Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [396]
The village elder was a small, grey-bearded peasant with a loud voice and a decisive manner, whom Timofei respectfully addressed in the old-fashioned way, by his patronymic only, as ‘Ilych’.
Nervously Timofei explained the situation, scarcely daring to look at the elder; but when he had done, unable to bear the suspense, he turned to him abruptly and asked: ‘Well, Ilych, am I ruined?’ Whatever the other said, he knew it would be final; and there would be nothing in the world he could do about it.
Timofei Romanov was free: and yet he was not. In this he resembled most of the former serfs in Russia. For when the Tsar’s advisers had given the serfs their land, they had encountered one other, most difficult problem: what if these peasants, no longer owned by their masters, started wandering about doing what they liked? ‘How will we control them? How can we ensure that the land is tilled and taxes collected?’ Freedom was all very well, but one couldn’t have chaos. And so, in their wisdom, the authorities had devised a simple solution. The peasant, though legally free, would still be tied to his place. The land taken from the landlord was not given to the peasant individually, but to the village commune, which was made responsible for taxes and everything else. If, for instance, Timofei wanted to travel to Moscow, he would have to apply to the village elder for a passport, just as he had formerly applied to Bobrov. Even minor matters of justice rested with the commune. And above all, it was the village elder who periodically redistributed the scattered strips of land – so many good, medium and poor for each family. In short Timofei Romanov was now, in effect, a member of a medieval village without a feudal lord, or, to use a modern term, a compulsory peasant cooperative. The terms do not matter for, in reality, they are one and the same.
And this was the problem: if Boris left home and set up on his own, the land would be repartitioned. Timofei’s share would probably be reduced. The land he had now was not enough to support the family and its obligations. How would he manage?
‘I’ll have to cut your holding,’ Ilych said brusquely.
‘How much?’
The elder considered. ‘By half.’ It was even worse than Timofei had feared. ‘I’m sorry,’ the elder went on, ‘but there are more young people in the village now. There isn’t enough land for them all as things are.’ Then he shrugged irritably, and left.
Yet whatever his troubles that morning, Timofei Romanov would have been dismayed had he known what was passing through his mother-in-law’s mind.
Arina was sixty-three. She was the senior woman in the family, and she let no one forget it. And above all, she loved her daughter Varya. ‘I didn’t nearly kill myself for her in thirty-nine,’ she would say, ‘to see harm come to her now.’ As the years went by, it became clear that the mark left by that terrible time was never going to leave her. And she herself would often remark: ‘I lived on one turnip for a month that year and my stomach’s never been the same. That’s why I’m older than I should be.’ And it was true that though she was still at first glance a comfortable, round little babushka like any other, there was an inner hardness concealed within a ruthless instinct for survival that made her formidable.
And now her daughter was going to have another child. She had watched quietly as the little family drama began to unfold. Several times, poor Varya had turned to her miserably and said: ‘God knows, it’d be a blessing if I lost the baby before it was born.’ And now, as she saw how events were shaping, Arina came to her own private conclusion.
If things don’t improve, she decided, the child will have to die. Such things were not uncommon. She had known a woman who had drowned her child; exposing them was easier and less obvious. If it has to be, then I shall do it, she thought. That’s what grandmothers are for.
But she kept this decision to herself. And when he returned gloomily