the child of the convicts, but he was not afraid – he carried her and even gave her his own name as patronymic.
That is how my mother grew up as everyone’s favourite; they gave her the surname Kotlovanova. She has been to each house of the village, everywhere she got taught something new. She became Jill of all trades. People even came to her to be healed. As the girl became an adult, she was provided with an abandoned hut; she finished and fixed it. Never got married though – lived all by herself. She repeated: “I am Semenova, I will remain like this.” As if she knew! Once that Semen came back to our village. He drove a black car, with the retinue – he became a great man. They spent the whole day in the foundation pit, behind the barbed wire. I don’t know what happened there, but people heard how loudly Semen shouted. There were rumors that supposedly we are about to be resettled, farther from the secrets! But it went fine. Semen stayed overnight in our house. His retinue located in the tent near our house, they either slept or guarded him. In a year I was born, hence I am Semenovna too. By that time, our neighbor Aleksandra has already been working in the city, and the milkmaid Maria has been bringing me, little girl, milk. Auntie Maria often babysitted with me, when mom left for the city. There she studied at the courses of midwives-nurses. From the city she always brought presents and letters to aunt Maria from her sister Aleksandra. For some reason, the sisters never used mail.
From Aleksandra’s letter to her sister Maria
Dear Maria,
I am doing alright, do not worry! I earn enough; live in a separate apartment…
At first it scared me being here! First things first.
I arrived. There were thousands of people. They were running, hustling. A uniformed galloped up to me, asking:
“Lady, do you need help?”
He took my suitcase and walked on, I followed him. And then I heard somebody screaming:
“Watch your steps! You’ve crushed me!”
I looked under my feet – there was a kiddy about 6 years old.
“I am Petruha-the-ragged-ear” he said and showed me his ragged ear “you can’t step on me!”
Then I looked around, and that one – with my suitcase – vanished into thin air. I ran out to the square. Cars are buzzing… No suitcase, anywhere! No money, no stuff, no books… I’m standing burst out crying in the middle of the square, and people are running, they don’t look around, cars go around me… Nobody cares about me. Then it buzzed, went motorcyclists in black. The police guard shouts:
“Move, move!” – pushing me somewhere, but he couldn’t shift me. I was too heavy… And the buzz was getting closer. A big black car is racing. The guard became wheyfaced, put his hand to his head and froze. And I rooted to the ground. I stood, with my mouth opened. The car stopped, and some small, but, an important person came out of it.
“What is going on?” – he asked. Everyone is silent. Then it hit me:
“I’m from Pitvill. I arrived here, but my suitcase was stolen!”
“Now we will check from what Pitvill. There is no such village! And there wasn’t! Get in the car.”
I sat petrified and we drove. And the car howls and howls, plug your ears, if don’t want to become deaf.
We arrived somewhere. Well, at least my passport remained in my bosom. He took it and says:
“What is Pitvill? Here – in the passport it says that you live in the village number 573, not a word said about Pitvill.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but no one can remember this number 573, everyone says Pitvill, and I said so.”
“Okay,” he said “to hell with Pitvill. Tell me!”
“Tell what?”
“Tell me everything! About your whole life. Come on, look at me!”
And he looked at me so menacingly that something died inside me, and I began to tell him everything. And here is the thing – now I don’t remember anything about it. What did I tell him? What happened next?..
I woke up in the middle of nowhere. It was sort of a hospital. No clothing, no passport, I only had a gown on – white, long, apparently, hospital. I tried the door-handle – it was locked.
A nurse dressed white came in. She washed me, gave breakfast. She did not say a word, perhaps, she was completely deaf. So I lived in this hospital for three days. Finally, someone came: “Get ready, let’s go.”
This nurse quickly dressed me in a public baggy robe. We went out and got into the car. And again I appeared in a room, where I was telling everything. The head came in and said:
“Aleksandra Aleksandrovna, we have checked everything. You will work with us. The salary is good. The work is interesting, important, but secret.
So, to you, sister, I will not write anything about it.
“You will be provided with a separate apartment. And buy a car in a year or so, with your salary you will be able to allow it. You will call me Semen Andreevich. If you have any difficulties, contact my deputy first of all, and if not, then directly me. “Between us,” he said “I am familiar with Pitvill very well. It will be necessary to go there, see what is what. Oh, by the way, here is your suitcase!”
And here I felt gratitude and love for this man, which I can’t describe.
So, since then I’ve been working…
Write me back soon!
Yours, Aleksandra
From the tales of Granddad Plop told to his grandchildren
My dear children, you all live in a beautiful green forest, you are full, dressed, and everyone loves you. And I was born in a terrible wild city where no one loved each other. And sometimes people even killed each other. That’s what a dreadful place I lived in being your age. If you go up that hill and look north, that city will be visible on the horizon in the form of a dirty black spot. Savage people live there now. And now there is poisoned soil and air. So you kids never go there. In my childhood, a thousand times more people lived in the city than now. And then my name was Petruha-the-ragged-ear because, as you can see, one ear really is all ragged. I lived at the station and at the market, and ate what I managed to steal. You, children, must not steal, as doing this is not good. But in the wild city where I was born, without theft I simply could not feed myself, as I was still a little boy and couldn’t work. You might ask why not I ate grass or bark of trees. I will answer: back then people still did not know how to eat only grass. And now those in the city do not know how to do this. And my wife, my sorceress Rose, taught us to eat grass. But in the city this would not help either. There was little grass there.
So, consequently, I stole at the station and the market. Once the traders caught me, beat me up, and dragged me by the ear. Since then I became – a ragged ear boy. And soon something happened that changed my whole further life. Back then I stole in league with the swindler Black eye. His name was because he actually had a black eye. Apparently he was once punched in such a way that it remained with him for life. He was a neat and polite swindler. He was never rude with anyone and took things from people in thirty three ways, but always very politely and without the slightest disrespect. Once we were standing at the train station, looking at the crowd of arrivers, and there she was – a lady! Well, a thief’s dream to be honest! Big, charmless, with extremely naive eyes, dumbly blinking.
Black eye said:
“Come on!”
And I was still gazing at the lady. And it’s not that I felt sorry for her, but rather felt myself uncomfortable. That, as my wife Rose says, your foresight stirred.
Meanwhile,