"Mummy," Zoya said one day, "why have the Burmakins such a big house, and a lot of sheep and cows and horses? Why should one man have so much of everything? Why is it that the Ruzhentsovs, who have so many children and a granny and a grandad, live in a wretched little hut and have no cows or even sheep?"
That was my first talk with Zoya of poverty and wealth, of justice and injustice. It was not easy for me to answer such a question to a six-year-old girl. To explain to her seriously I should have had to talk about a lot of things which she was not then able to understand. But life soon forced us to return to this question.
In the year 1929 seven village Communists were murdered by the kulaks in our district. The news spread quickly through Sitkino. I was standing on the front doorstep when the seven coffins were carried through the street. A band followed behind, playing the stern and solemn revolutionary funeral march. In its wake came a long stream of people, their faces dark with grief and wrath.
I happened to look round at our window and saw Zoya's pale frightened face pressed against the window- pane. A second later she ran outside, gripped me by the hand and, pressing close, stood for a long time, looking after the funeral procession.
"Why were they killed? Who are the kulaks? Are you a Communist? And is Daddy a Communist? Will they kill you? And have they found the one's who killed them?" Both Zoya and Shura kept on asking these questions. The funeral of the seven Communists left an indelible impression on our minds.
There was one other unforgettable memory.
In the village club they often used to show films, and from time to time I took Zoya and Shura there. But it was not the pictures that attracted the children and me to the club.
Whenever the club was full of people, someone would always ask with a lilt in his voice, stressing the "o" in the Siberian manner, "How about a song?"
And always, several voices would respond, "Strike up!"
Their singing was wonderful. Old Siberian songs and songs of the Civil War were rendered with great feeling. Days long past lived again in those broad, rolling tunes; great and stormy events, and brave stern men rose up before us. The voices were deep and strong. Up above the big choir pealed a young high tenor, or, deep and mighty, a real taiga bass would fill the room with a wave of sound, gripping your heart with such pure melody that at times your eyes would fill with tears.
Zoya and Shura used to join in the singing. We were especially fond of one song. I cannot remember all the words to it. Only the tune and the last four lines have remained in my memory:
Night passed. Blew gentle winds of dawn.
A bright spring day was nighing.
And in the warm and sunlit morn
A partisan was dying.
The deep voices of the men would repeat, slowly and sorrowfully:
And in the warm and sunlit morn
A partisan was dying.
Next: Our First Parting