Free Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman

Methodius the gardener, had as a boy seen Circassian gardens and orchards, Circassian villages full of people.
    After the Russian conquest of this part of the Black Sea coast, the Circassians had disappeared and life had died out in the coastal mountains. Here and there among the oaks were hunched-up plums, pears, and cherries, now growing wild again, but there were no longer any peaches or apricots—their brief span was over.
    Here in the forest lay sullen, soot-blackened stones that were the remains of ruined hearths; in abandoned cemeteries were dark headstones that had already half sunk into the ground.
    Everything inanimate—stones, iron—was being swallowed by the earth, dissolving into it with the years, while green, vegetable life, in contrast, was bursting up from the earth. The boy found the silence over the cold hearths especially painful. And when he came back home, the smell of smoke from the kitchen, the barking of dogs, and the cackling of hens somehow seemed all the sweeter.
    Once he went up to his mother, who was sitting at the table with a book, and hugged her, pressing his head against her knees.
    “Are you ill?” she asked.
    “No, I’m well, I’m just so happy,” he muttered, kissing his mother’s dress and her hands, and then he burst into tears.
    He was quite unable to explain to his mother what it was that he felt. It was as if, there in the half dark of the forest, someone were lamenting, searching for people who had vanished, looking behind trees, listening for the voices of Circassian shepherds or the crying of babies, sniffing the air, hoping to sense the smell of smoke, of hot flatbreads.
    And so, when he came back from the forest to the beauty and charm of his own home, he felt not only joy but also shame...
    His mother had seemed unable to make any sense at all of his explanations. She had replied, “My poor silly boy, you’ll find life a struggle if you’re going to be so sensitive and easily wounded.”
    During supper, his father exchanged looks with his mother and said, “Vanya, you probably know that our Sochi was once called Post Dakhovsky and that the villages here in the mountains once had names like First Regiment and Second Regi-ment.”
    “Yes, I know,” said Ivan, and sniffed sullenly.
    “They were the bases of Russian military units. And these troops did not only carry rifles—they also carried axes and spades. They cut roads through forests inhabited by cruel, wild mountain people.”
    The father scratched his beard and added, “Excuse these grand words—but they were cutting a road for Russia. That’s how we’ve ended up here...I’ve helped set up schools, and Yakov Yakovlevich, among others, has planted orchards and vineyards, and still other people have built roads and hospitals. Progress demands sacrifices, and it’s no use weeping over what’s inevitable. You understand what I’m trying to say?”
    “Yes,” said Ivan, “but there were orchards here before us—and they’ve been left to go wild.”
    “Yes, my friend,” said the father. “When you chop down a forest, splinters fly. But we didn’t, by the way, force the Circassians to leave. They themselves chose to go to Turkey. They could have stayed here and become a part of Russian culture. As it is, they suffered great poverty in Turkey, and many of them died...”
    In the camp, Ivan had remembered many things from his past. He had dreamed of his birthplace. He had heard familiar voices. Their old watchdog, with rheumy, red-rimmed eyes, had got up to meet him.
    And he had awoken to the ocean-like roar of the
taiga
, to the rage of a winter blizzard.
    And now he was free—and he was still waiting for something good, something from his youth, to come back to him.
    That morning he had woken in the train to a sense of irredeemable loneliness. The evening with his cousin had filled him with bitterness, and Moscow had seemed crushing and deafening. The vast tall buildings, the heavy traffic, the