Andrei Makine - A Hero's Daughter

They called their son Kolka, like Ivan's baby brother who was killed by the Germans.

In the spring, as ill luck would have it, the kolkhoz's only horse died just before plowing time. Of late they had had nothing to give it but rotten hay and dried stems.

One morning they saw the Party's local boss, the Secretary of the District Committee, arriving in a jolting jeep. No sooner had he jumped down from his vehicle than he pounced on the head of the kolkhoz.

"So that's your game, is it? Sabotage, you son of a whore? You want to screw up the entire grain plan for the region? Well, I'm warning you. The perpetrators of deeds like that get shot as enemies of the people!"

He inspected the whole kolkhoz, cast an eye over the smithy and the stable. "Where's the horse?" he demanded. "What? Dead? Don't give me that crap. It's dead? You're a saboteur!"

They went out into the fields. The Party Secretary continued to fulminate. "Oh! So now he hasn't enough land for sowing… There's no end to his whining, this son of a dog. Look there. What's that? Isn't that land? Left in your hands, you filthy kulak, land like this is land gone to waste."

They had stopped beside a muddy field that ran down to the river. It was strewn with large white boulders. "Why don't you clear away those rocks?" the Secretary yelled again. "Well? I'm talking to you."

The head of the kolkhoz, who up to that moment had not opened his mouth, absently tucked the empty sleeve of his tunic into his belt with his remaining hand. In a hoarse voice he said: "Those are not rocks, Comrade Secretary…"

"So what are they, then?" yelled the other. "Are you telling me they're sugar beets that grew there all by themselves?"

They went closer. Then they saw that the white stones were human skulls.

"That's where our men tried to break through the ring of enemy troops," said the head of the kolkhoz in a dull voice. "They were caught in crossfire…"

Choking with fury, the Party Secretary hissed: "All you can do is give me goddamned stories. You're a fine bunch of Heroes here in this neck of the woods. You're sheltering behind your past exploits, the lot of you!"

Ashen-faced, Ivan advanced on him, grasped him by the lapel of his black leather jacket, and shouted in his face: "You filthy scum! At the front I shot down bastards like you with my submachine gun. Would you care to repeat what you said about Heroes…?"

The Party Secretary gave a shrill cry, wrenched himself free from Ivan and flung himself into the jeep. He leaned out the window and yelled above the sound of the engine: "Better watch out, head man! You'll answer for the plan with your life. And as for you, Hero, you've not seen the last of me."

The vehicle made the spring mud fly as it bounced along over the ruts.

They went back to the village in silence. The cool, acrid smell of humus wafted across from the forest where the snow had melted. The first plants were already appearing on the little hills. As they parted, the head of the kolkhoz said to Ivan: "Vanya, you were wrong to give him a shaking. You know what they say, don't touch shit and it won't stink. In any case, what we have to do tomorrow is start plowing. And not on account of that idiot's orders…"

The next day Ivan was making his way forward, leaning on the plow, stumbling over the ruts, slithering on the glistening clods of earth. With the aid of ropes fixed to the draft beam, the plow was being drawn along by two women. On the right walked Vera, in big sagging boots, that looked like elephants' feet on account of the mud. On the left Ivan's childhood friend, Lida. She still wore her schoolgirl's skirt, which left her knees bare.

The morning was limpid and sunny. Busily the crows were taking off and settling again on the plowed land. Fluttering past, hesitant and fragile, the first butterfly shone in a brief yellow flurry.

Ivan kept his eyes on the backs and feet of the two women as they struggled forward. Sometimes the plowshare dug in too deeply. The women braced themselves against the ropes. Then Ivan manipulated the handles of the plow, trying to help them. The steel plowshare sliced through the earth, wrenched itself free, and they continued their walk. And again Ivan saw the elephants' feet and the jackets discolored by the sun and rain. "The war…" he thought. "Everything stems from there… Take Lidka, hardly married and her husband sent to the front. Straight into the front line, into the mincing machine. A month later the death notice and there she is, a widow. A widow at eighteen. What a crying shame! And look how much she's aged! You'd scarcely recognize her. And those varicose veins! Like dark strings on her legs. She used to sing so well. The old folks would climb down off their stoves to listen to her, while we, young idiots, used to fight over her like cocks…"

They stopped at the end of the furrow and straightened themselves up. "Take a rest, girls," said Ivan. "We'll have lunch." They sat down on the ground, on last year's dry, brittle grass, unwrapped their sparse meal from a cloth. Unhurriedly they began to eat.

Spring had come. What lay in wait for them was the great drought of 1946.

By the month of May they had already reached the stage of boiling up the half-wild orache plants that grew by the roadside, tossing in a little scrap of rancid bacon and eating this brew in an attempt to cheat their hunger.

In June the burning wind of the steppes began to blow. The new grass began to shrivel and the leaves began to fall. The sun scorched the young corn to a cinder, dried up streams, struck down the starving people who went out in the fields. Even the wild strawberries that could be found at the edge of the forest had hardened into bitter, dry little balls.

At Goritsy one of the peasants arranged with the head of the kolkhoz to go and see what was happening in the neighboring villages. He returned five days later gaunt, with staring eyes, and very quietly, as if he were afraid of his own voice, and constantly looking over his shoulder, began to tell his story: "At Bor there are only two men still alive. At Valyaevka there's not a soul in sight. No one to dig graves: when folks die they just stay in their izbas… . You sure get the jitters going into one. Every time you push open a door it's a nightmare. I met a peasant on the high road yesterday. He was heading for the city. The hunger drove him to it. He told me that where he came from they were eating the dead, like they did on the Volga in the twenties…"

Ivan had become afraid to look at his wife of late. She hardly got up anymore. Lying there with the baby, dipping her finger into a brew of orache and old crusts, she tried to feed him. Her face was marked with dry brown spots; dark rings burned around her eyes. Kolka hardly moved on her breast. He no longer even cried, simply uttering tiny moans, like an adult. Ivan himself had great difficulty in standing upright. At length he woke up one day at the crack of dawn and reflected with mortal clarity, "If I don't find anything to eat all three of us will die."

He kissed his wife, put two gold watches, the spoils of war, into his tunic pocket, hoping to be able to trade them for bread. And set out toward the main road.

The village was dead. The noontide furnace. Dry, dusty silence. Not a living soul. Nothing but music blaring from the black loudspeaker above the door of the soviet. The radio had been installed by the Secretary of the District Committee, who had ordered that it should be switched on as often as possible, "to raise the political consciousness of the kolkhozniks. " But now the radio was simply blaring because there was no one to turn it off.

And from dawn till dusk, delirious with hunger and hugging the tiny body of her child with his great head, Tatyana listened to rousing marches and the commentator's voice almost bursting with glee. He was reporting on the industrial achievements of the Soviets. Then the same voice, but now in harsh, metallic tones, began hitting home at those enemies who had perverted Marxism and lambasted the agents of imperialism.