Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics) (35 page)

Her brothers and sisters tried, of course, to dissuade her:

‘It’s not proper, sister. Prokopich may be elderly, but think what people might say.’

‘Why should I care?’ she replied. ‘It won’t be me spreading gossip. And anyway, Prokopich is hardly a stranger to me. He’s a foster father to my Danilko. I shall call him Papa.’

And so she left. It has to be said that her relatives did not try all that hard to stop her: with one less person, after all, things would be quieter. Prokopich, for his part, was pleased.

‘Thank you, Katya, for not forgetting me,’ he said.

And so they began to live together. Prokopich would sit at the bench, and Katya would run about doing the chores – working in the vegetable plot, boiling and baking, and the like. Keeping house for two is, of course, not so very difficult … Katya was a sprightly girl; she’d get through the work in no time. When she’d finished, she would sit down to her own handiwork: sewing, knitting, making things to keep for a rainy day. Everything went smoothly to begin with, although Prokopich was getting weaker and weaker. He would spend a day at the workbench, then two in bed. Long years of work had worn him out. Katya began wondering how they would manage.

‘This sewing and knitting won’t earn us a livelihood, but it’s the only craft I know.’

So she said to Prokopich, ‘Papa! Teach me to make something simple.’

This made Prokopich laugh: ‘Whatever next! Working with malachite is no job for a girl. Never heard of such a thing in all my life.’

Well, all the same, she began to watch Prokopich at his craft. Wherever she could, she helped him out. She would saw the stone; she would do some polishing. And Prokopich began to show her a few other things. Not real craftsmanship. Simple things like how to turn a plaque, make handles for knives and forks and other items people needed. Mere trifles, of course, but enough to make a difference if times grew hard.

Prokopich died not long after. Then Katya’s brothers and sisters began to press her more than ever: ‘There’s nothing for
it. Now you really do have to get married. How will you be able to live on your own?’

Katya cut them short: ‘That’s my worry, not yours. I don’t need your suitors. Danilushko will come back. He’ll master his craft in the mountain and come back.’

Her brothers and sisters gesticulated excitedly: ‘Are you in your right mind, Katya? To talk like that is sinful! The man died long ago, but you’re still waiting for him! Watch out, or you’ll start seeing things.’

‘I’m not afraid of that,’ she replied.

‘But what are you going to live on?’

‘You don’t need to worry about that either,’ she answered. ‘I shall manage on my own.’

The brothers and sisters took this to mean that Prokopich had left her some money. They started up again: ‘You’re a fool! If there’s money around, you’re going to need a man in the house even more. Somebody – God forbid – might try to steal the money. They’ll wring your neck like a chicken. And you’ve barely even lived …’

‘I shall live,’ she answered, ‘as long as I am fated to.’

The brothers and sisters went on for some time with their hullabaloo. Some of them were shouting, some trying to talk her round, some crying, but Katya stood firm: ‘I’ll get by on my own. No need for any of your suitors. I already have a betrothed.’

Her family, of course, were incensed: ‘If you need help, don’t come running to us!’

‘Thank you,’ she replied, ‘my dear brothers, my sweet sisters! I won’t forget. And don’t you forget either. If you happen to pass this way, then you must walk straight past my door!’

She was laughing at them. The brothers and sisters left in a fury, slamming the door behind them.

Katya was left all on her own. At first, of course, she cried, but then she said, ‘No! I won’t give in!’

She dried her eyes and set about the housework, scrubbing and scouring till everything was clean. When she had finished, she went to the workbench. Here, too, she began arranging
everything to suit her; she put the tools she most needed close by, and put the rest to one side. Once everything was in order, she wanted to get down to work: ‘I can at least have a go at making a wall-plaque.’

She went to get a stone, but there were none that seemed right. There were the remnants of Danilushko’s moonflower chalice, but Katya wanted to keep them; she had tied them up in a special bundle. And, of course, there was all the stone that Prokopich had left. But the pieces he had been working on during his last months had been large ones. Those stones were all too big. He’d already used up the offcuts and leftovers for smaller items. ‘Seems I’ll have to go down to the mine,’ Katya said to herself. ‘Maybe I’ll find what I need there.’

She had heard Danilko and Prokopich talk of getting their stone from Snake Hill. So that’s where she went.

Around Gumeshki, as always, there were lots of people: some sorting through the ore, some carting it away. They stared at Katya, wondering what she was doing with her basket. Katya didn’t like being gawped at. Instead of looking for stone there, she walked round to the far side of the hill where there was still forest. Katya made her way through the forest until she reached Snake Hill itself, and there she sat down. She felt grief-stricken; memories of Danilushko were coming back. She sat on the stone, and her tears began to flow. There was no one else nearby, she was surrounded by trees, and she wept without restraint, her tears dripping down onto the earth. She cried for some time, and then she saw: right by her feet there was now a large piece of malachite. But it was lodged in the earth. How could she get it out without a pickaxe or a crowbar? She tried to shift it a little. It seemed not to be too firmly embedded. So she started scraping the earth away with a little stick. She scraped away all she could and then began trying to shake it free. Suddenly it yielded, and there was a sound from underneath, like a branch snapping. The stone was a small slab, three fingers thick, the breadth of a palm, and no more than two spans long. Katya gazed at it in wonder: ‘It’s exactly what I was thinking of. I’ll be able to get a good number of plaques from it when I saw it up. And there’ll hardly be any waste.’

She brought the stone home and got straight down to work. Sawing takes time, and there was the housework to attend to as well. She’d look up from her work and realize the whole day had gone by; there was no time to mope about. But the moment she sat down at the bench, she would always remember Danilushko: ‘If only he could see that there’s a new worker now! Sitting where he and Prokopich used to sit!’

Of course, a few louts made their appearance. It was bound to happen … On the eve of some holiday Katya was sitting working late into the night when three lads climbed over the fence. They wanted to give her a fright, or maybe worse – who knows? Anyway, they were all drunk. Katya was sawing away and she didn’t hear them come into the entrance room. She heard nothing until they started trying to break into the main room: ‘Open up, Corpse-Bride! You have guests from among the living!’

At first Katya simply said: ‘Go away, boys!’

Well, that didn’t have much effect. They carried on bashing away at the door – it seemed as if it might give way any moment. At this point Katya undid the latch, flung open the door and shouted, ‘Well, come on in. Who wants his forehead smashed first?’

The lads gawped – she was holding an axe.

‘Don’t fool around with
that
!’ they said.

‘Who’s fooling around?’ she answered. ‘Cross the doorstep and you get your head smashed in.’

They may have been drunk, but the lads could see that she wasn’t joking. She was a fully-grown woman, with broad shoulders, a determined look in her eyes, and she clearly knew what to do with an axe. They did not dare enter. They hollered a bit and then left. They even went about telling people what had happened. Soon people started teasing them – three of them and they’d run away from a girl! This, of course, was not to their liking, so they spun a yarn about how Katya had not been alone. No, standing behind her had been a corpse: ‘It was so terrifying that you couldn’t help but run for your life!’

There’s no knowing how many people believed the lads, but from then on the rumours began to spread: ‘There’s an evil
spirit in that house. It’s not for nothing she chooses to live all alone.’

Katya heard all this, but it didn’t bother her. ‘So much the better,’ she thought. ‘Let them spin their yarns! If they start to feel a bit frightened, maybe it’ll stop them from coming a second time.’

The neighbours were also astonished to see Katya at the workbench. ‘Trying her hand at a man’s craft!’ they scoffed. ‘Whatever will come of it?’

This stung Katya more. She herself began to wonder whether or not she could cope with all the work on her own. Well, nevertheless she got a grip on herself: ‘It’s just wares for the market! Is that so demanding? Just needs to be smooth … I can do that, can’t I?’

Katya finished sawing up the stone. The pattern fitted remarkably; it seemed almost to be telling her where to make the crosswise cuts. Katya marvelled at how cleverly everything was turning out. She divided the stone along the markings, then started turning. The work wasn’t especially tricky, but it wasn’t beginner’s work either. At first she found it a struggle, but then she got the hang of it. The plaques came out superb, and with no waste at all. The only stone she lost was the dust from the turning.

Katya finished the plaques. She marvelled once again at what a fine stone she had found, and then began thinking about where to sell her wares. Prokopich had sometimes taken trifles like this to town and delivered them all to one shop. Katya had often heard about this shop. So she decided to travel to town. ‘I’ll go and ask,’ she said to herself. ‘Maybe they’ll take my work regularly.’

She locked up the hut and set out on foot. No one in Polevskoy even noticed that she had left. Arriving in town, Katya asked where the shop was and went straight there. She looked around: the place was crammed with stone objects of every kind, and there was an entire glass case full of malachite plaques. The shop was crowded with people. Some were buying, others were bringing their wares. The shopkeeper seemed stiff and haughty.

At first Katya felt too frightened to approach him, but then she plucked up her courage and asked, ‘Do you need any malachite plaques?’

The shopkeeper pointed to the glass case: ‘Malachite plaques! Can’t you see how many I’ve got?’

The other craftsmen delivering their work joined in: ‘Any number of folk have started making plaques recently. The stone just gets wasted. What they don’t realize is that to make a plaque you need a good pattern.’

One of the craftsmen was from Polevskoy. He said in a quiet voice to the shopkeeper: ‘She’s a bit nutty, this girl. Her neighbours have seen her working at the lathe. Seems she’s managed to knock something out …’

So the shopkeeper said: ‘Right then, show me what you’ve brought.’

Katya handed him a plaque. The shopkeeper looked at it, then stared straight at Katya and said, ‘Who did you steal it from?’

Katya, needless to say, felt insulted. In a very different tone, she said, ‘What right do you have to speak like that to someone you don’t even know? Look – if you’re not blind! Who could I possibly have stolen this number of plaques from, all with the same pattern? Answer me that!’ And she emptied all her wares onto the counter.

The shopkeeper and craftsmen looked at the plaques: they did indeed all share the same pattern. And the pattern was exquisite. In the centre there was a tree; there was a little bird perched on one of the branches, and another little bird below, all crystal clear and cleanly finished. The customers heard them all talking and drew closer to have a look, but the shopkeeper quickly covered up all the plaques and said, ‘You can’t see anything when they’re all in a jumble. Wait a moment and I’ll put them on display. Then you’ll be able to choose what you want.’ And to Katya he said, ‘Go through that door. I’ll pay you straight away.’

Katya went through, and the shopkeeper followed. He locked the door and said, ‘What are you asking for them?’

Katya had heard Prokopich mention how much he used to
get. So she named the same price. The shopkeeper just laughed: ‘You must be kidding! I only ever paid that much to a craftsman from Polevskoy, Prokopich, and his adopted son Danilko. Well, and they were true masters!’

‘That’s how I know the price,’ she replied. ‘I’m from the same family.’

‘Oh, I see!’ the shopkeeper said in surprise. ‘So this is Danilko’s work, is it?’

‘No,’ she replied, ‘it’s my own work.’

‘But he left you the stone?’

‘I found it myself.’

The shopkeeper clearly did not believe her, but he didn’t try to beat down the price. He paid up, fair and square, and he even said, ‘If you make any more like these, be sure to bring them to me. I’ll take them straight away and I’ll always give you a good price.’

Katya went out of the shop overjoyed, thinking she’d been given a fortune. The shopkeeper put the plaques on display. The customers came crowding round: ‘How much are they?’

The shopkeeper, of course, had known what he was doing. Naming a price ten times higher than he’d paid Katya, he announced, ‘Never been a pattern like it. It is the work of Danilko the master from Polevskoy. There’s no one can match him.’

Katya got back home. ‘Well, who’d have thought it?’ she kept marvelling. ‘My plaques turned out the best of the lot! It was a fine piece of stone I found. What a stroke of luck!’ Then it dawned on her: ‘Could it have been Danilushko sending me a message?’

And she got herself ready and left for Snake Hill.

But the malachite master who had tried to embarrass Katya in front of the town trader had also got back from the town. He envied Katya the rare pattern she had found. ‘I ought to find out where she gets her stone from. Maybe Prokopich or Danilko told her about some new site!’

He saw Katya hurrying off somewhere, and he followed her. He watched her skirt around Gumeshki and make her way somewhere behind Snake Hill. The craftsman continued to
follow her, thinking, ‘On that side it’s all forest. I’ll be able to creep right up to this new pit of hers.’