Yuri Vassilyevitch Bondaryev, born in 1924. During the war he served as gunner. His first short story was published in 1949. His novel On The Great River, published in 1963, received wide acclaim in the Soviet Union. His short story The Silence was translated into English.
My job makes me travel all over the country. I like to get off the train on some wooded little station, stand on the deserted platform, listen to the sighs of the locomotive moving farther and farther away into the evening, and hear the echo rolling on and on through the sleeping forest like a sound in an empty hallway.
I like to amble in a dark forest. I like to amble along an unfamiliar dusty road, listen to the noises, to the birds shouting out in their sleep, to the peeping of snipes at nearby lakes, and watch distant lights on a mountain slope, warm in the summer, but seeming to blink and quiver in the autumn night wind when Orion glows coolly in the black vortexes of the hollow-echoed lakes.
I’d usually settle down in a village for a whole summer. Every day I’d get up at dawn and wade all the day through clearings and meadows. …
I love to have night fall upon me when I’m far away from the village—somewhere at a quiet lake. I love to see the birth of night: the dense, bluish dusk crawling out of the motionless thicket of trees, the fog spreading over the water and lulling it to sleep, the reddish glow lingering on the west and glistening at the shore pebbles, the darkness moving in fast from the east, and, at last, the green stars that by now are afloat in the blackened, chilly lake. The air becomes brisk and still. Sometimes a flock of wild ducks come whistling down by the last strip of the glow fading over the forest, and settle in the water with a soft splash.
I like to wake up on a hayloft where I usually sleep deep and sound … wake up right before daybreak and by feeling chilly know that the morning glow is about to set in. The cracks in the roof would be full of moonight, and in the predawn stillness I’d be able to hear the tireless chirping of crickets until my ears begin to ring from their clicking. The hayloft would be redolent with fragrance, a strong, dewy-fresh aroma wafting in from the orchard which would be flooded by a moon-made quivering bluish mist.
I love those scenes! Being a painter of nature I never spend the summer in town. I love the country!
One summer, however, instead of leaving for the country I had to go South to a sanatorium. I don’t care for the hot South with all its decorative palms and stuffy dark nights. The South stifles me. I’m used too much to the northern woods, to the bitter-sweet scent of clover, to the dreamy bluebells in the meadows, and to the cool forest streams where sixteen-pound pikes dash their tails against the sunset-bathed surface.
The only thing I like about the South is the sea. It is an astounding spectacle! In the mornings it is pink, smooth as a pane of glass, exuding a light vapor. At noon it becomes dazzlingly blue, and by evening as it has rapidly darkened, the sunset glows flare up on the horizon where first the smokes of little white steamers fade away, then the ships themselves vanish in the flaming west.
I was pining away in the South, I was lonely without my forests. I couldn’t work. …
I woke up one morning in a grouchy mood. My room was flooded with hot sun air; only a light breeze played with the white balcony curtain. I lay for some time, watching the easel on which I had a painting started of the evening sea. How little I cared this morning for the painting I’d done less than twelve hours ago! I got myself a smoke. “This won’t do,” I said to myself angrily. “I’ve got to leave for the North.” And then I heard a flapping of wings and thought I saw something black and ruffled drop onto the balcony.
Puzzled, I rose and went out to have a look. A crow was sitting on the railing. It tilted its head, watching me carefully with one eye. Where did it come from, I wondered? The sanatorium park was below and farther back was the beach and the sea.
“Why have you come here?” I asked.
The crow was not frightened. It looked at me with the other eye, shook its head and uttered a sound: “Kla-ra!” As if it wanted to get acquainted with me.
I smiled and made a few steps toward it. The crow still didn’t fly away. I reached out, the crow stretched its head toward me and I stroked it. “You there,” I said, “where have you come from?”
“Kla-ra,” was the crow’s reply. It looked at my hand and impatiently flipped its tail. I laughed and walked back to my room. “All right,” I said, “you want to come in?”
I had barely uttered my invitation when the crow hopped down from the railing, moved the curtain aside with its beak and entered the room, clattering its claws on the parquet floor. I was beyond myself from amazement. The crow suddenly skidded on the smoothly polished floor but managed to brace itself with its tail as it would have with a stick. “Kla-ra,” it cackled in annoyance.
Immediately I knew what I had to do. Quickly I got my shaving soap dish, set it on the floor, first crumbled into it some bread, then poured in some milk. The crow watched me, impatiently shaking its tail. Suddenly it pecked the floor, trying to hit a fly that had sat next to the soap dish.
“Here, eat,” I said gaily, walking aside to let my guest eat undisturbed. The crow walked up to the soap dish and began to twirl its beak in it, making milk spatter all over the floor.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Kla-ra,” the crow replied with a full beak, giving me a look of contempt—as if saying, “Come on, you know.”
“Oh, it’s Klara,” I said happily. Not asking any more questions I sat on a chair and watched my guest.
Klara finished eating, thought for a moment while scratching her head with her foot, then began pacing around the room. She saw the mirror, cawed joyously, and walked by it back and forth like a woman admiring herself. Next she noticed my bedroom slipper at the night stand, picked it up and tossed it under the bed. Finally she began dragging the soap dish toward the balcony door.
“That’s right,” I exclaimed, laughing. “Clean up the place.”
Klara glanced at me and then … she flew up onto my shoulder. I froze, not knowing what to expect next. Klara stretched out her neck, pecked me gently on my throat and began making whispering noises into my ear.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me,” I smiled sheepishly, becoming aware that Klara was pulling the strap of my pocket watch. A few seconds later it dangled, its lid sparkling in the sun. Klara began to caw excitedly, stretching her neck toward the watch, as if wanting to listen to its ticking. Her eyes, I thought, gleamed with curiosity.
Suddenly I realized what she wanted. I remembered hearing stories about crows being fond of glistening objects. In my embarrassment, not wanting to insult my guest, I swished the watch back into my pocket. Klara hopped onto my head, shifted from foot to foot, combed my hair with her beak, then began whispering into my ear again. A moment later she winged down onto the floor, walked up to the soap dish and looked back at me over her shoulder.
“Gr-rr-reat!” she cackled.
I knew she wanted to wheedle the soap dish away from me. “Wait a moment, Klara,” I argued, “how am I going to shave?”
Klara, apparently, took offense and stalked out into the balcony. I watched for some time as she flew around the park. Where has this tame crow come from? I began racking my brain. Never before had I seen a tame crow. They’d always seemed like an angry, somber kind of bird to me.
I decided to go out to the beach for a swim before breakfast. Later I lay in the warm sand, listening to the lapping of waves, to the gentle tinkle of pebbles rolled along the water line by the green sea.
In the North Klara would have never become so tame, I thought. There, in the forest expanse, in the vast fields, a crow can always find a nest somewhere on an aspen or birch. But here? And how did she ever get here?
Then I picked up a conversation between two people lying not far from me on the sand. “Don’t leave any cufflinks or watches lying around,” one was telling the other. “A terrible crow has showed up here, it steals everything. Yesterday it stole a tie pin from the fellow who sits next to me at the table.”
“They say it used to belong to a bird trainer who stayed here,” the other man said. “ He lived in room number twenty-two.”
“He left a long time ago, didn’t he?” the first man wondered.
Now I knew what Klara was doing here. Room number twenty-two was my room!
Next morning, as soon as I heard the flapping of wings on the balcony, I pulled the curtain aside and let Klara in. The same as yesterday, she politely tilted her head and allowed me to stroke her.
“Kla-ra,” she introduced herself once more.
“Pleased to meet you,” I bowed happily. “You may proceed to breakfast. Everything has been prepared for you.”
Indeed, I had been expecting Klara and prepared her breakfast. While she was eating I quickly sat down at the easel and began drawing. I enjoyed drawing her because she was in fact a denizen of the morthern woods which I missed so much here.
Klara finished her meal, flew up on my shoulder and again began whispering into my ear. Was she thanking me or trying to wheedle the soap dish away from me again? A moment later Klara hopped onto the chair in front of the easel, craned her neck, and began to study the drawing—first with one eye, then with the other, several times. Suddenly her feathers stood up, she knocked angrily against the easel with her wing, her tail began to shake furiously.
“Grr-bage,” she swore. “Rr-rascal, rr-rot!”
I felt hurt, stung by her criticism. “Why, Klara?” I asked. “Oh, go away, you know nothing of art.”
“Rr-rascal!” Klara kept swearing. She hopped down from the chair and walked up to the soap dish. Then she gave me a serious look and uttered in a voice full of enthusiasm. “Gr-rreat!”
As Klara began dragging the soap dish backwards, toward the balcony, I understood: she appreciated art in her own, different way. “Come on, Klara,” I said, smiling, “you’re right, it’s a beautiful soap dish, but I’m afraid I can’t give it to you. You see, I can’t walk around unshaven.”
Klara flew away.
I sat for a long time in front of the easel, studying the drawing. “No,” I scratched my head at last and sighed. “I’d better leave the South and go back to my woods.”
My friendship with Klara continued, however. We became fond of each other, and I missed her if she didn’t show up in the morning. I felt lonely without her.
One evening a violent storm set in. Huge waves rolled out with the roar of shooting cannons, breaking against the rocks on top of which our sanatorium was situated, making it tremble in its foundation. The rain was coming down heavily. The park below was humming with a hollow noise. Bolts of lightning constantly slithered through the murk above the sea, and the crashing of wind-broken windowpanes kept ringing through the sanatorium.
I stood at the balcony door and watched the storm. Then a thought about Klara made me apprehensive. I was afraid she was having a hard time. When I went to bed, late, sleep wouldn’t come.
Then I heard a knocking at the balcony door. I raised my head and listened. First it seemed like the wind clattering against the window, but the knocking persisted. It was a demanding kind of knocking. I jumped up, rushed to the door and opened it hastily. Together with the rain and wind that had broken into the room dashed in Klara. She was wet, ruffled, angry! She skidded several times on the floor, chattering!
“Br-rr!”
I laughed from joy, smoothed her wet feathers, trying to calm her. But Klara seemed too aroused, too angry. She was too chilled by the rain and wind, as she rattled her beak, walked from corner to corner, until at last, when I lay down, she perched on the headboard and dozed off. Only at a flash of lightning would she caw out in her sleep.
In the morning I was wakened by the chambermaid who had come into my room and brought a kitten with her. The moment Klara saw it she jealously dashed up to the animal and pecked it on the head. The kitten meowed pitiously and scampered out, its ears pressed to its head.
“Rr-rascal!” Klara chattered. “Ss-such rr-rascal!” Apparently she didn’t care for cats.
I scolded my pet for her rudeness. But Klara quieted down only after she walked up to the soap dish. “Gr-reat!” she cawed.
A few days later came my time to leave. In the morning Klara had her breakfast as usual, and kept begging me for the soap dish, affectionately pinching my ear. I sadly looked at my suitcases. I had been considering taking Klara with me but didn’t know how I could bring a bird to Moscow. Klara seemed to understand that I was leaving; she tried to overwhelm me with affection. She had had her breakfast, but instead of leaving, as usual, she clambered onto my head, beakcombed my hair. I took her onto my hand, and for the first time, I noticed how fast her heart beat. “So long, Klara,” I said, setting her in front of me on the table, “I’ve got to leave.”
“Ss-sad,” Klara said, tenderly pressing my finger with her beak. “Ss-sad!”
I was moved. “You want to go with me?” I asked. “Want to go North?”
Klara made no reply.
I sighed, picked up my suitcases, then remembered something. I got out my soap dish and a pair of old cufflinks and left them on the balcony.
Klara hadn’t budged. She sat beside the suitcases, watching me with her wise, black eyes.
“Well,” I said, “your understanding of art is one-sided. Take the things out there, they’re yours.”
I came down the staircase, into the vestibule. Klara followed me, hop, hop, one step at a time.
At the door the kitten was about to join me but an angry look from Klara made it flinch and break away in fear.
I stroked Klara for the last time before getting into the bus. She flew up onto a palm tree and watched me in silence.
“So long, Klara,” I said, waving goodbye before turning away.
“Ss-so rr-rong!” Klara replied.
Later other passengers told me that Klara had been flying behind the bus for quite some time, cawing and cawing. …