He hadn’t seen Radka since her wedding. Auntie Gruda would lie in wait for her by the well or the grocer’s shop but never managed to detain her for more than a minute. “I’m fine, how else could I be,” Radka would say, hurrying on her way. At these short meetings, she never once looked her mother in the eye and never once said anything about herself. Her face and figure had grown so thin that she could hardly carry the full pails of water on her shoulders. Auntie Gruda would come home in tears, telling her husband that Radka was not in a good way. He gave no sign of having heard or understood what she said. He would turn away or go outside. Yet Auntie Gruda would not leave him in peace, she would follow at his heels, lamenting: “Those people are going to work her to the bone, Kalcho, they’ll ruin her health! Nothing left of her face but two big eyes, she’s thin as a rail! Go get her and bring her home!”
Once as she was going on like this to him, he grabbed her by the arm and pointed at the door.
“No need to shout!” Auntie Gruda said out of habit. “Ooof, Good Lord, I’m going off the deep end myself. What do you want?”
“Boobooboo all vuhh!” he jabbered, and started making some kind of signs with his hands, his eyes filling with tears.
“You want me to go?”
“Mmm! Aha!”
Auntie Gruda tossed her shawl over her shoulders and set off, while he went to get corn from the crib for the chickens. He put a few cobs in the little trough, but before he got back to the house, the church bell began to toll. The peals echoed off the wall of the granary and faded away in the distance. Salty Kalcho looked toward the church and saw a large flock of pigeons soaring high in the sky. They were making wide circles over the village and at every turn their wings gleamed with the rays of the sunset. Salty Kalcho took off his hat and thought: I wonder who passed away, may God have mercy on their soul! The bell tolled once again, he went into the house, sat down by the stove, and set about shucking corn. Outside, in the vestibule, he heard a sort of whimpering, the door opened slowly, and on the threshold stood Auntie Gruda with her shawl in her hands.
“Kalcho, we’ve lost our daughter! Radka’s passed away, Kalcho!”
The sun had set by the time the two of them arrived at Zhendo’s house. Zhendo’s wife met them teary-eyed in the yard. She was alone in the house and didn’t dare go into the room with the dead girl. Zhendo wasn’t home, while Koycho had been away in the army for several months already.
Radka was lying on her side, her hair scattered loose, in a corner of the room, where she had crawled from the bed in her final throes of agony. Salty Kalcho went over to her, picked her up in his arms, but instead of placing her in the bed, he carried her toward the door. Both women stared at him in silence and only when he kicked open the door and went out into the yard did Zhendo’s wife start howling like a she-wolf: “Kinsmannnn, why are you taking our little daughter-in-law, why are you making a vampire of her soul?”
She’s never been yours, neither alive nor dead, Salty Kalcho wanted to tell her, but couldn’t. A man on horseback was blocking the gate, looming like a black monument against the glow of the sunset. Salty Kalcho slipped between the horse’s head and the gatepost. He wouldn’t have even noticed the rider if the latter hadn’t called out to him: “What the hell are you doing?”
Salty Kalcho set off down the street as if he hadn’t heard. As soon as she saw her husband, Zhendo’s wife grabbed his leg and began screaming hysterically: “They took her! They took her! Get her back, they’ve brought shame upon us!”
Zhendo kicked her in the chest and urged the horse into the yard. Then he suddenly jumped to the ground, went back, grasped his wife by the hand and dragged her toward the house. At the same moment, my grandmother, who was carrying an armful of kindling, heard a cry and rushed over to the gate. “I look and what do I see? Kalcho carrying a child in his arms, and Gruda next to ’im, crying herself hoarse” – she later recounted. “So I go over there and crikey! I can’t believe my eyes. Kalcho’s carrying Radka like a little child. Her face is resting on his shoulder, her hair all hangin’ loose, reaching all the way down to his waist. I’d been over to Zhendo’s the day before to return a pan, but also so I could check on Radka. Ever since that bad blood at the wedding, her folks never came callin’, but Gruda was always sendin’ me over to Radka’s place to report back what I heard and saw. But even if I hadn’t gone over there, I would’ve known everything anyway – our houses are right next door, if anyone of us sneezes, they hear it, if anyone of them yawns, we hear it. So I’d see our Radka, she was always lying around, curled up like a kitten under a blanket, not moving, not sayin’ a word. What’s wrong, child, I’d ask her, but she’d just look away, wouldn’t answer. Always one and the same thing…”
My grandmother dropped the kindling straight on the ground and just as she was, in the robe she’d gone out into the yard with, she set off with Auntie Gruda, both of them bawling in unison. A few more elderly women joined them, adding their voices to the lament. Salty Kalcho was walking in front of them, holding his dead daughter as if she were alive, the fragile layer of ice covering the ground shattered beneath his heavy footsteps, while the sinister tolling of the church bell rang out over the hushed village. Once they arrived home, the women lit the fireplace in the inner room, filled a cauldron with water, and set it over the fire. The others soon left, leaving only Grandma and Auntie Gruda by the hearth. Once the water was warm, the two women picked up the dead girl, placed her in a large tub, and began undressing her. Her body was tawny and supple as if still alive, yet so withered that she looked like a sleeping ten-year-old child. From her waist all the way down to her calves, she was spattered in thick black blood, her tunic was also soaked with blood. Grief-stricken, the two women exchanged glances, then finally Grandma said: “She miscarried, the poor thing…”
Auntie Gruda let out such a piercing, sinister shriek that Grandma jumped and, not knowing what to do, she started crossing herself and pounding her head with her fists. The dead girl’s terrible, shameful past should not have been mentioned, and Grandma was cursing herself for this blasphemy. They didn’t say a word while bathing the body, dressing it in clean clothes, and carrying it into the room. Still silent, communicating by glances alone, they placed the dead girl on the bed, lifted her head onto the pillow, and fixed a lighted candle in her hands. The scent of wax, incense, and dried basil filled the room, where the stiff, stark, soothing mystery of death reigned.
After leaving the dead girl to the women, Salty Kalcho went out into the yard, and from there into the garden. He felt like going somewhere far away, so he started walking and walked until late in the evening. It was nearly the end of February and winter had softened its grip, during the day the sun shined, melting the snow, while in the evenings the puddles formed a thin crust of ice. The night was bluishly light, cold, and deathly deserted, not a single lighted window could be seen, nor could any sound be heard. Salty Kalcho kept walking and walking with an ease he had never felt before, as if his feet weren’t touching the ground, but rather moving through the air like the wings of a bird. Someone took him by the hand, pulled him back, and then he saw Mitka, his youngest daughter, standing next to him, looking at him with tears in her eyes.
“Daddy, I’ve been calling you for ages! Mom says you should come home. There’s no one to watch over Radka.” She led him toward the yard, and before going inside the house, she glanced toward the door of the barn and said: “Looks like the cow’s going to calve any day now. She’s just lying there, huffing and puffing…”
They spent the night keeping vigil over the dead girl, he on one side, Auntie Gruda on the other. Mitka fell asleep before midnight. She had spent the whole evening rushing back and forth, looking after the livestock, going to the well for water and to the carpenter’s to order the coffin, and fell asleep as soon as she sat down by the stove. Auntie Gruda pulled her over to the bed, tucked her in, and sat back down across from her husband. As yellow as jasmine, he was sitting on a three-legged s
tool with his elbows on his knees, not moving and not taking his eyes off the dead girl’s face. And so a whole hour passed, Auntie Gruda grew alarmed at his unmoving gaze and so as to distract him, started chattering about household business, saying it was time the onions and garlic were planted, that the sheep had already started giving birth, so they needed to fence off a special space in the barn for the mothers. He gave no sign with his hand or head to show that he had heard or understood her, and since he had gone mute at Radka’s wedding, Auntie Gruda was afraid that he had now lost his mind upon her death. She found his cigarettes and matches on the windowsill and handed them to him, trying to get him to take his eyes off the dead girl, so she could peer into them and see whether he was still in his right mind.
“You usually smoke like a chimney, but now you won’t even light up. Come on, now, have a smoke! Come on, husband, light up!”
He turned his eyes toward her and Auntie Gruda, leaning close to his face as she was, saw in his pupils a warm, resigned anguish, and not cold emptiness and madness. Her heart unclenched, and when he took a cigarette and lit up, she sat down at his knee, put her arms around him, and started to cry.
“Don’t look at her like that!” she said through her tears. “God is watching her now. Her soul is pure, that’s why he called her home so early. Come, go to bed now, you’re tired.”
Auntie Gruda led him to the other room, settled him in the bed, and as she pulled the covers over him he had already fallen asleep. They woke him up the next afternoon when they were leaving for the graveyard. The burial was quick and quiet, old Father Encho read the final prayer in his hoarse voice and they lowered the coffin into the grave. Several women began wailing loudly, as was the custom when taking final leave of the deceased, while Auntie Gruda, her voice and strength gone, collapsed onto the fresh grave. They pulled her to her feet, loaded her into the oxcart they had brought the coffin on, and the small funeral procession headed back toward the village. On their way to the cemetery, Salty Kalcho had been staring at the coffin, just as during the night he had stared at the dead girl’s face, while now his gaze was fixed on the tracks from the cart’s rear wheels. Wherever the tracks turned, he turned as well, and so he made his way home.
On the fourth day after Radka’s funeral, Auntie Gruda forced him to hoe some space for the summer garlic. Even though the sun was shining, the earth was still cold and they could’ve waited, but she wanted to distract him with work. If he wasn’t doing anything, he would sit frozen, staring into space, not wanting to “talk” to anyone. He looked after the livestock as before and worked around the yard, except now he needed to be reminded of everything. Auntie Gruda handed him the spade, showed him where to dig, and went back into the house. He went into the garden, swung the spade down off his shoulder, and froze. He turned around in a full circle, staring at the ground, and again froze to the spot. He suddenly felt how he was standing on the earth with his full weight, he caught the scent of newly sprouting corn and smoke, he heard the polyphonic sounds of the village, he saw the fruit trees stretching their budding branches toward the sky, thirsty for warmth and space, he saw the circle he had trampled down with his feet the night when he had left the house to go somewhere far away. He remembered, as if awakened from a heavy sleep, that he hadn’t gone anywhere, but rather had walked around in that endless circle for hours, like a horse hitched to a post, he remembered how Mitka had come to bring him home, how he had stared at the dead girl’s face the whole night, without feeling grief or pain, how he had watched her burial, without tossing even a handful of dirt on her coffin. “How did all of this happen,” he asked himself, and realized that he had spent those four days in some quiet, oblivious world, from which he had looked upon everything around him without thought or conscience. Inconsolable tears burst from his eyes, and the question that had been tormenting him for months on end once again settled on his heart like a stone: “Why has God punished me with so much anguish, is it because I’m guilty, and if so, of what?”
After supper, Auntie Gruda sent him to check on the cow. He went into the barn, raised the lantern above his head, and saw the cow lying on one side, her belly distended and her head flopped back. He hung the lantern on the beam, and as he stepped toward the cow, he saw that she was drenched with sweat and that the calf’s front legs were already showing. He knew that after the front legs, the little head would follow, so he knelt down and slowly started pulling the legs toward him. When the knees appeared, he realized that these were the back legs and fear seized him. The calf was breech and perhaps stillborn, and the cow might die as well. What should I do now? he wondered, not thinking to call Auntie Gruda or one of the neighbors. And so the night passed.
The calf was born safe and sound at dawn, all pinkish-red, with only one white patch on its head. The cow immediately got to her feet and started licking it. Drained from stress and exhaustion, Kalcho sat down on a pile of straw to rest and fell asleep. He dreamed that he was sitting on the upper veranda in the vineyard and that a little white bird had landed at the top of the cherry tree, which was in leaf, and started singing, yet instead of its song, the tinkling of little bells filled the space around him. Now, as always, he was amazed to discover that it was not the bird, but the leaves of the tree that were fluttering in the wind, brushing against one another and ringing like tiny bells, and everything had frozen in joyful repose and bliss…
I saw him in the autumn of ’47, when I had just come back to the village after my army service. The drive to get folks to join the cooperative farm was at its height. Like most young people, I, too, took part in the agitprop brigades. The local party secretary Stoyan Kralev had assigned me the task of canvassing my relatives, friends, and neighbors, so I started with Salty Kalcho. Auntie Gruda was working away at something in the garden, so I hopped over the fence and went up to her.
“My man has started talking again!” she said as soon as she had greeted me.
I knew that he had gotten his speech back, but I pretended that I was hearing it for the first time to give her the pleasure of telling the story yet again. She was pulling up leeks, stacking the thicker and thinner stalks into little piles, so I leaned down to help her. And she told me how one night she had sent him out to check on the cow: “He lit a lantern, went out, and was gone a good long while, so long that I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was dawn, and he still wasn’t there. I remembered that I’d sent him out to the barn the night before, so I tore over there, opened up the door, and what did I see? He’s lying on his back in the straw, his arms stretched out as if stone-cold dead. Scared the living daylights out of me! ‘Kalcho, Kalcho,’ I cried, because I was afraid to go over to him, but he sprang to his feet, opened his eyes and said: ‘We got ourselves a calf!’ And ever since then he’s been talking again. There he is now up on the roof of the sheep pen, resetting the tiles…”
He had seen me talking to her and had come down the ladder to greet me. He seemed like a completely different person, and not only because I was seeing him in civilian clothes for the first time. In the expression on his face, which was aged slightly and weather-beaten, in his eyes, and in his gait, there was a surprising change, as if along with his military uniform he had also tossed aside that unfitness for life that had caused him for years to live far from people in contemplative isolation, only to give himself over now to work and caring for his land like all the other villagers. He wiped his palms, which were stained with the red dust of the roof tiles, on his pants, then we shook hands and started chatting about who had been where during the four or five years we hadn’t seen each other.
“I figgered I oughta fix the roof tiles on the sheep pen, ’cause ever since the first rain fell the other day, the sheep’ve been lying around wet, their fleece’s gotten spattered with mud.”
“But won’t the sheep be spending the winter in the cooperative pen?” I tried to say this jokingly and by-the-by, to somehow start in on my canvassing. He looked at me just like everyone would look at me from then on
when I tried to persuade them to join the new co-op – with astonishment and reproach, with mockery and a patronizing air reserved for someone who clearly believes the moon is made of green cheese. And they wouldn’t tell me with their eyes alone, but at the top of their lungs: “You don’t have any land, and even if you did, you wouldn’t have to make your living from it, that’s why you make free and easy with everyone else’s.” Salty Kalcho would later tell me this as well, but now he had no inkling that I had come to work him over, yet he still gave as good as he got: “You hintin’ at the co-op? Leave off with that business already, they’ve been breathin’ down my neck about it for six months now. Soon as you stick your nose out the door, they glom right on to you, then it’s come on, sign up, sign up for membership in the co-op, that’s the place for you. I thought membership was voluntary, for cryin’ out loud, so then why’re you always on my back, pressin’ me about it, I ask ’em. I got nothin’ against it, I tell ’em, you go ahead and do what you’ve got a mind to do, we’ll see how far you get with it, and if it’s all well and good, then we’ll join up too. ’Cause what fool runs from a good thing? So they got together and decided to do it, but they ain’t got enough people. They got eighty communists, but even they aren’t keen on it, most of ’em have taken to their heels.”
Wolf Hunt Page 6
