And quiet flows the Don; a novel (4 page)

"If you don't understand, hold your tongue! The sterlet will make for the bank now, they're afraid of storms. The water must be muddy by now. Dunya, go out and see whether you can hear the stream running."

Dunya edged unwillingly towards the door.

Old Ilyinichna would not be repressed. "Who's going to wade with you? Darya mustn't, she'll catch cold in her chest," she persisted.

"Me and Grigory, and for the other net . . . we'll call Aksinya and another of the women."

Dunya ran in breathlessly. Drops of rain hung trembling on her lashes. She smelt of the dank, black earth.

"The stream's roaring like anything," she panted.

"You coming too?"

"Who else is going?"

"We'll get some of the women."

"All right."

"Put on your coat and run to Aksinya," her father told her. "If she'll go, ask her to fetch Malashka Frolova, too."

"That one won't freeze," Grigory said with a grin, "she's fat as a hog."

"Why don't you take some hay, Grisha dear," his mother advised. "Stuff some under your heart or you'll take a chill inside."

"Yes, go for some hay, Grigory. The old woman's quite right."

Dunya quickly returned with the women. Aksinya, in a blue skirt and a ragged jacket belted with rope, looked shorter and thinner. Exchanging laughs with Darya, she took off her kerchief, wound her hair into a tighter knot, and throwing back her head, stared coldly at Grigory. As the stout Malashka tied up her stockings, she said hoarsely:

"Have you got your sacks? We're sure to haul up the fish today."

They all went into the yard. The rain was still falling heavily on the sodden earth, frothing the puddles and trickling in streams down to the Don.

Grigory led the way down to the river.

For no reason he suddenly felt very gay.

"Mind the ditch. Dad."

"How dark it is!"

"Hang on to me, Aksinya," Malashka laughed hoarsely.

"Isn't that the landing stage, Grigory?"

"That's it."

"Begin from here," Pantelei shouted above the roar of the wind. ,

"Can't hear you, uncle," Malashka called throatily.

"Start wading, I'll take the deep side. . . . The deep ... I say. Malashka, you deaf devil, where are you dragging to? I'll go out into the deeps. . . . Grigory, Grisha, let Aksinya take the bank!"

A groaning roar from the Don. The wind was tearing the slanting sheet of rain to shreds. Feeling the bottom with his feet, Grigory waded up to his waist into the water. A clammy cold crept into his chest, drawing tightly in a ring round his heart. The waves lashed his face and tightly screwed-up eyes like a knout. The net bellied out and was carried off into the deeps. Grigory's feet, in woollen socks, slipped over the sandy bottom. The net was being dragged out of his hand. Deeper, deeper. A sudden drop. His legs were carried away. The current snatched him up and bore him into midstream. With his right hand he vigorously paddled back to the bank. The black, swirling

depths frightened him as never before. His feet joyously found the muddy bottom. A fish knocked against his knee.

"Take it deep!" his father's voice came from the clinging darkness.

Again the net heeled over and pulled down into the depths. Again the current carried the ground away from under his feet, and Grigory swam, spitting out water.

"Aksinya, you all right?"

"All right, so far."

"Isn't the rain stopping?"

"The fine rain is, now we'll get the heavy stuff."

"Talk quietly. If my father hears he'll go for me."

"Afraid of your father, huh?"

For a moment they hauled in silence.

"Grisha, there's a sunken tree by the bank, I think! We must get the net round it."

A terrible buffet flung Grigory far away from her.

"Ah-ah!" Aksinya screamed somewhere near the bank. Terrified, he swam in the direction of her call.

"Aksinya!"

Wind, and the flowing roar of the water,

"Aksinya!" Grigory shouted again, going cold with fear,

"Hey, Grigory," he heard his father's voice from afar.

He struck out wildly. He felt something sticky under his feet, and caught it with his hand-it was the net.

"Grisha, where are you?" he heard Aksinya's tearful voice.

"Why didn't you answer my shout?" he bawled angrily, crawling on hands and knees up the bank.

Squatting down on their heels, they disentangled the net. The moon broke through the cracked shell of a cloud. There was a restrained mutter of thunder beyond the meadows. The earth gleamed with moisture. Washed clean by the rain, the sky was stern and clear.

As he disentangled the net Grigory stared at Aksinya. Her face was a chalky white, but her red, slightly upturned lips were smiling.

"The way I was knocked against the bank! I nearly went out of my mind. I was scared to death. I thought you were drowned."

Their hands touched. Aksinya tried to push hers into the sleeve of his shirt.

"How warm your arm is," she said plaintively, "and I'm frozen!"

"Look where that bastard got away," Grigory showed her a hole about five feet across in the middle of the net.

Someone came running along the bank. Gri-gory guessed it was Dunya. He shouted to her:

"Got the thread?"

"Yes. What are you sitting here for? Father sent me for you to come at once to the point. We've caught a sackful of sterlet." Unconcealed triumph sounded in her voice.

With teeth chattering, Aksinya sewed up the hole in the net. Then, to get warm, they raced to the point.

Pantelei was rolling a cigarette with scarred fingers swollen by the water; jigging about, he boasted:

"The first time, eight fish; but the second time . . ." he paused and silently pointed with his foot to the sack. Aksinya peeped curiously inside: from it came the slithery scraping sound of stirring fish.

"Where were you?"

"A sheat-fish broke our net."

"Did you mend it?"

"Yes, somehow."

"Well, we'll wade in once more up to our "knees, and then home. In you go, Grisha; what are you waiting for?"

Grigory stepped out with numbed legs. Aksinya was shivering so much that he felt the net trembling.

"Stop shaking!"

"I wish I could, but I can't catch my breath." "Listen! Let's get out, and damn the fish!" At that moment a great carp leaped over the net. Grigory dragged the net into a tighter circle. Aksinya toiled up the bank. The water splashed on the sands and slopped back. Fish lay quivering in the net.

"Back through the meadow?" "It's nearer through the wood." "Hey there, are you coming?" "Go on ahead. We'll catch you up. We're cleaning the net."

Frowning, Aksinya wrung out her skirl, hoisted the sack of fish over her shoulder and set off almost at a trot. Grigory picked up the net. They had covered some two himdred yards when Aksinya began to groan:

"I can't go on. My legs are numb." "Look, there's an old haystack. Why don't you have a warm there."

"Good! I'll never get home otherwise." Grigory turned back the top of the stack and dug out a hole. The long-lying hay smelt warm and rotten. "Crawl into the middle. It's like a stove here." She threw down the sack and buried herself up to the neck in hay. Shivering with cold, Grigory lay down at her side. A tender agitating scent came from her damp hair. She lay with

head thrown back, breathing regularly through her half-open mouth.

"Your hair smells like henbane. Do you know that white flower?" Grigory whispered, bending towards her. She was silent. Her gaze was misty and distant, fixed on the waning, crescent moon.

Taking his hand out of his pocket, Grigory suddenly drew her head towards him. She tore herself away fiercely, and raised herself from the hay.

"Let me go!"

"Keep quiet!"

"Let go, or I'll shout!"

"Wait, Aksinya!"

"Uncle Pantelei!"

"Have you got lost?" Pantelei's voice sounded quite close, from behind a clump of hawthorn bushes. Clenching his teeth, Grigory jumped out of the stack.

"What are you shouting for? Are you lost?" the old man questioned as he approached.

Aksinya stood by the haystack adjusting her kerchief, steam rising from her clothes.

"We're not lost, but I'm nearly frozen."

"Look, woman, there's a haystack, warm yourself," the old man told her.

Aksinya smiled as she stopped to pick up the sack.

It was some sixty versts to the training camp at Setrakov. Pyotr Melekhov and Stepan Asta-khov rode in the same wagon. With them were three others from their village: Fedot Bodov-skov, a young Cossack with a pock-marked Kalmyk face, Christonya Tokin, a second-draft reservist in the Ataman's Regiment of Lifeguards, and the artilleryman Ivan Tomilin. After the first halt for food they harnessed Christonya's and Astakhov's horses to the wagon, and the other horses were tethered behind. Christonya, burly and a bit queer in the head like all the men of the Ataman's Regiment, took the reins. He sat in front with his back, curved like a wheel, blocking out the light from the interior of the wagon, and urged on the horses in his deep, rumbling bass voice. Pyotr, Stepan and Tomilin lay smoking under the tightly-stretched tarpaulin cover. Bodovskov walked behind, his bandy Kalmyk legs making light of the dusty road.

Christonya's wagon led the way. Behind trailed seven or eight others, leading saddled and unsaddled horses. The road was noisy with laughter, shouts, songs, the snorting of horses, and the jingling of empty stirrups.

Pyotr's head rested on a bag of rusks. He lay still, twirling his tawny whiskers.

"Stepan!"

"Huh?"

"Let's have a song."

"It's too hot. My throat's dry as a bone!"

"You won't find any drink round here. So don't wait for that!"

"Well, sing up. Only you're no good at it. Your Grisha now, he can sing. His isn't a voice, it's a pure silver thread."

Stepan threw back his head, coughed, and began in a low, tuneful voice:

Oh, a fine glowing sunrise Came up early in the sky.

Tomilin rested his cheek on his palm like a woman and picked up the refrain in a thin, wailing voice. Smiling, Pyotr watched the little knotted veins on his temples turning blue with the effort.

Young was she, the little woman That went tripping to the stream.

Stepan, who was lying with his head towards Christonya, turned round on his elbow: "Come on, Christonya, join in!"

And the lad, he guessed her purpose. Saddled up his chestnut mare.

Stepan turned his smiling glance towards Pyotr, and Pyotr, flicking the tip of his moustache out of his mouth, added his voice. Opening wide his heavily-bearded jaws, Christonya roared in a voice that shook the tarpaulin cover:

Saddled up his chestnut mare To catch the little woman.

Christonya tucked his bare foot under him and waited for Stepan to begin again. Closing his eyes, his perspiring face in shadow, Stepan sang on gently, now dropping his voice to a whisper, now making it ring out metallically.

Let me, let me, little woman. Bring my chestnut to the stream.

And again Christonya's deep booming tones drowned the others. Voices from the neighbouring wagons took up the song. The wheels clanked on their iron rims, the horses snorted with the dust and the song floated on, strong and deep. A white-winged peewit flew up from the brown wilted steppe. It flew with a cry towards a hollow, turning an emerald eye to watch the chain of white-covered wagons, the horses kicking up clouds of dust with their hoofs, the men in white, dusty shirts, walking at the edge of the road. And as the peewit dropped into the hollow and its black breast

nestled into the damp grass pressed flat by roaming animals, it missed the scene that was taking place on the road. The wagons were trundling along as before, the sweating horses were still loping unwillingly through the dust, but now the Cossacks in their dust-grey shirts were running from their wagons to the leader, milling round it and roaring with laughter.

Stepan was poised at full height on the wagon, holding the tarpaulin with one hand, beating time with the other, and roaring out a catchy tune in double-quick time:

Oh, don't sit by me.

Oh, don't sit by me.

Folk will say you're in love with me,

In love ivith me

And coming to me.

In love with me

And coming to me.

But I'm. not one oi the common run. . . .

Dozens of rough voices took up the chorus with a roar that flattened the roadside dust:

But I'm not one oi the common run,

I'm not one oi the common run.

I'm brigand born.

And brigand bred-

Not one oi the common run.

And I'm in love with a prince's §Qn, . ..

Fedot Bodovskov whistled; the horses strained at the traces; leaning out of the wagon, Pyotr laughed and waved his cap; Stepan, with a dazzling smile on his face, impudently swung his shoulders; along the road the dust rolled in a cloud. Christonya jumped out of the wagon in his great long unbelted shirt, his hair matted, his face streaming with sweat, and did the Cossack dance, whirling round like a fly-wheel, frowning and groaning, and leaving the huge splayed imprints of his bare feet in the silky-grey dust.

VI

They stopped for the night by a mound with a sandy summit. Clouds gathered in the west. Rain dripped from their black wings. The horses were watered at a pond. Above the dyke dismal willows bowed before the wind. In the water, covered with stagnant duckweed and scaled with miserable little ripples, the lightning was distortedly reflected. The wind crumbled the raindrops sparingly as though scattering alms into the earth's swarthy palms.

The hobbled horses were turned out to graze, three men being appointed as guards. The other men lit fires and hung pots on the wagon shafts,

Christonya was cooking millet. As he stirred it with a spoon, he told a story to the Cossacks sitting around:

"The mound was high, like this one. And I says to my now deceased father: 'Won't the ataman* give it us for digging up the mound without permission'?"

"What's he blathering about?" asked Stepan, as he came back from the horses. He squatted down by the fire and flicked an ember on to his palm, juggling it about for a long time while he lighted a cigarette.