The Cossacks (20 page)

As was to be expected, he began drinking, and four days later was still drinking without having left the village. And he drank quite a bit at the betrothal too. He had come stumbling to Olenin’s place from the cornet’s house with a red face and a matted beard, but he was wearing a new quilted coat, red and trimmed with gold lace, and was clutching a balalaika made from a large gourd. He had often promised Olenin that he would play and sing for him, and as he was
now very much in the mood to do so, was disappointed to find him writing.

“Ah, keep writing, keep writing, my friend,” Eroshka said in a whisper, as if some sort of spirit might be lurking between Olenin and the paper, and the old man sat down quietly on the floor, as if worried he might frighten the spirit away. When Uncle Eroshka was drunk, his favorite place was on the floor. Olenin turned and looked at him, called for some wine, and continued writing. Eroshka was bored with drinking alone. He wanted to talk. “I was at the cornet’s house, you know, at the betrothal…. What pigs they are! I can’t stand them, so I’ve come over to you.”

“Where did you get that balalaika?” Olenin asked, continuing to write.

“I went across the river, that’s where I got it,” Eroshka whispered. “I’m a balalaika master, I can play anything: Tatar, Cossack, rich men’s songs, poor men’s songs, whatever you want.”

Olenin looked at him again, smiled, and continued writing. His smile encouraged the old man. “Forget them, my friend, just forget them!” Eroshka suddenly said. “They’ve hurt you, so forget them! Spit on them! What’s the point of writing and writing? What’s the point?” And he mimicked Olenin, tapping his fat fingers on the floor as if he were scribbling something, his rough face drawn into a haughty grimace. “What’s the point of writing all those nasty documents, show some spirit!” Eroshka could not imagine there was any form of writing other than pernicious legal briefs.

Olenin laughed, and so did Eroshka, who jumped up off the floor, eager to show Olenin his talent in playing the balalaika and singing Tatar songs.

“What’s the point of writing? You’d do better to listen! I’ll sing you something! Once you’re dead, there’ll be no more listening to songs! We need fun! Fun!”

First he sang one of his own songs, to which he also danced.

Then Eroshka sang a song he had learnt from his old friend the sergeant major.

Then he winked and began to dance and shake his shoulders, as he sang:

He became so excited that he began to play faster and faster, jumping and turning skillfully as he danced around the room.

Songs like “Ay, diddle-diddle-dee” and the sergeant major’s song he sang only for Olenin. But then, having drunk another three or four glasses of Chikhir, he remembered the old days and began singing real Cossack and Tatar songs. In the middle of one of his favorite songs, his voice suddenly began to tremble, and he fell silent as he continued to strum the strings of his balalaika.

“Ah, my friend, my dear friend!” he said.

Hearing the strange tone in Eroshka’s voice, Olenin turned to look at him. The old man’s eyes were filled with tears, and one rolled down his cheek. He was crying.

“My days have gone forever, they won’t be coming back,” he sobbed. “Drink! Why aren’t you drinking?” he suddenly shouted in his booming voice, not wiping away his tears.

A song from Tavlinskaya was particularly moving for the old man. It had only a few words, but all its magnificence lay in the sad refrain “Ay! Dai, dalalai!”

Eroshka translated the Tatar words for Olenin. A dashing young man had driven his sheep from the village into the mountains to graze. The Russians came, set fire to the village, killed all the men, and took all the women prisoner. When the young man came back from the mountains, there was nothing where the village had once stood. His mother was gone, his brothers were gone, the house was gone. Only a single tree remained. The young man sat beneath the tree and wept. “I am alone now, alone like you,” he said to the tree. “Ay! Dai, dalalai!”

Eroshka sang the heartrending refrain over and over and, suddenly seizing one of the rifles off the wall, ran out into the yard and fired off both barrels into the air. Then he sang even more somberly, “Ay! Dai, dalalai!”

Olenin followed him out onto the porch and gazed into the starry sky where the shots had flashed. There were lights and voices in the cornet’s house across the yard, and a crowd of girls had gathered on the porch and by the windows, some of them hurrying between the shed and the front room. At Uncle Eroshka’s refrain and rifle shots, a group of whooping Cossacks came bursting out of the house and joined in the song.

“Why aren’t you at the betrothal?” Olenin asked Eroshka.

“Forget them, forget them,” the old man said. Obviously, they had offended him somehow. “I don’t like them, I don’t like them at all. Terrible people! Let’s go back inside. They can carouse at their place and we’ll carouse at ours!”

Olenin followed him into the house. “What about Lukashka, is he happy? Won’t he come over to see me?” he asked.

“Lukashka? They told him I was going to get you his girl,” the old man said in a whisper. “Ha! His girl! If we want her we can have her. Give them enough money, and she’s ours. I can fix it up for you!”

“No, Uncle, money is of no use if she doesn’t love me. Please don’t speak of this again.”

“No one loves us, you and me—we’re outcasts!” Uncle Eroshka said suddenly, and began to cry again.

Olenin drank more than usual while listening to the old man’s stories.

“Now my friend Lukashka is happy,” Olenin thought, but he himself felt sad.

That evening the old man drank so much that he could no longer get up off the floor, and Vanyusha had to call some soldiers to help him drag him out. Vanyusha spat. He was so furious at Eroshka’s behavior that he did not even say anything in French.

It was August. For days there had not been a cloud in the sky. The sun was scorching, and a burning wind had been blowing since morning, raising clouds of hot sand above the dunes, carrying the sand over reeds, trees, and villages. Grass and leaves were covered with dust. The paths and salt marshes lay bare and crackled underfoot. The waters of the Terek had long receded, and its runlets were drying up. The slimy banks of the pond near the village had been trodden flat by cattle, and the splashing and shouting of boys and girls rang out all day long. The reeds and dunes were drying out in the steppe, and the lowing cattle headed for the fields. Wild animals moved to distant marshes and mountains beyond the Terek. Clouds of gnats and mosquitoes hovered over the lowlands and the villages. The snow-covered peaks were hidden in gray mist. The air was dry, reeking. Every evening, the sun set in a glowing red blaze. It was rumored that Chechen marauders had crossed the shallow river and were on the prowl.

This was the busiest season. The villagers were swarming over the melon fields and over the vineyards that lay in the stifling shade, clusters of ripe black grapes shimmering among broad, translucent leaves. Creaking carts heaped high with grapes made their way along the road leading from the vineyards, and grapes crushed by the wheels lay everywhere in the dust. Little boys and girls, their arms and mouths filled with grapes and their shirts stained with grape juice, ran after
their mothers. Tattered laborers carried filled baskets on powerful shoulders. Village girls, kerchiefs wound tightly across their faces, drove bullocks harnessed to loaded carts. Soldiers by the roadside asked for grapes, and the women climbed onto the rolling carts and threw bunches down, the men holding out their shirt flaps to catch them. In some courtyards the grapes were already being pressed, and the aroma of grape-skin leavings filled the air. Bloodred troughs stood beneath awnings, and Nogai laborers with rolled-up trousers and stained calves were working in the yards, while grunting pigs devoured the leavings and wallowed around in them. The flat roofs of the sheds were covered in dark, amber-colored clusters drying in the sun, and flocks of ravens and magpies fluttered over them, picking at seeds.

The fruits of the year’s labor were being cheerfully gathered, and this year the harvest was exceptionally good. Laughter, song, and the happy voices of women came from within a sea of shadowy green vines, through which their smocks and kerchiefs peeked.

At noon Maryanka was sitting in the vineyard, in the shadow of a peach tree, pulling the family lunch from the shade beneath an unharnessed cart. Her father the cornet, who had returned from the school for the grape harvest, sat nearby on a horse blanket, washing his hands with a jug of water. Her little brother, who had just come running from the pond, stood there panting and wiping the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, and looked at his mother and his sister, hungry for food. Old Ulitka, her sleeves rolled up over her powerful, sunburnt arms, was busy laying out grapes, dried fish, clotted cream, and bread on a low, round Tatar table. The cornet dried his hands, took off his hat, crossed himself, and went over to the table. The boy took the jug and drank greedily. Mother and daughter sat down and made themselves comfortable at the table. It was unbearably hot even in the shade, and a stench hung in the air. The strong, hot wind blowing between the branches did not bring coolness but only swayed the tops of the pear, peach, and mulberry trees that dotted the vineyards. The cornet crossed himself again, picked up a jug of Chikhir covered with a vine leaf, drank from the jug, and handed it to his wife. He had taken off his jacket and was sitting in his unbuttoned shirt, revealing his
hairy, muscular chest. His thin, cunning face was cheerful, and neither his pose nor his speech gave any sign of his usual attempt at decorum. He looked contented and relaxed.

“Do you think we’ll finish picking as far as beyond the shed by this evening?” he asked, wiping his wet beard.

“I think so,” the old woman replied, “as long as the weather doesn’t hold us back. The Demkins haven’t brought in even half their harvest yet,” she added. “Ustenka’s working there all alone, she’s killing herself.”

“What do you expect from them?” he said archly.

“Here, drink, Maryanushka!” Old Ulitka said, handing her daughter the jug. “Lord willing, there’ll be enough now for your wedding!”

“That’ll be a while yet,” the cornet said with a frown.

Maryanka hung her head.

“Why can’t I talk about it?” the old woman said. “It’s already settled, and it won’t be long now.”

“Don’t plan so far ahead,” the cornet said. “Let’s keep to our grape picking now.”

“Have you seen Lukashka’s new horse?” the old woman asked. “He doesn’t have the one Dmitri Andreyevich gave him anymore—he traded it.”

“No, I haven’t seen it yet,” the cornet said. “I just spoke to that servant fellow of his, and he says they just sent Dmitri Andreyevich another thousand rubles from Moscow!”

“A rich man,” the old woman said.

The whole family was cheerful. Work was moving ahead well, and there were more grapes than they had expected.

After lunch, Maryanka gave the oxen some hay, rolled her quilted coat into a pillow, and lay down under the cart on the flattened, lush grass. She was wearing only her faded blue calico smock and a red silk kerchief, but the heat was almost unbearable. Her face was burning, and she did not know where to put her feet. Her eyes were moist with exhaustion and sleep. Her lips parted, and her chest rose and fell heavily.

The work season had begun two weeks earlier, and the unremitting labor had taken over her life. She rose at dawn, quickly washed her face with cold water, wrapped herself in her shawl, and ran barefoot to
tend the cattle. Then she put on her slippers and quilted coat, wrapped some bread into her bundle, and harnessed the oxen to ride out to the vineyards, where she worked for the whole day picking grapes and carrying baskets, resting only for an hour. In the evening she returned to the village, cheerful and full of life, leading the oxen by a rope and goading them with a long switch. She tended the cattle at dusk, tucked some pumpkin seeds into the wide sleeve of her smock, and went to the corner to chat with the other girls. But as darkness fell she returned home to eat with her family, then sat dozing on the bench above the stove, listening to her parents talking with Olenin. She lay down to sleep the moment he left, and slept soundly till morning. The following day was the same. She had not seen Lukashka since their betrothal but was calmly waiting for the wedding. She had grown used to Olenin, and felt his gaze upon her with pleasure.

There was no escaping the heat in the vineyard. Mosquitoes were swarming all around, and Maryanka’s little brother kept nudging her as he turned in his sleep. She was just dozing off when Ustenka came over from the neighboring vineyard and crawled under the cart to lie down next to her. “Time for a nap, time for a nap!” she sang. “No, wait a moment,” she said, crawling out again. She broke off two green branches, slid them into one of the wheels, and hung her jacket over them to ward off the sun.

“Shoo!” she called to Maryanka’s little brother as she crawled back under the cart. “A big Cossack like you napping with the girls? Shoo!”

Alone with Maryanka, she seized both her hands, hugged her, and began kissing her cheeks and neck. “My sweet boy, my handsome darling,” she crooned, breaking into a shrill titter.

“Stop it! I see ‘Grandpa’ has taught you some nice things,” Maryanka said of young Beletsky, pushing her away. The two girls began to laugh uncontrollably, and Maryanka’s mother called to them to keep quiet.