The meeting took place, one might say, by chance. I stopped by an old but still working well crane to take a couple of pictures. Grandpa, who was quite old, immediately came over to get the water. I had a rare opportunity to take an example of how this seemingly not so complicated mechanism works.
- And you try how it works. You'll also feel how the crane listens to human hands. And if you bring a bucket of water to that house over there, I'll tell you a story, I don't think you'll hear it anywhere.…
As a result, this is what my grandfather and I concluded an agreement on.
Part One
A long winter evening. Everything in the house was simple and ordinary: the stove was burning, it smelled of sauerkraut and dried apples, garlands of which were hung around the whitewashed chimney. Outside…
But in the yard…
Luna tried to dodge, but it was too late: a large black branch of an oak tree cut deep into his belly, and moonlight-sticky and viscous–splashed onto the light under the night sky. Everyone around accepted this flow humbly and quietly. Only the corners of the house, sprinkled with holy water, hissed and crackled faintly, as if from frost.
The dog, who was lying quietly in the booth, abruptly raised his head and cocked his ears. The shadow of an old well crane, running straight to the porch of the house, scared her so much that he barked loudly without getting out.
The old man sitting at the table looked through his glasses at the window covered with white curtains and said aloud: “stranger.” He turned to the stove and then remembered: his old woman had just gone out with a bucket to get water. It seemed to him that she had been gone for a long time. And the well was right next to the courtyard.
"Where the hell is that woman?" The old man already thought of himself and, putting down the book in a dark red cover, got up heavily from the table. He pulled back the curtain and put his palm against the glass – the whole courtyard was flooded with unusual light.
"Vanka did his best for Christmas," the old man thought about the local electrician and turned his head towards the lamppost, which stood very close to the well. But the light wasn't coming from there. It was pouring down from above.
"It must have been a hot month," the grandfather said aloud again and added, "God has his own electricity, God forgive me."
He quickly crossed himself, turning to the corner where the old icons hung. Suddenly, there was the crash of a bucket and the scream of an old woman. Everything happened very quickly. The grandmother let the bucket into a thick layer of ice, quickly flew across the yard into the hall and screamed from there. Grandfather, watching his "damn woman" rushing across the yard, decided to make a joke. He opened the door and said loudly into the darkness:
"Who greased your heels like that, old woman?" She wasn't in such a hurry to meet me when she was young…
And then he recoiled in horror, seeing how the old woman, barely moving her legs, advanced into the house. She was paler than those curtains on the window. Grandpa didn't know what to do. He took her by the arms and slowly led her to a wide bench, saying:
"Well, well, well... Quiet, quiet... something happened? Talk faster, come on. My God, what's the matter with you?
"Look out the window," the old woman finally whispered under her breath and added, "that's how our crane flew in." Like a bird, you know? Like a bird…
She repeated the last words several times.
- What are you, what are you, - the grandfather, confused, began to wave his hands at her.
"And you bent over, bent over to the window," the old woman said even more softly.
Grandfather, more for her peace of mind, put his palm to the glass again. It was as bright outside as before, maybe even brighter. Everything was clearly visible, but the crane well... and indeed, the crane disappeared.
Part two
A little later, when the old woman had already woken up, she also fell against the cold glass. Grandfather was trying to figure out what to say, how to calm the terrified woman.
"He just fell down." I already saw in the fall that it was rotten and blackened at the bottom. There's nothing like that here, I've just outlived my time," grandfather reasoned. And in a quieter voice, he said, "We've outlived our time, too, but he was the first to give his soul to God."
And then he felt the woman pulling him by the shoulder, turning him around and straight into his face.:
- So you, you old stump, have already seen something wrong with our crane, but look, you're so secretive, you didn't tell me.
Grandfather was even a little angry:
"Is that where you got this from, old woman?" You're saying you don't know what…
- And what did you say about the soul here? - the old woman pressed. - It's a dilapidated piece of wood, a log! And about her, as about a living, about a soul, with a soul, it is listed…
She looked at the icon in the corner and, like the old man before, crossed herself.
- Yes, it's just me... by the way, I had to," the grandfather began to justify himself. - Well, he said it and said it. Why are you clinging to words? He almost decided to be offended.
"I'm going to go out and take a look," he said cheerfully. - Apparently, our crane is lying in the garden. He could have broken a fence like that. That'll do it," the old man added even more cheerfully. - Fix it later in the cold... that's what you need to worry about," the old man shouted like a master and moved to the stove, where his felt boots with leather patches sewn on in several places lay.
Suddenly, he heard something crash to the floor behind him. He looked around, and on his knees on the floor, his grandmother was crawling towards him, all in tears, and whispering rapidly:
"Don't go, don't go, my dear darling. I don't want you to go there. Tomorrow," she added, "tomorrow, as soon as it starts to get light.
In my grandfather's head, from this babble, it flashed: "dear little dove... I haven't heard such words directed at me in twenty-five years." The old man smiled faintly. And then, raising his voice for fear, he said imperiously:
- Shh, she's going to panic me. You were terrified because you were afraid that I would come back.
He came over, lifted his wife off his lap and put her back on the bench. At that moment, something hissed in the electric meter, the light bulbs flickered and went out. But it was still bright in the house, the light was coming from the courtyard. The old men immediately rushed to the window. The moon illuminated everything around: the garden, the threshing floor, and the entire courtyard. And in this bright world, a strange, long, thin shadow crept across their yard, and then a well crane actually appeared to the left of the porch. He was bouncing deftly on one leg. A shoulder with a bucket on a chain rolled smoothly from side to side. A small white scroll was sticking out of the bucket. The crane came up to the porch and bent down, the bucket caught on the step, turned over on its side, and this bundle rolled out of it under the very door of the house. And before the dog barked again, or rather, whined, and the crane limped away from the yard, there was a soft cry of a child.…
"A child," the old woman said faintly. - Hey, old man, the baby is crying.
But she didn't leave the window.
Grandfather had his own thoughts about what had just happened in front of their eyes, he was, one might say, worried about stupid premonitions. He decided to hesitate, to say that it was all a hoax, it seemed to both of them.
"I thought it was an old woman." It seemed to me that I would fail at this place.
And at the same moment, he imagined himself, a sinner, falling into hell. After all, in fact, a child had just been crying in the courtyard. Both were silent: the grandfather-out of fear, the woman-in anticipation of new sounds. And they didn't have to wait long.
Part Three
They started stealing on the door, and then there was a soft knock. The old woman turned pale and slid to the floor. My grandfather knelt down next to his half-dead wife, holding her by the arms.
"You know, you know," he whispered in her ear, lying. - Zinka, this is Timokhova, Zinka. She's been paunchy for a long time. I played with the sabbath in the spring. How many times have I heard how Timka, drunk, dragged her by the hair and chased her out of the yard. Maybe she gave birth just now. The father threw the baby out of the house in a rage, so she gave it to us. Maybe she's going to run away. They say she's got a new boyfriend. It's easier without a child, so she gave it to us, shamelessly.
Grandfather talked fast, it seemed he was convincing himself more than the woman. The old woman was silent. It would have been easier, as she would have answered something, objected... but she remained silent, as if she hadn't paid any attention to her husband's words. ”I didn't believe it," the grandfather thought. ”I didn't believe it."
And then she leaned close to his ear and whispered:
- And the baby rolled out of diapers, immediately got up and decided to steal and knock on our door. How did it grow so fast?…
She wanted to say something else, but new sounds interrupted her words.
The child in the yard was no longer crying, but laughing. The old men, pushing each other, rushed to the window again. They couldn't say anything out of surprise and horror, just pointed at the glass and gesticulated. What they saw would have taken away the tongue of any living person.…
A naked child was running around the courtyard, through the moonlit snow. It deftly formed snowballs on the run and threw them towards the doghouse. For a second, the child turned to the window and looked into the old man's eyes with a smile. It lasted for a moment. Then the kid ran through the snow again, throwing snowballs towards the booth again, still laughing and clapping his hands.
Grandma came to her senses first. She rushed into the yard, followed by her grandfather. The old people can be understood without words: in the cold, a naked child was running around the yard in the snow. To warm them, to caress them, to feed them–that was what was in their gray heads. The grandmother quickly caught the child and brought him into the house. Wrap up everything warm from the oven, warm up the poor child faster. She looked like a mother hen right now, stomping around her chickens.
With trembling hands, she wrapped the child and whispered:
"Well, it doesn't matter whose it is. It's ours now, Grandfather. She's ours," Grandma corrected herself. "She is." God sent us a granddaughter.
"Or God?" my grandfather thought and crossed himself at the icon.…
"Simon! Ah, Simone, you're such an infirmity," came a voice from the old garden. A fat grandmother came into the yard with a basket of apples.
"Are you messing with people's heads again?" - without saying hello, she shouts. - And who will pick apples for you? Well, I won't either... Crack with them!
My interlocutor quickly got up and, picking up a bucket of water, patrolled with small steps across the yard.
- So, what happened next? I shouted impatiently at his back. - What happened then? How did it all end?…
- How would you like to? - he stunned me with a question.
"I wish everything would end well," I blurted out without thinking.
"That's how it ended," the old man said and added, covering his lips with his palm: –Don't be angry, my woman is like that.
- Well, well, what kind of woman do you have? And, deftly taking off her old apron and waving it threateningly, the hostess drove my narrator in front of her to the old garden, strewn with mature, mature padan.
Is it worth writing or making up this legend? End it with a good one ... or a different ending? I don't know yet. Maybe time will pass, maybe I'll accidentally meet my old friend grandpa again and persuade him to identify me.…
Or maybe you don't have to... In short, I'm sorry, but I have doubts. For now, let's just leave it as it is.