Mother Read online

The majority, broken by work and indifferent to everything, responded:

  “Nothing will come of it – is it really possible?”

  But the leaflets agitated people, and if for a week there were none, they would already be saying to each other:

  “They’ve evidently stopped printing…”

  But on Monday the leaflets would appear again, and again the workers would be making muffled noises.

  At the inn and the factory, fresh people that nobody knew were noticed. They made enquiries, scrutinized, sniffed about and were immediately obvious to everyone, some through their suspicious caution, others through their excessive persistence.

  The mother understood that this uproar had been caused by the work of her son. She saw how people were gathering around him. And apprehension about Pavel’s fate merged with pride in him.

  One evening, Maria Korsunova knocked on the window from the street, and when the mother opened it, she began in a loud whisper:

  “Take care, Pelageya, our friends have done it now! It’s been decided there’ll be a search tonight, at your place, Mazin’s and Vesovshchikov’s…”

  Maria’s thick lips slapped against one another hurriedly, her fleshy nose wheezed, her eyes blinked and cast sidelong glances one way then the other, looking out for somebody in the street.

  “But I don’t know anything, and I haven’t told you anything, and I haven’t even seen you today, d’you hear?”

  And she vanished.

  Closing the window, the mother sank slowly onto a chair. But consciousness of the danger threatening her son quickly got her back up on her feet; she promptly put her things on, for some reason wrapping her head up tightly in a shawl, and ran to see Fedya Mazin – he was ill and not working. When she arrived at his house, he was sitting by a window reading a book, rocking his right hand in his left with his thumb stuck out. Learning the news, he leapt up quickly, and his face turned pale.

  “Well, what do you know…” he murmured.

  “What needs to be done?” asked Vlasova, wiping the sweat from her face with a trembling hand.

  “Wait – don’t you be afraid!” replied Fedya, stroking his curly hair with his uninjured hand.

  “But you’re afraid yourself, aren’t you?” she exclaimed.

  “Me?” His cheeks flushed red and, smiling in embarrassment, he said: “Ye-es, damn it… Pavel needs to be told. I’ll send to him right now! You go – it’s all right! They’re not going to hit anyone, are they?”

  Returning home, she collected all the books and, pressing them to her breast, spent a long time walking around the house, peering into the stove, underneath it, even into the water bucket. She had thought that Pavel would drop his work and come home straight away, but he did not come. Finally, tired, she sat down on a bench in the kitchen with the books underneath her, and stayed like that, afraid to get up, until Pavel and the Ukrainian arrived from the factory.

  “Do you know?…” she exclaimed, without getting up.

  “We do,” said Pavel, smiling. “Are you afraid?”

  “I am – I’m so afraid!”

  “Don’t be!” said the Ukrainian. “It doesn’t do any good.”

  “You haven’t even put the samovar on!” remarked Pavel.

  His mother stood up and, indicating the books, explained guiltily:

  “Well, I’ve been with them all the time…”

  Her son and the Ukrainian laughed, and this reassured her. Pavel picked out a few of the books and went to hide them in the yard, while the Ukrainian, putting on the samovar, said:

  “It’s not frightening at all, nenko, you just feel ashamed for people spending time on trifles. Grown men’ll arrive with sabres at their sides and spurs on their boots and rummage around everywhere. They’ll look under the bed and under the stove; if there’s a cellar, they’ll climb into the it and they’ll go up into the attic. There they get their faces covered in cobwebs, and it makes them snort. They’re bored, they’re ashamed, and that’s why they pretend to be really vicious people and angry with you. It’s vile work, and they realize it! One time they turned everything over at my place, got embarrassed and simply went away; then another time they took me with them too. Put me in prison, and there I sat for about four months. You do nothing but sit there, then they summon you, soldiers escort you down the street, they ask you something. They’re a foolish lot, they talk some senseless stuff, and after they’ve talked, they order the soldiers to take you back to prison again. And they keep on taking you to and fro – they have to justify their salary! And then they set you free – and that’s that!”

  “The way you always talk, Andryusha!” the mother exclaimed.

  He was kneeling by the samovar, blowing zealously into its pipe, but at this point he lifted his face, red with the effort, and, smoothing his moustache with both hands, he asked:

  “And what way do I talk?”

  “As if no one had ever offended you…”

  He stood up and, with a toss of his head, began with a smile:

  “Is there a soul anywhere on earth that’s not been offended? I’ve been offended so much that I’m already tired of taking offence. What are you to do if people can’t behave any other way? Being offended stops you getting on with things, and brooding on it’s a waste of time. That’s life! There were times when I used to get angry with people, but I’d think about it and see it wasn’t worthwhile. Everyone’s afraid the person next door might hit them, so they try to be quick and box his ears themselves. That’s life, my nenko!”

  His speech flowed serenely and pushed the anxiety of waiting for the search aside, his bulging eyes smiled brightly and, although ungainly, he was all in all so lithe.

  The mother sighed and wished him warmly:

  “God grant you happiness, Andryusha!”

  The Ukrainian took a long stride towards the samovar, squatted down in front of it again and murmured quietly:

  “If I’m granted happiness, I shan’t refuse it, but I won’t ask for it!”

  Pavel came in from the yard, saying confidently: “They won’t find them!” and started having a wash.

  Afterwards, while wiping his hands thoroughly and hard, he began:

  “If you show them you’re scared, Mamasha, they’ll think: ‘That means there’s something in this house, if she’s trembling so.’ You understand, don’t you, that we want nothing bad: truth is on our side, and we’re going to work for it all our lives – that’s all we’re guilty of! So what is there to be afraid of?”

  “I’ll pull myself together, Pasha,” she promised. And after that came a miserable outburst: “But I wish they’d come soon!”

  They did not come that night though, and in the morning, forestalling the possibility of jokes about her fear, the mother was the first to start joking about herself: “I got scared before the fright had come!”

  X

  They appeared almost a month after that anxious night. Nikolai Vesovshchikov was visiting Pavel, and the two of them were talking with Andrei about their newspaper. It was late, around midnight. The mother had already gone to bed, and as she was falling asleep, she heard through her drowsiness concerned, quiet voices. Then Andrei went through into the kitchen, treading cautiously, and quietly shut the door behind him. An iron bucket made a clatter in the lobby. And suddenly the door swung wide open, and the Ukrainian strode into the kitchen, whispering loudly:

  “There’s the ringing of spurs!”

  The mother leapt up from the bed, grabbing her clothes with trembling hands, but Pavel appeared in the doorway from the other room and said calmly:

  “Stay in bed – you’re unwell.”

  A cautious rustling was audible from the lobby. Pavel went up to the door and, giving it a push with his hand, asked:

  “Who’s there?”

  With strange speed, a tall grey figure drove in through
the door, then after it another, and two gendarmes pressed Pavel back, taking up positions on either side of him, before a shrill, mocking voice rang out:

  “Not who you were expecting, eh?”

  This was said by a tall, slim officer with a sparse black moustache. The settlement policeman, Fedyakin, appeared by the mother’s bed and, putting one hand to his cap while pointing the other into the mother’s face, said, with a terrifying grimace:

  “This here’s his mother, Your Honour!” and, waving at Pavel, added: “And this is him himself!”

  “Pavel Vlasov?” asked the officer, narrowing his eyes, and when Pavel silently nodded, he declared, twisting his moustache: “I need to conduct a search of your house. Old woman, get up! Who’s in there?” he asked, looking into the other room, and strode briskly towards the door.

  “Your names?” his voice resounded.

  In from the lobby came two witnesses – Tveryakov, an old founder, and his lodger, Rybin, a stoker, a solid, black-haired fellow. In a loud, rich voice he said:

  “Hello, Nilovna!”

  She was getting dressed and, to give herself some courage, said quietly:

  “What ever’s going on! They come in the night, people have gone to bed, but along they come!…”

  It was cramped in the main room, and for some reason there was a strong smell of boot polish. With a loud stamping of feet, two gendarmes and the settlement’s chief of police, Ryskin, took the books off the shelf and put them all together on the table in front of the officer. The other two banged their fists on the walls and looked under the chairs, and one climbed clumsily up onto the stove. The Ukrainian and Vesovshchikov stood in a corner, pressed up tight against one another. Nikolai’s pockmarked face was covered in red blotches, and his little grey eyes watched the officer fixedly. The Ukrainian twisted his moustache, and when the mother came into the room, he grinned and nodded to her affectionately.

  Trying to suppress her fear, she moved not sideways, as she always did, but straight ahead, with her chest forward; this lent her figure a funny, pompous self-importance. She stamped her feet loudly, but her eyebrows were trembling…

  The officer grabbed the books quickly with the slender fingers of his white hand, leafed through them, gave them a shake and, with a deft movement of the wrist, tossed them aside. At times a book would plop softly onto the floor. All were silent, you could hear the heavy wheezing of the sweating gendarmes, spurs jingled and at times a low voice would ring out:

  “Have you looked here?”

  The mother went and stood by the wall next to Pavel, folding her arms over her chest as he had done, and she too watched the officer. She felt weak in the knees, and her eyes were shrouded by a dry mist.

  Suddenly, in the silence, Nikolai’s grating voice rang out:

  “And why is that necessary – throwing the books on the floor?”

  The mother winced. Tveryakov shook his head, as though someone had given it a jolt from behind, and Rybin let out a croak and looked at Nikolai attentively.

  The officer narrowed his eyes and drilled them for a second into the pockmarked, immobile face. His fingers started flicking over the pages of the books even more quickly. At times he would open his big grey eyes so wide, it was as if he were in unbearable pain and were about to emit a loud cry of impotent rage against that pain.

  “Soldier!” said Vesovshchikov again. “Pick the books up…”

  All the gendarmes turned around to him and then looked at the officer. The latter raised his head again and, taking a searching look at Nikolai’s broad figure, he drawled out through his nose:

  “Go on then… pick them up…”

  One of the gendarmes bent down and, with a sidelong glance at Vesovshchikov, began picking the tattered books up from the floor…

  “Nikolai should keep quiet!” the mother whispered softly to Pavel.

  He shrugged his shoulders. The Ukrainian bowed his head.

  “Who is it that reads the Bible?”

  “Me!” said Pavel.

  “And whose are all these books?”

  “Mine!” replied Pavel.

  “So!” said the officer, leaning against the back of his chair. Cracking the fingers of his slender hands, he stretched his legs out under the table, smoothed his moustache and asked Nikolai:

  “Are you Andrei Nakhodka?”

  “I am!” answered Nikolai, moving forward. The Ukrainian reached out his hand, took him by the shoulder and moved him back again.

  “He’s mistaken! I’m Andrei!…”

  Raising his hand and wagging his little finger at Vesovshchikov, the officer said:

  “Just you watch it!”

  He started rummaging in his papers.

  The bright, moonlit night looked into the window from the street with soulless eyes. Someone was walking around slowly outside the window, and the snow was squeaking.

  “Nakhodka, have you been involved in an inquiry into political crimes before?” asked the officer.

  “I have, in Rostov and in Saratov… Only the gendarmes were polite with me there…”

  The officer blinked his right eye, wiped it and, baring his small teeth, began:

  “Now are you aware, specifically you, Nakhodka, who the bastards are that are distributing criminal appeals at the factory, eh?”

  The Ukrainian swayed on his feet and, smiling broadly, tried to say something, but again there was the sound of Nikolai’s irritating voice:

  “This is the very first time we’ve seen any bastards…”

  Silence fell, and for a second everyone stopped.

  The scar on the mother’s face turned white, and her right eyebrow climbed upwards. Rybin’s black beard started trembling strangely; lowering his eyes, he began slowly combing it with his fingers.

  “Get this swine out of here!” said the officer.

  Two gendarmes took Nikolai by the arms and led him roughly into the kitchen. There he stopped, digging his heels hard into the floor, and cried:

  “Wait… I’ll put my things on!”

  In from the yard came the police chief and said:

  “There’s nothing – we’ve examined everything!”

  “Well, it stands to reason!” the officer exclaimed with a grin. “We have a man of experience here…”

  The mother listened to his weak, quavering and brittle voice and, looking fearfully into his yellow face, sensed in this man a pitiless enemy with a heart full of lordly scorn for other people. She saw few such men and had almost forgotten there were any.

  “So this is the sort of man they’ve stirred up,” she thought.

  “Illegitimate Mr Andrei Onisimov Nakhodka, I’m arresting you!”

  “What for?” the Ukrainian asked calmly.

  “I’ll tell you that later!” the officer replied, angrily polite. And turning to Vlasova, he asked: “Are you literate?”

  “No!” replied Pavel.

  “I’m not asking you!” said the officer sternly, and asked again: “Old woman, answer!”

  Involuntarily surrendering to a feeling of hatred for this man, and suddenly gripped by the shivers, as though she had jumped into cold water, the mother straightened up, her scar turned crimson, and her eyebrow sank down low.

  “Don’t shout, you!” she began, stretching her arm out towards him. “You’re still a young man – you don’t know what woe is…”

  “Calm down, Mamasha!” Pavel stopped her.

  “Wait, Pavel!” his mother cried, surging towards the table. “What are you seizing people for?”

  “That doesn’t concern you – silence!” the officer cried, standing up. “Bring in the prisoner Vesovshchikov!”

  And he started to read out some sort of document, holding it up to his face.

  Nikolai was brought in.

  “Hat off!” cried the office
r, interrupting his reading.

  Rybin went up to Vlasova and, nudging her with his shoulder, said quietly:

  “Don’t get worked up, mother…”

  “How can I take my hat off, if my arms are being held?” asked Nikolai, drowning out the reading of the record of proceedings.

  The officer threw the document onto the table:

  “Sign it!”

  The mother watched the record being signed, and her excitement was extinguished, her heart sank and tears of hurt and impotence welled up in her eyes. She had cried these tears for the twenty years of her marriage, but in recent years had almost forgotten their bitter taste; the officer looked at her and, wrinkling his face fastidiously, remarked:

  “Your howling is premature, madam! Mind you don’t run out of tears for later on!”

  Embittered again, she said:

  “A mother has tears enough for everything, for everything! If you have a mother, then she knows it, yes!”

  The officer filed his papers away into a nice new briefcase with a shiny lock.

  “Move!” he commanded.

  “Goodbye for now, Andrei, goodbye for now, Nikolai!” said Pavel warmly and quietly, shaking his comrades’ hands.

  “Precisely – for now!” the officer repeated with a grin.

  Vesovshchikov wheezed loudly. The blood had flowed into his thick neck, and there was harsh malice sparkling in his eyes. The Ukrainian was all flashing smiles, nodding his head and saying something to the mother, while she made the sign of the cross over him, as well as saying:

  “God sees the righteous…”

  The crowd of men in grey greatcoats finally tumbled out into the lobby and, with their spurs ringing, disappeared. Last to go out was Rybin, who said pensively, after his dark eyes had cast an attentive gaze at Pavel:

  “So, farewell!”

  And, coughing into his beard, he went out unhurriedly into the lobby.

  With his hands folded behind his back, Pavel walked slowly around the room, stepping over the books and linen lying about on the floor, and said dolefully:

  “You see how it’s done?…”

  Scrutinizing the ransacked room in bewilderment, the mother whispered miserably: