Russka (29 page)

Nor did she take an interest in any other man in the village.

There were reasons for this; they dated from the first day when the steward had shown them round.

For it had been only halfway through that afternoon when her father had burst in through the door, leant against the warm stove and cried: ‘Have you seen their fields?’ And before she could answer, ‘Slash and burn. It’s all slash and burn. Mordvinians! Pagans! They haven’t even got a decent plough!’

‘No plough?’

He gave a disgusted snort for reply. ‘You hardly need one for this land. Come, I’ll show you.’

The problem that her father had discovered was one of the major disadvantages that were to plague the state of Russia for the rest of its history.

For the land in the north is very poor.

There are, on the great plain of Russia, two kinds of soil: leached soils and unleached. In leached ground, the water in the soil does not evaporate fast enough and washes the rich salts down, leaving a poor, acidic topsoil of little agricultural value. These leached earths are called in Russian
podzols –
literally ‘ash-soil’.

Unleached soils occur where evaporation is good. The rich
salts remain in the soil, which is usually neutral to alkaline. Here, agriculture is good. The richest of all the unleached soils is the deep black earth, the
chernozem
, of the south.

Between these two soil types, however, lies a third – a sort of compromise. This is the grey earth – technically a leached
podzol-
which is moderately good for agriculture.

Roughly speaking, the good black soil lies in the south, on the steppe; the grey in the centre of Russia, in the lands from Kiev up to the River Oka. But in the great loop of the Russian R, and thence northwards until one reaches the peaty, waterlogged soil of the tundra, the ground is poor
podzol
, and yields upon it are low. This soil, together with the cold weather, is the reason why the agriculture of northern Russia is very poor.

And upon this earth, one did not need the heavy iron ploughs that had already been used for centuries in the thick, rich black earth in the south. The peasants in the north used the
soka –
a light, wooden plough with a modest steel tip that only scratched the surface of the thin, infertile land.

It was this feeble little plough, and this half-barren soil, that had disgusted Yanka’s father. But even more to be despised was the method the peasants were using to organize their holdings.

For instead of having two, or sometimes three, big fields upon which crops would be rotated, the villagers were using the ancient slash-and-burn technique: cutting down a piece of woodland, burning the debris, and then working the resulting carbonized field for a few years before moving on to another and leaving their last to become wilderness again. It was a form of ancient subsistence agriculture.

‘Pagans,’ her father repeated in disgust. But there was little, as a single newcomer, that he could do about it.

And it was this primitive aspect of the place that confirmed Yanka’s opinion of the villagers, and her lack of interest in them.

The steward, servant of the boyar, was technically a slave. The Viatichi families, besides being uncouth, were the poorest kind of peasants – sharecroppers – who instead of a fixed rent paid the boyar a third of their crop. The Mordvinians were hired labourers, who worked a part of the estate some way from the village which the boyar had decided to retain in his own hands; and the other Slav families from the south had already adopted the primitive ways of the north-east, it seemed to her, and were
contentedly using the slash-and-burn techniques on their modest holdings.

There were, as it happened, no unmarried young men amongst these Slavs in any case. The nearest to her in age was an eleven-year-old boy. As for the three Mordvinian and two Viatichi youths, although they all seemed kindly, she did not care for them.

This place is primitive, she decided. Whoever I find to marry, he certainly won’t come from here.

It was three days later that her father had made a discovery that infuriated him even more.

‘There is good land here after all,’ he told her in frustration that evening. ‘Yes:
chernozem
. But they won’t let me work it.’

‘Where?’

‘Over towards the village they call Dirty Place. Can you believe it? I went over there today with those damned Mordvinians.’

For nature – the retreating glaciers from the last ice age, to be exact – had here and there deposited in the region of the sandy
podzols
, small stretches of good grey soil. There was a large area of this so-called
chernozem
above Vladimir, stretching towards Suzdal. And another, much smaller deposit had been made near Russka.

‘The boyar’s keeping back that land. He’s leaving us only the poor soil.’

As it happened, this stretch of
chernozem
was divided into three parts. One part, somewhat to the north, was a private estate that belonged to the Grand Duke himself. The village there had been destroyed by a plague some years ago, but in time, no doubt, the Grand Duke would use it again. The part to the east was Black Land – nominally the Prince of Murom’s – but let to the free peasants.

And the nearest, smaller part, belonged to Milei the boyar.

When the boyar had encountered Yanka and her father he had said nothing of this. A single man and a girl were hardly such desirable tenants for the best land. Let’s keep them in reserve and see what turns up, he reasonably judged.

Meanwhile, he had decided to work a part of the good land for himself with some slaves he had been able to find.

‘Perhaps we could work some
chernozem
,’ Yanka suggested.

‘No. I already asked the steward. He only wants hired labourers like the Mordvinians. I’ll not sink to that.’

She put her arms round her father and kissed him, aware of the faint smell of sweat from his shirt and the deep lines around his neck. She hated to see him frustrated like this. ‘We can leave,’ she suggested. ‘We have money.’

The money they had brought was safely hidden under the floor.

‘Maybe. Not this year though.’

‘No,’ she agreed, ‘not this year.’ Winter was too close.

Yet despite the unsatisfactory life of the village, she felt a certain sense of peace in these new surroundings. ‘At least,’ she remarked to her father one rainy day, as she stretched lazily, ‘it may be boring, but we are a long way from the Tatars.’

The warm weather, surprisingly, continued until mid-October. Yanka became used to the quiet rhythm of the village. She went out with the villagers to collect nuts in the forest; and when the men killed an elk one day she helped the women prepare a splendid feast.

He moved along the track, letting the water pouring down from the trees settle on his fur collar or run freely down the creased back of his neck. Below him, at the bottom of the little cliff, the lucky spring burst from the bank and seeped through the ferns into the river. He did not pause except to glance across the river below. Twice he cursed out loud.

Damn the girl!

Her fresh young body – what did it smell of? Roses? The wild carnations in the woods? Nuts. Roasted nuts. Could it really smell of roasted nuts?

Damn her, doesn’t she see me? he almost said aloud. Perhaps she doesn’t know, he considered, but at once dismissed the thought. Oh, yes. She knows. They know everything, women.

So what did it mean? What did she mean by it? What did she suppose he felt in that room, alone with her, with the rain pouring off the eaves all around like a waterfall? What did she mean, arching those young breasts when she knew he was watching, and turning towards him – her whole, young body – and telling him in that soft voice that she was bored?

Is she teasing me? Does she despise me?

Pretending not to understand. That was her defence. And her weapon. She was good – oh, yes, she had been good to him. And she loved him. At least, she had once. It was as if she was his, yet
not his; as if she understood everything, was ready to open herself to him, yet turned away whenever she sensed he might approach.

She was his daughter, of course.

Was that it? Of course that was reason enough, in theory. Forbidden. They both knew that.

But surely after all they had been through … They had a special bond, didn’t they? Was there not in her calm eyes that seemed to stare at the world with a kind of sad understanding – was there not a perfect understanding of how they were, he and she?

The way her mouth turned down, he thought – a little sad, a little cynical, and also, yes, sensuous: very sensuous when awakened. Those lips, those sad, obstinate lips with their hint of a pout – the pout that never developed because her strong mouth kept everything under control – were they going to refuse to part and open for him? Were they going to smile, and then open for another? The thought had become a torture to him.

He was her father. He stamped furiously down the path. He had heard of other fathers …

Besides, there was no one else for either of them. No one else in this God-forsaken place.

‘I’ll be a father to her. I’ll discipline her if she wants to play games with me,’ he muttered.

He had been so immersed in his thoughts that he had not noticed where he was going, nor realized how far from the village he had gone, until suddenly he looked up and saw a strange sight.

It was a bear. He stopped in his tracks. It was quite large. It was also very old. It was moving with great difficulty across the path ten yards in front of him. The bear saw him, but seemed uninterested. It was moving very stiffly.

And then he realized: the bear was going to die. It was only searching for a final resting place.

Cautiously he went foward.

‘Well, my Misha,’ he murmured, ‘what use can you be to me?’

The bear gave him a baleful look, but was too weary to threaten him. How old, sad and bedraggled the animal looked. The rain had soaked it; the bear’s coat was caked with mud and smelt dank. Moving closer, Yanka’s father drew his long hunting knife. A good idea had just occurred to him.

He would give Yanka a fur coat for the winter. That would please her. Not every man could say: ‘I have killed a bear for you.’

It required great skill to kill a bear. Even though it had almost collapsed, an instant’s revival, one swipe from those mighty arms, and he would be done for. But he thought he could do it.

He edged behind, paused, then suddenly leaped on to the creature’s huge back.

The bear started, began to stand up; and he ripped his long, sharp blade right across its throat.

The bear rose fully, with the man on its back, and tried to get at him. Again Yanka’s father plunged his knife into the throat, attacking the windpipe and searching for the huge veins. After a moment, he was sure he had succeeded, and leaped down into the mud, before running behind a tree.

He heard the bear gurgle. Then it came down heavily on its front legs again. Blood was pouring from its throat. The bear seemed to see him, but it did not move. It stood there miserably, knowing this was the end, and, for some strange reason, blinking uselessly. Then it crashed into the bushes and he heard it coughing.

An hour later, he had skinned it.

Yanka found the muddy season depressing. It was made worse by her decision, on a day when the rains had stopped, to go down to the nearby village of Dirty Place.

What a dreary spot it was. Half a dozen huts clustered by the river bank. The land there was Black Land, like the northern territory, so that the peasants there were, in practice, free. Better than that, the village’s land lay directly on the
chernozem
.

Yet still it was dismal. The river bank was very low. The ground immediately to the south was waterlogged and smelt of marsh. And when Yanka spoke to some of the village women, she found that four out of the six she met suffered from some strange affliction that made the skin on their head spongy to the touch and their hair perpetually oily and matted.

Instinctively, she drew away from them.

She was glad to get back, to put wood in the stove and feel her own hair, soft and light, as she ran her hand through it for reassurance.

It was that very evening that her father came in with a wonderful coat, made by one of the Mordvinian women from a bear he had killed for her himself. He had kept the
incident a secret from her. Now he handed it to her with a smile.

‘You killed a bear? For me?’ She was half delighted, yet half terrified. ‘You might have been killed.’

He laughed. ‘It will keep you warm up here in the north.’

She kissed him. He smiled, but said nothing more.

Three days later the snows came. It was very cold; though one was perfectly warm inside. Yet once winter had sealed the little village she could not escape the sad fact: it was boring.

She had no friends. The village, it seemed to her, was quiet as a tomb. They did not mix much with their neighbours and, though they were only yards apart, days might pass without her speaking to another soul. There was not even a church to draw them together.

To pass the time, she began to make a large embroidered cloth. It had a white background, and on to this she sewed, in bright red, the striking, geometric birds that the village woman had taught her when she was a child.

So, in this remote northern hamlet, appeared a design drawn directly from ancient, oriental patterns familiar to the Iranian horsemen from the steppe a thousand years ago.

November passed. The cloth progressed, and the girl and her father lived alone.

The change in her life came in the first half of December. It took place rather suddenly.

Her father had been very kind to her of late. He knew that she was sometimes afraid of him if he drank too much, and so he had hardly touched any mead since autumn. In the last two days he had been especially warm with her, often giving her friendly hugs and a gentle kiss.

One evening, however, he did drink mead. She saw the faint flush around his neck; she looked at him a little nervously, but decided that he had not drunk enough to make him depressed. Indeed, she felt a little surge of happiness to see the smile of well-being on his face. She noticed his hands, resting on the table. For some reason she noticed the thick fair hairs on the back of them and this, too, filled her with a feeling of affection.