Snowy Bunnies

At the edge of the village lived two solitary old people: Grandpa Vasily, who could, on occasion, be obstinate enough to get the village all roiled up, and his wife, Grandma Dusya. Yevdokeya, which was the name in her passport, was as staid as could be in her ways and took things as they came. So they were well suited to share a home together. They were pensioners at last, and the village council had started giving them free firewood. You’d think all was well, right? Footloose and fancy free? No, not a bit of it.

For Grandma and Grandpa had a secret sorrow. Grandma Dusya blamed it all on the war, on getting frozen to the bone while she was digging trenches, and that was all it took. Grandpa Vasily blamed it on the war too, the same war. Maybe they’d poisoned him with the fruit drink he’d been issued. People said they’d put something in the fruit drink so the soldiers wouldn’t go chasing the broads when they should be concentrating on their military assignments.

Long story short, Vasily and Dusya had tried and tried, but God had never sent them any children. In time, they’d gotten used to living alone, until one day, Grandpa Vasily happened on a little pamphlet that someone had tossed. It had it all: the how and the who and the what to ask for. As in how to bring in a good harvest, stop a leg from hurting, hush the geese, or have a successful lambing... Everything needful was covered there. So Vasily started asking, on the quiet, to be granted some sort of offspring, even just an itty-bitty one.

Then one night he fell fast asleep after spending enough time in the banya for his sides to get a good roasting, and in the wee hours, the heavens opened and the Lord God Himself appeared to him in a dream: gray-bearded and wrathful he was, but with affection in those heavy-lidded eyes.

“Why are you pestering Me?” He asked. “What do you need? Roof’s leaking? Want a bigger pension?”

“Nothing like that,” said a shamefaced Grandpa Vasily. “But how about a little ’un for me and the old woman?”

“That can be arranged,” said the Lord God, stroking His beard. He scribbled a note to someone, and vanished.

In the morning, Vasily came down from the stove-shelf where he slept, cooled his soles on the floor, and wondered: What sort of a marvelous dream was that? Maybe it meant snow was on the way? Or a thaw?.. Then someone was pounding and pounding away at the door.

“Go on, Dusya,” he called out. “They must’ve brought the pension early!”

Dusya shuffled her way into the entry, unlatched the bolt, let in a blast of frosty air – and with it, a slew of children, a whole hut-full of them.

Mother of mine! Vasily climbed back onto his sleeping shelf, so frightened he didn’t even take off his boots.

“Whose children would you be?” Grandma Dusya wanted to know.

And they replied, all serious-like, “We’re Ilyich’s children.”

“Which Ilyich is that?” Dusya asked, wiping her hands on her apron. “The one who’s an agronomist or the one who’s a stable hand? From which village, Upper Yamy or Lower Yamy?”

“Nope,” said the children, in the same no-nonsense way. “A different Ilyich. Vladimir Ilyich. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.”

“No slouch, that Ilyich,” Vasily sighed from the stove. “But hasn’t he been done away with?”

“True enough,” the children said. “But now they’re training us kids in his ways. To carry on the mission, you might say.”

Grandma Dusya started fussing about: surely they needed a good meal. So she brought them pancakes, curd cheese, cream from the cool cellar, jam. She brought it all, and she said, “Eat and enjoy, dear children.”

It was like a live person was sitting in one of those boxes. Her name was Alisa, and in no time, she’d told them all there was to know about pickled cabbage soup.

But they only poked their spoons at it, turned up their noses, and pushed the plates away.

“Nope,” they said. “That’s no way to feed us. Where are your yogurts, your desserts, your probiotics, your tiramisu, some sort of muesli at least? Got nothing like that?”

Grandpa climbed down from the stove.

“Well, then,” he said sheepishly, “let’s have a nice glass of tea.” And he brought out the samovar.

“Gosh!” the children said. “Why’s there smoke coming out of that teapot? Is it acting up on you or what?”

They stuck it out somehow until the afternoon. Grandma Dusya decided to teach the girls to spin, to turn a knitted heel, to make all sorts of useful things for the home.

They wrinkled their noses. “Ugh, what’s that awful smell? And that wheel with a pedal, what’s that, and what’s it for? And why knit socks when the stores have loads of them?”

Then they took out some little flat boxes and started clicking away – watching a movie, no less.

“Let’s learn to make shchi, shall we?” Dusya asked, looking so sad that it hurt to look at her. She got up and poured water into an iron pot, all the while on the verge of tears.

“SHCHI?” the girls clickety-clacked. “Alisa, what’s SHCHI?”

And it was like a live person was sitting in one of those boxes. Her name was Alisa, and in no time, she’d told them all there was to know about pickled cabbage soup.

“To heck with you,” Grandma Dusya said and went to milk the goat.

Grandpa gathered the boys together and started barking orders like he was back with his tank crew.

“We’ll go to the workshop, and I’ll teach you a trade. You’ve been all thumbs  so far.”

He called for the dog, and the cat came along too. The freezing cold workshop was full of carpenter’s planes and bent nails. Grandpa picked up an axe and was off and running.

“This here’s the knob, this is the butt, this is the beard, and that’s the eye...” But he was only boring them to bits.

They got out their boxes too and started clicking: “Alisa? An axe?” From wherever she was, she gave them the lowdown. They even let Grandpa listen. But he just waved it all away, picked up a plane, and began shaving a board, shaving and shaving and weeping into his beard.

“Lord,” he said, “what kind of children are these? Worse than grown-ups! I take ’em for a snowball fight – they don’t know how. I take ’em sledding – no can do. I take ’em to milk the goat – they mistreat her something awful! No, these and their kind are useless! What good would they ever be to me?”

Then all the kids’ phones started ringing like crazy, with their moms and dads yelling at them to come home. And whoosh – all gone, not a one left behind. Only they’d broken the Ficus and made short work of all the jam. Four jars, a good six pints apiece. They’d scarfed up all of Grandma’s caramels, and they’d scrawled a bad word on the stove. In charcoal.

“You and me, Dusya my girl,” Grandpa said to Grandma, “we’re younger than them. Let’s go build us a little lady out of snow. Like the Snow Maiden.”

“No,” Dusya said. “Girls are hopeless. Once they’re off and married, they’re as good as gone. Better do a snow-scarecrow for the vegetable garden instead.”

So that’s what happened. Grandpa Vasily made a proper copy of himself, and Grandma made a bunny.

“I’m ever so fond of bunnies,” she said. “Because they’re cuddlesome, that’s why.”

Illustration by Liza Burlutskaya