Doctor Zhivago (93 page)

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Well now, as I was saying, when the Reds began to come up to the town, my mother sent to Nagornaia Station for Marfa, the signal woman. That was three stations away from the town. I
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ll tell you how it was. First there was Nizovaia, and then there was Nagornaia, and then there was the Samsonov Pass. Now I think I understand it, why Mother knew this signal woman. I think this signal woman, Marfa, used to come and sell milk and vegetables in the town. That
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s it.

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And here is something I don
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t know. I think they cheated Mother, they didn
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t tell her the truth. The Lord only knows what sort of story they told her, I suppose they said it was just for a time, for a day or two, till things settled down. She didn
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t mean to give me to strangers forever. To be brought up by strangers—Mother could not have given up her own child like that.

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Well, you know how it is with a child.
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Go and talk to Auntie, she
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ll give you a piece of gingerbread, nice Auntie, don
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t be frightened of Auntie.
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How I cried afterwards, how heartbroken I was, how I missed my mother—it
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s better not to remember that. I wanted to hang myself, I nearly went out of my mind as a small child. That was all I was at that time. I suppose Aunt Marfa got money for my keep, a lot of money.

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There was a rich farm that went with the signal job, a cow and a horse and of course all kinds of fowl, and a big place for vegetables—out there you could get as much land as you liked—and of course no rent because the house belonged to the government; it was right next to the tracks. When the train was coming from home, it could hardly get up the hill, it was so steep, but coming from your parts, from Russia, down it came so fast they had to use the brakes. Down below, in the autumn, when the woods thinned out, you could see Nagornaia as if it were set on a saucer.

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The signal man, Uncle Vasilii, I used to call just Daddy. He was a kind and cheerful man, only terribly trusting, especially when he was drunk. Everybody knew all there was to know about him all over the countryside. He
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d turn his heart inside out to every stranger he met.

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But the signal woman I never could call Mother. Whether it was because I couldn
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t forget my own mother or for some other reason, the fact is Aunt Marfa really was terrible. Yes. And so I called the signal woman Aunt Marfa.

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Well, time went on, years went by, how many I don
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t know. I was beginning to go out to the trains to wave the flag, and I could bring the cow in or unhitch the horse. Aunt Marfa taught me to spin, and as for the housework, it goes without saying I did that. Anything like sweeping or tidying or doing a bit of cooking, that was nothing to me, I did all that. Oh, yes, and I forgot to tell you, I looked after Petia. Our Petia had withered legs, he was three but he couldn
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t walk at all, so I carried him around. And now, after all those years, I still get shivers down my back when I think of how Auntie Marfa used to squint at my strong legs as much as to say why weren
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t my legs withered, it would be better if I had withered legs instead of her Petia, as if I
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d put the evil eye on him. You wouldn
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t believe what spite and superstition there is in the world.

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But now listen to what I
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m going to tell you. All that was nothing to what happened later. It
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ll make your hair stand on end.

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It was the time of NEP, a thousand rubles was worth a kopeck. Uncle Vasia sold a cow down below and got two sacks full of money. Kerenki it was called—no, sorry, they were called lemons then, that
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s what they were called. He had a drink and told everyone in Nagornaia how rich he was.

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I remember it was a windy day in autumn. The wind was tearing at the roof, it nearly knocked you off your feet, and the engines couldn
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t get uphill because the wind was head on. Suddenly I saw an old beggar woman coming down from the top of the hill, the wind tugging at her skirt and blowing off her kerchief.

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She was walking along and moaning and clutching her belly. She asked us to take her in, and we put her on the bench. Oh, she yelled, I can
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t stand it, I can
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t stand it, my belly is on fire, this is my end. In Christ
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s name, she begged, take me to the hospital, I
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ll pay you whatever you like. Well, Daddy hitched Udaloy, the horse, to the cart, put the old woman in the cart, and took her to the county hospital, which was eleven miles away.

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After a time we went to bed, Aunt Marfa and I, then we heard Udaloy neighing outside and the cart driving into the yard. It seemed a bit too soon for them to be back. But anyway Aunt Marfa lit a light, put on her jacket, and undid the bolt without waiting for Daddy to knock.

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She opened the door, but it wasn
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t Daddy, it was a stranger, dark and frightening, and he said, Show me where the money is that you got for the cow. I
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ve killed your old man in the wood, he said, but you being a woman I
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ll let you alone if you tell me where the money is. If you don
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t tell me you know what will happen, you
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ll only have yourself to blame, and better not keep me waiting, I don
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t have any time to hang around.

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Oh, God in heaven, need I tell you the state we were in, you can imagine, yourselves. We were shaking all over, half dead with fright and speechless with terror! First Uncle Vasia was killed, he
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d said so himself, he
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d killed him with an ax, and now we were alone with him, a murderer right in our house, we could see he was a murderer.

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I suppose it was just then that Aunt Marfa went out of her mind. The moment she heard her husband was dead, something snapped inside her. And she knew she mustn
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t show how she felt.

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First she threw herself at his feet. Have mercy on me, she said, don
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t kill me, I don
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t know a thing, I
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ve never heard about any money, I don
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t know what money you are talking about. But he wasn
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t going to be put off with that, he wasn
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t such a fool, the devil. All right, then, she told him. The money is in the cellar. I
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ll open the trap door for you. But the devil saw right through that. No, he said, you go down, you know the way, you get it. I don
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t care if you go down to the cellar or up on the roof, all I want is the money. But remember—don
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t try to pull any tricks, he said, it doesn
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t pay to fool with me.

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Then she said to him: God be with you, why are you so suspicious? I
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d gladly go down and get it for you myself, but my legs are bad, I can
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t manage the ladder. I
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ll stand on the top step and hold the light for you. Don
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t worry, I
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ll send my daughter down with you, she said. That was me she meant.

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Oh, God in heaven, need I tell you how I felt when I heard that? Well, that
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s the end of me, I thought, and everything went black in front of my eyes and my legs wouldn
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t hold me up, I thought I
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d fall down.

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But that devil, he was no fool, he took one look at both of us and screwed up his eyes and grinned at her, showing all his teeth, as much as to say: I know your tricks, you can
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t fool me. He could see that I meant nothing to her, I wasn
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t her own flesh and blood, so he made a grab at Petia and picked him up in one hand and pulled up the trap door with the other. Let
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s have a light, he said to her, and down he went—down the ladder into the cellar with Petia.

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I think she was already cracked and couldn
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t understand anything; her mind was gone. As soon as he had gone down with little Petia, bang, she slammed the trap door and locked it and began to drag a heavy trunk on top of it, nodding and beckoning to me to help her, because it was too heavy for her. She got it in place and sat on it, pleased with herself, the crazy woman. No sooner had she sat down than the robber started yelling and banging on the floor. You couldn
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t make out what he was saying, the floor boards were too thick, but you could tell from his voice what he meant: let him out or he
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d murder Petia. He roared worse than a wild beast to frighten us. Now your Petia
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s in for it, he yelled, but she couldn
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t understand a thing. She just sat there winking at me and laughing, as much as to say: No matter what you do, I won
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t budge from the trunk and I
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ll keep the keys. I did everything I could with her, I screamed right into her ears saying she must open up the cellar and save Petia, and I tried to push her off the trunk, but I couldn
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t, she was too strong for me and she wouldn
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t listen.

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Well, he was banging, banging on the floor, and the time was going by, and she just sat there rolling her eyes, not listening to anything.

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Well, after a time—Oh, God in heaven, I
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ve been through many things in my life, but this I
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ll never forget. As long as I live I
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ll hear Petia
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s thin little voice—little Petia cried and groaned down below, the little angel, that devil choked him to death.

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Now what shall I do, what shall I do with this mad old woman and this murderer, I thought. And I had to do something. The moment I thought this I heard Udaloy neighing outside. He
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d been standing out there in the yard and he hadn
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t been unharnessed. Yes. Udaloy was neighing as much as to say: Let
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s fly quickly, Tania, and find some good people and get help. I looked out of the window and I saw that it was near dawn. You
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re right, Udaloy, it
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s a good idea, I thought. Let
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s go. But hardly had I thought this when again I heard, like a voice calling from the wood, Wait, don
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t hurry, Tania, we
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ll do it another way. And again I knew I wasn
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t alone in the wood. It was like our own cock crowing. An engine hooted down below. I recognized its whistle; it was from the engine that they always kept ready at Nagornaia—a pusher, they called it—to help freight trains up the hill. This was a mixed train going by, it always went by at that time every night. Well, I heard this engine I knew, calling me from below. I listened and my heart leapt. Am I off my head, I wondered, like Auntie Marfa, that every living beast and every dumb engine speaks to me in plain Russian?

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Well, it was no good thinking, the train was getting near, there was no time to think. I grabbed the lantern—there wasn
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t much light yet—and I raced to the track and stood right in the middle, between the rails, waving the light up and down.

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Well, what more is there to say? I stopped the train. Because of the wind it was going slowly, very slowly, almost at a crawl. I stopped it and the driver, who knew me, leaned out of the window of the cab and called out something, I couldn
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t hear what it was because of the wind. I shouted to him, the signal house had been raided, murder and robbery, a killer in the house, help us, Comrade Uncle, we need help right away. And while I was saying this, Red Army men came jumping out of the train, one after the other, it was an army train, they jumped out on the track. What
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s up? they asked, they couldn
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t make out why on earth the train had stopped in the wood, on a steep hill at night, and was standing still.

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I told them everything. They dragged the murderer out of the cellar. He was squealing in a voice thinner than Petia
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s, Have mercy on me, good people, he said, don
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t kill me, I
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ll never do it again. They took the law into their own hands. They dragged him out onto the tracks, tied his hands and feet to the rails, and drove the train over him.