Russka (5 page)

‘Time to rest,’ she called to the women, and then, curtly to Lebed: ‘You can go.’

As her husband and the elder arrived, Lebed told them briefly what had happened. The elder was a large, grey-bearded man with small impatient eyes. He showed little interest. But her husband’s softer face creased into a look of gentle concern. He glanced at the elder.

‘Should I go too?’

‘The boy will turn up. He won’t have gone far. Let her find him.’ His tone was bored.

She saw the flicker of relief pass across her husband’s face. She understood. He had other wives and other children to worry about.

‘I will go now,’ she said quietly.

‘If you’re not back when we start work again, I’ll come after you,’ her husband promised with a smile.

She nodded, and went upon her way.

How pleasant the woods seemed, how friendly. Above, in the brilliant blue sky, billowing white clouds passed from time to time, gleaming in the reflection of the late morning sun. They came from the east, over the green forest, from who knew what parched and endless steppes. By the forest’s edge where the little boy walked, the wind passed softly over the tall grass, making it whisper. Half a dozen cows grazed there in the dappled shade.

It was already some time since Kiy had slipped away from the old women. Now he made his way happily along the familiar path that led into the woods. He had no sense of danger.

All morning he had brooded about the bear cub. His Uncle Mal knew where it was – in the magical kingdom far to the east. And had he not said he could reach it in a day? But somehow, young as he was, Kiy knew his uncle would not go. And the more he thought about it, the more it had seemed to the little boy that he knew what to do.

As the long morning grew warmer, the field where the women worked had begun to shimmer in the heat. He had wandered to and fro, apparently listless, until at last, as though in a daze and guided by an invisible hand, he had found himself drifting towards the woods.

He knew the way. East meant away from the river, along the track where his mother and the women came to pick mushrooms. At summer’s end they would come this way again, to pick berries. East was where the white clouds were coming from.

He did not know how far it was, but if his uncle could get there in a day then so could he.

Or two days anyway, he thought bravely.

And so, dressed in a white smock with a cloth belt, little bast shoes, and still clutching a wisp of barley he had picked from the field, the chubby young fellow made his way along the path into the pine trees with dreamlike determination.

It was about a quarter of a mile to the series of small glades where the women went to pick mushrooms. More than a dozen varieties could be found there, clustered in the deep shadows, and he smiled with pleasure as he reached the place. He had never been beyond the spot before, but he pressed on with confidence.

The narrow path led down a slope, sometimes over pine needles, sometimes over gnarled roots, then up again into a coppice. He noticed that there were fewer pines now, amongst the oaks and beeches, but saw more ash trees. Squirrels watched him cautiously from the trees. One, by the path, seemed about to bound away, but changed its mind and instead sat alertly, crackling a husk between its teeth as he went by. After a little, the coppice thinned. Everything seemed very quiet. The path was grassy here. A few hundred yards more and it led to the right, then turned to the left. Another clump of pines appeared.

Little Kiy felt happy. He was still excited by this adventure into an unknown land.

He had wandered over half a mile when the path led into a thick screen of trees and became narrower. He pressed on: the trees closed in upon him. There was a faint, peaty smell.

And suddenly, right beside him, was a dark pool.

It was not large – about ten yards across and thirty long. Its surface was still, protected by the trees which concealed it. While he looked, though, a little gust of wind stirred a faint ripple on the surface. The ripple came towards him and lapped, with scarcely a sound, against the dark earth and clumps of fern by the water’s edge.

He knew what it meant. He looked at the pond, and all about him cautiously.

‘In the still pool, the devils dwell.’

That was the saying the people of the hamlet used. There were sure to be water maidens –
rusalki –
in there, and if you were not careful they would come out and tickle you to death. ‘So don’t ever let the
rusalki
get you, Little Kiy,’ his mother had warned him, laughing. ‘You’re so ticklish they’d finish you off in no time!’

Keeping an eye carefully on the surface of the water, the little boy moved round the edge of the dangerous pool, and was glad when the path led him away from it. Soon the trees opened out into an oak grove. The path wound through them until it came to a large empty clearing. Tall grasses moved gently. On the right was a stand of silver birch. Kiy paused.

How quiet it was. Above, the blue sky was empty, silent. Which way should he go?

He waited a few minutes until a cloud drifted soundlessly above the clearing. He watched carefully, to make sure of its path.

East lay straight ahead. He began to walk again.

For the first time, now, he wished he were not alone. Several times he glanced around the clearing. Perhaps, he hoped, his mother might appear. It seemed to him natural that she should suddenly be there, where he was. But there was no sign of her.

He entered the woods again and walked another ten minutes. There was no path at all: the short grass under the beeches did not seem to have been trampled into tracks of any kind by man or
beast. It was strangely empty. He paused, disconcerted. Should he go back? The familiar field and river seemed very far behind. He suddenly wanted to be near them again. But then he remembered the silent, hidden pool with its
rusalki
that lay beside the way, waiting.

The trees grew close together, tall, frightening and aloof, soaring up and blocking out the light so that one could only see little fragments of sky through the screen of leaves – as though the vast blue bowl of the sky had been rudely shattered into a thousand pieces. He looked up at them, and again hesitated. But what about the bear? He would not give up. The little boy bit his lip and started to go forward.

And then he thought he heard her voice.

‘Little Kiy.’ His mother’s cry seemed to have echoed softly through the trees. ‘Kiy, little berry.’ She had called him. His face lit up with a smile of expectation. He turned.

But she was not there. He listened, called out himself, listened again.

Only silence. It was as though his mother’s voice had never been. A gentle gust of wind made the leaves rustle and the upper branches sway stiffly. Had the voice been no more than a moan from the wind? Or was it the
rusalki
from the pool behind, teasing him?

Sadly he walked on.

Sometimes a thin ray of sunlight from high above would catch his fair hair as he made his way across the forest floor under the tall trees. And occasionally he felt as if other eyes were watching him: as if silent forms, brown and grey, were lurking in the distant shadows; but though he looked about him, he never saw anything.

It was five minutes later that he nearly ended his journey.

For just as he had paused once again to look for signs of movement, there was a sudden, loud screech above him; and as he turned in fright, a dark form burst through the high foliage.

‘It’s Baba Yaga,’ he shrieked in terror.

It was a natural thought. Every child feared Baba Yaga the witch. You never knew when she might find you as she flew through the air in her mortar, her long feet and claw-like hands outstretched, ready to seize little boys and girls, carry them off and cook them. You never knew. He stared in horror.

It was only a bird, however, flapping noisily as it plunged through the leaves and swooped through the high branches.

But the shock was too much for him. He was shaking uncontrollably. He burst into tears, sat on the ground, and shouted for his mother, again and again. Yet as the long, silent minutes passed, and nothing stirred, he ceased to cry and gradually became calm.

It had only been a bird. What was it his uncle had often told him? ‘The hunter has nothing to fear in the forest, Little Kiy, if he is careful. Only women and children are afraid of the forest.’ Slowly he got up. Hesitantly he moved forward, a little further, through the dark woods.

And it was only a short while later that he noticed that, to the left, a different region was starting to appear, where the woods were thinner and the light permeated more easily. Soon this other wood seemed to be glowing with a golden light and, drawn by it, he made his way across.

It was warmer there. The trees were not so tall. Lush green grass grew beneath, and bushes too. There were clumps of moss on the ground. He felt the hot sun full on his face, heard the buzz of flies and soon felt the tiny bite of a mosquito. His spirits lightened. At his feet, a little green lizard darted away through the grass.

He was so glad to enter the place that for several minutes he scarcely noticed in which direction he was wandering.

In fact, though he did not know it, Kiy had been walking for almost an hour and it was now high noon. He still did not notice that he was hungry and thirsty; nor, in his relief at escaping from the dark woods, did he realize he was tired. Glancing back now, he could no longer see the dark wood; indeed, as he turned full circle, the sunlit place seemed strangely unfamiliar. Nearby, silver birches were gleaming in the sun. A small bird on a branch stared at him as though too hot to move; and suddenly he, too, affected by the powerful sun, felt as if the whole day had taken on a dream-like quality. Ahead, the undergrowth grew thicker and there was a low screen of reeds.

And then he saw the shining light.

It came from the ground, from under a tangled mass of roots. It flashed suddenly in his eyes and made him blink. He took a pace forward. Still the light glittered. A light in the ground. He moved closer, and as he did so a thought formed in his mind.

That light, he wondered, could it be the way into the other world?

Surely it might be. For the Slavic word by which the people of the hamlet referred to the other world sounded identical to ‘light’. And Kiy knew that the place where the
domovoi
and the other ancestors lived was underground. Here then was a shining light, in a mysterious place, in the ground. Perhaps this might be it – the way in!

Moving closer, he discovered that the light came from the smooth surface of a tiny, half-concealed stream, where it was struck by the noonday sun. It wound its way in and out of the undergrowth, sometimes disappearing entirely into a trough, and then reappearing in the long grass a few yards further on. But the fact that the light came from a stream did not make it any the less magical to the little boy. Indeed, as he looked around at the stream, the shining birch trees and the lush grass, another and still more exciting idea was forming in his mind. I've reached it, he thought, this is it. He must have arrived at the start of the secret kingdom – the kingdom of Three-times-Nine. For what place could be more magical than this?

Wonderingly, he followed the tiny rivulet: it led him for fifty yards through the greenery until he reached a pair of low rocks with a hazel bush growing in the crevice between them. There he paused. He touched the rocks: they were warm, almost hot. He felt suddenly thirsty, hesitated for a moment to drink from the magical stream, and then, his thirst overcoming him, knelt on the grass and scooped up the crystal water with his hands. How sweet it tasted, how fresh.

Then, to get a better view of where he was, he began to scramble on to one of the rocks. There was a ledge just above him. He raised his hand overhead, cast about for something to grasp.

And felt his hand close upon a snake.

He himself could not have said how, a second later, he came to be ten feet away from the rock, trembling from head to foot. His head made tiny, convulsive movements, jerking this way and that, as he looked at the trees, the stream, the rocks, for signs of the snakes that might be about to strike him. A stalk of grass brushed his foot, and he jumped into the air.

But the snake on the rock had not moved. He could see the end of its tail lying along the edge. For two long minutes he waited, still trembling. Nothing on the ground stirred, though high above a buzzard, wings stiff and still, swept noiselessly over the scene.

Slowly, his curiosity overcoming even his terror, the little boy crept forward again.

The snake was dead. It lay in a twisted mass on the broad ledge. Fully extended, it would have been two, perhaps three times as long as he was. Its head had been split open and gouged: he wondered how – by an eagle perhaps? He could see that it was a viper – there were several varieties in the region – and although it was dead, he could not help shuddering as he looked at it.

Yet even as he looked, he realized something else: something that, despite his fear, made him tremble less and even smile. Yes, indeed, this was the magic kingdom. The snake lay under the shadow of a bush that grew in the crevice between the two rocks. And it was a hazel bush.

‘So now I’ll be able to find my bear,’ he said aloud.

For the dead snake could give him one of the greatest secrets in the world – the secret of the magic language.

The magic language: it was silent. All the trees and plants spoke it, so even did stones and streams; animals too, sometimes. And you could obtain the secret in several ways – no less an authority than his grandmother herself had told him. ‘There are four ways to discover the secret language, Little Kiy. If you save a snake from the fire, or a fish from being caught, they may give it to you. Or second, if you find fern seed in the forest at midnight on Midsummer’s Eve; or third, if you find a frog when you’re ploughing and put it in your mouth. Or lastly, if you find a dead snake under a hazel bush, you must bake it and eat its heart.’

If I could speak to the trees and the animals, they’d soon tell me where my bear cub is, he thought. And he gazed at the fearsome snake with satisfaction. Only one big problem remained though: how to bake it? For there was no fire. Perhaps, he considered, I could take it back to the village.