The Blizzard Read online

  “To Dolgoye?!” the miller screeched and stood stock-still.

  “To Dolgoye,” the doctor repeated.

  The miller and his wife looked at each other.

  “They’ve got the black plague, we saw it on the radio,” said Taisia Markovna, raising her black eyebrows in surprise.

  “I saw it on the radio this morning!” The miller nodded his head. “They’ve got the black plague!”

  “Yes. The black sickness.” The doctor nodded as he finished chewing and leaned against the back of the chair.

  His large nose had turned red and sweaty from the vodka and food. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

  “They’ve … The … There’s troops on the outskirts. Where do you think you’re going?” The miller staggered back and stumbled.

  “I’m bringing the vaccine.”

  “Vaccine? To inoculate them?” the miller’s wife asked.

  “That’s right. To vaccinate the ones who are left.”

  “The ones that d-d-didn’t get bit yet?” Stepping back once more, the miller reclined on the pickle.

  It was clear that the last thimbleful had knocked him off his feet.

  “Yes. The ones that haven’t been bitten yet.”

  The doctor retrieved a cigarette from his case and lit up with the satisfied sigh of a man who has assuaged his hunger.

  “Aren’t you afraid to go there?” asked the miller’s wife, her bosom heaving.

  “That’s the nature of my job. And what’s to be afraid of? The troops are there.”

  “But they … mmm … Those … They’re … quick ones,” she said, her plump hand spinning her empty glass in worry.

  “They! The-e-y! Oh, they’re quick ones, they are! They are so qui-i-i-ck!” shouted the miller, holding on to a bump on the pickle, and shaking his head, as though offended.

  “They can tunnel underground.” She licked her lips.

  “Tunnel! That’s right! They tunnel under!”

  “And they can come out anywhere at all.”

  “And they c-c-can … They c-can! Those dirty…”

  “They can, of course,” agreed the doctor. “Even in winter they have no trouble digging their way through frozen earth.”

  “Lord Almighty,” said the miller’s wife, crossing herself. “Are you armed?”

  “Of course.” The doctor puffed on his papirosa.

  He liked the miller’s wife. There was something maternal, kind, and cozily caring about her that brought back memories of childhood, when his mother was still alive. The miller’s wife wasn’t beautiful, but her femininity was winning. Talking to her was a pleasure.

  “That drunkard got lucky,” the doctor thought, looking at her plump hands and her smooth, pudgy fingers, with their tiny nails, which were spinning the drinking glass.

  The door opened and Crouper entered.

  “Oho! It’s Iva-an Susanin!” The miller burst out laughing, holding on to the pickle. “What were you doing, running into a birch tree? A birdbrain, that’s what you are.”

  “Really, it’s true—a birdbrain,” the doctor agreed silently. He looked at Crouper.

  “Greetings!” Crouper took off his hat, bowed, crossed himself in front of the icon, and began to remove his snowy clothes.

  “Who said you could do that?” the miller objected. “Asshole!”

  “Stop cursing, Senya.” The miller’s wife slapped her heavy hand on the table.

  “You’re an enemy of the s-s-state. Got it? A s-s-sa-saboteur!” The miller, staggering around the hors d’oeuvres, crossed the table toward Crouper. “They should sh-sh-ut you up for it!”

  He tripped and planted himself on the lard.

  “Just sit there!” grinned the miller’s wife. “Come in, Kozma. Have a seat.”

  Crouper smoothed his red, sweaty hair and sat down at the table.

  “All those scummy bums should be locked up … You’re a fucking asshole!” the miller screeched, staring nastily at Crouper.

  “Now, now…” Losing patience, the miller’s wife scooped up her husband and put him on her bosom, pressing him tightly. “Sit!”

  Holding on to her husband with one hand, she poured some vodka into a tea glass for Crouper:

  “Drink,” she said. “It will warm you up.”

  “Thank you, Taisia Markovna.”

  Crouper sat down at the table, picked up a glass with his clawlike hand, leaned over it, opened his magpie mouth, and began slowly sucking in the moonshine, straightening up as he drank.

  When he finished, he exhaled, frowned, took a piece of bread, sniffed it, and put it on the table.

  “Have a bite, Kozma, don’t be shy.”

  “Go on, stuff your face!” the miller chortled.

  And then the miller began to sing in a tremulous voice:

  There was an old woman from Tula,

  Said, “I’m off to the States to make moolah.”

  “You stupid old cunt,” her old man did swear,

  “They ain’t got no trains that go there.”

  “Now you stop that!” The wife poked the miller.

  He laughed tipsily.

  Crouper stuck a piece of lard in his mouth, bit off some bread, and chewed rapidly. He’d just swallowed when the doctor asked him:

  “What about the sled?”

  “The steering rod? Pulled it out, nailed it back.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then let’s get going.”

  “You’re going to travel? To Dolgoye?” The miller’s wife smiled grimly.

  “They’re waiting for me.”

  “Ah, go on … Let that rag pile go. The doctor can stay!” The miller shook his fist at Crouper.

  “Hold on now!” Taisia Markovna pressed her husband to her bosom. “You can’t go off into the storm at night. You’ll lose the road straightaway.”

  “S-s-straight! Away!” The miller shook his head.

  “I absolutely must get to Dolgoye today,” the doctor asserted stubbornly.

  The miller’s wife sighed deeply, rocking her husband like a baby:

  “You’ll get across the grove, and the old village, but that’s where the fields start and there’s no mileposts either. You’ll get stuck in the field. You have to spend the night.”

  “Can’t anyone show us the way? Your worker, for instance?”

  “What?” The miller’s wife grinned. “You think he has cat eyes? He can’t see at night. And he’s not from around here.”

  “He’s just the g-guy you want…” The miller dug his boots into his wife’s chest, climbed up to her neck, and stared at Crouper. “And you there, you just … take that!”

  The miller gave Crouper the finger. Crouper was eating cabbage slaw and paid no attention to him.

  “Stay till morning.” With her free hand the miller’s wife set a glass under the samovar tap and turned the spigot. Boiling water poured into the glass.

  “They’re expecting me today.” The doctor stubbed out his cigarette.

  “Even if you don’t get lost, you still won’t make it till morning time. Leave now and you’ll not go far.”

  “Maybe we oughta stay, doctor, sir?” Crouper asked timidly.

  “You jess get th’ell outta! Ya lost a horse at the market! You loser loafer!!” the miller shouted, kicking his feet against his wife’s bosom.

  “Stay now, don’t be silly.” The miller’s wife poured strong brew from a Chinese teapot. “The storm will die down, and you’ll fly along.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” The doctor looked at Crouper as though the weather depended on him.

  “If’n it don’t, it’s a sight calmer in the light,” Crouper answered. Something stuck in his throat and he had a coughing fit.

  “He lost the horse to passs-churs, lost traaa-ck-o-vvvit!” The miller refused to quiet down. “They oughta lock ye up fer horse-thieving!”

  “Stay.” The miller’s wife set the glass of tea down in front of the doctor and
began to pour some for Crouper.

  “And the horses c’n rest a piece.”

  “No snoozin’, not a wink … They’ll rest in peace, not rest a piece, thass whachur horses’ll do!” cackled the miller.

  The miller’s wife laughed, her chest rose, and her husband rocked on it as though on a wave.

  “Maybe we really should stay?” thought the doctor.

  He looked around for a clock on the well-chinked wall, but didn’t see one; he was about to take his pocket watch out but suddenly saw small, glowing numbers hovering in the air over a metal circle lying on the sewing machine: 19:42.

  “We could try to get there by midnight … But if we get lost, as she pointed out…,” the doctor thought.

  He took a sip of tea.

  “We could stay and leave at first light. If the blizzard has stopped, we’ll get there in an hour and a half. If I give them vaccine-2 eight hours later, nothing terrible will happen. That’s acceptable. I’ll write an explanatory note…”

  “Nothing terrible will happen if you get there tomorrow,” said the miller’s wife, as though she’d read his mind. “Have some more vodka.”

  Deep in thought, the doctor bit his lower lip and glanced at the numbers glowing in the air.

  “So we’re staying?” Crouper asked, no longer chewing.

  “Very well.” Platon Ilich sighed with disappointment. “We’re staying.”

  “Thank God!” Crouper nodded.

  “Yes, thank God,” the miller’s wife almost sang, as she filled the glasses.

  “What about me? What about me?” The miller tottered and swayed on her chest.

  She dripped a few drops from the bottle into the thimble and handed it to the miller.

  “May you be healthy!” She raised her glass.

  The doctor, Crouper, and the miller all drank.

  Taking a bite of ham, the doctor now looked at the room not just as a stopping place but as the night’s lodging: “Where will she put us? In another izba? We had to end up here for the night. Damn this blizzard…”

  Crouper took a deep breath and relaxed. He warmed up right away and was glad that he wouldn’t have to go out into the dark now, glad not to get lost looking for the road, torturing himself and his horses; glad that his horses would spend the night in the warmth of the miller’s stable, that he would give them some oats—he always had a bag of oats stored under the seat—and that he himself would sleep here, most likely on top of the stove, in the warmth, and that the nasty miller couldn’t touch him; glad that they’d leave early the next morning, and that when he’d delivered the doctor to Dolgoye, he’d get five rubles and drive back home.

  “Oh well, perhaps it’s for the best,” said the doctor, reassuring himself.

  “It’s for the best.” The miller’s wife smiled at him. “I’ll put you upstairs, and Kozma—on the stove. It’s quiet and warm upstairs.”

  “Ow, what the … Got a leg cramp…,” the miller squeaked, grabbing his right leg, his drunken face grimacing.

  “Time for bed.” The miller’s wife picked him up to take him off her chest, but at that moment the miller dropped the thimble. It rolled down his wife’s large body and fell under the table.

  “Now look what you’ve done, Semyon Markich, gone and lost your cup.” Lovingly, as though he were a child, the miller’s wife placed him in front of her on the edge of the table.

  “Huh? Whass, how’s … the … what?” muttered the thoroughly drunk miller.

  “That’s what,” she replied. Standing, she lifted her husband with two hands, carried him over to the bed, set him down on it, and drew the curtains.

  “Lie down, time to go night-night.” She rustled the pillows and blanket, tucking her husband in.

  “Wake me up early tomorrow,” the doctor told Crouper.

  “The crack of dawn, first light,” the driver replied, nodding his reddish magpie-shaped head.

  It was obvious that the vodka, warmth, and food had made Crouper tipsy, and that he was ready to sleep.

  “Let ’em all … all o’ them…’em all…” The miller’s drunken squeak could be heard behind the curtain.

  “Sorta like a cricket … chirp chirp,” Crouper thought, smiling his birdlike smile.

  “Taa-iiii-sssia … Taiss … Let’s cuddle and have a roll in the hay,” the miller peeped.

  “We will, we will. Sleep tight.”

  Taisia Markovna emerged from behind the curtains, walked over to the guests, squatted, and looked under the table.

  “It’s somewhere…”

  “A handsome woman,” the doctor thought all of a sudden.

  Squatting and looking under the table with her marvelous, cloudy eyes, she awoke his desire. She wasn’t pretty, that was particularly noticeable now, when the doctor saw her face from above. Her brow was a bit low; her chin heavy and tilted downward; all in all her face adhered to the typically crude peasant model. But her carriage, her white skin, her buxom bosom, rising and falling, aroused the doctor.

  “There it is.” She reached under the table and bent over.

  Her hair was woven into a black braid, and the braid wound round her head.

  “A delicious woman the miller has…,” the doctor thought, and suddenly, ashamed of his thoughts, he gave a tired sigh and laughed.

  The miller’s wife stood up; smiling, she showed him her little finger with the thimble on it.

  “There you go!”

  She sat down at the table:

  “He likes to drink out of my thimble, though we have glasses.”

  And indeed—on the miller’s table, amid the little plates, there was a little glass.

  “I c’d go to sleep now,” Crouper said with a hint of complaint in his voice as he turned his tea glass upside down.

  “Go on, love.” The miller’s wife took the thimble off her finger and placed it upside down on the overturned glass. “There’s a pillow and a blanket atop the stove.”

  “Mighty grateful, Tais’ Markovna.” Crouper bowed to her and climbed up on top of the tile stove.

  The doctor and the miller’s wife remained alone at the table.

  “So then, you do your doctoring in Repishnaya?” she inquired.

  “Yes, in Repishnaya.” The doctor took a gulp of tea.

  “Is it hard?”

  “Sometimes. When people are sick frequently—it can be difficult.”

  “And when is the sickness greater? In winter?”

  “Epidemics happen in the summer, too.”

  “Epidemics,” she repeated, shaking her head. “We had one about two years back.”

  “Dysentery?”

  “That’s it. Something got into the river. The kids swimming took sick.”

  The doctor nodded. There was clearly something about the woman sitting opposite him that excited him. He looked her over furtively, a bit at a time. She sat calmly, a little smile on her face, and regarded the doctor as if he were a distant relation who’d stopped by when he saw the lights on. She didn’t seem particularly interested in the doctor and spoke with him the same way she did with Crouper and Avdotia.

  “Is it boring for you here in winter?” asked Platon Ilich.

  “A bit.”

  “Summer’s probably fun, no?”

  “Oh, summer…” She raised her hands. “Summer is bustling, something every which way you turn.”

  “People bring their grain to the mill?”

  “Of course they do!”

  “Are the other mills far from here?”

  “Twelve versts, in Dergachi.”

  “So there’s plenty of work.”

  “There’s plenty of work,” she repeated.

  They sat in silence. The doctor drank tea, the miller’s wife played with the end of her kerchief.

  “Should we watch the radio?” she suggested.

  “Why not,” said the doctor, smiling.

  He really didn’t want to say goodnight to this woman and go upstairs to sleep. The miller’s wife rose and took
a knitted cover off the receiver, picked up the black remote control, returned to the table, turned down the lamp wick, sat back down in her chair, and pressed the red button on the remote. The radio clicked and a round hologram with a thick number “1” in the right corner appeared above them. Channel 1 had the news: a story about the reconstruction of the automobile plant in Zhiguli; another about a new single-occupancy sledmobile with a potato-fueled engine. The miller’s wife switched to Channel 2. A regular church service was on. The miller’s wife crossed herself and glanced at the doctor. He stared indifferently at the middle-aged priest in raiment and the young deacons. She turned to the last channel, Channel 3, the entertainment channel. They were showing a concert, as always. First, two beauties in sparkling traditional headgear sang a duet about a golden grove. Then a jolly, broad-faced fellow, winking and clucking, sang about the cunning intrigues of his indefatigable, atomic mother-in-law, causing the miller’s wife to laugh a few times, and a weary smirk to appear on the doctor’s face. Then the young men and girls began a long dance on the deck of the Yermak, a steamship sailing down the Yenisei River.

  The doctor dozed.

  The miller’s wife turned the set off.

  “I can see you’re tired,” she said, rearranging the scarf, which had slipped off her shoulder.

  “I’m … not … the least … bit … tired,” the doctor mumbled, shaking off his stupor.

  “You’re tired, tired.” She rose. “Your eyes are shutting. It’s time for me to get some sleep, too.”

  The doctor stood up. Despite his bleary drowsiness, he didn’t want to part with the miller’s wife.

  “I’ll go out for a smoke.” He took off his pince-nez, wiped the bridge of his nose, and blinked his swollen eyes.

  “Go ahead. I’ll get everything ready.”

  The miller’s wife left, her skirts rustling.

  “She’ll be upstairs,” the doctor thought, and his heart pounded. He heard two snores—one slight, Crouper, from the stove; the other, from behind the curtain, sounded like the chirr of grasshoppers.

  “Her husband’s asleep … A drunken swamp rat. No, a watery drunk! A mill pond drunk!”

  The doctor burst out laughing, took out a papirosa, lit it, and left the room. Passing through the cold, dark mudroom entrance, he bumped into something and had trouble finding the door to the courtyard; eventually, he pulled back the bolt and stepped outside.