The Silence of the Bunnies

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Three Saturdays ago Sveta and I caught the 5:50 a.m. bus out of Perm. We were going to visit Vala at her farm. An hour or so later, we were dropped off at a village. A dog greeted all the passengers, barking happily at each of us -- glad to see some guests, some of whom undoubtedly were carrying food. The Russian village seems cozy. Small, wooden houses, women leading goats along the paths, little but dense fields, all enclosed by ancient forests. But Vala didn’t live in this village, so Sveta and I walked toward a gravel road up a little ways. The sign told us 11 kilometers. I remember Vala had been shocked when at the memorial dinner we had told her that we wouldn't consider hitchhiking. But now with a bag made heavy with cold weather clothes and a nearly 7 mile walk in front of us, I could begin to understand the appeal of hitchhiking. So we set off on foot and in a short while a car pulled up. An older gentleman asked us if we needed a ride. "Village hospitality," I thought, but remained silent. We got in, thankful, and sped off. Our benefactor turned out to be Vova, Vala’s “boyfriend” (although considering he is 71, boyfriend is hardly appropriate). Vala, knowing well the bus schedule, had sent him to fetch us.

Vala and another barking dog, Chip, greeted us outside. She brought us in for breakfast: fried mushrooms, bread, sausages, peppers and curd cheese with corn flakes on top. The last of these is a Legotkin favorite, though I can't say I've ever warmed to it. We drank tea steeped garden herbs. Aunt Vera had arrived earlier was already sitting down and eating. Vala worked -- she's always working -- around the kitchen while we ate.

Among other activities, such as bee keeping, Vala and Vova raise Angora rabbits. They raise them and shave them because the fur is warm, the business at least moderately profitable and because they like the bunnies. Sveta and I go out with Vala to collect clover -- bunnies love clover. Vala swings the scythe, Sveta rakes the clover into piles, and I put it into the bucket and haul it to the rabbits. I try my hand at the swinging but the scythe is a tricky tool and I never get the hang of it. We feed the bunnies. Then we separate them by sexes. If bunnies remained unsegregated, there will be thousands of bunnies, far too many to shave. Separating the bunnies requires determining which on is a male and which a female. This is very difficult. It is an art, being able to detect these subtle differences. To the unsophisticated eye, rabbits are rabbits. And even before we can perform the inspection (with fingers) we have to catch the bunnies. The bunnies know what's up and they quickly discover that this inspection is not at all pleasant. So they run away and hide under boards, or aluminum roofing, and if we manage to grab one, it claws wildly. I had never known that bunnies possessed such claws. But after a struggle, and with Vala acting as chief inspector, the work gets done, and we head inside for lunch.

After lunch we set off for the river. I carry a puppy. Vala had taken in a female dog she that she discovered abandoned at the market and four weeks ago it gave birth to four puppies. The puppies, fat and clumsy, are being given away. So we drop one off to a man who’s refurbishing a rich family's vacation home that overlooks the Kama River. He's at work, so we get a chance to see how the other half lives. The owner is the Minister of Roads for the Perm region. Permian roads are a disaster, though the one leading to his place is quite nice. The minister recently bought a dog - an expensive breed. It’s like a husky (maybe it is a husky). These dogs endure brutal colds and need to be outside. Yet, the minister built it a doghouse -- it’s more like a small cottage. The dog hates it. She leaps over the two-meter high fence. So the minister now keeps her chained. We show the puppy to the dog. The puppy is terrified. "Meep-meep-meep!" the big dog starts barking aggressively, so we leave her and her dog cottage and head to the house.

The Minister of Roads provides ambiguous plans, mere suggestions, to the construction worker. He does what he thinks the Minister wants. When shown the result, the Minister (or his wife) inevitably says "no, no -- this is not what I wanted at all" And the work begins anew. The worker receives the puppy gladly. He smiles and thanks Vala. Vala looks after the minister's place while he's away (which is most of the time) and shows us around -- bathouses, kitchens, 14 century-style floors. After the tour, she races down the long and steep staircase to the river. Sveta and I run after her. We admire the Kama for a moment from the dock and then Vala races back up, we follow, slowing slightly. I spot a mushroom -- Vala stops, identifies it and decides to begin mushroom hunting here and now. We patrol the edge of the forest, and then its off into an abandoned field. The field is slowly becoming part of the forest again. There are many such in Russia. The long migration from the village continues, villages slowly die and Russia does not know from where it will continue to get food. Vala’s all enthusiasm, and the spirit catches. I follow close behind and repeat the mushroom names after her.

“Ababa!” She points.
“Ababa.” I reply.

“Maslonik!”
“Maslonik.”

And so on. Stepping over ditches and always climbing up and up, we reach a point where we get a magnificent view of the Kama. Vala begins to sing, something about Russian fields. Sveta struggles for the words, and then joins her. Vala often sings. She says at certain times one simply must sing. After the song, and after finding Vera -- who had gone on her own solo mushroom hunt -- we come upon a big SUV. Here a man and his wife are unloading garbage and throwing into the woods. Vala becomes angry. Sveta too. Vala confronts the man. Sveta stands beside her. Vera and I look off into the distance. Fast words, the man is angry too. No real understanding is reached, but the man claims that he has no choice. There is no garbage collection and that he is not allowed to burn his trash, so woods by the side of the road are all that remain. It's a shame. The country here is beautiful. The mist comes off from the river, and the woods are a deep green. But any place can be ruined, made shabby. We continue home.

Back home mushrooms are cleaned and Sveta and search for berries. The three month-old kitten, the one lazy one, the one that will not catch mice but lets the other cats do all the killing and then has the audacity to eat their quarry, is out playing with the other farm cats. Everyone works here. "Even the toads have their work!" Vala explained at breakfast. Mosquito control. I wonder if any of them are super quota workers. So the kitten must work too. Neighbors had been by earlier, and took the kitten to see some field mice, in the hopes of teaching him. In the yard, Vov is heading off into town. He backs the car up, and the farm cats scramble, but the lazy kitten is too slow. It happens sofast. The wheel is on the kitten, the kitten releases a strangled cry, and then the the car's gone, and the kitten runs under the house. Cats do cling to their lives. Barsic fell nine stories, and this little guy, other than that piercing shriek, shows no ill effects. We'll see him later in the hay loft.

Vala works, we feed the bunnies again. She shows us the foundation of a house Vova is building on the other side of the creek. But it's slow and hard building a home on your own. Sveta and I follow the example of the lazy ktten and begin to loaf, but everyone else is working: Vera cleans mushrooms, Vala is finishing her preserves, Vova has returned and is with the rabbits.

Eventually we start to get ready for bed. The house is small, a cottage really. Vera's in the main room, so Sveta and I will sleep in the barn, up in the hay loft. I figured Vala was joking when she told us. But following a trip to the bathhouse, Sveta and I get in the cold weather clothes that she had filled the bag with and head to the loft. We are told to be vigilant. There is a bandit cat on the loose.

earlier that day, I had noticed Vala walking around with a decapitated bunny. Sveta told me that she was laying a trap for the bandit cat. During night the bandit cat invaded the rabbit pens, slaughtering bunnies and leaving the carcasses strewn about the farm. Vala had one of the victims in her hand. I asked if the farm cats might be responsible. No, they had grown up with bunnies and loved them. In the end the trap was never set. Instead, Sveta and I were given a flash light, and told to shine it on the pens if we heard anything suspicious.

Vala prepared our hay mattress with sheets and pillows. The cats got there first. The lazy kitten and his mother lay there, looking at us. Another cat -- the great mice killer -- sat at the foot, while still another peered up -- yellow eyes -- from below. We had an audience. Sleeping on hay takes some getting used to, but I was tired and fell asleep. The cats -- heavier than they look -- sat on us. We'd push them away, fall asleep. They would return and wake us with their massiveness, we'd push them off, and so it continued.

And then - out of the blue, it rang out -- high pitched and terrible -- the bandit cat was murdering a bunny. Sveta scrambled for the flashlight. Too late. The noise stopped, and we couldn't see anything anyway. Vala would have to search for the corpse tomorrow.

How we were to get home Sunday remained a mystery to me. But we had to get back -- the Day of Knowledge was coming on Monday. I figured Vova would take us to the bus station. I was wrong. Vova's daughter arrived that morning. She was asked to drive Vera, Sveta, and I back. She was not happy. The four of us got into her car. No words. She turned up the Flamenco/techno blend and we were off. She was a fantastic Russian driver. By this I mean she had no fear of death, and displayed her indifference by teasing, taunting death. We flew, passing everything at every point -- around hairpin corners, going up hills. It was road without shoulders, covered in craters. The left lane was our home and the headlighs of oncoming traffic ever in our eyes. The roads and their craters sent us airborne. All of her aggression, her anger at having to chauffer these rubes back to Perm was released on the road. Sveta and I looked at each other. Sveta would later tell me she gave in to a sort of fatalism, and thought "This is as good a place as any to die." I was just scarred. So I grabbed Sveta's hand. At one point, our sadistic driver nearly lost control and we almost skidded into certain death. And for a moment, I saw nervousness. She clutched the wheel, slowed down. But only for a moment. And when she answered a call on her cell phone everything was back to normal. My stomach sank.

But we made it back and were thankful, happy, exhausted. We were ready for the Day of Knowledge.

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