The Slynx

YEST

When kitty died, there was no one to catch mice. You won't catch too many with bare hands. Of course science doesn't stand still, it just keeps inventing things. Benedikt would sometimes make loops, noose traps. He'd twist threads into a stiff string, rub it good and well with mouse lard, wind a special loop on one end so that it would slide, try it out on his finger-and he was off to the hunt. Our floors are all cracked and gaping, not so much on account of being poor, but so it's easier for the mice to come out. Come on out now, little critters!

I have seen you, little mouse, Running all about the house, Through the hole your little eye In the wainscot peeping sly, Hoping soon some crumbs to steal, To make quite a hearty meal.

They say that the rich Golubchiks who have tall, painted terems two stories high-Murzas, for instance, or someone who has grown fat from a dishonest life-those ones have all the cracks stuffed up so there's no draft even in the deepest winter. And how do they get their food? They've got special serfs sitting in the cellars, and those serfs are trained to attack mice. That's all they know how to do. People say they sit there in the cellars day in and day out in the pitch dark, but they can see like it's high noon. They can't even come out into the light, they'd go blind right off, and their mice-catching days would be over. Who knows? Could be.

But we're simple folk, we lie down on the floor on our bellies, stick the noose in a crack and give it a tug. Mice are stupid critters. They're curious: what is that noose doing over there? And they'll stick their heads right in the loop and then: whoop! You give it a jerk.

Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, made a scientific invention for us. The mouse trap. Well, people do have those too, but they just stand there idle. You have to put a piece of food in the mouse trap for it to work, otherwise the mice aren't interested and won't go near it. Thieves, on the other hand, are very interested. As soon as you've left home, a thief will find out that you have food lying about, and he'll come take a look. He'll clean you out of house and home and won't even say thank you.

That's just what thieves do: they take everything. Meat, noodles, nuts, goosebread, marshrooms, if you've got them saved up -everything. But they don't take rusht. There's plenty of it everywhere. You have to be a real lazybones not to have enough rusht! True, if it's really good rusht, dry and fluffy-then they might go after it. They might take the rusht too.

You can understand a thief. Here he is, walking through the village and he sees the izba door is closed with a stick. The owners aren't home. They're out, but there might be some rabbit meat in the izba. Mightn't there? It is possible, isn't it? Yes indeed, there might! Maybe the owner managed to hit a rabbit with a rock, or maybe he traded eggs or horsetail with his neighbors. Maybe he's got a knack for catching rabbits! The idea gets into your head and stays there. If you walk on by you'll never know. You can't help taking a peek. So the thief goes in, looks around. If he guessed right and there's meat-he'll take it. If not, he gets mad that there isn't any and he'll take whatever he can find, even worrums. And once he's pinched one thing, what's to hold him back? The izba's already been burgled, he figures, and so he'll go and clean the place out.

But Benedikt doesn't have anything to steal. He doesn't keep provisions, he eats what he catches. All that's there is a full trunk of rusht.

What's so good about rusht? Well, it's good for all sorts of things. You can smoke it, and drink it, and make ink out of it, and dye threads with it if someone wants to embroider a cloth. It makes good mead, especially when winter's coming. You can use it to keep the house warm by sticking it between the logs to fill the cracks. Some people have tried to cover the roof with it, but that doesn't work. The bunches are round and stiff-it just falls apart. Straw is good for a roof. If you're rich, you can use wood planks.

You can find rusht in the bog. On weekends everyone grabs a basket as soon as it's light and sets off in different directions. Benedikt found a good place. Nikita Ivanich put up a post there that says "Garden Ring." There's no ring of course, just izbas in rows. The town ends there. And right beyond the izbas there's a bog full of rusht. More than you can pick. Even the locals won't shoo you away; other Golubchiks would beat you up for going near their place, but these people don't care. So you hurry along just after dawn, in winter it's murky, red, and blows cold.

From the dawn a luxurious cold Pierces the garden.

Just like Fyodor Kuzmich wrote.

We don't have gardens, of course, only maybe a Murza might, but the part about the cold-that's true enough. It goes straight through you. Benedikt's felt boots have thinned out, his feet can feel the snow. You run quick quick over Foul Bridge to the top of the hill, then down again past the Cockynork neighborhood. If a Cockynork sticks his head out you throw a rock at him to warm yourself up, and keep running. You throw the rock because the Cockynorks, they don't talk like us: all they say is blah-blah-blah and blah-blah-blah-you can't understand a thing. Why do they talk like that, why don't they want to talk like we do? Who knows. Maybe on purpose. Or maybe it's just a bad habit, that kind of thing can happen.

They're just cutting off their noses to spite their faces. What can they say in Cockynork? Our language is handier any way you look at it: you can sit down, talk things over, discuss them: such and such and thus and so. And everything's clear as day.

The Cockynorks are just plain stubborn and that's all there is to it. Some say that their noses get in their way; that they'd be happy to sit down and chat in our language, except for their noses. Their noses practically touch the ground-it's really funny. That's the Consequence they have.

When our people don't have anything to do, they sometimes get together in the evening at the Cockynork settlement, climb up on the fence, look all around, and laugh. Hey, Cockynorks, how come your noses are hanging down? Trying to smell your shoes? We'll wipe your noses for you! They run out and they're all mad. It's so funny-they close their shutters tight, hustle the children into the house, chattering blah-blah-blah all the while. And if you throw a rock and hit one of them on the forehead, he yells ouuuuch! But he doesn't grab the lump with his hand, he uses his nose instead, and that's really hysterical. Our lads nearly fall off the fence laughing.

Ivan Beefich, who has a little hut on Rubbish Pond, loves these kinds of pranks so much that he collects rocks-he digs them up in his garden and saves them in a barrel. If the lads are heading off to the settlement, they can't sneak by him, he knows, he keeps watch out the window. Wait, guys, take me with you, I won't make it on my own!

Ivan Beefich has really bad Consequences. His head, arms, and shoulders are all strong, straight, and powerful, it would take three days to unscramble them, as they say. But right after his underarms come the soles of his feet, and in the middle there's an udder. That's what Nikita Ivanich called it: an "udder," but we don't have a word like that, why would we, what do we need it for, it's not in any books. We just call it titties.

Sometimes there's a mix-up of course. Once the guys went to tease the Cockynorks and one of them carried Ivan Beefich piggyback. He had two whole capfuls of rocks, and was singing. He's master singer of old songs. He starts off with: "Hey, Dunya, Dunya, Dunya, die, she clobbered Vanya in the eye!" And he wiggles his shoulders and rolls his eyes, his teeth sparkle all white-a real dashing daredevil, that fellow. Of course, since he was singing, the Cockynorks heard him coming, they shut their windows and doors and hid out, only they forgot one old man in the yard. Well, he got it from everyone. And that nasty old man got so mad, he picked up a rock with his nose, just like it was his hand, and pow! He bonked Ivan Beefich right on the udder. Ivan Beefich went plop-and lay there. Our lads got furious: how dare they hit one of our guys-and they tore up half the Cocky-nork settlement.

That kind of thing happens mostly on holidays when people are in a good mood; on weekdays everyone's plenty busy, our people work in government service, then they make soup or smoke rusht. The Cockynorks weave bags and baskets from mouse tails, very fancy, intricate-and then they trade them at the market. Cockynorks aren't good for anything else.

Sometimes when you're running by their settlement, you'll throw something and then head for the bog. It only takes a week for fresh rusht to sprout, reddish or with a hint of green. It's good for smoking. And the older stuff is browner, it's better for paint or mead. You stuff fine rusht into a dry leaf, roll a smoke, and knock on an izba door to ask for a light. If they don't sock you in the forehead right away, they might grumble a bit, take pity, and give you a light. You walk along puffing, and you feel warmer, like you're not alone, and it seems like the faces of the Golubchiks you run into along the way aren't so beastly after all.