Andrei Makine - A Hero's Daughter

"Tomorrow," she murmured, drunk with tears and misery.

"Good! Well, tomorrow I'm taking you away. We'll go to my home and we'll get married there."

Again she shook her head. "What use can I be to you?" But without asking himself whether it was his head or his heart ruling him, he happily barked out a laughing order: "Silence in the ranks! To your duties, dismissed!"

Then, leaning forward, he whispered in her ear: "You know, Tanya, I'll love you all the more with your wound!"

His native village, Goritsy was almost deserted. He saw the charred ruins of the izbas standing there and the useless wooden uprights beside abandoned wells. The head of the kolkhoz, who had the emaciated face of a saint on an icon, welcomed them like his own kin. They walked together to the place where the Demidovs had lived before the war.

"Well, there it is, Ivan! It'll have to be rebuilt. For the moment there are only four men here, including yourself. There's a horse of sorts. But that's how it goes. I think we can have a housewarming before the fall."

"The first thing to be done, Stepanych," said Ivan, gazing at the weathered remains of his father's izba, "is for you to marry us."

The marriage was celebrated at the kolkhoz soviet. Everyone who lived in Goritsy – twelve people in all – was there. The bridal couple were seated, a trifle awkward and solemn, beneath the portrait of Stalin. Everyone drank samogon, the rough vodka made in the village. Merrily they cried out: "Gorko!" inviting the couple to kiss. Then the women, with voices somewhat out of tune, as if they had lost the habit, began to sing:

Someone's coming down the hill, My lover true, my handsome boy! Yes he's the one, now heart be still, Beating madly in my joy!

He has his khaki tunic on: The star shines red, the braid shines gold. Why did we meet on life's long road? Now tell me why. It must be told.

The dense summer night grew deeper outside the uncurtained windows. Two oil lamps glowed on the table. And the people gathered in that izba, far away in the heart of the forest, sang and laughed; and wept, too, happy for the young couple but bitter about their broken lives. Ivan wore his tunic, arefully washed, with all his decorations; Tatyana a white blouse. It was the gift of a tall woman with a swarthy complexion who lived in the ruins of an izba at the end of the village.

"This is for you, bride-to-be," she had said in a harsh voice. "It's for your wedding. When you came here, we thought you were a town girl. We said: 'Well there's one who's landed Ivan, a good catch and a Hero, too.' Then he told us your story. Go ahead, wear it and be beautiful. I cut it out myself. I knew you'd find it difficult with that hand of yours. My mother was keeping the material for her burial. The borders were all embroidered with crosses. She kept it in a little chest in the cellar. When the Germans burned the village my mother was burned, too. No more need for a winding sheet. I poked around in the ashes and found that chest there, still intact! Go ahead, wear it. You'll look lovely in it. It comes with all my heart…"

Toward the end of August the frame of the new izba could be seen rising up beside the ruins, filling the air with the scent of resin from freshly cut wood. Ivan began covering the roof. From the little shack they were living in they moved into the corner of the izba that was now roofed over. In the evening, dropping with exhaustion, they stretched out on sweet-smelling hay scattered over planks of pale timber.

Lying there in the darkness, they stared up through the framework of the roof at late summer stars as they soared and skimmed away in a dazzkng dance. All through the village the wispy blue scent from a wood fire in a kitchen garden hung over the earth. The already familiar scratching of a mouse could be heard in one corner. The silence was so intense you could believe you were hearing the shooting stars brushing against the heavens. And in one corner, above a table, you could hear the tick tock of an old chiming clock. Ivan had found it in the ruins, all covered with soot and rust, the hands stopped at a time frighteningly long ago.

Slowly they got used to each other. She no longer trembled when Ivan's calloused hand touched the deep scar on her breast. He did not even notice the scar anymore, or her little crippled fist. On one occasion she held on to his hand and drew it over the folds of the wound.

"You see. It's in here, in this little hollow, that it's lodged. The devil take it!"

"Yes. It's bitten deep."

Ivan drew her to him and whispered in her ear: "It doesn't matter. You'll make me a son and give him the right breast. The milk's the same…"

The izba was completed in the fall. A little before the first snow they harvested the potatoes, planted late, as well as some vegetables.

The snow fell, the village went to sleep. But from time to time they could hear the tinkling of a bucket in the well and the old dog coughing in the yard that belonged to the head of the kolkhoz.

In the morning Ivan went to the soviet, then to the smithy. Together with the other men he was repairing tools for the farmwork in spring. On his return he would sit down at the table with Tanya. He blew on a red-hot cracked potato, stole quick glances at his wife, unable to conceal a smile. Everything afforded him a secret joy. It was clean and tranquil in their new izba. They could hear the regular sound of the clock. Outside the windows etched with ridges of frost a mauve sun was setting. And close beside him sat his wife who was expecting a child, radiant, a trifle solemn, and more attractive than ever in her sweet and serene seriousness.

After the meal Ivan liked to stroll slowly through the rooms of the izba, listening to the creak of the floorboards. He patted the stove's white walls and would often remark: "You know, Tanyushka, we'll have a whole brood of children. And when we grow old we'll keep warm lying on this stove. It's true, just look at it. It's no mere stove, it's a real ship. The shelf on top is even better than the old one."

The winter grew severe. The wells froze right down to the bottom. The birds, stricken in midflight, fell to the ground as little lifeless balls. One day Tanya gathered up one of these birds just outside the house and put it on a bench near the stove. "It may recover in the warmth," she thought. But the little bird did not stir. The hoarfrost on its feathers simply glistened in fine droplets.

In April they had their son. "He's so like you, Ivan," said Vera, the woman with the swarthy complexion. "He'll be a Hero, too." The child was crying and she had picked him up and handed him to his father.

Toward evening Tanya began to feel breathless. They opened the window to let in the cool April dusk. Vera gave her an infusion to drink but nothing brought her comfort. The nearest doctor lived in a village a dozen miles away. Ivan put on his overcoat and set off at a run on the deeply rutted road. He did not return till the early hours of the morning. He had borne the old doctor on his back the whole way.

The injections and medicines brought Tanya some relief. Ivan and the doctor, both of them light-headed with weariness after their sleepless night, sat down to drink some tea. Vera brought a little crock of goat's milk, warmed it and fed the child.

Before going on his way the doctor downed a small glass of samogon and said: "Now then, if ever her heart falters you must give her this powder. But, strictly speaking, she shouldn't have had a child, she shouldn't even knead dough… Yes I know, I know, soldier… when you're young… I was young once myself!" He winked knowingly at Ivan and set off toward the main road.