Free The Dark Valley by Aksel Bakunts Page B

fashion many years came and went. Hundreds of government officials took oil, cheese, and carpets, and allocated the Apricot Field according to what they received. Sometimes Mir would get the Apricot Field, and at other times Mrots, which created a well of arguments and fights, causing the two villages to reopen the can of worms over the Apricot Field every year as leaves began to sprout on the thorny shrubs…
    The Soviet days came.
    After the enemy’s panic-stricken troops retreated from the provincial capital, the exhausted Red Army soldiers lay down on national Soviet divans and the army headquarters deemed the city conquered together with remote valleys, including the one in which Mrots and Mir lay.
    It was neither necessary to send troops there, nor cannons. A local agitator traveled through the valleys and told of that which the villages in the valley had heard.
    As soon as news arrived that among those who had fled from the provincial capital were those who felt the same as the former government officials about how to solve the dispute over the Apricot Field, both villages kept their ears to the ground for news in those new days with the Apricot Field in mind.
    When the preaching agitator arrived in Mir and gave a lecture for the people who had gathered in the spacious threshing floor, swinging his hands in the air and angrily repeating the words “bloodsuckers, beasts of prey” a few times, many villagers in Mir took that as referring to the above village. After the lecture was over, the villagers stood around the visitor and asked about the fate of the Apricot Field. The visitors answer, “the land belongs to the worker,” left the villagers in doubt. After the agitator left, some villagers interpreted his answer as being in favor of Mrots.
    The same lecture was delivered in Mrots. There, too, the villagers listened to him with perked ears, and when the agitator spoke of equalizing the land, the multitude moved. Even those whose thoughts were elsewhere started and approached the speaker. Many people were listening to him, but at that moment there was not a single brain in Mrots in whose folds the history of the Apricot Field did not come to the forefront. After the speaker had finished, many talked about the Apricot Field.
    A few people in Mrots talked through the night on the rooftop underneath which the agitator was sleeping under a warm blanket.
    “So, what do we do?”
    “He won’t take anything. He’s angry…”
    “So we let him leave just like that? But that won’t do any good…”
    In the morning, the villagers wished the friend, who had come from the city and straddled his horse to visit the next village, a nice trip. They walked over to him and shook his hand.
    When the villager who had said “it won’t do any good to let him leave just like that” the night before on the rooftop wanted to move to the right side of the horseman and put that which he was clutching in his hand into the visitor’s hand as he wished him goodbye, he caught the horseman’s eyes and his half-extended hand fell into his hat from fear and so did the money that was in his hand. After the horseman left, he took off his hat. The same day, the crowd on the rooftop chided him, but he merely shrugged his shoulders and said:
    “Was I able to do it? No. His eyes were full of rage…”
    One more spring came, and with that spring a land surveyor came from the city to determine the borders of the two villages. The land surveyor had not yet set foot in the villages, but the villagers had already gathered so much information about him that it was as if the man had lived with them for years. In both villages people talked about him until his arrival.
    “They say he’s got a good conscience.”
    “He wouldn’t say no to a drink…”
    “When he gets angry, there’s no end. He’ll destroy his work…”
    “And one of his eyes wanders slightly…”
    The villagers talked even more after the land surveyor arrived. No sooner