In 1930 I celebrated my twenty-second birthday 'round about the same time Renkassk cheerlessly opened the kabina: a small institution for our lost souls to exist where they were not a burden. By then, eight of our men had fallen ill over as many winters, never to recover, and the kabina was a place to house them – a place to forget them.
That is, except for Viktor Malenhov, who stayed at home with seventeen-year-old Aleksy. Not by choice, you must understand, as it was his frail, mousy son who insisted Viktor remained in his care. As for my poor, crippled father, the kabina became his new home. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't shed a tear while the volunteers shaved his head. They dressed him in a gown with a hole in the rear and gauzed over his bedsores.
My father, once a dignified man in his prime, was now reduced to a permanent feature at the kabina who could not even feed or toilet himself. His skin sagged, his muscles turned to mush, his frame withered to the bone and his teeth fell out one by one. He'd been Renkassk's best builder – resourceful, reliable, working closely with Viktor Malenhov – and now any mention of his name brought sorrow to the villagers' faces.
I visited him once a week to put my mother's mind at rest, for the news of his decline had nearly killed her. I wish I could speak of it figuratively, but she'd sunk into a depression so deep that she never fully roused from it, not in all the winters since. First her son, then the man she loved. My mother's heart broke beyond repair, but despite it all she still had me, her boy with the nice smile, and that was her salvation.
Of course, I won't sit here and pretend that losing my father didn't affect me too. In public I accepted it much the way Papa might've: chin up, chest out, and the villagers said I was always to be seen busying myself with whatever jobs needed doing.
When I visited Papa I still spoke to him as though nothing had changed, as I had when the grief of losing Rusya had still been raw. I admit: I felt as if I was slowly losing a grip on my own sanity by hoping there was a spark of life still inside him, since my father did nothing but stare blindly through me as though I wasn't there. For those first couple of years back in '22 and '23 I'd wondered with what kind of mental affliction Aleksy suffered to have held onto hope so strongly, only to find myself inwardly posing the same question.
"Have you heard from Pyotr at all?" I asked Papa one day in November. I crouched by his legs and rested my forearms on his bony knees, grateful we were alone. "It's okay if you don't remember too well; you had a lot of work to do this week. Avgustin wants me to tell you the repairs on the choir house look great, Papa."
What might he reply? Da, I heard him say in my head, tell Avgustin he owes me nothing for it. And of course I've heard from Pyotr. Your cousin comes to tell me all the latest gossip floating around Renkassk like it's his goddamn right.
My face broke into a smile before I could stop it.
"He won't be able to see you for some time, in case you're wondering," I continued. "He probably already told you this, but he got married to Yuliya –" His outrage thundered in my mind. "I know you don't like her, but he sees something in that city girl, at least. We all went to the wedding ... Her family even has this shiny American car. The Frantsevs brought her folks some jellied veal to impress them, though I'm not sure they enjoyed rural dining so much. You ever tried veal?"
No, he grumbled, but I heard it's quite the delicacy. And I'll be having words with Sep Frantsev as well – the man never served my family jellied veal on my wedding day.
I laughed into his knees. "Are you sure you want to do that, Papa?" I said, grinning. "The man's as big as a bull, and you're – "
I stopped and turned away. Why was I fooling myself? I was not conversing with my father, but with the memory of his voice inside my head. God pity me – it had already been six years since he'd fallen silent and I'd still not grown out of the stupid routine.
Without saying goodbye, I stood and wrapped his old woollen scarf around my neck. I decided I'd lie to my mother about next week's visit. I couldn't let myself slip and risk turning out like Aleksy Malenhov had.
The kabina, to me at least, was the most disturbing corner of that barren little village I grew up in – those pews of gaunt, catatonic men with no memory of how they came to be that way. But the place I dreaded most, by far, was still the Malenhov household, and my visits there had not yet ceased.
After visiting my father once a week, I would stop by the cottage on the side of the hill. I'd long outgrown the rusty yellow bicycle I used to ride up there in my youth, and instead had bought myself a new one with the savings from my wages. Finally shorn of my old bike I'd had the fleeting confidence to ask Ivan Zhilov's girl if she wanted a ride on it with me ...
The rest is history.
I pulled up to the Malenhovs' cottage and stood my bicycle against the log pile, just as I always had done.
"Aleksy!" I banged on the door with the butt of my axe. "It's Stefan! Open up!" After a few moments the boy opened the door a crack. His watery blue eyes peered up at me through a thick tangle of brown hair. The sour stench of rot and faeces escaped the house; I could almost taste the decay on my tongue. Despite it, I tried hard to keep a straight face.
"Da?" he breathed, barely even moving his lips.
I presented him with a warm parcel of brown paper. "Mama's baked you a loaf."
"For ducks?"
"Sure, for ducks. Take it." I pressed it into his chest. "Anything else I can get you while I'm here? You got enough food, malysh?"
He turned away and glanced at his father, who hid in the dark depths of the room. "Papa, S-Stefan asks if you need anything." Aleksy cleared his throat and shook his head. "No thanks," he said in a gruff voice nothing like his own. "Thanks for your concern, son."
"So you've got firewood?"
"I can take care of that," he said imitating his father's voice. "My little lad gives me a hand, don't you, boy? – Yes, Papa – Oh, and thank Mariamna for the loaf for me, Stefan. I'll see to it that I repay her the favour for all this bread one day. Say, I noticed your cart's missing a few spokes. Tell her I'll look into replacing them for nothing but a smile."
"Of course, Viktor. Thank you." I thanked him every time the topic came up, but we never did receive that new wheel.
I turned to leave the premises, stalling my retreat as I waited for Aleksy to reach out and stop me.
His wiry fingers gripped my coat sleeve on cue. "On second thoughts," he said, quieter, "perhaps you'd better give me a hand. Some of the logs in the yard need another strong man to help lift them."
"Come on then," I told him, and Aleksy disappeared back inside to fetch his boots and scarf.
I made my way around the side of the cottage, kicked open his father's workshop and retrieved another axe and a two-man felling saw. Aleksy met me at the edge of the forest a few moments later. The weakening daylight accentuated how pale and waxen his skin had become, and though I wouldn't show it, I felt saddened by the sight of his hollowing cheeks. His attire served to bulk him out a little, so I never quite knew the extent of his frailty. It seemed that the only thing to be keeping the boy alive was hope for his father and my mama's bread.
"Here's an axe," I prompted. He pulled a gloved hand from his pocket and took it from me by the handle. "Takes half the time to chop firewood if there are two of us."
"I-I can't leave Papa for long," he said, returning to his own voice. "What if something happens to him?"
I gave him the same response I always did: "Nothing will happen to him. There's only me and you up here on this godforsaken hill, and Renkassk keeps the most honest folk you'll ever –"
"How can you be so sure of that?"
I frowned. "Well, what would you know? You never come down from here. Besides, there's always the kabina if looking out for him gets too much for you." I kicked my heel into the pile of tree trunks we'd collected over the summer and a couple rolled off into the snow. "My papa's there, and I've got no complaints about no longer having to bathe him and spoon feed him like an infant."
"But ... I'm never letting Papa go to that place, Stefan, never. Those men have all lost their minds, a-and my father isn't like yours. Sure, he's quiet sometimes ... a-and he doesn't do much either, but he's still with us. I know it."
I sunk my axe into a log and Aleksy flinched. "Your father and mine are no different," I reminded him. "Pyotr and all the other doctors in Darakyev all agree that it's some kind of disease, like polio, and look what that did to Iakov Yakunin. The sooner you accept your father is a condemned man, the sooner you can move on with your life. Now get hacking."
"But what about the Folv –"
"I said hack."
And that, besides the shower of gratitude and farewells, would be our usual exchange. Since Aleksy had finished school three years ago and was now his father's full-term carer, I'd not had to brave the inside of the cottage and see Viktor Malenhov at all. I thanked my lord in prayer for that minor relief, although a fortnight later, on a stormy day in early December, He decided to test me.