The Naked Year

The Firebird in Russian folklore is a fiery, illuminated bird; magical, iconic, coveted. Its feathers continue to glow when removed, and a single feather, it is said, can light up a room. Some who claim to have seen the Firebird say it even has glowing eyes. The Firebird is often the object of a quest. In one famous tale, the Firebird needs to be captured to prevent it from stealing the king's golden apples, a fruit bestowing youth and strength on those who partake of the fruit. But in other stories, the Firebird has another mission: it is always flying over the earth providing hope to any who may need it. In modern times and in the West, the Firebird has become part of world culture. In Igor Stravinsky's ballet
The Firebird,
it is a creature half-woman and half-bird, and the ballerina's role is considered by many to be the most demanding in the history of ballet.

The Overlook Press in the U.S. and Gerald Duckworth in the UK, in adopting the Firebird as the logo for its expanding Ardis publishing program, consider that this magical, glowing creature—in legend come to Russia from a faraway land—will play a role in bringing Russia and its literature closer to readers everywhere.

This edition published in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2013 by Ardis Publishers, an imprint of Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
New York and London

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Copyright © 1975 by Ardis Publishers / The Overlook Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be or transmitted in an form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusions in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN PRINT: 978-1-4683-0639-2

ISBN EPUB: 978-1-4683-0813-6

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The translator wishes to acknowledge the deep debt of gratitude which he owes to Professor Marcus Wheeler of The Queen's University of Belfast for patiently reading the translation in manuscript form and for making many useful suggestions and correcting many mistakes. He also wishes to thank Mr. Richard Danik, also of Queen's, for identifying individual linguistic and dialectical obscurities.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Ordinin-Town

China-Town

EXPOSITION

Chapter I

Tamotoes Sold Here

Olenka Kuntz and the Warrant

The Death of Old Arkhipov

Chapter II

The Ordinin House

Two Conversations. The Old Men

Denouements

Chapter III

About Freedoms
Through Andrei's Eyes

Through Natalya's Eye

Through Irina's Eyes

Chapter IV

Commutators–Accumulators

The Provinces, Y'Know.–Town Tators

The Monastery Vvedenyo-na-Gore

Fire–Lators

Chapter V

Deaths (Triptych the First)

The Death of the Commune

The First Dying

Third Part of the Triptych (the darkest)

Chapter VI

and Penultimate. The Bolsheviks (Second Triptych)

Leather Jackets

China-Town

Third Part of the Triptych (the brightest)

Chapter VII

(the last, without a title)

CONCLUSION

The Last Triptych (material, in essence)

Incantations

Conversations

Wedding

Outside the Triptych, at the end

AFTERWORD

Selected Bibliography of Works about Pilnyak

Introduction

In the book
A Rational Existence
,
or a Moral View of Life's Worth
is the sentence:

Every moment vows to fate to keep a profound silence about our destiny, even up to the time that fate unites with the course of our life; and then, when the future is silent about our destiny, with every passing moment eternity may begin.

Born in the deaf years

They do not remember their way.

We, the children of Russia's terrible years,

Are unable to forget anything.

A. Blok

ORDININ-TOWN

O
N THE TOWN
K
REMLIN'S
G
ATES
was inscribed (now destroyed):

Save, O Lord,

This town and Your people

And bless all those

Who enter these gates

And here is an excerpt from the decrees of the Ordinin Orphans Court:

On Monday the seventh day of January in the year 1794, the following members arrived at the Chambers of the Ordinin City Orphans Court at twelve o'clock noon:

Dementy Ratchin, the City Mayor.

The councilors: Semyon Tulinov, Stepan Ilin, Stepan Zyabov, the city elder.

They heard– –

They decreed: thank and honor City Mayor Dementy Ratchin, a famous and honorable man.

Signing were– –

All left the Chambers after one o'clock in the afternoon and proceeded to the Cathedral for prayers.

This decree was written exactly one hundred years before the birth of Donat; Donat discovered it when he was sacking the Ordinin Archives. This decree was written on blue paper, with a goose-quill, with fanciful curlicues.

The famed Ratchin family of merchants was two hundred years old; formerly they had owned salt-mines, dealt in wheat and live-stock–for two hundred years (great-grandfather, grandfather, father, son, grandson, great-grandson) in one place, the salt stalls (now destroyed), on Tradesmen's Square (now Red)–every day they stood behind the counter, clicked abacuses, played checkers, drank tea from a teapot (to spill it in figures of eight across the floor), received customers, and swore at the bailiffs.

Ivan Emelyan Ratchin, Dementy's grandson, Donat's grandfather, took his place behind the counter forty years ago when he was a curly-haired youth; since then much had passed; he grew wizened, went bald, bought spectacles, began to walk with a cane, always in a quilted coat, always in a quilted cap. He was born right here, in Zaryadye, in his two-story house behind the gates with the wolf-hounds; here he brought his wife, from here he carried out his father's coffin, here he ruled.

In the Kremlin were the official buildings and churches; below the Kremlin, in a ravine, the Vologa river flowed, and beyond the Vologa lay the meadows, Redenev Monastery, Yamsky Settlement (the railway in those times passed by a hundred versts away). All day and all night, every five minutes, the clock in the cathedral rang out–dong! dong! dong!–And the first to wake up in the Kremlin were the geese (pigs were not kept in the Kremlin because the streets were cobbled). Soon after the geese came the tavern drunks, the beggars and the Fools-in-Christ. The police made their way to the City Hall with tables on their heads (the Governor of the province had issued a decree that the police supervisors must make nightly rounds and sign in the books, and he ordered that the books be fastened to the tables, –the supervisors did sign them, only not at night, but in the morning, and not in their booths, but in the offices where the tables were brought to them). Walking about the town at night was unwillingly permitted, and if a policeman asked, half asleep:

“Who goes there?”

one always had to answer

“A resident!”

In the chancery offices and precinct buildings, as is to be expected, they beat people, especially the drunks, cruelly and thoroughly, and Officer Babochkin was an expert.

The tavern drunks gathered at the government bar very early; they would sit down on the grass and patiently wait for it to open. The merchants passed by, crossing themselves. Pious Father Levkoev, a passionate fisherman, would run by from the river, hurry into the stalls with his keys and open up his ecclesiastical business: pious Levkoev was a respected man and his only fault was that in the summer worms would crawl out of his pocket, a result of this fishing passion of his (the poet-informer Varygin even informed the bishop about this). The drunkard Ogonyok the Classicist would shout to the clergyman, “Most merciful sir!.. Understand?..”

But the clergyman would just wave him aside.

And right after the clergyman, the teacher Blanmanzhov would come out through his wicket gate, in a military coat, with an umbrella and galoshes, following the clergyman to his ecclesiastical business to drink a cup of tea and have a chat. Ogonyok (a bright spot) would confidently walk up to him and say:

“Kind sir!
Vous comprenez?
Ogonyok the Classicist is talking to you…” And Blanmanzhov would give him a small coin. Blanmanzhov was renowned for his geography and his wife, who would walk to church wearing a traditional Russian headscarf, but went naked at home, and summer and autumn sold fruit from her garden through a small window wearing just her slip.

Truskov the slaughterman would come to the vodka shop and drink a couple of “scoundrels.” Tradesmen and hawkers would come and walk through the market. The drunks would buy some “dog's delight” and then wander off about their business. Cabbies drove up on their “wheels,” saying, half asleep, “Plez! Pleze!”

And over the town the sun would rise, always beautiful, always extraordinary. Over the earth, over the town, the springs, summers, autumns and winters would pass, always beautiful, always extraordinary.

In spring the old women and children went to Nikola-Radovanets, to the Kazan Monastery on a pilgrimage, listened to the larks, grieved over the past. In autumn the children would fly snake kites with rattles. During the autumn, during the winter carnival, and after Easter, the matchmakers got busy bringing together grooms and brides, merchants with army wives, widows and “first-timers”; and at the pre-marriage meetings the post-office clerks talked with their fiancees about literature and geography: the bride would say that she preferred the poet Lazhechnikov, the groom would prefer the writer Nadson, the conversation would dry up, and the groom would ask about geography; the bride would say she had been to Nikola-Radovanets, and the groom would report on Warsaw and Lyuban, where he had completed military service. On St. Nicholas' Day, on St. Peter's Day, and at Lent there were fairs in the town, organ-grinders, conjurors, and acrobats arrived, booths were erected, the artists themselves distributed the posters, and after the fairs the merchants would visit Dr. Yeleazarych secretly. During the winter people went to the water carrier's for a bath. The water-carrier set up a wooden shelter which went right down to the water, to the ice-hole, and the merchants, well-steamed, flew straight to the ice-hole to immerse themselves a few times. On Sundays in the winter there were fist-fights, fights between the people of the Yamsky Settlement and those from Redenev, the boys started them, shouting–“Come on, come on!..” –they would be ended by the old men, but this did not keep the merchants from riding over to the gypsies in Yamsky Sunday night, having a good time and increasing the number of floury gypsy children and, on the way back, knocking down the lampposts. On Christmas Eve they did not eat anything before the stars, on the first day they celebrated Christ and delivered sermons, at Epiphany they drew crosses on all the doors with chalk.

Events
in the town were rare, and if there were any scandals, such as the following:

Mishka Tselev–a locksmith's son–and Ippolit, the excise man's son, tied a mouse by the tail and were playing near their house with it when crazy cross-eyed Ermil passed by on the street and decided to throw rocks at the windows. Tselev–the locksmith–went for him with an ax. He took the ax away. The fireman came running–he went for the fireman with the ax; the fireman took off. Officer Babochkin handled it alone. Then Mishka was whipped for three days,–

–if such scandals happened, the whole town talked about it for half a year. Once every two years prisoners would escape from jail and the whole town would help catch them.

In the salt stalls on Tradesmen's Square near the ecclesiastic shops stood a locker–the only book trade–under the sign:

SALE AND PURCHASE

of textbooks, inks, pens

and pen-holders.

AND SUch-like periodical stationers

publications.

A. V. VARYGIN

The ecclesiastical store was under the market ikon of the Forty Martyred Saints. As many masses were sung under this ikon as there were name-days for the merchants of the market. In the ecclesiastic store ikons were not bought, but swapped: the person swapping would buy a new cap, put the money in it and exchange the cap for an ikon, the caps went to the seminary. Father Levkoev ran the ecclesiastical store, dreaming of following the example of Christ in starting up a brotherhood of fishermen, and at the first meeting discussing a problem which had long since matured in his mind: how to moor a boat on a fishing trip–with stones, an anchor, or a rope? In the ecclesiastical store they played checkers, and the intelligentsia gathered–Blanmanzhov, and A. V. Varygin. The merchants' club met at the soap merchant Zyabrov's place, a fire-lover. The “abvocates” and gossips (word and deed!) always sat around at his place: the “abvocates” wrote slanders and papers, the gossips bore witness to anything you liked. Beggars and Fools-in-Christ wandered up and down the stalls–Zyabrov “had fun” with them: in winter he would stick silver five-kopeck pieces to the stone floor with spittle and order the beggars to get them up for themselves with their teeth, in summer he offered them ten kopecks if they could drink a bucket of water (the fool Tiga-Goga drank many) or he organized races, as if at the firemen's parade. Zyabrov also had his little jokes with passers-by: he would throw a watch out the door on a thread, or toss out candy-boxes full of cockroaches or dead rats. In the stone stalls it was dark, damp, smelled of rats, rotten skins, putrid herring.

Ivan Emelyanovich Ratchin, tall, lean, in a quilted cap, used to arrive at his shop at five minutes to seven, rattle at all the locks and teach the
boys and assistants their trade: in the presence of customers it was necessary to say:

not “give,” but “present,”

not “come down,” but “sacrifice,”

not “sale,” but “transaction,”

not “bargain,” but “discuss,”

not “150 rbls. 50 kpks.,” but “one-five-zero,”

not “90,” but “a hundred less ten.”

It was necessary to open the doors for the customers and close the doors after them: if you can't size up, if you can't cheat–you won't make a sale. Ivan Emelyanovich would go off to his office, click away on his abacus, read the Bible aloud, and call the rule-breakers into his office (or boys guilty of nothing), and, beneath the eternal ikon-lamp, give each a lesson, according to the crime: either with a two-tailed whip or with a vologa whip. At twelve the breadman would come: he would give each clerk a five-kopeck piece for the breadman, and the boys three kopecks, and would go off to Father Levkoev's for a game of checkers, at ten kopecks a game–he would beat them all in silence: he had no love of tongue-wagging. He spoke strictly with his customers, and then only with the wholesale ones.

Locking up was at half past seven, and by eight the wolf-hounds, the marketplace dogs were running through the stalls. By nine the town was alseep and to the question:

“Who goes there?”

it was necessary to answer, so as not to end up in the clink:

“A resident!..”

In the house (behind the wolf-hounds at the solid stone gates) of Ivan Emelyanovich Ratchin it was silent, only in the evening from the cellar, where the clerks and boys lived, issued the subdued singing of psalms and litanies. At home the clerks' jackets and boots were taken away from them, as were the boys' pants, (so they wouldn't lark about at night), and Ivan Emelyanovich ruled with an iron rod in his hand, with which he would “teach” them. In the cellar the windows were barred, lamps were not considered proper, only an ikon-lamp burned. In the evening at supper, Ivan Emelyanovich himself would slice the salted beef into the cabbage soup, was first to dip into the soup with a wooden spoon, and would pound on the head with it any-one who yawned, and one could only pick up the salted beef when he said
“Eat up!”

Ivan Emelyanovich was never called anything but “Papa.” They lived according to the proverb: “Papa will come–he'll sort everything out.”
*
Ivan Emelyanovich had a buxom wife who told fortunes in the coffee about the King of Hearts, but it was not she whom Ivan Emelyanovich took to bed, but Mashukha, his trusted housekeeper. Before going to sleep in his stuffy bedroom Ivan Emelyanovich prayed for a long time–for the business, for the children, for the dead, for sailors and wayfarers–he read the Psalms. He slept lightly, little–like an old man. He would get up earlier than everyone else, with a candle, again pray, drink tea, give orders–and go away to the shop for the whole day. Things were easier at home without him (perhaps because it was daytime?) and the hangers-on would crawl out of their crannies to “herself.” Every Saturday after Vespers Ivan Emelyanovich would whip his son Donat. At Christmas and Easter the guests arrived–relatives. On June 24th (after a drunken St. John's Eve!) on his name-day, a meal was prepared outside for the beggars. On Absolution Sunday the clerks and boys would bow down to Ivan Emelyanovich's feet, and he would say to each “Open your mouth, breathe out!” to see if they smelled of vodka.

Thus among the house, the shop, the Bible, the thrashings, his wife, Mashukha–forty years passed. So it was every day–so it was for forty years–it all merged with his life, entered it as his wife had once entered it, as the children entered it, as his father left, as old age came.