because SHE hasn’t seen all of them and because… I don’t think she understood, words don’t come out how you want them when you’re crying, they get tangled in your mouth with tears and snot. And it felt like mom was leaving me for good, because no one had told me that she was leaving, she didn’t say she had a doctor appointment or something else, she just left me there forever! Why else would grandpa be holding me, not letting me run after mom, and why would grandma be crying too, if mom wasn’t leaving me forever, if she was coming back. Grandpa is tearing up too… If mom’s not giving up on me, why is everyone crying? Then I was suddenly very tired, mom was gone. I ate soup, looking at the reflection of my cheeks, eyelashes and nose whenever I looked down, with tears sometimes rippling the surface of the soup. I didn’t finish the soup, it was cold and watered down with tears. Then I took a quick nap, not because I’m a small child, but because grandma works early hours and needs to sleep after lunch and I wouldn’t let her, would I? I dreamt about riding the baby goat, he was saying something, but I couldn’t remember what. When I woke up grandma had already left. I went out, turned the corner of the fence and sat on the wooden footbridge over the ditch. Grasshoppers were chirping, wild strawberries were in bloom, but there were first still unripened berries gleaming in the sunlight. I was looking past the street, past the well on the other side, past the black izba with beautifully carved window frames, past the house with a Great Dane (it’s a type of dog that’s big and covered in black and white spots), past the house of the postwoman whose son drowned a long time ago, and she went mad, past the bath house with the dive bar, that’s how dad calls it, past the station where a commuter train was taking mom away from me… The train must’ve left already, mom should be home by now, without me. Why would mom be without me? Is she doing things there without me? How can she? There, a lizard and a smaller lizard behind it. Must be her son? Crows cawing in their nests, their sons are there with them. Even Raya’s rooster has its hens and chicks. And the goat with the goatling… Only my mom left me to go to Leningrad. My vision became blurred. I picked some unripe strawberries and swallowed them. I’ll eat green strawberries and die, that’ll show her! But there weren’t many more berries. It was starting to become cold and I was feeling peckish. I went home to grandma because she hadn’t betrayed me and because I wanted pancakes and didn’t want to die, not really. Grandma’s pancakes are way better than mom’s anyway. They’re plump, nicely browned on both sides, grandpa eats them with salty bacon crisps, I didn’t use to like it this way, but now I eat pancakes just like grandpa! He folds the pancake in half, sticks a fork through it, dips it into the saucer, where bacon crisps float in hot lard and puts it right into his mouth, while my pancakes are pre-cut by grandma because a whole pancake is too big for me, I put a crisp on every piece and eat it. They also go great with sour cream, or jam, or just by themselves, even cold. I don’t think I want to die just now, not while there are pancakes like these in this world.
Mom was gone for a long time, maybe for three days. While she was away, grandpa got sick and had to be taken to the hospital, and grandma needed to visit him. She asked if I wanted to stay with Raya, just for a tiny bit, one night only. I think grandma was scared I would start crying like when mom left, but I understood because she explained how grandpa had pulmonary inflammation and how she, grandma, had to visit him in the hospital to bring him food and to talk to the doctor. I even forgot to be upset, because everything at Raya’s was so fun and different: her izba, the garden, her old barn. Our house was tidy, with neat rows of flowers lining the front yard, well-kept vegetable patches and delicate apple trees. Grandma was always busy in the garden, while grandpa worked in the barn. He even had a furnace there, and sometimes he forged fences for the cemetery and such. Raya’s place was different, it was littered with trash, her apple trees were giant and unkempt, the vegetable garden had no beds, things just grew at random places, carrots with strawberries, potatoes with chives, and even the hens somehow looked dirty. Our garden had a big rhubarb bush, its reddish-green leaves so huge, a cat could sleep on one without breaking it, and when a sprig with tiny flowers shot up to the sky it almost looked like it could touch the clouds. Raya’s garden had a pond overgrown with green duckweed, and frogs that never stopped croaking.
That’s how I found myself inside Raya’s izba. Everything there was different too. Grandma never let our cat go past the seni*, and our dog Trezor wasn’t allowed to even enter the house. Raya let all her pets inside. When we came in, a hen was pecking at the kitchen floor, and Muchtar was laying beside a chair, nibbling at its wooden leg. Raya said he was an old dog and his teeth hurt. I lightly pet Muchtar on the head and he responded with a lazy tail wag. He was very sweet. Then Raya was gone to fetch water from the well, and I tried to ride Muchtar. I mounted him all right while he was laying down, but each time he got up, I inevitably tumbled down. I even hit my head on the stove once, and got very scared, but the stove turned out to be lukewarm. Then finally I got Muchtar to sit, mounted him from behind, held onto his fur, but when he got up I felt that I was sliding down again, so I grabbed his ears. In that exact moment Raya came back with a bucket, Muchtar wagged his tail, lowered his head, and down I tumbled down once again, almost spilling the water. Raya took Muchtar and locked him in the seni, where he whimpered a little and then got silent, maybe he fell asleep.
After lunch I laid down on Raya’s bed, and she turned on the radio. Her radio was an old big black device the kind I only ever saw in movies about the great patriotic war. Nothing fun was on, and I fell asleep. After my nap we went to the other side of the village together. Turns out, there was a shepherd there, and every evening people came by to take their goats home. That’s why the goats walk through the village in the evening, and I always thought they were just out enjoying the air. We walked with the goats, the road was littered with goat droppings, and Raya told me a story from when I was a little boy. I had just started walking, and Zoya was still a baby goat, I used to pick up her droppings, I must have thought they were candies or raisins, and eat them. Filled my mouth with the stuff, and wouldn’t let grandpa pick it out. I didn’t believe her of course, how could I eat poop? It’s not at all like raisins, everyone can see that. I understand one little pellet, but a mouthful? That doesn’t sound like me at all. Raya never explained and just laughed, and I laughed with her because it must have looked funny, a little boy with a mouth full of poop.
We had dinner, Raya fried up white mushrooms with onions and potatoes. She served delicious jam with bad tea. And then I went to bed. I don’t know where Raya slept because her bed was the only one in the house. I asked her to tell me a bedtime story, and she told me about her life, about her husband who had died, about the war… I was bored and scared. Lying in someone else’s bed was funny, the bedroom was different, a different streetlight shone a different light through a different window… Raya’s izba had no wallpaper under the wall carpets, like our house, it only had a wardrobe, a cabinet, a table and a single shelf. Some walls were just exposed logs. I could hear mice behind the carpet, or maybe they were rats. Mice are nicer. I suddenly remembered how grandpa demolished our old barn to build another one in its place, and under the floor boards we found a nest with tiny pink rat pups. I put one pup in my palm and went home to show it to grandma. I have never known her to be this fast of a runner or this loud of a shrieker. When I came back to the barn, I saw that grandpa was slicing the rat pups with a shovel. I watched silently, tears streaming down my face and neck. I didn’t shriek like grandma, but there was a knot in my throat, I couldn’t bear the thought of those small blind babies, completely bald, pink and warm, squealing for their mom, because their mom had left them just like my mom had left me, because their house was demolished and then they were killed with a shovel, and this was all so, so wrong. I stopped talking to grandpa for a long time, even though he made a bow and arrows for me and taught me how to make a screw tied to a feather with a thread fly up… I was laying on Raya’s bed and I was happy that her rat or mouse pups were safe there, behind the carpet, like I was safe under the duvet, and that their mom must be with them.
And then mom came back. I immediately wasn’t mad anymore and was instead very happy. We went fishing together, and I tried to teach her, but she was too squeamish