Farewell to Matyora

Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora. 1976

Original Source: "Proshchanie s Materoi," Nash sovremennik, Nos. 10-11 (1976). Excerpted.

The cemetery lay behind the village by the road to the mill, on a dry, sandy rise, amid birch and pine trees, from where the Angara and her banks looked for miles around. The first to come up was Darya, bending forward determinedly, her arms stretched out as if she were picking berries; her lips were pursed sternly, betraying her toothless mouth. Nastasya was hurrying after her with some difficulty: being short-winded slowed her down and she had to keep throwing her head back and forth to catch the air. Behind them, holding a little boy by the hand, came Sima, mincing. Having upset the whole village, Bogodul now kept well back and the old women rushed to the cemetery alone.

The people Bogodul had been calling devils were just finishing off their work, dragging away the sawn off posts, the fencing and crosses, and stacking them up to be burnt on one big bonfire. A burly peasant, like a bear, wearing a green tarpaulin coat and matching trousers, was striding through the graves carrying an armful of rotten old wooden grave markers when Darya with a final effort tore ahead of the others and struck him a glancing blow on the arm with a stick she had picked up. It was a soft blow but the shock of it made the man drop his load on the ground and he shouted in surprise:

What yer doing, what yer doing, woman?

'Clear off outa it, yer demon!' shouted Darya, panting with fear and anger, and she wielded the stick once again. The man jumped out of the way.

Now then, woman, you just ... keep your hands to yourself I'll tie 'em up for yer. Yet ... you ... 'His big red eyes glared at the old woman. 'What are you doing here? Is it because of the graves?

Clear off, we're telling you!' said Darya, advancing on the man. He retreated, stunned by her terrifying expression, which showed she was ready for anything. 'Get yer gone right now, you heathen! Ruining the graves ... 'Darya howled. 'Did you bury them here? Are your mother and father lying here? Kiddies lying here? You never had a mother or father, you heathen. You're not a person. What kind of a person would have a mind for this!' She looked at the crosses and posts that had been collected and dumped down anyhow, and howled all the more sickeningly: 'O-o-h! Do away with him, Lord God, on the spot, don't have mercy! No-o,' she said, rounding on the man again. 'You're not going off out of it just like that. You'll answer for this. You'll answer to the whole world.

Oh, leave off, woman!' roared the man. 'You'll do the answering. I've been given my orders and I'm doing what I'm told. I couldn't care less about your dear departed.

Who ordered you? Who ordered you?' asked Sima, pitching in from the side without letting go of Kolya's little hand. Sobbing, the little boy pulled her back, away from the huge, infuriated man, and Sima, giving in to him, retreated still shouting out: 'There's no sacred spot left on the earth for you lot! Yer petty tyrants!

Hearing the noise a second peasant came out of the bushes - he was a bit smaller, a bit younger and more neat in appearance, but not one to be pushed around either and he was also wearing green tarpaulin work clothes - he came out with an axe in his hand, stopped and squinted.

Look at this,' said the bear to him, cheering up. 'Flew at me, they did. Waving sticks around.

What's the matter, citizens about to be flooded?' asked the second man importantly. 'We are the sanitation work team; we're clearing the territory. By order of the Sanitary and Epidemic Center.

Nastasya thought these incomprehensible words were meant to mock her.

What Snakery pediatric Center?' she snapped back after a moment. 'Taking the mickey out of old women! You're a snake yourself! You're both greedy snakes! There ain't punishment too much for you. And don't you try 'n' scare me with that axe. Drop it.

'What a turn up for the books this is!' said the man and stuck his axe in a nearby pine tree.

And don't squint. Look, he squinted his eyeballs at me like a thief Look us straight in the eye. Wha' yer been up to then, snakes?

'Wha' yer been up to? What yer been up to?' chimed in Darya.

The orphaned graves, picked bare, piled up into equally dumb heaps, which she looked at in her feverish torment, trying to take in what had been done and getting all the more anguished because of it, once again assaulted her with their disfigurement. Losing control of herself Darya, stick in hand, again rushed at the bear as he was the nearer, but he grabbed the stick and jerked it away. Darya fell to her knees. She did not have the strength to get up right away, but she heard Sima's heart rending cry and the boy's; and then the men shouting something as if by way of a reply, then more shouting taken up by many voices, welling up into a crescendo which finally exploded; someone took hold of her and helped her to her feet, and Darya saw that all the people from the village had come running up. There were Katerina and Tat'iana, Lisa and the kids, Vera, old man Egor, Tunguska, Bogodul and some others. There was a hell of a din. The two men were surrounded, they had no chance of snarling back. Bogodul had taken possession of the axe which had been stuck in the pine tree, and was poking the bear in the chest with a sharp stick while swinging back the axe in his hand as if in preparation. Old man Egor was shifting his eyes silently and uncomprehendingly between the crosses and stars which had been broken off the posts and the two men whose work it all was. Vera Nosareva, a strong, unemotional woman, caught sight of her mother's photograph on one of the posts and flew at the two men with such rage that they recoiled and tried to protect themselves from her, well and truly frightened. The din welled up with even more force.

Wha's the point o' talking - let's sort 'em out right now. This is the best place to do it.

So they'll learn, the pagans.

Why profane this place? Let's chuck 'em in the Angara.

And they've not been punished; their hands ain't even withered.

Where do they get people like this?

They pulled them all up like carrots ... Just think!

Clear 'em off the face of the earth, and she'll say thank you.

Fucking bastards!

The second man, the one a bit younger, was trying to shout above the crowd, throwing his head back like a cock and turning from side to side:

Do you think it's us? Do you think it's us? You must understand. They gave us the instructions, brought us here. We're not here on our own account.

Liar,' they interrupted, 'you came here in secret.

Let me get a word in,' said the man with an effort. 'It wasn't in secret, an official came with us. He brought us here. And your man Vorontsov here.

That can't be true!

Take us to the village - we'll get everything sorted out there. They're there.

That's true, let's go back to the village.

There's no point in that: let 'em answer for it here, where they've done the damage.

They won't get away from us. Let's go.

And they herded the men off to the village. Only too glad and relieved, they hurried; the old women were unable to keep up and slackened their pace. Bogodul hopped and skipped along as if hobbled, and would not let the tall man go, constantly prodding him in the back with his stick. The man kept turning round and bellowing - in reply Bogodul twisted his mouth into a satisfied smirk and gestured to the axe in his hand. The whole noisy, nasty, fervent procession - kids in front and kids behind, and in the middle, hemming in on all sides the two men, scruffy, indignant, old men and women bent up double and more, mincing along and shouting in wheezing unison, kicking up all the dust on the road - this crowd ran into a couple of people hurrying to meet it as it approached the village: one was Vorontsov, the chairman of the village Soviet, and now of the bigger Soviet in the new settlement, and the second was unknown to them, but he looked like an office worker and he had a straw hat and a face a bit like a gypsy's.

'What's all this? What's going on here?' demanded Vorontsov from a distance as he walked. The old women immediately kicked up a racket, waving their arms, interrupting each other and pointing to the two men, who, growing a bit bolder, had broken out of the encirclement and jostled their way through to the one who looked like a gipsy.

'We're, you know, only doing what's necessary, and they set on us,' the young one said to him by way of explanation.

Like dogs,' chimed in the lanky one and scoured the crowd with his eyes, looking for Bogodul. 'You scarecrow, I'll ...

He did not finish. Vorontsov interrupted him, as did the old women, who had responded to his 'dogs' comment with a roar of indignation.

Qui-et!' he ordered, drawing out the syllables. 'Are we going to listen to each other or have a shouting match? Are we going to try and understand the position or what? ... They,' Vorontsov nodded to the men, 'were carrying out a sanitary clearing of the cemetery. It's been authorized to do this everywhere. Is that understood? Everywhere. Authorized. This is Comrade Zhuk; he's from the department dealing with the flooding of this region. It's his job and he'll explain to you. Comrade Zhuk is an official.

Well, if'n he's an official person, let 'im answer to the people. We thought them there were lying, and him there, that person. Who gave the order for our cemetery to be cleared away? There's people lying there, not animals. How dare they ruin the graves? Let 'im give us an answer. The dead would like to know too.

These little capers don't take place for nothing.

Mother of God! What 'ave we lived to see. You ought to die of shame for talk like that.

'Are we going to listen, or what?' repeated Vorontsov, in a sharper tone of voice.

Calmly, almost as if by habit, Zhuk waited for them to pipe down. He looked worn out, tired, his gipsy face was ashen. To judge by appearances his job was no cushy number, especially if you reckoned that he had to explain himself like this to the local population on more than one occasion. But he began slowly and confidently, even with a touch of condescension in his voice:

Comrades! There seems to be some misunderstanding on your part. There's been a special resolution passed.' Zhuk knew the power of words such as 'decision, resolution, directive' even when uttered softly. 'There's a special resolution passed regarding the sanitary clearing of the whole bed of the reservoir. And also the cemeteries ... Before letting the water flow, the area to be flooded had to be put right, the territory had to be prepared ...

Old Egor could not stand any more of this:

Don't you start pulling the wool ... You just tell us why he had to chop down the crosses?

And I will,' snapped Zhuk and, taking offence, started to speak faster: 'You all know the sea is going to come pouring over this place, there'll be great steam ships sailing, people coming ... Tourists, and foreign tourists. And your crosses will be floating about. They'll be flushed out and washed away, they won't stay under the water over the graves as they ought to. You have to consider that ...

And have you considered us?' shouted Vera Nosareva. 'We're living people, this is still where we live. You consider the tourist in your own good time. I've just picked up my mother's photograph that these pigs of yours left lying on the ground. How's it to be? Where am I going to start looking for her grave, who's going to show me? The steam ships will come, and how's it going to be for me here now? You can stick your tourists up," Vera gasped for breath. 'As long as I live here and there's ground under my feet you're going to respect her. In the end you can get your clearing done, as long as we don't have to see it ...

When is "the end"? We have seventy points designated for resettlement, and there are cemeteries everywhere. You don't know the circumstances and you're in no position to talk.' Zhuk's voice had hardened perceptibly. 'There are eight cemeteries to be shifted altogether. That's "the end". It can't be put off any more. I have no time to spare either.

Don't give us that claptrap.' It was a well known fact in the village: it was difficult to stir old Egor but, once you did, you'd better hang on tight, for nothing would stop him. And that's just the way it was now, as the old man became more and more heated. 'Git right back to where you come from,' he exclaimed. 'Don't lay another finger on that cemetery, or I'll get my gun. I don't see no "person" in you. An official person has to have a bit of respect for people, not just a hat on his head. Look, he applied for a job, they found him one. In the old days for work like that they ...

What are they on about?' said Zhuk, turning pale and looking to Vorontsov for help. 'They don't seem to understand. They don't want to understand ... Aren't they aware of what's going to happen here?

'Fucking bastard!' said Bogodul, emerging from the crowd.

Vorontsov stuck out his chest and shouted:

Why have you kicked up all this racket? What for? This isn't a menagerie!

And you, Vorontsov, don't you raise your voice to us,' old Egor cut him short, coming up closer. 'You ain't been living here five minutes yerself. You're a tourist yourself ... only you turned up before the sea. You don't give a fuck where you live, whether it's in our village or somewhere else. But I was born in Matyora. And my father was born in Matyora. And my grandfather. I'm the boss round here. And as long as I'm a local round here you ain't gonna boss me about.' Old Egor stuck his black, gnarled finger right under Vorontsov's nose, menacingly. 'And don't shame me. Let me live out my life without disgrace.

Don't you get the people all worked up, Karpov. We're going to do what must be done. We won't ask you.

'Clear off!' urged old Egor, pushing Vorontsov away.

This is something else again,' agreed Vorontsov. 'We won't forget this.

You remember. You don't scare me.

He's found someone to stick up for him.

There's a lot like you!

Make yourself scarce before there's any trouble.

Once again the old women's tempers boiled over and they started shouting, squeezing Vorontsov, Zhuk and the two men tighter into a circle. Vera kept thrusting the photograph of her mother under Zhuk's nose - he kept backing away and frowning uncomfortably; Darya and Nastasya were pressing him from the other side. Zhuk's hat was knocked sideways revealing his pitch black, curly hair, so that the resemblance to a gipsy became even greater - it looked as if at any moment he would come to the end of his tether and would jump up whooping like a gipsy and start lashing out right and left in his own fashion, breaking free from them all. Old Katerina took Vorontsov to task, rounding on him and saying over and over: 'You ain't no right, you ain't no right.' When Vorontsov tried to get away Tunguska loomed up in front of him, still silently puffing away at her pipe, wordlessly indicating to him that he should listen to Katerina. Old Egor's deep bass kept booming out as the main, dominant voice. And to the accompaniment of all this hubbub, which was getting more and more heated, Vorontsov and Zhuk, scarcely able to get a word in edgeways, extricated themselves with some difficulty from the crowd and set off back to the village. The lanky one tried to take the axe from Bogodul, but Bogodul snarled and brandished it. Old Egor, who happened to be next to the lanky one, advised:

Take it easy with 'im, laddy. He was exiled out here to us. He's already sorted out one man ...

'What, he's a criminal, you mean?' said the tall man, his curiosity excited.

Yeah.

Go on. Then I am too.

Okay then, just try it. We'll watch.

But the lanky man hesitated, looked again askance at Bogodul, who was winking at him with his intimidating, almost burning red eye, and ran off to catch up the others. An hour later all four of them had sailed away from Matyora.

... And late into the night the old women were crawling around the cemetery, sticking the crosses back in place and setting up the posts again.

And when night came and Matyora fell asleep, from under the banks of the mill stream a little creature, hardly bigger than a cat and unlike any other animal, popped out - Master of the island. If there are brownies haunting the peasant huts, then there has to be a Master for the island as well. No one ever saw him, or met him, yet he knew everyone here and knew all that had ever gone on from one end to the other of this isolated piece of land surrounded by water and rising out of the water. That's why he was the Master, so that he might see all, know all and never interfere. That was the only way it was possible to remain Master -so that no one ever met him, no one ever even suspected his existence.

Even earlier, peeping out of his burrow, his long standing refuge on the mill stream bank, he saw the evening stars appearing and then fade. Maybe they were still now to be found somewhere, because a gray twilight was flowing down from on high and it must have been coming from somewhere, but even his sharp eyes could not make them out. Anyway, he did not like looking up at the sky; it caused him some ill defined, groundless disquiet and frightened him with its awe inspiring infinity. Let people look up there and find comfort, but what they consider aspirations amount only to memories; even in their furthermost and sweetest painted thoughts, they're only memories. No one is given the chance to dream.

It was a warm and quiet night and certainly elsewhere it was dark, but here, beneath the huge sky above the river, it was clear and transparent. It was quiet, but in this sleepy and living silence, teeming like the river, you could easily make out the babbling of the water on the upper, nearby promontory and the remote, hollow, uncertain sound of the shallows, like wind in the trees, far off on the left bank, foreign territory, and the occasional momentary splash of a fish lingering late in his play. These were the upper surface sounds discernible to the ear, the sounds of the Angara; once they were heard and identified, you could hear the sounds of the island too: the plaintive, strained swishing of the old larch tree in the cattle yard as well as the dull stamping of the grazing cows there, the juicy sounds of chewing the cud all merging into one sound, and in the village there was the constant bustle of everything alive outside - the chickens, dogs and cattle. But even these sounds were loud and coarse to the Master's ear, for with particular pleasure and special zest he was listening closely to what was going on both in the ground and close to the ground: the rustling of a mouse setting out on a hunt, the lurking flurry of a birdie, roosting in its nest, the weak, fading creaks of a waving twig, which seemed to disturb the night bird, and the breathing of the grass as it grew.

Jumping out of his burrow and pricking up his ears, identifying as usual all that was going on around, with his same customary unhurriedness and care the Master traveled his course over the island. He did not stick to one road; today he might run off to the left and tomorrow to the right, half way across his territory from somewhere around the pine grove he might turn back, or he might run right to the end or even get over on to Podmoga and stay there a few hours, checking on the life there, but he never missed out the village. It was here that all sorts of changes occurred most often. And, though the Master had a foreboding that soon everything would change in one fell swoop, to such an extent that he would no longer be Master, no longer be anything, he had come to terms with it. What will be will be. He had also come to terms with it because after he was gone there would be no other Master; there would be nothing left to be master of. He was the last. But, as long as the island remained, he was its Master.

He ran up the hill by the place where old Darya sat in the afternoons, and lifting his head he looked around. Matyora lay tranquil and motionless: the woods were growing dark, the young grass over the ground was silver with dew, the village looked black with great dim patches, where there was no knocking or rattling but it seemed as if somehow people were making ready to bang and clatter. The warmth of the day had gone and cool vapors with a bitter tang wafted up from the ground. From somewhere the feeble, heavy sigh of the wind came through, gasped and died away - like a wave breaking on the sand. But it was the old larch which rustled longer and more alarmed; and, for no reason, as if half asleep, a cow groaned blindly, almost wailing like a cat. Far away in the undergrowth on the river bank a blackberry bush, forced down to the ground by another bush, finally broke free and sprang up to its full height, waving. The water swished - or a bubble that had floated all evening finally burst, or a fish gave a final shudder as it died: unfamiliar ripples ran over the grass and went away in narrow stripes, and only now the last of last year's leaves fell from the birch tree that stood next to the larch in the cattle yard.

The master headed for the village.

Source: Martin Crouch and Robert Porter, ed., Understanding Soviet Politics through Literature: a book of readings (Boston: G. Allen & Unwin, 1984), pp. 163-171.