And what an uproar would break out in the henhouse when a cat appeared on its roof. Its every movement was discussed. There were disputes on the issue of whether it would get into the henhouse or not.
I had long been interested in the language of hens. Could I learn their language? Could I enter into a conversation with them? If they understood at least some of what I said, or rather cackled, it would mean that I was on the right track. Making myself comfortable on the trestle bed closer to the henhouse, I began:
“Ko-o-o-o-o-ko-ko…”
No one paid any attention to me. None of the hens looked in my direction. Was my voice hoarse? I cleared my throat and tried again, “K-o-o-ko-o-o-o-ko-ko-k-o-o-o!”
One of the hens cocked an eye toward me. So again, I spoke the hens’ language as tenderly as I could. And – word of honor – they answered me from the henhouse.
Genuine hen sounds began to flow from my throat. And soon, I and almost all the hens were exchanging remarks and calling to each other. I was beside myself with pride and delight. I had been recognized as one of them!
Only the rooster remained silent. He wasn’t talkative. He didn’t cackle and gossip together with the hens. His cock-a-doodle-do was associated with a certain part of the day. And it was done not just for the sake of talking, but for self-expression, to make his presence felt.
Though I wouldn’t say that the rooster disregarded me completely. He walked back and forth in the cage, casting glances in my direction. Then he stopped and began to scrutinize me with his round unblinking eyes, tilting his head now and then.
I was even a little scared: could he possibly be visualizing me as a white hen instead of a boy? Was it possible that he thought this new white hen was calling him?
As if to answer my thought, the rooster spread his wings, flapped and then crowed. I jumped onto the trestle bed, formed a megaphone with my hands and crowed in return. “No,” I meant to say, “I’m not a hen, I’m a rooster.”
I don’t know how my relationship with the rooster would have developed if it had not been cut short in a most unceremonious manner.
“ValeRY! How many times do I have to call you? What’s going on?”
It was Grandma shouting. Her face expressed puzzlement. Even though I was close to her porch, I had heard neither the squeaking of the door nor her calling me. That door was known as Grandma’s door, not only because it was the entrance to her house, but because the door seemed to be Grandma’s relative. That old wooden door, in the upper part of which there was a small window with a tulle curtain, just like the one in the bedroom, had a squeak that was exactly like Grandma’s voice during family quarrels. Maybe any old door with rusted hinges would squeak the same way. Maybe… I don’t know.
I was convinced that the squeak of Grandma’s door almost turned into her voice, and the other way around. At some moments, Grandma’s voice sounded to me like the continuous squeak of the old door.
“Have you turned into a hen?” Grandma asked me scornfully in Tadjik, for she had quite understood the essence of my exercises. Without waiting for my reply, she ordered, “Let’s go, we’re going to make preserves.”
My question was: for whom were vacations created?
There was a bucket filled to the brim with cherries on the kitchen table. Grandma gave me a syringe-like device for removing pits.
“Do you remember how to do it?”
I nodded. A whole year had passed since we had done it, but removing pits was a simple thing. You placed a cherry onto the thin lower rim of the device, then pushed down a rod that pierced the cherry and the pit popped out. At the beginning, it was even interesting to do, but after squeezing out three or four dozen pits it became boring. Tik-tik, a muted sound accompanied the piercing of cherries. That sound made the feeling of boredom even worse. The pits fell into a bucket, and I tossed the cherries into a big bowl. My hands, as if stained with blood, looked like the hands of a butcher.
How slowly the pile of cherries in the bucket decreased. That problem could be solved to some extent if I sent cherries to my mouth, since Grandma was not in the kitchen. But they were so sour that my face twisted unwittingly. Some pleasure it was! They were much sweeter when eaten straight from the tree.
“Are you out of your mind? What are you doing here?”
I hadn’t seen how Yura appeared. The door was wide open. He assessed the situation right from the doorway. By that time, Yura had already had enough conflicts with Grandma. Unlike me, he knew how to fight off her assignments and requests for help. He did it openly and rudely, without any formalities or excuses:
“Do I have to?”
At that, he lowered his head like a young bull ready to charge, glowered at her, and pursed his lips: in a word, he looked like someone not to be meddled with.
It was his father Misha who could make Yura help Grandma, and only under compulsion. And here he had caught me, working like a slave. Anything, in his opinion, was more useful and reasonable then making preserves. I myself was already half dead from this ridiculous occupation. The trouble was that I didn’t have either Yura’s directness or his determination to stop doing it and run away.
“Be quiet! She’ll hear us,” I answered, looking around. “You’d better help me. It will go faster.”
Yura didn’t say anything, rotated the finger pressed to his temple, and withdrew.
Tik-tik, the cherries resumed their cheerless, monotonous splashing.
Grandma appeared and, seeing that the basin was almost full, praised me for my work:
“Joni bivesh!”
Her face softened. She even smiled a bit, and the hand placed on her lower back stopped rubbing the sore spot, as if explaining to me, “When you help me, my ailment recedes.”
The first part of the work was finished. I planted the basin on the gas stove. Grandma covered the bloody cherries with sugar. The pile, white as a mountain top, began to turn pink and then red, starting at the bottom. The cherries had to sit for a few hours to let the sugar get well saturated with their juice and form a syrup.
“That’s fine,” Grandma Lisa said cheerfully. “Now we have time to clean.”
What? Cleaning on top of that? And I thought I was finished and free. Yura would have said, “I’m not your cleaning woman.” But Grandma knew perfectly well that I wouldn’t dare to say anything like that. No cleaning woman was summoned to the house during my vacations. I think Grandma was absolutely convinced that she was doing it for my benefit – that I would become neater and acquire important life skills.
Perhaps it was true, to some extent.
As I grabbed a broom made of twigs, I thought with indignation that this sweeping wasn’t necessary – the wooden floor, finished with brown oil paint, looked clean without a speck of dust. Everybody walked around the house without their shoes on; footwear was left at the front door. Grandma Lisa had the eyesight of a hawk. She would point to a far corner with her finger, “Who dropped that?” It seemed there was nothing there. But if you leaned down, you would see a small button. And now, as I began to sweep the bedroom floor with the wet broom, waving it from wall to wall, I saw that there was a lot of dust there. Grandma, from her seat on the bed, was an observer and supervisor, giving me instructions:
“You raise too much dust! Don’t do it fast! Do it slowly.”
Grandma was an experienced supervisor. She understood perfectly well that before the beginning of a job she needed to say, “Now we’ll wash… we’ll cook… we’ll clean,” and then it was sufficient just to be around and provide instructions, though Grandma herself was industrious. She had had four children, and endless chores in the yard and house. She always had many chores.