I was born to my parents, a common occurrence, in a small village in the Ukraine. Our village was too poor to buy a name from the travelling gentleman who would visit each Spring. He would offer us good money for female children of passable chastity but to my family’s grief I had proved the only fruit my mother’s tree would bear. My father would ask my mother to try again, proclaiming that it might ease our woes, yet she selfishly proclaimed headache after headache. Then to our surprise she died of a brain tumour.
My father and I buried her in a small grave with all the ceremony we could afford. The single gun salute meant we would not be safe from bears that year. A single tear ran from my father’s single eye as he slowly filled the grave with dirt. My father was then killed by a bear. If only he had waited to fire that shot or at least not filled in a grave with more than enough room to accommodate two.
Penniless, orphaned and with a grim sense of determination I travelled to seek my fortune in Chernobyl. My father had often spoken about it being a magical place where any man could sell his body or soul for several roubles night after night. I knew I would be a success as I packed my bags and put on my cowboy boots and hat.
“Ach, my friend, these are bleak days” said a peasant I asked for directions.
“I merely wish to find a place to spend the night where I am safe from the rain and the bears” I told him, my hands shaking from exhaustion.
“If I were to tell you, who is to say you would not tell other people where I suggest? You could steal my customers.”
“If you are asking for money, I have none” I said, bracing myself for another night in the communal ditch.
“I am not asking for money.”
“Then why would you fear the competition my good man?”
“I am hired to be a signpost. I stand here every day and in return I receive a turnip.”
“Surely that is little reward for such harsh work?” I said.
“Why else would anyone talk to me but to hear of Old Gustav’s Farm?” said the peasant. “Damn” he added when he realised his mistake.
“Where is it?”
“You won’t catch me out a second time” said the peasant, his anger and madness growing.
Another traveller neared us. I turned to hail him in a friendly fashion but was pushed to the dirt by the peasant as he rushed to tease the traveller with the dark secret of Gustav’s Farm. Yet he had undone himself, for as I lay in the mud I saw tracks leading away into the hills. Cursory examination revealed the six and seven-toed footprints of a farmer and his spore was fresh enough to follow.
I felt a sense of victory for the first time in my life as I saw the orchard emerge through the thick fog. The trees were old and gnarled, their branches thick with owls that gazed predatorily down at me, their heads rotating in menacing unison to track me as I walked. Rain began to fall with incredible precision, almost entirely upon my forehead. I felt my heart soar with the knowledge that this upturn in the weather was the first sign of the welcome Ukrainian Summer.
“Go away” said the old man through the thick wood of the door.
“I wish to speak to Gustav” I said back, feeling my shoes beginning to fill.
“I am Gustav” replied the voice.
“My name is Vanya, I would like to stay for a night.”
“I had an uncle with that name” said the old man slowly, opening the door much to the reluctance of its hinges. “He was a miserable bastard.”
“Perhaps I will remind you of him” I said with a smile that masked my clinical depression.
“Aye, you depress me already. It shall be a rouble if you wish to stay the night” said Gustav, slowly turning to usher me into the house.
“I will pay you in the morning” I say, my soul torn by the deceit but better my soul than my flesh by the bear that had been trailing me since I left my parents’ farm.
Old Gustav looked me up and down before spitting upon the dirt floor. His spittle showed vaguely red in the candlelight. Old Gustav was surprisingly healthy for his age by Ukrainian standards.
“Do you have bread?” I ask, placing my sack down upon the floor beside the single cot that represented the only item of furniture in the room.
“That will be another rouble; for the corn harvest was bleak this year” said Gustav.
“I will pay you in the morning. Now, where may I lay myself down?”
“There is the bed” said Old Gustav and gestured at the cot.
“Will I be sharing it with you old man?” I ask, my brow furrowing.
“One rouble.”
As the night grew colder I began to regret not taking Gustav up on his offer. My nightly tears of grief and poverty froze on my face and clogged my tear-ducts. My tears began to flow back into my head and formed two bulges just above my cheekbones. These in turn froze and caused increasing distress to the malnourished pig I had promised another rouble to use as a pillow. Yet this was still the greatest luxury I had even known.
“Are you still awake friend Gustav?” I ask.
“Aye” replied Gustav from his standing place in the middle of the floor.
“I cannot sleep.”
“Aye.”
“Tell me of your life Gustav” I say, thinking it might bore me to sleep.
“There is little to tell” said Gustav. “I have never been beyond twenty feet of my farm and only then it was to meet and marry my wife.”
“You are married Gustav?” I ask.
“I was, yet she shot herself.”
“Why?”
“I believe she was showing off” replied Gustav.
“Have you looked for another wife? Perhaps a woman would look kindly upon you if she knew you were soon to die and would leave her this fine farm with its cherry orchard. Cherries must make you many roubles” I suggest.
“They are ornamental cherries. There was a confusion with the seed man and when I discovered my mistake it was too late.”
“Oh” I say.
“I should have given my wife two bullets that birthday” said Gustav quietly.
“Did you have children Gustav?” I ask, letting the pig get up to stretch its legs.
“She did not let me lay with her in the old way” said Gustav sadly, “she told me she was waiting for marriage.”
“But you were…”
“She told me she did not mean our marriage” said Gustav and took up a pipe.
I enviously glanced at him.
“You’re a lucky man to have tobacco Gustav” I said, my body yearning for such a luxury.
“I do not have tobacco.”
Gustav pulled a few strands from his hair and carefully packed them into the pipe, making sure not to let a single precious follicle fall.
“Why do you do that Gustav?” I asked.
“When I was young a rich merchant man came to buy my mother and while he was in the room he smoked a cigarette. I have never washed my hair since.”
“May I try a strand?” I asked, wishing to experience the sophisticated joys of smoking just once in my life.
“The good I keep for myself, the selfishness of an old man, but you may have some of the guest supply for a rouble” he said, reaching down the front of the sack he wore around his waist. He pulled his arm up violently and winced.
“I will pass” I said quickly.
“I have already picked it” said Gustav. “You owe me another rouble.”
Gustav was beginning to show signs of anger and distrust.
“Calm yourself Gustav, I will pay you in the morning” I said, eyeing the hole in the wall I planned to make my escape through.
“I would like the money now” said Gustav, his face reddening.
“I…”
My words were cut off as there was a knock upon the door.
“Damn you all” shouted Gustav, his voice booming.
There was another knock.
Gustav angrily walked over to the door and hauled it open.
“One rouble” he shouted.
The large, semi-transparent figure did not respond. I paused from trying to recapture my pillow to examine the newcomer. He did not appear to be dressed in the traditional sack of our people and his breathing was loud but did not have the same throaty gurgle of tuberculosis. Perhaps he was a rich merchant and his mysterious clothes the latest Chernobyl fashions. The darker realms of my heart contemplate the moral implications of beating this stranger to death with a turnip.
“One rouble” growled Gustav again, his tolerance failing.
The stranger did not respond.
“Go back to your ditch” muttered Gustav as he extended his finger and drove it with all his might against the stranger’s chest.
“Mamma…” I gasped in horror as the stranger calmly raised a pistol and shot Gustav with some form of magical light before setting about taking his skull as a trophy.
My pillow fled at speed through the hole in the wall with a series of startled oinks. I turned to follow but turned back when I heard the stranger let out a loud and unsettling howl. He suddenly appeared before me, no longer shiny and transparent, as a giant monster with a face that reminded me of my mother… or more specifically the parts of my mother I witnessed during my birth.
I tried to run but my legs were like borscht.
I had only one hope.
“You might have the bed,” I said, trying to hold my voice steady, “I paid a rouble for it but you look like you’ve had a long day… so give me half a rouble and I’ll throw in the pillow for free if you can catch up with it?” |
