Authors: Vladimir Sorokin
“Plow me, my sweet … plow me,” she whispered into his cheek, and gripped him with both arms.
He swam in her body and the wave continued, rolling further and further, till it seemed it would never end.
But the wave suddenly surged; he understood his helplessness, and his body trembled in anticipation. Her hand once again touched his buttocks, but its touch was no longer gentle, it was forceful, commanding. The hand pushed and clutched him, and her fingers dug into him as though each one wore a thimble.
With a roar he spurted into the wave.
The woman moaned and cried out under him. He lay on top of her, exhaustedly breathing into her neck.
“Hot…,” she whispered, and stroked his head.
The doctor caught his breath, then turned over and lifted his head.
“Strong…,” she said.
He sat upon the edge of the bed and looked at the miller’s wife in the darkness. Her body took up the entire bed. The doctor put his hand on her chest. She immediately covered his hand with her palms: “Have a drink of water.”
The doctor remembered the cup, picked it up, and drank the water thirstily. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds and poured light in through the window. The doctor was able to locate his pince-nez, so he put it on. The miller’s wife lay with her chubby hands behind her head. The doctor stood and fumbled in his trouser pockets for his cigarette case and matches. He lit up, and sat back down on the edge of the bed.
“I didn’t think you’d come to me,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“But you wanted me to.” She smiled.
“I did,” he said with a doomed sort of nod.
“And I wanted to also.”
They gazed at each other silently. The doctor smoked, and the light of the
papirosa
was reflected in his pince-nez.
“Let me have a smoke, too.”
He handed her the
papirosa
. She inhaled, held the smoke for a while, then let it out carefully. The doctor watched. He suddenly realized he had absolutely no desire to talk to her.
“You’re a bachelor?” she asked, and returned the cigarette to him.
“You can tell?”
“Yes.”
He scratched his chest:
“My wife and I split up three years ago.”
“You left her?”
“She left me.”
“So that’s what happened,” she said respectfully.
They sat quietly.
“Any children?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“She couldn’t conceive.”
“Ah, so that’s it. I gave birth, but it died.”
They sat silently again.
The silence stretched on and on.
The miller’s wife sighed and sat up on the bed. She put her hand on the doctor’s shoulder: “I’ll go now.”
The doctor said nothing.
She turned over on the bed and the doctor squeezed to one side. She lowered her plump feet to the floor, stood up, and straightened her nightgown, while the doctor sat with the extinguished cigarette in his mouth.
The miller’s wife stepped toward the door. He took her hand:
“Wait.”
She sat back down.
“Stay a bit longer.”
She pulled a lock of hair back from her face. The moon moved behind clouds and the room was plunged into darkness. The doctor caressed her; she touched his cheek:
“Is it hard without a wife?”
“I’m used to it.”
“May God help you meet a good woman.”
He nodded. She stroked his face. The doctor took her hand in his and kissed the sweaty palm.
“Come see us on the way back,” she whispered.
“It won’t work out.”
“You’ll go a different way?”
He nodded. She moved closer, lightly touching him with her breast, and kissed his cheek:
“I’ll go now. My husband will be mad.”
“He’s asleep.”
“He gets cold without me. Too cold, and he’ll wake up and start whining.”
She stood up.
The doctor didn’t try to keep her any longer. Her nightgown rustled in the dark, the door squeaked and closed, and the steps of the staircase creaked under her bare feet. The doctor took out another
papirosa
, lit it, rose to his feet, and walked to the window.
“
Guten Abend, schöne Müllerin…,
” he said, gazing at the dark sky hanging over the snowy field.
He smoked his cigarette, stubbed it out on the windowsill, got in bed, and fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Crouper also slept soundly. He fell asleep as soon as he got up on the warm oven bed, put a log under his head, and covered himself with the patchwork quilt. Falling asleep to the sound of the doctor’s strong, nasal voice chatting with the miller’s wife, he thought of the toy elephant that his late father had brought six-year-old Kozma from the fair. The elephant could walk, move its trunk, flap its ears, and sing an English song:
Love me tender, love me sweet,
Never let me go.
You have made my life complete,
And I love you so.
After the elephant he thought of the horse the drunken miller kept harping on. Vavila, the late merchant Riumin’s groom, had entrusted Crouper with the horse. This was at the fair in Pokrovskoye, before Kozma got married, but when he was already known as “Crouper.” Vavila had a year-old colt for sale, and he had been walking around the fair with him all morning, trying to sell him. He got greedy, and thought some Chinese people and Gypsies were trying to cheat him. He asked Kozma to hold on to the colt, said he was going to “stuff his face and take a dump.” He gave Kozma five kopecks. Kozma found a spot by the willow, near where the saddler’s stalls began. He stood there with the colt and cracked sunflower seeds. Right about then some movie people from Khliupin put up two receivers and stretched “tableau vivant” screens between them. They displayed dolphins. It turned out that the picture wasn’t just lifelike, but
touchable
; the dolphins swam from one screen to the other and you could touch them. First kids and then men and women came up to touch the dolphins. Crouper tied the colt to the willow and waded through the crowd. He reached out and touched a dolphin. He liked it. The dolphin was smooth and cool, and it made friendly, squeaky noises. And the sea was nice and warm. Pushing his way forward, Crouper entered the water up to his chest and kept on touching and touching. The dolphins dove down in one monitor and swam over to the other one. Crouper touched their backs and stomachs, and grabbed them with his hands, trying to hold on to them. But they were agile and slipped right out of his grasp. He felt happy and fell in love with dolphins then and there. When the movie fellows turned the picture off and went around the crowd with a hat out, Crouper threw in his five-kopeck coin without a thought. Then he remembered the colt and went back to the willow: there was no trace of the horse. Vavila chased Crouper through the fair and landed a few good punches. The merchant Riumin sacked Vavila. They never found the colt.
The doctor awoke to the sound of Crouper’s voice:
“Yur ’onor, sir, it’s time.”
“What is it?” the doctor grumbled with his eyes closed.
“The dawn’s up.”
“Let me sleep.”
“You asked me to wake ye.”
“Go away.”
Crouper left.
Two hours later the miller’s wife climbed up to the doctor’s room and touched his shoulder:
“It’s time for you to go, doctor.”
“What?” the doctor murmured with his eyes closed.
“It’s already eleven o’clock.”
“Eleven?” He opened his eyes and turned over.
“Time for you to get up.” She looked at him with a smile.
The doctor fumbled for his pince-nez on the side table, placed it on his wrinkled face, and looked up. The miller’s wife hung over him—large, nicely dressed in a fur-lined top with a string of viviparous pearls on her neck, braids circling her head, and a pleased, smiling face.
“What do you mean, eleven?” the doctor asked more calmly, finally remembering everything that had happened during the night.
“Come and have tea.” She squeezed his wrist, turned, and disappeared behind the door, her long blue skirt rustling.
“Damn…” The doctor stood up and looked at his watch. “It really is eleven.”
He looked at the window. Daylight flooded through it.
“The idiot didn’t wake me.” The doctor remembered Crouper and his magpie-shaped head.
He dressed quickly and went downstairs. The kitchen was bustling: Avdotia was sliding a large kettle into the recently lit Russian oven with a long-handled poker; her husband was making something on the bench in the corner; and at the far table the miller’s wife sat majestically alone. The doctor headed for the washbasin that stood in the corner to the right of the oven, splashed his face with cold water, and dried it with a fresh towel that the miller’s wife had hung there especially for him. He wiped his pince-nez, looked at himself in the small, round mirror, and touched the stubble on his cheeks:
“Hmm…”
“Doctor, come have a cup of tea,” the strong voice of the miller’s wife sounded from the other side of the room.
Platon Ilich went to her.
“Good morning.”
“And a very fine morning to you, too.” She smiled.
The doctor crossed himself before the icon and sat down at the table. The same little samovar stood on the table and the same ham lay on a dish.
The miller’s wife poured tea into a large cup with a portrait of Peter the Great, and dropped in two sugar cubes without asking.
“Where’s my driver?” asked the doctor, looking at her hands.
“On the other side. He’s been up for quite a while now.”
“Why didn’t he wake me?”
“Can’t say.” She smiled pleasantly. “Some fresh blini?”
The doctor noticed a stack of piping-hot pancakes on the table.
“Gladly.”
“With jam, honey, or sour cream?”
“With … honey.”
He frowned. He felt uncomfortable with the woman now.
“What drama…,” he thought as he sipped the tea.
“How’s the weather?” He glanced at the windows.
“Better than yesterday,” answered the miller’s wife, looking him straight in the eye.
“A strong woman…,” he thought, and remembering her little husband, he cast his eyes about the room.
The miller was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s still sleeping,” she said, as though she’d read the doctor’s mind. “Got a hangover. Eat up.”
She set a plate of blini in front of him and slid the honeypot over. The doctor began eating the delicious, warm blini. Crouper entered the room and stopped at the door. He was dressed for the road and held his hat in hand.
“There’s our hero…,” the doctor grumbled. He swallowed a piece of pancake and almost shouted:
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
Crouper smiled his birdlike smile:
“How’s that I didn’t wake ye? Went right upstairs come first light.”
“And…?”
“I says: Doctor, time to go. And you says: Let me sleep.”
The miller’s wife laughed and poured tea into her saucer.
“That’s impossible!” The doctor banged his fist on the table.
“As the Lord’s my witness,” Crouper said, waving his hat toward the icon.
“Well then, that means you were having a good sleep.” The miller’s wife blew on the tea in the saucer.
The doctor met her pleasant eyes and glanced at the other people in the room, as though seeking their support. Avdotia was busy at the oven, looking for all the world like she knew everything that had happened the night before, and her husband was sitting in the corner with a sort of ambiguous smile on his face, it seemed to the doctor.
“How could they possibly know?” he thought. “Ah, to hell with them…”
“You could have given me a shake,” the doctor said a bit more softly, realizing that he was going to be driving all the way to Dolgoye with this fellow.
“Cain’t worry someone who’s sleeping. It’s a pity.” Crouper stood, holding his hat in two hands over his stomach.
“Of course it’s a pity,” said the miller’s wife with smiling eyes, as she sipped tea from her saucer.
“What about the sled?” the doctor said, to change the subject.
“Fixed it. We’ll get there.”
“You wouldn’t have a phone, would you?” the doctor asked the miller’s wife.
“We do, but it doesn’t work in winter.” She dunked a sugar cube into the saucer and put it in her mouth.
“Very well, I’ll finish my tea and come out,” the doctor said to Crouper, as though dismissing him. Crouper left silently.
The doctor ate his blini, washing them down with tea.
“Tell me, this blackness, where’d it come from?” asked the miller’s wife as she rolled the piece of sugar around in her mouth and slurped her tea.
“From Bolivia,” said the doctor with distaste.
“From so far? How’d that happen? Someone brought it?”
“Someone brought it.”
She shook her head:
“My, my. But how do they rise from the grave in winter? I mean, the ground is frozen through and through.”
“The virus transforms the human body, making the muscles considerably stronger,” the doctor muttered, glancing aside.
“Markovna, them’s got claws like a bear’s!” the worker suddenly said in a loud voice. “I seen it on the radio: they can crawl through earth, through the floor if’n they wants, like moles. They get through and rip people to shreds!”
Avdotia crossed herself.
The miller’s wife set the saucer on the table, sighed, and also crossed herself. Her face grew serious and immediately seemed heavier and less attractive.
“Doctor, now you make sure to be careful out there,” she said.
Platon Ilich nodded. His nose was red from drinking tea. He retrieved his handkerchief and wiped his lips.
“They’s mighty vicious.” The worker shook his head.
“The Lord is merciful,” said the miller’s wife, her chest heaving.
“Time for me to go,” said the doctor, squeezing his fists and rising from the table. “I thank you for your hospitality.”
He bowed his head slightly.
“Always welcome.” The miller’s wife rose and bowed to him.
The doctor went over to the coatrack, and Avdotia awkwardly tried to help him put on his coat. The miller’s wife came over and stood nearby, her arms crossed.
“Farewell,” nodded the doctor as he put on his fur hat and pulled the earflaps down.