Nicel Leyzarov, Representative of the District Committee of the Pinsk Region.
Cornelius, short and fat with beady black eyes, was the first to speak. “Comrade Kulik, greetings. We have come on official state business. Tonight, by orders of the Party, we will be holding a meeting. Comrade Leyzarov has been instructed to give a speech to the people.”
“Uh, excuse me, Cornelius,” Leyzarov interrupted, with a condescending nod. “You’ve got it all wrong. The Party issued no orders of that kind. Perhaps you misunderstood. The people themselves have expressed a desire to hear me speak. It’s what the people want, and not what the Party wants. Is that clear?”
Cornelius’s face turned red. “Of course, yes, you’re right, quite right. How stupid of me to have made such a mistake.”
Leyzarov continued his reprimand. “Where the Party is concerned, one must always be mindful of what one says. The Party first and foremost is here to guide and protect us. It has no tolerance for subversive or empty-headed remarks. Understood?”
Cornelius fidgeted, and noticed Sergei standing by the window. Looking him over, he said derisively, “Sergei, what in the devil’s name brought you to the school? Don’t you have anything better to do with your time? Are you trying to get on good terms with our new headmaster, is that it?”
Sergei scowled at him. “What if I am? It’s none of your business, but if you really must know, I am here to become acquainted with our new headmaster. I find it refreshing to be in the company of someone intelligent for a change. As the old saying goes, it’s better to lose something with someone smart than to find it with an idiot.”
Cornelius took this as a personal affront. “What are you implying? You really know how to wag your tongue, Sergei. This time you’ve gone too far. One of these days you’ll find yourself cornered. You’ll see … you’ll … you’ll …” He suddenly fell into a fit of coughing. In a desperate attempt to save face before the Representative of the District Committee, he changed the subject.
“Comrade,” he said to Leyzarov, “this is the way things stand in our village. We’re thankful and thrilled that our Russian brothers emancipated us from Polish occupation and made us a part of the Belorussian S.S.R. Olivinski, the bourgeois landowner, enjoyed the comforts of the great manor house on the hill, while the rest of us lived like swine in slop. Olivinski was a real bastard and treated the villagers like dirt. When he went hunting with his hounds and came across women picking berries along the river, he would beat them black and blue and steal their buckets. And if he found some poor soul carrying a bundle of brushwood out of the forest he would thrash him with his whip and then burn everything.”
Pleased by the sound of his own voice, feeling rather confident, curling the tips of his waxed moustache with his fingertips, he continued at length. “The forest, just look at it. It has no beginning and no end; the trees are thick and plentiful. What crime is there in picking berries or gathering brushwood? All winter we sat and froze to death in our little shacks while Olivinski chopped down our trees and sold them for firewood to the Jews in the Pinsk marketplace. And for what …”
Cornelius broke off when he noticed Leyzarov glaring at him. Shifting uncomfortably, he tried to think what it was he could just have said to upset the Representative again.
“Well, well, Cornelius.” Leyzarov tapped his foot. “What you said about Olivinski is quite true. He was oppressive and corrupt, a true villain and an enemy of the people. But what concerns me is your use of the word Jew. Didn’t you know it is completely against all Communist principles? You must stop calling fellow-comrades Jews because that is very offensive to them. We, the people of the Soviet Union, have adopted a new and more progressive term— Israelis. Yes, Israelis. Do you understand, Cornelius?”
“Yes, I understand. You’re quite right. Forgive me.”
Cornelius bobbed his head obsequiously to acknowledge his error, but took the liberty of starting up again. “As I was saying about that forest. It begins in Hvador and extends well beyond the Stryy River, all the way past Hrivkovich. There are so many trees, as far as the eye can see, which leads me to think: did that Polish son-of-a-bitch plant those trees? Did he water them? Did he fertilize them? Just think about it. What right did he have to that forest? Isn’t it God’s creation, after all?”