In Siberia, people are open and friendly: go into any house, they will let you in, they will give you water to drink, or even feed you, if you really have to. But in this house, where I went to drink some water from the road, they warned me: I’m not on time. The hostess, a woman of about forty, named Tatyana, showed me with her eyes at the board partition and said, descending almost to a whisper:
“Mom is dying. She asked to warm up. Yesterday they unified.»
I looked behind the partition and saw an old woman on the bed, lying straight and straight, as the dead lie on the table. Even the arms are folded on the chest, like a ready-made deceased. Yes, she was already a ready-made dead woman from her face: her skin was yellow, her cheeks were sunken, her lips were drawn to blue, her nose was pointed, her brow ridges protruded and cleared up. There is nothing to say about hands: wax and wax. And this, you know, gray, ashy coating on the face. That is, today or tomorrow the end. No wonder she asked for unction…
«How old is she? Tea, for eighty?”
“Eighty-sixth,” Tatyana confirmed. — Varvara Ivanovna worked her way, she was tired … Firstly, she raised seven children. Two daughters on the foreign side are married. Four sons were killed in the German war. One recently died, he left me as a widow … She looked after the house, the garden, raised my three. My youngest is two and a half, my oldest is six. But then, on the fourth day, Tatyana continued, she took to her bed. There was a break right away. Three days and you’re done. It burns like a candle.»
I quietly said goodbye, thanked and went on about my business.
A week later I walk back past Tatiana’s house, but I remember about Varvara Ivanovna and I don’t dare to go in: it’s not up to guests when there is a funeral in the house. And suddenly I see how the gate opens and Varvara Ivanovna comes towards me on her own legs and with a bucket. By water.
“Varvara Ivanovna, have you really recovered? What a joy!” Varvara Ivanovna put down the bucket, straightened her handkerchief … “What joy there is, my dear! My Tatyana died, the third day after she was buried. She was killed on a silage cutter … But what about the children? — Varvara Ivanovna nodded anxiously back to the hut, where, apparently, her grandchildren were sitting. “After all, orphans. Who will take care of them now? I had to get up. No time to die! Not the time.»
Believe it or not, three years have passed since then, and she still lives on, a Russian woman Varvara Ivanovna who has completely passed away. Lives — and there is no time for her to die. But where does strength come from?