The Russlander Read Online Free

of chestnut trees leading to the front of the Big House.
    Their curiosity satisfied, the workers’ children returned to their play, running and sliding across the ice and falling, the little ones scrambling after the big ones to catch a ride on their coattails. If there should be any cocoa milk left when she and the others were finished having
faspa
in the skating hut, Manya of the lopsided jaw would go across the lake and bring it to them. The children would clamour for a gulp, wipe their runny noses on their coatsleeves when they were done, then see who would fart the loudest. Theywere rough and stubborn children, unrestrained, heading for the door as soon as they could walk, as though they knew how soon they would be harnessed for work. A child shouted, and then another began to cry as Kolya’s voice rose in anger.
    â€œLittle shit-puddle,” Kolya shouted. “I’ll trounce you to paradise. I’ll teach you not to fool with me.” He was kneeling on the ice beside one of the boys and hitting him about the shoulders and head.
    Katya turned to the other shore and called for Dietrich, and when he continued his long and lazy gliding stroke around the perimeter of the ice, she knew that her voice was too thin and high to carry. Other children came running to the rescue of the smaller child, tried to jump on Kolya’s back, yanked at his arms, but he flung them aside as though they were nothing more than a nuisance.
    â€œYou little chicken-fuckers, piss-pot lickers,” Kolya shouted.
    Her chest ached at the unfairness. Kolya was picking on such a small boy, and on Christmas holidays, yet. He set a bad example with his fighting, which the others were eager to take up, choosing sides, those who were for and those who were against Kolya, the big against the small, raising their fists and spitting at one another.
    â€œYou there, stop fighting.” Don’t swear, don’t cry, don’t pound at one another, rub faces in snow, tear at each other’s hair. Their cries, snot-noses running, mouths contorted in hurt feelings and anger, disturbed God’s air, the high clear sky given to them for the day. No one paid attention to her, and so she ran towards them, obliterating the letters she had tramped out in the snow. She would make her presence known, light into Kolya. She would pull his hair, pinch an ear, make him stop trouncing the little ones.
    â€œKatya, Katya,” Greta and Lydia called.
    â€œKatherinaaaa,” the girl cousins called, their young voices warbling like old women’s.
    â€œKatya, you come here. Right now,” Dietrich called.
    She was relieved that Dietrich was at last paying attention, was skating towards the patch of snow at the centre of the lake, and she turned and went to meet him. He would make Kolya stop acting as though he were a dog that had gone mad. She saw Sophie and Manya coming along the ridge of the pipeline path, carrying a pail between them, and baskets which held their
faspa
– buns, cheese, and jam – she knew. Jars of sugared cocoa to mix with heated milk. Kolya shouldn’t be given any of the leftover cocoa.
    â€œWhat were you going to do?” Dietrich asked.
    â€œMake them stop,” she said, her lungs burning from running and inhaling cold air. The children’s voices had subsided, the skirmish over with.
    â€œAnd how were you going to do that?” he asked.
    She was glad for the diversion as Greta came skating over. Her answer to Dietrich’s question wouldn’t have been the honest one: I was going to talk with them. I was going to make them reason.
    â€œYou lost your temper,” Greta said.
    No, she hadn’t, she explained. She’d held onto it. It was in her pocket, balled inside her fist.
    â€œWell, show me, then,” Greta said.
    She opened her hand to reveal a crumpled soft square of sheepskin that her father had given to her and named Temper. She was to hold it and recite a