This brother was unforgettable. He was enormously tall, with his sister’s trumpet nose and a jutting Adam’s apple. The clothes he wore were probably hand-me-downs—everything extraordinarily short and tight.

  As far as I can remember, he was twenty-six years old, and he was supposed to have been expelled from a seminary, to have gone to the bad and become the shame and terror of his family.

  The language people used to describe him was always rude and forceful. Instead of “eating” he “guzzled,” instead of “drinking” he “swilled,” instead of “talking” he “barked,” instead of “laughing” he “cackled.” And this wasn’t to insult him but probably because the words of common speech were too weak to do him justice, too petty for his epic personality.

  I saw him a couple of times myself.

  On one occasion he was standing in the middle of the yard, waving his arms as if conducting a choir, and roaring: “Our sea’s a lo-o-onely and unfriendly pla-a-ace!”

  The other time, he was sitting barefoot on the porch, wriggling his toes and staring fixedly at them, as if in puzzlement.

  After a while he said, “What on earth was nature thinking about? Five of them just stuck on at the end—and not one of them’s a blind bit of use!”

  His health was cast-iron. Aunt Ganya used to tell how she’d roasted a sackful of nuts for winter and left them in the parlor. But he turned up and ate the whole sackful at one sitting.

  “And what happened then?” gasped her audience.

  “Nothing at all. He thumped his fist on his belly and went to bed.”

  He always turned up empty-handed, sometimes without even a cap on his head. But once he brought a little carpetbag with a worsted pattern on it—the sort of thing old women take with them to the bathhouse. He put it in a corner of the hallway, stayed a short while, and then left, as always, without saying goodbye. Then a peasant from a village ten versts away brought us a note: “Forgot carpetbag. Please immediately seal with named sealing wax and keep hidden till my next visit.”

  Father Savely was terribly scared.

  “A bomb! Dynamite!”

  He was on the point of going straight to the police superintendent and “making a clean breast of it.” Then he decided to seal the bag, after all. But he didn’t possess a seal, let alone a “named” seal. And he’d been strictly instructed to use a named seal . . . So he gave in to temptation and decided to have a look.

  But his wife wouldn’t let him do this indoors—and, if he did it outside, he might be seen and reported.

  So one night Father Savely waited for the moon to come up, then crept out like a thief, behind the barns. He crossed himself and turned the ring of the catch.

  Inside the carpetbag, gleaming in the dreamy light of the moon, lay a bottle of beer and half a bottle of vodka. That was all.

  It seemed his wife’s brother hadn’t wanted anyone to know just what it was he so treasured, or perhaps he was worried that someone might help himself. Hence the seal.

  The name of this monstrous individual was Galaktion, but he was generally known as Galasha.

  Father Savely’s late fruit, baby Avenir, was some ten months old when Galasha put in an unexpected appearance. On this occasion he was very smartly turned out, in a demi-cotton frock coat that wasn’t even too short for him, and carrying a sort of bundle wrapped in greasy newspaper.

  “I’ve been working as a tutor,” he explained straightaway. “Plugging away at the fatheaded son of the Galkins’ estate manager. They’re sending him off to take some exam.”

  It was a hot day. After exchanging kisses with the priest and his wife, Galasha went quickly down to the cellar. There, according to Ganya, he “glugged down all the milk from four cows.” Baba One-Eye had milked those cows in Ganya’s presence, strained the milk in the usual way, and carried it down.

  For years to come this tale would be told and retold, and every time the listeners reacted first with disbelief and then with horror.

  But Aunt Ganya was someone you had to believe. Nor did Galasha deny it.

  “R-r-r-ight,” he said. “I drank it all r-r-r-ight. And I’d happily do it again.”

  As Galasha came up from the cellar, he was intercepted by his sister, who was eager to show off her little Venyushka.

  “He’s a late fruit,” Father Savely was still repeating, “and he shakes. Gets through a lot of food, but he doesn’t grow or fatten up, though he has become heavy. Well, Olga, let’s have a look at the little fellow. Show him to his uncle.”

  The priest’s wife took the baby from his cradle.

  “He’s got four teeth already,” she said proudly, handing him to Galasha.

  Awkwardly, without looking at him, Galasha lifted the baby up to his shoulder. And suddenly, shaking violently, the baby scratched like a cat at Galasha’s fine coat and bit his uncle on the neck. Galasha yelled in shock and almost dropped his nephew on the floor. The horrified mother only just caught him in time. Galasha rubbed his neck and stared at Venyushka, his eyes on stalks.

  “God, what is this creature?” he muttered. “What a terror. A vampire—a real Vurdalak!”

  Venyushka was indeed terrifying. Arms and legs like little sticks. Flame-red hair. And—like a lot of the village children—red scabs all over his cheeks.

  And Venyushka had certainly scared the wits out of his uncle—it was almost funny. The childlike giant went all meek and quiet, and he didn’t even touch his supper (though this could, perhaps, be ascribed to “glugging down the milk from four cows”). But that night Galasha started shaking so violently that he woke Aunt Ganya, who promptly applied hot cinders to his belly. In the morning he was feverish and delirious.

  “He’s been raving, saying the most awful things about Venyushka,” said Aunt Ganya. “So awful, I couldn’t repeat them.” And she added, “But I think it’s the milk—it’s gone to his head.”

  Whether because of Venyushka or the milk, Galasha took to his bed for more than a month. Emaciated, with yellow skin and sunken cheeks, he was like a giant bone that’s been gnawed clean.

  They tried every possible cure: vodka with pepper and salt, and infusions of linden flowers, chamomile, and wormwood. Goats’ wool was burned by his bedside, and Baba One-Eye twice rubbed him with kerosene. Nothing made any difference. Though he did once punch Baba in the teeth.

  Things got so bad, they almost sent for a doctor.

  When we came over to play with Lisa, we weren’t allowed inside, but through the window we could see a bed in the parlor. On it, under a gray rug, lay a gigantic body with enormous purplish feet.

  Poor Galasha was gradually fading away. Meanwhile Venyushka unexpectedly began to thrive. Everybody was astonished and delighted: he ate less yet got fatter. His cheeks filled out and grew pinker, and his arms and legs grew stronger. He was no longer always desperate to eat, and he bounced about so energetically that his mother was afraid to leave him alone in his cradle, in case he fell out. And he started crawling around on the floor.

  One day, when Father Savely’s wife was in the kitchen, she suddenly heard Galasha bleating like a goat. Running back into the room, she found him sitting on his bed, eyes popping, shaking all over, and yelling. And standing on his crooked legs in the doorway, holding on to the doorpost and swaying from side to side, was little Venyushka. Mouth wide open, staring. The mother grabbed her son—but only just in time. Galasha was already groping around on the floor, searching for a boot to throw at his nephew. God knows what he was thinking. But then, he did have a high fever.

  “Vurdala-ak! Vurda-la-ak!” he yelled, or some such nonsense.

  They put a wet towel around his head—but still only just managed to calm him down.

  That evening, Baba One-Eye went up to Father Savely and said very quietly, “Father Savely! Father Savely! If you sent that little Vurdalak of ours away for nine days, our dear Galashenka would get better.”

  Father Savely went white. “Whom are you referring to in that way, you wicked woman?”

  Thinking he was scolding her for disrespect toward his wife’s brother, Baba replied, “Well, I meant Galaktion Timofeich. Only because the poor man’s so sick, I called him Galashenka . . .”

  Father Savely was helpless in the face of such innocence, and his anger passed. He looked at Baba and said, with a certain degree of respect, “You’re a fool, Baba. You really are.”

  Next morning, after she’d done all the cooking, Baba went out and was not to be seen again till evening. This was something unheard of.

  She returned quite calmly, as if there were nothing the matter, and went straight to Father Savely’s wife. “I’ve just been down to Lychovka. Everything will be all right now. Go out into the garden and dig up some garlic.”

  Lychovka, everyone knew, was where Poborikha lived—a wise woman, witch, midwife, and bonesetter. You could go to her for advice on anything.

  The priest’s wife, who’d been wanting to scold Baba for her sudden absence, was pacified. Now she wanted to know what Poborikha had dreamed up.

  The main thing was to make sure that Father Savely didn’t get to hear of it. If he did, everything would be spoiled.

  They threaded some garlic onto a ribbon and hung it round Galasha’s neck. Then Baba went to little Venyushka and pushed a clove up his nose. This made him cry.

  “Aha!” she said. “Don’t like it? That’ll teach you!”

  That night, Venyushka went into spasms. Probably from fright—Galasha’s yells must have been terrifying.

  That day proved a turning point. From then on, the child began to weaken, while Galasha grew stronger.

  He grew stronger, but he didn’t stay around for long. Once he’d put on some weight again, he pulled on his frock coat, went to find his treasure—that bundle wrapped in a greasy newspaper—and left.

  Only this time, he did say goodbye. But not to everybody—only to Venyushka.

  He walked up to the cradle and looked inside. “Well,” he said, “think you got a lot out of me? Damn-all, I’d say!”

  And he turned away, spat on the ground, and walked off.

  Late that autumn, soon after we left the village, little Venyushka yielded up his soul to God.

  The parents grieved bitterly, while Baba One-Eye left Father Savely’s service with the words, “Now he’s dead, watch out—there’s no knowing what he’ll get up to next!”

  Some years later, I heard a village legend about a priest’s terrifying child, who was as little as a kitten, but at night he would climb out of his cradle, grow “right up to the ceiling,” glug down the milk from four cows (see how a story gets jumbled!), and if he met anybody on his way, he would gnaw them to death. Then an old wise man, a man of holy life, arrived from Kiev. He read a prayer over the Vurdalak and set his little soul free.

  But the best thing of all in this legend was that the person who found out about the priest’s vampire child and his tricks was called “Baba Three-Eyes.”

  The voice of the people, the voice of God, had not only restored to Baba One-Eye the natural eye she lacked; it had also endowed her with a supernatural third eye.

  How much of all this was Baba One-Eye’s own invention, I don’t know. Though I think the part about the third eye could well have been.

  Translated by Nicolas Pasternak Slater

  THE HOUSE SPIRIT

  Our dear old Nyanya had two enemies—an inner enemy and an outer enemy.

  The outer enemy was snub-nosed, with colorless eyelashes and no eyebrows. Nyanya called her Elvira Karlovna to her face but referred to her out of earshot as “that Finnish she-devil.” This enemy was our governess—the second rung in the ladder of our education. At the age of five we children left Nyanya and progressed to Elvira Karlovna for our early schooling.

  Elvira Karlovna taught us the alphabet and the rudiments of Scripture. Her teaching methods were robust; she would administer smacks when appropriate.

  I suspect that her own schooling had been sketchy. Her reply to an awkward question would be either a slap or some wise old saw like “Curiosity killed the cat.”

  One day, I remember, we were reading about how a child was miraculously brought back to life by one of the prophets. “The prophet stretched himself upon the child,” we read. So I asked, “But what does ‘stretched himself’ mean?”

  “‘Stretched himself’ means that he lay on the child head to head, hand to hand, and foot to foot.”

  This greatly surprised me. “How could he do that? The prophet must have been ever so much taller than the child.”

  “Yes, but he had holy powers,” came the reply.1

  Elvira’s wise old saws all had a somewhat delinquent flavor: “It’ll all be swept under the carpet and no one will be any the wiser.” “It’s not a crime to steal, it’s a crime to get caught.”

  Anyway, Nyanya hated this Elvira with every fiber of her being. Probably there was more than a touch of jealousy in her hatred. Once a “baby” was transferred from the nursery to the authority of this snub-nosed tyrant, to be tormented with schooling and slapping, Nyanya’s power was over.2

  Nyanya’s other enemy, her more intimate enemy, was the house spirit, whom she referred to out of earshot as “the master.”

  What tricks he played on poor old Nyanya! He would put her cotton spool right under her nose—then make her look elsewhere. Nyanya would crawl around the floor searching for it, but the wretched cotton spool was simply nowhere to be found. And suddenly, hey presto—there it was, lying on the table beside her scissors.

  Or he would push her spectacles up onto her forehead and she would fumble about in every corner of the room, repeating, “Who’s hidden my glasses?”

  At heart the house spirit didn’t mean any harm, he simply enjoyed playing tricks. He didn’t like the stove being lit when the weather was mild and damp. He was thrifty, he thought it a pity to waste firewood. When it was really cold, you could heat the stove to your heart’s content but it was no good trying to light it when there was a thaw—the house spirit would just climb into the chimney and blow all the smoke back into the room.

  Another favorite trick of his was to push Nyanya’s slippers farther under the bed during the night. In a word, he was a prankster—but there was no malice in him.

  Although Nyanya was always grumbling about the house spirit, she was ready to admit that they rubbed along together well enough.

  “Our ‘master’ is good-hearted, not like him at the Korsakovs, where I worked before. He was that spiteful we were all covered in bruises. He’d stick feathers in the servant girls’ hair at night, and spit in the dough so that the cook just couldn’t get it to rise, no matter what. He even used to pinch our mistress in the night! But our fellow’s not so bad, he’s a cheery soul.”

  Yes, he was a cheerful, playful soul, so of course he didn’t like it at all when autumn came and we children were sent off to the city. He belonged in the country, he lived in our country home. A long winter on his own would be dismal and lonely. When we started packing and getting ready for the journey he would take to letting out loud sighs during the night. We all heard these sighs and felt very sorry for him.

  But what I want to tell you about is a time when the master revealed another side of himself. We learned that he could get very angry indeed and really take it out on someone.

  The story begins with an unusual event late one autumn, when my older brothers and sisters had already gone back to Moscow for their studies and only Mama, my little sister, and I were still in our country home. One day, a dirty old britska with a Jewish driver on the box stopped by the front porch. A short, thin lady stepped out, followed by a tiny little girl. The lady spent a long time pulling at her coat, adjusting it with small, quick movements, like a bird preening its feathers. Then she took the little girl by the hand and led her into the house. The girl stumbled awkwardly on her spindly legs. We noticed that one of her stockings was torn and that she had a grubby white handkerchief wrapped around one cheek.

  We ourselves were sitting with Nyanya in the dining room and we saw all this from the window.

  The lady came in and gave us a frightened look. Then she smiled ingratiatingly, sat the little girl on the sofa, and said solemnly, “Please allow me to speak to Varvara Alexandrovna.”

  That was my mother.

  “The mistress is resting,” replied Nyanya.

  The lady clasped her hands imploringly. “I won’t disturb her peace. But the driver’s waiting outside and I do need to have an urgent word with her. Is she through there?” And she pointed to the drawing-room door and scurried toward it.

  We watched her make her way through the drawing room and then pause for a moment, crossing herself several times.

  She half opened the bedroom door and said solemnly, “Auntie, dearest! I have come to ask for sanctuary. I have nowhere else to go . . .”

  Then she went in and closed the door behind her.

  It was all very strange.

  Later we learned that she was the wife of some distant relative of ours. That was why she had chosen to address Mama as “auntie.”

  We never found out what was said in the bedroom. But they went on talking for a long time. Meanwhile we silently watched the very small girl on the sofa. Her feet didn’t reach the floor; she sat with her legs awkwardly crossed at the ankles, not moving a muscle.

  “What is your name?” asked my sister. Instead of answering, the girl quickly closed her eyes, as if to make herself invisible—and she went on sitting like that, with her eyes tight shut, almost all the time she was there.

  She was a strange little girl.

  At last the bedroom door opened and Mama emerged, followed by the new arrival. We could see from the look on Mama’s face that she was annoyed about something and even rather upset. The lady kept wiping her reddened little nose with her handkerchief and repeating, “What you’re doing is wonderful! Wonderful!”

 

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