Vasyl Stefanyk SONS

I dedicate this story to my friend Levko Bachyns 'ky.

("Syny," 1922, Zemlya)

With good young horses old Maksym was harrowing spring wheat. The harrow flew over the earth like feathers. Maksym threw his hat down on the earth; the shirt opened and fell on his shoulders. A cloud of dust flew from under the harrow and covered the grey hair on his head and on his chest. He grew angry and clamoured so that people in the next fields said to themselves: "The old dog is always angry; but he can still hold them young horses, the giant. He was well fed all his life, but since the time that he lost both his sons he keeps shouting both in the field and in the village." Maksym stopped the horses. "Old bones are like old birch: they're good for the fire, but they're worthless when it comes to walking after a horse. When your feet give way while working or dancing, then it's best not to say what such feet are worth. Get on the stove, you old bag of bones, the time has come." But he shook his grey hair under the black manes of the horses and kept on shouting: "Oh, brother, I can still make it on top of the stove all right, but the stove is all chipped and cold. The icons have dimmed and the saints look at the empty rooms like hungry dogs. The old woman decorated them all the time with perri- winkle and sweet basil and gilded the doves around them so that they'd be kind, so that the rooms would be bright, so that the children would grow. But even though there's so many of them, these saints are all good for nothing. My sons are gone, I covered the old woman with earth, and you gods have to forgive the lack of perriwinkle; you should have taken better care . . . Well, Starhead, let's go and work 'til God has willed; let's take care of this soil, brother." And they went from one end of the field to the other, swaddled with dust; and the harrow bit at the earth, grumbled, tore it to pieces, so that the grain would have a soft bed. "You, Barefoot, you're not a horse at all; you're a dog. You have chewed up my shoulders, inch by inch. Don't yank me, don't yank me, for life has yanked me so that I can hardly stand on my own feet. Before dawn I give you oats, not having eaten anything myself; I comb you, I wash you with my old tears, and you, you bite me. Now Starhead, there's a horse for you: he follows me with his black eyes; he wipes the old man's tears with his mane; but you, you're rotten; you don't have a heart. Just the other day you tore out a whole bunch of my grey hair and you threw it on a pile of manure. You shouldn't do that. And even though you're a very nice horsefor that you're rotten. I can't sell you to the Jews, but if Saint George were to come to me I'd give you to him, so that you'd go with him to kill the dragons. You're not good at working the soil; there's no peace in you." And he spat on his fingers, washed his wound in the shoulder and sprinkled it with earth. "Hey, horses, let's go, go." The harrow quieted down, the earth gave in, fell apart. Maksym's feet felt the softness under them; that softness that so rarely enters the peasant's soul. The earth gives him that softness and for that he loves it so. As he was throwing a handful of grain he kept repeating: "I've made a soft crib for you, grow up to the sky." Maksym quieted down; he no longer shouted but suddenly he stopped the horses. "Why the devil do you hurt, you old bone you? You screech in every joint, you crooked one." He looked back and saw a long thread of red blood, and he sat down. "Glass, the mother . . . ! Now go and harrow, and you can't leave an unfinished field unless you bust. And you, field, you're not going to have much of a boon from this old blood, for old blood is like old manure doesn't fertilize at all. I have a loss and you get no gain." Limping, he unharnessed the horses and led them to the wagon and placed some hay in front of them. "You, sun, don't be angry with the old man for making his lunch too soon; he's got nothing to walk on." He took out of the bag some bread, pork fat, a bottle, and washed his wound with whiskey. Then he tore off his sleeve and bandaged his foot, tying it down with a piece of rope. "Now you can hurt or stop, or as you like, but you'll continue to harrow." He drank some whiskey, took a piece of bread and chewed it; again he became angry and shouted: "Is this bread? It's only good for combing a Jewish horse, for it would tear the skin off a good horse. They come to me in hordes, those sluts. Granddad, they say, we'll bake for you and wash for you, but deed some land to us. These torn bitches think that I held the land for them? When I die then let flowers grow on my fields and let them say an Our Father for the old man with their little heads." In anger, he threw the bread far onto the field. "Teeth shudder from this bread. Drink, Maksym, whiskey goes down smoothly ..." "Oh, shut up, don't bark over my head; for whom are you singing? For this dilapidated and chewed up old man? Fly away into the sky and tell that God of yours not to send me a stupid bird with its song, for if He's so strong then let Him send me my sons. For it's on account of His will that I'm left here alone on this earth. Tell your God not to fool me with songs, get away!"

And he threw a lump of earth at the lark, and the lark began to sing even more beautifully above his head and didn't want to fly to God. "You, little bird, you don't understand a damn thing. When my young Ivan ran after you trying to catch you, when he was searching for your nest and played on his reed, then, little bird, you were wise to sing; that's the way it should have been. Your singing and Ivan's reed floated over the ground, and above you the sun, and all of you were sowing God's voice over me and over the shiny plows, over the whole world. And through the sun, as if through a golden sieve, God showered us with lightness, and the whole earth and all of the people shone with gold. So the sun leavened spring on earth, as if in a huge trough . . ." "And from that trough we took out wedding cakes, and the cakes stood in front of the musicians, and the young couple, full of love, went to get married, and the spring rolled on, like the sea, like a flood; then, little bird, your singing flowed into my heart like spring water into a new pitcher ..." "Go away, little bird, into those lands, where they haven't taken away the wedding cakes, and where they haven't slaughtered the children ..." He took his grey head into his hands and bowed it down to the earth. "You should be ashamed of yourself, grey hair, that you're whining and singing like an old crybaby, for nothing in this world will help you anymore ..." "Oh, my sons, my sons; where have you lain your heads to rest? Not only all my land, but my soul I'd sell just to be able to get to your grave on my two bleeding feet. God, the golden books in churches lie that You had a son, they lie. They say You resurrected Your son. And I don't ask You to resurrect them; all I ask is that You show me their graves so that I can lie by them. You can see the whole world, but over my graves You grow blind." "May Your blue dome burst just like my heart." "Why doesn't one of you come to the old man; as if you didn't embrace them, my sons, as if you didn't lie between white sheets with them? They were like curly oaks ... Go ahead, bring the little bastard children; don't be ashamed, come. Grandfather will spread all the carpets under your feet, he'll cut up all of the best linen for the diapers for the little bastard. For your walking about unwed and your weeping from derision." And the old man raised his two arms high and called to the whole world: "Come on, daughter-in-law, come to the house; we don't need a priest." He wept loudly, lay close to the earth and with it, as if with a handkerchief, he wiped his tears and blackened himself. But he continued to entreat: "Or you, lover, come, even without a child. On your neck I will see his arms, and on your lips his lips will redden, and from your eyes as from a deep well I will fish out his eyes and hide them in my heart like in a little box. Like a dog, I will sniff out his hair on your palm . . . Come lover, come and save the old man." "You're still in the world and they're no longer here; so find your way to me and bring me news. Pour some cold dew on my hair, for each strand burns me so as if a hot wire. My head is aflame from that fire." And he tore hair out of his head and threw it on the earth. "Grey hair burn the earth; I can no longer endure your weight ..." Totally exhausted he lay on the ground and for a long time remained silent and then spoke gently: "The last time my Andriy came to mehe was my learned onehe says, father, now we are going to go and fight for Ukraine. What Ukraine? And he picked up a lump of earth with his sword and says: this is Ukraine, and here, and he pointed his sword at his chest, here is her blood; we are going to take our soil away from the enemy. Give me, he says, a clean shirt, give me some water so that I can wash myself, and so long. When that sword of his glistened, it blinded me completely. Son, I say, I have a younger one, too, Ivan, take him with you for this cause; he's a big one; let me bury both of you in this soil so that the enemy cannot tear it out of these roots. Good, Dad, he says, we'll both go. And when the old woman heard this, then I saw right away that death wound herself around her neck with a white sheet. I stumbled to the threshold for I heard how her eyes dropped out and rolled on the floor, like dead rocks. It only seemed to me that way, but the light on her forehead went out forever. And in the morning both of them were leaving, and the old woman leaned against the gate and didn't speak and looked from afar as if from heaven. And when I was dropping them off at the railway station then I said: Andriy, Ivan, never retreat, but don't forget me, for I'm alone; your mother died by the gate . . ." Till late in the evening Maksym led the horses over the field but he no longer shouted; he was completely silent. The children, herding sheep; people, ringing with plows as they went by him, did not greet him out of fear. Covered with mud, tattered, limpinghe seemed to be sinking into the earth. Late at night, when Maksym saw to the cows and horses, when he milked the sheep, he entered the house. "You've grown completely silent, you wretch. You're so dead as if someone had stuck a knife in you; you can't utter a word, but I'll get some fire into you yet." He cooked some cornmeal, put on a white shirt, ate and sat quietly. Then he kneeled on the ground and prayed: "And you, Mother of God, you be my houselady; you with your son in the middle, and next to you Andriy and Ivan on both sides . . . You gave one son, but I gave two ..."