I strolled on a few paces to a juggler with a long white beard and a bare chest weathered by the sun. A vermillion dot was painted on his forehead, heavy earrings had weighed his lobes down and his white hair was slicked back and plaited: still, his eyes shone bright and clear. He must have seen so many things in his life! I, on the other hand, would always stay here in this village. The crowd fell silent as he added a fourth and fifth club to the three he already held and said in broken German: ‘Two clubs – for bunglers! Three clubs – for fools! Four clubs – is good! Five clubs – for masters!’
Christina squeezed in beside me and Maggie’s little hand slid into mine. Tanya joined us, too. The clubs flew straight up in the air, high and fast, their wood shimmering in the sun. As he juggled, the old man got his helper to throw him a sixth club, and a seventh. I gasped and then watched breathlessly; the colourful musicians marched noisily past again.
When the juggler took off his cap to ask for money, we walked on, past the barber-surgeon, where people with all sorts of aches and pains queued up. I heard a man’s horrified gurgle as the barber pulled the wrong tooth, while there was cheering from the puppeteer’s stall: I headed towards it. The play was in full swing. We sat down on the grass with the other onlookers. Surely we could watch for a little while without having to pay? It seemed to be set in a fortress. One puppet wore a glittering round cap, with the Russian double-headed eagle embroidered on its jerkin. That must be the young Russian Tsar. A soldier puppet stepped out in front of it and the man beside me burst into laughter.
‘What’s this about? Is that the Tsar?’ I whispered.
The man beside me nodded. ‘Yes. Two years ago, Tsar Peter wanted to visit the fortress in Riga. He’s hardly ever in Moscow, did you know that?’ I shrugged and he carried on, ‘But the Swedes wouldn’t let him. An ordinary soldier barred the way to the Tsar of All the Russias, and the King of Sweden –’ here he pointed to a third puppet, sitting on a stool ‘– refused to punish the man. The Tsar is said still to be furious about the insult. He’s sworn revenge on all Swedes.’ He blew his nose into his fingers. The Tsar-puppet was having a temper tantrum, stamping wildly on its crown. I laughed loudly, along with the others, and was feeding Maggie the last of the sweetened nuts when a shadow fell across me, blocking out the sunlight. A voice said in Russian, ‘That’s the girl.’ I looked up. It was the man from the riverbank.
3
Surrounded by his three companions and a group of monks, he looked even wealthier today amidst us souls, peasants, idlers and scoundrels. His low-slung belt was richly embroidered, and despite the warm spring sunshine the wide collar of his dark green velvet coat was once again trimmed with fur. Tanya jumped up, dragging me to my feet along with her.
One of the monks pointed to me. ‘Tanya, is that your daughter?’
‘No, otets.’ We addressed everyone who had power over us as ‘father’. ‘Marta is my husband’s daughter. But I’ve raised her. Or tried to anyway,’ she added bitterly. Her grip on my wrist was painful. ‘Has she done something wrong?’
The Russian stroked his beard and smiled at me. I couldn’t see his eyes, shaded by his large, flat beaver-fur hat. The monk seized me by the chin. He stank of pickled onions and vestments that had been too long in the wearing. I wrinkled my nose. Couldn’t priests wash themselves, or at the very least change their underwear? The monk stared at me brazenly before letting go of me. He turned to Tanya. ‘Go home. We’ll come to your izba early this evening.’
‘But it’s the dance this evening,’ Christina cried out. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it all winter.’ All of us had been looking forward to it all winter.
The monk gave Tanya a searching look. She shrugged, turning her face plain and blank. It was the serf’s only and oldest weapon against our masters, whose power inevitably made them our enemies. We had to bear their constant meddling in matters sacred to us: family or work. How often were their orders frustrated by the mental void in which we took refuge?
On the way home Christina sulked and Tanya’s face was pinched with anger. She spat noisily, and repeatedly, as she walked. When I tried to tell her what had happened beside the river, she just said, ‘Shut your mouth. I knew it – all someone like you does is make trouble for us!’ Maggie cried, and fell over three times on the short walk. After the third time, I picked her up and carried her on my hip, her warm little body pressed close to mine. Already I sensed it was the last time I would hold her like this.
I was almost relieved when at last, towards evening, there was a knock at the door of our hut. The silence in the mir was eerie as everything that was able to walk was at the fair. Waiting for the unknown is a punishment in itself. My father had asked what had happened, but all he learnt was that the monks wanted to come and see me. He sighed, got up from the oven, which took up a whole corner of the izba, and poured himself more kvass into a shallow bowl. Then he sat on the bench in the ‘red’ corner of the hut – meaning the good, clean corner – dusting the icon of St Nicholas that was painted in cheap earthen colours on a rough wooden board. He looked at the plain wooden cross beside it and frowned, as if thinking for a moment. In the end he shrugged his shoulders and left both objects hanging there, side by side. My father patted the bench next to him and I sat down.
‘What have you been up to, Marta, hmm? It’s all right, you can tell me.’ To my surprise, he was smiling.
I shrugged. ‘Nothing special. A Russian who’s staying with the monks wanted to grope me by the river yesterday. So I threatened to smash his skull in.’
My father laughed so hard he began to cough. The smoke from the flat oven that filled our hut had made him sick a long time ago. ‘You call that nothing special, eh? Good,’ he wheezed, when he was able to breathe again.
Tanya eyed me coldly. Nothing more was said until the men came.
They pushed the door open themselves. As they stepped over the raised threshold my father’s face suddenly emptied of expression, just as Tanya’s had done earlier. He rose briefly, crossed himself with three fingers in the Russian manner, and then sat down again.
The man from the riverbank for a moment covered his nose with his elbow – coming in from outside, the stench of six people living in a small space hit him full on. He looked around in disgust at the izba, whose four walls held our pitiful life together. Boiled moss was wedged between beams to keep cockroaches away. His gaze took in the modest heaps of clothes and blankets we left folded on the floor. Our six coarsely carved wooden bowls were stacked in the corner, beside the vat of water. We relieved ourselves in a second bucket that we emptied onto the street. The corners of his mouth twitched before he wiped his muddy heel on the straw that covered the floor. I hated him for this haughtiness. This, after all, was my home.
‘Brat,’ said the monk to my father. Brother.
My father murmured, ‘Welcome, otets.’
The monk bowed to our icon and crossed himself. ‘Good that you keep your icon clean.’
My father smiled and the monk continued: ‘We have a guest at the monastery. Vassily Gregorovich Petrov, a merchant from Walk. He needs a maidservant and has been so gracious as to think of your family.’