Stoyan Kralev never missed such convenient opportunities to discredit the fascist government and to emphasize the advantages of Soviet rule, even though his fellow villagers listened to him indifferently and even made fun of him. The German Army had reached the Caucasus, the supreme command had fixed mid-November as the final deadline for taking Stalingrad, and no one believed there could be a turn in the tide of the war. Even the “powers-that-be” in the village were not annoyed by his propaganda; on the contrary, they relished arguments with him so they could corner him with indisputable facts and laugh at his political blindness. Empty-handed, Stoyan Kralev nevertheless stood his ground against them, constantly repeating that sooner or later the Germans would lose the war. He seemed so unshakable in his faith even when the end of the war was clear to everyone that his opponents did not consider him a true communist, but rather a long-winded crackpot, who was always harping on the same old tune. Indeed, Stoyan Kralev “harped away” every chance he got and more or less managed to draw from every fact of life some conclusion in communism’s favor. That evening, everyone was shocked by the bride’s unstained chemise, he was shocked as well, yet he remained true to his beliefs. His role as godfather demanded that the young couple’s parents listen to him, so he started talking about the equality between the sexes that had been achieved in a great country that was now battling a fascist incursion. What had happened here tonight could never happen there, because there the young woman would never be humiliated in such a way. She had the right to mix with whomever she chose, to pick her comrade in life on her own, and to decide for herself with whom and how to live. In the end, Stoyan Kralev reached the conclusion that rituals such as this one with the bride’s chemise were thought up by the bourgeoisie to deprive a woman of her rights. When she slaves in the fields alongside her husband, when she cooks, cleans, and looks after the children, no one gives a flying fig about her plight, but when she dares to love someone and he deceives her, then she becomes bad and dishonorable. How do you know that the girl has been with a man, anyway? This sort of thing can happen on its own, there’ve been cases like that. Besides, maybe the groom (here Stoyan Kralev hesitated as to whether to say this or not), maybe the groom didn’t do the deed properly, he’s still a boy, after all…
“The deed has been done, Godfather, just not now,” said the woman who had brought the bottle of sweet brandy. “But let’s hear it from Sissy Dona as well.”
Sissy Dona was the neighborhood midwife and had been entrusted with the task of confirming the bride’s disgrace.
“ ’Tis true!” she said, and folded her arms over her belly.
“Well, even if it is true, for crying out loud, so what of it? Should something like that ruin the girl? The old folks say – and you women know better than anyone – that a woman’s honor isn’t between her legs, but between her ears.”
“We did what was asked of us,” Sissy Dona said with the indifference of a surgeon. “From here on out, let the groom and his parents decide.”
The groom and his mother were not in the room, while his father was sitting with his head bowed, staring into the empty cup in front of him. When he felt that all eyes were on him, he waved his hand and this gesture of desperation was so expressive that everyone realized what he was going through and were filled with sincere sympathy for him. The whole village knew that he had swallowed his pride and gone to make the match with Trotsky in person, he had cast aside age-old tradition, and only his nobility and magnanimity had saved his dignity from public censure and ridicule – he hadn’t demanded a dowry or even a trousseau from his future daughter-in-law. Now she repaid his kindness by putting him through this terrible and shameful ordeal – would he accept her, disgraced as she was, or send her away after she had already come into his house? Everyone waited with bated breath to see how Zhendo would solve this dilemma; as for Trotsky, he didn’t seem to have fully grasped what had happened or else had grasped it so clearly and tragically that he was in no condition to move or talk. He was sitting there white as a sheet, only his eyes flitted restlessly from one end of the table to another, while his arm lay as if severed on the sergeant major’s knee. For his part, the sergeant major was staring at the wall across from him, looking more than ever like the Dalai Lama. Only his right hand, true to its habit no matter what the circumstances, rose toward his lips and in the deathly silence the sound of him spitting on his fingers could be heard: ptui, ptui, ptui!
“That’s how it goes!” Zhendo sighed at last. “When you’ve really got your heart set on something, it never works out.”
The crowd outside surged through the door and the room was filled to bursting. Everyone wanted to hear what more Zhendo would say, but he fell silent.
“But it’s already worked out, kinsman!” Stoyan Kralev called out. “You’ve got a good, hardworking daughter-in-law, that’s the most important thing. All the rest is poppycock.”
“Godfather!” Zhendo replied. “You’re always going on about Russia as if you just arrived from there yesterday. But let me tell you this: Russia is Russia, but our folks here are our folks here. There, people might walk on their heads, they might not get married in church, they might eat from common bowls and share their women. That’s their business. We’re simple Bulgarians, so we’ll do things the Bulgarian way.”
“It’s not the Bulgarian way, but the bourgeois way…”
“I’m no bourgeoisian, nor am I a communist. But I know that a woman should go to her wedding bed virtuous. A woman who’s let some other man rock on top of her isn’t fit to be a mother or a homemaker.”
“Pardon me for saying so, kinsman, but you’re talking like a fool!”
“Well, maybe I am a fool,” Zhendo said, “and as my godfather, you’ll pardon me for saying so, but since you’re so smart, then you tell me: Did your wife come to you popped, or if she did, would you have taken her? Answer me that!”
A titter swept through the crowd, Stoyan Kralev’s wife lowered her eyes in shame, while he just shrugged: You can’t argue with an imbecile.
“There’s an easy cure for everything in this world,” Sissy Dona spoke up when the giggling had died down. “Whoever’s made their bed must lie in it. Five acres and let bygones be bygones.”
What was said in the room was instantly transmitted from mouth to mouth to the porch, and from there into the yard, because from all the way out in the yard many voices exclaimed: Whoa, a whole estate!
Zhendo didn’t second – but nor did he reject – Sissy Dona’s idea either with a word or a glance. Disappointment seemed to have snuffed out all emotions within him, such that it was all the same to him.
“It’s easy to strut in borrowed plumes, Dona!” someone called out. “If you were in Radka’s place, you think your father would’ve given a square inch of land for you?! Why are you sticking your nose in other people’s business? Let Zhendo have his say.”
“Zhendo’s had a bad shock, he might make a blunder now and end up beating himself up for it forever afterward,” Sissy Dona retorted. “He’s my aunt’s son, I won’t just stand here and let them pull a fast one on him. If they don’t like it, they can take her back. A woman’s honor is worth even more than that.”
Now everyone’s attention was fixed on Trotsky. He was still sitting there pale as death, silent. His idol was silent as well, staring at the wall in front of him, from time to time spitting on the fingers of his right hand. Everyone was silent and it lasted so long that the silence became unbearable and ominous. Then Auntie Gruda appeared. No one saw how she had come, it was as if she had wriggled through the crowd’s legs, she was disheveled, her kerchief hung down around her shoulders, she looked strained to the last nerve and pathetic. She stood next to her husband and told him calmly, the way only something with endless despair can be said: “Give it to them, give them all the land they want, may it lie barren and parched!”
She had gone to speak to her daughter in the other room and with these words confirmed her disgrace. The crowd fi
red off a new volley of exclamations. And so one of the mysteries of the evening had been solved. Two more remained. Who in the village had sullied Radka’s honor, was it a married man or a bachelor (the village would rack its brains over this mystery later), and whether her father would give any land, and if so, how much. Former Sergeant Major Chakov carefully removed Trotsky’s arm from his knee, said “Hup!” and got up. The crowd parted to make way for him and he left. Zhendo clutched his brow, got up, and followed him out.
“Well?” Sissy Dona asked, with the tone of a repossession agent, as she stood there with her arms crossed over her belly.
Trotsky started making some signs with his hands. He had been struck dumb, but none of us realized it and many people burst out laughing. He opened his mouth to say something, some garbled sounds spilled out of his mouth, while his eyes bulged from the strain. He finally pointed at Sissy Dona, grabbed a spoon, and started scribbling on the table cloth with it.
“He wants to write,” someone realized.
“I see,” Sissy Dona said, and darted into the other room, coming back a minute later with a piece of paper, a dip pen, and a bottle of ink. “Where is Ivan Shibilev to write for him?”
The hostage had disappeared somewhere and Trotsky grabbed at the pen himself. Sissy Dona flipped over an empty tray, placed the paper on top of it, and handed him the pen. He wrote for a long time, spattering his fingers with ink, and when he was done, Sissy Dona looked over what he had written.
“Write the day and the year!”
Trotsky added the day and year, she handed the paper to her husband, and he read it aloud, with the help of those more literate than he was:
I sine over to my dauter Ratka five akers of feelds, Kalchu Stetef, St dimiturs day 1942.
“Now that’s what I call rubbing salt in his wound!” someone said.
I presume that his new nickname was born right that very minute, because by the next day they were already calling him Salty Kalcho. So that’s what I’ll have to call him from now on as well.
The blizzard was gathering strength, blustering down in the Inferno. Salty Kalcho had lost his left glove along the way and kept sticking his hand either under the collar of his sheepskin coat or in his pocket. Ten minutes hadn’t even passed since he had taken up his post in the blind, yet his legs were already going numb with cold. Let’s hope the beaters come sooner rather than later, so we can go home, there’s no sense in sitting out here freezing our tails off for nothing, he thought to himself, and for the thousandth time since they had left the village felt guilty for this pointless wolf hunt. Why didn’t I just drink Zhendo’s wine, may God strike me down! Would it have stuck in my throat and choked me? It all started with that bottle, just like that, all at once. It’s as if it was the same bottle they gave me at Radka’s wedding. As soon as I reached for it, my hand just froze. Take a sip, I told myself, folks are waitin’ on you, you’ve come to a comradely gathering. Fine, but my hand doesn’t want to grab that bottle and that’s that. My heart starts pounding, I started gettin’ all hottish, I don’t know what to say, and I can’t budge my tongue in any case. I thought I’d forgotten all that business, but there it was buried in my head like a thorn. Many times at night I’ve gone over it and over everything that happened after that, and my heart’s ached with anguish. Many times I’ve thought to rub out Zhendo or do something that would fill his heart with anguish too, but I always told myself: Nope, that’s not right. Even if I were to kill him, that wouldn’t undo the wrong he’s done me. He won’t take that wrong to the grave with him, it’d only be redoubling the wrongs. But still, that thorn, for twenty years now I can’t get it out of my head. How many things I’ve forgotten in that time, both good and bad, yet I still remember that business. I remember as if it were yesterday. It’s never ceased to amaze me what a thing human memory is. You want to forget something, to cleanse your soul, but your memory hangs onto it your whole life, may it thrice be damned! If a man didn’t have a memory, he’d live in this world like an angel. Memory’s at the root of all this evil. Ivan Shibilev did right in luring us out into these woods. He’s got a heart of gold, and is a sly dog to boot. So he, too, remembers that night with the empty bottle. And the others remember it too, or else they wouldn’t have gotten up as one and gone out into this blizzard. And since they’ve up and gone out, they mean to say: Let bygones be bygones. We’re not gonna take this bad blood to the grave with us…
But while he was vowing to forget the past, he recalled another blizzard that had buried his shack and practically suffocated him. The night of Radka’s wedding, he had gone back to his shack and begun living there all alone. If earlier he had rarely sought company, after being struck dumb he didn’t even want to see his wife. When Auntie Gruda brought him food the next day, he bellowed angrily, making it clear that she needn’t bother trudging out to the vineyard. He would go to the village once a week – and then only at night, so as to avoid running into people – and would bring back a bag of bread, beans, and potatoes and would cook up a little soup over the fire. The vineyards were deserted, there wasn’t a soul in sight, and he was left alone with his muteness like an ancient Hesychast. He wanted to give himself over to full unity with nature, just as he had done for years on end, but an emptiness had opened up in his soul, dark and impenetrable, and he couldn’t experience the sweet and mystical harmony with life around him as before. He had cultivated senses and an inner sight for that life, he could see, hear, and sense the vines, trees, and grasses growing, blossoming, bearing fruit, and dying, only to be born again. Not only by day, but by night in his dreams he would witness the mystery of growth, and he knew that the mute plants were living creatures, divinely noble, the most noble creatures in this world, who grew, came into being, and died in unrepining silence, not complaining about the elements, not affronting anyone, not devouring their own fruit, immobile and drinking life from the depths of the earth, so as to pass it on to other living creatures. He knew people ridiculed him for living like an outcast, but in his every encounter with them he felt insignificant and helpless in the face of their vanity and vehemence and hurried back to his lair. Solitude and inactivity replenished his strength, balance, and peace; from the heights of his veranda the world looked majestic and calm, there were no wars, no brawls, no feuds, there were no lies and dishonor. His one passion was his military uniform, yet even it was not actually a passion, but a necessity. Like armor, his uniform hid his unfitness for life and lent him a certain authority in people’s eyes, even if it was the authority of an official functionary of the lowest rank. For the same reason, he had built a cult around a paltry individual like the former Sergeant Major Chakov. His memories of his harsh life in the army and his personal relations with the sergeant major fed his feelings of manliness, strength, and physical stamina. And so he had managed to create or imagine a harmonic coexistence – albeit “in absentia” – with people and the world.
He often dreamed about goodness, which appeared in his dreams as the cherry tree growing next to his shack, weighted down with blossoms and fruit, reaching up toward the clear blue sky. A tiny white bird would alight at the very top of the tree, open its little beak toward the sky, and start singing, only instead of a birdsong, the sound of bells, clear and melodious as children’s voices, would ring out. Usually he happened to be sitting on the veranda, and every time he would be amazed by the little white bird and every time he would discover that it was not the bird, but rather the leaves of the cherry tree fluttering gently in the breeze, brushing together and ringing out like tiny bells. Little by little, he himself would transform into the sound of a bell, flying through the open expanse, weightless and light as a soul, and he would see how everything on earth had fallen mute with bliss. Evil, on the other hand, even though he dreamed about it only rarely, inevitably appeared to him as a karakondzhul, the mythical bogeyman of his childhood, an indescribable, terrifying creature, a combination of all rapacious beasts and birds of prey, with its enormous, bloodthirsty mouth
and sharp teeth, sometimes with a beak and wings. It would stand before him, ready to pounce, while he never thought to grab his rifle and kill it, but instead kept retreating until he fell to the bottom of some abyss, where evil would be looking down on him from above, laughing with a human laugh. The night of the wedding, when he had learned of his daughter’s disgrace and had been forced into paying for it with land, evil had appeared before him, standing across the feast table from him. It crossed his mind that he was not dreaming and that evil was standing before him while wide awake, ready to tear him apart, yet he wasn’t frightened as he was in his dreams. He only wanted to ask: “Why?” He gathered the air in his lungs, opened his mouth, yet couldn’t utter the word. Since then the word had been constantly on the tip of his tongue, but he could never utter it. Why had Radka been ruined so young and green, why had Zhendo blackmailed him, why had he lost his words? Why had God punished him with three misfortunes at once, what harm had he ever done to anyone? This question weighed on his heart like a stone, he wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs before the whole world and couldn’t. Until one night in early December when a sudden snowstorm raged and buried the shack, he broke a hole in the roof and slipped out.
He went home and didn’t leave the yard the whole winter, and, for the first time since he had become watchman at the vineyard, set about working around the homestead. During the first few days, he started shoveling snow off the barn, to stay as far away from his family as possible so as not to torture them with his muteness, and then he simply fell into the habit of puttering about the yard. He split wood, fed the chickens and animals, and especially liked taking care of the two oxen and the cow, which had grown emaciated and splattered with piss stains. He groomed them with the metal comb, stirred up warm mash for them, stayed in the barn by night to feed them, and had them back in shape in two months. At nightfall, when they needed to be given water, Auntie Gruda or Mitka, his youngest daughter, would drive them to the well, because he didn’t want to show his face in public. He was also forced to remove his military uniform, so as not to ruin it. He first took off the shoulder strap, followed a few days later by the belt, the jodhpurs, the jacket, and finally his snow-white gaiters. In their place he pulled on old clothes left over from his bachelor days, which made him look like an apprentice in his own home. Auntie Gruda wove homespun cloth, Stoyan Kralev sewed him a suit of clothes without bothering to take his measurements, and thus Salty Kalcho met the new year as a civilian.
Wolf Hunt Page 5
