The Bell

- I came home from work and heard the bell. Dunya has died," my grandfather told my grandmother in the kitchen.

I was six years old, and suddenly I had a clear image of my old aunt Dunya's soul as a cloud flying out of the window and ringing a silver bell - so that the relatives could hear the ringing and immediately guess what had happened.

Yes, in my childhood I had a rich imagination, but since then I've only imagined someone dying that way - with a bell.

But I had not yet heard those bells myself...

Suitcase

Aunt Dunya was a relative of my grandfather - his aunt, his father's own sister. She was about eighty years old, maybe more. She was very pious - she had never married in her life, wore black dresses to her heels, and lived in the women's convent at Kamennoe Zadelje in Udmurtia, Russia.

She had no relatives except my grandfather.

My grandfather, a staunch atheist and communist, thought that Aunt Dunya was a bit "crazy"; he believed that a normal person would not voluntarily lock herself in a convent cell.

So when the old woman became ill, it was my grandmother, not my grandfather, who took care of her.

Aunt Dunya came to die in the town of Glazov, in a tiny room in a communal house.

Every morning my grandmother took me by the hand and we went to my aunt's house.

The furnishings in the room were also monastic, in keeping with the owner.

In one corner was a chest of drawers with a creaking door without a mirror. By the window was a kitchen table and chairs with straight, high backs upholstered in brown imitation leather. In the far corner was an iron bed on which Aunt Dunya lay dying. From under the bed peeked the edge of a worn suitcase with iron clasps and forged corners.

We had a suitcase at home, too, a leather one with a zipper, brought by my grandmother.

- Take care of it! - she would say. - My burial clothes are in it.

- Are you going to die soon? - I was afraid.

- Everyone dies, my grandmother would simply reply.

"No, I'll never die," I thought, but I didn't say it out loud.

The suitcase had been gathering dust in our house for years. I walked around it burning with curiosity: what did "burial clothers" mean?

Maybe there was a Grim Reaper lurking in there?

If you open it, he'll jump up and grab your hand!

Or is there an egg with a needle inside that hides the death of Koshei the Immortal? But Grandma is not Koshei. She's an ordinary person, so she must have the most ordinary things.

What do people take with them to the other world? White shoes? A shroud?

When I couldn't resist, I unzipped it and looked inside.

Inside the suitcase, neatly stacked, were handkerchiefs, a nightgown, baize trousers, a chintz scarf of the kind old women tie on their heads, a few towels, and the usual blue house shoes. Nothing interesting.

Breath of Life

The first time I thought about the fact that all people are mortal was when I was five years old.

It was a quiet winter evening, my mother and I were returning home by bus. I was rubbing the frosted window with my mitten, and suddenly I was alarmed, as if struck by lightning: what would happen if my mother died?

At night, lying in bed, I tried to imagine my life without my parents.

Who would take me and my sister to the kindergarten, make tea in the morning, pay the rent, calculate the kilowatts of electricity and write them in the subscription book?

In spite of my young age, I was very worried about household issues.

Where to get money? What products to buy in the store? How to fix a leaky faucet, make soup, and preserve cucumbers for the winter? Mom and Dad used to do all these things perfectly well. But what happens when they're gone?

I slipped out from under the covers and tiptoed into my parents' bedroom.

What if the worst had already happened and they had died in their sleep?

I listened intently into the darkness, trying to hear their breathing.

There was a draft from the balcony door across the floor, and my feet were instantly frozen. But I couldn't leave without making sure my parents were alive. I stood like that for a long time, whimpering and bending one leg and the other under me, but I didn't dare come any closer. I was afraid.

Many years later, on a warm May afternoon, I found myself back in that bedroom.

I stood by the bed and watched my mother's chest rise faintly under the covers. If she's breathing, she's alive. And I walked away, believing everything would be okay. But I was wrong. Soon after I left, the faint breathing stopped forever.

But right now I don't know about the future, so I strain my hearing. They seem to be breathing.

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Relieved, I run to my room and jump into bed.

But from that moment on, the fear of losing my family crept into my soul like an infectious disease, wound itself into a serpentine tangle, and lurked there for many, many years.

Is there life on Mars?

Once at dinner, my grandfather mentioned that many years ago, American scientists had launched an unmanned rocket called Pioneer into space to find out if there was life on other planets.

The belated news of the rocket launch excited me terribly.

I pepper my grandfather with questions: When will Pioneer return to Earth? And if there really are aliens, what are they like? Green, with horns?

Grandpa waves away:

- Who cares? We still won't know.

- Why not?

- The rocket will fly in space for a hundred years, maybe two hundred.

A hundred years - a whole century! Is that a long time or a short time? I'm bending my fingers one by one. Let's say I live to be a hundred years old. But I don't think I'll make it to 200. But what if...

Oh, I have an idea! Grandma says that dead people don't disappear anywhere. When they die, they move from their homes to the cemetery. There are whole underground cities in cemeteries. On ordinary days the dead lie quietly and peacefully in their coffins or visit each other, but on memorial days - Radonitsa, Trinity, Ilyin Day - they wait for the living to come and visit them.

Relatives bring them sweets, apples, pies in baskets. And if the deceased liked to smoke or drink, they take cigarettes and wine - to tip a shot glass on the grave. These are the customs in our country.

- It's a sin not to visit your relatives in the cemetery! - my grandmother warned me. - The dead should not feel lonely. Otherwise, they'll get angry and come to you themselves.

So I decided that the note about the Pioneer and the Green Men would be brought to me by someone at the cemetery! Even if it's in the underworld, I'll find out if there's life on Mars.

My head is in the clouds

I couldn't imagine for a minute that I was completely dead,

How is it - I was and then I'm gone? Where am I going? I must be somewhere. If not on the ground, then under the ground. Or even better, in heaven! That's even more interesting. You can fly, jump from cloud to cloud, do somersaults. Although old people probably don't want to do somersaults because their bones hurt and their lower backs hurt.

But what if you could choose the age you want to be? I would choose to be the age I am now. I don't want to be as old as Aunt Dunya!

Whenever my grandmother and I visit, I sneak a peek at the old woman's face: sunken eyes, yellow parchment skin - all wrinkled, a hooked nose poking out from under a black scarf. A real Baba Yaga. I don't understand why we are visiting her.

Infidel

Aunt Dunya's room is always gloomy. It smells of sour soup, worn rags, and old age. The first thing my grandmother does when she enters the room is to open the curtains and the window.

Frosty air rushed into the room, the smell of wet snow and stale leaves. Aunt Dunya moved slightly on the bed and asked in a creaky voice:

- Close it, Luda. It's cold...

But my grandmother paid no attention to her pleas. Rolling up her sleeves, she went to the bathroom, fetched a full bucket of water, took a dried rag from the radiator and washed the floor.

She changed the sheets, boiled some chicken broth on the stove, then lifted Aunt Dunya, covered her with pillows, and began feeding her with a spoon.

The old woman wrinkled her nose and pressed her bloodless blue lips tightly together. At some point she noticed me, and a fierce anger flashed in her eyes: here she was again!

When she had the chance, Grandma would put a spoon in the old woman's mouth, but she would spit out the broth, push the plate away violently, and unleash all her anger on Grandma:

"You brought me an infidel! - cried Aunt Dusya, shaking her bony fist. - This girl does not belong to our religion. She is a barbarian! Get out of here! Both of you!

The old woman turned angrily to the wall, and my grandmother sent me to the kitchen for a glass of water. When I came back, I climbed onto the windowsill with my feet and pressed my forehead against the cool glass, swallowing tears: why does she treat me like this? What had I done wrong to her? What was wrong if my hair was black and my father's last name was not Russian?

Stupid Vovka

Grandma touches me lightly on the shoulder:

- Come on, she's old and sick, she doesn't know what she's doing.

- Yes, it's not you who's being insulted! - I snapped at her, jumped from the windowsill and ran out into the hall.

The neighbor boy, Vovka, was already waiting for me. He was rolling his toy truck on the floor and mumbling:

- Mom said that if you and your grandma come here again, she'll tell dad to throw you down the stairs.

Vovka's mother, a thin, nervous woman, comes out of the kitchen:

- I can't wait for your old woman to die," she hisses, wiping a cup with a towel. - She's just taking up space. Why bother with her, the room will be ours anyway!

- She's going to die, she's going to die! - Vovka dances next to his mother and shows me his tongue.

Suddenly I feel unbearably sorry for Aunt Dunya. I imagine what it's like for her to live alone in a dark room, like a closet with spiders, and even with such harmful neighbors.

- Fascists! - I scream, grab Vovka's truck from the floor and smash it against the wall with all my might.

The truck exploded into small pieces.

I'm ready to throw my fists at stupid Vovka and his wicked mother, but my grandmother runs out at the noise and hurriedly pushes me into the room.

I hear Vovka's booming roar and his mother's screams coming from the corridor:

- Crazy! You should pay for this!

Flowers grow by themselves

When Aunt Dunya died, the neighbors called my grandfather and dryly told him to come and pick up her things.

An ordinary phone call - nothing special, but I stubbornly continued to believe in mysterious bells "from the other world". Even then, many years later, when someone close to me died, I always recognized that bell. Alarming, harsh, merciless - not a bell, but a tocsin. It broke my heart and soul. I wanted to hide, to run away, to cover my ears - no, not this!

Not today! Not now!

But there was nowhere to run - the phone kept ringing and ringing. So I picked up the phone to hear again what I already knew: "Your mother, father, sister - all dead...".

...A simple wooden cross was placed on Aunt Dunya's grave. She had asked for it before she died. She also asked my grandmother not to plant any flowers, saying that whatever she needed would come to her of its own accord. And it was true - rowan and cherry trees and flowers grew on the grave itself - as neatly as if someone had planted them, tended them, watered them with a watering can.

And how many wild strawberries there were!

As time went by, the resentment against Aunt Dunya faded. Or rather, one of my selves understood that it was not worth getting angry with the old woman, but the other one would scratch me with a sharp claw: do you remember?

The Ring

One day, when I was about seventeen years old, my grandmother, my sisters and I came to the cemetery. It was Trinity Day. The sun was shining, but the icy wind was blowing through.

My grandma was cutting last year's grass with a sickle at Aunt Dunya's grave. Tanya and Sveta were sitting on a bench, eating mushroom pie and drinking tea from a thermos.

Suddenly something shone in the grass near the cherry tree. A ring!

I quickly bent down and put it in my pocket. I stepped aside to take a closer look. It was a ring of pale yellow metal. Someone's skilful hand had engraved a woman's profile: a proud chin, thick hair knotted tightly at the back of her head, a hooked nose... Aunt Dunya!

We had been to Aunt Dunya's grave more than once, and I could have sworn that the ring had never been there before. Where did it come from? After all, the old woman had no one but us - no relatives, no friends.

Should I take the ring for myself? Maybe it was a belate gift from Aunt Dunya? Maybe her soul realized that she had been unfair to me and now asked for my forgiveness. But what if it's not? What if the ring is bewitched and placed here to harm the "infidel"? Maybe Auntie wants to tell me, "What are you doing here? Don't come to me.

I remembered that my grandmother always said that we can't take anything from the cemetery...

So I carefully lowered the ring into the grass. It's still there, under the cherry tree.

And I still don't know if I did the right thing...

To be continued