Art is as essential to human beings as eating and drinking. The need for beauty and for the creativity that brings beauty into being is inseparable from humanity; without it, perhaps people would not even wish to live. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
I
Dasha went to stay with her grandmother for the entire summer. Her grandfather deliberately frowned and grumbled at his granddaughter.
“I don't understand my grandchildren. For some reason they all go to see Grandma. Does that mean you never come to see me?”
“What are you talking about, Grandpa?” Dasha laughed loudly. “Of course we come to see you! We come to see Grandma and Grandpa.”
“Then why does everyone say they're going 'to Grandma's in the country'?” the old man demanded, sticking out his lower lip. “Where am I in all this? Even in advertisements for milk and sour cream, they always show grandmothers, as though grandfathers didn't exist at all. It's outright discrimination!”
“What's that?” his granddaughter asked in surprise.
“You're going to school already,” Ivan Yefimovich said with a grin.
“We haven't learned that word yet.” Dasha shook her head. “Maybe we'll start it in second grade. Can't you explain?”
“Explain what?” Grandpa didn't understand immediately.
“That word… what was it? Discrima… discri… the one you just said.”
Grandpa smiled, waved a hand, went over and hugged the girl.
“Don't listen to an old fool like me, darling. I was joking.”
“J-o-o-king?” she repeated in astonishment. “So there isn't really such a word?”
“Of course there is!” Grandpa laughed. “The word exists. The thing itself doesn't exist here.”
“Where doesn't it exist? In our village?” Dasha asked.
Grandpa already regretted starting the conversation. He knew perfectly well that Dasha would never let him alone until he explained what discrimination meant. She would talk his ears off.
“All right,” he said, sitting down on the doorstep. “Sit here. I'll explain.”
His granddaughter settled on the step above him and prepared to listen.
“Say it again,” Dasha demanded. “I want to remember it.”
“Discrimination,” Grandpa grunted.
“No!” the girl shook her head. “I can't remember it like that. Say it in syllables. Dis… cri…”
“Not 'dis-cri',” Ivan Yefimovich corrected her. “Dis-crim…”
“Right!” Dasha cried delightedly. “Dis-crim… Got it! What comes next?”
“Next comes 'ination',” the old man said, then stopped short.
“Ination!” Dasha repeated.
“No,” Grandpa said irritably. “Wait, I got it wrong myself.” He counted on his fingers, muttered something, and finally announced, “Not 'ination'—'ination' with the right bit before it!”
“With the right bit?” Dasha asked. “Oh, Grandpa, I've forgotten the beginning now.”
Ivan Yefimovich sighed heavily and suggested that they start all over again.
“Listen carefully: dis…”
“Dis…” Dasha echoed at once.
“Could you listen to the whole word first and repeat it afterwards?” Grandpa asked with a frown.
“No!” his granddaughter answered firmly. “It's too long to remember all at once. Let's do it in syllables.”
“All right,” Grandpa agreed. “Same old song, starting all over again!”
“What song?” Dasha's eyes widened. “Is the word from a song? I've never heard that one.”
“No!” Grandpa laughed. “It's just an expression. There's supposed to be a song with no beginning and no end. You can sing it all day long.”
“Oh, how interesting!” Dasha clapped her hands. “Sing it for me!” she demanded.
“But what about the word?” Grandpa chuckled. “We haven't learned it yet.”
“Oh, that's right,” the girl agreed. “Then we'll learn the word first and you can sing the song afterwards. Deal?”
“Deal!” Grandpa nodded. “Right then. Dis…”
“Dis…”
“Crim…”
“Crim…”
Ivan Yefimovich fell silent, thinking.
“What on earth is this?” he exclaimed indignantly. “Hang on, let me say it to myself first.” He started muttering again.
“Have you forgotten it?” the girl asked softly.
“I haven't forgotten. I've just tangled myself up in the word. It's a nasty word, that's what it is.”
“Nasty?” Dasha covered her mouth in alarm and leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Grandpa, is it a swear word? Mum will be very, very angry if I use one. I'm not allowed to say swear words because I'm a girl.”
“Dashenka, my darling!” Grandpa burst out laughing. “What an idea! Would I ever teach you swear words?”
“But you said it was a nasty word…”
“That's not what I meant!” Grandpa was still laughing and wiping tears from his eyes. “You really made me laugh! I meant it was hard to pronounce. Look how long we've been trying, and we still haven't learned it.”
“It hasn't been that long,” Dasha objected. “There's a boy in my class called Romka Delyagin. It took him an entire week to learn the word 'tour guide'. Do you know what one is?”
“How should I know?” Grandpa spread his hands. “I haven't even seen your school yet, and you're asking me about some Romka!”
Dasha dissolved into such peals of laughter that Motka, their medium-sized, floppy-eared mongrel, came running. She sat opposite her owner and the girl, tilting her head from side to side and examining their faces. She looked just like a dog wondering what on earth they were laughing about.
“What's so funny?” Ivan Yefimovich asked.
“I'm not asking you about Romka!” his granddaughter explained. “I'm asking about the… the… oh, you've confused me… a tour guide!” She pronounced the difficult words carefully, syllable by syllable.
“Ah!” Grandpa exclaimed. “Why didn't you say so? Of course I know! We went on excursions when I was at school. To Krasnodon, for instance. Have you heard about the Young Guard?”
“No,” Dasha replied, adding promptly, “we haven't learned that yet.”
“Though I doubt they'll take you there nowadays.”
“Why not?” Dasha asked in surprise. “They took you, but they won't take us?”
“Right, Darya!” Grandpa interrupted. “Are we learning this word or not?”
“We are, we are,” she confirmed. “I remember the beginning now: dis-crim…”
“The rest is easier,” the old man said. “…in-a-tion.”
“Dis-crim-in-a-tion! Right?”
“Well done!” Grandpa stroked her hair. “Very well done. Now, discrimination means… it means… how can I explain it so you'll understand at once? Well, it's when somebody thinks they're better than somebody else and keeps reminding them of it. 'I'm better than you, I'm cleverer than you,' that sort of thing.”
“I understand!” Dasha exclaimed. “That's about our teacher.”
“How can it be about your teacher? Does she…?”
“She keeps telling us, 'Sit still and don't be so clever!' You see? Only she's allowed to be clever. And she's allowed to do everything—wear makeup, get a manicure, talk on her phone during lessons, everything, everything! But we're not allowed to do anything. Is that dis-crim… discrim-ination?”
“No, Dasha, that's not discrimination. That's discipline.”
“Discipline, Grandpa, means not talking and wriggling around during class,” his granddaughter objected. “But Vera Semyonovna can do whatever she likes and we can't do anything. I'd like to go to school looking pretty too.”
“Do you go looking ugly?” Grandpa asked with a smile.
“Pretty? Hardly!” the girl sighed. “Before New Year I painted my nails and put a tiny bit of lipstick on. Mum's friend Aunt Nadya gave me the lipstick, actually. Well, Vera Semyonovna made such a fuss that I cried. She brought me a special liquid and made me take off the nail polish. Then she took me to the bathroom and made me wash my face. She even summoned Mum to school.”
“And what did Mum say? Did she scold you?” Grandpa asked.
“No. At school she didn't say anything. But on the way home she called Vera Semyonovna an idiot.”
“She shouldn't have done that.” Ivan Yefimovich shook his head disapprovingly. “You mustn't call a teacher names.”
“Grandpa!” Dasha frowned. “Are you against me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you on my side or Vera Semyonovna's?”
“Yours, of course, granddaughter!”
“Then don't defend her. She's mean. The boys call her 'the teacher-torturer'.”
“I see,” Grandpa replied. “But what if she isn't mean? What if she's simply strict?”
“What's the difference?” the girl snorted. “She still tells us off all the time. I don't like her. Aunt Nadya's nice. Mum's friend. She's so kind and beautiful…”
At that moment the window opened and Grandma's head appeared.
“What are you two cooing about out there?” Anna Vasilyevna asked cheerfully. “Wash your hands and come to the table. I've made all sorts of delicious things.”
“Coming, coming, Granny!” Dasha called, jumping from the step like a butterfly.
II
“Oh, you little pest!” Grandma banged a stick against the floorboards. “He won't let us sleep tonight. How did he get in there?”
The cricket seemed to listen to Anna Vasilyevna's curses and fell silent for a while. But a few minutes later he began “singing” again.
At least, that was how Dasha described it. She delighted in every new tune. To Grandma Anya it was not singing at all, but a tiresome rattling. Grandpa, for some reason, used an even funnier word. Whenever he heard the uninvited guest, he would say:
“There he goes, gurgling again.”
“Grandma,” Dasha asked, “what's his name?”
“Whose?”
“Your cricket's!”
“Goodness knows.” The old woman shrugged. “A cricket's a cricket. Who'd give him a name?”
“Could I give him one?”
“God forbid!” Grandma crossed herself. “Then he'll settle here for the whole summer and we'll go around like sleepwalkers. He chattered until one in the morning last night.”
“But don't you like his singing?” Dasha asked in surprise. “Listen! Can you hear it? He's saying 'perelyu, perelyu, perelyu!' And now 'ruli-ruli-ruli!' Can you hear?”
“Oh, Dashenka, please don't make things up!”
“I'm not making anything up!” Dasha protested. “Listen carefully. Now he's singing 'Biryulyovo, Biryulyovo, Biryulyovo!'”
“Yes, of course! Next he'll be singing 'Voykovskaya—Shosse Entuziastov—Universitet,'” Grandma said, naming Moscow Metro stations.
“Oh, very funny!” Dasha rolled her eyes. “It's not my fault you've got no ear for music.”
“Who has no ear?” Grandma exclaimed indignantly. “Me? Have you forgotten that your grandmother taught solfège at a music school? And who insisted that you learn the piano?”
“Then you must have got old,” her granddaughter concluded. “Only old people and hooligans don't like music. That's what Mum told me.”
“No, Dashenka,” Anna Vasilyevna replied. “I don't know about hooligans, but I've loved music all my life, and I still do.”
“Then why don't you like Bulka?”
“Who's that?” Grandma's eyes widened.
“Our cricket. I've given him a name.”
“Where did you get that from?” Grandma asked in astonishment.
“From Grandpa!” Dasha laughed. “He always says the cricket gurgles, or bulkaet. So I'm calling him Bulka. Isn't it a lovely name?”
“Oh, do leave me alone!” Anna Vasilyevna waved her hand—and found herself listening to Bulka.
Apparently Dasha had infected everyone with her enthusiasm. Grandpa stood motionless, listening to the cricket. Grandma, too, was silent for a long time. And then she said in surprise:
“Well, I'll be! He really is singing 'Biryulyovo'. The little devil. All right, let him live. I was going to poison him, but…”
Dasha turned pale.
“Poison him?” she asked in horror. “You wanted to kill Bulka?”
“Like you poison cockroaches. Just like that,” Grandma answered.
“But cockroaches don't sing!” Dasha cried. “Grandma, what are you saying? Our teacher told us that a cricket brings happiness to a home. And my music teacher said that all great composers listened to crickets. It's such a pity we don't have one in our flat.”
“I was joking, Dashenka,” Grandma hastily said when she noticed the tears in the girl's eyes.
“Really?” Dasha's face lit up, and she flung her arms around Grandma's neck. “Please let him stay. Don't drive him away. He's so nice. He'll bring you happiness. You'll see!”
The next day Dasha invited her friends, the children from neighbouring houses, to come over. They had also come to the village for the summer. The boy, Maksim, had just finished second grade and was moving up to third; Liza was Dasha's age and would be entering second grade. Maksim loved swimming and knew nothing about music. Liza attended music school, where she learned the accordion.
The girls decided to establish a musical theatre.
They waited until the cricket began his concert. Then, one after another, they held sheets torn from school exercise books over the crack from which Bulka's trilling came. They cut little windows of different shapes into the paper. By cleverly positioning and changing the sheets, they managed to produce their first melody.
Their delight was as great as if they'd been invited to a concert by the famous baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky himself.
Within a few days the young musicians had perfected their invention so thoroughly that they could confidently reproduce the opening of almost any piece of music.
Most astonishingly, Anna Vasilyevna became actively involved. And how could a former music-school teacher, with all her experience, resist such a splendid undertaking?
Every evening the whole family—apart from Motka, who was not allowed indoors—listened to arias performed by the village artist Bulka. The young producers even used the deep-pitched purring of Sonya, the black, white and ginger cat, for accompaniment.
Admittedly, Sonya could never sit through an entire performance. She lasted only the first half-hour, then climbed onto the back of an armchair and silently watched what was happening in the local musical theatre.
“Mum, Mummy!” Dasha would shout into the telephone in the daytime. “Come as soon as you can! We've prepared a concert for you!”
Unfortunately, Mum did not make it to the premiere.
One evening Bulka simply did not appear.
“Bulka! Little Bulka! Answer us!” the girls pleaded.
Two hours passed, and nothing changed. Bulka had vanished as though the earth had swallowed him.
Grandma stepped outside to attend to something, but a minute later she came back with tears in her eyes.
“What happened?” Dasha cried first. “What?”
Grandma could not bring herself to say what had happened straight away. But at last she had to.
“The concerts are cancelled until we find another cricket.”
“But what happened to Bulka?” Dasha sobbed.
At that moment Sonya entered the room.
“She ate him,” Anna Vasilyevna said, nodding towards the cat.
The girls burst into tears, while Maksim tried to comfort them.
“Don't cry, Dasha, Liza. I'll catch you a new Bulka.”
Dasha turned towards Sonya, who was purring contentedly. Between sobs, she spoke sternly.
“You shameless cat! We'll never invite you to one of our concerts again!”
As though in protest, Sonya held her tail high and marched proudly past the musicians and out into the yard.
© Mikhail Samarsky. English translation prepared for the samarski.com working edition.