It was just at this time that we received a letter from an anonymous kolkhoz worker in the village of Walnut Springs who was writing in to complain about his chairman’s disgraceful treatment of the goatibex. In addition to depriving the animal of adequate food and shelter, this chairman had actually set dogs on it. The kolkhoz workers were moved to tears by the sufferings of the new animal, but were too afraid of the chairman to protest. The anonymous letter concluded with the words: “Yours sincerely, in a spirit of righteous indignation.”
“He may be exaggerating, of course,” said Platon Samsonovich as he showed me the letter, “but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. So I’d like you to go out to Walnut Springs and see for yourself what’s going on.”
He paused for a moment and then added, “I know this chairman; his name is Illarion Maximovich. He’s a pretty good manager, but a real conservative; he thinks of nothing but his tea crop.”
“As for the general line of your article,” continued Platon Samsonovich, now extending his hand into the air as if groping for the contours of my future article, “it should run pretty much as follows: ‘Tea is fine, but the meat and wool of the goatibex are even better.’ ”
“Okay,” I replied.
“Remember,” he said, stopping me as I was halfway through the door, “a lot will depend on this assignment.”
“I understand.”
Platon Samsonovich reflected for a moment.
“There was something else I wanted to tell you.… Oh yes, be sure you get up in time to make the morning bus.”
“Now really, Platon Samsonovich!” I exclaimed and with that was off to fill out my travel voucher.
On the way I stopped off at the mail and supply room and picked up a notebook, two pencils (just in case I should lose my pen), and a penknife with which to sharpen them. Nothing was to be left to chance!
III
The bus sped smoothly and powerfully along the highway. On the right side of the road, beyond the green gardens and small white houses, one could catch a glimpse of the sea, which looked warm even from the distance. It seemed to be saturated with a soothing abundance of summer heat and of swimmers—mostly girls.
On our left green foothills drifted by, covered with fields of ripening corn and tangerine trees. Every once in a while one also saw fields of lop-eared little tung trees dotted with clusters of fruit.
During the war the soldiers of a construction battalion stationed in these parts had picked and eaten the fruit of the tung tree, which looks something like unripe apples but in fact is terribly poisonous. They had been strictly forbidden to touch the fruit, but they ate it anyway. These were hungry times, of course, and probably they thought the poisonous business had been dreamed up just to scare them. Usually it was enough to pump out their stomachs, though there were instances where the poisoning was fatal.
At times a light breeze—so unexpected that it seemed to have been stirred up by the bus itself as it rounded the curve—would bring with it a distant scent of musty fern, of sunbaked manure, and the milky fragrance of ripening corn. In all of this there was something so sweetly and sadly reminiscent of my childhood, of the village and my native land, that I could not help asking myself why it is that smells wield such great power over us. Why is it that there is no memory which can evoke the past with such intensity as the familiar smells which we associate with it? Perhaps the secret lies in their uniqueness—in the fact that we cannot recall a smell in the absence of the smell itself or, in other words, cannot recreate it in our imagination. And when a smell is recreated in its natural form, it forces to the surface everything that was once associated with it. Visual and auditory impressions, on the other hand, are so frequently evoked through memory that perhaps for this very reason they eventually become dulled.
The passengers rode along on their soft, springy seats, rocking gently to the motion of the bus. The top of the bus was covered with a tinted-blue glass which turned the already blue sky into an incredibly rich and intense shade of blue. It was as if the glass were showing the sky how it should look, and the passengers how to look at it.
This particular bus had been turned over to the Public Transportation Office only recently. In the past it had transported foreign tourists around the city, and sometimes I used to catch a glimpse of it parked in front of the Botanical Gardens, the old fortress or some other scenic spot.
On this occasion it was filled with kolkhoz women on their way home from the city. Each of them carried a tightly stuffed bag or basket from which protruded the invariable cluster of bubliki-thick, ring-shaped rolls. Not without pride some of them also clasped Chinese thermos bottles, which reminded one simultaneously of a prize sports cup and an artillery shell.
Whole mountain ranges drifted slowly by on our left. The highest and most distant of them were covered with the first snow of the season, and their peaks glistened brightly against the horizon. The snow must have fallen the previous night, since these peaks had been bare the day before.
The mountains closer to us were covered with forests and shaded a dark blue. They were a long way away from the snow-covered peaks.
Suddenly, at a turn in the road and on a level with these closer mountains I saw a ridge of bare rocks. At the sight of them my heart contracted with fear and delight, for just below lay our village. As a child I had found these rocks terribly sinister and mysterious and had never ventured up to them, even though they were quite close—along a difficult route, to be sure. And now, reflecting on all the places I had been in my life, I suddenly regretted that I had never once visited these rocks.
Every summer from earliest childhood I had spent several months at my grandfather’s house in the village. And always when I was up there in the mountains, I felt homesick—not so much for home itself as for the city. How I longed to return to the city and inhale once again that peculiarly city smell of dust fused with the odor of gasoline and rubber. I find it difficult to understand now, but in those days I would gaze nostalgically in the direction of the setting sun, comforted by the knowledge that our city lay there to the west, just beyond the soft and rounded contours of the mountain. And all the while I would be counting the days till the end of vacation.
Then, when we would finally return home to the city, I remember the sensation of extraordinary lightness in my legs as I took my first joyful steps on the asphalt pavement. At the time, I attributed this sensation to the smoothness of paved city streets, but it was probably due more than anything else to my endless walks along mountain paths, to the fresh air of the mountains, and to the simple and nutritious food we ate in the village.
Nowadays, no matter where I am, I never feel a trace of that eager and joyous longing for the city. On the contrary, I have begun to miss my grandfather’s house more and more. Perhaps this is because I can no longer return to it: the old people have passed away and all their children have moved to the city, or at least closer to it. But in those years when the house still belonged to our family I was always too busy to spend much time there. It was as if I were keeping it in reserve, to be visited sometime in the future. And now that there’s no one there to visit, I cannot help feeling deprived, as if I had somehow been cut off from my roots.
Even though I seldom visited my grandfather’s house, it helped me from afar by its very existence. The smoke from its hearth, the generous shade of its trees—everything about it made me bolder and more self-confident. I was almost invulnerable because a part of my life, my roots, lived and thrived in the mountains. And when a man is aware of his roots and has some sense of continuity in his life, he can direct it more wisely and generously. And it is harder to rob or deprive him, because not all of his wealth is carried on his person.
I miss my grandfather’s house with its large green yard. And I miss the old apple tree, long overgrown with a hardy grapevine, and the walnut tree under whose green canopy we would lie stretched out on a tanned ox or ibex hide during the hottest part of the day.
How many un
ripe apples we shook from the old apple tree, and how many unripe walnuts with their delicate kernels and thick, green skins not yet hardened into shells.
I miss the large, roomy kitchen of my grandfather’s house, with its earthen floor, its warm, broad hearth and the long, heavy bench placed in front of the hearth. It was here that we would sit in the evenings, listening to endless tales of hunting expeditions, of treasures unearthed in ancient fortresses, and of our own fearless mountaineers who fought against the Russian tsars. On this same bench my uncle would sit cutting tobacco with his sharp hatchet. After a while he would seize a burning coal from the hearth and throw it into a heap of freshly cut tobacco. Then, with slow satisfaction he would stoke this smoking heap, making sure that it became thoroughly dried and saturated with the sweet aroma of wood smoke.
I miss the women’s evening calls from hilltop to hilltop, from valley to mountain, and from mountain to valley. How lonely and pure is the sound of a woman’s voice in the cool of the evening!
Just before sunset the chickens would remind us that they had, after all, been born to fly. First they would begin their restless cackling; then, eyeing the branches of the fig tree, they would suddenly fly upward, only to miss their mark and fall back to earth. After a second try they would finally reach the desired branch and settle in place behind the angrily squawking golden rooster.
At about this time my aunt would come out from the kitchen with a pail clanging in her hand. She would cross the yard with a light, nimble gait, stopping on her way to pick up a dry branch with which to chase away the calf. As she approached the cow pen, she would be greeted by questioning moos, while from under the elevated corn granary the baby goats would be heard, as noisy and playful as schoolchildren.
Before long Grandfather or one of the other men would appear with the rest of the goats, driving them home from pasture. Herded together in a noisy throng, the goats would come pouring into the yard, their stomachs bulging curiously to one side. Full of good spirits, the males would rear up on their hind legs, only to fall back, jostling and colliding with their neighbors and eventually entangling themselves in a welter of horns. And whenever they played like this, we knew that the grazing had been good.
Then the baby goats would be let out, so the nursing could begin. The kids would go running up to their mothers, who would assume an expression of foolish vigilance, not wishing to confuse their own offspring with someone else’s—which they nonetheless did. But it was all the same to the kids—they would greedily attach themselves to the first udder that came along. Only after several eager tugs at the nipple would the mother recognize her own offspring and then either push the hungry mouth away or grow calm and contented, as if the pain caused by her own offspring were somehow different from that caused by someone else’s.
As the years went by, there came to be fewer and fewer of these goats—and fewer cows too. We even began feeling a shortage of milk at home—of that same milk which, according to my grandfather, had been so plentiful in past summers that they had not had time to process it. And now this milk was all gone, and no one knew where it had disappeared to.
I remember our attic and the handwoven rug on the attic wall. Embroidered on the rug was an enormous bushy-browed deer with sad eyes and a feminine face. In the background of the rug, behind the deer, was a tiny little man. This little man stood in a hunched position and was taking aim at the deer with cruel zeal. Even as a child I could tell that this little man resented the deer and could not forgive it for being so large when he, the man, was so small. No doubt it would have been as impossible for the little man to forgive this difference in size as it would have been to change it—to make the little man large and the deer small.
And although the deer was not looking at the man, one could tell by its sad eyes that it knew exactly who he was and what he was doing. And the deer was so enormous that the man could not possibly help hitting it. The deer knew this too, but had nowhere to hide; it was so big that it could be seen from every side. In the beginning it had probably tried to flee, but now it realized that there was no escape from this hunched little man.
I would often gaze at this handwoven rug, and each time I looked at it, I was always filled with love for the deer and hatred for the hunter. And more than anything else I hated the cruel zeal of his hunched shoulders.
I miss the feel of warm muslin sheets which, after hanging all day on the porch, exude the fresh, sunny fragrance of summertime.
We children always had to go to bed before the grownups, and as we lay upstairs listening to their voices coming from the kitchen, we would also hear the voice of our own inner fears, which were somehow mysteriously bound up with the darkness of the room, the pensive creaking of the walls and, staring down from these walls, the portraits of deceased relatives, now fading away in the twilight.
And I miss even the walls of my grandfather’s house, with their chestnut beams naively papered with posters, cheap reproductions, and newspaper and magazine pages. The latter dated back to the nineteen-twenties and thirties and occasionally contained some interesting items. And what fun I had reading those pages, either lying supine on the floor or standing up on a chair or couch. And sometimes, unable to restrain myself, I would tear off a particular page so that I could turn it over and read the continuation on the other side. And before long I had read each and every wall in my grandfather’s house.
And what those walls did not contain!
An enormous oleograph of Napoleon abandoning the burning city of Moscow: horsemen in cocked hats, the walls of the Kremlin, and in the background a fiery glow stretching the length of the horizon.
Some pre-Revolutionary pictures on a religious theme: Christ ensconced in the clouds and wearing sandals which were laced with thongs and somehow reminiscent of our Caucasian rawhide moccasins.
Skillfully manouevering his prancing steed, the Archangel Gabriel slays the loathsome dragon. And right beside him, our own Soviet posters on anti-religious and agricultural themes. One of these posters I remember very well. A peasant stands at one end of a bridge which has suddenly opened up as if from some Biblical curse, and with hands thrown up in despair he watches as his horse and cart plunge downward through the gaping hole. And beneath this instructive picture appears the no less instructive caption: “If you’d thought to insure for a rainy day, at a moment like this you’d be okay!”
I never found this peasant very convincing. There was something too womanish in his reaction to the situation. The horse had barely fallen through, and yet there he was, standing idly by, throwing up his hands in despair.
Everything I had observed in real life led me to believe that no peasant would part with his horse so easily, but would do everything in his power to save it. And if, as in this case, he had lost hold of the reins, then at least he would have tried to grab hold of the horse’s tail.
Once when I happened to take a long look at this peasant, I thought I detected a smile peeping out from under his mustache like some small beast of prey peering through the bushes. This smile was so unexpected that it actually startled me. I may have imagined it, of course, but if I did, I was able to do so precisely because I had always felt that there was something false about him.
The picture’s caption was equally ambiguous. I could never quite figure out what was supposed to be insured—the horse or the bridge. I assumed it was the horse, but then the implication would be that the bridge should be left there to collapse, since if it were repaired, there would be no reason to insure the horse.
Perhaps the most touching and profound characteristic of childhood is an unquestioning belief in the rule of common sense. The child believes that the world is rational and hence regards everything irrational as some sort of obstacle to be pushed aside. Even when confronted by the most irrational of circumstances, the child instinctively looks for some underlying element of reason. And not doubting for a moment that it is there, he concludes that it has merely been distorted or hidden from view.
Why this belief in the rationality of things? Perhaps it is due to the fact that in childhood we still feel the throbbing of our mother’s blood which once flowed through our veins and nourished us. And since the world of our mother’s arms was always good to us, it is hardly surprising that we grow up believing in the goodness and rationality of this world. And how indeed could it be otherwise?
The best people, I think, are those who over the years have managed to retain this childhood faith in the world’s rationality. For it is this faith which provides man with passion and zeal in his struggle against the twin follies of cruelty and stupidity.
My grandfather’s house had a reputation for hospitality and was always filled with relatives and numerous other visitors—from various and sundry officials and district Party workers on down to transient shepherds overtaken by bad weather on their annual cattle drive to summer pastures. I myself saw such visitors by the hundreds.
My uncle owned five or six cows and some fifty goats. Most of these animals were registered in the name of some relative, usually a relative from the city. The number of animals which could be owned by a single individual had for some time been restricted by law, and in our part of the country this had resulted in a sudden and mysterious blossoming of fictitious gifts, sales, and purchases.
As far as I can remember, pigs were the only animal whose numbers were not officially restricted. Knowing that the eating of pork was strictly forbidden by Islamic law, the central authorities probably assumed that the Abkhazians would not be likely to accumulate excessive numbers of pigs.
Our peasants tried as best they could to save their animals, but despite all their efforts and the use of every possible stratagem the number of livestock in our region steadily dwindled with each passing year.
The Goatibex Constellation Page 4
