years. It wasn’t ours. It was foreign. My husband cried and cried. All week he works on the kolkhoz on the tractor, waits for Sunday, then on Sunday he lies against the wall and wails away . . .”
“No one’s going to fool us anymore, we’re not moving anywhere. There’s no store, no hospital. No electricity. We sit next to a kerosene lamp and under the moonlight. And we like it! Because we’re home.”
“In town my daughter-in-law followed me around the apartment and wiped down the door handle, the chair. And it was all bought with my money, all the furniture and the Zhiguli, too, with the money the government gave me for the house and the cow. As soon as the money’s finished, Mom’s not needed anymore.”
“Our kids took the money. Inflation took the rest. You can buy a kilo of nice candy with the money they gave us for our homes, although maybe now it wouldn’t be enough.”
“I walked for two weeks. I had my cow with me. They wouldn’t let me in the house. I slept in the forest.”
“They’re afraid of us. They say we’re infectious. Why did God punish us? He’s mad? We don’t live like people, we don’t live according to His laws anymore. That’s why people are killing one another.”
“My nephews would come during the summer. The first summer they didn’t come, they were afraid. But now they come. They take food, too, whatever you give them. ‘Grandma,’ they say, ‘did you read the book about Robinson Crusoe?’ He lived alone like us. Without people around. I brought half a pack of matches with me. An axe and a shovel. And now I have lard, and eggs, and milk—it’s all mine. The only thing is sugar—can’t plant that. But we have all the land we want! You can plow 100 hectares if you want. And no government, no bosses. No one gets in your way.”
“The cats came back with us too. And the dogs. We all came back together. The soldiers didn’t want to let us in. The riot troops. So at night—through the forest—like the partisans.”
“We don’t need anything from the government. Just leave us alone, is all we want. We don’t need a store, we don’t need a bus. We walk to get our bread. Twenty kilometers. Just leave us alone. We’re all right by ourselves.”
“We came back all together, three families. And everything here is looted: the stove is smashed, the windows, they took the doors off. The lamps, light switches, outlets—they took everything. Nothing left. I put everything back together with these hands. How else!”
“When the wild geese scream, that means spring is here. Time to sow the fields. And we’re sitting in empty houses. At least the roofs are solid.”
“The police were yelling. They’d come in cars, and we’d run into the forest. Like we did from the Germans. One time they came with the prosecutor, he huffed and puffed, they were going to put us up on Article 10. I said: ‘Let them give me a year in jail. I’ll serve it and come back here.’ Their job is to yell, ours is to stay quiet. I have a medal—I was the best harvester on the kolkhoz. And he’s scaring me with Article 10.”
“Every day I’d dream of my house. I’m coming back to it: digging in the garden, or making my bed. And every time I find something: a shoe, or a little chick. And everything was for the best, it made me happy. I’d be home soon . . .”
“At night we pray to God, during the day to the police. If you ask me, ‘Why are you crying?’ I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m happy to be living in my own house.”
“We lived through everything, survived everything . . .”
“I got in to see a doctor. ‘Sweety,’ I say, ‘my legs don’t move. The joints hurt.’ ‘You need to give up your cow, grandma. The milk’s poisoned.’ ‘Oh, no,’ I say, ‘my legs hurt, my knees hurt, but I won’t give up the cow. She feeds me.’ ”
“I have seven children. They all live in cities. I’m alone here. I get lonely, I’ll sit under their photographs. I’ll talk a little. Just by myself. All by myself. I painted the house myself, it took six cans of paint. And that’s how I live. I raised four sons and three daughters. And my husband died young. Now I’m alone.”
“I met a wolf one time. He stood there, I stood there. We looked at each other. He went over to the side of the road, and I ran. My hat rose up I was so scared.”
“Any animal is afraid of a human. If you don’t touch him, he’ll walk around you. Used to be, you’d be in the forest and you’d hear human voices, you’d run toward them. Now people hide from one another. God save me from meeting a person in the forest!”
“Everything that’s written in the Bible comes to pass. It’s written there about our kolkhoz, too. And about Gorbachev. That there’ll be a big boss with a birthmark and that a great empire will crumble. And then the Day of Judgment will come. Everyone who lives in cities, they’ll die, and one person from the village will remain. This person will be happy to find a human footprint! Not the person himself, but just his footprints.”
“We have a lamp for light. A kerosene lamp. Ah-a. The women already told you. If we kill a wild boar, we take it to the basement or bury it ourselves. Meat can last for three days underground. The vodka we make ourselves.”
“I have two bags of salt. We’ll be all right without the government! Plenty of logs—there’s a whole forest around us. The house is warm. The lamp is burning. It’s nice! I have a goat, a kid, three pigs, fourteen chickens. Land—as much as I want; grass—as much as I want. There’s water in the well. And freedom! We’re happy. This isn’t a kolkhoz anymore, it’s a commune. We need to buy another horse. And then we won’t need anyone at all. Just one horsey.”
“This one reporter said, We didn’t just return home, we went back a hundred years. We use a hammer for reaping, and a sickle for mowing. We flail wheat right on the asphalt.”
“During the war they burned us, and we lived underground. In bunkers. They killed my brother and two nephews. All told, in my family we lost seventeen people. My mom was crying and crying. There was an old lady walking through the villages, scavenging. ‘You’re mourning?’ she asked my mom. ‘Don’t mourn. A person who gives his life for others, that person is holy.’ And I can do anything for my Motherland. Only killing I can’t do. I’m a teacher, and I taught my kids to love others. That’s how I taught them: ‘Good will always triumph.’ Kids are little, their souls are pure.”
“Chernobyl is like the war of all wars. There’s nowhere to hide. Not underground, not underwater, not in the air.”
“We turned off the radio right away. We don’t know any of the news, but life is peaceful. We don’t get upset. People come, they tell us the stories—there’s war everywhere. And like that socialism is finished and we live under capitalism. And the Tsar is coming back. Is that true?”
“Sometimes a wild boar will come into the garden, sometimes a fox. But people only rarely. Just police.”
“You should come see my house, too.”
“And mine. It’s been a while since I had guests.”
“I cross myself and pray: Dear God! Two times the police came and broke my stove. They took me away on a tractor. And me, I came back! They should let people in—they’d all come crawling back on their knees. They scattered our sorrow all over the globe. Only the dead come back now. The dead are allowed to. But the living can only come at night, through the forest.”
“Everyone’s
