Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [11]
‘All right.’ And he ambled amiably towards the edge of the field.
It always amused Mal to compare the lives of the people in the village. Those of the men were more vivid, perhaps, but shorter. A man grew strong, either fat or thin; and when at last his strength deserted him, like as not he would suddenly die. But the lot of women was quite different. First they would blossom – pale-skinned, slim, graceful as a deer; then, all and without exception, they would thicken – first at the hips as his sister had done, then about the midriff and the legs. And they would infallibly continue to get stouter and rounder, burnt by the sun, like a pear or an apple, year after year, until the taller of them might reach the stately massiveness of Lebed’s mother-in-law. Then slowly, still keeping their comfortable, rounded shape, they would begin to get smaller, shrinking gradually until at last in old age they shrivelled up, like the little brown kernel inside a nutshell. And thus the old woman – the babushka – with her wrinkled brown face and shining blue eyes, would live out her long last years until finally, as naturally as a nut that has fallen, she sank at last into the ground. It was the pattern for all women. His sister Lebed would go that way too in the end. When he looked at an old babushka, he always felt a wave of affection.
There were three babushki sitting together at the edge of the field. Smiling kindly, he spoke to each in turn.
Lebed watched him as he spoke to them and wondered why he was taking so long. Finally he returned, grinning.
‘They’re old,’ he explained, ‘and a bit confused. One says she thought he went back to the village with the other children; the second thought he went to the river; and the third thinks he went off into the forest.’
She sighed. She couldn’t think why Kiy should have gone into the forest, and she doubted that he had strayed to the river. The other children were back in the hut in the charge of one of the girls. Probably he was there.
‘Go and see if he’s in the village,’ she asked. And since it was better than working, Mal wandered off contentedly.
As the women worked, they continued to sing. She loved the song – for though it was a slow and mournful one, its tune was so beautiful it seemed to take her mind off her troubles:
‘Peasant you will die;
Plough your bit of earth.
Neither water nor the fire
Comfort you at your last hour;
Neither the wind
Can be your friend.
In the earth
Is your end:
Let the earth
Be your friend.’
The long line of women moved slowly forward, stooping as they cut the heavy-eared barley. The field was full of the soft swish and rustle of their sickles cutting through the browning stalks. The thin dust from the toppled barley hung low over the ground, smelling sweet. And Lebed, as she often did, experienced that half-pleasant, half-mournful sense – as though a part of her was lost, unable to escape from this slow, hard life in the great silence of the endless plain – half-mournful, because one was forever trapped; half-pleasant, because these were her people, and was not this life, after all, as things should be?
Some time had passed before Mal returned. His face still wore its usual vacant smile, but she thought she noticed a hint of uneasiness in it.
Wasn’t he there?’
‘No. They hadn’t seen him.’
It was strange. She had assumed he would be with the others. Now she felt a trace of anxiety. Again she called to her mother-in-law.
‘Little Kiy isn’t at home. Let me go and find him.’
But the older woman only looked at her with mild contempt.
‘Children always disappear. He’ll come back soon enough.’ And then with more malice: ‘Let your brother look for him. He’s got nothing to do.’
Lebed bowed her head sadly.
‘Go to the river, Mal. See if he’s there,’ she said. And this time she saw that he walked more quickly.
The work went on steadily. Soon, she knew, it would be time to stop and rest. She suspected that her mother-in-law was keeping them at it for longer so as to have an excuse to stop her leaving. She looked up from her work to the long