The villagers prepared for the Remembrance Day—Monday the week after Easter—well ahead of time. They bought armfuls of colorful plastic wreaths, sometimes five or six at a time to make sure there would be enough of them for each grave. Days before the Remembrance Day, the entire village went to the cemetery to sweep it up, to rake out the garbage, to clear the shrubs. They took the last year’s sun-bleached wreaths to an out-of-the-way spot, hanging brand-new ones on the headstones. Leaving painted eggs, Easter bread, and sweets by the graves, they stood chattering, leaning against their rakes.
“Look, no one visited the Sakhvoniv family this year…”
“Well, no one’s around. Their son is sick, the daughter’s far away. The grave’s growing over with grass. Look, how tall the acacia got.”
“Me and you, Halka, will also grow over, just like that…What can we do…”
“True, true…We will… There’s no way out,” Halka said, throwing her leg over the bike.
“Rags—that’s all that will remain. Only rags, upon my word,” her companion muttered, plodding home through the vegetable garden full of greenish weeds sticking out here and there.
On Monday, some people went to the cemetery at the crack of dawn. They piously waited for the priest who’d set the time of his arrival a few days back. Putting their hands on their foreheads, old women peered into the distance. Is dust rising? A car maybe? Perhaps the priest is coming?
The priest got out of the car with an air of importance, holding his robe with his left hand, a usual censer in his right. Several petals of apricot blossoms lay on his shoulders—he must have brought them from the previous cemetery since we didn’t have any apricots there, only lindens and acacias. The priest was coming first, then his wife, followed by an old man with a holy banner—but no choir lady. The choir lady was waiting at the cemetery. Or, rather, ladies—two Halkas, both from our village. They even looked alike—tall, slender, loud-voiced. Only one Halka was more arrogant than the other who seemed to laugh at her namesake’s arrogance, puffing out her lips a bit less, although she, for sure, realized her own significance.
My grandpa stood in the back, while the old women were flourishing their skirts around the priest, greeting him in their oily voices, crossing themselves readily at every word he spoke and gesture he made. They knew their way around the priest, whereas my grandpa and I—not so much, so we kept our distance.
The priest put his prayer book on the embroidered towel on the table, the old women surrounding him, and the service began. A gentle April breeze, warm like pillow down, stirred everything around, playing with the old women’s headscarves, the candle flames, the towel fringes. You could not make out the words in that singing—it soared too high, too much to the other side. There was no need to make them out, after all. Words did not matter much. It was the unity of memory that dominated the singing. And not only that. The old women got dressed in their Sunday clothes and put Easter bread and sausage into their baskets, covering them with clean pieces of butter-muslin or cloth. See, here we are. We’ve come. We’re here, even though our legs and arms hurt, our blood pressure goes up and down, our cows are due to calve, we can barely afford anything with our pension, the last nurse left the village ten years ago, and the health post crumbled away, its windows gaping, empty. But we are here, see! Delighted to meet, we greet each other and chirp happily. For goodness knows what can happen in a year… For all I know, next April the priest might mention me or her in his otherworldly singing. Next April, we might put Easter eggs on our neighbor’s grave. But now we’re here. And in a few hours, we’ll go back to our cows licking their newborns.
The singing drifted low like blossom, like smoke, like breathing; it drifted, settling down on hills and paths. The old women went to see the priest off to his car, blabbering, pestering him with the same questions as every year, but he’d got used to that and was answering calmly, with deliberation.
“Why swarm around him like flies?” grandpa Havrylenko tapped his cane on the ground. “They’d better take it out of their bags—my throat’s parched.”
“They will, they will. Just wait until they help him into his car—can’t do it by himself, can he?”
People sat down, each by their relative’s grave, taking out whatever it was they brought out of their bags onto the blankets or onto the makeshift tables with benches hammered together for occasions like that. Fresh shavings were scattered near the benches—someone fixed them two days ago.
The smells of sausage, Easter bread, and roasted meat filled the air. The smell of moonshine, too, of course.
They were sitting, quiet and serious, for half an hour. Then they started to look around.
“Petko? That’s Nina’s son, Petko! Look at him! He’s grown up now! Look at his beard. How old is he, anyway? Oh, my! It was just yesterday that he’d run around in short pants. Time flies!”
“Uh huh, other people’s kids grow…” grandpa Havrylenko stopped short, wolfing down a glass of moonshine and biting into a tomato. “That went down good!”
“Come here, Petko. Let grandma look at you. I remember when you were a little chubby boy. I do! I looked after you. Come here. Let grandma kiss you.”
Bearded Petko bowed his head, blushing, hiding behind his mother’s headscarf. Petko had moved to the city long time ago, becoming a doctor—he was not really comfortable with all that kissing.
“Look at you, grandma!” Petko’s mother stood up for her son. “Grandpa’s drinking like a fish and you pick at my Petko. What else would you ask for?”
Some people, mostly men, were walking around the cemetery with a bottle and a glass.
“Please drink to my mom, auntie. May she rest in peace.”
“I can’t drink anymore, Vasia. I still have mail to deliver today. No, really.”
Grandpa and I accepted maybe two offers like that, turning down the rest. Otherwise, I was afraid, we wouldn’t make it home.
Some people never turned it down, waiting eagerly for new and new offers. One of them was Maria—the villagers called her a rooskie, a Russian woman, although she’d been born in Belarus. A helpless old woman who was drinking herself into a grave, she was the first to come to the cemetery. It was her holiday that happened only once a year. She brought her own glass, for no one would allow her to drink from theirs.
“You’ll get drunk, Maria. No, please, go ahead. Just saying…”
“It isn’t her first time, is it?”
“Well, no, of course.”
In the end, Maria was no longer able to speak. She only tapped her nail on her dirty glass, asking for a drink. They poured her some more. It was a special day. You could not say no to anyone. Let the departed rest in peace. May the earth rest lightly upon them.
Some people kept weeping near the fresh graves: they dropped down to their knees, wiped the portraits on the headstones, kissed them, wiped them, kissed them again, brushing away their tears with the fringes of their headscarves. By the old graves, hardly anyone was crying. People were eating, drinking, thinking of old times. Brushing the acacia blossoms off their clothes, they peered into the distance, trying to make out who else had just arrived. Dozens of cars were parked by the cemetery gate that day. More than ever.
Blossom, wind, and sweet sorrow raved at the cemetery till late night. Some people were packing their bags, others just started to take their things out. The cars were rumbling, raising the dust.
“Oh mommy, oh daddy, a whole year will pass till I come to you again!”
“Hurry up, Tania. The bus leaves at two!”
Only Maria the rooskie didn’t hurry anywhere. She fell asleep right in the middle of the path, happy.
“Now we have to step over her!” the old women grumbled. “Sprawling across the path just like that!”
After the adults left, Maria fell into the kids’ hands. Kids pulled her arms, teased her, and even jumped over her.
“Don’t touch me,” Maria waved them aside, half-asleep. She was comfortable sleeping there. The linden trees were rustling, something divine about them. Drink while on this side, Maria, because on that side… And kids—well, kids are kids, little fools.
In the twilight, the last visitor came to the cemetery—Valka, Maria’s daughter. She came to take her mother home. Chasing the kids away, shaking her little fists at them, she wept, raising her arms toward the sky.
“Why do you do this to me, mom? You embarrass me all the time! All the time! Get up and go home! Come on!”
It took a while to wake Maria up. Having fallen down a few times, she finally struggled to her feet and hung on her daughter’s arm—they stumbled home along the narrow path across the vegetable garden.
Sending the last few visitors home, the cemetery grew mysterious, distant, and unfamiliar. You could no longer offer someone a drink, say hello to Petka, or look whose car was parked by the gates. In the twilight, the cemetery stiffened, closing in on itself. You couldn’t step inside just like that. The rusty gates wouldn’t let you in. They knew who was at home there, and who was still a guest.
Sergii Osoka
