Читать книгу The Gems of Siberia - Tamara Bulevich - Страница 3

Dyomin was completely exhausted with the busy hot day. Road men barely stood on their feet, sullenly, in silence gathering tools in canvas bags and waiting for the train, which would finally save them from hellish toil in clay dust, from sticky midges, from squeaky mosquitos, mercilessly stinging, ineradicable, and leaving no escape.

Ignat was late. Today, his team completed scheduled repairs and backfilling of fabric. The chief of road service Efremov will be at acceptance tomorrow. Though Ignat is calm: everything was made to last. The men did not disappoint, as it happened in the first months of joint work. Brigadier abstained from praise. «Tomorrow will tell what we have achieved». He was silent, grimly staring into the cloud on the top of the Karaulnaya Mountain. Looked like thunderstorm. The weather in the second decade of August was a safe bet – definitely spoiled. Downpours with squally wind will ruin the work schedule again. And only taiga will rejoice in the rain, revelling in the long awaited, rich, warm, as in summer, and life-giving water, which will definitely help it gain strength to grow new green.

Ignat could not stand this terrible season. It coincided with a strictly planned preparation of the assigned to their brigade part of the railway for the winter, ruthlessly wasting their golden years.

«Then try and catch up! People are not made of iron», – he lamented, knowing that the following days, from dusk to dawn, would be very busy.

It has been seven years since Ignat bought a house at the station Snezhnitsa. He bought it for his own convenience: it was next to his work, so he did not need to spend precious time waiting for trains. But the main reason was that nobody knew about the past life of Ignat and it was easier for him to start life with a clean slate. Although, in his native village of Minino, only the weak-sighted friend of his mother-in-law recognized him.

Having come home, Dyomin brought into the inner porch wind-beaten pots of geraniums. Usually geranium, being the delight for the eyes of the villagers, stood in the rows on the specially made wooden platform. It encircled the well-kept log house, pleasing the owner with pink and white flowers. He spent quiet evenings admiring them. This brought joy and peace to his soul.

The second house looked like the house of the Dyomin family in Minino. When his parents were alive, the same geranium blossomed on wide, white windowsills from spring to winter. Mama Lyuba used its rounded, crownlike, sometimes with brown colour on the edge leaves for a toothache. She used them as seasoning to game and veal.

Ignat went down the vegetable garden, where green branches of recently planted little cedars waved, like wings, greeting him on his way. He stumbled upon this garden of little cedars at the platform of Ryabinino, having gone up the steep small hill during lunch break. These powerful cedars have been here for a long time, growing among the age-old pines and firs. The white-haired Siberian man feasted his eyes upon gorgeous, silky, with an emerald sheen branches of cedars. They were not old and had plenty of ripening greenish brown cones. «It will be good to come here in September and gather cones», – Ignat thought and went to a gentle slope to join his brigade, when in the windswept place he found a dozen of one-year-old cedars. «How come you are here? That is impossible for you to survive here, on the northern side». Having gone down to the men, he asked to help dig out and deliver these little cedars, this fleeting miracle, to his vegetable garden. Every single one of them. The men, being town-dwellers since their childhood, were perplexed and surprised at the unconcealed joy of Ignat.

– You live in taiga and want to bring it to your garden. Why do you need this? – Ignat genially smiled and turned everything into a joke.

– I am too lazy to go far into the cedar forests. I am getting old. Perhaps, I will live till the day, when they will grow big and powerful. I will gather nuts and will share some with you. When people take care of cedars, they grow faster than normally.

By nightfall, bad weather covered the mountains, the taiga and the village with its darkness. The sky looked like a swirling kaleidoscope full of dark, evil pictures. Suddenly it began to boil, torn into small scraps, which frantically moved back and forth from the horizon, compressing into a multi-layered pie on half the sky. At that same time, burdened, leaden black horizon almost exploded from the inside, bubbling and breaking up into glowing fiery heavy particles and then transforming again into even more terrible, rushing in different directions, airy monster. It seemed that the monster is about to be pierced with another spear of lightning and to be dissolved in the water. «The sooner the better, – Ignat thought, – Then the tension of the violent confrontation between irreconcilable heavenly elements will go away».

The hot weather was in Snezhnitsa for more than a month. Finally, the sky, remembering its bygone promises to Mother Earth, decided to pay her tribute and fill the summer with pouring rains.

Now Ignat was worried about the tree that fell in the spring – dry vegetation, which he called a wizard. It hung, caught by the upper boughs, as hooks, on the powerful branches of the pine at the fence. In windless days, the wizard remained silent, but with the slightest flow of wind the pine trembled and it began to sing a mournful song that reminded either the creak of the ungreased door, or the roar of the beast, or the cry of the broken string, sometimes clearly warning: «no, no… do not come up!». And then suddenly one could hear it anxiously crying with the voice of some frightened bird.

Ignat intuitively «interpreted» its intricate edification and rush from side to side, with which the wizard, having nothing against the meteorological service, accurately predicted the bearing of an apparent wind, as well as the weather for the day ahead. It helped Dyomin at his work on the railways: he knew how the day would turn, from where the wind would blow, at what side the signalman should stand, where it would be better to put crushed stone to protect men from inhaling caustic limestone.

And now Ignat listened to disturbing, lingering sobs of dry vegetation and kept thinking about something, obviously being worried about little cedars: the wizard will fall down and will wreck them. But it was difficult for him to do something alone, with no help.

«I should saw it into chocks. Otherwise, little cedars will be in danger!». And, nearly falling from the effort, he alternately dragged three two-metre-long decommissioned rails. He leaned them against the fence. «That’s more reliable. Rails will take the hit and will cover little cedars if the wizard falls down».

After viewing the vegetable garden and making sure that it was completely ready to overcome the on-coming storm, Ignat slowly, slightly limping, went to the house.

Without switching on the lights and having dinner he went to the shower. He was snorting and moaning with pleasure there for a long time, splashing in the flowing stream of cool invigorating water. After an hour of bathing, he wrapped up in the colourful linen sheet and went to bed. Despite the fatigue, he could not sleep. When he turned fifty, he lost his habit to fall asleep after barely touching the cushion and to remain in the kingdom of Morpheus until the first splashes of dawn. Sometimes, during the sleepless nights, he had time to live more than one life, each time reshaping them in a new way. The only thing that he never changed was his joyful childhood. He really loved that time in his life. It was a happy, serene moment of life with his parents still alive, with staying overnight with the older boys at taiga fires on the banks of the mountain River Minka, with awakening in the light of warm splashes of dawn, with silent mornings in order not to scare clever, black-sided grayling before the morning fishing.

As a boy, he spent hours staring at the distant twinkling stars, following the clouds and in the storm, safely hiding from the rain under the fir branches, watching the clash of clouds and the birth of lightning. Everybody in the village knew that their Ignat would grow up and would become a pilot.

But the war broke out. His dream suddenly collapsed.

The big family of Grigoriy Dyomin, the father of Ignat, lived in the old spacious house, which they inherited from grandfather Semyon. The vegetable garden was on the south side of the house, in the direction of the river and the forest.

The rays of the rising sun lit the high porch with carved, chiselled railing and the paved with stones path set against the cast iron gate. It divided the yard into two parts.

The father’s forge, as the grandfather decided, was on the clean side, within five metres from the gate. Before the war, he did some small orders for the needs of the station and the villagers. The old, moss-covered fir, which spread its lower branches on the ground, separated the forge from the sauna. And then, right to the fence, there was a hundred-metre-long non-cultivated land, where three powerful cedars generously grew, remembering still the warmth of the hands of his great-grandfather Porphyrius. One-year-old little cedars were rapidly growing around them. Among them, one could find Siberian birches of extraordinary beauty, which almost reached the sky with their thin, white trunks and lacy tops.

Livestock and poultry were held in sheds in the other part of the country estate. The granary for flour and grain looked like a painted palace. Behind it, there was a hayloft with a stable for two horses. Here, under the high awning, the sledge for work and the carriage for business trips, decorated with cast iron and twisted leather, stood upright, leaning against the wall of the hayloft.

Dyomin will keep the memory of this place throughout his life, mentally returning to it, as his source of strength and wisdom.

The war took away the older brothers Alexey and Anton, and the sister Mariya, whom he scarcely remembered and recognized only from the photographs on the walls. They smiled and looked after him, when he, as a pre-schooler, was left home alone.

His father returned from the war sick with an open, unhealed wound. In the sauna, little Ignat saw how blood flowed from this wound on the father’s chest down to his abdomen. Mother Lyuba, who knew everything about herbs in the taiga, could not help him. He went to the city hospital for treatment and bandaging only three times. «There is no use to go back and forth! Where can I get money for this?».

Grigoriy died on the eve of the summer when Ignat went to the sixth grade. Lyuba had a hard time coping with the loss of her husband. Soon she weakened, and, as a disrooted flower, fell.

That’s how the war found her even far away, in Siberia. Having lost three children and her husband, she did not have strength to fight for her life. Being tortured by sadness and grief, she got sick.

– I feel so guilty, Ignat, my beloved son. Oh, it is all my fault. Why would I give birth and then condemn my child to be an orphan? I am going to die, that’s for sure. In my heart, I feel that my time is running out.

Ignat was massaging mother’s constantly cold feet with pharmaceutical tincture. He wanted his mother to overcome the sickness and to recover. He pitied her with all his heart and did not allow himself even to think that his mother might leave him.

– You will recover soon! You will drink some herbs and will eat something sweet…

Ignat said this sincerely, with boyish vehemence, believing them to be the best medicine. But sometimes, seeing her getting weaker day by day, he began to cry bitterly, like a whining puppy. He spent long evenings trying to find something funny and joyful for his mother. He dreamed to become a pilot some day and to take his mother for a flight high in the blue sky, so it would take her breath away.

Sometimes, at night, mother uncontrollably and bitterly cried, she could not sleep. Then Ignat told her different funny boyish stories. He would do even impossible for his mother to relieve the pain and make her smile again.

– Are we alone here, who have lost parents?! We were told at school that only thirty men were left alive in Minino, when one hundred twenty-two men went to the war. If the Nazis kill all the good people, is not that too much?! Then only bad people will live on the Earth. Why did brothers have to die? Why did father have to go to Berlin? They believed, they really believed in the victory and won. And you, mommy, win!

The son cried out to his mother, persistently returning her to life. But she did not reconcile with the loss, with the widow’s fate. Her heart was still aching. She was slowly dying. She tried to prepare him for the challenges of life by giving him lessons.

Soon Ignat became an orphan, all alone, without care and support of the loved ones. He refused to go to the orphanage right away. The village council, school, and neighbours supported him. While his mother was sick, he eagerly studied, managed a household, and did not fool around. At the age of fourteen, Ignat was taller than all of his peers. He looked much older than his age. The villagers said: «He resembles his father in both height and complexion».

After the seventh grade, instead of the Omsk Civil Aviation College, he went to the railway college. «What will happen to your family house?». He still remembered his mother’s lesson. And he listened to it. If only this was the same way in everything…

… By midnight, the wind got stronger in Snezhnitsa. Eternal rivals – wind and water – met each other in the furious rampage. Their serious battle for the power, for the possession of this beautiful land with varying preponderance of forces, lasted till the morning. Powerful, roaring, moaning flows of wind seemed to tear away and lift up the fundamental house of Ignat. It desperately creaked with its corners and door hinges, hammered, and raised the alarm with crampons and pins of tarred shutters. The chimney fiercely roared, the fireplace ghastly and drawlingly buzzed.

But a moment later, the wind suddenly calmed down. One could hear how pouring rains fiercely, furiously fell down the ground, threatening to completely wash everything living and lifeless off it and to drown it in the mudflow.

Ignat continually fluffed up the pillow, as if it was responsible for this insomnia. He could not even think about anything. He turned from one side to the other, languished, listened to the rumbling storm with lightning, expecting something more terrible and irreparable to happen.

The predawn brightening sky calmed down this formidable element. Ignat opened the shutters and the windows. The house was filled with freshness and fragrance of the washed up, renewed dark coniferous forest, propping up the sky with powerful tops of the age-old trees. The predawn smoky purple silence hung over the taiga.

Having hastily put on the tarpaulin coat, Ignat rushed to the vegetable garden. The summer brood of four terek sandpipers, or, as locals say, terek, sat on the lower branches of fir that stood in beauty in the middle of potatoes and dried the feathers. Usually, they are nimble, lively, trusting, and curious, but today, being exhausted by the night disaster, they even did not give a sign, when Ignat approached them. The wet brownish grey with white streaks feathers stick together in a wet lump. Bright belly-pieces blackened. Apparently, poor birds, as hard as they could, were holding the turf near the trunk of the fir in order not to be gone with the furious storm. Their parents were not nearby. Though, soon he heard their distant «terek-terek».

«In less than a month these will leave until the next spring,» – Ignat thought, rushing to cedars.

From afar, they were glittering with diamond droplets of rain, hidden among the long needles. «Alive! Thank God, they are alive!».

Sleepless mood melted away, and his body was filled with resilience, healthy desire to immediately enjoy the simple country food.

The rest of the day went well for Dyomin. One can say, it was good. The authorities complimented brigade for «a good, professional repair», promised to give them the award and to provide compensatory holiday. Now, after hard work in the summer, the brigade of Dyomin could take more than two weeks of holiday.

When the commission left, Ignat was still smiling. His soul quietly rejoiced. He complimented his men for their work. This was not typical of him.

In the evening, when he came home, he began the cleaning. He liked the order and was not lazy to keep the house clean. He did not like painted floors. Once a year, he polished floorboards, and then, once a week, he washed them to amber purity of ash water of larch. The floorboards shone, breathing warmth and comfort. The owner never wore shoes in the house. He asked his guests to take off their shoes in the inner porch.

He was washing the last step of the porch when he heard that somebody opened the gate. The mailwoman Nyusya stood on the paved path. «What on Earth is she doing here?!» – his face reflected extreme inner irritation and displeasure. His benevolent mood immediately disappeared.

– Good evening, Ignat Grigoryevich!

– Good evening…

He said not very pleasantly. Nyusya timidly approached the porch. Ignat slowly wrung out the floorcloth and hung it carefully on the hook to dry. Nyusya gave him her untidy hand, but he pretended that he did not notice and asked her stiffly:

– What do you have for me?

Nyusya opened her canvas, with black leather on the inside, bag, which she did not wash for a long time, and looked through some papers.

– Where did I put it?!

– Did you lose something?

He did not even expect that Nyusya really brought something for him. He did not have any family members alive. He only exchanged greeting cards with friends from work and college on Navy Day and the New Year’s Day.

– So, why did you come?!

The indignant Ignat almost shouted, approaching the mailwoman closely and preparing, as before, to show her the way.

– Fie, Nyusya! You stink denatured alcohol, like a vagabond.

– Why do you care? Playing saint of yourself… Why do you think you are better than me?

– You are right. Once we used to be the same. But now there is a difference between us. I made an effort and changed my life. Though, I washed off my past for a long time and still do. And you should look out! Otherwise, you will get stuck in this. Although, that’s not my business.

Ignat became silent, and Nyusya malevolently picked up their gloomy conversation.

– Yes, that’s not your business! I am not your wife or your lover that you dare to raise your voice.

– God forbid! I was a fool once, – he marked himself with the sign of the cross.

– So, I see that you remember our golden years. You liked me even being drunk.

Ignat grated his teeth, his face flushed.

– Why do you care, whom I remember or not! At least, you should try not to drink alcohol when you are at work. You can inadvertently lose the bag or give it for the bottle of alcohol.

– Why should I abstain? Smart people say abstinence can be harmful. And it is already evening. I do not meet people in the office. I work in the open air. Yesterday, I was chasing you, like a fool, around the village. I asked the person on duty at the station about you.

– Why would I be there? That’s not my office.

– I came to your house twice. It was closed. I do not need to go in the darkness to the forest. I am paid peanuts for my work. It is not even enough to buy shoes. I already wore this one out. As you can see, I do not have lazy bones. I deliver mail at two stations, Minino and Snezhnitsa, twice a week. And the streets there are not like in the city.

And, after a pause, she had a change of heart. The drunken smile spread across her sallow, wrinkled face:

– Old sinful love makes me follow you, damn cheater. You live miles from nowhere.

She took out the contents of the bag, put it on the platform with geraniums and began to nervously look through newspapers, packages and letters.

– Do not tell me a sob story. I will not buy it. And if you do not have enough money… for shoes, then forget about parties and drinking, look for a better job. Work more than two days a week.

Knowing Nyusya, Ignat would not give her even a ruble out of sympathy or pity: she would immediately spend it on alcohol with her drinking companions. Especially, he was not going to explain to her why he stayed late at work.

– Here is another silly woman, who wants to have fun with you. She wants you to come to her. That’s something! How I could miss that. It is your deary wifey. You were so infatuated with her that, having suffered a great deal, fooled around with me and with a dozen of same homeless women, philanderer!

Nyusya repeatedly stroke his nerve.

– What are talking about, crazy woman!

– Nothing!

He began to shiver, his eyelid was treacherously twitching after talking to the hated woman.

– Here it is. It was stuck in the batch of newspapers. Urgent, with notice. Even if I did not want to, I would have to hand it to you.

Ignat impatiently wanted to snatch the telegram out of the dirty hands of Nyusya.

– Stop it! You are a man! You need to sign the papers first. You know, it’s our usual routine.

He put his signature and began to read, not seeing or understanding anything plainly.

– Well, Ignat Grigoryevich, I should go, – Nyusya stood, waiting for acknowledgements.

– Go, go… I guess, your buddies are already waiting for you.

He took Nyusya by the arm, as if she was stuck in the mud, and showed his ex-girlfriend the way. He hastily went to the house, washed his hands with soap, took his glasses from the bookshelf, and carefully wiped them. He read almost letter-by-letter:

«Address: Snezhnitsa Station, Krasnoyarsk Krai.

To: Dyomin Ignat Grigoryevich.

Prefix: Urgent! With the specification of the place of residence of the addressee».

And then there was the text: «I am waiting for you in the city of Novosibirsk, 9 Proletarskaya Street, apartment 17. Send me a telegram on the departure. We will meet you. Dyomina Polina Egorovna».

His mind was full of noise, as vernal water of the River Minka, his cheeks were burning more than in the sauna, and his heart was beating so that the shirt on his chest was shaking. «One can get a stroke». Having taken the unfinished since the May holidays bottle of vodka out of the cupboard, he filled the faceted glass and drank it in one gulp.

He did not do this for quite some time. Nobody saw him drunk in Snezhnitsa. Becoming tipsy, he cried and read, cried again and read again the telegram, not believing his eyes.

«What a twist of fate. It takes one out of the frying pan and into the fire. In a year I will turn sixty, and, I feel that I will be tied up in the court. «We will meet you»… I guess, Polina needs a divorce. She is in a hurry! What? She also wants to live in happiness in her old age. Nyusya is right. I am a terrible man! Dear Polina, the innocent soul, suffered with me. She was fed up with shame and gossips. Since the first year of their marriage, she got from me spoons of happiness and piles of shit. I did not care about her feelings. Did I have any sense of conscience? I was flirting with such women as Nyusya, Lyusya in her sight. I forgot my mother’s lesson: «One apple is enough!». I was not thinking about its meaning. Not even close! I would have to step on toes. And here I ran myself to this point. I lost my dear Polina. Now, it seems, I lost her forever».

…Many years ago, when he was young, after the service in the Navy, brave and handsome Ignat Dyomin worked as a sailor at the fish factory in Vladivostok. He saved a lot of money and became a big fish in a little pond when he returned to Minino. He could not stop looking at himself. Of course! The man any girl would marry. And all hell broke loose. He spoiled so many girls, he besmirched their good name. He could not understand: the path of a bachelor would lead nowhither. And so it happened. The villagers incessantly began to gossip about his «exploits» and indecent behaviour.

– What happened to the guy? He was quiet and hardworking. He dreamed of being a pilot and to make us famous. And what did he do? Oh, if only his father saw this shame! He would beat this shit out of him in public.

But Ignat continued to flit from one bed to another until it was too late. It is pretty easy to lose honour. And it is hard to bring it back. A year later, he turned from eligible bachelor to fast liver and philanderer. He wasted two savings-bank books on entertainment. As the proverb says, a fool and his money are soon parted. He wasted not only his own money but also the father’s inheritance. Suddenly, his friends and girlfriends were gone: he could barely make ends meet. He could not even hope to work on the railway. Only disciplined people were needed there.

Former neighbours were sedate people and sheltered Ignat out of respect for the memory of his parents. Soon, they got tired to open the door for him in the morning.

Once at the breakfast, the hostess began to talk to him about marriage.

– No offense, Ignat. I think you had a long walk. It is time for you to settle down. You need to get your own house and your own family. You are not a boy anymore. If you want to know my opinion, you should take a close look at the grandniece of my husband, Polina Neverova. She is prominent, educated, and unspoiled. She works as a medical assistant in the first-aid post and lives alone. She inherited the house from her grandmother Stepanida, who had recently died of old age. Polina wants to be a doctor.

– What kind of people are… the Neverov family? – Ignat asked with a slight sadness in his voice. The host Mikhail Ivanovich, the cousin of Egor Neverov, replied.

– That is the family of carpenters. They build houses, which are a real pleasure to look at, both on the inside and on the outside. It is a beauty! If you do not want to work on the railway, you can join the brigade of Egor. If you want, you can learn a lot. Skilful hands and diligence will help you make good money. You will get the farm, you will buy the car. You know, good carpenters have always been in high demand. As far as I can see, for the past year you spent the savings for the father’s house in the pub. It is wrong, Ignat.

Mikhail Ivanovich cleared his throat, blushed to sweat and, having soaked the sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his flannel shirt, without finishing his tea went out into the yard.