The Cossacks (6 page)

It was one of those rare evenings found only in the Caucasus. The sun had set behind the mountains, but darkness had not yet fallen. The evening glow stretched over a third of the sky, and the dull, white vastness of the mountains stood out sharply. The air was delicate, still, and filled with sound. A long shadow stretched several versts from the mountains over the steppe. The steppe, the riverbank, the paths were empty. Only rarely did mounted men appear, and then the Cossacks at their checkpoints and the Chechens in their villages watched them with surprise and suspicion, wondering who they might be.

As darkness falls people huddle in their houses in fear of one another, and only birds and beasts, unafraid of man, roam freely in the
vast emptiness. As the sun sets, chattering Cossack women come hurrying out of the vineyards where they were tying up the vines, and the vineyards and orchards stand empty, like the steppe all around. At this time in the evening the village comes alive as people arrive from all directions on foot, on horseback, and on creaking carts. Girls with hitched-up smocks carry brushwood and talk cheerfully as they hurry to the village gate, where the cattle are being herded in a cloud of dust and mosquitoes brought from the steppe. The well-grazed cattle scatter through the streets, and women in bright quilted jackets push their way among them, their shrill voices and cheerful shrieks and laughter mingling with the lowing of the beasts. An armed, mounted Cossack, on leave from his checkpoint, rides up to a house and leans from his saddle to knock on a window. The face of a beautiful young Cossack woman appears, and tender, smiling words follow. A Nogai laborer with high cheekbones, dressed in rags, is bringing a load of reeds from the steppe. He drives his creaking cart into the yard of the Esaul,
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raises the yoke from the oxen’s tossing heads, and he and his master call out to one another in Tatar. A puddle stretches across almost the whole width of the street, and a barefoot Cossack woman with a bundle of firewood on her back, her hitched-up smock revealing her white legs, is edging by the fence on the roadside as she tries to get past. A huntsman back from the woods jokingly shouts, “Lift it higher, you shameless girl!” He points his rifle at her, and the woman lowers her smock and drops the firewood. An old Cossack with rolled-up trousers, his gray chest bare, comes home from a day of fishing. Slung over his shoulder is a net full of thrashing silvery fish. He crawls through his neighbor’s broken fence rather than going all the way around. His coat gets caught on the fence, and he tugs it free. A woman is dragging a dry branch along the street, and from around the corner comes the sound of an ax. Children are shrieking as they chase hoops along the level parts of the street. Women are climbing over fences to get to their yards more quickly. The fragrant smoke of dried dung rises from every chimney. The heightened bustle that precedes the silence of night echoes from every courtyard.

Old Ulitka, the wife of the Cossack cornet
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and schoolmaster, has come to the gate of her courtyard like many of the other women, and waits for the cattle that her daughter, Maryanka, is chasing along the road. Before Ulitka can even open the gate, a large, bellowing cow barges into the yard in a cloud of mosquitoes, followed by well-fed cattle trudging slowly, evenly swatting their sides with their tails, their large eyes recognizing Ulitka. Maryanka, beautiful and lithe, follows the cattle into the yard, throws down her switch, closes the gate, and then hurries on nimble feet to drive the animals into their stalls.

“Take off those damn slippers, you devil’s wench!” her mother shouts. “Soon they’ll be hanging off your heels in tatters, the way you wear them out!”

Maryanka is not in the least offended that her mother calls her a devil’s wench: to her the words are an endearment, and she cheerfully continues what she is doing. Maryanka’s face is covered by a kerchief tied around her head. She is wearing a pink smock and a green jacket. She disappears into the cattle shed behind a large, fat cow, and her gentle, urging words ring out. “Won’t you hold still? There you go, good girl, good girl!”

A little later, mother and daughter come out of the cattle shed carrying large pails of milk, the yield of the day, and cross over into the milk shed. The smoke of burning dung begins to rise from the shed’s clay chimney as the milk is turned into curd. Maryanka stokes the fire, while the old woman goes out to the gate. Twilight has already settled over the village, and the air is filled with the smell of vegetables, cattle, and the fragrant smoke of burning dung. Women are hurrying into their yards carrying burning rags. All that can be heard now is the snorting and calm chomping of the milked cows in the sheds, and the voices of women and children. It is unusual to hear a drunken man’s voice on a weekday.

An old, mannish woman comes over to Ulitka from the yard across the street to get some fire. She brings a rag with her.

“Are you done with your chores?” the old woman asks Ulitka.

“My girl’s in there stoking the fire,” Ulitka replies. “You need some?” she adds, pleased to be able to oblige her neighbor.

The two Cossack women go inside the house. Ulitka’s rough hands, unused to delicate objects, tremble as she carefully opens the lid of a precious matchbox, a rarity in the Caucasus. The mannish woman sits down on the porch, obviously meaning to chat. “Your old man’s still away at the school?” she asks Ulitka.

“He’s forever teaching those children. He sends word that he’ll be back for the festival,” Ulitka replies.

“He’s a clever man. That’s always good.”

“Very true. It’s always good.”

“My son Lukashka is serving at the checkpoint, but they won’t let him come home,” the old woman says, though Ulitka knows that well enough. The old woman needs to talk about her son, whom she has just fitted out for the Cossack regiment, and whom she wants to marry off to Ulitka’s daughter, Maryanka.

“So he’s at the checkpoint, is he?”

“That’s where he is. He hasn’t been back since the last festival. The other day I sent him some shirts with Fomushkin, who tells me not to worry, his captain’s pleased enough with him. He tells me they’re out looking for Chechen marauders again. He tells me not to worry—Lukashka’s happy there.”

“Well, God be praised,” Ulitka says. “They don’t call him Snatcher for nothing.” Lukashka had been nicknamed Snatcher for his bravery because he had snatched a drowning boy from the water, and Ulitka brought up his nickname in order to flatter Lukashka’s mother.

“I thank God that he is a good son, a good boy! Everyone’s pleased with him,” the old woman says. “If only he would get married, then I could die a happy woman!”

“It’s not like there’s a lack of girls in our village,” Ulitka answers nimbly, carefully replacing the lid on the matchbox with her large, callused hand.

“Oh, there are many girls, many,” Lukashka’s mother agrees, nodding her head. “But your Maryanka, now she’s a girl one doesn’t find every day.”

Ulitka knows what Lukashka’s mother has in mind, and though she considers Lukashka a good Cossack, she shrinks from this conversation: She is a cornet’s wife and well-to-do, while Lukashka is the son of a simple Cossack, and is now fatherless; furthermore, she is not in a hurry to part with her daughter. But the main reason for her reticence is that custom requires a mother to be restrained. “Well, when Maryanka comes of age, she’ll be marriageable enough,” Ulitka says coolly.

“I’ll send the matchmaker over. After we finish with the grape picking, we will come bow to you and Ilya Vasilyevich.”

“Ilya?” Ulitka replies haughtily. “It’s me you have to speak to. But all in good time.”

Lukashka’s mother sees in the severe look of the cornet’s wife that this is not the moment to say more. She lights the rag with the match and rises to go. “Remember our chat,” she says, “and don’t turn us down when the time comes. I’m off, I have to light the fire,” she adds, and as she crosses the street waving the burning rag in her outstretched hand, she sees Maryanka, who bows to her.

“What a fine girl, and a hard worker too,” the old woman thinks, eyeing Maryanka. “Ulitka says when she comes of age! It’s high time the girl got married, and married into a good house like ours! She must marry my Lukashka!”

But Old Ulitka has her own worries, and she remains sitting on the porch, deep in thought, until her daughter calls her.

The men of the Cossack villages spend their lives on campaigns and at military checkpoints, or “posts” as the Cossacks call them. It was late afternoon, and Lukashka the Snatcher, whom the two old women in the village had been talking about, was standing on a watchtower of the Nizhnye Prototsky checkpoint on the bank of the Terek. Leaning on the tower’s parapet, he narrowed his eyes, looking far over the river and then down at his comrades, exchanging a few words with them. The sun was already nearing the snowy range that sparkled white
above the clouds which were rolling over its foothills, taking on darker and darker shadows. Translucency poured through the evening air. A coolness emanated from the wild, overgrown forests, but the area around the checkpoint was still hot. The Cossacks’ voices rang out more sonorously, hanging in the air. The moving mass of the swift, brown Terek stood out more distinctly from its immovable banks. Its waters were receding, and here and there wet sand lay brown on the riverbanks and shoals. The side of the river across from the checkpoint was deserted, and an endless waste of reeds stretched all the way to the mountains. A short distance down the low riverbank were a few mud huts, with the flat roofs and funnel-shaped chimneys of a Chechen village. From the watchtower, Lukashka’s sharp eyes peered through the evening smoke of the peaceful village at the bustling figures of the Chechen women in their blue and red dresses.

The Cossacks at the checkpoint were not particularly vigilant, even though Chechen marauders were expected to attack from the Tatar side of the river, for it was May, and the woods along the Terek were now so thick that they were almost impassible, and the river was so shallow that one could easily wade across at any point. Nor were the Cossacks particularly concerned that a messenger had been sent by the commander of the regiment ordering them to heighten their vigil: scouts had reported that a party of eight Chechen marauders was preparing to cross the river. The Cossacks, unarmed and unperturbed, their horses unsaddled, spent their time fishing, hunting, and drinking. Only the horse of the man on duty was saddled, wandering with hobbled legs past the brambles by the woods, and only the watchman was wearing his Circassian coat and holding his rifle and saber at the ready. The sergeant, a tall, lean Cossack with an extraordinarily long back and small hands and feet, sat with his jacket unbuttoned on a small earthen mound that ran along the wall of a hut. His eyes were closed, and his head, propped in his hands, lolled from one palm to the other. He wore the expression of boredom and laziness of a man in charge. An older Cossack with a large, black beard that was beginning to gray and a shirt belted with a black strap, lay by the edge of the river, lazily gazing at the monotonously swirling waters. Other men, also half-dressed and drained by the heat, were washing their clothes in the river, plaiting
bridles, or lying on the hot sand of the riverbank, humming songs. One Cossack, his thin face burnt black by the sun, lay flat on his back in a drunken stupor outside one of the huts, which two hours earlier had been in the shade but on which the hot, slanting rays of the sun now fell.

Lukashka, standing on the watchtower, was a tall, handsome young man of about twenty, who bore a striking resemblance to his mother. His face and his whole constitution, despite the awkwardness of youth, exuded great physical and moral strength. Though he had only recently joined the Cossack regiment, it was clear from the assured expression on his face and his unruffled poise that he already had the proud, warriorlike carriage typical of Cossacks and men who carry arms. His wide Circassian coat was torn in places, he wore his hat cocked to the back in Chechen fashion, and his leggings were rolled down below the knees. His clothing was simple, but he wore it with the Cossack flair that imitates Chechen warriors, whose clothes are always loose, torn, and careless; only their weapons are expensive. But Lukashka’s weapons and ragged clothes were sported in a certain manner that not everyone can manage, and that immediately strikes the eye of a Cossack or Chechen. He had the look of a Chechen warrior. His hands resting on his saber, he narrowed his eyes and peered at the distant Chechen village. If one looked at his features separately, they were not handsome, but anyone looking at his stately form and his intelligent, black-browed face would have to say, “A fine young man indeed!”

“Look at all those women pouring out of that village!” he called from the tower, idly flashing his bright white teeth, not addressing anyone in particular.

Nazarka, lying below, quickly raised his head and called back, “They must be going for water.”

“I should frighten them with a shot,” Lukashka said, laughing. “That would scatter them soon enough!”

“It won’t reach them.”

“What do you mean? I can shoot farther than that! Wait till their next feast comes up, and watch me visit Girei Khan and drink a mug of Tatar beer with him!” Lukashka replied, angrily swatting at the mosquitoes that clung to him.

A rustling in the thicket drew the Cossacks’ attention. A spotted mongrel hunting dog, sniffing a trail and wagging its hairless tail, ran excitedly up to the checkpoint. Lukashka recognized the dog as belonging to Uncle Eroshka, a hunter who lived next door to him in the village, and he saw the hunter’s figure moving through the underbrush.

Uncle Eroshka was a giant of a Cossack, with a wide chest and broad shoulders and a big beard gray as the moon. His strong limbs were so well proportioned that in the forest, where there was nobody to compare him to, he seemed rather small. He was wearing a white, tattered hat, a frayed, tucked-up coat, and uncured buckskin shoes that were tied to his feet with cords. Slung over one shoulder was a blind, behind which he hid to shoot pheasants, and a bag with a chicken and a small falcon for baiting hawks. Over his other shoulder he carried a slaughtered wildcat strung on a leather strap. Another bag filled with bullets, gunpowder, and bread hung from his belt in back, along with a horse’s tail to swat away mosquitoes, a large dagger in a torn sheath spattered with dried blood, and two dead pheasants. He peered at the checkpoint and stopped.