A Story of the Time of the Spirits
A story of the time of the spirits (from the collection “Silent Guests”)
*(The time of the spirits is one of the most popular holidays in the Latvian solar calendar. This is the time of remembrance of the dead and it is believed that at this time the spirits of ancestors come to visit the living. The spirits are hungry and need to be fed. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Similar days celebrated throughout the world in many cultures (Samhain among the Celts, Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos) in Mexico and South America, the Zongyang festival in China, known as the day of hungry ghosts, the Shradha ritual held on certain days in India. In the Duchy of Courland (Modern Kurzeme, Latvia) in 1570 the church issued a decree prohibiting following of this pagan tradition. The ban was so successful that people continued to treat their ancestors well into the mid-19th century. Even now, in modern Latvia, people follow this tradition (not to be confused with the commercial variant of Halloween), and in general, the tradition of bringing flowers and candy to the cemetery still exists, and a glass of water (or vodka) with a piece of bread at wake ceremony was usually placed even in atheistic times next to the portrait of the deceased.
The story “Silent Guests” or “Klusie ciemiņi” by Latvian writer Aleksandrs Grins (not to be confused with Aleksandr Grin, the author of “Scarlet Sails”.
Aleksandrs Gins (real name Jēkabs Grīns) is considered the best to portray battles in Latvian literature. Writer, publicist, military leader. Born on August 15, 1895 in the Jekabpils area on the “Ziedi” farm in the Russian Empire. The youngest son in the family, his brother Janis was 5 years older, due to this age difference, Jēkabs grew up mostly on his own. He was educated at Dignaji Mezhagala School, Jekabpils Trade School and Rujeina Gymnasium. His youth was interrupted by the war. Jēkabs graduated from the Alekseevsky Military School in Moscow (the third most prestigious military school in the Russian Empire after Pavlovskya and Aleksandrovskya) and was sent to the front. In 1916, he achieved the transfer to newly formed unit of Latvian Riflemen. In total, in 1916, eight Latvian Riflemen battalions were formed as part of the Russian army for the defense of Courland (Kurzeme) and Livonia; on November 4, after heavy fights near Riga, the Latvian battalions were transformed into regiments, forming two Latvian brigades. On the eve of the February Revolution, their number was about 40 thousand people. You can read more about the Latvian riflemen here (in Russian, use Google translate). From 1916 to 1917 he served in the ranks of the Latvian riflemen, in September 1917 he was wounded and evacuated to Petrograd (Former Saint Petersburg). After the disbandment of the corps in 1918, he was demobilized and returned home to his native place, but the house was ruined. At the beginning of 1919, he was again drafted into the Army of Soviet Latvia (existed from January 4 to June 7, 1919), during the retreat near city of Bauska he deserted and went over to the side of the troops under the command of Niedra, served in the Balodis brigade and entered Riga in its ranks. It was at this time that Jēkabs became Alexandrs, but only unofficially - his name was neber changed in the documents. In the fall of 1919, he resumed his studies of medicine at the University of Latvia, and in 1924 he was demobilized with the rank of captain.
Years of service in Riflemen battalions and the war greatly influenced Grins and he retained his military bearing throughout his life. He is mainly remembered for his epic work “Blizzard of Souls” (or “Souls in a Snowy Whirlwind”), published in 1933-1934, which describes the struggle of the Latvian Riflemen in the First World War. Once again, the author returned to the theme of Riflemen in the collection of stories “Quiet Guests”. A total of ten novels by the author were published, including “The Ring of Namea” (1932), “Tobago” (1934), “Three Falcons” (1938), etc. One of the distinctive features of Grins' style is the fusion of the real and the irrational, the use of various fantastic elements. At the point of connection between place and time, the author also strives to depict the inner world of the characters.
Grins actively supported the coup of Karlis Ulmanis in 1934, calling it the third Atmoda (third awakening). He received many awards in the second half of the thirties; was repressed in 1941. Rehabilitated in 1991.
As for the story translated below, its action takes place after the First World War. The protagonist’s flashbacks take us back in time to the bloody Christmas battles, I highly recommend reading here (in Russian, but Google translate can do magic) to understand the context.
Two regions, which are mentioned in the text are Zemgale and Vidzeme. A map provided below can help you understand the situation. Tirelian swamps are in Zemgale, not far from Riga. They are a place open to visit now and there is a watchtower and a kind of park.
As for the “evacuation of the Phoenix” mentioned in the story, we are talking about the evacuation of production facilities that were significant for the Russian Empire, including the same “Phoenix” - the carriage building plant, which later became the Riga carriage building plant "Vairogs"). More details here – ask sage Google for translate once again.
For the seventh year already, Pēteris Atals has been plowing the fields given to him as a reward for his participation in the battles of Kurzeme under the command of old Kalnins, or rather, for his hearing, which Atals lost on January 12th at the Machine Gun Hill, having been blown up by a German mine, the explosion of which threw him into the air at a height of a good pine tree.
Since the day of that battle, Atals had never seen his regiment anymore, as he spent six months in the hospital, from where he was sent home as disabled. While not having a family house to return to, Atals wandered around Vidzeme from one farm owner to another, working his hands to the bone from the early morning to late night. “This cripple servant is a complete loss,” his employers complained, “everything must be shown on one’s fingers.” You send him to heat the bathhouse, and he goes to harness the horse to go to the forest. You tell him to chop some brushwood for the stove, and the deaf man sits down at the table, waiting for the owner’s daughters to bring dinner. Seems like the problem is with his head in general, not only with his hearing.
There was, of course, a grain of truth in these conversations. After the concussion, Atals not only lost his hearing, but he himself became somewhat strange. The head shook slightly, one half of the face twitched, and the other froze like a mask. There were moments when his mind was engulfed by darkness, and then it seemed to the disabled man that a blood-red fog was covering his eyes, and the entire weight of the Earth was pressing on the back of his head. The roar of long-past battles and voices, the owners of which were unlikely to be among the living, were heard in deafened ears. And the household shook their heads thoughtfully when they heard Atals’s usually motionless lips calling the names of people whom they never heard of even in the neighboring farms, not mentioning the household.
When the time came to receive the land allotment, Atals became restless. The local commission drove him away – sent him back to his birthplace - Kurzeme. Atals left. But there was no plots for him in his native land too. Both the members of the commission and their relatives apparently needed land more than he did. Atals complained to authorities in both cities Jelgava and Riga. The Riga gentlemen had softer hearts, and Atals eventually received land at the very edge of the Tirel swamp, from which evil frosts often came to the surrounding fields, destroying the crops.
But Atals did not give up. Day and night he uprooted clouds of barbed wire from his land, filled up trenches, and leveled German “blockhouses.” He dug diversion ditches, pulled out from the ground trunks of long-fallen trees and logs that paved front-line roads. Struggling with another heavy trunk, he recalled frontal attacks against the German infantry, and the memory of this doubled his labor impulse.
While breaking the beams of the German "blockhouses", sometimes he imagined fighting the enemy to whom they had once given a shelter; and the rotten wood groaned and broke under the blows of Atals’s pick, which he wielded as deftly as he had once wielded the rifle, with the butt of which he used to crush the skulls of German soldiers.
He ate dry bread and sorrel, which he plucked between rusty balls of wire and shiny sedge, the roots of which sometimes grew through the eye sockets of the skulls of fallen fighters.
Atals finally got things his way. After seven years of persistent struggle, he ended up having the best of the new farms in the area - six cows, two horses and shelter where he could live and where he could keep his cattle.
Atals's shoulders and back hunched in the battles with the trenches and the swamp, but his head became clearer and his heart calmer. Even the darkness came much less often. Even the numbness began to subside from the paralyzed half of his face, and sometimes one or the other neighbor, meeting Atals, considered it worthwhile to hint that it was time for him to get married...
The summer was cool and humid. Autumn brought downpours, impassable mud, and clouds of fog, which one after another came from the swamps, falling heavily on muddy fields and human souls. The fog was so thick that it was impossible to have dinner without a fire, and a person disappeared from sight at a distance of ten steps; the ground was saturated with moisture, the air smelled of sticky dankness, peat and rottenness. The hearts of the people were also filled with an incomprehensible sadness, which seemed to pour into them along with rain and fog.
This fall, Atals was a bit late his field works, and the time of the spirits (time period from 29th of September to 10th of November) had already arrived when he collected the last potato harvest.
Atals dealt with the last furrow himself. Late in the evening he sent old Ilze home to look after the cattle and let the farmhand Inga go after sowing the rye. By the time the disabled man poured the last basket of potatoes into the bag, a gray haze had already descended on the foggy fields, and the late night was catching up with the horsy returning home with the cart.
Tired and exhausted, Atals walked behind the cart along a muddy, rain-swept road. The fog became even thicker and heavier, but the owner’s heart was light and joyful, because finally all the fieldwork was completed and everything and everyone would receive a well-deserved rest.
Atals walked through the mud of the road, with an old thought – his only friend in the silence of his heart, replaying in the head. That thought led him from his youth, from his first experiences of work and love, then took him to the fields of long-fought battles and to the vast plains of Vidzeme, where he had to become a punishment for himself and a laughingstock for others. A long line of familiar faces walked past him, gray everyday life slowly dragged on along with moments of joy and garlands of faded hopes, full of sadness, like a belated crane wedge in the vastness of the autumn sky.
And the weight of the muddy earth began to press on the heart and head of the disabled man, along with wisps of fog that seemed to merge with the blackness of the night.
Suddenly, it seemed to Atals that someone was walking next to him, and the soggy mud was squelching under someone’s familiar steps. Raising his head, Atals looked to the left and involuntarily stopped. Behind the gray ditch, right along the edge of the field, a man in a torn soldier’s overcoat walked, calmly and measuredly measuring step by step. The walker turned towards Atals, his face was pale, with an earthy tint.
The stranger stopped, with incredible ease he jumped over the ditch, gave Atals his hand and a slight smile bloomed on his lips.
“Hello, buddy,” the stranger turned to Atals, and this voice seemed familiar to him. Trying to remember where he could hear this voice, the disabled man forgot to be surprised at the sudden return of his hearing, and at the fact that the stranger’s words sounded in his ears with a long-forgotten clarity.
“You probably don’t recognize me anymore,” the stranger said with a bitter smile, and continued walking next to Atals right behind the cart with potatoes.
Atals did not have time to answer immediately, because the old horse suddenly rushed to the side, almost knocking over the cart. Atals managed to grab the baskets in time and pacify the usually calm horse, which, in some kind of despair, now stood rooted to the spot and looked back with frightened eyes, trembling all over.
“It looks like he was scared by the way this fellow jumped,” Atals suggested to himself, calming the horse. And the stranger, as if guessing the owner’s thoughts, began to apologize:
- “It’s true: I was a little hasty in jumping over the ditch; I’ve had this since the days when old Kalninsh trained us in Milgravis. Well, do you remember me now?
A joyful smile appeared on Atals's quiet face. How couldn’t he immediately recognize in this fellow traveler his old friend Lazda, the best singer in the regiment, who, after the evacuation of the “Phoenix”, was one of the first to join the ranks of the Riflemen! Lazda, who threw a grenade as much as 100 steps and was such a good shooter that old Kalninsh himself could not help but boast:
- “Lazda is great: he knocks a cigarette out of a German’s teeth with a shot.”
“Why not, now I remember,” Atals answered joyfully, taking his friend’s hand. That hand was cold, filled with heaviness. But is it really so strange if a person is cold after walking such a long way in cold, foggy weather?
“Come with me,” Atals persuaded, “I have a house nearby, can you imagine, my own house, I built it myself. Now I no longer wander around other people’s houses,” he added with hidden pride.
- I will welcome you as a dear guest!
But the fellow traveler slowly shook his head
“No, not now: I’m going in a completely different direction now. See you later". And with a strange chuckle he added: “Now I also have my own farm nearby, although it’s smaller than yours. And Dukurs, Pratniks with a long Karklinsh... and the rest of ours too.”
Atals was surprised. How is that possible? He had been tinkering with the old Fritz trenches and rotten logs for seven years now, but he had never heard that right here, not far from his house, a whole company of his old friends, also now landowners, had settled.
“And everyone from our regiment?” He asked again, not believing his ears.
“So, what am I talking to you about,” answered Lazda: “and our entire platoon, even with the Corporal himself.”
Atals had a flash of thought that in the hospital he had heard that on January 17th his entire platoon had gone missing in action at Machine Gun Hill. But how could he believe this, when his very comrade stood right in front of him and said that they all are his neighbors now.
Lazda offered his hand in farewell.
“Come and see me sometime,” Atals asked, holding his comrade’s hand in his, and the thought flashed through him again: how could a person have such a cold hand!
“We’ll come,” Lazda said quietly and disappeared into the fog.
“Come next Sunday!” Atals called after him. “There will be beer and vodka too! Come, everyone, everyone who is.”
“We’ll come,” came a barely audible voice from the darkness that enveloped the strange passerby. The horse, sweating and shaking with fear, began to come to its senses and pulled the cart again; behind him a tired but happy owner, lost in memories of the past days, walked on.
For the rest of the week, Atals prepared to greet the guests with dignity. He counted on his fingers, remembering the names of the comrades, and it turned out to be as many as fifteen people, including Corporal Danga. Fifteen comrades remained in his platoon after the Christmas battles and lived until the bloody January 12, when the muddy ice of the Tirel swamp mixed with the sky and the explosions of German mines, and old Kalninsh, with a bayonet in one hand and a grenade in the other, led his guys forward to the German fortifications.
He remembered the faces of the comrades with whom he was freezing during nightly snowstorms on the battlefield, and then warming himself by the same fire. Remembered the long Karklins, who always had enough jokes in stock, even when he had to lie in a trench and wait for the commander’s order to start a bayonet attack. Dukurs, who was always lucky to find a frozen crust of bread at the bottom of his bag, when the field kitchen once again got lost among the swamp pines, and the soup intended for the Curonians was eaten by soldiers of another Riflemen regiment. And immediately after Dukurs, the face of the hooligan Rozhudarzs surfaced in the disabled man’s memory, who always wore a contemptuous grin, no matter whether it was literature lessons in the Ziemelblazma barracks, or a weapons inspection after a night battle.
And as much as Dukurs was of a gentle and quiet disposition, Rozhudarzs was a rouge. But in battles he was not afraid of a damn thing, and during the storming of the German “blockhouse”, the embrasures of which were spewing fire and death in the faces of the Riflemen, others did not even have time to blink an eye, as Rozhudarzs found himself on the roof of the blockhouse in one jump, calmly lit a cigarette, and, spatting with a relish, threw Novitsky’s large grenade through the chimney into the dugout. He waved to his comrades and tumbled off the roof into the snow. This was the show: the frozen earth sighed heavily, and the “blockhouse” disappeared in a round dance of flames and beams. Yes, Rozhudarzs was such a little devil, and Atals often had to endure his barbs. However, after that fateful explosion, when the nearly unconscious Atals laid on the ground, and blood flowed from his ears and mouth, Rozhudarzs was the first who rushed to his aid, showed with gestures that not everything was so bad and carried the shell-shocked man to a safe place, and immediately after this he rushed back into the heart of the battle.
One after another, the faces of his comrades emerged in Athals’ memory, smoked by the camp fires, hardened by all the winter winds, snow and grenade explosions. And with every face, serious or stern, polite or grinning contemptuously, which Atals’ memory showed, as if pulling them out of the darkness of oblivion, waves of warmth rolled over Atals’ heart and smile after smile appeared on his face.
Vitums was a good man who lent Athals a large table; the horse dragged him home along with the benches. These benches had been lying around in Vitums' barn since the last summer holiday. Having walked around several more neighboring houses, Atals also found dishes. And when Sunday came, Atals could receive as many as twenty guests. Freshly brewed beer was playing in the barrels, and old Ilse was working hard in the kitchen among the pots and baking trays.
The yard was full of dirt. Atals sprinkled white sand on the path from the road to the room. Placed small, fluffy spruces at the doors and in the corners of the room and sprinkled the floor with spruce needles. Ilse, of course, grumbled that it was not good, and that after all, they were waiting for guests, not a deceased in the house, but Atals insisted on his own: the spruce needles were dear to his comrades as a memory of the winter battles. [It’s a tradition to put small spruce branches in the house of a deceased person, along the way to the grave and on a fresh grave/ on grave in the wintertime].
Evening came, Atals sat down at the festively laid table and began to wait. Pork and pea porridge were steaming in bowls, glasses were waiting for beer and guests, and casseroles were fragrant between the plates and bottles of vodka.
“Even if I remain in debt for taxes,” Atals said to Vitols, “but I must welcome my battle comrades with dignity.”
The evening faded and night came, but the guests did not come. Ilse grumbled that the owner had caused her, an old woman, so much unnecessary trouble. And such guests won’t come here: as if she didn’t know who these shooters are? Thank God, she lived in Vidzeme herself, and saw only fights and girls on their mind. And in this house, there are no girls, no fights.
Ilse muttered for a long time, knowing that the owner could not hear her grumbling. And, lighting the candles on the table, she angrily moved the candlesticks Atals had made from shell casings.
When the clock struck ten, and neither footsteps nor the barking of a dog could be heard on the street, Atals became completely sad. They probably gathered somewhere else, where it was more fun than here. There is no girlish laughter or cheerful conversations here.
He sent old Ilse to bed, saying that he would linger a little longer, maybe someone would wander in, but he still couldn’t sleep. And if anything happens, he himself will meet and see off the guests.
Ilse went to the kitchen, where in the warmest corner her bed stood, and Atals remained at the festive table with a heavy heart.
No, Lazda and his comrades deceived him. But is this really the vaunted military brotherhood? Of course, his comrades did not consider Atals to be some kind of smart guy, but he was always honest with them, and just like them he froze on the battlefields, he also slept in the snow, and bullets from the same German machine gun whistled over his head.
But maybe someone will come? Of course, not Lazda or Rozhudarzs, but at least Dukurs could visit him! And a faint flame of hope began to glimmer in the heart of the disabled man again.
- The candles burned down to the candlesticks. Some were already about to go out, and the shadows walked wearily along the walls of the room, tired of waiting in the dark corners. Outside the windows layed a black night, without the twinkling of stars and the moon, and fine autumn rain knocked on the windows, quietly drumming on the smoky glass, behind which the owner of the house was sitting, alone with his sorrows and faded memories of happier days.
The wind began to rise, shaking the window shutters and howling in the chimney. And along with the wind, Palkan, tied near the barn, began to howl, sounding both pitifully and sadly, as if sensing misfortune or ghosts.
Atals raised his head, bowed on his chest, and began to listen carefully. Did the gravel on the path rustle under someone's steps?
He got up, went to the window, and tried to see the path that was white in the darkness of the night. No, no one was comming.
The wind howled in the chimney again. Atals again began to peer into the darkness of the courtyard. And then, for a moment, it seemed to Atals that the whiteness of the path was obscured by a shadow. Maybe someone was walking, maybe a comrade in arms, and it doesn’t matter that it was so late, even at midnight, but someone found the way to Atals’ house.
The disabled man rushed to the door and opened it wide in a rush. There was no one in the hallway. He opened the front door wide and called:
- “Guys, come inside, stop mocking me!”
There was no one outside. Only drops of rain beat heavily on the face of the waiter, and Atals thought that for a moment he had regained his hearing - a strange sound of a joyful whisper was suddenly heard in the breath of the wind in the darkness, and instantly died down.
Then the invalid heard the noise of footsteps that were getting closer and closer, and felt the stickiness of the earth and putrid breath on his face. And the air became even colder than yesterday, and even colder than in the evening. Atals retreated into the hallway to make way for the guests. True, it was impossible to see anything in the impenetrable darkness, but he felt that he was no longer alone.
Isn’t this the heavy step of old mustachioed Danga, who was slightly dragging his shot leg? And wasn’t this the energetic step of Rozhudarzs?
“Well, come in,” Atals repeated. The invitation echoed even deeper in the darkness because a treat was waiting, and the candles began to go out one by one, and only two remained burning, flickering faintly.
Then they too went out, the disabled man felt heavy breathing on his face and the touch of cold fingers on his hand.
Vitums's household was awakened in the night by the scream of a woman beating on the owner's window. It was old Ilse, who burst into the room in a heap. She cried and said that the owner had become completely strange: he drank and drank all night, called people’s names, as if the room was full of guests, it turned out to be such a feast for her that she ran to the neighbors. And let young Vitums, as a defender, go and see what is happening in that house.
Young Vitums didn't go anywhere. The next morning, the frightened Ilze herself went back and found the owner very drunk. Athals laughed, humming the old riflemen's song, and told how well the feast had gone. But no one touched the vodka in the glasses filled by Atals, and no one tried the treat prepared by Ilze. And the old maid in vain searched the sand-strewn pathway for even one trace of a man’s boot. There were no other footprints there except those left by her wooden shoes when she hurried to her neighbors at night.