Dreams of My Russian Summers by Andreï Makine Page A

bottomless nights. Even the wood of the great logs was imbued with the harsh experience of several generations of Siberians. Albertine had sensed the secret breathing of this ancient dwelling, had learned to live closely in tune with the slow warmth of the great stove that occupied half the room, with its very vital silence. And Charlotte, observing her mother’s daily actions, often said to herself with a smile, “But she’s a true Siberian!” From the first day she had noticed the bundles of dried plants in the hall. These reminded her of the bouquets that Russians use at the baths to beat themselves with. It was when the last slice of bread was eaten that she discovered the true function of those sheaves. Albertine soaked one in hot water, and that evening they drank what they were later, jokingly, to call “Siberian soup” — a mixture of stems, grains, and roots. “I am beginning to know the plants of the taiga by heart,” said Albertine, pouring this soup into their plates. “Indeed I wonder why the people here make so little use of them… .”
    What saved them was also the presence of the child, the little tzigane whom they found one day, half frozen, on their doorstep. She was scratching the hardened planks of the door with her numb fingers, purple with cold… . To feed her Charlotte did what she would never have done for herself. At the market she could be seen begging: an onion, a few frozen potatoes, a piece of pork. She rummaged in the rubbish tank next to the party canteen, not far from the place where the ruler had threatened to shoot her. She found herself unloading railway trucks for a loaf of bread. The child, skeletal to begin with, hovered for several days on the fragile borderline between light and extinction. Then slowly, with a hesitant astonishment, slipped once more into the extraordinary flow of days, words, and smells that everyone called life… .
    In March, on a day filled with sun and the crunching of snow under the feet of passersby, a woman (her mother? her sister?) came looking for her and, without any explanation, took her away. Charlotte caught up with them on the way out of the village and held out to the child the big doll with flaking cheeks with which the little tzigane had played during the long winter evenings… . This doll had originally come from Paris and remained, along with the old news-papers in the “Siberian suitcase,” one of the last relics of their former life.
    The real famine, Albertine knew, would come in the spring… . There was not a single bunch of plants left on the walls of the entrance hall, the market was deserted. In May they fled their izba, without really knowing where to go. They walked along a path still heavy with springtime humidity and bent down from time to time to pick fine shoots of sorrel.
    It was a kulak who accepted them as day laborers on his farm. He was a strong, lean Siberian with his face half hidden by a beard, through which a few rare words emerged, terse and absolute.
    â€œI’ll not pay you anything,” he said, making no bones about it. “Bed and board. If I take you on, it’s not for your pretty faces. I need hands.”
    They had no choice. During the first days, on returning, Charlotte would collapse flat out on her pallet, her hands covered with burst blisters. Albertine, who sewed sacks for the coming harvest all day, looked after her as best she could. One evening Charlotte’s tiredness was such that, when she met the owner of the farm, she started speaking to him in French. The peasant’s beard was stirred with a profound movement, his eyes widened — he was smiling.
    â€œRight, tomorrow you can rest. If your mother wants to go into the town, go ahead… .” He took several steps, then turned: “The young people in the village dance every evening, you know. Go and see them if you like… .”
    As agreed, the peasant paid